An attacker inspired by the Islamic State group stabbed six people at a New Zealand supermarket on Friday before police who had the man under surveillance shot him dead, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said.Ardern said the man, a Sri Lankan national who arrived in New Zealand in 2011 and was on a terror watchlist, entered a shopping mall in suburban Auckland, seized a knife from a display and went on a stabbing rampage.She said six people were wounded, three critically, before police who were monitoring him opened fire within 60 seconds of the attack starting.”What happened today was despicable, it was hateful, it was wrong,” she said, adding it was not representative of any faith or community.Asked about the man’s motivations, she said: “it was a violent ideology and ISIS-inspired”, using another name for the Islamic State group.Ardern said she was limited in what she could say publicly about the man, who had been under surveillance since 2016, because he was the subject of court suppression orders.Police Commissioner Andrew Coster said authorities were confident the man was acting alone and there was no further danger to the community.New Zealand’s worst terror attack was the Christchurch mosques shootings in March 2019, when a white supremacist gunman murdered 51 Muslim worshippers and severely wounded another 40.
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Month: September 2021
Surveillance Aircraft Sent to Possible Oil Spill Reported in Wake of Ida
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Thursday it has dispatched a surveillance aircraft to an area in Louisiana hard hit by Hurricane Ida that includes a refinery where an apparent oil spill has been reported.The aircraft dispatched from Texas will gather data on the Phillips 66 refinery and other priority sites, an EPA spokesperson told Reuters.”EPA’s ASPECT aircraft — the Agency’s airborne real-time chemical and radiological detection, infrared and photographic imagery platform — has been activated to support the state of Louisiana,” the spokesperson said.Phillips 66 said earlier that flooding had occurred at its Alliance Refinery and a sheen of unknown origin in some flooded areas of the refinery had been discovered.”At this time, the sheen appears to be secured and contained within refinery grounds. Clean-up crews are on site. The incident was reported to the appropriate regulatory agencies upon discovery,” the company said.”A full post-storm assessment remains underway at the refinery. An investigation into the cause/origin of the sheen will be conducted. The refinery remains shut down,” it added.The Associated Press has also reported a possible spill near an offshore rig in the Gulf of Mexico after a review of aerial images of the disaster zone taken by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.The photographs appeared to show a miles-long brownish-black slick in the waters south of Port Fourchon, Louisiana.The rig had Enterprise Offshore Drilling marked on its helipad. Enterprise Offshore Drilling said in statement on its website that its rig had not suffered any damage or failure and that “no environmental discharges had occurred from our facility.”The U.S. Coast Guard told the AP it also had an aircraft fly over the refinery as well as to the Gulf of Mexico. The Coast Guard did not immediately respond to a request for comment late on Thursday.Ida, one of the most powerful hurricanes ever to strike the U.S. Gulf Coast, made landfall on Sunday in Louisiana, destroying entire communities.
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Biden Visits Hospital Treating US Troops Wounded in Afghanistan
U.S. President Joe Biden and his wife on Thursday visited a Maryland hospital treating troops wounded in Afghanistan, four days after the U.S. military completed its withdrawal from the country.”Tonight, the president and first lady are visiting wounded warriors at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center,” the White House said.Biden spent a little under two hours at the hospital, but no further details were provided by the administration on the visit, including whether the president met with service members.The military hospital, located in a northwest suburb of Washington, is treating, among others, a dozen US service members wounded in an Aug. 26 attack on the Kabul airport during the evacuation of foreign personnel and Afghan allies, U.S. media reported.On Sunday, Biden and his wife, Jill, paid tribute to the 13 US service members killed in the attack, as their remains were returned to the United States at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.Claimed by the Islamic State’s regional arm IS-Khorasan, the suicide attack killed over 100 people, making it one of the deadliest bombings for civilians in Kabul in recent years, and leading to the worst single-day death toll for the US military in Afghanistan since 2011.
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Japan’s Suga to Resign, Signaling Possible Return to Political Instability
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said Friday he will not run for reelection as head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, effectively ending his broadly unpopular premiership just a year after it began.Suga, whose political fate plummeted as he struggled to manage the coronavirus pandemic, made the announcement during a brief press conference in Tokyo.The move raises the possibility Japan will return to a period of revolving-door prime ministers that marked much of the past several decades.Suga took over as prime minister last September, when his predecessor, Shinzo Abe, stepped down for health reasons.The self-made son of a strawberry farmer, Suga had deep connections within Japan’s dominant Liberal Democratic Party.He was, however, unable to overcome widespread criticism — both from the public and within the LDP — about his pandemic approach.Much of the criticism has centered on the decision to move ahead with the Tokyo Olympics this summer, despite widespread public opposition. Shortly after the Games began in late July, Japan saw its worst coronavirus outbreak yet.The states of emergency put in place to quell the outbreak have had little effect. The number of COVID-19 cases continues to stay high by Japan’s standards, though its virus death rate remains relatively low compared to many other developed countries.According to a recent poll by public broadcaster NHK, about 60% of Japanese people are unhappy with Suga’s response to the virus. About 57% of respondents said the Olympics were not carried out safely, as the government claimed. Many were also upset at Japan’s coronavirus vaccine effort, which has only recently begun to pick up pace.In some ways, though, Suga’s bigger issue was his lack of communication skills, said Corey Wallace, who teaches at Japan’s Kanagawa University.“And that’s just made it very hard for him to overcome all these little problems, all these little criticisms, all the doubts that people have about whether the government is fully in control or is just reacting to what comes up at any given time,” Wallace told VOA.In a last-minute effort to salvage his premiership, Suga had planned to reshuffle his Cabinet. However, he failed to win the support of several influential LDP figures, many of whom were worried about their position ahead of an election for the lower house of the Diet that must occur by November.Most experts say the LDP will retain a majority in the election. LDP confidence was shaken, however, when it performed poorly in several recent local elections. The public approval rating for Suga’s Cabinet had fallen to 29% in some polls.Although Suga had only been slated for a one-year, caretaker premiership, some had hoped his time in office would last longer and prevent Japan from entering another extended period of political instability.Suga predecessor Abe was Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, serving for eight years. In the 50 years before that, Japan had averaged a new prime minister about every two years. Many analysts now concede a new period of instability could emerge.“It’s absolutely possible, especially if the pandemic gets worse again,” Wallace said. “But I wouldn’t necessarily proclaim the start of this era just yet.”As time passes, Abe’s 8 year premiership is going to look more exceptional for its longevity, stability, and capital. It’s hard (but not impossible) to imagine similar circumstances conspiring again to produce another moment like that https://t.co/XR4DWxN8sU— Paul Nadeau (@PaulJNadeau) September 3, 2021Among the likely frontrunners to replace Suga are former Defense and Foreign Affairs Minister Taro Kono, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba, and current environment minister Shinjiro Koizumi.
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Abortion Opponents Celebrate in Texas as New Law Goes Into Effect
Texas anti-abortion advocates are celebrating, and abortion-rights supporters are protesting, as what could be the country’s most restrictive abortion law goes into effect. Deana Mitchell reports.
