Year: 2021

Daughter of Pioneering Astronaut Alan Shepard Soars to Space Aboard Blue Origin Rocket

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The eldest daughter of pioneering U.S. astronaut Alan Shepard blasted off aboard Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin commercial space tourism rocket on Saturday, 60 years after her late father’s famed suborbital NASA flight at the dawn of the Space Age.

 

Laura Shepard Churchley, 74, who was a schoolgirl when her father first streaked into space, was one of six passengers buckled into the cabin of Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft as it lifted off from a launch site outside the west Texas town of Van Horn.

 

The crew capsule at the top of the fully autonomous, six-story-tall spaceship is designed to soar to an altitude of about 350,000 feet (106 km) before falling back to Earth, descending under a canopy of parachutes to the desert floor for a gentle landing.

 

The entire flight, from liftoff to touchdown, was expected to last a little more than 10 minutes, with the crew experiencing a few minutes of weightlessness at the very apex of the suborbital flight.

 

The spacecraft itself is named for Alan Shepard, who in 1961 made history as the second person, and the first American, to travel into space—a 15-minute suborbital flight as one of NASA’s original “Mercury Seven” astronauts. A decade later, Shepard walked on the moon as commander of the Apollo 14 mission, famously hitting two golf galls on the lunar surface.

 

Churchley was one of two honorary, non-paying guest passengers chosen by Blue Origin for Saturday’s flight. The other is Michael Strahan, 50, a retired National Football League star and co-anchor of ABC television’s “Good Morning America” show.

 

They were joined by four lesser-known, wealthy customers who paid undisclosed but presumably hefty sums for their New Shepard seats—space industry executive Dylan Taylor, engineer-investor Evan Dick, venture capitalist Lane Bess and his 23-year-old son, Cameron Bess. The Besses made history as the first parent-child pair to fly in space together, according to Blue Origin.

 
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Blinken Attends G-7 Meeting Amid Rising Tensions With Russia, China, Iran

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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is attending talks that began Saturday among Group of Seven foreign ministers in Liverpool, with a call from British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss to unite against authoritarianism.

The appeal from Truss came as ministers from the world’s wealthiest democracies, informally known as the G-7, discuss Russia’s build-up of troops along the border it shares with Ukraine, containing Iran’s nuclear ambitions and addressing the military’s seizure of Myanmar.

“We need to come together strongly to stand up to aggressors who are seeking to limit the bounds of freedom and democracy,” Truss said as she opened the two-day session without mentioning specific countries.

The top U.S. diplomat met Friday with Truss and their counterparts from France and Germany and discussed how to advance the Iran nuclear talks. Blinken meets separately Saturday with the foreign ministers of Japan, Italy and Australia.

Blinken will also have a series of in-person meetings with foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as part of a December 9-17 trip that also will take him to Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Hawaii. 

Blinken’s trip is part of a U.S. effort to further advance its “strategic partnership” with ASEAN as President Joe Biden’s administration aims to begin a new “Indo-Pacific economic framework” in early 2022. 

This marks the first time ASEAN countries were included in the G-7 foreign and development ministers’ meeting, being held in Liverpool.

The top diplomats are discussing China’s efforts to increase its influence in the Indo-Pacific region, as well as Russia’s troop buildup in Ukraine and the global coronavirus pandemic.

In Jakarta, Indonesia next week, Blinken will deliver remarks on the significance of the Indo-Pacific region and underscore the importance of the U.S.-Indonesia Strategic Partnership. 

“The secretary will have an opportunity to discuss the president’s newly announced Indo-Pacific economic framework,” Daniel Kritenbrink, the State Department’s assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, told reporters in a call briefing. “President Biden is committed to elevating U.S.-ASEAN engagement to unprecedented levels,” he added. 

Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim majority nation. Kritenbrink told VOA on Wednesday that Blinken will attend a vaccine clinic hosted by the largest faith-based nongovernmental organization in Indonesia. 

Blinken then heads to Malaysia and Thailand, where he will attempt to advance U.S. ties and address shared challenges, including fighting COVID-19, building resilient supply chains, dealing with the climate crisis, and ensuring a free and open Indo-Pacific region. 

The State Department said Blinken will “address the worsening crisis” in Myanmar in each country during his lengthy trip. The military in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, seized power in a February coup, overthrowing the civilian government. 

U.S. officials had indicated the new Indo-Pacific economic framework would include broad partnerships with nations in the region in critical areas such as the digital economy and technology, supply chain resiliency, and clean energy. 

“The Indo-Pacific region is a critical part of our economy. It’s not just that it accounts for over half of the world’s population and 60% of global GDP” (gross domestic product), Jose Fernandez, undersecretary of state for economic growth, energy and the environment, said in a recent briefing. 

“Seven of the top 15 U.S. export markets are in the Indo-Pacific. Two-way trade between the U.S. and the region was over $1.75 trillion,” he added.  

There are, however, concerns that the U.S. is lagging behind China in deepening economic and strategic ties with ASEAN. 

“ASEAN countries want more from Washington on the economic side, but the Biden administration’s proposed Indo-Pacific economic framework is likely to fall short of their expectations,” said Susannah Patton, a research fellow in the foreign policy and defense program at the United States Studies Center in Sydney. 

“After RCEP enters into force, there will be two megatrade pacts in Asia: RCEP and CPTPP, and the United States is in neither,” said Patton, referring to the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. 

“China’s application to join CPTPP, a vehicle that was designed to promote U.S. economic ties with Asia, highlights Washington’s absence,” Patton told VOA Wednesday. Signed in 2018, the CPTPP is a free-trade agreement between Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, New Zealand, Singapore and Vietnam.  

In November 2020, 10 ASEAN member states and five additional countries (Australia, China, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand) signed the RCEP, representing around 30% of the world’s GDP and population. RCEP will come into force in January. 

Others said the new Indo-Pacific economic framework appears to be not just about traditional trade, as Washington is signaling strategic interests in the region.  

 

Wayne Lee contributed to this report. Some information for this report was provided by Agence France-Presse, The Associated Press and Reuters.
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Nobel Peace Prize Critics Say Award Has Drifted From Supporting Peace

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In Oslo, Norway, on Friday, dignitaries from around the world gathered to celebrate the awarding of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to Filipina journalist Maria Ressa and Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov. But as speeches were delivered and medals presented, voices outside Oslo City Hall were asking whether the most prestigious prize in the world, as many believe it to be, has lost its shine.

In recent decades, the prize has sometimes gone to individuals who, many believe, have failed to live up to the standard articulated by the founder of the prize, Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel. His instruction was that it should go to “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”

Perhaps most notably, that includes Abiy Ahmed, the prime minister of Ethiopia, who was awarded the prize in 2019 for helping to end his country’s long-running war with Eritrea. The prize committee cited his “efforts to achieve peace and international cooperation, and in particular for his decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighboring Eritrea.”

Today, Abiy is conducting a brutal war in northern Ethiopia’s Tigray region, in which both sides have been accused of a wide range of war crimes.

Controversial awards

In 2019, the same year Abiy won the prize, a fellow laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, appeared before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands. Suu Kyi, who was the head of Myanmar’s civilian government at the time, was there to insist that the widespread killing and displacement of the ethnic Rohingya people in her country was not a genocide.

Another controversial laureate is former U.S. President Barack Obama, who was nominated for the prize before he had been in office for a month and received the award before he had served even a year. Obama went on to increase U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan during part of his presidency, and he accelerated the use of drone strikes against individuals and groups seen as enemies of the United States.

Controversial awards are nothing new to the Nobel committee. Two members resigned in 1973 when the award was given to then-U.S. national security adviser Henry Kissinger for supposedly helping to arrange a cease-fire in the Vietnam War. Kissinger offered to return the prize two years later, after the fall of Saigon.

In 1994, when Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin were given the prize for efforts to promote peace between Israel and the Palestinians, one member of the committee denounced Arafat, head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, as a terrorist and resigned.

Opaque selection process

The Norwegian Nobel Committee is made up of five members selected by the Norwegian parliament. For generations, the committee has been made up primarily of retired politicians. They collect nominations at the beginning of each year and typically announce a winner in October.

All documents and records of the selection process are sealed for 50 years, making it difficult to know exactly what the committee members were thinking during recent deliberations.

This has not made the committee immune from criticism, however.

“The prize is losing credibility,” Unni Turrettini, author of the book Betraying the Nobel: The Secrets and Corruption Behind the Nobel Peace Prize, told VOA. “And when it loses credibility, it loses the potential impact that the prize can have on world peace.”

