President Joe Biden will visit all three 9/11 memorial sites to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks and pay his respects to the nearly 3,000 people killed that day. Biden will visit ground zero in New York City, the Pentagon and the memorial outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where United Flight 93 was forced down, the White House said Saturday. First lady Jill Biden will accompany him.Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to Shanksville, Pennsylvania, for a separate event before joining the president at the Pentagon, the White House said. Harris will travel with her spouse, Doug Emhoff. Biden’s itinerary is similar to the one President Barack Obama followed in 2011 on the 10th anniversary of the attacks. Obama’s visit to New York City coincided with the opening of a memorial at the site where the two World Trade Center towers once stood. Next Saturday’s anniversary falls less than two weeks after the end of the nearly two-decade-long U.S. war in Afghanistan. The war was launched weeks after the 9/11 attacks to retaliate against the al-Qaida plotters and the Taliban, who provided them a haven. Biden has found support from the public for ending the conflict but has faced sharp criticism, even from allies, for the chaotic evacuation of U.S. troops and allied Afghans during the final two weeks of August. On Friday, Biden directed the declassification of certain documents related to the September 11 attacks in a gesture toward victims’ families who have long sought the records in hopes of implicating the Saudi government. The conflict between the government and the families over what classified information could be made public came became more open last month after many relatives, survivors and first responders said they would object to Biden’s participation in 9/11 memorial events if the documents remained classified.
…
Month: September 2021
Iran Calls on US to Drop ‘Its Addiction to Sanctions’
Iran urged the United States on Saturday to stop using sanctions against the Islamic republic and accused U.S. President Joe Biden of following the same “dead end” policies as his predecessor, Donald Trump. Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh made his remarks a day after the U.S. Treasury announced financial sanctions against four Iranians accused of planning the kidnapping in the U.S. of an American journalist of Iranian descent. “Washington must understand that it has no other choice but to abandon its addiction to sanctions and show respect, both in its statements and in its behavior, towards Iran,” Khatibzadeh said in a press release. Under Trump’s presidency, Washington unilaterally withdrew from the 2015 nuclear agreement between Tehran and major world powers. The multilateral deal offered Iran relief from sanctions in return for curbs on its nuclear program. It was torpedoed by Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from it in 2018. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, in his first TV interview since taking office last month, said on Saturday that trying to revive the deal “is on the government’s agenda, but not under pressure” from the West. “Several times the Americans and Europeans have tried to exert pressure to engage in dialogue, but in vain,” Raisi said in the interview broadcast on state television. Talks stalledBiden has said he wants to reintegrate Washington into the pact, but talks in Vienna that began in April have stalled since the ultraconservative Raisi won Iran’s presidential election in June. At the end of August, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused Biden’s administration of making the same demands as his predecessor in talks to revive the accord. And on Tuesday, Iran’s new foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, suggested that the Vienna talks would not resume for two or three months. Raisi said Saturday that “talks are on the agenda, but not talks for the sake of talks, or negotiations for the sake of negotiations.” “In these talks, we seek to obtain the lifting of oppressive sanctions,” he added. “We will not give in on the interests of the great Iranian nation.” Tehran is demanding all sanctions imposed or reimposed on it by the U.S. since 2017 be lifted. On Friday, the U.S. Treasury announced sanctions against “four Iranian intelligence operatives” it said were involved in a campaign against Iranian dissidents abroad. According to a U.S. federal indictment in mid-July, the intelligence officers tried in 2018 to force American-Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad’s Iran-based relatives to lure her to a third country to be arrested and taken to Iran to be jailed. When that failed, they allegedly hired U.S. private investigators to monitor her over the past two years. Khatibzadeh in July called the American charges “baseless and absurd,” referring to them as “Hollywood scenarios.”
…
Floating Dutch Cow Farm Aims to Curb Climate Impact
Among the cranes and containers of the port of Rotterdam is a surreal sight: a herd of cows peacefully feeding on board what calls itself the world’s first floating farm.In the low-lying Netherlands where land is scarce and climate change is a daily threat, the three-story glass and steel platform aims to show the “future of breeding”.The buoyant bovines live on the top floor, while their milk is turned into cheese, yogurt and butter on the middle level, and the cheese is matured at the bottom.”The world is under pressure,” says Minke van Wingerden, 60, who runs the farm with her husband Peter.”We want the farm to be as durable and self-sufficient as possible.”The cows are a sharp contrast to the huge ships and the smoke from the refineries of Europe’s biggest seaport, which accounts for 13.5 percent of the country’s emissions.With their floating farm, which opened in 2019, Peter and Minke say they wanted to “bring the countryside into the town”, boost consumer awareness and create agricultural space.The Dutch are no strangers to advanced farming methods, using a network of huge greenhouses in particular to become the world’s second biggest agricultural exporter after the United States.But that has come at a cost.The buoyant bovines live on the top floor, while their milk is turned into cheese, yogurt and butter on the middle level, and the cheese is matured at the bottom.’Moves with the tide’The Netherlands is one of Europe’s largest per capita emitters of climate change gases and faces a major problem with agricultural emissions, particularly in the dairy sector which produces large amounts of methane from cows.Those emissions in turn fuel the rising waters that threaten to swamp the country, a third of which lies below sea-level, and further reduce the land in one of the most densely populated nations on Earth.The floating farm therefore aims to keep its cows’ feet dry in both the long-term, by being sustainable, and the short-term, by, well, floating.”We are on the water, so the farm moves with the tide — we rise and fall up to two meters. So in case of flooding, we can continue to produce,” says Minke van Wingerden.In terms of sustainability, the farm’s cows are fed on a mixture of food including grapes from a foodbank, grain from a local brewery, and grass from local golf courses and from Rotterdam’s famed Feyenoord football club — saving on waste as well as the emissions that would be required to create commercial feed for the animals.Their manure is turned into garden pellets — a process that helps further cut emissions by reducing methane — and their urine is purified and recycled into drinking water for the cows, whose stable is lined with dozens of solar panels that produce enough electricity for the farm’s needs.’Cows don’t get seasick’The farm is run by a salaried farmer but the red and white cows, from the Dutch-German Meuse-Rhin-Yssel breed, are milked by robots.The cheeses, yogurts and pellets are sold at a roadside shop alongside fare from local producers.The products are also sold to restaurants in town by electric vehicles.”I was immediately seduced by the concept,” says Bram den Braber, 67, one of 40 volunteers at the farm, as he fills bottles of milk behind the counter of the store.”It’s not blood running through my veins, it’s milk.”The idea of the farm is also to make farming “more agreeable, interesting and sexy”, and not just to be environmentally friendly, says Minke van Wingerden.When she and her husband first approached port authorities with the idea to build a floating farm, they said “are you nuts?”, she recalls.But the farm is set to turn a profit for the first time at the end of 2021, with consumers apparently ready to pay the 1.80 euro ($2.12) a liter for milk produced there, compared to around one euro at a supermarket.They are also aiming to build a second floating farm to grow vegetables, and to export their idea, with a project already under way in the island nation of Singapore.Most importantly, while farming goes greener, the animals don’t.”No, the cows don’t get seasick,” says van Wingerden. “The water moves only a little bit, it’s like you were on a cruise ship.”
…
Hurricane Ida Evacuees Urged to Return to New Orleans
With power due back for almost all of New Orleans by next week, Mayor LaToya Cantrell strongly encouraged residents who evacuated because of Hurricane Ida to begin returning home. But outside the city, the prospects of recovery appeared bleaker, with no timeline on power restoration and homes and businesses in tatters.
