Authorities say at least eight people have died across New York City and New Jersey as a result of the historic flash flooding caused by the weather system formerly known as Hurricane Ida, which struck the northeastern United States just three days after devastating much of the southeastern state of Louisiana. The storm dumped so much rain in New York City that the local National Weather Service issued its first flash flood emergency for the iconic metropolis and the neighboring city of Newark, New Jersey. The service posted a record-setting 8 centimeters of rain in New York’s famous Central Park in just one hour, and many streets were quickly turned into rivers, leaving cars and even commuter buses submerged. 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.The city’s subway system was so badly flooded that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority shut down all but one of its lines. More than 8 centimeters of rain was also recorded at Newark’s Liberty International Airport, forcing officials to suspend all flight activity, and the air traffic control tower was temporarily evacuated due to a tornado warning. Parts of the airport were flooded, forcing officials to move passengers to higher floors. Governor Phil Murphy has issued a state of emergency for all of New Jersey. A motorist drives a car through a flooded expressway in Brooklyn, New York early on Sept. 2, 2021.New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio issued a state of emergency for the city, including a travel ban for all nonemergency vehicles until 5 a.m. local time, while New York state Governor Kathy Hochul issued a similar decree for the entire state. Flash flooding was also reported in the neighboring states of Pennsylvania, with reports of water rescues and evacuations from several small towns. Tornado warnings were issued for parts of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, while as many as 230,000 people were left without power in Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey. The storm system also struck parts of the nearby state of Maryland, where at least one person was killed and another person was missing after heavy rains flooded an apartment complex in the city of Rockville, located just outside of Washington, D.C. A tornado also struck a section of Annapolis, Maryland’s state capital. Ida has been downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone after coming ashore Sunday as a Category 4 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 240 kilometers an hour, making it one of the most powerful storms to ever strike the mainland United States. A man passes by a section of roof that was blown off of a building in the French Quarter by Hurricane Ida winds, Aug. 29, 2021, in New Orleans.Electricity is slowly being restored to the tourist city of New Orleans after Ida damaged or destroyed eight electric transmission lines that provide power to the city and much of southern Louisiana. State authorities and regional utility company Entergy have said it could be as long as 30 days before power is fully restored, leaving residents without air conditioning to spare them from the area’s searing late-summer heat, as well as food and running water. Residents across the region have been waiting in long lines for hours at gas stations to get the fuel needed to run the portable electric generators to provide some electricity for their homes. Both Governor John Bel Edwards and New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell have urged residents who evacuated ahead of Ida’s arrival to stay away during the crisis. U.S. President Joe Biden is scheduled to visit Louisiana Friday to get a firsthand look at the damage. Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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Month: September 2021
Nigerian Experts Lament China’s Growing Influence in African Technology
Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei says it wants to train up to 3 million African youths to work with digital technology, including cutting-edge technology such as artificial intelligence. Already, Nigerian students who took part in a Huawei-sponsored ICT competition say the benefits, including possible job placements with the company, are enormous. But experts warn there could be potential negative impacts of China’s growing tech influence in Africa. Timothy Obiezu reports from Abuja.
Camera: Emeka Gibson Producer: Bakhtiyar Zamanov
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Survey Finds 9/11 Still Influences Americans’ Activities
As the United States approaches the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, many Americans say the event is still affecting their lives, a Gallup survey indicates.The survey found that today, 26% of Americans “express reluctance” to fly, 27% feel the same way about going into skyscrapers, and 36% feel the same way about traveling abroad. Thirty-seven percent were uneasy about attending events involving large crowds.Immediately following the attacks, those numbers were 43%, 35%, 48% and 30%, respectively.Lower-income Americans over 50 and without a college degree were more likely to feel reluctance about engaging in those activities.The survey, conducted before the deadly attacks at the Kabul airport on Aug. 26, also found Americans were “significantly less likely to say the U.S. is winning the war on terrorism.”Ten years ago, 42% said the U.S. was winning, compared with 28% now.“The declining belief that the U.S. is winning the war is apparent among all (political) party groups,” Gallup said.Another survey finding was that Americans have “diminished confidence” in the government’s ability to protect citizens.“Prior to the Aug. 26 attack on U.S. troops at the Kabul airport, the majority of Americans, 59%, were very (18%) or somewhat (41%) confident the U.S. government can protect its citizens from terrorism.” Gallup found. “This level of confidence was significantly lower than in 2011 (75%) and in the immediate days after the 9/11 terror attacks (88%).”The survey also found that 36% of Americans “said they were very or somewhat worried about being the victim of terrorism.” That number was the same 10 years ago, but down from the 51% shortly after 9/11.Poll results were based on telephone interviews conducted Aug. 2-17, with a random sample of 1,006 adults, age 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.