Turrettini said that populating the prize committee with politicians has led to the impression that its choices are sometimes meant to further the interests of the Norwegian government and its relations with other nations.

“For our country, and as a Norwegian myself, it is in everyone’s interest that we keep the committee independent from Norwegian politics, and that we restore the trust that has been eroded,” she said.

Dispute over Nobel’s intentions

Some believe that the committee has, too often, strayed from Nobel’s original intent.

Norwegian attorney and peace activist Fredrik Heffermehl has been pressuring the committee for well over a decade, insisting that many of its selections have departed so far from Nobel’s instructions, as laid out in his will, that they are effectively illegal.

Heffermehl told VOA that this year’s awarding of the prize to Ressa and Muratov, two journalists who have courageously fought to overcome government repression of the media in their respective home countries, is yet another such departure. While they may be doing admirable work, neither is directly involved in efforts to further what Heffermehl believes to have been Nobel’s ultimate goal: widespread disarmament.

“I’m more disappointed than I’ve been for a very long time,” Heffermehl said. “Very few prizes, particularly the last 20 years, have met Alfred Nobel’s intention.”

Officials associated with the prize committee have vigorously disputed Heffermehl’s interpretation of the instructions for awarding the prize. Olav Njølstad, director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, has taken to the pages of the country’s largest newspaper, Aftenposten, to accuse Heffermehl of misreading the historical record.

“The Nobel Committee has never accepted this interpretation of the will,” Njølstad wrote. “It does not see that Alfred Nobel has anywhere stated that work for disarmament should be given greater weight than the other forms of peace work to which the will refers.”

An ‘aspirational’ prize

Ron Krebs, a professor of political science at the University of Minnesota, told VOA that it is important to understand that, particularly in the past 50 years, the Nobel Peace Prize has often had an “aspirational” quality to it. That is, it is sometimes awarded to people who are taking early steps toward goals that the Nobel committee sees as furthering the cause of peace in the world.

That could be said of the prizes awarded to individuals working to end the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, and even the selection of Barack Obama, whose campaign rhetoric had focused on reducing conflict.

“These are the Nobel prize committee saying, ‘We wish to encourage them along this path. We wish to bolster their chances, and we will put our moral weight behind them,'” Krebs said.

Krebs said that can lead people to mistakenly believe that the prize is an endorsement of everything the recipient does or, effectively, will do.

“We need to remember that people who are granted the Nobel Peace Prize are granted it for particular accomplishments, or even particular aspirations,” he said. “But that does not mean that they share all those values that the Nobel prize committee espouses.” 
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Cold Weather US States Struggling to Hire Snowplow Drivers

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More U.S. drivers could find themselves stuck on snowy highways or have their travel delayed this winter due to a shortage of snowplow drivers — a reality that could hit home Friday as winter storms start dumping snow from the Intermountain West to the Upper Great Lakes.

States from Washington to Pennsylvania, including Montana and Wyoming in the Rocky Mountains, are having trouble finding enough people willing to take the comparatively low-paying jobs that require a Commercial Driver’s License and often entail working at odd hours in dangerous conditions.

“We want the traveling public to understand why it could take longer this season to clear highways during winter storms,” said Jon Swartz, the maintenance administrator for the Montana Department of Transportation, which is short about 90 drivers. “Knowing this helps motorists to plan ahead and adjust or even delay travel plans.”

The labor shortage and lingering concerns about the pandemic have left employers scrambling to find enough school bus drivers, waiters, cooks and even teachers. The shortage comes as the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits dropped last week to the lowest level in 52 years and some are seeking a better work-life balance.

Several states are either already feeling the crunch or could be soon: Heavy snow is predicted in the coming days in large swaths of the country, including Utah and Colorado, where more than a foot (30 centimeters) is forecast in higher elevations. Over a half a foot could drop in parts of Nebraska and Iowa. Parts of Nevada and New Mexico also expect winter storms.

State transportation departments say there are several reasons for a lack of snowplow drivers: the record low unemployment rate, an aging workforce and an increased demand for diesel mechanics and CDL drivers in other industries. Private companies can also be more nimble — raising salaries and offering bonuses to drivers — than state agencies, which usually have to get legislative approval to change salaries.

“Everyone’s sort of competing for the same group of workers and private companies can often offer higher salaries than the state government,” said Barbara LaBoe, spokesperson for Washington state’s Department of Transportation.

Along with the competitive market, LaBoe said Washington also lost 151 winter operations workers who did not want to comply with the state’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

One of the main competitors for states seeking workers with a Commercial Driver’s License are private trucking companies that have been raising driver pay, in some cases several times this year, to fill their own shortages and meet the increasing demand to move freight and clear supply chain bottlenecks.

 

The American Trucking Associations estimates there will be a record shortage of just over 80,000 drivers this year, and that doesn’t include the shortfall in drivers for school buses, public transportation or snowplows.

The ATA says the shortage has many roots, including many drivers nearing retirement age, the pandemic causing some to leave the industry and training schools churning out fewer new drivers in 2020. Others may leave the industry because they don’t like being away from home while an increase in the number of states legalizing marijuana leads to more drivers being unable to pass a drug test, the ATA says.

Some states are willing to hire snowplow drivers and pay for their CDL training, but it’s not likely those hires will be ready to work this winter, officials said.

Some snowplow drivers work year-round in highway maintenance jobs, while seasonal workers are hired to fill the additional shifts in the winter.

The shortage is leading states to make plans to shift mechanics and other full-time employees who have Commercial Driver’s Licenses into plows, which can cause problems if a plow needs maintenance work and the mechanic is out driving.

Wyoming has priorities for which roads will be plowed first and for how many hours per day plows will operate on each roadway. Interstate 80, the major east-west corridor across the southern part of the state, can be plowed around the clock while plowing stops on other roads, such as Interstates 90 and 25, between midnight at 4 a.m. Those guidelines may come into play more this year, said Luke Reiner, director of Wyoming’s Department of Transportation.

 

In Washington, LaBoe said some roads and mountain passes will be closed longer than usual during and after significant storms and some roads may not receive the same level of service.

Brief or isolated storms won’t cause problems in most states, in part because departments can move drivers and equipment around based on the weather forecast.

“If we have a series of storms over several days or if it hits the whole state at once, (the shortage) is going to become more evident because we don’t have as deep a bench,” LaBoe said.

Washington is still short about 150 seasonal and full-time workers, but things have improved since October when it was short 300 workers.

Even if states are able to hire drivers with commercial licenses, they still have to train them to run a snowplow and load the truck with salt and sand before learning a route.

“When you’re plowing the road you need to know where the bridge abutment is and where the expansion joints are so you don’t hook that with a plow,” LaBoe said.

Pennsylvania is short 270 permanent positions and 560 temporary ones, but the Department of Transportation said that doesn’t mean the roads will be treacherous this winter.

“Our goal is to keep roads safe and passable rather than completely free of ice and snow,” said Alexis Campbell, spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. The roads will be cleared once the snow stops, she said.

Ease of travel is important to businesses. Capitol Courier has contracts with deadlines to deliver electronic replacement parts from their warehouse in Helena, Montana, to about 30 businesses around the state as soon as they call.

“The roads are critical to what we do,” said Shawn White Wolf, co-manager of Capitol Courier.

Snowplow drivers are devoted to their jobs, understanding their work is critical to the safety of the traveling public and to emergency responders, said Rick Nelson director of the winter maintenance technical service program for the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.

Still, he understands that convincing newcomers “to be out there in the worst conditions” can be difficult.

Nelson said the shortage means states will be shifting resources when they can and making sure roads are clear during times of peak demand while “you try to recruit, get out there and beat the bushes and convince folks that jumping in a plow in the middle of the night at Christmastime is a good career choice.”
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Benin Opposition Leader Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison

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A court in Benin convicted one of President Patrice Talon’s main opponents Saturday for complicity in acts of terrorism.

 

Reckya Madougou was sentenced to 20 years in prison after a trial her lawyers denounced as a political hit job. The verdict was announced at about 6 a.m. local time  (0500 GMT) following a trial that included no witnesses, her lawyers said in a statement.

 

“Her crime was to have represented a democratic alternative to the regime of Patrice Talon,” said lawyer Antoine Vey.  

 

The conviction of Madougou, a former justice minister, comes days after another of Talon’s leading opponents, Joel Aivo, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for plotting against the state and laundering money.