Six days after Hurricane Ida made landfall, hard-hit parts of Louisiana were still struggling to restore any sense of normalcy. Even around New Orleans, a continued lack of power for most residents made a sultry stretch of summer hard to bear and added to woes in the aftermath of Ida. Louisiana authorities searched Friday for a man they said shot another man to death after they both waited in a long line to fill up at a gas station in suburban New Orleans.
Cantrell said the city would offer transportation starting Saturday to any resident looking to leave the city and get to a public shelter. It already began moving some residents out of senior homes.
At the Renaissance Place senior home Friday, dozens of residents lined up to get on minibuses equipped with wheelchair lifts after city officials said they determined conditions at the facility were not safe and evacuated it.
Reggie Brown, 68, was among those waiting to join fellow residents on a bus. He said residents, many in wheelchairs, have been stuck at the facility since Ida. Elevators stopped working three days ago and garbage was piling up inside, he said. The residents were being taken to a state-run shelter, the mayor’s office said.
“I’m getting on the last bus,” Brown said. “I’m able-bodied.”Occupants depart the Renaissance Place senior living apartments in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, in New Orleans, Louisiana, Sept. 3, 2021.A phone message for the company that manages the Renaissance site, HSI Management Inc., was not immediately returned.
But Cantrell also encouraged residents to return to the city as their power comes back, saying they could help the relief effort by taking in neighbors and family who were still in the dark. Only a small number of city residents had power back by Friday though almost all electricity should return by Wednesday, according to Entergy, the company that provides power to New Orleans and much of southeast Louisiana in the storm’s path.
“We are saying, you can come home,” Cantrell told a news conference.
The outlook was not as promising south and west of the city, where Ida’s fury fully struck. The sheriff’s office in Lafourche Parish cautioned returning residents about the difficult situation that awaited them — no power, no running water, little cellphone service and almost no gasoline.
Entergy offered no promises for when the lights will come back on in the parishes outside New Orleans, some of which were battered for hours by winds of 160 kph (100 mph) or more.
President Joe Biden arrived Friday to survey the damage in some of those spots, touring a neighborhood in LaPlace, a community between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain that suffered catastrophic wind and water damage that sheared off roofs and flooded homes.
“I promise we’re going to have your back,” Biden said at the outset of a briefing by officials.President Joe Biden talks with New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell as he arrives at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport in Kenner, Louisiana, Sept. 3, 2021, to tour damage caused by Hurricane Ida.
The president has also promised full federal support to the Northeast, where Ida’s remnants dumped record-breaking rain and killed at least 50 people from Virginia to Connecticut.
At least 14 deaths were blamed on the storm in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, including those of three nursing home residents who were evacuated along with hundreds of other seniors to a warehouse in Louisiana ahead of the hurricane. State health officials have launched an investigation into those deaths and a fourth one at the warehouse facility in Tangipahoa Parish, where they say conditions became unhealthy and unsafe.
The health department on Friday reported an additional death — a 59-year-old man who was poisoned by carbon monoxide from a generator that was believed to be running inside his home. Several deaths in the aftermath of the storm have been blamed on carbon monoxide poisoning, which can happen if generators are run improperly.
More than 800,000 homes and businesses remained without power Friday evening across southeast Louisiana, according to the Public Service Commission. That’s about 36% of all utility customers statewide, but it’s down from the peak of around 1.1 million after the storm arrived Sunday with top winds of 230 kph (150 mph). Ida is tied for the fifth-strongest hurricane ever to strike the mainland U.S.
…
With China More Assertive, Taiwan Mulls Bigger Defense Budget
Taiwan’s Cabinet is proposing to increase the military budget next year to develop and buy modern hardware as Chinese ships and aircraft continue to encroach on the island’s waters and airspace, keeping alive fears of a strike.Taiwan legislators have begun evaluating the Cabinet’s request to spend $17.07 billion next year for equipment such as fighter planes, guided missiles and drones. Of that total, $1.45 billion is for special purposes including fighter jets and $2.13 billion is for unspecified expenses.The ruling party-dominated parliament, or Legislative Yuan, is expected to review and approve the budget by year’s end.Military budget hikes are nothing new for Taiwan; this one would be a 5.6% increase over the 2021 allocation and come to the usual 2.3% of gross domestic product. The new budget is in response to a surge in Chinese activity in or near the Taiwanese air defense identification zone since mid-2020.Chinese military planes passed through a corner of Taiwan’s zone Monday, Wednesday and Friday of the week beginning Aug. 29, for example, the National Defense Ministry said through a social media channel. Four flew on Friday and in the past as many as 28 planes have traveled the same path in a single day.China and Taiwan have been separately ruled since the Chinese civil war of the 1940s, when Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Party retreated to the island after losing the mainland to Mao Zedong’s communists. China still claims sovereignty over Taiwan and has not renounced the use of force to capture it.About 80% of Taiwanese have told government opinion surveys since 2019 they oppose unifying with China and today’s Taiwan president, Tsai Ing-wen, takes a guarded view of any engagement with Beijing.“The positive aspect is that there’s an increase in [the] budget of spending in defense,” said Sean Su, an independent political analyst in Taiwan.“On the downside,” he said, “the question of whether it’s enough or not is one which no one can truly answer unless there’s an actual war.”If Taiwan’s parliament, accepts the budget as submitted on Tuesday, the air force will spend some of the money through 2025 on four U.S.-designed Sea Guardian drones that can increase its day-night surveillance capability, and to equip its existing F-16s with precision missiles, Taiwan’s government-funded Central News Agency said.The new hardware would fit into Taiwan’s development of asymmetric warfare, Su said. The term means fending off a more powerful enemy through unconventional tactics or weapons. China has the world’s third-strongest armed forces, according to the database GlobalFirePower.com. The database ranks Taiwan No. 22.Some Chinese planes fly over Taiwan’s zone in a formation that would enable an attack from the front, rear and both sides. Its movements are raising fears among Taiwanese of an eventual strike.Increased China Warplane Activity Unnerves TaiwanThe Ministry of National Defense in Taipei says a total 27 Chinese aircraft crossed into Taiwanese airspace Friday and SaturdayLast September, China held a live-fire naval exercise in the strait that divides its mainland from Taiwan and its first aircraft carrier has passed through the same waterway.Taiwan will need more U.S.-made F-16s, particularly advanced Viper models, and smart bombs, said Chen Yi-fan, assistant professor of diplomacy and international relations at Tamkang University in Taiwan. It must follow up the acquisitions with recruitment and training, he added.“Without sufficient manpower and qualified training, these advanced weapons cannot operate by themselves,” Chen said.Taiwan-based defense contractors are also developing new lines of military planes and a submarine.Taiwan’s proposed defense budget is “vital to safeguarding national security,” the Central News Agency said, quoting National Defense Ministry spokesperson Shih Shun-wen. China’s ability to “paralyze Taiwan’s air defense, sea control, and counter-warfare systems poses a huge threat to the country’s military,” the news agency added, citing the ministry.The ministry may privately worry that China is preparing to strike, said Alexander Huang, chairman of a military strategy research foundation in Taipei.“We don’t know whether the increased budget is for inventory or is based on an assessment that the possible conflict is not too far away,” Huang said.
