President Joe Biden says he and Germany’s new chancellor are in lockstep over the perilous situation in Ukraine, where the specter of an imminent Russian invasion haunts all of Europe. The two leaders held their first in-person meeting on Monday. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from the White House.
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Month: February 2022
US Offers Reward for Information on ISIS-K Leader, Kabul Airport Attack
The United States said on Monday it was offering a reward of up to $10 million each for information leading to the identification or location of ISIS-K leader Sanaullah Ghafari and for information leading to the arrest of those responsible for a deadly August 2021 attack at Kabul airport.
The Islamic State-Khorasan Province, or ISIS-K, is the regional Islamic State affiliate that first appeared in 2014 and was named after an old term for the region. It has fought both the Taliban and the Western-backed government that fell in August.
In June 2020, Ghafari was appointed by the extremist group to lead ISIS-K. Ghafari was responsible for approving all ISIS-K operations throughout Afghanistan and arranging funding to conduct operations, the U.S. State Department said.
In November, the U.S. State Department designated Ghafari as a “specially designated global terrorist.”
The U.S. military said on Friday that a single Islamic State bomber killed 13 U.S. troops and at least 170 Afghans at Kabul airport last August.
The bombing occurred on August 26 as U.S. troops were trying to help Americans and Afghans flee in the chaotic aftermath of the Taliban’s takeover, and it compounded America’s sense of defeat after 20 years of war.
It also left President Joe Biden’s administration struggling to answer accusations that the State Department could have evacuated Americans sooner instead of putting U.S. troops at risk.
U.S. officials said in November they believed ISIS-K could develop the ability to strike outside of Afghanistan within six to 12 months.
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‘Amazing’ New Beans Could Save Coffee From Climate Change
Millions of people around the world enjoy a daily cup of coffee; however, their daily caffeine fix could be under threat because climate change is killing coffee plants, putting farmers’ livelihoods at risk.
Inside the vast, steamy greenhouses at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in the leafy suburbs of west London, Aaron Davis leads the research into coffee.
“Arabica coffee, our preferred coffee, provides us with about 60% of the coffee that we drink globally. It’s a delicious coffee, it’s the one we love to drink. The other species is robusta coffee, which provides us with the other 40% of the coffee we drink – but that mainly goes into instant coffees and espresso mixes,” Davis explains.
The cultivation of arabica and robusta coffee beans accounts for millions of livelihoods across Africa, South America and Asia.
“These coffees have served us very well for many centuries, but under climate change they’re facing problems,” Davis says.
“Arabica is a cool tropical plant; it doesn’t like high temperatures. Robusta is a plant that likes even moist conditions; it likes high rainfall. And under climate change, rainfall patters are being modified, and it’s also experiencing problems. In some cases, yields are dramatically reduced because of increased temperatures or reduced rainfall. But in some cases, as we’ve seen in Ethiopia, you might get a complete harvest failure and death of the trees.”
The solution could be growing deep in the forests of West Africa. There are around 130 species of coffee plant – but not all taste good. In Sierra Leone, scientists from Kew helped to identify one candidate, stenophylla, growing in the wild.
“This is extremely heat tolerant. And is an interesting species because it matches arabica in terms of its superb taste,” Davis says.
Two other coffee species also show promise for commercial cultivation in a changing climate: liberica and eugenioides, which “has low yields and very small beans, but it has an amazing taste,” according to Davis.
Some believe the taste is far superior. At the 2021 World Barista Championship in Milan, Australia’s Hugh Kelly won third prize with his eugenioides espresso. Kelly recalled the first time he tasted it at a remote farm in Colombia. “It was a coffee like I’ve never tasted before; as I tasted it, it was unbelievably sweet … I knew that sweetness and gentle acidity were the bones for an incredible espresso,” Kelly told judges in Milan.
Researchers hope Kelly’s success could be the breakthrough moment for these relatively unknown beans.
