North Macedonia’s bid for membership in the European Union was held up for two decades by a dispute with Greece over its name. One painful compromise later, the road forward is being blocked again — this time by Bulgaria in a dispute over language and historical grievances. And Albania, whose EU bid is to be considered in tandem with that of North Macedonia, is collateral damage. Both North Macedonia and Albania had high hopes of moving forward this year, but progress was brought to a halt at a June meeting of the EU’s General Affairs Council, where Bulgaria exercised its veto as an EU member to block the start of accession negotiations with North Macedonia. Among several cultural and historic grievances, Sofia called for North Macedonia to acknowledge that the language spoken there is derived from Bulgarian. That is a bitter pill for the government in Skopje, which already acceded to the addition of “North” to the country’s name to satisfy the objections of Greece, which has a province named Macedonia. FILE – European Council President Charles Michel, right, speaks with North Macedonia Prime Minister Zoran Zaev prior to a meeting at the European Council building in Brussels, May 19, 2021.The government in Skopje said it does not plan on giving up on its EU aspirations and that it will continue to actively seek out a solution. “If there is political will and leadership on the side of Bulgaria, I think we can find a European solution that would be good for Macedonian-Bulgarian friendship, for the European promise to the region, and for North Macedonia. But there is an ‘if,’ because we already did our best,” Nikola Dimitrov, North Macedonia’s vice prime minister for European affairs, said in comments reported by Euronews. In a June 28 statement on its Foreign Ministry website, Bulgaria maintains it is committed to resolving its differences with North Macedonia, but it demands an end to what it describes as the suppression of the rights of people in North Macedonia “who identify themselves as Bulgarians.” Experts in the United States — which supports EU integration of the entire Balkans — warn that the delay in starting accession talks with the two countries is likely to be exploited by Russia and China to increase their influence in the western Balkans. Balkans expert Edward Joseph, a senior fellow with the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, describes the impasse as an extremely serious challenge for the EU and its vision. “This is an unconscionable blockage and imposition by Bulgaria against North Macedonia. Failure to do this will destabilize the Balkans and represents an opening for Russia and China in the region,” Joseph told VOA’s Macedonian Service.Аll other countries in the EU agree that North Macedonia and its 2 million people are more than ready to join the bloc. “North Macedonia has done what it has been asked; it has done more than any other country has been asked. And we in the United States, we respect what North Macedonia has done in this compromise, which was a true compromise with Greece,” Joseph said. He argued that Bulgaria is demanding that Macedonians “accept a version of history, a version of who they are — except that version that Bulgarians insist upon is against EU values,” which maintain that members must not bring bilateral issues into the accession process. FILE – Bulgaria’s President Rumen Radev speaks with the media as he arrives for an EU summit at the European Council building in Brussels, May 25, 2021.Bulgaria, for its part, maintains that it sees EU enlargement in the western Balkans as a priority and that it does not object to accession talks with Albania, although at present the bloc is not prepared to discuss the one country without the other. “We are resolute to continue the dialogue with the Republic of North Macedonia,” the statement on its Foreign Ministry website says. “We are committed to finding pragmatic, sustainable and mutually acceptable solutions to the challenges inherited from the past.” Joseph argues that if the EU members are not able to bring sufficient pressure on Bulgaria and North Macedonia to move the process forward, the United States should step in. “Washington has to join with Brussels and with key capitals Berlin, Paris and others, and bring requisite pressure,” he said, noting that U.S. President Joe Biden had himself argued in the 1990s for the Clinton administration to do more to integrate the Balkans with western Europe. Erwan Fouéré, a former EU special representative in North Macedonia, offered a similar assessment. “The Americans are expecting the EU to take assumed leadership. And unfortunately, the EU is not assuming the leadership as it should,” he said. “The situation with Bulgaria and the veto that Bulgaria imposed … undermines the entire EU enlargement agenda. So many promises that have been given to North Macedonia, that have been broken, and this is another one now,” he told VOA Macedonian. Fouéré, currently a senior associate research fellow at the Center for European Policy Studies in Brussels, said the way forward may require “mediation by a third party, by the Council of Europe or OSCЕ. These are all entities that have experience in resolution of bilateral disputes.”
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Month: August 2021
Australian Capital in Lockdown after First New COVID-19 Infection Since 2020
The Australian capital of Canberra entered an immediate seven-day lockdown Thursday after posting its first confirmed COVID-19 infection in more than a year.Authorities said a man in his 20s tested positive Thursday after being infectious in Canberra since Sunday. Chief Health Officer Kerryn Coleman later announced that three other people, who had been in close contact with the man, also tested positive for COVID-19.Residents will not be able to leave their homes during the one-week lockdown except for essential reasons, including work, shopping, medical and vaccination appointments and outdoor exercise.Canberra joins the cities of Sydney and Melbourne, forced into lockdown due to the rapid spread of the delta variant of COVID-19. The latest outbreak began in June when an airport limousine driver in Sydney tested positive after transporting international air crews.Meanwhile, Russian authorities reported a new single-day record of 808 COVID-19 deaths on Thursday, despite a decline in overall daily cases from an average of 25,000-per day in July to about 21,000 a day.Figures from Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center have Russia at 6.4 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, including 164,413 deaths.(Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters.)
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US Health Department to Mandate Vaccines for 25,000 Workers
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said Thursday it will require more than 25,000 of its health care workers to get the COVID-19 vaccine.HHS employs more than 80,000 people, and those not covered by the mandate still must attest to their vaccination status or submit to regular testing.“Staff at the Indian Health Service (IHS) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) who serve in federally-operated health care and clinical research facilities and interact with, or have the potential to come into contact with, patients will be required to receive the COVID-19 vaccine,” HHS announced in a press release. “This includes employees, contractors, trainees, and volunteers whose duties put them in contact or potential contact with patients at an HHS medical or clinical research facility.”Members of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps also will be required to get the vaccine.Some with religious objections and certain medical exceptions could be exempt from the mandate.The announcement comes as the Veterans Affairs Department recently mandated vaccines for its health care providers. The Defense Department also is planning to require vaccines for service members.Some information in this report comes from the Associated Press.
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US Embassy in Kabul Urges Americans to Leave Afghanistan Immediately
The United States Thursday urged Americans to leave Afghanistan immediately as the Taliban continued their advance across the country with the seizure of a strategic city near the capital of Kabul.The U.S. embassy in Kabul said in a notice on its website that U.S. citizens should “leave Afghanistan immediately using available commercial flight options.”The embassy offered help to citizens unable to leave immediately for financial or other reasons but warned, “Given the security conditions and reduced staffing, the Embassy’s ability to assist U.S. citizens in Afghanistan is extremely limited even within Kabul.”On Thursday, the Taliban captured the key city of Ghazni, about 150 kilometers southwest of Kabul, its latest seizure since the U.S. began withdrawing troops from the country in May. U.S. troops are expected to be out by the end of this month.The pullout is leaving the Afghan government to fight the Islamist group without the support of U.S. troops. The U.S. ordered American government employees on April 27 to work outside the embassy if possible, noting an escalation of violence in Kabul.State Department spokesman Ned Price said earlier this week the embassy’s status had not changed but added that the U.S. government was evaluating threats around the diplomatic mission daily.