…
Extremist Was Released From New Zealand Jail Despite Fears
New Zealand authorities imprisoned a man inspired by the Islamic State group for three years after catching him with a hunting knife and extremist videos — but at a certain point, despite grave fears he would attack others, they say they could do nothing more to keep him behind bars.So for 53 days from July, police tracked the man’s every move, an operation that involved some 30 officers working around the clock. Their fears were borne out Friday when the man walked into an Auckland supermarket, grabbed a kitchen knife from a store shelf and stabbed six people, critically injuring three. A seventh person was also slightly injured by the knife in the melee.Undercover officers monitoring the man from just outside the supermarket sprang into action when they saw shoppers running and heard shouting, police said, and shot him dead within a couple of minutes of him beginning his attack.But the attack has highlighted deficiencies in New Zealand’s anti-terror laws, which experts say are too focused on punishing actions and inadequate for dealing with plots before they are carried out. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said lawmakers were close to filling some of those legislative holes when the attack occurred. She vowed law changes by the end of the month.Authorities have not yet released the man’s name. They say he was a Sri Lankan national who arrived in New Zealand 10 years ago, at the age of 22, on a student visa. He was first noticed by police in 2016 when he started posting support for terror attacks and violent extremism on Facebook.Police twice confronted him but he kept on posting. In 2017, they arrested him at Auckland Airport. He was headed for Syria, authorities say, presumably to join the Islamic State insurgency. Police searches found he had a hunting knife and some banned propaganda material, and he was later released on bail. In 2018, he bought another knife, and police found two Islamic State videos.The man spent the next three years in jail after pleading guilty to various crimes and for breaching bail. On new charges in May, a jury found the man guilty on two counts of possessing objectionable videos, both of which showed Islamic State group imagery, including the group’s flag and a man in a black balaclava holding a semiautomatic weapon.However, the videos didn’t show violent murders like some Islamic State videos and weren’t classified as the worst kind of illicit material. High Court Judge Sally Fitzgerald described the contents as religious hymns sung in Arabic. She said the videos described obtaining martyrdom on the battlefield by being killed for God’s cause.A court report warned the man had the motivation and means to commit violent acts in the community and posed a high risk. It described him as harboring extreme attitudes, living an isolated lifestyle, and having a sense of entitlement.But the judge decided to release the man, sentencing him to a year’s supervision at an Auckland mosque, where a leader had confirmed his willingness to help and support the man on his release.The judge said she rejected arguments the man had simply stumbled on the videos and was trying to improve his Arabic. She said an aggravating factor was that he was on bail for earlier, similar offenses and had tried to delete his internet browser history.Fitzgerald noted the extreme concerns of police, saying she didn’t know if they were right, but “I sincerely hope they are not.”The judge also banned the man from owning any devices that could access the internet, unless approved in writing by a probation officer, and ordered that he provide access to any social media accounts he held.“I am of the view that the risk of you reoffending in a similar way to the charges upon which you were convicted remains high,” the judge concluded. “Your rehabilitation is accordingly key.”Two months later, the man took a train from the Auckland mosque where he was living to the Countdown supermarket in the suburb of Glen Eden, tailed at a distance by police. Then he unleashed an attack that shocked a nation.
…
Thai PM Prayuth Wins Confidence Vote Amid Criticism on Virus
Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha won votes of confidence in Parliament on Saturday, helping to steady his government after it had come under intense criticism for bungling its response to the coronavirus pandemic.Prayuth still faces pressure from street protests that have been demanding he step down. Pro-democracy activists opposing his policies have been seeking his resignation since last year and stepped up their efforts in recent weeks.Major, though not huge, rallies were held this past week in defiance of limits on public gatherings as a virus-fighting measure, and another was scheduled for later Saturday, with organizers vowing to continue until he gets out of office.Arriving at Parliament ahead of the voting on the censure motions against him and five members of his Cabinet, Prayuth had declared to reporters: “I am confident every day.” Asked if there will be a Cabinet reshuffle soon, he said, “It’s not time yet.”Prayuth prevailed by a comfortable margin in the House of Representatives, with support from 264 lawmakers showing only a few defections from the 271 members of his ruling coalition, despite intense rumors of a plot among them to force him out.There were 208 votes in support of the motion, 34 short of the 242 simple majority of the 482 total members the opposition needed to succeed.During four previous days of debate, little attention had been given to the details of the opposition’s harsh accusations that Prayuth’s administration had botched the coronavirus response, countenanced corruption and mismanaged the economy.Thai media were instead abuzz with rumors that the secretary-general of the ruling, military-backed Palang Pracharath party, which put together the coalition government that named Prayuth prime minister two years ago, was leading the effort to unseat him and pull the main opposition Pheu Thai party into the coalition.There was no public confirmation of the rumors, which by Thursday included an accusation that Prayuth’s side met lawmakers to pay them large sums to ensure their support, an accusation he flatly denied. “Everyone came to greet me. As I hardly met them, they just came to give me the support. I would not do such a nonsense thing (paying money),” he said.Prayuth and his government survived two other no-confidence debates since the 2019 general election. But he was seen as vulnerable now due to his government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis, particularly its failure to secure timely and adequate supplies of COVID-19 vaccines.He faced no such challenges when he was junta chief and prime minister with unrestrained powers in a military regime installed after he staged a coup as army commander in 2014, toppling an elected government.The other Cabinet members targeted with no-confidence motions also easily survived Saturday’s votes. They were Deputy Prime Minister and Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul and Transport Minister Saksayam Chidchob from the Bhumjai Thai Party, Labor Minister Suchat Chomklin and Digital Economy Minister Chaiwut Thanakamanusorn from Palang Pracharath, and Agriculture Minister Chalermchai Sri-on from the Democrat Party.
…
Teens Shock Defending Champ Osaka, No. 3 Tsitsipas at US Open
Defending champion Naomi Osaka of Japan and Greek third seed Stefanos Tsitsipas were both ousted from the US Open by 18-year-olds in epic stunners on Friday at Arthur Ashe Stadium.Four-time Grand Slam champion Osaka was shocked by Canadian left-hander Leylah Fernandez 5-7, 7-6 (7/2), 6-4 after Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz upset French Open runner-up Tsitsipas 6-3, 4-6, 7-6 (7/2), 0-6, 7-6 (7/5).”Honestly the Alcaraz match gave me motivation and gave me the energy to do the same,” Fernandez said. “I saw his match and I saw the way he won and I’m like ‘I’m going to do that next now.'”Shock followed shock as defending champion Osaka, in a tearful news conference after the loss, announced she was taking a break from playing tennis.”I honestly don’t know when I’m going to play my next tennis match,” Osaka said, wiping away tears. “I think I’m going to take a break from playing for a while.”Osaka, who had won her prior 16 Grand Slam matches, was foiled in a bid for her third U.S. Open crown in four years and the first back-to-back titles since Serena Williams in 2014.Alcaraz is the youngest man in the US Open fourth round since 17-year-old American Michael Chang in 1989 and at any Slam since Ukraine’s Andrei Medvedev in the 1992 French Open.”Incredible. Incredible feeling for me,” Alcaraz said. “This victory means a lot to me. It’s the best match of my career, the best win.”To beat Stefanos Tsitsipas is a dream come true and to win here is even more special for me.”Osaka had a major meltdown on court during the final moments of the second set after she was unable to hold serve for the victory.”From the very beginning, right before the match, I knew I was able to win,” Fernandez said. “Thanks to New York fans. They helped me get the win.”Osaka, who hadn’t played since Monday thanks to a second-round walkover, took the first set in 37 minutes on her sixth ace.But Osaka was broken in the 12th game of the second set, an errant forehand sending her to a tiebreaker.That began a sequence of repeated racquet smashing by Osaka as she was humbled in the tiebreak to force a third set.”I wanted to stay on court a little longer,” Fernandez said. “One hour was just not enough for me.”Fernandez, the daughter of an Ecuadoran father and Filipino-Canadian mother who turns 19 on Monday, hit a forehand winner to break Osaka to start the third set.Osaka saved two break points to hold in the third game and from there both held to the finish, which came after two hours and four minutes, sending Fernandez against German 16th seed Angelique Kerber in her first Grand Slam fourth round appearance.”It’ll be a battle,” Fernandez said. “We’re just going to have fun. I’ll put on a show like I did tonight.”Fernandez, who won her first WTA title in March at Monterrey, had never beaten so high-ranked a rival as third-rated Osaka and the same was true for Alcaraz when he sent home the men’s world No. 3.’It’s kind of bitter’Alcaraz became the youngest man to beat a top-3 player at the US Open since the rankings began in 1973.World number 55 Alcaraz next faces 141st-ranked German qualifier Peter Gojowczyk, who ousted Swiss Henri Laaksonen 3-6, 6-3, 6-1, 6-4.Alcaraz won his first ATP title at Umag in July, becoming the tour’s youngest champion since 18-year-old Kei Nishikori in 2008 at Delray Beach.The teen nicknamed “Next Nadal” was the crowd darling at Arthur Ashe Stadium, roars erupting when he blasted 33 winners past Tsitsipas.”Without this crowd I haven’t the possibility to win the match,” Alcaraz said. “I was down at the beginning of the fourth set so thank you to the crowd for pushing me up in the fifth.”Tsitsipas opened the final tie-break with an ace but Alcaraz jumped ahead 5-2 and 6-3 before finishing matters after four hours and seven minutes with a forehand winner. He collapsed to the court on his back to celebrate.”It’s one of those matches where you feel like you’re in control and it doesn’t go your way,” Tsitsipas said. “It’s kind of bitter.”Russian second seed Daniil Medvedev, the 2019 US Open and 2021 Australian Open runner-up, beat Spain’s 74th-ranked Pablo Andujar 6-0, 6-4, 6-3. He’s next face British 24th seed Daniel Evans.