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Australia Marks 70th Anniversary of Key US Military Alliance
Australia and the United States have commemorated the 70th anniversary of the ANZUS defense accord. Analysts have said while the Australia, New Zealand and United States Security Treaty has offered some benefits, it has also drawn Australia into long conflicts.The ANZUS Treaty was signed Sept. 1, 1951, and was designed to guarantee security in the Pacific region.The chief of the Australian defense force, General Angus Campbell, said in a statement Wednesday the accord was “built on a foundation of staunch support for liberal democracy and shared respect for the rule of law.”In a video message to mark the agreement’s 70th anniversary, U.S. President Joe Biden praised its longevity.“Through the years Australians and Americans have built an unsurpassed partnership and an easy mateship, grounded in shared values and shared vision,” he said.Biden’s view was shared by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who spoke in the Federal Parliament on Wednesday.“Together we share hope, we share burden and we share vision,” Morrison said.Australia has followed the United States into successive conflicts, and analysts have said the Morrison government’s intent is to strengthen the treaty in the belief that it underpins Australia’s national security.There are, however, tensions in the longstanding alliance. Analysts have said that Morrison and Biden have not spoken in months, and that Australia was not consulted about America’s exit from Afghanistan, despite its steadfast involvement in the 20-year conflict.Donald Rothwell, an expert in International Law at the Australian National University, said the ANZUS Treaty has drawn Australia into many damaging conflicts.“The biggest strain has been predominantly Australia constantly thinking that it has to support the United States in various military adventures that the United States has undertaken, and that has been highlighted no better than the events of the last few weeks in terms of the U.S. eventually withdrawing from Afghanistan after 20 years,” he said. “And, of course, before that the ANZUS Treaty has been referred to in terms of Australian support for U.S. military operations in other places around the world, including Vietnam during the 1960s.”While Washington is the dominant partner in the alliance, Rothwell said Australia has proved itself a loyal ally.“Australia being able to partner with the United States [to] give credibility to multinational missions that the United States has tried to head up, rather than just the United States going in unilaterally, has been a significant benefit to the United States in terms of being able to build credibility for the type of military operations that they have conducted,” he said.A small ceremony was held at the Australian-American Memorial in Canberra on Sept. 1 to mark the anniversary of the treaty.While Australia and the United States have commemorated the accord, New Zealand no longer maintains a bilateral security relationship with Washington. In September 1986, the U.S suspended its ANZUS treaty obligations toward New Zealand after Wellington initiated a nuclear-free zone in its territorial waters.New Zealand and United States do, however, cooperate under the Five Eyes security alliance, which also includes Britain, Canada and Australia.
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Some Nigerian-based Experts Warn of China’s Growing Influence in African Technology
Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei says it wants to train up to 3 million African youths to work with cutting-edge digital technology such as artificial intelligence. Already, Nigerian students who took part in a Huawei-sponsored information and communications technology (ICT) competition say the benefits, including possible job placements with the company, are enormous. But experts warn there could be potential negative impacts of China’s growing tech influence in Africa. Computer engineering finalist Muhammad Maihaja is set to graduate from the Ahmadu Bello University in Nigeria’s Kaduna state in November. In 2019, he was part of a team of six from the school who represented Nigeria at the global Huawei ICT competition in Shenzhen, China, where they finished in third place. Huawei introduced the competition to Africa in 2014 to identify and nurture highly skilled ICT professionals — what the company says is part of its expanding talent search in Africa’s tech sector that has benefited some 2,000 African students like Maihaja. “We have been exposed to devices and technologies we’ve never experienced before. As normal university students, we would not have experienced what we did experience in the competition. So, I’ll say … this has made me much more ICT inclined, so to say,” Maihaja said.The competition evaluates students’ competence in network and cloud technology. Maihaja and his team’s success in 2019 was a rare achievement for an African team, let alone a first-time participant. The feat inspired many other students like Hamza Atabor who tried out for the next edition in 2020. He and the other Nigerian students this time won the competition. “I was inspired by, you know, when they talked about their stories, how they won the competition, and also when they were given their prizes and everything. I just felt, OK, this is something to actually make a sacrifice for,” Atabor said.Students like Maihaja and Atabor are meeting Huawei’s set objective, but critics say the company is only a fragment of China’s fast-paced dominance in Africa’s technology landscape. Huawei reportedly accounts for more than 70% of the continent’s telecommunications network. Mohammed Bashir Muazu, a professor of computer engineering at Ahmadu Bello University, says it’s no surprise China is gaining traction in Africa. “Seeing the level of technological developments in China, I think what is actually happening is inevitable,” Muazu said. Concerns about China’s presence in Africa grew in 2019 after U.S. newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, reported that Huawei had helped Ugandan and Zambian authorities spy on political opponents. Huawei denied the accusations and declined an interview on the matter. But ICT expert Samuel Adekola says China could use its competitive advantage for selfish gains. “It’s really dangerous. I cannot quantify how much they could do, but whoever has data, you can do a lot of things. You have a lot of information about a group of people, the nation,” Adekola said.As long as China continues to invest in Africa, students like Maihaja and Atabor will learn valuable skills, even though experts say Africa may have to pay a price for relying too heavily on foreign companies.
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Pride, Pain and Anger: Pentagon Marks Afghan War’s End
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was the first Cabinet member to take questions from reporters since the end of America’s longest war, joined at a Pentagon briefing Wednesday by the top U.S. general. As VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb reports, the U.S. isn’t completely done with Afghanistan.