The team at the Botanic Gardens is working with farmers in Africa on cultivating the new coffees commercially. Catherine Kiwuka of the Ugandan National Agricultural Research Organization, who oversees some of the projects, says challenges still lie ahead.
“What requirements do they need? How do we boost its productivity? Instead of it being dominated by only two species, we have the opportunity to tap into the value of other coffee species.”
It’s hoped that substantial volumes of liberica coffee will be exported from Uganda to Europe this year. Researchers hope it will provide a sustainable income for farmers – and an exciting new taste for coffee drinkers.
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‘Amazing’ New Beans Could Save Coffee from Climate Change
Millions of people around the world enjoy drinking coffee. But the daily caffeine fix could be under threat – because climate change is killing coffee plants. As Henry Ridgwell reports, scientists in London are working with farmers in Africa to find a solution.
Camera: Henry Ridgwell
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US Mired in ‘Heightened Threat Environment’
The prevalence of conspiracy theories and bad or misleading information, online and in social media forums, is keeping the United States in a state of heightened alert when it comes to possible terror attacks.
The Department of Homeland Security issued an updated National Terrorism Advisory System bulletin Monday, warning that while many of the top threat streams have changed little over the past year, almost all of them are being amplified by the information environment.
DHS said the proliferation of false narratives aimed at undermining trust in public institutions, combined with growing calls for violence by both domestic actors and foreign terrorist organizations, “has increased the volatility, unpredictability, and complexity of the threat environment.”
Specifically, the updated DHS bulletin cites “widespread online proliferation of false or misleading narratives regarding unsubstantiated widespread election fraud and COVID-19,” which it says is being amplified by “malign foreign powers.”
The bulletin also warns of continued calls for violence against soft targets — public venues and gatherings that often have limited security — including houses of worship such as churches, mosques and synagogues.
“The recent attack on a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas highlights the continuing threat of violence based upon racial or religious motivations, as well as threats against faith-based organizations,” according to the bulletin.
Recent threats against historically Black colleges and universities also “cause concern and may inspire extremist threat actors to mobilize to violence,” the bulletin said.
Officials have also expressed concern about domestic groups advocating violence in the run-up to the 2022 midterm elections in November and the possibility that foreign terrorists, especially those sympathetic to the Islamic State group, will launch attacks in retaliation for the death of IS leader Amir Muhammad Sa’id Abdal-Rahman al-Mawla last week.
“DHS remains committed to proactively sharing timely information and intelligence about the evolving threat environment with the American public,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement Monday.
“We also remain committed to working with our partners across every level of government and in the private sector to prevent all forms of terrorism and targeted violence, and to support law enforcement efforts to keep our communities safe,” he added.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Justice Department announced it was forming a new unit to help investigate and prosecute domestic terrorism, pointing to rising caseload.
According to the FBI, domestic violent extremists carried out four attacks in 2021, leading to 13 deaths.
An unclassified U.S. intelligence assessment released last March also warned of a broad threat from domestic extremists, focusing its concern on lone offenders and small cells, all subscribing to a diverse set of violent ideologies but “galvanized by recent political and societal events.”
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US, EU Pledge Closer Energy Cooperation amid Russian Threats
At their first meeting in four years, officials of the U.S.-European Union Energy Council confronted an urgent, short-term priority – bolstering natural gas supplies amid a Russian threat to invade Ukraine – and a longer-term concern: mitigating climate change.
“We’re coordinating with our allies and partners, with the energy sector stakeholders, including on how best to share energy reserves in the event that Russia turns off the spigot or initiates a conflict that disrupts the flow of gas through Ukraine,” said Secretary of State Antony Blinken following Monday’s meeting in Washington.
Moscow has threatened to halt the flow of gas to Europe if economic sanctions are imposed as a result of any further Russian aggression against Ukraine.
“This crisis has been pushing trans-Atlantic unity,” according to Josep Borrell, the European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy.