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COVID Restrictions Hampered Kenya’s Olympic Performance, Team Officials Say
Kenya’s Olympic team won 10 medals at the Tokyo Games, the most of any African nation. However, Kenyan officials say the medal count could have been even higher if not for the training restrictions brought on by COVID-19. As in past years, Kenya dominated the long-distance running competitions, winning gold in the 800 and 1500 meters and men’s and women’s marathons.Emmanuel Korir, who won the 800 meters gold for Kenya, told VOA he was happy with his performance.“To be honest, I am so happy. We didn’t get time to train well. I don’t want to complain. It affected everyone, so we were all equal. Everything was fine. The only problem was there were no spectators, but at least we did it,” Korir said.The East African nation won more medals than any other African nation, but this year’s performance was not as good compared to the 2016 Olympics in Rio, where its athletes won 13 medals.Kenya lost the men’s 3,000 meters steeplechase in Tokyo after winning gold in the event every Olympics since 1984.Barnaba Korir, the general team manager for Kenya’s Olympic team, says the lockdowns and restriction of movements caused by the COVID-19 pandemic stopped the athletes from winning more medals.“Athletes were not allowed to train in a group. They had to train individually. It really affected them and we did not expect them to do well. And when we selected the team for the Olympics, there were also restrictions. We have to have athletes at the camp and the development where an athlete is not allowed to leave outside, the movement is restricted. They had to be in the camp, so those things were psychologically affecting our athletes but they ran very well,” Barnaba Korir said.Emmanuel Korir says he is already looking forward to the next Olympics in Paris. “I am working for maybe one day to run a world record. Preparing for the world championship and for the next Olympics; we have only three years, so everything is going to be fine,” he said.Meanwhile, many Kenyans on social media criticized government officials for failing to organize a reception for its returning champions. But Barnaba Korir says the criticism is unjustified. “But I was there. I came early from Tokyo and we had officials from the government. Most of our athletes were arriving minutes after midnight and we organized for Faith Kipyegon and Peres Chepchirchir, Brigid Kosgey. We organized our athletes to be received at the airport and taken to a five-star hotel. So, I don’t think we should go that direction,” he said.Barnaba Korir added that the government’s Ministry of Sports is working on developing a standard procedure to honor winning Olympic athletes in the future.
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Niger’s Flood Death Toll Rises to 55
Heavy rains that have lashed the West African state of Niger since June have claimed 55 lives and left 53,000 people homeless, authorities said on Thursday. More than 4,800 homes have been damaged by floods or landslips, and nearly 900 cattle have been lost, Colonel Bako Boubacar, the head of the civil protection agency, said on state radio. The worst-hit regions are Maradi in the southeast, Agadez in the desert north and the capital Niamey, where 16 have died. An impoverished landlocked country in the Sahel, Niger struggles with chronic aridity and heat. The rainy season is short, typically lasting from June to August or September, although in recent years it has been exceptionally strong. Last year, floods claimed 73 lives and sparked a humanitarian crisis with 2.2 million people needing assistance, according to the United Nations. In 2019, 57 died. The previous toll from this year’s rainy season, issued on July 31, stood at 35 dead and 26,532 people homeless.
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Syrian Refugees Targeted in Ankara Night of Violence
The Turkish capital, Ankara, has been hit with a night of violence against Syrian refugees. Turkey currently hosts over four million refugees, and with more coming from Afghanistan and there are growing fears of rising social tensions.Hundreds of people attacked the homes of Syrians Wednesday in Altindag, a suburb of Ankara. Syrian shops were also targeted, with an angry mob looting the contents. The violence was triggered by the killing of a local Turkish youth, allegedly by Syrians.Turkey Faces Dilemma as Afghan Refugees Start Arriving Ankara is extending border wall with Iran as analysts warn of rising social and political tensions if more Afghan refugees enter TurkeyPolice tried to intervene, calling for people to return to their homes, but to no avail, as the violence continued for many hours. Unconfirmed reports say people traveled across the city to join the attacks. No official figures have been given on injuries. Altindag, a suburban electoral stronghold of the ruling AKP party, is home to many Syrian refugees, who had fled Syria’s civil war. A local shop owner, who did not want to be identified, said people’s patience over the refugees is running out.Let them go back. They are everywhere here, left-right center. He adds, I am only one of three Turkish shop owners left here. Turkey opened its doors to millions fleeing the decade-long Syrian civil war. But political analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners says there is growing discontent over the government’s refugee policy, which is likely to be exacerbated by increasing numbers of Afghans fleeing the Taliban arriving in Turkey.”There are not only 3.6 million Syrians; there are at least two thousand Iranians, half-million Iraqis, an unknown number of Africans who came through tourists visas,” Yesilada said. “Now Afghanis, along with other Central Asian nations, are coming, and they are virtually stealing jobs because they work for half the minimum wage, they don’t complain, they stage strikes, so not only in Istanbul and other industrialized cities but also many Anatolian towns, they are favored for manual jobs and agricultural jobs. This is a huge problem; all polls show regardless of political party, Turks want them to go back.”Main opposition politician Kemal Kilicdaroglu declared last month Syrian refugees would be returned within two years of his party coming to power. Wednesday night Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said measures were being taken to control any surge in Afghan refugees.Erdogan said, at the border with Iran or Iraq, walls on the frontiers are rising significantly right now. These walls are to prevent illegal migration to our country.Turkey is constructing border walls and fences along its entire Iranian and Iraqi frontiers. Those barriers are predicted to be tested as observers warn of a potential exodus of Afghans if the Taliban take power.
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New Zealand to Leave Borders Closed Until 2022
New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Thursday the nation will not open its borders to non-residents until next year to preserve the success they have had against the coronavirus pandemic.The nation of five million people has been among the best in the world at containing the virus that causes COVID-19. The country has seen just 2,914 cases and 26 deaths, according to the U.S.-based Johns Hopkins University, which is tracking the global outbreak. A large part of that success is due to New Zealand closing its borders for the past 18 months to non-residents.At a news conference in Wellington, Ardern told reporters the recent wave of infections around the world convinced her the country is doing the right thing. “While the pandemic continues to rage overseas, and the virus continues to change and mutate, the best thing we can do is lock in the gains achieved to date, while keeping our options open and giving ourselves choices,” she said.Ardern said vaccines are the “game changer” in the pandemic, and for them to be successful, the country needs to get as many people inoculated as possible. Perhaps because of their success in controlling the spread of the virus, New Zealand has seen a slow rollout of their vaccination program, with just 29% of the population having received one shot and 17% fully vaccinated.Ardern said the delay in opening the borders will allow the country to complete its vaccination program. And even then, she said the reopening will be “careful and deliberate.”Ardern said beginning in early 2022, the government will move to a new model for travel into New Zealand, establishing low-, medium- and high-risk pathways into the country.Fully vaccinated travelers from low-risk countries will be able to travel quarantine-free, while those from medium- and high-risk countries will have to go through a combination of measures ranging from self-isolation to spending 14 days in quarantine.The prime minister said New Zealand will also speed up its vaccination program with all eligible ages able to book their shot by September 1. It will also extend the gap between doses to six weeks to ensure more New Zealanders are at least partially vaccinated.Some information in this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters and AFP.