 

Madougou was arrested in March and accused of financing an operation to assassinate political figures to prevent the presidential election the following month from going ahead. Her candidacy had earlier been rejected by the electoral commission.  

 

Talon won a second term with 86% of the vote in a poll boycotted by much of the opposition and marred by violent protests.

 

Shortly before she was convicted, Madougou addressed the court, according to a post on her Facebook page. “I offer myself up for democracy and if my sacrifice allows you, Mr. President (of the court) and your colleagues to recover your independence from the executive, then I will not have suffered in vain,” it quoted her as saying.

 

Human rights group and opponents of Talon, a multi-millionaire cotton magnate, say he has upended Benin’s democratic traditions since coming to power in 2016. Several opponents have been arrested and electoral reforms signed by Talon in 2018 disqualified all opposition parties from running for parliament the following year.

 

Talon has denied targeting political opponents or violating human rights.
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Dozens Feared Dead after Tornadoes Hit US

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Dozens are feared dead after a series of season-defying tornadoes Friday night in several U.S. states, causing a wide swath of destruction from weather conditions more common in spring. 

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear told local TV station WLKY that at least 50 people are “likely” dead, adding that he expects the toll to climb. Beshear declared a state of emergency and has activated the Kentucky National Guard and deployed the state police. 

 

In Edwardsville, Illinois police said in a statement on Facebook that “a severe weather event” has caused “a partial building collapse” at an Amazon warehouse and a rescue operation is underway. 

A tornado also hit a nursing home in Monette in northern Arkansas but the extent of injuries was not immediately clear. 

Officials said tornadoes moved over at least five states, Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee.  

Meteorologist Eric Fisher said on Twitter that if the tornado near the Tennesse border remained on the ground, “it will be the longest tornado track in U.S. history (the Tri-State Tornado was 219 miles [352 kilometers]).”
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South African Doctors See Signs Omicron Is Milder Than Delta

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As the omicron variant sweeps through South Africa, Dr. Unben Pillay is seeing dozens of sick patients a day. Yet he hasn’t had to send anyone to the hospital.

That’s one of the reasons why he, along with other doctors and medical experts, suspect that the omicron version really is causing milder COVID-19 than delta, even if it seems to be spreading faster.

“They are able to manage the disease at home,” Pillay said of his patients. “Most have recovered within the 10- to 14-day isolation period.” said Pillay.

And that includes older patients and those with health problems that can make them more vulnerable to becoming severely ill from a coronavirus infection, he said.

In the two weeks since omicron first was reported in Southern Africa, other doctors have shared similar stories. All caution that it will take many more weeks to collect enough data to be sure, their observations and the early evidence offer some clues.

According to South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases:

Only about 30% of those hospitalized with COVID-19 in recent weeks have been seriously ill, less than half the rate as during the first weeks of previous pandemic waves.
Average hospital stays for COVID-19 have been shorter this time -- about 2.8 days compared to eight days.
Just 3% of patients hospitalized recently with COVID-19 have died, versus about 20% in the country’s earlier outbreaks.

“At the moment, virtually everything points toward it being milder disease,” Willem Hanekom, director of the Africa Health Research Institute, said, citing the national institute’s figures and other reports. “It’s early days, and we need to get the final data.

Often hospitalizations and deaths happen later, and we are only two weeks into this wave.”

In the meantime, scientists around the world are watching case counts and hospitalization rates, while testing to see how well current vaccines and treatments hold up. While delta is still the dominant coronavirus strain worldwide, omicron cases are popping up in dozens of countries, with South Africa the epicenter.

 

Pillay practices in the country’s Gauteng province, where the omicron version has taken hold. With 16 million residents, It’s South Africa’s most populous province and includes the largest city, Johannesburg, and the capital, Pretoria. Gauteng saw a 400% rise in new cases in the first week of December, and testing shows omicron is responsible for more than 90% of them, according to health officials.

Pillay says his COVID-19 patients during the last delta wave “had trouble breathing and lower oxygen levels. Many needed hospitalization within days,” he said. The patients he’s treating now have milder, flu-like symptoms, such as body aches and a cough, he said.

Pillay is a director of an association representing some 5,000 general practitioners across South Africa, and his colleagues have documented similar observations about omicron. Netcare, the largest private health care provider, is also reporting less severe cases of COVID-19.

But the number of cases is climbing. South Africa confirmed 22,400 new cases on Thursday and 19,000 on Friday, up from about 200 per day a few weeks ago. The new surge has infected 90,000 people in the past month, Minister of Health Joe Phaahla said Friday.

“Omicron has driven the resurgence,” Phaahla said, citing studies that say 70% of the new cases nationwide are from omicron.

The coronavirus reproduction rate in the current wave – indicating the number of people likely to be infected by one person — is 2.5, the highest that South Africa has recorded during the pandemic, he said.

“Because this is such a transmissible variant, we’re seeing increases like we never saw before,” said Waasila Jassat, who tracks hospital data for the National Institute for Communicable Diseases.

Of the patients hospitalized in the current wave, 86% weren’t vaccinated against the coronavirus, Jassat said. The COVID-patients in South Africa’s hospitals now also are younger than at other periods of the pandemic: about two-thirds are under 40.

Jassat said that even though the early signs are that omicron cases are less severe, the volume of new COVID-19 cases may still overwhelm South Africa’s hospitals and result in a higher number of severe symptoms and deaths.

“That is the danger always with the waves,” she said. 

 
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Justice Department Still Probing Police Killings from Civil Rights Era

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The Justice Department’s decision this week to close its investigation of Emmett Till’s slaying all but ended the possibility of new charges in the teen’s death 66 years ago, yet agents are still probing as many as 20 other civil rights cold cases, including the police killings of 13 Black men in three Southern states decades ago.

The department is reviewing the killings of six men shot by police during a racial rebellion in Augusta, Georgia, in 1970, according to the agency’s latest report to Congress. The city best known for hosting golf’s Masters Tournament had been engulfed by riots after a Black teenager was beaten to death in the county jail.

The agency also is investigating the killings of seven other Black men involved in student protests in South Carolina, Mississippi and Louisiana during the societal upheaval of the late 1960s and early ’70s. And investigators are looking at cases in which seven more individuals were killed, including a girl in Pennsylvania, the report showed.

Suspects were already tried and acquitted in some of these killings, making prosecution on the same charges all but impossible. Fading memories, lost evidence and the death of potential witnesses almost always pose problems in the quest for justice in decades-old cases.

Still, in Georgia, a leader of a group formed to tell the story of the “Augusta Six” — John Bennett, Sammie L. McCullough, Charlie Mack Murphy, James Stokes, Mack Wilson and William Wright Jr. — hopes some type of justice will prevail for the victims’ families, even if it’s not a criminal conviction.

“With the Justice Department’s stamp on it, even a statement that the killings were wrongful would help even if there’s no prosecutions. I think that would be very helpful for the community,” said John Hayes of the 1970 Augusta Riot Observance Committee.

The Justice Department said Monday it had ended its investigation into the 1955 lynching of Till, the Black teenager from Chicago who was tortured, killed and thrown in a river in Mississippi after witnesses said he whistled at a white woman at a rural store. Two white men who were acquitted by all-white juries later confessed to the killing in a paid magazine interview, but both are dead and officials said no new charges were possible.

The Justice Department Cold Case Initiative began in 2006 and was formalized the following year under a law named for Till, whose slaying came to illustrate the depth and brutality of racial hatred in the Jim Crow South. Initially created to investigate other unresolved cases of the civil rights era, it was later expanded to include more recent cases, including killings that occurred in cities and on college campuses during demonstrations against the Vietnam War and racism.

In Augusta, as many as 3,000 people were estimated to have participated in protests and rioting that followed the death of 16-year-old Charles Oatman, who was beaten to death while being held in the jail. Frustration over his death and years of complaints over racial inequity erupted in unrest that left an estimated $1 million in damage across a wide area.

Once the gunfire ended early on May 12, 1970, six Black men were dead from shots fired by police, authorities said. Two white officers were charged, one with killing John Stokes and the other with wounding another person, but both were acquitted by all- or mostly white juries.

Families are still grieving, Hayes said, but the killings generally aren’t discussed much in Augusta.

“There’s a lot of trauma there and things people don’t want to bring up,” said Hayes, whose group is in contact with relatives of half the victims.

The other police shootings under review were sparked by campus demonstrations amid simmering resentment over mistreatment of Black people.