Camera: Deana Mitchell Producer: Bakhtiyar Zamanov
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Somali Security Agency Blames Employee’s Disappearance on al-Shabab
Somalia’s National Intelligence and Security Agency said Thursday that the terrorist group al-Shabab had killed a female employee who was abducted in Mogadishu in June. But close family members questioned the claim.Ikran Tahlil Farah, 24, worked with the agency’s cybersecurity department. She was abducted June 26 near her home in Mogadishu’s Abdulaziz district, which is close to NISA headquarters.The agency posted a brief statement on its website Thursday saying its investigation had determined that the young woman’s kidnappers handed her over to al-Shabab militants, who later killed her.The agency did not release details about when or where it believed Ikran was killed.Al-Shabab has not publicly acknowledged any role in Ikran’s disappearance. The Islamist extremist group previously has publicly executed people it accused of spying for the Somali government and for Western countries, including the United States.The security agency issued its statement several hours after VOA’s Somali Service aired a radio program that focused on Ikran’s disappearance. Colonel Abdullahi Ali Maow, a former Somali intelligence official who was a guest on the program, speculated that the Islamist terrorist group was involved in Ikran’s fate.’This is a smokescreen’But the young woman’s mother, Abdullahi Ali Maow, said she thought her daughter might be alive and detained in a clandestine location.“I do not believe that al-Shabab killed my daughter, because when she was kidnapped, she was with people she trusted in the agency,” said the mother, who was also a guest on the program. “I think she is being held somewhere, and this is a smokescreen.”Former NISA Director-General Abdullahi Ali Sanbalolshe told VOA Somali in July that “some people” told him Ikran had records about a program that secretly sent Somali military recruits to Eritrea to train. Allegations surfaced in June that those recruits have been fighting and dying in Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict.Ikran “also could possess other sensitive information for which she could have been targeted,” Sanbalolshe said, noting that he hired the young woman in 2017.Opposition leaders have been pressuring Somalia’s spy agency and Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble for information about the disappearance of the intelligence agency employee.
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China Bans Men It Sees as Not Masculine Enough From TV
China’s government banned effeminate men on TV and told broadcasters Thursday to promote “revolutionary culture,” broadening a campaign to tighten control over business and society and enforce official morality. President Xi Jinping has called for a “national rejuvenation,” with tighter Communist Party control of business, education, culture and religion. Companies and the public are under increasing pressure to align with its vision for a more powerful China and healthier society. The party has reduced children’s access to online games and is trying to discourage what it sees as unhealthy attention to celebrities. Broadcasters must “resolutely put an end to sissy men and other abnormal aesthetics,” the TV regulator said, using an insulting slang term for effeminate men — “niang pao,” or literally, “girlie guns.” That reflects official concern that Chinese pop stars, influenced by the sleek, girlish look of some South Korean and Japanese singers and actors, are failing to encourage China’s young men to be masculine enough. Broadcasters should avoid promoting “vulgar internet celebrities” and admiration of wealth and celebrity, the regulator said. Instead, programs should “vigorously promote excellent Chinese traditional culture, revolutionary culture and advanced socialist culture.” FILE – A TV beneath a likeness of China’s president shows a broadcast of a talk show in Zhaxigang village, Tibet Autonomous Region, June 4, 2021. China on Sept. 2, 2021, announced moves aimed at enforcing official morality.Xi’s government also is tightening control over Chinese internet industries. It has launched anti-monopoly, data security and other enforcement actions at companies including games and social media provider Tencent Holding and e-commerce giant Alibaba Group that the ruling party worries are too big and independent. Rules that took effect Wednesday limit anyone under 18 to three hours per week of online games and prohibit play on school days. Game developers already were required to submit new titles for government approval before they could be released. Officials have called on them to add nationalistic themes. The party also is tightening control over celebrities. Broadcasters should avoid performers who “violate public order” or have “lost morality,” the regulator said. Programs about the children of celebrities also are banned. On Saturday, microblog platform Weibo Corp. suspended thousands of accounts for fan clubs and entertainment news. FILE – Actress Zhao Wei poses on the red carpet of the Hong Kong Film Awards in Hong Kong, April 9, 2017.A popular actress, Zhao Wei, has disappeared from streaming platforms without explanation. Her name has been removed from credits of movies and TV programs. Thursday’s order told broadcasters to limit pay for performers and to avoid contract terms that might help them evade taxes. Another actress, Zheng Shuang, was fined 299 million yuan ($46 million) last week on tax evasion charges in a warning to celebrities to be positive role models.
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Nigerian Authorities, Nonprofits Tackle Misinformation to Boost Vaccine Uptake
Music and jingles fill the air in a camp for displaced people in the capital, Abuja. The songs are addressing one problem — misinformation about the coronavirus vaccine.Helen Nwoko and her team at Aish Initiative said they’re on a mission in the camp to address many who have been misled by a viral social media video that portrayed vaccines as a microchip with magnetic qualities.She said various myths and misinformation about the coronavirus vaccines are negatively affecting uptake.”From the records we get on the people who have been vaccinated in Nigeria, the percent is too low, compared to what we’re supposed to get,” Nwoko said. “Then we said, ‘Let’s start from [these] vulnerable groups. These are people who are in an enclosed place.'”Nwoko is the executive director of the nonprofit, an NGO promoting and encouraging vaccine uptake and humanitarian education in Nigeria.A man displays his Moderna COVID-19 vaccination certificate at the Gaube comprehensive primary health care center in Kuje, Nigeria on Sept. 1, 2021.The Abuja camp vaccine sensitization program is a joint effort between the nonprofit, Nigeria’s Ministry of Health, and the National Orientation Agency, and it is reaching vulnerable groups in rural areas, where authorities said it is most needed.Agnes Bartholomew was at the Abuja camp’s sensitization program and now said she is ready to take the jab.”If they bring it [vaccine], I’ll take it,” Bartholomew said. “But they said they’ve not brought it. That’s what we’re waiting for.”Fewer than 1% of Nigerians have received complete jabs against the coronavirus, though authorities were aiming for 40% this year.Officials at the Nigerian CDC said even though the country has not yet acquired sufficient vaccines, vaccine hesitancy is a serious issue.Abiodun Egwuenu is a program coordinator at an infodemic unit created at Nigeria’s CDC to dispel disease misinformation.”We’ve been noticing that there are challenges around immunity,” Egwuenu said. “There are rumors around the fact that natural immunity is better than the vaccination immunity. And then there also [are] challenges around what the vaccine does when it gets to the body.”Nigeria is seeing a new surge in coronavirus cases and fatalities caused by the deadly Delta variant.The official number of cases stands at 193,000 — low compared to many other countries — but the number is rising fast.Authorities say vaccination is the only way to ensure safety, and that the country needs to vaccinate 70% of its 200 million people to achieve herd immunity.