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Zambia Votes in Closely Contested Polls
Zambians were voting in a general election on Thursday after a tense campaign dominated by economic woes, a debt crisis and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.Sixteen presidential candidates are vying for the top job, but the frontrunners are incumbent Edgar Lungu, 64, and his long-time rival Hakainde Hichilema, a business tycoon, who are facing off at the polls for the third time.Hichilema, 59, who is running for a sixth time, is backed by an alliance of 10 parties.After voting shortly after polls opened at 6am (0400 GMT) Lungu exuded confidence he would retain the job he had held for the past six years.”We are winning, otherwise I wouldn’t have been in the race if we were not winning, we are a winning team,” the upbeat Lungu told reporters outside a nursery school in Chawama, a poor neighborhood of Lusaka.But a flagging economy and rising living costs have eroded his support base in recent years, surveys suggest, and the election could be even tighter than 2016 polls when he narrowly scraped a victory over Hichilema.Lungu, a lawyer by training, is accused of borrowing unsustainably, particularly from Chinese creditors, to finance a spree of infrastructure projects.Under him, Zambia became the first African country to default on its sovereign debt since the coronavirus pandemic began, while inflation soared to 24.6 percent in June, the highest rate in more than a decade.Africa’s second biggest producer of copper after the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the eighth producer in the world, missed another debt repayment this year.Winding queues of hundreds of people formed before dawn outside polling stations, hours before voting was due to open around densely-populated and working class neighborhoods of Lusaka.Almost mid-way through the voting day in central Lusaka’s popular Mtendere township, hundreds of voters patiently waited for their turn to cast ballots, chatting away or sucking on ice lollies, or popsicles, sold by a roving vendor. The atmosphere was relaxed and festive, with nearby taverns serving beer while music blasted from cars driving in heavy traffic on bumpy roads.Copper miner Thomas Wandu, 41, had been queueing for seven hours to vote for Lungu.”Underground, things are not how they are supposed to be,” he told AFP, referring to what he described as low and delayed wages by his Chinese employers.’Hoping for change’Lungu’s critics point to the high cost of living, poverty and joblessness.In Chamawa township unemployed school teacher Ernest Chimba, 35, was “hoping for change… because the cost of living in Zambia has gone really high”. Tensions flared in the run-up to polling in this southern African country of 17 million people.Supporters of Lungu’s Patriotic Front (PF) and Hichilema’s United Party for National Development (UPND) clashed in the runup to voting, prompting Lungu to order an unprecedented deployment of the army.The president has also grown tough on dissent since he took power in 2015, raising concerns of heavy-handedness if results are contested.Around seven million citizens are registered to vote for a president, legislators and local government representatives.The winning candidate must acquire more than 50 percent of votes to avoid a second vote. Analysts say a runoff, which would be within 37 days of the first round, is unlikely, however.Lungu is confident of bagging half-a-million votes more than Hichilema.Hichilema is pinning his hopes on disenchantment with Lungu’s administration of the economy to clinch the presidency.The opposition has accused the government of seeking to rig the ballot — allegations the PF has rejected.United Nations chief Antonio Guterres is “closely” following the vote and called on all candidates “to do their part to create an environment conducive to credible, inclusive and peaceful elections”, his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.Analysts fear tensions could flare after the vote.There will “likely to be contestations on the results, that may catalyze some unrest, especially in the urban areas of Lusaka and the Copperbelt,” said Patience Mususa, of the Nordic Africa Institute.Polls close at 6:00 p.m. (1600 GMT) at more than 12,000 voting stations dotted across the vast country. Official results are expected by Sunday.
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France, Britain Divided by Much More than La Manche
The French call it La Manche, or the sleeve, while the more proprietorial British refer to the narrow arm of the Atlantic separating England’s southern coast from the northern coast of France as the English Channel. At its narrowest point it is just 33 kilometers, but when it comes to the state of Anglo-French relations these days it might as well be as wide as an ocean.For weeks now the British have been trying to arrange sit-down talks between Prime Minister Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron, but to no avail. British diplomats say Paris won’t agree to a date for a bilateral summit. Their French counterparts say they doubt a sit-down between the two leaders would accomplish anything. FILE – Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson and France’s President Emmanuel Macron attend a bilateral meeting during G-7 summit in Carbis Bay, Cornwall, Britain, June 12, 2021. (Stefan Rousseau/Pool via Reuters)The last time the pair met was at the annual G-7 summit of advanced nations held in Cornwall in June and it led to a bruising dispute over cross-border rules for Northern Ireland, which is treated differently under the terms of the Brexit agreement. Johnson wants a renegotiation.A British claim that the French leader told Johnson that Northern Ireland was not part of the same country as the United Kingdom anymore, drew anger in Britain and fury in Paris, where French officials said Macron’s remark was taken out of context.As The Times newspaper put it last week, with a twist of British understatement: “The entente cordiale seems less than cordial nowadays.”The Entente Cordiale was a set of agreements signed in 1904 between Britain and France, which marked a significant improvement in Anglo-French relations after decades of rivalry in a scramble for African colonies. Now the British accuse the French of “crossing the street to pick a fight every day,” and the French countercharge the British are trying to wiggle out of the divorce agreement they struck with the EU and of not keeping their word.Some former British diplomats agree there might be little point in a Johnson-Macron face-to-face. “The bilateral rows are more numerous and more public than at any time since the major rift over Iraq in 2003. Some level of trust has to be rebuilt before a summit would be worthwhile,” tweeted Peter Rickets, a retired senior diplomat and former chairman of Britain’s Joint Intelligence Committee under Prime Minister Tony Blair.In some Western defense and foreign-policy circles frustration is rising about the Anglo-French antagonism. “A strong Europe and indeed a liberal Europe cannot be built without Britain,” Vernon Bogdanor, professor of government at King’s College London, wrote last week.“So, the success of post-Brexit Britain is a key French interest, just as a strong liberal France is a key British interest. The needs of European defense, together with the overriding need to preserve a liberal order in France and in Europe, make it imperative that the current mésentente [disagreement] be replaced with a new entente cordiale,” he added.Bogdanor blames the French more for the deterioration, arguing Macron sees Brexit “not in geopolitical terms but primarily as an opportunity for French financial and business interests,” and accuses him of trying to marginalize Britain. French observers see Britain as the culprit and maintain Johnson and his ministers resort to criticism of France for domestic political reasons. FILE – Trucks queue on the A16 highway to enter the Channel tunnel in Calais, northern France, Dec. 17, 2020.Since formally departing the European Union more than year ago — and in the years of ill-tempered negotiations between Brussels and London leading up to Brexit — hardly a week has gone by without the British and French sniping at each other, squabbling that’s amplified by Britain’s notoriously Francophobe tabloid press and France’s equally patriotic media.In his New Year address in January, Macron assured Britain that France would remain a “friend and ally” despite Brexit but slammed the British decision to leave the bloc as one born from “lies and false promises.” FILE – French fishermen block trucks carrying UK-landed fish to protest for the slow issuance of licenses to fish inside British waters, at the fishing port in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, Apr. 23, 2021.This year alone the countries have clashed over post-Brexit fishing rights for French trawlers off the coast of Britain’s Channel Islands. Johnson deployed Royal Navy vessels to the area as Paris threatened to cut off electricity to the island of Jersey. France responded by sending patrol ships to protect French trawlers.And the two have bickered over cross-Channel migration with London accusing French authorities of not doing enough to stop migrants and asylum-seekers — more than 10,000 a year this year so far — crossing La Manche in dinghies and small boats.Migrants who launched from the coast of northern France cross the English Channel in an inflatable boat near Dover, Britain, Aug. 4, 2021.The pair clashed also over supplies of the Covid vaccine made by Astrazeneca, a British-Swedish company, with the French left fuming at the Johnson government’s frequent readiness to compare the speed of the vaccine rollout earlier in the year in Britain with the much slower inoculation programs in France and the rest of Europe.British pandemic travel rules that singled out travelers from France, until last week, and were stricter than those coming from other EU countries, were slammed as unjustified by Paris.