 

Three men were killed on Feb. 8, 1968, during protests to desegregate a bowling alley near South Carolina State College in Orangeburg, South Carolina. Nine state police officers were acquitted in what came to be known as the “Orangeburg Massacre,” and a campus sports arena now honors the three victims, Samuel Hammond, Delano Middleton and Henry Smith.

Phillip Gibbs and James Earl Green were killed by police during a student demonstration at Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi, on May 15, 1970, and Leonard Brown and Denver Smith were gunned down during a protest at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on Nov. 16, 1972. No one was ever prosecuted for the killings in Jackson or Baton Rouge.

The seven other cases still under review by the Justice Department span the years 1959 through 1970 and involve individuals. The victims include 9-year-old Donna Reason, killed on May 18, 1970, when someone threw a Molotov cocktail into the home of her mixed-race family in Chester, Pennsylvania. No one was ever arrested.
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 ’Futures’ Exhibit Looks at Possibilities

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A self-driving flying taxi. A super-fast land-based transport vehicle. A sustainable floating city.

Science fiction, or the wave of the future?

The “Futures” exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, open Nov. 20, 2021, through July 6, 2022, gives visitors a peek at what may happen in the years to come.

The exhibit opened as part of the 175th anniversary of the Smithsonian and is being held at the Arts and Industries Building, which reopened in November after being closed for almost two decades.

With more than 150 ideas, innovations, technologies and artifacts, the exhibit invites visitors to think about the kind of future in which they want to live.

It also provides food for thought by looking back to past innovations, like an 1800s experimental telephone and a spacesuit-testing android.

The exhibit was designed by the Lab of Rockwell Group, an architecture and exhibit design firm in New York.

“The exhibition opens up many different possible forms that the future can take, capturing a number of small glimpses of conceivable futures,” said David Tracy, director of creative technology at Rockwell.

The company designed cutting-edge installations called beacons that contain multiple- choice questions that “prompt people’s imaginations and get them to think about the kind of future they want to see,” Tracy told VOA. 

To answer the questions, people use hand gestures or hover over an answer, Tracy said, which also provides “health and safety measures, since you don’t have to touch a screen.”

Not surprisingly, there are more questions than answers.

It’s difficult for people “to imagine how the future may be different and the technologies that might make it different,” said Jane McGonigal, director of game research and development at the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, California.

McGonigal provided the questions for visitors to ponder “to help them imagine the future more vividly and optimistically,” she said during an interview with VOA. 

Questions include, “When might moon tourism become a real reality?” Another looks at what the future might be like if meat doesn’t come from an animal but is grown in a laboratory. 

Visitor Raj Goel from New York got a taste of what that might be like as he peered into a display that was set up like a deli counter with possible food in the future. 

Goel said he’s concerned about meat being grown in a lab. But he said he liked the idea of mushrooms being used as a sort of meatless meat. 

“It’s supposed to taste like bacon and would be a lot healthier,” he said.

Goel said “Futures” makes him feel a bit like he’s walked into a science fiction movie.

“It’s like a giant arcade of futuristic toys and ideas,” he told VOA. 

Those ideas include a BioSuit, a skintight spacesuit that provides astronauts with greater mobility, and an environmentally friendly cleaning system that washes clothes using water from wetlands.

Human remains can also be put to good ecological use. 

A biodegradable underground burial capsule offers a sustainable way to use human remains to grow a tree.

With concern over climate change, cleaner transportation ideas are presented.

Among them, the Virgin Hyperloop, a futuristic transport tube that could become a new mode of train-like transportation and have “a lower environmental impact than other modes of mass transportation,” Virgin said on its hyperloop website. The system could propel passenger or cargo pods at speeds of more than 1,000 kilometers per hour, Virgin said, three times faster than high-speed rail. 

Another possible innovation is an autonomous flying machine. 

The Bell Nexus company has an idea for a flying taxi, especially for use in crowded cities. 

The air taxi, powered by hybrid-electric propulsion, resembles a helicopter and has six tilting round fans that enable it to take off and land vertically from a rooftop or a launch pad.

The interactive displays were especially popular with visitors. 

A robotic art installation called “Do Nothing with Al” mimics the slow moves of a person standing in front of it. The idea is to encourage people to slow down and relax in this era of technological overload.

“It’s really fascinating,” said Jan Myers from Denver. “It reminds me of a human torso with needles,” she said, as she moved back and forth, watching the robot follow her movements. 

At a portal called “Hi! How r u?” visitors can strike up holographic conversations by using an avatar to leave personal messages for people in the future. They can also interact in real time with people at a paired portal site in Doha, Qatar.

Tracy said he hoped the exhibit “empowered visitors with a sense of optimism about our future.” 

Goel said he was encouraged “because many things I saw here made me think the future is bright.” 

 
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COP26: Success or Failure?

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A month after the U.N. climate change conference in Glasgow, Scotland, known as COP26, politicians, analysts and climate action advocates are taking stock of what was agreed to. And the consensus is that while substantial progress was made in a number of areas, there wasn’t enough.

The world still remains off track to avert a climate crisis and is falling short of limiting global warming to 1.5 Celsius above pre-industrial levels, a goal set at previous talks in Paris in 2015.  And it remains off track despite deals to cut carbon and methane emissions, end deforestation, reduce the use of coal, and a renewed pledge of financing for poorer countries most vulnerable to extreme weather.

Britain’s own Climate Change Committee, an independent, statutory body established to advise the UK government on emission targets, says COP26 “marked a step forward in global efforts to address climate change.”

It says there was an increase in ambitions to reduce emissions across the world and it lists as achievements the “finalization of rules on reporting emissions and international carbon trading, and the launch of a range of new initiatives and sector deals.”

However, the committee added, “How far this can be considered a success will depend on follow-up actions over the coming year and beyond.”

 

Activists unimpressed

For many climate activists, the two-week summit was just more noise. Teenage activist Greta Thunberg dubbed COP26 “a global north greenwash festival.”

But some serious analysts also agree the summit should be marked a failure, because it didn’t reach the goals it set itself.

“Was COP26 a failure? If we evaluate this using the summit’s original stated goals, the answer is yes, it fell short. Two big ticket items weren’t realized: renewing targets for 2030 that align with limiting warming to 1.5℃, and an agreement on accelerating the phase-out of coal,” Robert Hales and Brendan Mackey, academics from Australia’s Griffith University, concluded in a commentary for The Conversation website.

Because of a last-minute intervention by India, an agreement to accelerate the phasing-out of coal was watered down in the final communique to the much vaguer “phasing-down” of coal.

But Hales and Mackey also say at COP26 “there were important decisions and notable bright spots.” They say COP26 may well be seen later as the moment the world took “an unambiguous turn away from fossil fuel as a source of energy,” and they highlight COP26’s emphasis on the importance of mitigating damage to nature and ecosystems, including protecting forests and biodiversity.

 

In a side deal at Glasgow, 124 other countries pledged to end deforestation by 2030.Other analysts praise the final pact urging countries to deliver on an outstanding promise to deliver $100 billion per year for five years to developing countries vulnerable to climate damage to help them with adaptation and to develop resilient infrastructure. Many developing nations are already seeing dwindling crop yields and are experiencing devastating storms.

Rob Stavins, professor of Energy and Economic Development at Harvard University, remains cautiously optimistic and says assessing COP26’s success and failure is “both simplistic and obscures much of the purpose and function of these annual negotiations.”

“This is a marathon, not a sprint,” he told the Harvard Gazette. “To continue that metaphor: It’s a relay race and the fundamental thing about an individual Conference of the Parties in any given year is that you don’t drop the baton when you pass it off to the next one. And this was a reasonable pass off to the next Conference of the Parties.” The next global climate talks are scheduled next year in Egypt.

Stavins says before the 2015 Paris talks, the world was heading for 3.7 degrees Celsius of warming by the end of this century. After COP21, the trajectory was reduced to 2.7 degrees of warming. The updated emission reduction targets agreed to at Glasgow cut the trajectory further to 2.4 degrees Celsius.

“And then, if you add in all of the statements from countries about net zero emissions by the year 2050, as well as private industry statements, we could be at about 1.8 degrees centigrade,” he says.

That keeps the 1.5 Celsius goal within reach, the chairman of COP26, Alok Sharma, said in his concluding remarks in Glasgow, although he noted, its “pulse remains weak.”

 

Who will pay?

Weak or not, some worry that governments, especially Western ones, may be going too fast with decarbonizing and risk losing the support of their own populations by failing to take into account the economic impact of the monumental shifts envisaged.