…
Biden Tours Hurricane-Hit Louisiana to Assess Damage
U.S. President Joe Biden went Friday to Louisiana to assess the heavy damage Hurricane Ida inflicted on the southern part of the state before its remnants carved a path of destruction north through the eastern part of the country.In LaPlace, local officials briefed the president about the storm that left about 1 million people without power and 600,000 without water.“I promise we’re going to have your back,” Biden said at the outset of the briefing, which included Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards.”This storm has been incredible, not only here but all over the East Coast,” Biden said during the meeting. “I know you’ve got to be frustrated about the restoration of power.”Later, the president walked the streets of one neighborhood, where he told residents, “I know you’re hurting,” and posed with them for selfies.Many of the people he met, he said, didn’t know that the federal government had sent $100 million directly to individuals in the state in $500 checks, The Associated Press said, because they didn’t have cellphone service.Biden met with Edwards, a Democrat, and Senator Bill Cassidy and House Whip Steve Scalise, both Republicans from Louisiana, and local officials, including Lafourche Parish President Archie Chaisson.The president also flew over hard-hit areas, including New Orleans and Lafourche Parish, where Chaisson said one-fourth of the homes in his community of 100,000 people had been destroyed or heavily damaged.The U.S. Gulf Coast region first hit by Ida is a center of the nation’s oil production and refining infrastructure. Nine refineries were knocked offline by Ida. Two of Louisiana’s biggest refineries began making gasoline and other fuels Friday after power was restored.Five refineries could be working again within two weeks, Robert Campbell, head of oil products research at consultancy Energy Aspects, told Reuters. Getting oil flowing again will take longer as ports are repaired and crews return to offshore facilities, he added.Ida came ashore Sunday in Louisiana as a Category 4 hurricane, the fifth strongest to hit the U.S., killing at least nine people before traveling north through the Eastern U.S., triggering torrential rains and widespread flooding Wednesday in New York, New Jersey and surrounding areas.Officials of five Northeastern U.S. states on Friday said at least 49 people died as a result of flash flooding caused by remnants of Hurricane Ida. At least 25 people died in New Jersey and at least six are missing, Governor Phil Murphy said. At least 11 died in New York City, where police were going door to door looking for more victims. More deaths were reported in New York state, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Connecticut.The National Weather Service had warned of flash flooding, but the intensity of the storm took many by surprise.Biden has called extreme storms and wildfires burning in the West a reminder that climate change is here, and he urged Congress to pass his infrastructure bill, which contains measures to address it.Some information in this report was provided by The Associated Press and Reuters.
…
Mali Police March on Prison, Free Commander Held in Protest Deaths Inquiry
A special forces commander in Mali was freed on Friday after angry police officers marched to the prison where he was detained for allegedly using brute force to quash deadly protests last year. The head of the police counterterrorism unit, Oumar Samake, had been held in the Sahel state over lethal skirmishes between security forces and opponents of ex-President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita. Anti-Keita protests rocked Mali last year and eventually culminated in the president’s ouster in a military coup. One such protest on July 10, 2020, sparked several days of deadly clashes with security forces. Mali’s political opposition said at the time that 23 people were killed during the unrest. The United Nations reported that 14 protesters were killed, including two children. FILE – Protesters demand the resignation of Mali’s President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita at Independence Square in Bamako, Mali, June 5, 2020.An investigation was opened into the killings in December 2020. Police special-forces commander Samake was detained Friday for his alleged role in the violence, a senior legal official told AFP. But the move infuriated police officers, some of whom marched on the prison in the capital, Bamako, where he was held. Prison guard Yacouba Toure told AFP that large numbers of well-armed policemen turned up at the jail. “We did not resist,” he said, adding that police left with Samake “without incident.” A justice ministry official, who requested anonymity, said the government decided to free Samake “for the sake of peace.” “This is not a court decision,” the official said, adding that the investigation into Samake would continue. The dramatic events underscored the sensitivity of such investigations in chronically unstable Mali. The country’s military deposed Keita in August 2020 after weeks of protests fueled by grievances over alleged corruption and the president’s inability to stop the long-running jihadist conflict. Army officers then installed a civilian-led interim government to steer Mali back toward democratic rule. But military strongman Colonel Assimi Goita deposed these civilian leaders in May in a second coup. Goita has pledged to restore civilian rule and stage elections in February next year. However, there are doubts about whether the government will be able to hold elections within such a short time frame. Mali has been struggling to quell a brutal jihadist insurgency, which emerged in 2012 and left swaths of the vast nation outside government control.
…
Biden Moves to Declassify Documents About September 11 Attacks
President Joe Biden signed an executive order Friday directing the declassification of certain documents related to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a supportive gesture to victims’ families who have long sought the records in hopes of implicating the Saudi government.The order, coming little more than a week before the 20th anniversary of the attacks, is a significant moment in a yearslong tussle between the government and the families over what classified information about the run-up to the attacks could be made public.That conflict was on display last month when 1,800 relatives, survivors and first responders came out against Biden’s participation in 9/11 memorial events if the documents remained classified.”The significant events in question occurred two decades ago or longer, and they concern a tragic moment that continues to resonate in American history and in the lives of so many Americans,” the executive order states. “It is therefore critical to ensure that the United States Government maximizes transparency, relying on classification only when narrowly tailored and necessary.”The order directs the Justice Department and other executive branch agencies to begin a declassification review and requires that declassified documents be released over the next six months.Still, the practical impact of the executive order and any new documents it might yield was not immediately clear. Past investigations have outlined ties between Saudi nationals and some of the airplane hijackers but have not established the government was directly involved.Saudi support allegedA long-running lawsuit in federal court in New York alleges that Saudi officials provided significant support to some of the hijackers before the attacks and aims to hold the kingdom accountable. The Saudi government has denied any connection to the attacks.The families have long asserted that Saudi officials played more of a direct role than the U.S. government has said publicly, citing in part the fact that the first two hijackers to arrive in the U.S. ahead of the attack were welcomed and assisted by a Saudi diplomat. They have long accused the government of stonewalling their demands for documents, and on Thursday, they urged the Justice Department’s inspector general to investigate the FBI’s apparent inability to locate a photograph, video and other records they seek.The Justice Department revealed last month that the FBI had recently concluded an investigation examining certain 9/11 hijackers and potential co-conspirators, and that it would now work to see if it could share information that it had previously determined could not be disclosed.Under the terms of the executive order, the FBI must complete by September 11 its declassification review of documents from that probe, which it has referred to as the “Subfile Investigation.”Over the next six months, the order states, the government should review for declassification purposes all interview reports, documents with investigative findings, any phone and banking records, and other information seen as potentially relevant to the attacks.