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Indonesia to Investigate Forcible Restraint of Nigerian Diplomat
Indonesia’s foreign ministry expressed its regret on Thursday after a senior Nigerian diplomat was forcibly restrained by immigration officers in Jakarta, prompting the African country to recall its ambassador to Abuja for consultations.A video of the incident, widely shared on social media and sparking outrage among users, shows the visibly distressed man being restrained inside a vehicle by several men.”I can’t breathe,” he says at one point in the video, yelling out as his head is pinned to the seat.The Nigerian foreign ministry described the man as an “accredited Nigerian diplomatic agent” at the Nigerian embassy in Jakarta, without naming him.Indonesian foreign ministry spokesperson Teuku Faizasyah said on Thursday the ministry regretted the Aug. 7 incident, and was continuing to communicate with the Nigerian government on the matter.”That incident was an isolated incident and does not have anything to do with Indonesia’s commitment to performing its duties as a host country as per Vienna conventions on diplomatic relations,” he said.He added that “the law and human rights ministry had launched an internal investigation as a follow up to that incident”.Faizasyah said a meeting took place between the ministry and the Nigerian ambassador on Wednesday where they discussed “good relations” between the countries.The Nigerian Foreign Minister Geoffrey Onyeama strongly condemned the incident, calling it “an egregious act of international delinquency by Indonesian state actors”.”The Nigerian government demands appropriate sanctions against the relevant officials and has recalled its ambassador in Indonesia for consultations, including a review of bilateral relations,” Esther Sunsuwa, a foreign ministry spokesperson, said in a statement on Wednesday.Indonesia’s immigration office defended the actions of its officers, saying the diplomat had been “uncooperative” when questioned in front of an apartment, during what an official said were routine checks on the validity of permits held by foreigners.Ibnu Chuldun, the head of the Jakarta law and human rights agency that oversees immigration, told a news conference the diplomat had refused to show his identity cards and subsequently attempted to break the car window with an e-cigarette when apprehended, causing an injury to one officer.Ibnu said that immigration officials only learned of the diplomat’s occupation when he produced his identity card at the immigration office and that the Nigerian ambassador had gone to the office and accepted it was “a misunderstanding.”
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US Expected to Approve Third Shot of COVID-19 Vaccines for Some Americans
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is expected to authorize a third shot of a COVID-19 vaccine for some people with weakened immune systems.News outlets say the FDA will likely approve a third shot of either the two-dose Pfizer or Moderna vaccine as soon as Thursday. An advisory panel of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will meet Friday to discuss giving booster shots of COVID-19 vaccines for some people with compromised immune systems.Scientists have been debating whether to offer extra doses of COVID-19 vaccines to certain immunocompromised people, such as organ transplant recipients or cancer patients. A recent study by Johns Hopkins University found that many transplant patients had little to no antibody protections after receiving the full two doses of a vaccine, but a third shot boosted their antibody protections.Anywhere between 3 million and 9 million Americans have weakened immune systems, either due to disease or because of medications they take.In a related development, the CDC is recommending that all pregnant women receive a COVID-19 vaccine. The agency issued the advice Wednesday after releasing data that showed women faced no increased risk of miscarriage after receiving at least one dose of a vaccine.Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the head of the CDC, said in a written statement that “it has never been more urgent to increase vaccinations as we face the highly transmissible delta variant and see severe outcomes from COVID-19 among unvaccinated pregnant people.” Only 23% of expectant women in the U.S. have received at least one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine.California became the first U.S. state Wednesday to require teachers and support staff members to either be inoculated against COVID-19 or undergo weekly testing.Governor Gavin Newsom said the new order applies to both public and private schools across the nation’s most populous state, and includes teacher’s aides, bus drivers, cafeteria workers and volunteers.Newsome’s order was supported by the head of the California Teachers Association, E. Toby Boyd. “Educators want to be in classrooms with their students,” Boyd said, “and the best way to make sure that happens is for everyone who is medically eligible to be vaccinated.” Teachers’ unions, both on the national and local levels, have increasingly softened their opposition to vaccine mandates amid the current surge of new COVID-19 cases due to the more contagious delta variant.Randi Weingarten, the head of the American Federation of Teachers, said last week during a television interview that “as a matter of personal conscience, I think that we need to be working with our employers, not opposing them, on vaccine mandates.”The Canadian government announced Wednesday that it was developing a digital COVID-19 vaccine passport for its citizens to use for international travel.Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino said the federal government in Ottawa is working with its provinces and territories, which are responsible for vaccinating its residents, on a common approach in creating the passport, which should be available in the next few months.Mendocino said the vaccine passport is “a key step forward in ensuring Canadians will have the documents they need once it is safe to travel again.”Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters.
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Australian Researchers Find New Species of Flying Prehistoric Reptile
Australian paleontologists have discovered a new species of a prehistoric flying reptile in outback Queensland. The pterosaur, named Thapunngaka shawi, is the largest of its kind ever found in Australia, and dates back 100 million years.Researchers have said the pterosaur, a type of flying reptile, was the “closest thing we have to a real-life dragon.”With a spearlike mouth and a wingspan estimated at 7 meters, they have said it would have “soared like a dragon” above the vast inland sea that once covered much of outback Queensland.Paleontologists have said it was perfectly adapted to flight, with relatively hollow, air-filled bones. Pterosaur remains are rare and often poorly preserved.So, the discovery of a fossil of the creature’s jaw in a quarry in 2011 by a local fossicker is significant. For several years, it was left in a museum display cabinet before being analyzed by a University of Queensland team.Tim Richards, a researcher at the university’s Dinosaur Lab, says it would have been a savage prehistoric predator.“What we are able to do with the jawbone was compare it to closely related pterosaurs that are complete, and essentially just extrapolate from there,” he said. “So, we know that the jawbone that we are looking at is quite large compared to closely related pterosaurs. We assume obviously, and it is speculation, that the size of our pterosaur would have been roughly around about a 7-meter wingspan. The skull would have probably been about a meter long.”The new species belonged to a group of pterosaurs known as anhanguerians, which inhabited every continent during the latter part of the age of dinosaurs.The name of the new species — Thapunngaka shawi — recognizes the Indigenous peoples of the Richmond area where the fossil was found, using words from the now-extinct language of the Wanamara Nation in Queensland.The pterosaur has been described for the first time in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.Pterosaurs were flying reptiles but were not classified as dinosaurs, although they lived at the same time.Fossils have shown that Australia had a diverse range of dinosaurs that lived from about 65 million to 250 million years ago.
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Ship Sailing Under Panama Flag Runs Aground in Northern Japan, Oil Leaking
A Panamanian-registered ship ran aground in a northern Japanese harbor and was leaking oil, but there were no injuries among the 21 crew and the oil leak was being controlled with no signs it had reached shore, the Japan Coast Guard said.The 39,910-tonne vessel, the Crimson Polaris, was carrying wood chips when it ran aground on Wednesday morning in Hachinohe harbor. It managed to free itself, but due to poor weather was unable to move far and ended up anchoring about 4 kilometers out from the port.A crack developed in the hull and oil began leaking, with a slick 5.1 kilometers long by 1 kilometers wide visible by Thursday morning, the Coast Guard said, adding that containment measures were being taken by patrol boats.