Opinion polls suggest that across the globe, overwhelming majorities of people see climate change as an emergency requiring radical action. But some polls in recent weeks have also suggested that when people are told what the costs to them may be to curb global warming, they are reluctant to shoulder the financial burden.

COP26 saw plenty of discussions about how to fund the transition away from fossil fuel dependency to renewable, sustainable energy and how to finance projects to make countries more resilient to extreme weather. But there was little clarity about how the costs should be shared among governments (via taxation), consumers, households and the private sector.

At Glasgow, major banks, investors and insurers pledged trillions in green funding in a coordinated commitment to incorporate carbon emissions into their investment and lending decisions. The commitment was made by more than 450 financial institutions across 45 countries managing assets valued at $130 trillion.”

These seemingly arcane but essential changes to the plumbing of finance can move and are moving climate changes from the fringes to the forefront and transforming the financial system in the process,” Mark Carney, a former head of the central banks of England and Canada, said when announcing the pledge. “The architecture of the global financial system has been transformed to deliver net zero,” he added.

But some industry analysts and economists cautioned the private sector plans are far from concrete, and that significant problems remain on how to measure the carbon footprint of investment portfolios and align those measurements across international financial markets. Of particular concern is how to verify the accuracy of what banks and investors report.

Others worry that financial firms are there to maximize profits for clients and shareholders and that they risk losing customers or breaching their fiduciary obligations if they fail to maintain good returns. It remains unclear at this stage how profitable green investments will be.
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Biden Seeks to Reassure Ukraine Amid Fears of a Russian Invasion

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President Joe Biden is seeking to reassure Ukraine that his strategy to prevent a Russian military invasion will work, amid continued tensions over a massive Russian troop buildup along their common border. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports.
Camera: Nike Ching
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‘We Want Justice,’ Ugandan Climate Activist Says

Posted on by SeeAF

The capital of Uganda coughs itself awake on weekdays under a soft blanket of smog. Kampala’s hills come into sharper focus as the morning rush of minibuses and motorbikes fades. It is this East African city that one of the world’s most well-known climate activists, Vanessa Nakate, calls home.

The 25-year-old’s rise in profile has been quick. Not even three years have passed since she set out with relatives in Kampala to stage her first, modest protest over how the world is treating its only planet.

In an interview this week with The Associated Press — which last year drew international attention and Nakate’s dismay by cropping her from a photo — she reflected on the whirlwind. She spoke of her disappointment in the outcome of the U.N. climate talks in Scotland and what she and other young activists plan for the year to come.

“We expected the leaders to rise up for the people, to rise up for the planet” at the talks known as COP26, she said. Instead, the world could be on a pathway to warm 2.4 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial times.

That’s well above the goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius — and would be “a death sentence for so many communities on the front lines of the climate crisis,” Nakate said.

Globally, the signs are dire. The Arctic is warming three times faster than the rest of the planet. The dramatic drop in carbon dioxide emissions from COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns has almost disappeared. This year, forests burned in Siberia’s weakening permafrost, while record-shattering heatwaves in Canada and the U.S. Pacific Northwest and deadly flooding in Europe brought the climate threat home to some who once thought they could outspend it.

But many of the most-affected communities are in Africa, whose 1.3 billion people contribute the least to global emissions, less than 4%, but stand to suffer from them most.

That suffering, in some cases, has already begun: Deadly drought fells wildlife and livestock in parts of East Africa, water scarcity hits areas in West and Southern Africa, and hunger affects many millions of people, from Madagascar to Somalia, as a result.

And yet the $100 billion in financing per year promised by richer nations to help developing countries deal with the coming catastrophe has not appeared.

“We cannot adapt to starvation,” Nakate said, her voice soft but firm as the introvert in her gives way to the convictions that have brought her this far. “We cannot adapt to extinction, we cannot adapt to lost cultures, lost traditions, to lost histories, and the climate crisis is taking all of these things away.”

The next big climate conference will be in Africa, in Egypt, a chance for the spotlight to fall squarely on the continent.

It will be a test for activists and negotiators from Africa’s 54 countries who have long jostled for space at global climate events.

 

“Many times, activists in Africa have been called missing voices. But we are not missing,” Nakate said. “We are present, we are available, we are just unheard.”

She watched as some activists from African countries faced the challenges of securing funding, accreditation or access to COVID-19 vaccinations as they sought to attend COP26. She has spoken of feeling erased herself when she was cropped out of an AP photo of climate activists last year at the World Economic Forum. The AP apologized for its error in judgment and the pain it caused her.

But it is not enough to simply listen to Africa’s climate activists, Nakate said this week. People with power must act on those demands.

“We don’t want to just hear sweet phrases from them, sweet commitments,” she said. “Commitments will not change the planet, pledges will not stop the suffering of people.”

Specifically, Nakate said, drastic action is needed by the leaders in government and business that continue to fund the extraction of fossil fuels, like coal and oil.

She chose not to call out anyone by name, but when asked whether Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, in power since 1986, had replied to a letter she wrote about a controversial oil pipeline project to ship crude from Uganda to neighboring Tanzania, she said no.

 

In fact, the 77-year-old leader has never been in contact with Nakate, who became one of the world’s most well-known Ugandans not long after graduating from university with a business degree and becoming inspired by climate activism.

In her recent book, A Bigger Picture, Nakate reflects on how leaders’ decisions on climate have real-life consequences far beyond the data that often dominate the conversation.

She worries about how farmers who lose their crops to climate shocks will feed their families, and how lost income can force children out of school and young women into early marriage.

“This isn’t just about us wanting a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions,” Nakate said. “We want justice that centers the protection of the planet and the protection of the people because the climate crisis exacerbates poverty first of all. We cannot eradicate poverty if climate change is pushing millions of people into extreme poverty and keeping them in poverty traps.”

Asked how young climate activists can make sure that they are central to decision-making worldwide, Nakate expressed confidence that they are making themselves heard, creating their own platforms on social media and elsewhere.

“If the table is not given to you, you make one for yourself,” she said — a message she could well tweet to her 230,000-plus followers.

In 2022, Nakate’s work will be closer to home as she pursues a project to provide schools in Uganda with solar panels and eco-friendly cookstoves to reduce the amount of firewood consumed.

“I can’t believe how fast this journey has been,” she said as she realized that within weeks it will be the third anniversary of her first climate protest in Kampala. “Activism can be very hard, a lot of work, but it takes love and grace to continue to speak.”

It also takes a certain hope, she said, and as a born-again Christian she finds that hope in God. It helps her believe that “the future you’re fighting for is actually possible and you can achieve it.” 
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Ukrainian Military Long on Morale but Short on Weaponry

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When Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and threw its support behind separatists in the country’s east more than seven years ago, Kyiv’s underfunded and disorganized armed forces struggled to mount a credible response.

Now, amid fears that a Russian troop buildup near Ukraine’s border could signal a possible attack, military experts say Moscow would face stronger resistance this time. But they emphasize that Ukraine would be well short of what it needs to counter Russia’s overwhelming land, sea and air superiority.

Still, years of fighting the separatists have given Ukrainian veterans such as Colonel Viacheslav Vlasenko the battlefield experience for such a fight.

“In case of Russian aggression, I will have no choice — every Ukrainian is ready to die with arms in hands,” said the highly decorated 53-year-old Vlasenko. “Ukraine will never become a part of Russia. If we have to prove it to the Kremlin that Ukraine has the right for freedom and independence, we are ready for it.”

While Western military assistance has remained limited, Ukraine still received state-of-the-art foreign weaponry, including sophisticated U.S. anti-tank missiles and Turkish drones to provide a heavier punch than it had in years past.

Vlasenko, who spent 4½ years battling the rebels in the east in a conflict that has killed more than 14,000 people, said the country now has thousands of highly motivated and battle-hardened troops.

“We Ukrainians are defending our land, and there is no place for us to retreat,” he said, adding that he takes his 13-year-old son to target practice so that he knows “who our enemy is and learns to defend himself and fight back.”

Earlier this week, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy praised Ukraine’s soldiers during a visit to an area near the conflict zone to mark a military holiday.

“Ukrainian servicemen are continuing to perform their most important mission — to protect the freedom and sovereignty of the state from the Russian aggressor,” Zelenskiy said.

Russian troop movements

U.S. intelligence officials have determined that Russia has moved 70,000 troops near Ukraine’s border and has prepared for a possible invasion early next year. Moscow has denied any plans to attack Ukraine, rejecting Western concerns as part of a smear campaign.