“In the medium term, there is the climate neutrality,” explained Borrell, who is also the vice president of the European Commission. “In the short term, it’s security of supplies of gas. Both things go together.”
Europe is likely to rely more on the United States for its gas supplies as a result of the crisis. President Joe Biden has pledged to help Europe find additional liquified natural gas from sources in the United States and other countries if Russia-Ukraine tensions cause disruptions.
“We think we can make up a significant portion of it that would be lost,” Biden said at a White House news conference alongside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Monday afternoon.
That is seen by some environmentalists as counter-productive to achieving reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, something the United States and the European Union have pledged to work together to accomplish.
European officials “are not doing everything they need to be to get their addiction to gas ramped down as fast as possible. They’re really convinced that they need gas, and they see the U.S. as a supplier for that,” Aki Kachi, senior policy analyst at NewClimate Institute in Germany, told VOA News. “Generally, in both the EU and the U.S., there’s a lack of understanding about the climate impacts of gas.”
“Germany has decided to phase out the use of oil and gas very soon and by 2045 Germany will have a carbon-neutral economy as one of the strongest economies of the world,” Scholz told reporters at the White House. “It’ll probably be the biggest industrial modernization project in Germany in 100 years.”
The trans-Atlantic partnership has pledged to increase collaboration on reducing emissions from fossil fuels and expanding use of energy from the sun, wind, batteries and hydrogen.
“As we face geopolitical tensions and the challenge of climate change, we need more, not less, trans-Atlantic cooperation,” Kadri Simson, the European Commission’s energy commissioner, said at the meeting’s opening.
At the start of Monday’s discussion, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said the goals set out in Washington and Brussels have significant geo-political ramifications at a time when energy prices have “gone through the roof” on both sides of the Atlantic amid the threats from Russia.
“This is not just an energy and climate issue,” Granholm told the meeting. “It also is potentially the greatest peace plan that ever existed, to be able to build out energy independence from clean energy.”
Together, the economies of the U.S. and the EU represent about 45% of the world’s economic output, and an even smaller percentage of global carbon dioxide emissions. That means for the world to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement, the legally binding international treaty on climate change, other major emitters will need to make good on their ambitious pledges.
“If only the EU and the U.S. are taking action, it wouldn’t be enough,” Kachi noted. “But it’s not really the case because China and India and other countries are also major investors in renewables.”
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Madagascar’s 2nd Cyclone in Two Week Kills 20, Displaces 50,000
Officials in Madagascar say Cyclone Batsirai swept through the Indian Ocean nation this past weekend, killing 20 people, displacing 50,000 and destroying crops that were almost ready to be harvested.
With a population of nearly 30 million, Madagascar had already been dealing with the aftermath of Tropical Storm Ana, which killed 55 people and displaced 130,000 just two weeks ago.
Officials say Batsirai struck a different part of the island further south where the population was already facing a precarious situation in terms of food supplies because of a severe drought.
Government officials say emergency rescuers were struggling to reach the worst affected areas Monday because 12 roads and 14 bridges were impassable, while rising river levels threatened to displace more people.
President Andry Rajoelina went to the town of Mananjary to survey the storm’s destruction and the relief efforts. Officials say the town was among the hardest-hit areas, with about 3,000 dwellings and government buildings destroyed and about 5,700 others flooded.
The state disaster relief agency said more than 200 schools were partially or fully destroyed, leaving more than 10,000 children unable to attend classes.
Jean-Benoit Manhes, deputy representative for the U.N, Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Madagascar, said the cyclone left the nation facing a humanitarian crisis due to food insecurity. He said the central part of the country, where most of the nation’s rice crop is located, was more affected by rain than wind from the storm. Water levels in the rivers there will rise, impacting the crops.
“The effects of the cyclone won’t end today. They will be felt for many months, especially in agriculture,” Manhes said.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse.