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Tourist Helicopter Crashes in Russian Crater Lake; 8 Missing
A helicopter carrying tourists plunged into a deep volcanic crater lake on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia’s far east Thursday, and rescuers were searching in the lake for up to eight people missing, officials said. At least eight others reportedly survived.The helicopter crashed in the Kronotsky nature reserve, and the regional administration said workers were searching for survivors in Kurile Lake, which was formed in a volcano caldera and crater.Russia’s Emergencies Ministry said 13 tourists and three crew members were aboard the Mi-8 helicopter and eight people survived, according to the state RIA Novosti news agency. It said two of them were heavily injured.The Interfax news agency, however, cited officials as saying the helicopter was carrying three crew members and 14 tourists when it went down in deep fog. Interfax initially quoted regional officials as saying that nine people, including two pilots, survived the crash, but later reported that only eight survivors were found while the search for the others is continuing.The varying numbers could not be immediately reconciled. The reports did not list the nationalities of the tourists but said that most of them were from Moscow and St. Petersburg.Regional prosecutors were investigating a possible violation of flight safety rules.The helicopter reportedly is lying at a depth of about 100 meters in Kurile Lake, which is up to 316 meters deep with an area of 77 square kilometers.The helicopter, manufactured during the Soviet era 37 years ago, was operated by Vityaz-Aero, a local private carrier. Its director said it had recently undergone maintenance and was in good shape.The Mi-8 is a two-engine helicopter designed in the 1960s. It has been used widely in Russia, ex-Soviet countries and many other nations.The area where the crash occurred can only be reached by helicopters and the fog was complicating rescue efforts, the RIA Novosti reported. Several local emergency workers, including three divers, were conducting rescue efforts, it said.Kamchatka, the pristine peninsula which is home to numerous volcanoes is known for its rugged beauty and rich wildlife. The Kronotsky reserve, which has Russia’s only geyser basin, is a major tourist attraction on Kamchatka and helicopters regularly carry tourists there.Quickly changing weather often makes flights risky. Last month, an An-26 passenger plane crashed on Kamchatka while approaching an airport in bad weather, killing all 28 people on board.Russian news reports said Vityaz-Aero is half-owned by Igor Redkin, a millionaire businessman who is a member of the Kamchatka regional legislature. Redkin was placed under house arrest earlier this week after he shot and killed a man who was rummaging in a garbage bin. Redkin said the shooting was accidental after he mistook the victim for a bear.There are an estimated 20,000 bears on Kamchatka, and they occasionally roam into settlements looking for food.
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Belarus Sprinter Feels Safe, Looks to Future
After all the turmoil of the last week, Krystsina Tsimanouskaya finally feels safe. The Belarusian Olympic sprinter who found refuge in Poland to avoid punishment at home after criticizing team officials at the Tokyo Games says she now hopes to focus on how to keep up a world-class running career. Speaking in an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press at the Olympic Center in Warsaw, the 24-year-old runner said she has already asked Polish officials to help her resume training. “Life changed in one day, and now we are starting it from scratch in a new country,” she said, speaking with her husband, Arseni Zdanevich, by her side. “We are planning to stay in Poland and continue our careers here.” “We have turned to the Ministry of Sports, turned to the Polish athletics national team, with issues regarding a coach, a group and a place where I can train and many other issues regarding the continuation of my sports career here in Poland,” she said. She emphasized that she and her 25-year-old husband, an athletics trainer who also has been her coach, feel that it would be a waste to abandon an online training program they launched in Belarus. “We had so many ideas. We planned it to a tiny detail,” Tsimanouskaya said. “We have put a lot of time and effort in it, and we would like to keep it going.” Tsimanouskaya said she and her husband feel secure in Poland, where they arrived separately last week on humanitarian visas. “We are definitely safe now because we are under protection,” she said. The runner recalled the harrowing, confusing moments when she sought Japanese police help at Tokyo’s Narita International Airport, when she was being forced by Belarus officials to leave the Summer Games early and return home. “They didn’t understand first what happened to me,” the runner said of the police. “They thought that I was unwell or lost something. And then I wrote that I was being forcibly taken out of the country and I don’t want that to happen.” She used her phone to translate the desperate plea for help after her grandmother warned her not to return to Belarus. The drama began after Tsimanouskaya criticized her team officials, saying on Instagram that she was put in the 4×400 relay even though she had never run in the event. She was then barred from competing in the 200-meter race that she expected to run in and told to pack her bags. At home, the standoff set off a massive backlash in state-run media, deepening Tsimanouskaya’s fears that she would face reprisals if she returned. When she used Google apps to translate her plea to Japanese police, a suspicious Belarusian official asked what was going on. She told him she forgot something at the Olympic Village and needed to return. Tsimanouskaya described the feeling of safety she finally had after Japanese police took her away from team officials. “I think I already felt secure at the airport when I was with the police,” she said. “I realized that I turned to the police, they are protecting me and my life isn’t in danger. I was being constantly escorted. I felt nervous, and sometimes my hands were trembling, but I wouldn’t say that I felt unsafe. The only place which would be unsafe for me is Belarus.” The standoff again drew global attention to the repressive environment in Belarus, where authorities have unleashed a relentless crackdown on dissent following President Alexander Lukashenko’s being handed a sixth term after the August 9, 2020, presidential vote that the opposition and the West saw as rigged. Huge protests rocked Belarus, and authorities responded by arresting more than 35,000 people and beating thousands. They have ramped up the clampdown in recent months, raiding hundreds of offices and homes of independent journalists, activists and all those deemed unloyal. Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus with an iron fist for 27 years, has denounced his opponents as Western stooges. Asked about Tsimanouskaya at a marathon news conference Monday, he claimed that “she wouldn’t have done it herself if she hadn’t been manipulated.” Tsimanouskaya said she had been apolitical before the standoff at the Tokyo Games and deliberately refrained from signing petitions challenging the authorities, fearing that would bring harm to her husband and her parents. She said she had problems with sports officials after posting a message against violence on Instagram and was told she would face dismissal from the country’s national team if she did it again. After the airport standoff, her husband said they decided to move to Poland after talking to their parents. “After consulting with them, we decided that it’s dangerous to return to Belarus at the moment,” he said. “And we decided that I will follow my wife to support her in a new country and build a sports career in Poland. You know, I was more worried for my wife than myself. I believed that they could use me to hurt her somehow.” Tsimanouskaya and Zdanevich said they badly miss their parents but talk to them on Zoom and hope they could visit Poland someday. They had to leave their dog and cat at their apartment in the Belarusian capital of Minsk, since Zdanevich had to flee quickly, so they asked neighbors and friends to take care of them. The runner also hopes to sort out a problem with eBay that annulled all bids when she tried to auction a silver medal she has from 2019 to raise money to help Belarusian athletes punished for their political views. “I was deprived of a chance to take part in the Olympic Games in my event and (eBay) effectively denied me an opportunity to help athletes,” Tsimanouskaya said, voicing hope that the company will correct its mistake and allow her to auction her medal. And she hopes that Belarus will one day become a democracy. “I hope that a time will come soon when Belarus could be free, and people will have freedom of speech,” she said.