On Tuesday, U.S. President Joe Biden warned Russian President Vladimir Putin in a videoconference that Moscow would face “economic consequences like you’ve never seen” if it invades Ukraine, although he noted that Washington would not deploy its military forces there.

Putin reaffirmed his denial of planning to attack Ukraine but emphasized that NATO’s possible expansion to Ukraine was a “red line” for Moscow.

If Russia attacks its neighbor, the 1 million-member Russian military would inevitably overwhelm Ukraine’s armed forces, which number about 255,000. But in addition to a promised heavy economic blow from Western sanctions, Russia would also stand to suffer significant military losses that would dent Putin’s image at home.

Ukrainian veterans and military analysts say the country won’t surrender territory without a fight this time, unlike seven years ago in Crimea, where Russian troops in unmarked uniforms faced virtually no resistance in overtaking the Black Sea peninsula.

“Ukraine will not become easy prey for the Russians. There will be a bloodbath,” Vlasenko said. “Putin will get hundreds and thousands of coffins floating from Ukraine to Russia.”

Weeks after annexing Crimea, Russia began supporting the separatist uprising in Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland, known as the Donbass. Ukraine and the West have accused Russia of supplying the rebels with troops and weapons — accusations that Moscow has denied, saying that any Russians fighting there were volunteers.

A series of bruising military defeats forced Ukraine to sign a 2015 peace agreement brokered by France and Germany that envisaged broad autonomy for the separatist regions and a sweeping amnesty for the rebels. The deal was seen by many in Ukraine as a betrayal of its national interests. While it has helped end large-scale fighting, frequent skirmishes have continued amid a political deadlock as Ukraine and Russia have traded accusations.

Western aid to Ukraine

Mykola Sunhurovskyi, a top military analyst for the Kyiv-based Razumkov Center independent think tank, said the Ukrainian military has made much progress in recent years, thanks to Western equipment and training.

“The army today is much stronger than it was in early 2014, and Russia will face serious resistance,” he said.

The Western aid included Javelin anti-tank missiles and patrol boats supplied by the United States. The U.S. and other NATO forces have conducted joint drills with the Ukrainian military in exercises that have vexed Russia. Last month, Ukraine signed an agreement with the U.K. for building naval bases on the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.

Still, Sunhurovskyi argued that the Western assistance was not enough.

“The military aid given by the West is far from what Ukraine needs,” Sunhurovskyi said, adding that its slow pace was also a key problem. “The assistance is needed within two months, not two or three years. There are huge gaps in the Ukrainian military potential that need to be taken care of.”

He pointed to Ukraine’s air defenses in particular.

“The air defense system isn’t ready for repelling massive airstrikes by Russia,” Sunhurovskyi said, adding that Ukraine also lacks advanced electronic warfare systems and has a shortage of artillery and missiles.

Morale is not a problem, he said.

“From the point of view of combat spirit, Ukraine is ready for war, but there are issues with the technological level of the Ukrainian military, which is below what is needed to deter Russia from launching an attack,” he said.

Zelenskiy said Ukraine’s military “has come a difficult way to the creation of a highly capable and highly organized combat structure that is confident of its potential and capable of derailing any aggressive plans by the enemy.” On Thursday, he spoke with Biden, who briefed him on the discussion with Putin.

The analysts also said Russia would have to be prepared for a nationwide resistance campaign from Ukrainian veterans after any invasion.

“If it launches an aggression, Russia will face a large-scale guerrilla war in Ukraine, and the infrastructure for it has already been set,” said Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Kyiv-based Penta think tank. “Thousands of Ukrainian soldiers served in the east, and there is a local hero in every courtyard who fought the separatists and the Russians.” 

 
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US National Guard Helping Virus-Sapped States, Hospitals

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More U.S. states desperate to fight COVID-19 are calling on the National Guard and other military personnel to assist virus-weary medical staffs at hospitals and other care centers.

Unvaccinated people are overwhelming hospitals in certain states, especially in the Northeast and the Upper Midwest. New York, meanwhile, announced a statewide indoor mask order, effective Monday and lasting five weeks through the holiday season.

“We’re entering a time of uncertainty, and we could either plateau here or our cases could get out of control,” Governor Kathy Hochul warned Friday.

In Michigan, health director Elizabeth Hertel was equally blunt: “I want to be absolutely clear: You are risking serious illness, hospitalization and even death” without a vaccination.

The seven-day rolling average for daily new cases in the U.S. rose over the past two weeks to 117,677 by Thursday, compared to 84,756 on Nov. 25, Thanksgiving Day, according to Johns Hopkins University. The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 has soared to about 54,000 on average, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Meanwhile, the country is approaching a new milestone of 800,000 COVID-19 deaths. More than 200 million Americans, or about 60% of the population, are now fully vaccinated.

In Maine, which hit a pandemic high this week with nearly 400 COVID-19 patients in hospitals, as many as 75 members of the National Guard were being summoned to try to keep people out of critical care with monoclonal antibodies and to perform other non-clinical tasks.

Maine has one of the highest COVID-19 vaccination rates in the country – 73% – but that rate lags in many of the state’s rural pockets.

The New York National Guard said it had deployed 120 Army medics and Air Force medical technicians to 12 nursing homes and long-term care facilities to relieve fatigued staff.

Dr. Paolo Marciano, chief medical officer at Beaumont Hospital in Dearborn, Michigan, said it was a “tremendous lifeline” to get assistance from the Defense Department, which has more than 60 nurses, doctors and respiratory therapists assigned to the state.

“It allowed us to be able to care for the COVID patients and at the same time still maintain the level of care that cancer patients require or people with chronic illnesses,” Marciano said. “Where we are today is really just keeping our heads above water.”

New York’s mask order covers all indoor public places unless a business or venue has a vaccine requirement. The state reported more than 68,000 positive tests for the virus in a seven-day period that ended Wednesday, the most for any seven-day stretch since February.

New York City and several upstate New York counties already have mask mandates. Critics, however, said the governor’s announcement was another burden for businesses.

“Government overreach at its worst,” said Republican Assemblyman Mike Lawler.

Michigan is sending more ventilators to hospitals and asking for even more from the national stockpile. Infection rates and hospitalizations are at record levels, 21 months into the pandemic. The first case of the omicron variant was confirmed Thursday in the Grand Rapids area.

The largest hospital system in Indiana enlisted the National Guard for support this week after the number of COVID-19 patients in the state more than doubled in the past month. The state’s COVID-19 hospitalizations are now higher than Indiana’s summer surge that peaked in September and are approaching the pandemic peak reached in late 2020.

 
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As Democracy Summit Wraps, US Restricts Exports of Repressive Cyber Tools

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As the two-day virtual Summit for Democracy hosted by President Joe Biden wrapped up on Friday, the U.S., Australia, Denmark and Norway announced an export control program to monitor and restrict the spread of technologies used to violate human rights. The U.S. is also launching programs to support independent media and anti-corruption efforts and defend free and fair elections. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has more.
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Scarce Resources in Cameroon Trigger Deadly Clashes, Mass Displacement

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The U.N. refugee agency says intercommunal fighting over scarce resources in Cameroon has triggered the mass exodus of more than 30,000 refugees to neighboring Chad. 

Deadly clashes erupted December 5 in the Cameroonian border village of Ouloumsa following a dispute between herders, fishermen and farmers over dwindling water resources. Violence then spread to neighboring villages, where intercommunal rivals burned 10 villages to the ground. 

The U.N. refugee agency says 22 people have been killed and 30 seriously injured over the past six days. In addition, women and children account for most of the 30,000 refugees who have fled into Chad. 

UNHCR spokesman Boris Cheshirkov says the situation remains volatile, forcing his agency to temporarily suspend its operations in the affected areas. He says five staff members, as well as colleagues who have been on an assessment mission, have been moved to the Chadian capital, N’Djamena. 

Cheshirkov blames the rising tensions between intercommunal farmers and fishermen on climate change, which he says is getting worse. 

“They depend on the waters of the Logone River, which is one of the main tributaries of Lake Chad,” he said. “Lake Chad has been shrinking. Over the course of six decades now, it has lost 95 percent of its surface water. These communities rely on that water to live, to fish, to grow crops and cultivate them, to take care of their livestock. They are not able to do this.” 

Cheshirkov says similar climate crises can be seen in many parts of the world — in the Sahel, in far north Cameroon and East Africa, as well as in the drought corridor of Latin America, and South Asia. He says 90 percent of refugees come from climate vulnerable hotspots. 