…
Arizona Man Known as ‘QAnon Shaman’ Pleads Guilty to Felony in Capitol Riot
An Arizona man who sported face paint, no shirt and a furry hat with horns when he joined the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6 pleaded guilty Friday to a felony charge and wants to be released from jail while he awaits sentencing. Jacob Chansley, who was widely photographed in the Senate chamber with a flagpole topped with a spear, could face 41 to 51 months in prison under sentencing guidelines, a prosecutor said. The man who called himself “QAnon Shaman” has been jailed for nearly eight months since his arrest. Before entering the plea, Chansley was found by a judge to be mentally competent after having been transferred to a Colorado facility for a mental health evaluation. His lawyer Albert Watkins said the solitary confinement that Chansley faced for most of his time in jail has had an adverse effect on his mental health and that his time in Colorado helped him regain his sharpness. “I am very appreciative for the court’s willingness to have my mental vulnerabilities examined,” Chansley said before pleading guilty to a charge of obstructing an official proceeding. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth is considering Chansley’s request to be released from jail while he awaits sentencing, which is set for November 17. FILE – A mob of supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump fight with members of law enforcement at a door they broke open as they storm the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington. January 6, 2021.Chansley was among the first wave of pro-Trump rioters to force its way into the Capitol building. He yelled into a bullhorn as officers tried to control the crowd, posed for photos, profanely referred to then-Vice President Mike Pence as a traitor while in the Senate. He wrote a note to Pence saying, “It’s only a matter of time, justice is coming.” He also made a social media post in November in which he promoted hangings for traitors. The image of Chansley with his face painted like the American flag, wearing a bear skin head dress and looking as if he were howling was one of the first striking images to emerge from the riot. Chansley is among roughly 600 people charged in the riot that forced lawmakers into hiding as they were meeting to certify President Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory. Fifty others have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanor charges of demonstrating in the Capitol. Only one defendant who pleaded guilty to a felony charge has received punishment so far. Paul Hodgkins, a crane operator from Florida who breached the U.S. Senate chamber carrying a Trump campaign flag, was sentenced in July to eight months in prison after pleading guilty to obstructing an official proceeding. Chansley’s lawyer said his client has since repudiated the QAnon movement and asked that there be no more references to his past affiliations with the movement. The man had long been a fixture at Trump rallies. Two months before the riot, he appeared in costume and carried a QAnon sign at a protest alongside other Trump supporters outside an election office in Phoenix where votes were being counted. FILE – Jacob Anthony Chansley, who also goes by the name Jake Angeli, a QAnon follower, speaks to supporters of then-President Donald Trump outside of the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office, in Phoenix, Nov. 5, 2020.His attorney has said Chansley was previously “horrendously smitten” by Trump and believed like other rioters that Trump called him to the Capitol, but later felt betrayed after Trump’s refusal to grant Chansley and others who participated in the insurrection a pardon. After spending his first month in jail, Chansley said he re-evaluated his life, expressed regret for having stormed the building and apologized for causing fear in others. Chansley twice quit eating while in jail and lost 20 pounds (9 kilograms) until authorities gave him organic food. Watkins has characterized the spear Chansley carried as an ornament, disputed that his client’s note to Pence was threatening and claimed Chansley was in the third wave of rioters into the Capitol. But the judge said video shows Chansley, who entered the Capitol through a doorway as rioters smashed nearby windows, “quite literally spearheaded” the rush into the building.
…
US Sanctions Iranians Over Alleged Plot to Kidnap NY-based Journalist
The United States has sanctioned four Iranian intelligence operatives behind a failed plot to kidnap a U.S. journalist and human rights activist, the U.S. Treasury Department said Friday.The sanctions come after U.S. prosecutors in July charged the four with plotting to kidnap the New York-based journalist who was critical of Tehran, whom Reuters previously confirmed was Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 12 MB480p | 17 MB540p | 22 MB720p | 43 MB1080p | 88 MBOriginal | 107 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioVOA Persian TV Host Target of Foiled Iranian Kidnap PlotIran has called the alleged plot “baseless.””The Iranian government’s kidnapping plot is another example of its continued attempt to silence critical voices, wherever they may be,” said Andrea Gacki, head of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. “Targeting dissidents abroad demonstrates that the government’s repression extends far beyond Iran’s borders.”The sanctions block all property of the four Iranians in the United States or in U.S. control and prohibits any transactions between them and U.S. citizens. Other non-Americans who conduct certain transactions with the four could also be subjected to U.S. sanctions, the department added.Those sanctioned include senior Iran-based intelligence official Alireza Shahvaroghi Farahani as well as Iranian intelligence operatives Mahmoud Khazein, Kiya Sadeghi and Omid Noori, Treasury said.
…
How Taliban’s Win Might Influence Radical Muslims in Southeast Asia
The Taliban victory in Afghanistan could inspire radical Muslim groups in Southeast Asia to take up arms once more against their own governments, analysts say, and officials are on alert for potential violence.Scholars say Muslim rebel fronts, such as the Philippine-based Abu Sayyaf, a violent rebel organization known for kidnapping tourists, and the Indonesian militant group Jemaah Islamiyah, a suspected plotter of the deadly Bali bombings of 2002, will feel empowered by the August 15 ascent of the Taliban to carry out localized attacks such as bombings.”Taliban or no Taliban, we have always considered local extremism as a big concern,” Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana told the Philippine News Agency on August 27. He noted agreements with Indonesia and Malaysia to share information and protect their sea borders.Media outlets quote Indonesian officials as saying they, too, are on guard, and a counterterrorism police detachment is monitoring social media for any clues. Indonesia and Malaysia are predominantly Muslim countries. Many in the southern part of the Philippines are Muslim as well.FILE – Police escort a suspected militant at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, Indonesia, March 18, 2021. Suspected militants arrested in raids at that time were believed to be connected to Jemaah Islamiyah extremists.Al-Qaida’s backingExtremist groups advocate Muslim independent states in Southeast Asia, a region of 660 million people that includes several key U.S. allies. Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah, among others, have been backed by al-Qaida, a terrorist organization that the Taliban once allowed to shelter in Afghanistan, according to Southeast Asia scholars.“In terms of kinship and solidarity for these groups, there is a degree of support,” said Enrico Cau, Southeast Asia specialist with the Taiwan Strategy Research Association, referring to the Taliban.“Although the Taliban doesn’t have a direct influence in the region, of course they exert a certain amount of indirect influence, which can be capitalized by the groups that are actually present in the region like al-Qaida or Abu Sayyaf,” Cau told VOA. Al-Qaida has helped rebels before in Indonesia and the Philippines.FILE – Muslims pray spaced apart to help curb the spread of coronavirus outbreak during an Eid al-Fitr prayer marking the end of Ramadan at Al Akbar mosque in Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia, May 13, 2021.Mainstream Muslims in Malaysia worry about how the Taliban will treat Afghan women, said Ibrahim Suffian, program director with the polling group Merdeka Center in Kuala Lumpur. Women throughout Muslim Southeast Asia are able to work and attend school.Monitoring developmentsRadical Muslims in Malaysia have “applauded” the Taliban’s victory, though, and the government of the largely Muslim country will pay close attention to any cross-border influence of Afghanistan’s new leadership, Suffian said.“I’m sure they’re monitoring what’s happening,” he said. “I think there is a long-term concern that this will inspire more radicalized conservative types … to study religion in Pakistan and parts of India, so I think that has a long-term effect on the Muslim community here.”Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines still have more control over local extremists than did the Afghan government that was deposed last month, Cau said. The Philippines would even allow entry to Afghans fleeing from fear of persecution, a presidential office spokesman in Manila said.About 20 Muslim rebel groups still operate in the southern Philippines, a region known for five decades of periodic violence and 120,000 deaths, though the formation of a Muslim autonomous region in 2018 has eased some of that tension.