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On Ukraine’s Front Lines, Fears Grow
In eastern Ukraine, tensions over threat of a Russian invasion continue to rise, although in the eastern town of Avdiivka, along the frontlines facing Kremlin-backed separatists, the war has never ceased since 2014. For VOA, Ricardo Marquina traveled there and has this report narrated by Elizabeth Cherneff.
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Ugandan Author Who Criticized President’s Son Denied Passport
A satirical author arrested in Uganda for insulting the son of President Yoweri Museveni has been denied permission to travel abroad. The satirical author had hoped to travel abroad to pick up an award and receive medical treatment.
Appearing in a Kampala courtroom Monday afternoon, author Kakwenza Rukirabashaija hoped the magistrate would ease some of his bail conditions.
Kakwenza, through his lawyer, was seeking release of his passport and also asked that his case be moved to the High Court for trial.
Kakwenza wants to travel to Germany to pick up a writing award and receive specialized treatment for torture he allegedly received in jail.
But lawyer Eron Kiiza says all the submitted requests were denied.
“It jeopardizes the chances of our client to fight for his life and his health following the military torture in Entebbe. It’s obvious, since we started trying to expose his torture, they have been fighting it. So, this is the latest attempt to shield the wrongdoing from scrutiny,” Kiiza said.
In December 2021, Kakwenza was arrested for “offensive communication” under Uganda’s Computer Misuse Act.
The author had written that the president’s son, Lt. Gen. Kainerugaba Muhoozi, was obese and bad tempered. Muhoozi is seen as Museveni’s possible successor in the next election in 2026.
Kakwenza was detained for a month, and for part of that time, he was held by the military at an unidentified location where he was reportedly tortured.
Kakwenza has said he was severely beaten and made to dance through the day and night with few hours of sleep. He said his captors also used a pair of pliers to pluck flesh from his thighs.
Photos of his body published in local media show torture marks on his back, thighs and hands.
After the release of the images on social media last week, the U.S. and EU called for the prosecution of security personnel involved in torture. Ugandan officials have not commented on the claims.
However, the magistrate ruled that Kakwenza has no serious illness to warrant specialized treatment in Europe and said his medical condition can be handled in Uganda.
The magistrate also stated that Kakwenza does not need to visit Germany to receive his award, as this can be done online. He also turned down the request to move the writer’s case to the high court.
Kakwenza’s trial is now set to begin on March 23.
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Private Military Contractors Bolster Russian Influence in Africa
Russia’s geopolitical ambitions in Africa have in recent years been backed by private military contractors, often described as belonging to the “Wagner group” — an entity with no known legal status.
Most recently, Western nations have condemned the alleged arrival of Russian mercenaries in Mali’s capital Bamako, a claim denied by the junta that seized power in 2020.
As relations with France worsen, the military rulers may be looking for ways to make up for shrinking numbers of European troops fighting Mali’s years-old jihadist insurgency.
“Mercs [mercenaries] working in Africa is an established norm” thanks in part to decades of operations by contractors from South Africa, said Jason Blazakis of the New York-based Soufan Group think tank.
“The Wagner folks are walking through a door that has long been open to their ilk,” he added.
No information is publicly available about the group’s size or finances.
But around Africa, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington has found evidence since 2016 of Russian soldiers of fortune in Sudan, South Sudan, Libya, the Central African Republic (CAR), Madagascar and Mozambique.
Botswana, Burundi, Chad, the Comoros, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo-Brazzaville, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Nigeria and Zimbabwe are also on the CSIS’s list.
In Africa “there is a convergence of many states’ interests, including China’s,” Alexey Mukhin of the Moscow-based Centre for Political Information told AFP.
“Every state has the right to defend its business assets,” he added.
‘Hysteria’
Wagner does not officially exist, with no company registration, tax returns or organizational chart to be found.
When the EU wanted to sanction the group in 2020, it targeted Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, an ally of President Vladimir Putin who is suspected of running Wagner.