UNHCR and Cameroonian authorities have been leading reconciliation efforts to end the intercommunal violence, he says, adding that the situation could escalate unless the root causes of the crisis are addressed. 

Chad is home to nearly 1 million refugees and internally displaced people, and Cameroon has more than 1.5 million refugees and IDPs. The UNHCR says it has received slightly more than half the money it needs to run its lifesaving operations in both countries. It is appealing to the international community for more support.
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US Announces New Sanctions on Human Rights Day

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As part of the Biden administration’s efforts to infuse human rights into its foreign policy, the U.S. State Department on Friday designated 12 government officials from Uganda, China, Belarus, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Mexico for “gross violations of human rights,” according to Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Seventy-three years after the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10, 1948, the department’s commemoration of Human Rights Day targeted people like Mario Plutarco Marin Torres, a former Mexican governor charged with jailing and torturing journalist Lydia Cacho in 2005. Another official, Ugandan military intelligence chief Abel Kandiho, is no longer welcome in the United States after allegedly allowing his deputies to arrest and abuse people at odds with the Ugandan government.

“We are determined to put human rights at the center of our foreign policy, and we reaffirm this commitment by using appropriate tools and authorities to draw attention to and promote accountability for human rights violations and abuses, no matter where they occur,” Blinken said.

Under the congressionally approved foreign operations bill that funds the State Department, the secretary of state can bar foreign government officials and their close family members from entering the United States if they have been involved with corruption or human rights abuses.

Four current and former Chinese officials — Shohrat Zakir, Erken Tuniyaz, Hu Lianhe and Chen Mingguo — also made the list for their connection to Beijing’s repression of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region. 

Besides the State Department’s designations, the Treasury Department has sanctioned 25 individuals and entities under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act. A statement published Friday outlined sweeping sanctions on people and organizations in China, Bangladesh, North Korea and Burma, as well as a Russian university and its provost for sponsoring visas for “hundreds” of construction workers tied to Pyongyang’s nuclear program.

One batch of sanctions targets a company invested in surveillance technologies used in Xinjiang; another targets the Rapid Action Battalion, a Bangladeshi task force that “[undermines] the rule of law and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms,” according to the department’s statement.

One Bangladeshi official and two Chinese officials designated by the State Department also appeared on the Treasury Department’s sanctions list. 

“On International Human Rights Day, Treasury is using its tools to expose and hold accountable perpetrators of serious human rights abuse,” said Wally Adeyemo, the department’s deputy secretary. “Our actions today, particularly those in partnership with the United Kingdom and Canada, send a message that democracies around the world will act against those who abuse the power of the state to inflict suffering and repression.” 

Washington’s interagency actions join other efforts by the United Kingdom and Canada on Friday to sanction Burmese military officials involved in the country’s February coup, as well as a joint initiative by the European Union, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom last week to sanction Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko.

“The United States looks forward to continuing our partnerships with allies, partners and civil society alike in defending human rights and promoting accountability and good governance,” Blinken said in Friday’s statement.
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Unofficial British Tribunal Says China Committed Genocide Against Uyghurs

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An independent, unofficial panel of British lawyers, academics and businesspeople has concluded that China’s government committed genocide against Uyghurs, a ruling denounced by China as a “farce.” 

A Chinese spokesperson for the government of Xinjiang region, Xu Guixiang, Friday called the verdict “extremely despicable” as well as illegitimate. 

“The so-called final pronouncement is a piece of wastepaper,” he said at a virtual press briefing.

The London panel, called the Uyghur Tribunal, ruled Thursday that Chinese government policies of forced birth control and sterilization targeting Uyghurs constituted genocide. The tribunal’s chair, prominent British barrister Geoffrey Nice, said the policies were “intended to destroy a significant part” of the Uyghur population. Uyghurs are a largely Muslim ethnic group based in China’s western Xinjiang region. 

The tribunal does not have any government backing or ability to sanction China.

It was set up at the request of the World Uyghur Congress, the largest group representing exiled Uyghurs. Organizers of the tribunal hope the process of publicly presenting evidence about China’s actions toward Uyghurs will boost international pressure on Beijing to change its policies.

The tribunal spoke to 30 witnesses and experts during a series of public hearings in central London this year and reviewed Chinese documents on government policies toward Uyghurs. 

It concluded that hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs, and possibly more than 1 million, had been detained in camps without cause. 

In addition to genocide, the panel said that China’s government carried out crimes against humanity and torture on the Uyghurs and that President Xi Jinping bore primary responsibility. 

China’s foreign ministry said in a statement Thursday, “This so-called tribunal has neither any legal qualifications or any credibility,” and accused it of telling lies as part of a “political farce” to “smear China.” 

China denies any allegations of human rights abuses against Uyghurs. 

The United States has called China’s treatment of Uyghurs genocide and announced this week that it would not send diplomats or official representatives to the upcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing. Britain, Canada, Australia and Lithuania have also joined the diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympics. 

Under the boycott, the countries will still send athletes to participate in the Games. 

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse. 
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As Democracy Summit Wraps, US Restricts Exports of Cyber Tools Used for Repression

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As the two-day virtual Summit for Democracy hosted by President Joe Biden wrapped up on Friday, the U.S., Australia, Denmark and Norway announced an export control program to monitor and restrict the spread of technologies used to violate human rights.

“We focused on the need to empower human rights defenders” and ensure that technology “is used to advance democracies to lift people up, not to hold them down,” Biden said during his closing remarks.

The Export Controls and Human Rights Initiative seeks to address the problem of authoritarian governments misusing dual-use technologies to surveil and hack into the communications of political opponents, journalists, activists and minority communities.

The signees will work to develop a voluntary, written code of conduct intended to use human rights criteria to guide export licensing policy and practices, according to the White House.

The goal is to achieve a stronger agreement involving more governments to better control licenses for these technologies that can be used to violate human rights, said a senior administration official in a briefing to reporters.

“To make sure that these technologies are used for good and not for ill,” the official said.

These restrictions are needed, said Brett Bruen, director of global engagement during the Obama administration and president of the consulting firm Global Situation Room.

“If indeed democratic ideals or, at the very least, less violation of human rights norms is what we are going to require and expect from countries around the world, then there have to be some consequences,” he said.

The U.S. has taken action recently to put NSO, an Israeli company and maker of the Pegasus spyware, on a list of restricted companies. Pegasus was used to infect the smartphones of journalists and officials, essentially turning them into spying devices, allowing the user to read the targets’ messages and files, track their location, even turn on their cameras without their knowledge.

Initiative for Democratic Renewal

During the summit, leaders were encouraged to make pledges and commitments to bolster democracy and human rights.

For its part, the U.S. announced the establishment of the Presidential Initiative for Democratic Renewal, a series of foreign assistance initiatives of up to $424.4 million in the coming year, subject to congressional approval.

The initiative includes funds to support independent media, strengthen anti-corruption efforts, empower reformers, labor unions and marginalized groups, and advance technology that supports democracy and defends free and fair elections.

Transparency International, a global civil society organization working in the fight against corruption, said the summit’s initial outcomes are promising, but more needs to be done.

“Other countries did not step up and commit to specific commitments the way the U.S. has, and so that is a concern,” Gary Kalman, director of Transparency International’s U.S. office, told VOA. “What are they actually going to come up with? They have a little bit more time; the U.S. government is giving them until January to come back with commitments.” 

But Bruen said $424.4 million would barely meet the needs of bolstering democracy globally and characterized it as “regifting.”

“These are initiatives and monies that have been allocated already, generally, for democracy, for the rule of law and human rights,” Bruen said. “They [the Biden administration] get to repurpose them for a new announcement but what we’re not seeing here are really substantial sums that are being put on the table.”

Democracy is also under attack by the global rise of populism, white supremacy and extremism, said U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

“Polarization is undermining democratic institutions. Science and reason are under siege,” Guterres said. “All of this is eroding trust between people and democratic leaders and institutions.”

An in-person summit is planned, a year from now.
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France to Unseal Secret Records on Algerian War of Independence 

Posted on by SeeEU

France announced Friday that it would soon declassify some of the most secret sections of its national archives concerning the Algerian war of independence, opening the door for citizens to explore some of bloodiest parts of the country’s history.

The Algerian war of independence lasted from 1954 to 1962, as the National Liberation Front fought against France for independence in a violent conflict that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Algerians. Over the course of the war, historians have found that French forces and their proxies used torture against their enemies.

French Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot said that opening the records to the public was necessary to increase transparency surrounding the country’s history, according to Reuters.

“We need to have the courage to look the historical truth in the face,” Bachelot said.

The war in Algeria had serious political repercussions in France, prompting a failed coup attempt against former President Charles de Gaulle to prevent him from terminating French rule in the colony.

Although the war ended almost 60 years ago, it is still a sensitive subject within French society.

Chain of ‘repressive measures’

Reuters quoted Benjamin Stora, a top French historian on Algeria, who said the records will shed light on aspects of the war that have long been hidden, such as many unexplained deaths.

“You can know which people were under surveillance, followed, arrested,” Stora said. “It’s the whole chain leading up to repressive measures that can be unveiled.”

The Anadolu news agency reported that an Algerian presidential adviser, Abdelmadjid Cheiki, said the records’ declassification was “positive and important.”

A former representative in the Algerian Parliament, Kamal Belarbi, was hesitant to fully welcome France’s decision. Belarbi said it was difficult to accept that the country would completely expose the nature of its colonial rule, given that it has kept it secret for so many years.

“France will continue to tamper with the archives. The most important thing is that we remain committed to our demands to hold France accountable for crimes it committed in Algeria for 132 years,” he said.

The records’ declassification will likely have major repercussions for both nations and their citizens.

France’s announcement came two days after French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian’s trip to Algiers. While there, he conducted talks with Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune to revive the two countries’ rocky relationship.
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UN: Sudan’s Political Crisis Not Over  

Posted on by SeeAF

The U.N.’s top diplomat in Sudan said Friday that the country’s political crisis is not over, despite a November 21 power-sharing agreement between the military and the civilian prime minister that released him from detention and returned him to office.

“The agreement faces significant opposition from a large segment of Sudanese stakeholders, including parties and associations within the Forces of Freedom and Change, Resistance Committees, civil society organizations and women’s groups,” said Volker Perthes, the head of the U.N. assistance mission in Sudan, referring to some of the pro-democracy groups. “I have met with these and other stakeholders. Many feel betrayed by the coup, and now reject any negotiations or partnership with the military.”

Sudan’s military seized power on October 25, arresting dozens of officials in the country’s transitional government, including Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok. The military said the coup was necessary to maintain Sudan’s stability amid infighting between the army and civilian parties in the ruling Sovereign Council.

Hamdok was later moved to house arrest, and under a November 21 agreement with top general Abdel Fattah Burhan has returned to work in a transitional power-sharing agreement.

“The agreement is far from perfect but can help to avoid further bloodshed and provide a step towards comprehensive dialogue and a return to constitutional order,” Perthes told the U.N. Security Council Friday.

Thousands of Sudanese have been protesting in the streets since the deal, demanding a completely civilian government.

Perthes said there is a large trust deficit on the part of the public, especially the youth, since the coup. He urged the political leadership to take several steps to start rebuilding public trust, including lifting the military-imposed state of emergency, naming civilian members to the Sovereign Council, and restoring freedom of press.

He said an important indicator of whether the country has returned to the path to democratic transition would be whether political space is restored.

“This is particularly important in light of the professed goal by political and military leaders to hold free and fair elections possibly even earlier than originally planned,” Perthes said. “Authorities will need to ensure a conducive atmosphere for credible elections which the U.N. and other international actors can then support.”

The U.N. envoy also expressed concern about the suspension of some international development assistance following the coup.

“Sudanese authorities must demonstrate their commitment to return to a credible constitutional order in order to regain the trust of the international community to resume international financial assistance,” he said.

Sudan is among the U.N.’s top five countries experiencing a humanitarian crisis, with more than 14 million people in need of humanitarian assistance.
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Switzerland Considers New COVID-19 Restrictions as Cases Surge

Posted on by SeeEU

Officials in Switzerland Friday presented two sets of restrictions they are considering to address surging COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations that are threatening the nation’s health system. 

Switzerland’s Federal Office of Public Health recorded 10,163 new cases and 51 deaths in the previous 24 hours – the largest spike in deaths since January. The office reported the nation’s intensive care units are 82% full.

At a news conference in Bern, Swiss Health Minister Alain Berset said the country is sliding back to a place it does not want to be in and presented the two alternative proposals the government is considering.

Under the first, access to indoor public venues – restaurants, bars, concert halls, theaters – would be limited to those who are either fully vaccinated or recovered. It would eliminate the “negative test” option that currently exists. Masks indoors would also be required unless a patron was sitting and eating.

The second alternative would go further and temporarily close those places where wearing a mask is not possible all the time, including bars, restaurants, gyms and nightclubs. Indoor sports and cultural activities like theatres would still be allowed to open, but with a mask requirement. 

Berset told reporters the second alternative was not pleasant, but the intention was to avoid broader closures and lockdowns. 

The officials said the federal government will consider the proposals in coordination with local leaders and others to decide which path to take in coming days. 

Berset said, “We already succeeded in getting on top of this situation a year ago, and we will get on top of it again, together, in the coming weeks.” 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters. 
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UN Recap: December 5-10, 2021

Posted on by SeeAF

Here is a fast take on what the international community has been up to this past week, as seen from the United Nations perch.

Food theft in Ethiopia

The United Nations said Wednesday that large amounts of food, including items for malnourished children, were looted from their warehouses in northern Ethiopia, leading to the suspension of food distribution in two towns.

UN Food Stocks Looted in N. Ethiopia; Some Aid Distribution Halted 

Hunger in Sahel

The latest U.N. analysis of food security in the Sahel and Western African countries finds a record 38 million people in the region will face severe food shortages next year. It warns that many may not survive without swift and generous international humanitarian assistance.

UN Says Acute Hunger Grips Millions in West and Central Africa 

Reflection on genocide 

Commemorations were held Thursday to mark the International Day of the Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention of this Crime. Following the Holocaust, in 1951, the United Nations declared genocide an international crime.

UN: Genocide Remains Threat, Must Be Prevented 

In brief

— In Mali on Wednesday, seven Togolese peacekeepers were killed and three others seriously injured when their vehicle hit an improvised explosive device. The peacekeepers were part of a logistics convoy traveling through central Mali when the incident occurred. The mission, known by its acronym MINUSMA, is one of the U.N.’s most dangerous. Since it began in 2013, more than 250 peacekeepers have been killed.

— Catherine Russell of the United States will be the new head of the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations said Friday. She will succeed Henrietta Fore, who has served since January 2018. She resigned because of an illness in her family. The post has traditionally been held by an American. Russell comes to UNICEF from the White House Office of Presidential Personnel, where she is an assistant to President Joe Biden. She is a former ambassador-at-large for Global Women’s Issues at the State Department and has taught at Harvard University. She is due to move into the executive director’s office early next year.

— South Korea hosted a high-level meeting on U.N. peacekeeping this week. Multiple commitments were made for new military and police capabilities, including helicopters, which are always scarce. There were also offers to help U.N. peacekeeping improve its medical capabilities and the use of technology. Additionally, several states pledged to reduce their environmental footprint in missions.

— U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres briefly isolated during the week, after he came into contact with someone who had tested positive for COVID-19. Guterres, 72, exhibited no symptoms and tested negative at least twice during the week, his spokesperson said. Although he had moral hesitations about receiving a COVID-19 booster when so many others have yet to benefit from even a first jab, he did get his booster two weeks ago.

Quote of note

“As I heard again during my visit, the women and girls of Afghanistan want to be able to go to school, work and take part in public life, free of discrimination. The progress that was made in this area must not be erased.” — Rosemary DiCarlo, undersecretary-general for political and peacebuilding affairs, following her trip to Afghanistan Tuesday through Thursday.

Next week

On Monday, the U.N. Security Council is expected to vote on a draft resolution penned by Niger and Ireland on the effects of climate change on international peace and security, particularly how it can exacerbate the root causes of conflict. Veto holders China and Russia, as well nonpermanent member India, have expressed reservations about the council’s stepping onto the turf of what some consider the domain of other U.N. organs and bodies, leaving the outcome open as of now.
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Former U.S. Football Player Presses for Cancer Cure in Honor of Late Wife

Posted on by SeeUS

Lung cancer is the deadliest form of the disease, according to the American Cancer Society. But it doesn’t get nearly the same amount of research dollars as breast or prostate cancer. That may be changing, thanks to one man’s efforts and new guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC. VOA’s Saba Shah Khan reports.
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