…
Amnesty International: South Sudan Facing ‘New Wave of Repression’
South Sudan is witnessing a “new wave of repression”, global rights group Amnesty International warned Friday, with many activists now in hiding after a string of arrests in the conflict-wracked country.The world’s newest nation has suffered from chronic instability since independence in 2011, with a coalition of civil society groups urging the government to step down, saying they have “had enough”.The authorities have taken a tough line against such demands in recent weeks, arresting eight activists as well as detaining three journalists and two employees of a pro-democracy non-profit, according to rights groups.”We are witnessing a new wave of repression emerging in South Sudan targeting the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly,” said Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International’s regional director for East and Southern Africa.The clampdown followed a declaration last month by the People’s Coalition for Civil Action (PCCA) calling for a peaceful public uprising. The PCCA had urged the public to join its protest on Monday in the capital Juba but the city fell silent as the authorities branded the demonstration “illegal” and deployed heavily-armed security forces to monitor the streets for any sign of opposition.”Peaceful protests must be facilitated rather than cracked down upon or prevented with arrests, harassment, heavy security deployment or any other punitive measures,” Muchena said in a statement.The rights group noted that many activists had faced harassment since the aborted demonstration, “with some suspecting they were being surveilled by security forces”. The authorities have also shut down a radio station and a think tank in connection with the protests.’Undisguised hostility’Media rights group Reporters Without Borders, known by its French acronym RSF, on Friday condemned the closure of the radio station and called for “an immediate end to the harassment of South Sudanese reporters”.”The undisguised hostility of the authorities towards the media highlights how difficult it is for journalists to cover politics in South Sudan, where at least ten have been killed since 2014,” said Arnaud Froger, the head of RSF’s Africa desk.South Sudan is ranked 139th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2021 World Press Freedom Index.In a statement released on Friday, the United States, the European Union, Britain and Norway urged the South Sudan government to protect “the rights of citizens… to express their views in a peaceful manner, without fear of arrest”.Since achieving independence from Sudan in 2011, the young nation has been in the throes of a chronic economic and political crisis, and is struggling to recover from the aftermath of a five-year civil war that left nearly 400,000 people dead.Although a 2018 cease-fire and power-sharing deal between President Salva Kiir and his deputy Riek Machar still largely holds, it is being sorely tested, with little progress made in fulfilling the terms of the peace process.The PCCA — a broad-based coalition of activists, academics, lawyers and former government officials — has described the current regime as “a bankrupt political system that has become so dangerous and has subjected our people to immense suffering.”
…
Ho Chi Minh City Could Lift Lockdown, End ‘Zero COVID-19’ Policy
Vietnam’s coronavirus epicenter Ho Chi Minh City, which has kept residents confined at home under lockdown, is considering reopening economic activity from September 15, shifting from a “zero COVID-19” strategy to a policy of living with the virus. The city of 9 million people is targeting a phased reopening and the full vaccination of its citizens by the end of this year, according to the draft seen by Reuters, which has yet to be endorsed. Ho Chi Minh City last month deployed troops to enforce its lockdown and prohibited residents from leaving their homes to slow a spiraling rate of deaths. Just 3% of Vietnam’s 98 million population has been fully vaccinated. Vietnam’s biggest city, a business hub flanked by industrialized provinces, aims to “promote economic recovery … and move towards living with COVID-19,” the draft proposal said. FILE – A medical specialist wearing protective suits takes a swab sample to test for COVID-19 from a woman at a military base in southern Mekong delta Dong Thap province, Vietnam, August 8, 2020.The reopening would be gradual, and low-interest loans and tax cuts would be offered to affected firms, it said. Ho Chi Minh City alone has recorded 241,110 coronavirus infections and 9,974 deaths, representing half of the country’s cases and 80% of its fatalities. The vast majority of those have come in recent months, ending hopes that Vietnam could continue to achieve success it showed in 2020, when aggressive contact tracing and quaratining led to one of the world’s best COVID-19 containment records. The ministry of health on Friday reported 14,922 coronavirus infections, a record daily increase, raising its caseload to 501,649 with 12,476 deaths. Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on Wednesday warned Vietnam could be facing a lengthy coronavirus battle and cannot rely on lockdown and quarantines indefinitely. During a visit to a smartphone factory of Samsung Electronics in the northern province of Thai Nguyen on Friday, Chinh urged the company to help Vietnam procure vaccines from South Korea and to maintain its long-term investment in Vietnam. FILE – Medical workers in protective suits stand outside a quarantined building amid the COVID-19 outbreak in Hanoi, Vietnam, January 29, 2021.Foreign firms operating in the country, including Samsung “can put their trust in Vietnam’s efforts in tackling the pandemic,” Chinh said. The health ministry on Friday called on recovered COVID-19 patients to help the city battle the epidemic. In capital Hanoi, where dozens of new cases per day have been recorded in recent weeks, authorities will extend strict lockdown in most parts of the city beyond September 6 and will conduct 1 million tests from now through the end of Sunday.
…
Liberian Newspaper Receives Court Summons Over Reporting
A judge in Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, has ordered the arrest of a newspaper’s managers this week after FrontPage Africa allegedly failed to respond to a summons.The paper’s publisher and editor-in-chief, Rodney Sieh, told VOA that the summons was delivered Monday when no one was at the paper’s offices, and that it gave managers only 90 minutes’ notice that they were due to meet with a judge.The summons relates to the investigative outlet’s coverage of former defense minister Brownie Samukai’s conviction in a corruption case. A Supreme Court last month upheld a lower court’s verdict that found Samukai guilty of embezzling millions from the pension fund of Liberia’s armed forces.Circuit court judge Ousman Feika alleges that FrontPage Africa incorrectly reported his role in presiding over the case. “I think (Feika’s) issue was the initial case was submitted by his predecessor. That was the only discrepancy. But we did not print any false article against the judge,” Sieh told VOA.Liberia’s judiciary did not respond to a request for comment sent through its web portal. An email sent to the address listed on its website was returned as undeliverable.Sieh said that the judge wanted FrontPage Africa’s managers to meet with him to explain their coverage of the trial. Because of pandemic restrictions, the paper’s staff currently work from home. The first they heard of the summons was when they received the arrest order, Sieh said.“The only person (in) the office was the security,” Sieh said, adding that the time the meeting was scheduled made it “nearly impossible for anyone to appear in court.”“I think the judge was very excessive in this decision to have us arrested,” he said. The publisher added that the paper has not arranged legal representation because it has still not officially received the summons.In a letter to its readers, FrontPage Africa pleaded with Liberia’s chief justice “to ensure that the judicial branch use its power for those who need it the most, and not to muzzle, intimidate or instill fears in members of the Fourth Estate.”Media rights organizations criticized the court order. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said on social media it was dismayed by the order to arrest the management, and called on the judge to focus on criminals, not journalists who are exposing corruption.#Liberia: @CPJAfrica is dismayed that a court in #Monrovia today ordered that the management of @FPAfrica be arrested for their alleged failure to sign a summons to appear in court. https://t.co/vgWmU7H6tm— CPJ Africa (@CPJAfrica) August 30, 2021Liberia has a relatively stable media freedom record. The country ranks 98 out of 180 countries, where 1 is freest on the index published by Reporters Without Borders.The media watchdog has noted that Liberia moved to decriminalize defamation, but that some outlets, including FrontPage Africa, face legal harassment over investigative reporting.This story originated in VOA’s English to Africa Service.