It imposed further sanctions in December last year when mercenaries’ arrival in Mali appeared certain — drawing accusations of “hysteria” from Moscow.
Western experts say military contractors are embedded in Russia’s official forces like intelligence agencies and the army, providing plausible deniability for Moscow.
Their deployment to African countries aims to “enable Russia to… regain this sphere of influence” that fell away with the collapse of the Soviet Union, said CSIS researcher Catrina Doxsee.
The mercenaries’ presence has been growing even faster since a 2019 Russia-Africa summit.
Moscow has been active “especially in what has traditionally been France’s zone of influence” in former colonies like CAR and Mali, said Djallil Lounnas, a researcher at Morocco’s Al Akhawayn university.
While military contractors sometimes shepherd Russian arms sales, the revenue “really pales compared with the profit they are able to generate from mining concessions and access to natural resources,” Doxsee said.
That makes unstable countries with mineral or hydrocarbon wealth prime customers — such as in Syria where the mercenaries first became known to the wider public.
No questions asked
Lounnas said that another advantage for clients is a lack of friction over human rights and democracy that might come with Western partners.
“Russia has its interests. It doesn’t ask questions,” he added.
Reports of violence and abuse on the ground suggest that same latitude may extend to the mercenaries themselves.
In the CAR, the United Nations is probing an alleged massacre during a joint operation by government forces and Wagner fighters.
One military source told AFP that more than 50 people died, some in “summary executions.”
On Thursday, the European Union said it would not resume military training in the CAR — suspended since mid-December — unless the country’s soldiers stop working for Wagner.
Meanwhile the mercenaries’ results do not always measure up to the hopes of the governments that hire them.
In Libya, Russian mercenaries suffered heavy losses in Marshal Khalifa Haftar’s year-long attempt to conquer the capital Tripoli, which was ultimately unsuccessful.
And in Mozambique, the Russians retreated in the face of Islamic State group jihadists, ultimately losing out to South African competitors.
Although lacking language skills and experience with the terrain, Wagner “were picked because they were the cheapest”, Doxsee said.
“They didn’t have what it took to succeed,” she added, noting that “they’ve had a fair few failures” across Africa.
Succeeding completely might actually harm the mercenaries’ business model, which thrives on unrest, conflict and crisis.
“If a country such as the CAR hires them to train forces, to help them in their military efforts, it’s in their interest to accomplish that just well enough to continue to be employed,” Doxsee said.
“If they actually were to do it well enough to resolve the conflict, they would no longer be needed.”
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Afghan Refugees Get Technology to Easier Adapt to Life in US
U.S. businesses and Asian Americans are stepping up to help Afghan refugees adjust to life in the U.S. with technology training and tools. One resettlement effort that began at a military base in Indiana has spread throughout the United States. VOA’s Jessica Stone has the story.
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Analysts: Putin’s Coercive Diplomacy Harks to Cold War Past
Vladimir Putin has done much to rehabilitate Russia’s Soviet past, a rehabilitation that has grown apace with memorials once again erected to Joseph Stalin, and officials no longer embarrassed to hang portraits of the late Soviet dictator in their offices.
And the Russian president appears also to be copying the coercive diplomacy — with its mix of threats, hard power and brinkmanship — adopted by his Soviet predecessors, according to historians and former diplomats.
The Kremlin and its ally China called on the United States and NATO Friday to turn back on “Cold War approaches,” but the Russian military buildup on the borders of Ukraine harks back in many ways to the tactics pursued by Stalin and his successor, Nikita Khrushchev.
“We may be seeing Putin’s version of former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s bluster and threats in 1961 over then-divided Berlin — an attempt to intimidate a U.S. president into offering concessions at a moment of perceived U.S. weakness today as a result of the American defeat and withdrawal from Afghanistan and domestic political division,” notes Daniel Fried, a former assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs.