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Former Prosecutor Indicted on Misconduct Charges in Arbery Case
A former Georgia prosecutor was indicted Thursday on misconduct charges alleging she used her position to shield the men who chased and killed Ahmaud Arbery from being charged with crimes immediately after the shootings. A grand jury in coastal Glynn County indicted former Brunswick Judicial Circuit District Attorney Jackie Johnson on a felony count of violating her oath of office and hindering a law enforcement officer, a misdemeanor. The indictment resulted from an investigation Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr requested last year into local prosecutors’ handling of Arbery’s slaying after a cellphone video of the shooting and a delay in charges sparked a national outcry. “While an indictment was returned today, our file is not closed, and we will continue to investigate in order to pursue justice,” Carr, a Republican, said in a statement. FILE – Demonstrators rally to protest the shooting of Ahmaud Arbery, in Brunswick, Georgia, May 8, 2020.Arbery was killed Feb. 23, 2020, after a white father and son, Greg and Travis McMichael, armed themselves and pursued the 25-year-Black man in a pickup truck after spotting him running in their neighborhood outside the coastal city of Brunswick, about 70 miles (112 kilometers) south of Savannah. A neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan joined the chase and took cellphone video of Travis McMichael shooting Arbery at close range with a shotgun. The McMichaels said they believed Arbery was a burglar and that he was shot after attacking Travis McMichael. Police did not charge any of them immediately following the shooting, and the McMichaels and Bryan remained free for more than two months until the cellphone video of the shooting was leaked online and Gov. Brian Kemp asked the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) to take over the case. Both McMichaels and Bryan were charged with murder and other crimes in May 2020 and face trial this fall. Prosecutors say Arbery was merely jogging in their neighborhood and was unarmed when Travis McMichael shot him. They say there is no evidence Arbery had committed a crime. Greg McMichael had worked as an investigator in Johnson’s office and retired in 2019. Evidence introduced in pretrial hearings in the murder case shows he called Johnson’s cellphone and left her a voice message soon after the shooting occurred. “Jackie, this is Greg,” he said, according to a recording of the call included in the public case file. “Could you call me as soon as you possibly can? My son and I have been involved in a shooting and I need some advice right away.” A record of Greg McMichael’s cellphone calls that day does not show that Johnson called him back. The indictment says Johnson showed “favor and affection” toward Greg McMichael in the investigation and interfered with police officers at the scene by “directing that Travis McMichael should not be placed under arrest.” Johnson did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment Thursday afternoon. She has previously insisted she did nothing wrong, saying she immediately recused herself from the case because Greg McMichael was a former employee. “I’m confident that when the truth finally comes out on that, people will understand our office did what it had to under the circumstances,” Johnson told The Associated Press in November after she lost reelection. Lee Merritt, an attorney for Arbery’s mother, said in a statement Thursday that prosecutors “must be held accountable when they interfere with investigations in order to protect friends and law enforcement.” Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper Jones, posted her reaction on Facebook: “Former DA Jackie Johnson … Indicted!!! JusticeForMyBaby!!!!” In his call for an investigation into prosecutorial misconduct, Carr asked the GBI not only to investigate Johnson’s actions related to the killing but also those of Waycross Judicial Circuit District Attorney George Barnhill. No charges have been announced against Barnhill. After the shooting, Johnson called Barnhill to handle questions from police about how to handle the shooting. Carr ended up appointing Barnhill to take over on February 27, four days after the shooting. In his letter ordering an investigation last May, Carr said he was never told that Barnhill had already advised police “that he did not see grounds for the arrest of any of the individuals involved in Mr. Arbery’s death.” Barnhill later recused himself as well, after Arbery’s family learned his son worked for Johnson as an assistant prosecutor. But before he stepped aside, Barnhill wrote a letter to a Glynn County police captain saying the McMichaels “were following, in ‘hot pursuit,’ a burglary suspect, with solid first hand probable cause, in their neighborhood, and asking/telling him to stop.” “It appears their intent was to stop and hold this criminal suspect until law enforcement arrived. Under Georgia Law this is perfectly legal,” Barnhill advised in the letter, referencing Georgia’s Civil War-era citizen arrest statute. That law was repealed in May 2021, with overwhelming support from Republicans and Democrats, as a reaction to Arbery’s death. Johnson told the AP in May 2020 that Glynn County police contacted two of her assistant prosecutors on the day of the shooting. She said it was the officers who “represented it as burglary case with a self-defense issue.” “Our office could not advise or assist them because of our obvious conflict,” Johnson said. Johnson blamed the controversy over Arbery’s death for her election defeat last year after a decade as top prosecutor for the five-county circuit in southeast Georgia. She was defeated by independent candidate Keith Higgins, who had to collect thousands of signatures to get on the ballot.
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Turkey Steps Up Border Security to Thwart Afghan Refugees
Turkey is stepping up a border security barrier with Iran, primarily to thwart a possible large influx of refugees from entering Afghanistan. Yet for many refugees, the wall, trenches and barbed wire are just more obstacles they say they have no choice but to overcome. VOA’s Heather Murdock has this report from Van, Tatvan and the Turkish border with Iran.Camera: Yan Boechat. Contributing: Mohammad Mahdi Sultani.
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Dozens Die in US Northeast From Ida Storm Remnants
Officials in the U.S. states of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania on Thursday said at least 40 people had died as a result of flash flooding caused by torrential rainfall driven by remnants of Hurricane Ida.Officials in New York City said as many as 15 people had died while trapped in basement apartments by floodwaters or caught in their cars.The storm system that came ashore Sunday in Louisiana as a Category 4 hurricane dumped so much rain in the Northeast U.S. that on Wednesday the National Weather Service issued its first flash flood emergency for New York City and the neighboring city of Newark, New Jersey. At least 23 people died in New Jersey, and at least five perished in Pennsylvania.Many streets were quickly turned into rivers, submerging cars and even commuter buses. Most of the city’s subway system was shut down by the flooding.Danny Hong shows where floodwater reached up to him as he shows the damage in his basement apartment in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York, Sept. 2, 2021.New York Governor Kathy Hochul spoke with reporters after touring the city and noted the record-setting eight centimeters of rain that fell in one hour in New York’s Central Park, breaking a record set just one week earlier.”We did not know that between 8:50 and 9:50 p.m. last night, that the heavens would literally open up and bring Niagara Falls’ level of water to the streets of New York,” said Hochul, who became governor last week after former Governor Andrew Cuomo resigned.This kind of cataclysmic event, she added, is no longer unforeseeable, and the city and state need to be prepared.A motorist drives a car through a flooded expressway in Brooklyn, New York, early on Sept. 2, 2021, as flash flooding and record-breaking rainfall brought by the remnants of Hurricane Ida swept through the area.Biden pledges federal aidSpeaking at the White House, U.S. President Joe Biden pledged emergency assistance to governors of New Jersey and New York as well as other states in the region and sent his condolences to the families of those who lost their lives.He also said he would be traveling to Louisiana on Friday to meet with Governor John Bel Edwards to discuss the recovery efforts from Ida there. The president said the nation’s Federal Emergency Management Agency and other agencies would be working around the clock until the needs of the region were fully met.A police officer stands guard as a man surveys the damage to a home where people died after their basement apartment flooded, in the Jamaica neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City, Sept. 2, 2021.Biden noted the region hit by Ida is a key center of the nation’s oil production and refining infrastructure. He said the government was moving quickly to make sure gasoline continued to flow throughout the country.“We’re all in this together,” Biden said Thursday at the White House. “The nation is here to help.”The president also 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 for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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EU Defense Ministers Mull Rapid Response Force after Afghanistan’s Fall
European Union defense ministers discussed Thursday how to better respond to future crises following the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, including the creation of a rapid response force.As they met in Slovenia to discuss lessons learned from the chaotic evacuation of Afghanistan, Germany proposed that willing coalition members be enabled to create a rapid deployment military force of 5,000 troops to respond to crises, with less reliance on the United States.EU efforts to develop a rapid reaction force have been dormant for more than a decade. But the withdrawal of U.S. and allied troops from Afghanistan have forced the 27-nation bloc to revisit the issue.The proposal to establish a 5,000-member force was first raised in May during a review of the bloc’s overall strategy. EU foreign policy head Josep Borrell said at Thursday’s meeting he hoped a plan would be finalized by November.The EU’s overall strategy is expected to be finalized next year.“It’s clear that the need for more European defense has never been as much as evident as today after the events in Afghanistan,” Borrell said. “Sometimes, something happens that pushes the history. It creates a breakthrough, and I think the Afghanistan events of this summer are one of these cases,” Borrell added.The Taliban’s seizure of Afghanistan and the rushed aerial evacuations of tens of thousands of people after the U.S. decision to pull out troops have exposed the EU’s reliance on the U.S. While EU troops were on the sidelines during the evacuation, the U.S. supported European countries in efforts to evacuate their citizens and troops.