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Biden to Survey Ida’s Storm Damage in Louisiana on Friday
President Joe Biden will visit Louisiana on Friday to survey the aftermath of Hurricane Ida and speak with local and state leaders, the White House said Wednesday. Biden will also deliver a speech Thursday outlining his administration’s response to the storm. Ida was the fifth most powerful storm to strike the U.S. when it hit Louisiana on Sunday with maximum winds of 150 mph (240 kph), likely causing tens of billions of dollars in flood, wind and other damage, including to the electrical grid. More than 1 million homes and businesses in Louisiana and Mississippi were without power after Ida toppled a major transmission tower and knocked out thousands of miles of lines and hundreds of substations. New Orleans was plunged into total darkness at one point; power began returning to the city on Wednesday. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden “absolutely would not” visit Louisiana if his presence would take away from relief efforts. Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards suggested the visit would be crucial for the president to understand the destruction by seeing the widespread damage for himself. “There’s nothing quite like visiting in person,” Edwards told reporters Wednesday following a briefing with local elected officials in Jefferson Parish, which took direct blows from Ida. “When you see it for yourself, it is just so much more compelling.” Asked what type of assistance he planned to request from Biden, Edwards said, “Quite frankly, the list is going to be very, very long.” But he said a priority would be for a housing program to help people rebuild. The White House says Biden has been getting regular updates on the storm and its aftermath. He has held several conference calls with governors and local officials to discuss preparations and needs after the storm and has received briefings from FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell. FEMA had sent tons of supplies, including generators, tarps and other materials to the region before the storm, and federal response teams are working on search and rescue. Authorities blame the storm for at least six deaths. Biden’s trip Friday to the Gulf region will cap a difficult stretch for the president, who oversaw the chaotic exit of the U.S. military from Afghanistan after a 20-year engagement. That included the deaths of 13 U.S. service members helping evacuate more than 120,000 Americans, Afghan allies and others fleeing life under Taliban rule. As Ida bore down on the Gulf Coast on Sunday, Biden was at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to witness the return of the remains of the 13 U.S. servicemen and women who were killed in suicide bombing last week at Afghanistan’s airport in Kabul, where the evacuations were taking place.
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N. Korea Rejects COVID Vaccines, Saying Hard-hit Nations Have Greater Need
North Korea has requested that 3 million doses of Chinese-made COVID-19 vaccine it was allocated be sent to countries with severe outbreaks, according to UNICEF. “The DPRK Ministry of Public Health (MOPH) has communicated that the 2.97 million doses being offered to DPR Korea by COVAX may be relocated to severely affected countries in view of the limited global supply of COVID-19 vaccines and recurrent surge in some countries,” a UNICEF spokesperson said in an email to VOA’s Korean Service on Tuesday. COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access (COVAX) is an international vaccine distribution program targeting lower-income nations. UNICEF obtains and distributes the vaccines for the program. “MOPH has said it will continue to communicate with the COVAX facility to receive COVID-19 vaccines in the coming months,” the spokesperson told VOA. Pyongyang has not reported any COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began in late December 2019. In its latest report to the World Health Organization, North Korea said it had tested 37, 291 people for COVID-19 as of August 19 and all were negative. Although there is widespread skepticism of these numbers, North Korea has imposed strict antivirus containment measures such as curtailed domestic travel and border closings. Edwin Salvador, head of WHO’s Pyongyang office, said in an August 19 email to VOA that COVAX had allocated 2.97 million doses of the Chinese Sinovac vaccine to North Korea and that it was awaiting a response from the North Korean authorities. However, UNICEF told VOA Korean on August 5 that the North Korean government had not yet fully completed the necessary preparation for receiving the vaccine from COVAX, so the supply was delayed. The country’s antiquated and uneven health care system limits its ability to handle many types of COVID-19 vaccines such as those produced by Pfizer and Moderna, which must be transported and kept under ultra-cold conditions.North Korea Shows No Vaccine Urgency, Despite New Virus WoesPyongyang hasn’t completed paperwork to get COVAX vaccinesChinese-made vaccines, as well as those from Russia and AstraZeneca, do not require that level of refrigeration. But in July, North Korea rejected shipments of AstraZeneca’s vaccine because of concerns about side effects, according to a report from the Institute for National Security Strategy (INSS), a South Korean think tank with ties to that country’s intelligence agencies. According to the INSS report, North Korea was concerned about the effectiveness of Chinese-made vaccines but was interested Russia’s vaccine, Sputnik V.
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Americans Mixed on Sheltering Afghan Refugees in US
Torie Fisher offered her cavernous Backward Flag Brewing Co. in the Jersey Shore community of Forked River as a collection center for donations to Afghan refugees, who had arrived at the nearby U.S. air base. “It’s just the human thing to do. They are humans like us,” said Fisher, an Army veteran who served in Iraq as a Black Hawk crew chief and door gunner, and an “Army brat” who was born in Fort Polk, Louisiana. Brett Behrens, a police officer for Little Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, and a former counterintelligence contractor in Afghanistan, was one of the first to help out after seeing a post by a fellow police officer. “A lot of the people there are really decent people,” Behrens told VOA, describing the Afghans he met during his 27-month tour. “They weren’t able to pack. They don’t have jobs. They don’t have homes. They don’t have anything.” After word got out on social media that donations were being accepted at New Jersey’s Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, one of seven domestic U.S. bases housing Afghan refugees, many residents offered up clothing, water and household goods. They said they wanted to provide anything to help the refugees, many of whom had arrived with only the clothes they were wearing. “I think it’s the humane thing to do. I don’t know how to say this, but it wasn’t right what was done. I don’t believe in the way we are pulling out of Afghanistan,” said Roselinda Brown, who, along with her husband, Thomas Brown, came to the brewery with donations of winter clothes. She told VOA she was also motivated because her nephew had served in Afghanistan. Thomas and Roselinda Brown donated winter clothes to Afghan refugees, who had arrived at the nearby U.S. air base.”We are a very fortunate country to have the freedoms that we have. The people who were helping us in Afghanistan were kind of thrown under the bus by our administration,” said Thomas Brown, who described himself as a conservative Republican. “They are looking for the freedoms that we have here in this country. I feel like if you can help, you should.” But other Americans are vexed about the government bringing refugees to the U.S. “We have veterans living on sidewalks, we have homeless areas where even children are living in tents. Who is rescuing them?” asked local resident Marena Agnoli in a social media message. FILE – Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, leaves the Capitol in Washington, Aug. 5, 2021.Some politicians and lawmakers are asking the same questions. Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and others assert that some of the refugees are going off base, a fear echoed by some Americans living near U.S. bases where refugees have been housed since being airlifted from Afghanistan. Some Americans who opposed bringing the refugees to the U.S. said they were concerned about the spread of the coronavirus and whether the refugees were vetted well enough to guarantee that no Taliban terrorists would be mixed among the genuinely needy. Others worried about U.S. tax dollars being spent on international rather than domestic needs. “Now we have hundreds of homeless people in Louisiana due to the hurricane,” Agnoli, who lives in New Jersey, the state that pays the third-highest taxes on earnings in the U.S., wrote to VOA. “Shouldn’t we rescue our homeless and poor before we take on foreigners? We have hundreds of illegal immigrants pouring into our country, can we support all of them? Will higher taxes make us homeless?” White House press secretary Jen Psaki speaks during a press briefing at the White House, Sept. 1, 2021.In a press conference on Tuesday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki addressed some of these concerns: “There is a process that includes not just a thorough background check and vetting process, but as individuals come to the United States, some will end up going to military bases, where they will have access to a range of resources, including vaccines.” Psaki said about 120,000 people had been airlifted from Afghanistan in the past few weeks, including 5,500 U.S. citizens. “We are leveraging and working with all of the incredible refugee resettlement organizations around the country who are eager and open to helping these Afghan refugees. Also to veterans’ organizations who are eager and open to helping these Afghan refugees resettle in the United States and work through as orderly a process, using every lever of government — from the U.S. military, the Department of Homeland Security — to move this process as rapidly as we can,” Psaki said. “I’m sorry, but I do not trust that a good portion of (bad actors) are among the refugees,” said Samantha Keane, who lives within an hour from Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst and supports the airlifting of Afghan women and children. She fears for the future of the female refugees, she said, who will be responsible for themselves and their children once they leave the base and will be treated poorly in Afghan enclaves — or by Americans who see only a backwards culture in relation to women’s rights. “They will be discriminated against once in the communities. People have zero clue about the history these women and children have endured,” said Keane, who wrote her college thesis about Afghan women. Behrens said he understands the skepticism and resentment among Americans. “If you can’t do something to help, you can’t. You can’t donate to every single charity that’s out there,” he said. “Some people have mixed feelings. There’s homeless people here. But if people don’t do it strictly because they are Afghans …” he said, trailing off. “There are plenty of Afghan nationals that have done more for the United States military than most Americans, who have literally never done anything besides post something on social media or complain about something and do nothing about it,” Behrens said. “They have all these opinions about a region that they’ve never been to, about people they’ve never seen or talked to, or they have legitimately no idea what they’re talking about.” The owner of Backward Flag Brewing Co. in New Jersey received a mixed response to her offer the space be used as a collection center for donations for Afghan refugees.Fisher, the Backward Flag Brewing Co. founder, admits to receiving hate mail along with an inbox full of offers to donate. “The response has been mixed. Some people have this idea that they are coming here to leech off our country,” Fisher told VOA. But the brewery has been filled with and emptied of donations several times, and they continue to roll in. “A lot of those people are our allies,” Fisher said. “They helped our soldiers, our military, to complete their mission. And the people that have come here are those people and their families. … We should say ‘thank you’ to them, not ‘send them back’ or ‘kick them out.'” “Some people say, ‘There’s a risk. Some of them might be terrorists,'” she said. “It’s possible. But you know what? We also have that living in our country amongst us every day. The human thing to do is give these people sanctuary if we have the ability to do that.” Fisher emphasized the service that many Afghans had provided to the U.S. during the 20 years the country fought in Afghanistan. “In my opinion, many of those people probably served our country a hell of a lot more than most people that actually live in this country,” she said.
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Ida Survivors Pick Up Pieces of Their Lives in Louisiana
Power has been restored to about 11,000 residents of hurricane-ravaged New Orleans, but it will likely be days before the rest of the city and almost 1 million customers in Louisiana have full power. VOA’s Mariama Diallo has this update on the devastation left by Hurricane Ida.
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Four Killed, Dozens Kidnapped in Eastern Congo Ambush
Four civilians were killed and dozens were taken hostage Wednesday in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo when suspected Islamist militants ambushed a convoy and set fire to the vehicles, the government said. Congo’s army has freed more than 50 of the hostages in Ituri province and operations are underway to recover the remaining captives from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a Ugandan Islamist group, the communications ministry said on Twitter. The ministry did not say how many people were still being held hostage. A local lawmaker said earlier that about 80 people were believed to be missing after the attack on a convoy of about 100 vehicles that was traveling with army protection on the road between the cities of Beni and Butembo. Attacks by the armed groups operating in eastern Congo’s borderlands with Rwanda and Uganda have continued unabated despite the government’s imposition of martial law in Ituri and North Kivu province at the beginning of May. The installation of army generals as provincial governors was meant to quell a surge in violence that the military largely attributes to the ADF. But the number of civilians killed in such attacks has increased, according to the Kivu Security Tracker. Survivors of Wednesday’s attack recalled a hail of gunfire as the convoy passed near the village of Ofaye. “Bullets started flying in every direction,” one of the survivors, Malanda Dague, told Reuters. “Some vehicles were hit and then burned.” Jean-Paul Ngahangondi, a member of parliament in North Kivu province, where the convoy started, criticized what he said was the army’s slow response, a frequent complaint of local people. “The army just waits for the rebels to kill the population and only then pursues them without any positive results,” he said. Eastern Congo has been plagued by violence since regional wars around the turn of the century. Islamic State has claimed dozens of killings blamed on the ADF, although U.N. experts say they have not found conclusive evidence that IS has control over ADF operations.