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Field of Dreams: Inspired by 1989 Film, MLB Makes Iowa Debut
More than three decades after Field of Dreams seeped into the country’s cultural consciousness, with a one-year delay caused by the pandemic, one of the most famous cornfields in Hollywood history finally gets the opportunity to host real major league ball.”Is this heaven?” the ghost of John Kinsella asked in the movie that inspired the game to be played Thursday between the Chicago White Sox and New York Yankees next to the actual site used in the 1989 film, which is maintained as a tourist attraction.”No, it’s Iowa,” dutiful farmer Ray Kinsella — played by Kevin Costner — responded to his father with a smile before they played catch under the lights in the movie’s most poignant scene.This week, the ball-playing isn’t fiction.”Shoeless” Joe Jackson and other long-ago players who took the field in the movie will be replaced by José Abreu and Aaron Judge.The proud and quintessential Midwestern state, usually only in the spotlight every four years during presidential campaigns, will be hosting a Major League Baseball game for the first time when the White Sox and Yankees play at a temporary venue built for about 8,000 fans in tiny Dyersville — population “about 4,400, we’re hoping for in the next census,” said mayor Jim Heavens.The event, part of MLB’s increased effort to grow the game by setting up shop in places without in-person access to the highest level of the sport, has been in the works for years. The original plan to play in 2020 was postponed when the coronavirus forced a shortened schedule at mostly empty ballparks, but if the White Sox, the Yankees or the Iowans became impatient then they were out of step with the spirit of the film.”The one constant through all the years,” as the sage author Terence Mann declared to Ray Kinsella in the film, “has been baseball.”Dyersville found its place on the map through the movie that starred Costner, James Earl Jones, Ray Liotta and Amy Madigan, but the sport has been entrenched in the town for more than a century. Commercial Club Park is where the team from Beckman Catholic High School and the local semipro club play, a spot as much at the heart of the community as the well-kept farms around it.About one-third of the crowd on Thursday is expected to be Iowa residents.”I see a lot of people as I travel around the state, and when they find out you’re from Dyersville, they all know about this MLB game,” Heavens said. “I think there’s a real element of pride in Iowa that MLB is coming. It’s kind of warmed my heart to see that the people of Iowa are so honored that this is happening.”FILE – Jeremiah Bronson, of Ames, Iowa, plays catch with his son Ben on the field at the ‘Field of Dreams’ movie site, June 5, 2020, in Dyersville, Iowa.The original movie site was quickly deemed too small for a standard game, so the made-for-the-moment ballpark required removal of 30,000 cubic yards of material and the installation of 4,000 tons of sand and 2,000 tons of gravel. The bullpens were designed to mimic those at old Comiskey Park, the former home of the White Sox. There’s even a just-for-fun corn maze beyond right field.This has been an especially hot and dry summer in this part of the country, so an irrigation system was installed to keep the prime crop in good shape for its time to shine on national TV — between 10 and 12 feet high.”We wanted to make sure we didn’t show up in the middle of August with brown corn,” said Chris Marinak, MLB’s chief operations and strategy officer.Just about everything about this event is unique.”When we first heard that this game would happen, I think everybody had that kind of initial rush of ‘Oh, this is going to be amazing to be a part of this broadcast,'” said Brad Zager, executive vice president of production and operations for Fox Sports. “When you start looking at it, there are very few events that we get a chance to produce that there’s no blueprint for.”Both teams will wear throwback uniforms harkening back to 1919, when Jackson played for the White Sox and was one of eight players banned for fixing the World Series. The history of that team is one of the many themes woven into a film that transcends sports.FILE – In this June 5, 2020, photo, an Iowa flag waves in the wind over the field at the ‘Field of Dreams’ movie site in Dyersville, Iowa.The White Sox and Yankees were also the two favorite teams of the John Kinsella character in the movie, at different points of his life.”I was an actor for 40 years, and nobody stops and asks me about the episodes of ER that I did, but a certain amount of people look at me strangely from across the room and then come over and tell me some amazing story about how that movie changed their relationship with their dad,” said Dwier Brown, who played John Kinsella. “All I did was take off my catcher’s mask and walk right in, so I’m grateful for my little piece in the whole puzzle.”
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Hawaiians Look to Traditional Practices to Cope With Climate Change
Hawaiians are turning to traditional practices for insights on coping with climate change. As Mike O’Sullivan reports from Honolulu, they are seeking inspiration from the past to achieve sustainability in the future.
Camera: Mike O’Sullivan
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China Historian Yü Ying-shih, Whose Work Was Respected and Banned by Beijing, Dies at 91
When acclaimed China historian Yü Ying-shih accepted the inaugural Tang Prize in Sinology in September 2014, he used his speech to express support for Hong Kong’s pro-democracy Umbrella Movement.In response, China promptly banned his books and articles.When Yü collected the $358,000 award, he was 13 years into retirement, which consisted of days spent researching and writing into the early hours of the morning. The routine resembled his working life in academia, where he was recognized as one of the leading historians in China studies.By backing the Umbrella Movement, Yü affirmed that he viewed himself “as a public intellectual in the traditional Chinese sense, taking on the responsibility of making the world a better place,” as the Yü Ying-shih’s original poem and calligraphy for Kang-I Sun Chang and her husband, C. C. Chang, written before Yü left Yale for Princeton in 1987. The original poem is now at the National Central Library in Taipei. (Kang-I Sun Chang)Yü was perhaps the most well-connected person who didn’t have email, according to Kang-I Sun Chang, a longtime friend and former colleague of Yü’s from his tenure at Yale. Yü, who didn’t use a computer, preferred communicating via fax, although he also used a landline phone.Chang, now a professor emeritus at Yale, recalls buying a fax machine for the sole purpose of staying in touch with him. “He had a gift for friendship,” she told VOA.To commemorate events and offer encouragement, Yü gave friends poems he composed in Chinese and wrote in calligraphy, a gesture traditional among China’s scholars centuries ago. A poem for Chang explained Yü’s reasoning for departing Yale for Princeton in 1987.He was also a generous scholar, said Willard Peterson, a friend and colleague of Yü’s at Princeton.Yü wrote so many prefaces for other scholars that he later published a collection of them. Academic colleagues appreciated his willingness to provide advice on their research and writing, and Chang was quick to add that while she was often among those who asked Yü for research advice, “he didn’t need any help.”Following Yü’s death, China scholars took to social media to recount the many ways he had helped them during their careers, often without Yü ever fully realizing the great impact he was having on them.Born in the northeastern Chinese city of Tianjin in 1930, Yü never received a formal education as a child. Growing up amid war with Japan, he largely studied on his own and received just one year of schooling under a private tutor before passing the high school exams that let him attend college.Civil war in China disrupted his higher education, but he continued his studies in Hong Kong, then a British colony, before later leaving to pursue a doctorate at Harvard. Yü emerged with an unparalleled ability to read classical Chinese, analyze and compile evidence, and write convincingly about Chinese history, his colleagues said.He also excelled at weiqi, “the game of encirclement,” an ancient, abstract Chinese board game.During his hiring process at Princeton, “we realized Professor Yü had published something substantial in the specialized field of each of us in Chinese studies,” Peterson told VOA.Yü’s legacy will be his historical approach to studying China that blended “empathy, sincerity and critical evaluation,” in contrast to the study of China through the lens of philosophy and religion, Tillman said.Yü Ying-shih’s calligraphy of a poem by the Tang poet Zhang Ji (张继), which he presented to his Yale colleague Edwin McClellan before Yü left for Princeton in 1987. (Kang-I Sun Chang)Throughout his career, Yü published dozens of books and more than 500 articles, most of which were written in Chinese. Yü never compiled a curriculum vitae of his publications, a usual academic endeavor, but he never needed one because his reputation preceded him, colleagues told VOA.When China banned those writings in 2014, Yü felt honored because it meant the Chinese government viewed his work as powerful and influential, according to Wang Fan-sen, a distinguished research fellow at Academia Sinica who studied under Yü as a doctoral student at Princeton.That Yü’s writings are still available through underground back channels in China despite their prohibition is just another testament to their influence, Wang added.Censoring and banning material that is deemed sensitive or contrary to the official state narrative is common practice in China but being outlawed reflected Yü’s rarified embodiment of the traditional Chinese concept of the public intellectual.Yü felt it was his duty to raise issues in his scholarship that impacted and improved the world, said Peterson, who is now a professor emeritus at Princeton.“He understood — more than most of us in the history profession understand — that part of the purpose of history is to understand how we got to where we are, and what are we going to do about it going forward,” Peterson continued.A colleague, Perry Link, who is now a professor emeritus at Princeton, told VOA, “Yü Ying-shih was like an unmoving North Star, an always reliable point that could provide orientation for everyone else.”In a 17th-century Chinese tale, a bird flies over a flaming mountain, letting drops of water fall off its wings onto the conflagration below. The bird knows that it won’t quench the blaze, but it cannot bear to watch the mountain burn without doing something.Yü was like the bird, said Peterson. With each scholar that he advised, each book and article that he wrote, Yü sought to rescue a Chinese culture that he viewed as under threat, even if he alone couldn’t save it. In all his endeavors, said colleagues, it was that sense of mission that strongly guided him.