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Kerry: China’s Coal Binge Could ‘Undo’ Global Capacity to Meet Climate Targets
U.S. climate envoy John Kerry warned Thursday that Beijing’s coal-building spree could “undo” global capacity to meet environmental targets, after holding talks with top officials in China. Tensions between Beijing and Washington have soared in recent months, with the two sides trading barbs on China’s human rights record and its initial handling of the coronavirus. Tackling climate change is among a handful of issues where the two sides had struck notes of harmony. But Beijing has in recent months emphasized that environmental cooperation could be hurt by deteriorating Sino-U.S. relations. Kerry told journalists Thursday evening that the United States has made it “clear that the addition of more coal plants represents a significant challenge to the efforts of the world to deal with the climate crisis.” FILE – Workers put away equipment after coming out of the Datai coal mine in Mentougou, west of Beijing, Jan. 8, 2020.Chinese plans for new coal plants could “undo the capacity of the world to reach net-zero by 2050,” he said, adding that while they had “very constructive” talks, he also was “very direct” on the topic. Despite pledges to reach peak coal consumption before 2030, then move toward carbon neutrality. China brought 38.4 gigawatts of new coal-fired power into operation last year — more than three times the amount brought online elsewhere in the world. China has challenged the United States to fix relations with Beijing in order to make progress on climate change. Kerry urged the Chinese government, however, not to let environmental cooperation be affected by tensions between the world’s two biggest polluters, calling it a “global challenge.” “It is essential … no matter what differences we have, that we have to address the climate crisis,” he said. Foreign Minister Wang Yi had told Kerry earlier in the visit that cooperation on global warming could not be disentangled from broader diplomacy between the two countries. In a video call with the climate envoy, Wang accused Washington of a “major strategic miscalculation toward China,” according to the ministry statement. “It is impossible for China-U.S. climate cooperation to be elevated above the overall environment of China-U.S. relations,” Wang said. He added that “the ball is now in the United States’ court, and the U.S. should stop seeing China as a threat and opponent.” ‘China can do more’ Kerry visited Japan earlier this week before traveling to the northeastern Chinese city of Tianjin, in a tour aiming to drum up support for a major global summit to tackle pressing climate issues. FILE – A coal-burning power plant can be seen behind a factory in China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, October 31, 2010.The 26th edition of the U.N. Climate Change Conference of the Parties — COP26 — in Glasgow in November marks the biggest climate summit since the 2015 Paris negotiation. Kerry said he plans to meet with his Chinese counterparts again before the summit, to push for stronger emission reduction commitments. The U.S .envoy has repeatedly urged China to step up efforts to reduce carbon emissions. “We have consistently said to China and other countries … to do their best within their given capacity,” Kerry said Thursday. “We think that China can do more.” The country is the world’s current largest emitter of carbon dioxide, followed by the United States, which has historically emitted more than any other nation to date. While Beijing has promised to reach peak carbon emissions by 2030 and become carbon neutral by 2060, it continues to be heavily dependent on coal, which fuels nearly 60 percent of its energy consumption. “We have an opportunity to make a positive impact in Glasgow,” Kerry said. “It really depends on the choices that China makes at this point.”
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Hurricane Larry Forms in Eastern Atlantic, Grows Larger, Stronger
As officials assess the damage done by Hurricane Ida on the U.S. Gulf Coast and in the Northeast, forecasters at the U.S. National Hurricane Center are staying busy watching Hurricane Larry grow stronger in the eastern Atlantic. At last report, forecasters said Larry was far out in the eastern Atlantic, still closer to Africa than the U.S. mainland. But the storm’s winds were already at 130 kilometers per hour, and forecasters said Larry would strengthen rapidly as it turned to the west-northwest over the next 24 hours or so. It was expected to become a major hurricane by late Friday.The forecast track put the storm on course for, but well south of, Bermuda by next Tuesday, when it could well be a Category 4 hurricane, with forecast winds of 206 kph.