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Post-Tropical Cyclone Ida Dumps Heavy Rain, Spawns Tornadoes in Eastern US
The U.S. National Hurricane Center reports the weather system formerly known as Hurricane Ida is now classified as a post-tropical cyclone, moving through the mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. East Coast, causing flash flooding and spawning tornados in its path. Ida came ashore Sunday in Louisiana as a Category 4 hurricane and one of the most powerful storms to ever strike the mainland United States. In its last report, the hurricane center said the center of the storm system is now in the state of West Virginia and moving east to northeast. Hurricane Ida Leaves New Orleans Residents Suffering Amid Soaring Temperatures Powerful hurricane damages critical infrastructure in southern Louisiana, leaving residents without electricity to power badly needed air conditioning The system, with maximum winds of 45 kilometers per hour, is expected to drop up to 20 centimeters of rain as it moves through the region over a 24-hour period. Ahead of the system, tornadoes have already been reported in the state of Maryland, to the north and east of the U.S. capital, Washington, D.C. The hurricane center said the system could even gain strength when it moves offshore later Thursday. Meanwhile, the hurricane center reports Tropical Storm Larry has now formed in the far southeastern Atlantic and is gaining strength. They say it is likely to become a hurricane on Thursday. It currently has sustained winds of about 105 kilometers per hour and is moving to the north-northwest. Forecasters say the storm currently poses no threat to land.
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Many Afghans Fleeing to Istanbul in Bid for Visas to NATO Countries
Among the growing numbers of Afghans arriving in Turkey after fleeing the Taliban are those who fought alongside NATO forces. As Dorian Jones reports for VOA from Istanbul, they are now looking for help from countries with whose soldiers they served.Video editor: Rob Raffaele
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Uyghurs From Afghanistan Fear Deportation to China
As many as 2,000 ethnic Uyghurs born or living in Afghanistan have been placed in jeopardy by the Taliban takeover, with many fearing they will be deported China to join an estimated 1 million fellow Uyghurs in Xinjiang internment camps.That estimate came from Afghan Uyghurs who spoke to VOA about their anxieties, especially as they see Taliban and Chinese officials exploring potential avenues for cooperation.Memet, a Uyghur jewelry merchant from Kabul and the father of five, told VOA he was more frightened than he’d ever been before. He said he thought the Taliban, who are in dire need of economic support, would not hesitate to exchange people like him and his family for Chinese financial aid.”I’m most fearful that the Taliban will eventually give us back to China, and China will just shoot us,” said Memet, who asked that only his first name be used. He said he was born in Afghanistan, the son of exiled Uyghur parents who came to Afghanistan in 1961 from China’s autonomous region of Xinjiang.FILE – Uyghurs and other members of the faithful pray at the Id Kah Mosque in Kashgar in western China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, as seen during a government organized trip for foreign journalists, April 19, 2021.According to the Chinese government, more than 12 million Uyghurs live in Xinjiang, which borders Afghanistan.China-Taliban relationsLast month, when a Taliban delegation met with the Chinese foreign minister in Tianjin, China asked for the Taliban’s cooperation in combating the extremist East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) in Afghanistan. The Taliban reiterated that they would never allow any force to use the Afghan territory to engage in acts detrimental to China.ETIM is a U.N.-designated international terrorist organization linked to Uyghur militants outside China. The United States removed it from its terror list in 2020, citing “no credible evidence” that it continued to exist.Memet said the Chinese government considers any Uyghur in Afghanistan to be ETIM and therefore a threat to China.”The Taliban have been saying they represent and protect the interests of Muslims, but what they are promising to [the] Chinese government is the exact opposite of that,” Memet said.Memet’s fear of deportation is not unfounded, according to Bradley Jardine, an analyst at the Washington-based Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs.”Deportations of Uyghurs have taken place historically under the Taliban, with 13 Uyghurs handed over to China following a [2000] meeting between Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Lu Shulin and Taliban leader Mullah Omar in Kandahar,” Jardine told VOA.He added that Afghanistan has historically been viewed as safer for Uyghurs than neighboring Central Asian countries because it lacks a formal extradition treaty with China.Jardine also referenced the There are two types of national identification cards in Afghanistan. This is a recent one that states the ethnicity of Uyghurs as “Uyghur.” (Abdulaziz Naseri)Naseri said it is easy for the Taliban to find the Uyghurs because their Afghan national identification cards show “overseas Chinese” or “Uyghur” as their ethnicity.This Afghan national ID card shows Uyghurs to be “overseas Chinese.” Abdulaziz Naseri is pictured on this card.(Abdulaziz Naseri)”Taliban will take Uyghurs and hand them over to China and will deny the disappearance of Uyghurs as they have denied other forced disappearances of dissidents in the past,” Naseri said.Henryk Szadziewski, research director at the Washington-based Uyghur Human Rights Project, told VOA that given Beijing’s long record of transnational repression targeting Uyghurs, the possibility that China and the Taliban would cooperate to deport Uyghurs was high.”The new administration in Kabul has long-standing ties to Beijing and is looking for political and economic support,” Szadziewski said. “The Uyghurs are caught between these actors whose obligations to international rights standards are either nonexistent or lip service at best.”