…
‘Very Brutal’: In Ethiopia, Tigray Forces Accused of Abuses
As they bring war to other parts of Ethiopia, resurgent Tigray fighters face growing allegations that they are retaliating for the abuses their people suffered back home.In interviews with The Associated Press, more than a dozen witnesses offered the most widespread descriptions yet of Tigray forces striking communities and a religious site with artillery, killing civilians, looting health centers and schools and sending hundreds of thousands of people fleeing in the past two months.In the town of Nefas Mewucha in the Amhara region, a hospital’s medical equipment was smashed. The fighters looted medicines and other supplies, leaving more than a dozen patients to die.”It is a lie that they are not targeting civilians and infrastructures,” hospital manager Birhanu Mulu told the AP. He said his team had to transfer some 400 patients elsewhere for care. “Everyone can come and witness the destruction that they caused.”The war that began last November was confined at first to Ethiopia’s sealed-off northern Tigray region. Accounts of atrocities often emerged long after they occurred: Tigrayans described gang-rapes, massacres and forced starvation by federal forces and their allies from Amhara and neighboring Eritrea.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
New volunteer Mekdess Muluneh Asayehegn, right, and others receive training to become potential reinforcements for pro-government militias or military forces, in a school courtyard in Gondar, in the Amhara region of northern Ethiopia Aug. 24, 2021.But the consequences of the call to war are already coming home.”As we came here, there were lots of dead bodies (of defense forces and civilians) along the way,” said Khadija Firdu, who fled the advancing Tigray forces to a muddy camp for displaced people in Debark. “Even as we entered Debark, we stepped on a dead body. We thought it was the trunk of a tree. It was dark. We came here crying.”It is not clear how many people in Amhara have been killed; claims by the warring sides cannot be verified immediately. Each has accused the other of lying or carrying out atrocities against supporters.Shaken, the survivors are left to count bodies.In the town of Debre Tabor, Getasew Anteneh said he watched as Tigray forces shelled and destroyed a home, killing six people.Getasew helped carry away the dead. “I believe it was a deliberate revenge attack, and civilians are suffering.”In recent interviews with the AP, the spokesman for the Tigray forces Getachew Reda said they are avoiding civilian casualties. “They shouldn’t be scared,” he said last month. “Wherever we go in Amhara, people are extending a very warm welcome.”He did not respond to the AP about the new witness accounts, but tweeted in response to USAID that “we cannot vouch for every unacceptable behavior of off-grid fighters in such matters.”The Tigray forces say their offensive is an attempt to break the months-long blockade of their region of some 6 million people, as an estimated 400,000 face famine conditions in the world’s worst hunger crisis in a decade. The situation “is set to worsen dramatically,” the U.N. said Thursday.The fighters also say they are pressuring Ethiopia’s government to stop the war and the ethnic targeting that has seen thousands of Tigrayans detained, evicted or harassed while the prime minister, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, has used words like “cancer” and “weeds” to describe the Tigray fighters.Ethnic Amhara, more than half a million now displaced, say innocent people have been killed as Tigray forces move in.”I’ve witnessed with my own eyes when the (Tigray forces) killed one person during our journey,” said Mesfin Tadesse, who fled his home in Kobo town in July. “His sister was pleading with them when they killed him for no reason.”Zewditu Tikuye, who also fled Kobo, said her 57-year-old husband was killed by Tigray fighters when he tried to stay behind to protect their home and cows. “He wasn’t armed,” she said. Now she shelters with her six children in a small house with 10 other people.Others seek shelter in schools, sleeping in classrooms as newcomers drenched from the rainy season arrive. They squat in muddy clearings, waiting for plastic plates of the spongy flatbread injera to be handed out for the latest meal.And as earlier in Tigray, people in Amhara now watch in horror as the war damages religious sites in one of the world’s most ancient Christian civilizations.On Monday, the fourth-century Checheho monastery was hit by artillery fire and partially collapsed.”This is very brutal,” said Mergeta Abraraw Meles, who works there as a cashier. He believes it was intentionally targeted by the Tigray forces. They had come peacefully, he said, but then lashed out after facing battlefield losses.In the rubble of the monastery was a young boy, dead.
…
Rights Body Raps Greece Over Migrant Rescue Crackdown
Europe’s top human rights body on Friday called on Greece’s parliament to withdraw articles included in draft legislation that would impose heavy penalties on nongovernmental organizations that carry out unsanctioned rescue operations of migrants at sea. The Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner, Dunja Mijatovic, said in a statement that the proposed changes would “seriously hinder the life-saving work” carried out by NGOs. Greece’s center-right government has toughened border controls since taking office two years ago and has promised additional restrictions in response to the ongoing crisis in Afghanistan. Under draft legislation currently being debated in parliament, members of charities involved in rescue operations conducted without coast guard permission could be jailed for up to a year and fined 1,000 euros ($1,190), with the NGOs facing additional fines. Lesbos and other Greek islands close to the coast of Turkey were the main entry point for refugees and migrants into the European Union during mass displacements in 2015 and 2016 largely caused by wars in Syria and Iraq. Speaking at a security summit in Slovenia earlier this week, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis expressed support for a decision by EU home affairs ministers to seek cooperation with countries in the region “to prevent illegal migration from” Afghanistan. “I think what happened in 2015 was a mistake. We acknowledge it openly. We (must) address the need to support refugees closer to the source of the problem, which is Afghanistan,” Mitsotakis said.
…
How 30 Years of Ukraine Independence Started in UN
On August 24, 1991, Ukraine announced its independence from the Soviet Union, and in the next few months, the international community — country by country — recognized Ukraine as an independent sovereign state. But the foundation of this shift had been laid at the United Nations headquarters about a year earlier. Iryna Solomko has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Iryna Solomko
…
US August Job Gains Fall Far Short of Expectations
U.S. employers added only 235,000 jobs in August, the Labor Department reported Friday, a sign the pace of hiring has slowed considerably at a time when the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus has dampened business activity.
The report fell far short of economists’ expectations of about 750,000 new jobs last month. Last month’s 235,000 new jobs were also far fewer than the 943,000 jobs added in July and the 938,000 new hires in June.
The August unemployment rate declined to 5.2% from 5.4% the month before. The 5.2% rate is still higher than before the pandemic started.
Despite increases in U.S. vaccination rates that have allowed business to loosen pandemic restrictions, the number of job vacancies remain at record high levels.
In all, the U.S. lost about 22 million jobs in the early months of the pandemic and now has recovered 16.7 million of them.
The size of the economy — nearly $23 trillion — now exceeds its pre-pandemic level as it recovers faster than many economists had predicted during the worst of the business closings more than a year ago.
How fast the growth continues is an open question.
For months, the national government has sent an extra $300 a week in unemployment compensation, on top of state aid, to jobless workers. But that extra assistance is ending throughout the country on Saturday, although Republican governors in 25 states had already terminated it early. About 7.5 million jobless workers will be affected by the cutoff in extra funding.
The national unemployment aid helped many jobless workers pay household bills through the worst of last year’s economic downturn during the pandemic, but also put new money into the economy.
…
Moving Fingers, Rotating Wrists: Advances in Prosthetics Improve US Veterans’ Lives
Technological advances in prosthetics have vastly improved the lives of many U.S. veterans and service members over the past 20 years. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more.
…
New Zealand Terror Attack Condemned As ‘Hateful,’ Senseless
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says a terrorist attack at a shopping mall in Auckland was inspired by the Islamic State group. The attacker – a Sri Lankan national who was wielding a knife – has been shot dead by the police. Six people have reportedly been injured.