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Taliban Detain Former British Soldier, Ending Bid to Evacuate NGO Staff
The Taliban on Thursday briefly detained a former British soldier who was trying to evacuate overland 50 Afghan employees and 350 of their relatives, according to British media reports. Ben Slater says he launched his own evacuation bid after British officials failed to approve visas in time for his staff, consisting mainly of women, to be airlifted out of Afghanistan last week.The Taliban interrogated him for several hours but then released him, telling him he could cross the border with one assistant, but the rest of his staff had to remain in Afghanistan as none of them had British visas, he told British reporters.”It’s a complete disaster, really. It’s disgusting. It’s beyond horrible,” Slater, chairman of a string of Kabul-based NGOs, told Britain’s The Telegraph newspaper. He and his employees spent two days at a hotel near a border checkpoint before he was detained and interrogated about members of his staff. Slater said he was also questioned about why some of the single women in his party were staying in the hotel without husbands.FILE – People gather at the entrance gate of Hamid Karzai International Airport a day after U.S troops withdrawal, in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 31, 2021.A former soldier in Britain’s Royal Military Police, the 37-year-old Slater has been publicly highly critical of Britain’s Foreign Ministry for failing to approve visas in time for his staff to be airlifted out of Afghanistan last month. Slater said Thursday that he had kept British officials informed of his escape plan and asked in advance for them to facilitate a border crossing.Midweek, before leaving Kabul, he told British reporters, “It’s going to be a long trip, and I am hoping on the other end that the FCDO [Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office] have got our visas sorted, or at least have spoken to the foreign affairs ministry in our destination country to allow access for our vulnerable staff.” Growing anger toward RaabSlater’s failed bid to get his staff out of Afghanistan is adding to a political furor in London over last month’s airlift operations by the British government, with pressure mounting on the country’s foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, to resign. Critics, including the chairs of the British Parliament’s foreign affairs and defense committees, have accused Raab of a lack of preparation for the crisis.Britain’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab speaks during a press conference in Doha, Qatar, September 2, 2021.He remained on a family vacation in the Mediterranean as the government of then-Afghan President Ashraf Ghani collapsed and the Taliban neared Kabul.”Dominic Raab should have resigned three times by now: for staying on the beach, for his department’s dismal failure to respond to thousands of cases of Afghans trying to get out of the country, and for the fact that potentially thousands of Afghans who helped our soldiers are now left stranded,” the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey, said in a statement Wednesday.Britain managed to airlift 17,000 people out of Afghanistan, 8,000 of them Afghans. Since the airlift concluded last week, British officials have suggested about 9,000 Afghans at risk of Taliban reprisals remained in the country, along with 100 to 200 British nationals, some dual citizens. Opposition parties and some lawmakers from Britain’s ruling Conservatives estimate the number is much higher, and Raab acknowledged Wednesday he couldn’t give a “definitive” figure for the number of Afghans eligible to be resettled in Britain because they worked for British security forces. More than 5,000 emails from Afghans to the British Foreign Office are still to be read, he conceded when questioned in the House of Commons. Afghan refugeesSlater’s failed bid to cross a land border with his staff also is adding to fears that the Taliban won’t keep promises made this week to Western leaders to allow Afghans to leave the country unhindered and unharmed. Taliban leaders have said Afghans who have passports and visas will be able to leave when commercial flights resume but have said little about Afghans leaving overland.Britain dispatched one of its top diplomats, Simon Gass, to Doha on Monday for face-to-face talks with Taliban leaders about securing safe passage for British nationals and at-risk Afghans who remain in Afghanistan. Gass chairs Britain’s Joint Intelligence Committee. Canadian diplomats also have met with the Taliban in Qatar to discuss issues of safe passage. Neighboring countries have largely closed their borders. All the neighboring states remain reluctant to open their borders and have little appetite to see an influx of refugees. Pakistan already hosts 1.4 million documented Afghan refugees, and Iran 780,000. Hundreds of thousands of undocumented Afghans also are believed to live in both countries, and in recent years, both Iran and Pakistan have increased deportations.The U.N.’s refugee agency, UNHCR, has urged Afghanistan’s neighbors to reopen their borders. “We’ve been intensifying our calls over the last week to neighboring countries to keep their borders open because of the gravity of the situation, and if any Afghans are unable to reach safety, that risks lives,” Kathryn Mahoney, UNHCR’s global spokesperson, told VOA this week.Taliban fighters wave as they patrol in a convoy along a street in Kabul on Sept. 2, 2021.UNHCR officials note 3.5 million Afghans are already displaced from their homes in Afghanistan, and worry that drought, rising unemployment and a banking collapse in that country could drive hundreds of thousands of people to the borders. Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have indicated they are ready to serve as transit countries for Afghan refugees but also have said they don’t want large permanent settlements. Officials in Dushanbe and Tashkent say they don’t have the economic resources to cope. They also fear complicating their relations with Afghanistan’s new rulers, say Western diplomats. This week, The Wall Street Journal reported the Uzbeks are pressing Washington to transport out of Uzbekistan a group of Afghan military pilots who fled to Tashkent. Uzbekistan remains closed, according to the country’s Foreign Ministry. Tajikistan may allow some entry after the country’s Independence Day celebration on September 20. After a five-hour meeting, interior ministers from the European Union’s 27 member states agreed Tuesday that the bloc should offer financial support for Afghanistan’s neighbors to manage the refugee crisis at their borders. There was no confirmation about how much money the bloc is considering, but privately officials say the number being considered is 1 billion euros. EU national leaders, as well as the European Commission, are fearful the continent could see a massive influx of Afghan refugees and a repeat of the 2015 migration crisis that roiled Europe politically and fueled the rise of populist nationalist parties. The refugees came not only from Syria but Iraq, Afghanistan and sub-Saharan Africa. The offer of large payments to Afghanistan’s neighbors would be modeled on the agreement the EU struck with Turkey in 2016 to shelter refugees, while at the same time helping to block them from traveling to EU countries. It isn’t clear whether Afghanistan’s neighbors will accept such a deal. Pakistan’s national security adviser, Moeed Yusuf, appeared scornful Wednesday of the EU’s plan. “We house over 4 million Afghan refugees, this when the conversation in the West is about five more refugees is too many,” he told European broadcasters. He has been urging Western powers to engage politically with the Taliban and offer them financial support to prevent a refugee crisis.
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Malawi, UN, Development Partners Launch Campaign to Eliminate All Forms of Malnutrition
A United Nations global report on nutrition says malnutrition is to blame for more than a third of Malawian children who have stunted growth and nearly a quarter of child deaths. To combat the problem, the U.N. and Malawi’s President Lazarus Chakwera launched a campaign Thursday to promote child nutrition and health. The theme for the Scaling Up Nutrition 3.0 Campaign is “Unite to end all forms of malnutrition for sustainable human well-being and economic development.” Launching the campaign, Malawi President Lazarus Chakwera says Malawi’s high malnutrition rate is largely because most of its citizens are overly dependent on Nsima as the only food. Nsima is a hard porridge cooked from maize flour and often is eaten with fish, meat and vegetables. “The painful truth is that those among us, who say, ‘we haven’t really eaten until we have eaten Msima,’ need to rethink our beliefs about nutrition and take seriously the science of how too much Nsima consumption affects our bodies,” he said. Chakwera said the campaign has provided an opportunity for Malawi to re-engineer its society toward a more diversified diet. “As a special challenge, I am calling on all of you to replace 10% of your Nsima consumption every year with other and more nutritious food. That kind of discipline and commitment will take all of us to make malnutrition history in our country,” he said. Dr. Alexander Kalimbira is the associate professor in nutrition at Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources. He said besides the effect on a person’s health, the malnutrition also has resulted in low productivity in Malawi.
“Do we have evidence? And the answer is yes, we do have evidence,” he said. “Back in 2012, a study done in Africa; Cost of Hunger in Africa, what shows in the report is that the country, in one year alone. in 2012 lost $597 million U.S. dollars. Your Excellency, this represented at that time 10.3% of our gross domestic product. These are the consequences of malnutrition.” Chakwera said his government, however, is making efforts to address the problem. He said this includes the allocation of budgets of local councils, placing malnutrition officers across the country, and providing specialized malnutrition services to all Malawians. Gerda Verburg is the United Nations assistant secretary-general and also coordinator for the Scaling Up Nutrition 3.0 Movement. She hailed Malawi for steps it is taking to end malnutrition. Verburg asked Chakwera, who also is the chairperson of the Southern Africa Community Development, or SADC, to take the campaign beyond Malawi.