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Japan Begins Recall of Tainted Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine
After suspending the use of 1.63 million doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine over contamination concerns last week, Japan is now recalling those doses, Moderna Inc. and its Japanese partner, Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. said Wednesday.Last week, some vials of the vaccine were found to be contaminated with stainless steel.Japanese officials said Wednesday that they did not think the stainless steel particles posed a health risk, while Moderna said the contamination was probably caused by pieces of metal rubbing together in the machinery that puts stops on the vials.”Stainless steel is routinely used in heart valves, joint replacements and metal sutures and staples. As such, it is not expected that injection of the particles identified in these lots in Japan would result in increased medical risk,” Takeda and Moderna said in a joint statement.According to Taro Kono, the Japanese minister overseeing vaccinations, around 500,000 people received shots from the suspended Moderna batches.The focus on the contaminated doses was heightened after two men died within days of receiving second doses from the contaminated batches.While their deaths are still being investigated, Moderna and Takeda said there was no evidence the vaccine played a role in their deaths.”The relationship is currently considered to be coincidental,” the companies said in the statement.(Some information in this report comes from Reuters.)
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WHO Chief, Germany’s Merkel Open Global Pandemic Hub in Berlin
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus Wednesday officially opened the international Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence in Berlin — a center designed to pool the world’s resources to fight future global health emergencies.
The hub, originally announced in May, will be a collection agency for health data from around the world. Equipped with a supercomputer, it will collect, analyze and disseminate information from international governments, and academic and private sector institutions.
Following a ribbon-cutting ceremony, Merkel told reporters the COVID-19 pandemic has shown what the world can do “when we truly join forces. Experts from around the world have been expanding their knowledge at an incredible rate and sharing it to decode the coronavirus.”
In his comments, Tedros said the hub will bring together scientists, innovators, policymakers and civil society representatives to work across borders and disciplines. It will use the latest innovations in data science, artificial intelligence, quantum computing and other cutting-edge technologies,
“No single institution or nation can do this alone. That’s why we have coined the term ‘collaborative intelligence’ to sum up our collective mission,” Tedros said.
He also used the briefing to provide an update on the pandemic, noting last week that the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths reported to WHO declined for the first time in more than two months. But he said the drop in cases and deaths doesn’t mean much when many countries are still seeing steep increases.
He also said shocking inequities in access to vaccines continue to exist, with 75% of the 5 billion vaccine doses administered globally going to just 10 countries. He said in low-income countries — most of which are in Africa — fewer than 2% of adults are fully vaccinated, compared with almost 50% in high‑income countries.
The WHO chief reiterated his call for a global moratorium on administering booster shots at least until the end of September to allow those countries that are the furthest behind to catch up. Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse.
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Firefighters Report Progress Containing Forest Blaze Near Lake Tahoe
Fire crews reported progress Wednesday in an effort to save neighborhoods from a massive forest fire near Lake Tahoe in the western U.S. state of Nevada. Firefighters “lucked out” when winds did not strengthen as much as expected early Wednesday, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection Section Chief Tim Ernst told reporters.Ernst said progress was made creating fire lines with bulldozers as the fire’s movement slowed during its approach to Lake Tahoe, known for its ski resorts and beaches. Weather forecasters cautioned, however, that crews would still have to grapple with gusty winds throughout Wednesday. The fire reached the southern tip of Lake Tahoe Wednesday after evacuation orders in neighboring California were expanded to Nevada, forcing crews to scramble to prevent it from reaching the resort city of South Lake Tahoe. Heavy smoke from what is called the Caldor Fire has blanketed the resort city, leaving it largely empty during what is normally a bustling tourist season.The Caldor Fire has burned nearly 808 square kilometers and has been nearly 20% contained since erupting on August 14. The blaze has destroyed more than 600 structures and threatens at least 33,000 others.Thousands of firefighters have been battling dozens of fires in California, which, along with other western U.S. states, have become much drier and warmer over recent decades due to climate change.Scientists say those weather conditions will continue make wildfires and extreme weather more frequent. Some information for this report came from the Associated Press.
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France, Germany Urge Iran to Return Speedily to Nuclear Deal Talks
France and Germany on Wednesday urged Iran to return rapidly to nuclear negotiations, after a break in talks following Iranian elections in June, with Paris demanding an “immediate” restart amid Western concerns over Tehran’s expanding atomic work.France’s foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told his newly-appointed Iranian counterpart Hossein Amirabdollahian in a telephone call it was urgent for Tehran to return to the talks, Le Drian’s ministry said in a statement.A sixth round of indirect talks between Tehran and Washington was adjourned in June after hardliner Ebrahim Raisi was elected Iran’s president. Raisi took office on August 5.Since April, Iran and six powers have tried to work out how Tehran and Washington can both return to compliance with the nuclear pact, which former U.S. President Donald Trump abandoned in 2018 and reimposed harsh sanctions on Tehran.”The minister underlined the importance and the urgency of an immediate resumption of negotiations,” the foreign ministry said after the conversation between Le Drian and Amirabdollahian.Le Drian repeated his concern with regard to all the nuclear activities carried out by Iran in violation of the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Iran has gradually violated limits in the agreement since Washington abandoned it in 2018.The next round of talks has yet to be scheduled.Two senior Iranian officials told Reuters in July Raisi planned to adopt “a harder line” in the talks.Amirabdollahian said on Monday the talks might resume in “two to three months”, although it’s unclear whether that time frame began from now or when the new administration took over last month.Germany earlier also raised pressure on Tehran asking it to resume talks “as soon as possible.””We are ready to do so, but the time window won’t be open indefinitely,” a ministry spokesperson told a briefing.Last month, France, Germany and Britain voiced grave concern about reports from the U.N. nuclear watchdog confirming Iran has produced uranium metal enriched up to 20% fissile purity for the first time and lifted production capacity of uranium enriched to 60%. Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons.