Ardern said the attacker had been under surveillance before he began his rampage at a supermarket in Auckland, the country’s biggest city.
Ardern said he was shot dead by the police within 60 seconds of the attack starting.
“What happened today was despicable. It was hateful, it was wrong. it was accrued out by an individual, not a faith, not a culture, not an ethnicity. But an individual person who was gripped by ideology that is not supported here.”
Senior law enforcement officials have said that police officers intervened as quickly as they could after the man reportedly took a large knife from a display cabinet in the store. Videos posted online have shown panicked shoppers running out of the supermarket before the sound of gunfire was heard.
The man arrived in New Zealand a decade ago, was identified as a national security threat in 2016 and was under constant monitoring. Although he had reportedly been arrested on suspicion of plotting a terror attack in 2020, and later cleared by a judge, Ardern said there was no legal reason to keep him in custody. She would not give details because disclosure of information has been restricted by the courts.
Kate Hannah, an extremism research fellow at Auckland University, told Radio New Zealand the man was most probably radicalized online.
“This person most likely has been in that kind of echo chamber for a period of time. He first came to government attention in 2016 and so obviously, potentially, since then has been exposed to this kind of material that has caused him to go down this path,” Hannah said.
Analysts have warned that the attack will be a painful reminder for New Zealanders of the deadly mosque attacks in Christchurch in March 2019 when a gunman – a self-confessed white supremacist – murdered 51 worshippers.
It was the South Pacific nation’s worst terror attack
…
Climate Change Will Hit Racial Minorities Harder, Analysis Finds
Racial minorities in the United States will bear a disproportionate burden of the negative health and environmental impacts from a warming planet, the Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday, including more deaths from extreme heat and property loss from flooding in the wake of sea-level rise.The new analysis, which comes four days after Hurricane Ida destroyed homes of low-income and Black residents in Louisiana and Mississippi, examined the effects of the global temperature rising 2 degrees Celsius compared with preindustrial levels. It found that American Indians and Alaska Natives are 48% more likely than other groups to live in areas that will be inundated by flooding from sea-level rise under that scenario, Latinos are 43% more likely to live in communities that will lose work hours because of intense heat, and Black people will suffer significantly higher mortality rates.The world has already warmed 1.1 degrees Celsius since the Industrial Revolution began and is on track to warm by more than 1.5 degrees by the early 2030s.Joe Goffman, acting head of the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, said the comprehensive review was a “first of its kind.” It amounts to a federal acknowledgment of the broad and disproportionate effect that global warming is having on some of America’s most socially vulnerable groups. Just this week, the Department of Health and Human Services established the Office of Climate Change and Health Equity, the first federal program aimed at specifically examining how the burning of fossil fuels and other greenhouse gas emissions affect human health.The impact of Hurricane Ida, whose remnants Wednesday wreaked havoc in New Jersey and New York City, is still being calculated. But Goffman said many Black and low-income residents in Louisiana and Mississippi are faced with the challenge of mustering the resources to replace living rooms drowned in floodwaters and rooftops ripped apart by powerful winds.“But one of the underlying lessons of this report is that so many communities that are heavily Black and African American find themselves in the way of some of the worst impacts of climate change,” he said, “as was the case with Katrina and, we may find, turns out to be the case with Ida.”Cristiane Rosales Fajardo, a community organizer in New Orleans who said she took in more than three dozen undocumented residents displaced by Ida, said people of color need more support after storms in part because they helped bring the city back from the brink after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.“We need to think about, how do we support an entire city when a hurricane comes?” she said. “We need to think about how to help our entire city, because guess what? Our blood and our sweat is going to be what it takes to rebuild the city, just like we rebuilt it” after Katrina.Other climate-driven disasters, from heat waves to flooding, are already affecting vulnerable Americans. Late last month, for example, the Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Administration confirmed that a worker on a construction site collapsed June 28, the hottest day on record in the state, and died less than two weeks later. It attributed the death at Robinson Construction to “heat stress.”A separate report released Thursday by the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center said the United States now suffers more than 8,500 excess deaths in a typical year due to extreme heat driven by recent warming. That will increase to nearly 60,000 by 2050, it added, “with populations in Arizona, Southern California and southwest Texas hit hardest.”The lights of Times Square in New York are reflected in standing water Sept 2, 2021, as Hurricane Ida left behind not just water on city streets but wind damage and severe flooding along the Eastern seaboard.Extreme heat has put the United States on track to lose an average of $100 billion a year from lost productivity, the analysis found, with the figure rising to $200 billion by 2030.Dominique Browning, co-founder of the green group Moms Clean Air Force, said the EPA’s report “couldn’t be more perfectly timed,” following Ida’s destructive wake. “We are in such an emergency.”But she added that it remains to be seen whether the Biden administration and Congress will put in place powerful enough legislation and regulation to cut pollution and slow-rising temperatures. The group is pressing the EPA, for instance, to set tougher standards for ozone and soot, two pollutants at higher levels in neighborhoods with more racial minorities.Black people are 40% more likely than other groups to currently live in places where extreme temperatures driven by climate change will result in higher mortality rates, the analysis found. In addition, African Americans are 34% more likely to live in areas where childhood asthma diagnoses are likely to be exacerbated by climate change.EPA staffers launched the study last summer under President Donald Trump, with an eye toward publishing it in an academic journal. But “the Biden-Harris administration took ownership of this report and elevated it,” Goffman said, because of its focus on climate and environmental justice.President Biden issued an executive order a week after taking office aimed at addressing the historic pollution burdens faced by communities of color that were targeted for the construction of railroad depots, coal-fired power plants, freeways and factories that produce toxic chemicals. But he has yet to deliver on some of his most sweeping promises to address historic inequities, as Congress has yet to enact his legislative proposals that would pour billions of dollars into these areas.Low-income residents with no high school diploma — including White people, who like the other groups fall under the environmental justice umbrella of communities historically zoned for pollution — will also experience more flooding and lost work hours from flooding, the analysis said.A passport and other documents are seen water logged on a counter in a basement apartment on 153rd Street in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York, Sept. 2, 2021, in New York.The study “drew on a growing body of literature,” the authors wrote, such as the fourth National Climate Assessment, which “focuses on the disproportionate and unequal risks that climate change is projected to have on communities that are least able to anticipate, cope with, and recover from adverse impacts.”The analysis covers only the Lower 48 states, excluding Alaska and Hawaii. As a result, the authors said, it does not capture the full effect on some groups, including Alaska Natives and Asian Americans.The new study looked at a range of adverse effects based on average global temperatures rising between 1 degree Celsius and 4 degrees Celsius.But global temperature increases are not felt evenly. A 2 degrees Celsius increase worldwide could cause an average annual temperature spike of 3 degrees Celsius in large swaths of the United States, scientists said, including the Great Plains, Midwest, Northeast and Southwest.A worldwide rise of 4 degrees Celsius would cause an average annual spike of up to 6 degrees Celsius in those areas.Black people 65 and older would probably be profoundly affected by poor air quality. They are 41% to 60% more likely to die as a result of fine-particle pollution, or soot, depending on how high temperatures rise.In 49 cities analyzed for the study, from Seattle to Miami, Black people are 41% to 59% more likely to die as a result of poor air quality.Black children 17 and younger would also suffer disproportionately, the study found. They are 34% to 40% more likely to be diagnosed with asthma depending on the range of temperature increases based on where they live.Native Americans and Latinos are more likely to be affected by extreme temperatures where they work. Latinos would be 43% more likely than others to lose work hours and pay because it’s too hot, while American Indians and Alaskan Natives are 37% more likely to lose hours.
…