“Please bring these inspirational messages and this strategy also to all SADC countries because Malawi is really a frontrunner in the strong commitment and understanding that nutrition is the engine for change and for development,” she said. Recent government statistics show about 1.5 million Malawians, about 8 percent of the population are currently food insecure.
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WHO Official: Africa to Miss COVID Inoculation Goal Because of Vaccine Hoarding
The World Health Organization reports Africa will fail to reach the global target of vaccinating 10% of vulnerable populations against COVID-19 in every country by the end of September.
WHO’s regional director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, blames the situation on what she says is the hoarding of life-saving vaccines by the world’s wealthier countries. She notes African countries have received more than 143 million doses and inoculated 39 million people, or less than 3% percent of the continent’s population. This, she says, compares to more than 50% in the European Union and United States. “Equally concerning is the continuing inequity in the distribution of doses. Africa accounts for just 2% of the over five billion doses given globally. This percentage, I’m afraid, has not shifted in months… If current trends hold, 42 of Africa’s 54 countries — nearly 80% — are set to miss the September target, I’m afraid.” FILE – A COVID patient is being treated at a makeshift hospital run by charity organization The Gift of the Givers, in Johannesburg, South Africa, July 10, 2021.Africa’s third wave of the coronavirus peaked in July; however, WHO reports 24 of Africa’s 54 countries are still reporting high or fast-rising case numbers. The situation is particularly acute in west, central and east Africa. The latest WHO figures put the number of coronavirus infections at nearly eight million, with more than 214,000 new cases reported this past week. Of the 196,000 Africans who have died from this infection, more than 5,500 lost their lives last week. Moeti says the pandemic is still raging on the continent, noting every hour, 26 Africans die of COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. She warns people must not let down their guard, as they remain at risk of becoming severely ill or dying if vaccination rates remain low. “With concerns about variants and political pressures driving the introduction of booster shots and countries with high vaccination rates expanding their rollouts to reach to lower-risk groups, our hope for global vaccine equity is once again being challenged,” she said.FILE – In this Aug.6. 2021, photo, a Kenyan soldier guards a consignment of 182,000 AstraZeneca vaccine doses received from the Greek government via the COVAX facility, at Kenya Jomo Kenyatta airport in Nairobi.Moeti says she is encouraged the pace of vaccine shipments to Africa is picking up but adds dose-sharing arrangements must continue to be improved. She says international solidarity remains key to the global recovery from this pandemic.
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Tanzanian Police: Gunman Who Killed 4 Last Week Was ‘Terrorist’
Police in Tanzania say the gunman who killed three police officers and a security guard during a shootout August 25 was a terrorist on a suicide mission.Speaking with reporters Thursday, the director of Criminal Investigations, Camillius Wambura, identified the gunman as Hamza Mohamed, a 33-year-old Dar es Salaam resident.Mohamed was shot dead by police after he killed four people, including three police officers, a week ago in Dar es Salaam.Wambura said police investigated what motivated the gunman and found he had been active online.Wambura said the suspect was consuming a lot of online materials that showed activities of terrorist organizations like al-Shabab and ISIS. He said Mohamed’s behavior also was influenced by communications with people from countries that are known for criminal activities, such as terrorism.Wambura did not identify the countries. Dar es Salam resident Eugene Michael says the development raises concerns about how well authorities are tracking possible terrorist suspects in Tanzania. “The information that we were told earlier was that the man was just a normal person in his community.” Michael said. “The police report creates fear for us citizens since we can’t know how many people like him that we are living with in our society.”This was the first shooting in Tanzania that authorities described as a terrorist attack. The country has been largely free of terrorism, except for the August 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassy by al-Qaida in Dar es Salaam. That blast killed 11 people.
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‘Hunger Games’ Evacuations as US Left Afghanistan
When the U.S. ended its 20-year war in Afghanistan this week, the Biden administration underscored the success of the evacuation effort from Hamid Karzai International Airport.”No nation, no nation has ever done anything like it in all of history,” said President Joe Biden from the White House on Tuesday, the day the U.S. completed its Afghan military withdrawal.The administration has said the massive airlift evacuated most of the remaining Americans in the country, as well as thousands of Afghan interpreters, activists, journalists and other groups that have been targeted by the Taliban.But thousands of others are left behind. Frustrated U.S. diplomats, military officials and civilian personnel involved in the effort tell VOA it was a haphazard process that left out many people who qualified for evacuation.Haseeb Kamal and his wife were married August 14th, the day before Kabul fell. She did not make it through the airport gate. (Courtesy photo)He pleaded with the Marines to allow his father and sister to join him on a flight despite them only having Afghan documents and none of the typical U.S. paperwork required for entry.”Don’t you dare kick them out (of the airport),” Kamal said to the Marines, who finally allowed them to stay.Kamal and his sister, Bibi Sara, are now living with family in the U.S. state of Virginia, while their father is still being processed in Fort Lee, a military base in the same state.’Ever-changing rules’Rules about which individuals could evacuate were “ever-changing,” said a diplomatic source on the ground who spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity. That meant family members of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents, as well as Special Immigrant Visa applicants, may have been allowed into the airport one day, but not the next.”What constituted as proper documentation changed nightly,” he said.The diplomat said that on at least one day during the early phase of evacuation, local staff of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul were given instructions via email to go to the East Gate. Their extended families were processed despite lacking documentation such as Afghan passports, national IDs, or SIV applications, and whether they had “credible fear” of retaliation by the Taliban. As long as they said they were local embassy staff or their families, individuals were able to get in, he said.It was easy to confirm who is an embassy staff member, the diplomat said, but family connections were more difficult to determine.”These guys who have come in with large extended families, members with weak documentation … how do you vet that?” the officer said, adding that sometimes groups were waived through nevertheless.”We had to make a quick moral calculus – send them back out to the Taliban check point and potentially in danger or move them forward.”Those who were not U.S. citizens, permanent residents or holders of valid visas were sent to third countries referred to as “lily-pads” to be vetted.On other days, stricter guidelines meant extended families including parents and siblings of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents were not allowed entry. At points where people were screened, some officers followed the rule while others were more relaxed, he said.On Monday, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby defended the work of the troops.”Without speaking to these reports, the Marines and the soldiers that for the last couple of weeks have been helping consular officers man the gates and process them did heroic work,” Kirby told VOA. “And they had to make decisions in real time about trying to help people get out.””A lot of lives