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Spain’s Effort to Atone for Expelling Jews Met with Antisemitism Accusations
Marcos Cabrera Coronel can trace his Jewish ancestry back to the 15th century, when Spain expelled tens of thousands of Sephardic Jews.So, after Spain announced in 2015 it wanted to atone for the expulsion of Jews in 1492 by offering Spanish citizenship to those who could prove their links to Spain, Cabrera wanted to take advantage of this opportunity.Like thousands of others in developing countries, this Venezuelan businessman sought to escape political and economic strife at home and forge a new life for his family in the European Union.He spent $63,500 to try to get Spanish passports for nine Venezuelan family members and after securing certificates from three Jewish organizations vouching for his links to Spain.However, four of the nine applications were refused in March.“I was devastated. We had spent our family savings. We wanted to do this to give my family a better chance in life than they can expect in Venezuela,” the 66-year-old businessman from Valencia, in Venezuela, told VOA.He is among more than 3,000 Jewish applicants who have been refused nationality by the Spanish government this year, prompting to accusations of antisemitism by lawyers and activists who say there is no reason why Jewish applicants should be turned down.The matter has prompted Teresa Leger Fernandez, a Democrat from state of New Mexico in the U.S. House of Representatives to raise the matter with the White House.In Spain, politicians from the conservative People’s Party to Jon Iñarritu of the Basque nationalist Bildu party have demanded answers from the Spanish government over the refusal of so many Jewish people.The Spanish government denies the claim of antisemitism, as does the Spanish Federation of Jewish Communities and other lawyers involved in aiding applicants.Ancient and modern historyIn 1492, King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile ended Muslim rule in Spain and ordered the expulsion of Jews and Muslims.Thousands converted to Christianity while many thousands more left the Iberian peninsula to live around the world.FILE – Children stand near the “El Transito” synagogue and Sephardic Museum in Toledo, Spain, Feb. 27, 2014.Under the 2015 law, applicants had to show some proof of their Sephardic ancestry.For Jewish people this could be shown through a genealogical report documenting their family history.For so-called conversos – those whose family had been forced to convert to Catholicism – this could be shown through practices that were passed through generations.Applications had to be certified by a Jewish community in the country of birth or residence and or the Spanish Federation of Jewish Communities. They also had to certify a link with Spain. This would be certified by a notary.The Spanish Justice Ministry conducted final checks.The program ran between 2015 and 2019, during which time Spain received 63,873 applications, according to the Spanish justice ministry. Of these 36,168 were approved while 3,020 were refused. Thousands more are under consideration.A source close to the investigation cites a 2018 unpublished police report from a Spanish embassy in an unidentified Latin American country that warned a criminal organization could be fraudulently trying to get citizenship for descendants of Sephardic Jews.Two businessmen in Colombia were allegedly selling services to thousands of applicants who they promised to help get Spanish passports, according to a source with knowledge of the alleged fraud, who did not want to be named. Only notaries based in Spain are legally allowed to do this.After the police investigation, Spain changed the rules so that applicants had to get a certificate of Sephardic ancestry from their local Jewish groups. Before the rule change, Jewish organizations outside an applicants’ home country offered to issue Sephardic certificates because in some Latin American countries, they were extremely expensive.Following the rule change, 3019 applications were rejected this year compared with one in 2020.AllegationsLuis Portero, a lawyer who helped draft the original 2015 law, said Jewish applicants were being turned down because the Spanish government failed to properly to explain applicants about the rule change.“Hundreds of Jewish applicants are being rejected and this proves antisemitism,” he told VOA.Dr. Sara Koplik, of the Jewish Federation of New Mexico in the U.S., which helped applications, said she believed the Spanish government had closed the door on Jews who complied with regulations.The 50-year-old academic who is an expert on Sephardic Jews spent $8,700 on her application but was rejected this year.“This was a very limited program with stringent rules and several years later was just thrown out after everybody had spent millions [on applications]. That is why this seems like prejudice. It does not make any sense.” she told VOA. However, other lawyers involved in the process and the Spanish Federation of Jewish Communities, refuted these claims, saying those who were rejected did not comply with the rules.“There were people who did not comply with the requirements to get citizenship perhaps because they were not living in Jewish communities. It is not a case of anti-Semitism at all.” Alberto de Lara Bendahan, a Spanish lawyer, told VOA.A source from the Spanish Justice Ministry told VOA: “The applications were refused because they did not comply with the requirements of the law in some way. We do not know or ask for their religious beliefs.”
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UN Study: Weather Disasters Increased by Five Times in 50 years
A new report released Wednesday by the United Nations indicates extreme weather events have increased fivefold over the past 50 years, while the number of fatalities related to those events has dropped.Officials from the U.N.’s weather and climate agency, the World Meteorological Organization, introduced the report during a briefing from the agency’s headquarters in Geneva. The report shows weather-related disasters have occurred on average at a rate of one per day over the past five decades, killing 115 people and causing $202 million in losses daily.Mami Mizutori, U.N. special representative for disaster risk reduction, told reporters she found the report “quite alarming.” She noted that this past July was the hottest July on record, marked by heat waves and floods around the world. The study shows that more people are suffering due to this increased frequency and intensity of weather events.Mizutori said 31 million people were displaced by natural disasters last year, almost surpassing the number displaced by conflicts. She said on average, 26 million people per year are pushed into poverty by extreme weather events. Now, the COVID-19 pandemic is compounding the problem.The U.N. disaster risk specialist said, “We live in this, what we call, the multihazard world, and it demonstrates that we really need to invest more in disaster risk reduction and prevention.”WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said the good news in the report is that during that same period, fatalities related to these disasters dropped by nearly three times, due to early warning systems and improved disaster management.But the study also shows that more than 91% of the deaths that do occur happen in developing or low-income countries, as many do not have the same warning and management systems in place.The WMO officials said the economic losses associated with these disasters will worsen without serious climate change mitigation. Taalas said if the right measures are put in place, the trend could be stopped in the next 40 years. WMO called on the G-20 group of world economic powers to keep their promise to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse.