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Zambians Head to Polls in Key Democracy Test
Zambians head to the polls Thursday to choose a new president, Parliament and local representatives in a general election that analysts say will be a test for one of Africa’s pillars of democracy.President Edgar Lungu, 64, faces his fiercest competition from a familiar challenger, 59-year-old Hakainde Hichilema, one of 15 opposition candidates. Analysts predict a tight race to determine the country’s political future, and a second round could result if a candidate does not receive more than 50% of the ballots cast.Security concerns have risen amid violent clashes in recent weeks between supporters of the two major parties — the ruling Patriotic Front and the opposition United Party for National Development. One of the confrontations left two people dead.Supporters of the leader of the ruling Zambia Patriotic Front, incumbent president and candidate Edgar Lungu gather in Lusaka, on August 11, 2021 for a virtual closing rally ahead of tomorrow’s general election. (Photo by Patrick Meinhardt / AFP)Police officers have been deployed to maintain law and order and prevent any violence during the polls.But opposition groups say the deployment of the military is meant to intimidate and harass their supporters before the elections, an accusation denied by police spokesperson Esther Katongo.”It is not about intimidation, because from the time the military personnel were deployed, we have not heard any adverse report to say that people are being intimidated,” she said.
The Council of Churches, a prominent religious group in Zambia, is urging an end to the violence ahead of the elections.”We believe peace is necessary for you to have free, fair and credible elections,” the Reverend Emmanuel Chikoya, general secretary of the Council of Churches, told VOA.The electoral commission said it is prepared to manage transparent and credible elections despite recent challenges. Officials say they are ready to administer an election runoff if none of the 16 presidential candidates reaches the threshold to be declared winner in the first round.Ballot papers were being distributed Wednesday across the country, according to electoral officials.A man closes a door at the Matero district party headquarters for presidential candidate Hakainde Hichilema, of the Zambian opposition party United Party for National Development, in Lusaka, August 10, 2021.In an interview with VOA, Antonio Mwanza, spokesperson for the Patriotic Front, said the party will respect the election results, regardless of the outcome.”We have participated in elections since 2001, and we have always accepted the will of the people,” he said. “The will of the Zambians is what matters, and whatever the outcome, the Patriotic Front is committed to uphold that.”In June, Amnesty International released a report condemning what it called “an increasingly brutal crackdown on human rights” by the ruling party since Lungu took power.Amnesty said opposition leaders, journalists and activists have become targets for brutal crackdowns on dissent and free speech. They have accused authorities of using excessive force, enforcing arbitrary arrests and extrajudicial killings.Lungu assumed the presidency in 2015 in a snap election following the death of President Michael Sata. He narrowly won the poll against rival Hichilema, who claimed Lungu stole the election.Zambia, one the world’s most indebted countries, also faces massive economic challenges after it defaulted on its sovereign debt late last year.The main parties in the running are promising to fix the economy, which has been reeling from the impact of COVID-19.”The economic crisis has gone hand-in-hand with significant amounts of pain, and that has caused considerable discontent,” Nic Cheeseman, a professor of politics at the University of Birmingham, told The Associated Press.In addition to the pandemic’s toll, the economy has struggled as the price of copper, the country’s main export, fell, and its international debt has risen sharply.”I think that creates a window of opportunity for the opposition to win, not just that the economy is bad, but that people don’t have confidence in President Lungu to be able to turn it around,” Cheeseman said.
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Amnesty: Hundreds of Women, Girls Raped in Ethiopia’s Tigray
A new report by human rights group Amnesty International says Ethiopian government forces and Eritrean forces have been systematically raping and abusing hundreds of women and girls in the conflict in the country’s northern Tigray region. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports.
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Reporter’s Notebook: Families Fleeing Afghanistan Struggle to Survive in Turkey
Afghan clothes and Iranian SIM cards litter fields under the mountains that stand between Turkey and the Iranian border. A wisp of smoke rises out of what was a small fire, abandoned many hours before. As the Taliban swept through villages and cities in Afghanistan over the past few months, families have fled in droves, many traveling across Iran and into Turkey. In the past, this route was flooded with refugees trying to get to Europe to seek safety and freedom. Now it’s packed with people making a last-ditch effort to stay alive in Turkey, where they find no humanitarian aid and run the risk of being arrested and deported. Abdul Tawab, 16, fled Afghanistan after his uncle, a lawyer in a government court, was killed by the Taliban, Aug. 11, 2021, in Van, Turkey. (Claire Thomas/VOA)We meet 16-year-old Abdul Tawab outside the park where he sleeps in central Van, a city famous among tourists for its massive lake and among refugees for its proximity to the Iranian border. Tawab arrived in Turkey two weeks ago, hoping to go to Istanbul to find a job. But like so many other men and boys in the park, he is now out of money and stuck here in Van. Tawab says he is afraid he will be arrested if he draws attention to himself outside, so we walk a zigzag path through the markets until he feels safe at a table upstairs in a café. In Afghanistan, Tawab supported five siblings and his parents on his carpenter’s salary, which was about $1 a day. He left home after the Taliban had stormed into his village and riddled his uncle with bullets, killing the well-loved father of nine. “He didn’t care if people were rich or poor,” Tawab says. “He liked everyone, and everyone liked him.” Taliban fighters on motorcycles later wrapped his uncle’s body in barbed wire and deposited it in a field, Tawab says. Refugees say the militants will execute anyone who is associated with the Afghanistan government or foreign organizations, or anyone identified as Hazara, a Shiite ethnic group and the country’s largest religious minority. Saranwal Nadir, Tawab’s uncle, was a lawyer in a government court. “We found him in the field,” Tawab says. “His body was lying in puddles of water and blood.” Crisis beginning Turkey already hosts 3.7 million refugees, more than any other country in the world. But frustration among the population is growing, and many believe this crisis is only beginning. Garments traditional in Afghanistan and Pakistan are found in an area where refugees hide out in when they first enter Turkey, Aug. 11, 2021, in Van, Turkey. (Claire Thomas/VOA)Twitter in Turkey is alight with rumors about incoming people from Afghanistan. Some say the refugees are increasing crime rates or depressing wages. Another commonly heard complaint is that they are mostly young men, as evidenced by videos online. Young men from Afghanistan say the women and children are mostly in safe houses, hidden from cameras by the same smugglers who kicked the men out onto the streets, sometimes to be rounded up and deported. When the United States fully pulls out of Afghanistan, the borders may be even more packed with people trying to get into Turkey, a relatively safe country that has a history of taking in refugees, says Mahmut Kaçan, a lawyer and the coordinator for the Asylum and Migration Commission of the Van Bar Association. But once in Turkey, there is no clear path to establishing legal status and no organizations at all to support families in need of food or shelter. The United Nations’ refugee agency no longer processes asylum claims in Turkey, and claims through government offices can take years. “They are living in limbo in Turkey,” Kaçan says. Taliban takeover Up at least four flights of sloping concrete stairs, in a two-bedroom apartment in Van, two families from Afghanistan, 12 people in all, say they are afraid to go outside. Inside, the apartment is barren, with almost no furniture and only a few plastic bags of clothes and bedding. Two families, 12 people total, live in this unfurnished apartment in Van, Turkey, after fleeing Afghanistan, Aug. 10, 2021. (Claire Thomas/VOA)The adults go out only when they think they may find work. But after a month in Turkey, none of them have had any luck. The rent here is less than $70 a month, and the families say they already sold all their belongings to pay smugglers $1,000 per person, roughly the minimum cost to get from Kabul to Van. They borrowed rent money last month and do not know how they will manage in the future. But as soon as the U.S. announced it would be pulling out, says Saeed Sanaye Sadet, one of the apartment residents, he knew he would never be safe at home again, because he used to work for an American company. We point out that the Taliban have taken over vast swaths of Afghanistan in recent months, but not all of it, and the capital, Kabul, is still held by the government. But Sadet says the fall of the country feels inevitable. “It’s already happening,” he scoffs, when we ask why he is so sure. Women and girls On the edge of a graveyard in Van, rows of shallow graves cover the bodies of people who died attempting to flee to Turkey. Many were among the 61 refugees killed in a shipwreck on Lake Van last year. Other graves are identified only by the border-area location where the body was found. As we drive away from the graveyard, Mohammad Mahdi Sultani, a journalist from Afghanistan who is working with us as a guide and translator, says people have been risking their lives for a long time to escape Afghanistan, which has been at war since the 2001 U.S. invasion. But the reason people are fleeing is shifting as the Taliban gain ground, he says. His uncle fled his village for Iran because he has two daughters, 19 and 21. When the Taliban came in, they demanded that families place flags outside their houses to indicate whether there were any unwed women or girls inside. Leena Sadet, pictured Aug. 10, 2021, in Van, Turkey, had been a language teacher in Afghanistan before the Taliban took over her area, prompting her to flee the country. (Claire Thomas/VOA)”They say (the Taliban) will marry them,” Sultani says, meaning, by force. In the crowded apartment up the stairs, Leena Sadet, Saeed Sadet’s wife, says she remembers her mom’s blue burqa from her childhood, when Taliban law forced all women to leave their jobs and go outside only fully covered. “The same thing will happen if they are in power,” Leena Sadet says. “The women won’t work, and the girls will not go to school.” Mohammad Mahdi Sultani contributed to this report.