were saved, and a lot of lives are now in a better place,” Kirby said.Many lives were saved, in some instances possibly because the rules were so flexible at times. Haseeb Kamal, the former interpreter, said he met a family with only two U.S. citizens who brought 30 people in with them.”I had no information that I could bring all of my family,” Kamal said. “What shocked me was how they knew.”Hundreds of people gather, some holding documents, on Aug. 26, 2021, near an evacuation control checkpoint on the perimeter of Hamid Karzai International Airport, in Kabul, Afghanistan.After Kabul’s fall, around the clock missionA State Department spokesperson defended the Kabul airlift, telling VOA that “the Biden administration has demonstrated, in the face of significant challenges, its sacrosanct commitment to the thousands of brave Afghans who have stood-by-side with the United States over the course of the past two decades.”After Kabul fell to the Taliban, the State Department flew diplomats from around the world to the Afghan capital. Diplomats and American troops worked around the clock to evacuate as many Americans and vulnerable Afghans as they could.An American civilian source on the ground who witnessed the evacuation said their efforts were “remarkable.” “Their empathy and humanity was admirable,” he said.A U.S. Marine carries a baby during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 28. (US Marine Corps photo)However aid groups which were involved say despite the massive effort by diplomats and soldiers, the airlift was plagued by problems.”There appears to be at best very problematic and at worst no rhyme or reason for who’s getting into the gates,” said Mark Jacobson, who helped organize evacuees. Jacobson served in 2006 in Afghanistan as a naval intelligence officer and from 2009-2011 as the deputy NATO representative and deputy political adviser at the International Security Assistance Force.”For those of us who are helping to get Afghans out, it does certainly appear as though the SOP (standard operating procedure) doesn’t just change day to day but hour to hour,” Jacobson said.Jacobson said the inconsistencies were partly due to the multiple departments involved.”When we get to our State people, they say it’s DOD. When we get to the DOD people they say it’s State,” Jacobson said referring to departments of State and Defense.VOA asked the White House whether inconsistent policies and a lack of coordination between the State Department and the Pentagon resulted in vulnerable Afghans left behind while those who were not at-risk individuals were evacuated.”I have no confirmation of what you’ve just outlined,” said White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki. “What I will tell you is that 117,000, approximately — many of them Afghans who — people who are not American citizens — were evacuated. That’s more people than ever in any airlift in U.S. history.”In this image provided by the U.S. Air Force, an aircrew prepares to load qualified evacuees aboard a C-17 Globemaster III aircraft as part of evacuation efforts at Hamid Karzai International Airport, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 21, 2021.The administration has not provided a full breakdown of evacuee nationalities and their immigration status. On Wednesday the White House said that 77 percent of the evacuees that have arrived in the U.S. since August 17 were Afghans including “SIV and other visa holders, SIV applicants, P-1 and P-2 referrals, and others.”State Department spokesman Ned Price said a total of 31,107 people arrived in the U.S. from Afghanistan between August 17 and August 31.Warren Binford, a law professor at the University of Colorado, was part of a remote, entirely digital network of volunteers who, she estimates, assisted 1,400 Afghans in getting out.”The State Department had been put in charge of an evacuation from a warzone,” she said, contending that as a result the military did not have the full command of the operation. They learned to “pivot and adapt on a constant ongoing basis”, she said.Another individual, who asked not to be named because he wanted to protect the Afghans he is still trying to evacuate, described the evacuation process as “chaos.”A convoy of 130 people he organized was turned away after waiting for 18 hours. The plane took off without them, their seats empty.Another source, a former U.S. government official assisting evacuation who also asked not to be named, confirmed that the majority of Afghans in their group who were direct family members of American citizens (e.g. children, spouses) were turned away, even when their names were on flight manifests.The Marines blocking them said their orders from the State Department were to only allow American citizens and legal permanent residents. The former official said that should not have been the rule for charter flights for authorized individuals who are identified as at-risk, such as humanitarian organization employees, SIVs, women leaders, and their families.”Why isn’t the manifest being shared at the gate?” the former official lamented, also confirming that many of the privately arranged flights left with no one on board.The private group sources said the likelihood of evacuation depended in part on luck and on contacts inside the airport and in Washington, and who can get them past Taliban check points, past the Marines at the airport gates, into the terminal, on the tarmac and eventually on planes heading to safety.”It’s like The Hunger Games,” the former government official source said.One such group of hundreds of Afghans were rescued by the “Pineapple Express” – a secret mission run by U.S. military veterans who defied orders to stay within the security perimeter and scooped up their Afghan allies outside of the airport in a daring operation first reported by ABC News.”What is making us so incredibly sad is the seriously at-risk Afghans who don’t have the privilege of those connections, that are being left behind,” the former government official source said.Afghans wait in long lines for hours to try to withdraw money, in front of Bank in Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 30, 2021. The Taliban have limited weekly withdrawals to $200.’Haunted’ by choicesA senior State Department official involved in the evacuation on the ground said they had the legal obligation to prioritize Americans. The operation involved “some really painful trade-offs” and officers are “haunted by the choices we had to make, and by the people we were not able to help depart,” the official said.Administration officials have repeatedly said that U.S. commitment to evacuate the potentially thousands or more vulnerable Afghans, as well as the remaining 200 or so individuals who self-identify as Americans and want to leave, is “enduring.””We will have means and mechanisms of having diplomats on the ground being able to continue to process out those applicants and facilitate passage of other people who want to leave Afghanistan,” Jen Psaki said Monday.One interpreter, who submitted his SIV application in 2014 and whose former U.S. Army colleagues enlisted three U.S. Senators to try to get him evacuated, is now in limbo after he and his wife and seven children failed to gain access to the airport.Jamshid, who did not give his real name for fear of retribution, told VOA that he traveled from outside of Kabul and spent 11 days trying to get inside the airport before giving up.”For now we are doing well,” he said. “But me and my family are worrying about our safety… because I have worked four years with U.S. army as interpreter.”On Sunday, the United States and 97 other countries announced the Taliban has assured them that foreign nationals and Afghans with visas from those countries will be allowed out of the country after the August 31 deadline. The Taliban released a statement saying all airports will be open to allow those who wish to leave Afghanistan.The day after the U.S. withdrawal, Jamshid received an email from the U.S. State Department assuring him that the U.S. will continue efforts to help them. The email instructed SIV applicants who want to transfer their case to an embassy or consulate outside of Afghanistan to submit their inquiry online.The success of that effort will depend in part on the willingness of the Taliban to help their former battlefield enemies.”It’s not easy to go to a third country,” Jamshid said.VOA’s Nike Ching, Carolyn Presutti, Anita Powell, Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.