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30 Years of Ukraine’s Independence: US Ambassadors in Ukraine Recall Highlights
Ukraine’s parliament, Verkhovna Rada, passed the country’s Act of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine on August 24, 1991. The US recognized the country’s independence on December 25 that same year and opened an embassy in Kyiv. Since then, nine ambassadors have represented the U.S. in Ukraine. Mariia Prus looks back at the last three decades of the U.S.-Ukrainian relationship in this story narrated by Anna Rice.Producer: Mary Cieslak
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South Africa’s Soaring Unemployment Hits Women Hardest
South Africa’s jobless rate has hit 34% — among the highest in the world — as the country’s economy is stifled by the pandemic and July’s riots. Black women are among the worst affected with 41% unemployed. Linda Givetash reports from Johannesburg.Camera: Zaheer Cassim
Produced by: Zaheer Cassim, Rod James
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Rwandan President Removes Justice Minister Amid ‘Hotel Rwanda’ Hero Trial
Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame has removed the justice minister but made him ambassador to Britain amid international scrutiny over the trial of Paul Rusesabagina, the hotelier credited with saving many lives during the 1994 genocide. A government statement issued on Tuesday gave no reason for the dismissal of Johnston Busingye, who had served as justice minister and attorney general since 2013. Busingye was appointed Rwanda’s ambassador to Britain, the statement said. Kagame did not immediately name a new justice minister. Requests for comment to government spokespeople and the presidency office were not answered. Rusesabagina was hailed as hero after he used his connections as the manager of a Kigali hotel to save ethnic Tutsis from slaughter during the genocide. He was portrayed in the 2004 Hollywood film “Hotel Rwanda.” FILE – Paul Rusesabagina, the man who was hailed a hero in a Hollywood movie about Rwanda’s 1994 genocide is paraded in handcuffs in front of media at the headquarters of Rwanda’s Investigation Bureau, in Kigali, Aug. 31, 2020.Now he is accused of nine terrorism-related charges, including forming and funding an armed rebel group. Before his arrest, Rusesabagina, who was living in the United States, was a vocal critic of the Kagame government. Prosecutors have requested a life sentence for Rusesabagina, whose family says he is in poor health and being mistreated in prison. The court is scheduled to issue its verdict on Sept. 20.In an interview with Qatar-based Al Jazeera news channel in February, then Minister Busingye said the government had paid for the flight that brought Rusesabagina to Rwanda last year, which Rusesabagina’s family said resulted in his kidnapping. Rusesabagina’s trial has drawn attention to Kagame, whom rights groups say has used authoritarian tactics to crush political opposition and extend his rule. The government’s arrest of Rusesabagina amounted to an enforced disappearance, a serious violation of international law, New York-based Human Rights Watch said at the time. Kagame became head of state in 2000 after he and his rebel forces halted the genocide in 1994 after 100 days of bloodletting and around 800,000 deaths of ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus. He won landslide victories in subsequent elections, the most recent in 2017, when he won nearly 99% of the vote. He changed the constitution in 2015, enabling him to rule legally until 2034.
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Tanzania Court Dismisses Objections to Opposition Leader’s Trial
The terrorism case against the leader of Tanzania’s main opposition party can go ahead as planned, a high court judge in Dar es Salaam said Wednesday, dismissing objections by his party. Chadema party chairman Freeman Mbowe and his supporters have described the charges as a politically-motivated effort to crush dissent, and accused police of torturing him in custody. His lawyers had argued that the high court’s Corruption and Economic Crimes Division where he appeared had no powers to hear the case, which was previously being handled by a magistrate’s court. But on Wednesday judge Elinaza Luvanda said that “this court has the jurisdiction to hear terrorism cases and therefore I don’t agree with the objection made by defendants.” The hearing took place under tight security, with some representatives from foreign embassies and Chadema’s senior leaders in attendance, but many journalists were banned from entering the courtroom by police. Mbowe has been behind bars since July 21 when he was arrested along with a number of other senior Chadema officials in a night-time police raid hours before they were to hold a public forum to demand constitutional reform. The 59-year-old has been charged with terrorism financing and conspiracy in a case that has sparked concerns about democracy and the rule of law under President Samia Suluhu Hassan. On Monday, Mbowe had appeared in court to pursue a case against top legal officials, claiming his constitutional rights had been violated during his arrest and when he was charged. His defense team says he was held without charge for five days and then charged without his lawyer being present. The opposition has denounced the arrests as a throwback to the oppressive rule of Tanzania’s late leader John Magufuli who died suddenly in March. There had been hope Hassan would bring about a new era of democracy after the increasingly autocratic rule of Magufuli, nicknamed the “Bulldozer” for his uncompromising style. But Chadema leaders say the arrests reflect a deepening slide into “dictatorship.” Prosecutors say the allegations against Mbowe do not relate to the constitutional reform conference Chadema had planned to hold in the port city of Mwanza in July, but to alleged offences last year in another part of Tanzania. Chadema has said prosecutors accuse Mbowe of conspiring to attack a public official, and of giving 600,000 Tanzanian shillings ($260/220 euros) towards blowing up petrol stations and public gatherings and cutting down trees to block roads.
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