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Oregon Becomes Latest US State to Reintroduce Indoor Mask Mandate
Oregon Governor Kate Brown on Wednesday announced she was restoring a statewide indoor mask requirement for public settings as her state suffers from a record-breaking number of new coronavirus cases and hospitalizations, largely among unvaccinated individuals.The statewide mandate applies to all Oregon residents older than 5, regardless of vaccination status, and is intended to curb the spread of the more transmissible delta variant, which is threatening the state’s hospital capacity.“The harsh reality is that delta is a different virus. It has changed everything,” Brown said during a press briefing. “Modeling from the Oregon Health Authority and Oregon Health & Science University project that … without safety measures, we could be as many as 500 staffed hospital beds short of what we need to treat patients by September.”The mask mandate is set to go into effect on Friday. Brown also announced that all state executive branch employees would have to be fully vaccinated by either October 18 or six weeks after a vaccine has been granted full approval by the Food and Drug Administration.During the briefing, State Epidemiologist Dean Sidelinger emphasized that unvaccinated people posed the greatest threat to themselves and their community.Hospital beds filling up“Oregonians, sick with COVID, nearly all of them unvaccinated, are on the verge of overfilling our hospital beds, posing a critical threat to all Oregonians who need hospital care,” Sidelinger said.Oregon reported over 2,300 new coronavirus cases Tuesday and 635 coronavirus hospitalizations, both record-high numbers for the state. According to Brown, nearly 90% of Oregon’s intensive care unit beds are filled.FILE – A woman wearing a mask loads groceries into her car in Portland, Ore., May 21, 2021. As the federal government and many states eased rules on mask-wearing and business occupancy this year, some blue states largely stuck with them.The state ranks 12th in the nation for fully vaccinated residents, with 56% of the population fully vaccinated. About 50% of the entire U.S. population is fully vaccinated.“If you haven’t made the choice to get vaccinated yet, delta is the game changer that gives you a reason to reconsider,” said Pat Allen, the director of the Oregon Health Authority.Oregon joined Louisiana and Washington, D.C., in reinstating universal indoor mask requirements amid a national resurgence of the virus. The U.S. is averaging over 110,000 new COVID cases a day, up from a low of about 11,000 per day in June, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.Nevada recently introduced a modified indoor mask mandate that applies to residents in counties with “substantial or high transmission,” while Hawaii never eliminated its indoor mask requirement in the first place.The CDC in late July recommended that both vaccinated and unvaccinated people resume wearing masks indoors if they live in areas with “substantial or high transmission,” citing new data on the contagiousness of the delta variant.Rates high in most countiesAs of Monday, the CDC had labeled nearly 90% of all U.S. counties as having substantial and high transmission rates. The delta variant accounted for 93% of new cases.Six states — California, Connecticut, Illinois, New Mexico, New York and Washington — have taken a different approach, requiring only unvaccinated individuals to wear masks indoors in public settings.Despite the rapidly increasing national caseload and nonbinding CDC mask recommendations, seven states have gone in a direction opposite from Oregon by legally prohibiting local governments or schools from enacting mask mandates.These seven states are Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Montana, North Dakota and Texas. All are led by Republicans, who have generally defended the bans as protection against infringement on personal freedom.Bans against mask mandates are already facing legal challenges. Two judges in Texas have issued separate temporary stops to their governor’s executive order banning face-covering requirements in schools and government buildings. Lawsuits have also been filed against the bans in several states, including Florida and Arkansas.
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California to Require COVID Vaccinations for Teachers, School Staff
California will require that all teachers and school staff be vaccinated or undergo weekly COVID-19 testing, Governor Gavin Newsom announced Wednesday. No other state has enacted such a requirement.”We think this is the right thing to do, and we think this is a sustainable way to keeping our schools open and to address the number one anxiety that parents like myself have for young children,” said Newsom, who is facing a recall election.Newsom’s mandate comes as some large school districts in California have already enacted similar rules as the delta variant spreads in the nation’s most populous state.Health care, state workersRecently, Newsom also mandated that health care workers get vaccinated. They don’t have the option of being tested instead. State employees are also required to be vaccinated or face weekly testing.Meanwhile, two separate court decisions in Texas have granted local officials the authority to implement face mask mandates in defiance of Governor Greg Abbott’s order prohibiting local governments from issuing such initiatives.A district judge in Dallas County on Tuesday issued a temporary restraining order against the governor’s order, saying Texans “have and will continue to be damaged and injured by Governor Abbott’s conduct.”Clay Jenkins, the top Dallas County executive, had filed a lawsuit against Abbott’s executive order. Jenkins said Tuesday on Twitter that he would meet with county emergency officials in anticipation of issuing an order mandating mask wearing on Wednesday.Moments ago, I received a copy of The Hon. Tonya Parker’s order enjoining FILE – John Journey, 86, wearing a mask to the prevent the spread of COVID-19, listens to his team coach speak in the dugout before a 65-and-over league softball game, April 20, 2021, in Richardson, Texas.Abbott’s office has issued a statement defending his order, saying it is time for Texans to take “personal responsibility” when it comes to choosing to wear a mask.In Florida, the Broward County school board voted Tuesday to maintain its face mask mandate in defiance of Governor Ron DeSantis, who has threatened to withhold funding from school districts and withhold the salaries of local superintendents and school board members who go against his order banning such mandates.Different approachesThe governors of Oregon and Hawaii are taking different approaches and reimposing restrictions.Oregon Governor Kate Brown issued an executive order Wednesday mandating that everyone return to wearing face masks indoors, regardless of their vaccination status. And Governor David Ige of Hawaii issued an order limiting bars, restaurants and gyms to 50% capacity, with patrons required to wear masks at all times except when eating and drinking.Ige also ordered that all social gatherings be limited to no more than 10 people indoors and 25 people outdoors.
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