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Police Seek 73 Students Kidnapped in Nigeria’s Zamfara State
Police in Nigeria’s northwest Zamfara state say they are trying to rescue 73 students kidnapped by gunmen Wednesday. Within the last week, three other groups of kidnapped students in the northwest were freed, but only after large ransoms were paid.The latest abductees included 53 male and 20 female students, all teenagers at a government secondary school in the remote village of Kaya. Police said a large number of bandits invaded the school and seized the students.Zamfara state police spokesperson Shehu Mohammed said in a written statement that police and the military are on the trail of the bandits and have reinforced security in the village.Following the attack, Zamfara state officials ordered closure of all primary and secondary schools in the state. They also imposed travel restrictions as well as a daily dusk to dawn curfew to prevent further attacks.Zamfara is not the only state taking security measures in northern Nigeria, where kidnapping is rife these days.Authorities in Kaduna, Niger and Katsina states have also introduced movement restrictions and are limiting sales of jerrycans and gasoline in a bid to stop bandits who often move around on motorcycles.Sani Shuaib, a VOA Hausa service reporter in Zamfara state, said the movement ban is already having an impact.”It involves all vehicles except military and security personnel. Immediately Zamfara announced it, Kaduna followed, Niger and then Sokoto too, I understand they’re planning to adopt similar measures and it has started biting hard,” said Shuaib.But security expert Kabir Adamu said lack of accountability is the reason attacks on schools have lingered.”The security departments don’t have monitoring and evaluation systems in place and so there’s no form of oversight or pressure on them to meet set targets. Even where there is clear failing, no one is held accountable,” said Adamu.Members of a “bandit” gang pose with weapons at their forest hideout in northwestern Zamfara state, Nigeria, Feb. 22, 2021. (Sani Malumfashi/VOA)Armed gangs have kidnapped about 1,100 students from schools in northern Nigeria since December of last year.The increase in crimes in the region is believed to be crippling economic activities and contributing to the poor standard of living there.Last Friday, gunmen released 90 pupils from an Islamic seminary in Niger state where children as young as four were abducted and held for nearly three months.
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Europe’s Infectious Disease Agency Says No Pressing Need for Boosters
The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control has issued a report saying that based on current evidence, there is no urgent need for COVID-19 vaccine booster shots and the public health focus should remain on getting initial vaccinations to eligible European citizens.The report added additional doses should be considered for those individuals with compromised immune systems who did not respond adequately to their initial dose or doses.But the report says the available current evidence regarding the “real world” effectiveness and duration of protection provided by all the vaccines authorized for use in the European Union shows they are highly protective against COVID-19-related hospitalization, severe disease and death. COVID-19 is caused by the coronavirus.The report also noted that European nations should consider what administering boosters might do regarding the availability of vaccines for nations outside the EU, which continue to struggle with obtaining and administering enough initial doses for their populations.France Wednesday became the first EU nation to start administering booster shots to people over 65, and to those with underlying health conditions as a guard against the delta variant of the coronavirus. Spanish health authorities are considering similar action.(Some information in this report come from the Associated Press.)
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US Jobless Benefit Claims Drop to New Pandemic Low
First-time claims for U.S. unemployment compensation during the 18-month coronavirus pandemic hit a new low last week, the Labor Department reported Thursday.A total of 340,000 jobless workers filed for assistance, down 14,000 from the revised figure of the week before. The numbers for the last three weeks have been the lowest since the pandemic swept through the United States in March 2020 but remain well above the 218,000 averages in 2019.The jobless claims total has fallen steadily but unevenly since topping 900,000 in early January. Filings for unemployment compensation have often been seen as a current reading of the country’s economic health, but other statistics are also relevant barometers.The U.S. said last week that its world-leading economy grew by an annualized 6.6% rate in the April-to-June period, slightly faster than the 6.3% figure for the first three months of the year.In July, the U.S. added 943,000 jobs, the seventh biggest month of job creation in U.S. history and followed with 938,000 more in June. The unemployment rate has now dropped to 5.4%, still a couple of percentage points higher than before the pandemic started.U.S. economists are estimating that employers added another 720,000 jobs in August, according to The Wall Street Journal, with the government due to release its monthly report for August on Friday.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 their household bills through the worst of last year’s economic downturn during the pandemic, but also put new money into the economy.The delta variant of the coronavirus also poses a new threat to the economy. Political disputes have erupted in numerous states among conservative Republican governors who have resisted imposing mandatory face mask and vaccination rules in their states at schools and businesses, although some education and municipal leaders are advocating tougher rules to try to prevent the variant from spreading.The number of new vaccinations had been falling in the U.S. but now is increasing again as more people see others in their communities hospitalized from the virus and their lives endangered. Full government approval last week of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine may also persuade some vaccination skeptics to get inoculated.More than 63% of U.S. adults have now been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, and overall, 52.6% of the U.S. population of 332 million.
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For Spain’s African Migrant Vendors, Innovation is Key to Freedom
he clandestine sea route from the coasts of Senegal to Spain is a dangerous voyage for thousands of migrants. For those who make it, what awaits them is a life outside the law and the stigma of being called an illegal immigrant. Jonathan Spier narrates this report from Alfonso Beato in Barcelona.Camera: Alfonso Beato
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Popular Rwandan Rapper Dies in Custody
A popular Rwandan rapper known as Jay Polly died in custody early Thursday, officials and media reports said, the second detained musician to die in mysterious circumstances in less than two years.Polly, whose real name was Joshua Tuyishime, was being held on drugs charges and had just found out that he was due to stand trial in December.The 33-year-old was taken to Muhima hospital in the capital Kigali at around 3:00 am (0100 GMT), its director Pascal Nkubito told AFP.”He was in a bad shape and unresponsive. Doctors tried to revive him but he unfortunately died shortly after,” he said. “The cause of death is not something I want to speculate about. We will know that after the post-mortem.”The musician was arrested at his home in April for hosting a party in violation of Covid regulations and was later paraded along with other suspects in front of the media.Police said Tuyishime and other defendants were found to be drinking and in possession of marijuana and fake negative Covid certificates. He had denied the charges but requests for bail were rejected.Parties are strictly prohibited in Rwanda because of the coronavirus pandemic and thousands of people have been detained for breaking restrictions aimed at curbing the spread of the disease. Some have been forced to spend the night in open-air stadiums and to listen to Covid-19 guidelines on loudspeakers, while others have been held for weeks in detention facilities.’Cultural icon’Rwandans took to Twitter to pay tribute to Tuyishime, with one describing him as a “cultural icon who contributed so much to our music.”In February last year, Kizito Mihigo, whose music was banned by the regime of President Paul Kagame, was found dead in his cell, just days after he was caught trying to flee the country.Police said Mihigo, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide whose gospel songs angered Kagame’s government, had committed suicide by hanging himself from his cell window using bedsheets.Mihigo, who was sentenced to 10 years in jail in 2015 for conspiracy against the government but later released on pardon, was captured trying to cross the border in Rwanda’s south.He fell foul of the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front in 2013 after composing songs that questioned the government’s tight control of the legacy of the 1994 tragedy. His music, once popular among the ruling elite, was swiftly banned. Two years later he was accused of terrorism and raising support for an opposition political movement and sentenced to 10 years in prison.His lawyers said prosecutors had little evidence to jail him. He was released on presidential pardon in September 2018.Mihigo and Polly are not the first figures to die in mysterious circumstances while in police custody in Rwanda.Last year, a former director-general in Kagame’s office was found dead in a military jail after being sentenced to 10 years for corruption. In 2015, Kagame’s personal doctor, Emmanuel Gasakure, was shot dead in custody by police.Kagame, who has been in power since 1994, has been accused of ruling with an iron fist, clamping down on all forms of dissent and jailing or exiling opposition politicians.Human Rights Watch (HRW), among other groups, has accused Kagame’s regime of summary executions, unlawful arrests and torture in custody.
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