He added in a commentary for Just Security, an online national security forum, “Thirty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Putin demands that the West help restore its empire in Europe, the imposition of which by Joseph Stalin was the original cause of the Cold War. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov revealed a lot about Kremlin views of the countries between Germany and Russia when he said in December that the collapse of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact left them not free or sovereign but ‘ownerless.’”
Testing the resolve and resilience of opponents with displays of brinkmanship goes back further and was honed by Stalin, starting almost immediately after the defeat of Adolf Hitler’s Reich. In a new book, “Checkmate in Berlin,” British historian Giles Milton chronicles how Stalin tested and bewildered his wartime Western allies by harassing them at every turn in the German capital, which was divided into Soviet, American, British and French zones of occupation.
His goal was to wear them down and evict them not only from Berlin but the whole of Germany. The machinations included military standoffs that saw Red Army troops trespassing into the West’s zones of occupations, stacking the police and district administrations in Berlin with Moscow loyalists and building up the Communist Party, all done with astonishing, clandestine nimbleness to keep the Americans, the British and French wrong-footed.
The Soviets used propaganda and misinformation adeptly, making it impossible to determine what news was true and what was false, and with the overall goal of trying to turn Berliners against the West, says Milton.
“One of the most powerful propaganda tools was Radio Berlin, whose studios had been captured intact in May 1945. None of the broadcasters was subjected to denazification. According to one American intelligence agent, the station continued ‘with the same personnel that had been there under the Nazis. They just changed the colors of the shirts,’” Milton writes.
The crisis slowly came to a head. Washington and London eventually hardened their resistance to Soviet demands and maneuvers, partly persuaded to do so by American diplomat George Kennan, who sent a telegram of more than 5,000 words from Moscow to Washington, the longest the State Department had ever received. In the so-called Long Telegram, Kennan outlined Stalin’s expansionist and antagonistic intentions, and recommended strategic patience and containment of the Soviet Union.
In June 1948, Soviet forces blockaded rail, road and water access to Allied-controlled areas of Berlin, starving them of electricity as well as essential food and coal. The United States and the United Kingdom responded with a herculean and ingenious campaign, known as Operation Vittles, (Berlin airlift) and airlifted enough food and fuel to feed and provide heat for 2.5 million West Berliners from air bases in western Germany.
The crisis ended in May 1949 with the blockade lifted when Stalin eventually conceded he couldn’t starve and freeze West Berliners into submission. The United States and Britain also mounted a counter-blockade on eastern Germany, causing severe shortages in turn, which the Kremlin feared might trigger political upheaval in their sphere of influence. The Berlin airlift acted as a spur for Western powers to set up NATO, Milton says.
John Lewis Gaddis, an eminent historian of the Cold War, also sees parallels between the coercive diplomacy employed by the Kremlin with its mixture of hard power and diplomatic know-how. In a recent radio interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Gaddis said Kennan’s analysis of the conduct of Soviet leadership is relevant today.
Kennan wrote that the Soviet Kremlin didn’t believe in “peaceful coexistence” with the West, a belief springing from a “traditional and instinctive Russian sense of insecurity” and a conviction that the West was menacing but wracked by growing internal political convulsions and destined finally to succumb.
“That is exactly Putin today,” said Gaddis.
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US Agencies Probe Migrant Exploitation in Alabama Chicken Industry
At least three federal agencies last year began investigating working conditions for migrants in this growing southern hub for the U.S. poultry industry, according to people familiar with the probes.
The agencies have been looking for evidence of exploitation of Hispanic migrants in the area after an unusually large number of unaccompanied minors were released from federal shelters to sponsor families here last year, these people told Reuters.
A U.S. Department of Health and Human Services probe focused on whether minors were falling victim to traffickers exploiting them for labor, three sources familiar with the investigations said. While investigators have discovered no evidence of child trafficking, they found “exploitative” working conditions for some migrants, the sources added, without providing more details.
The U.S. Department of Labor and U.S. Homeland Security Investigations, for their part, have also investigated staffing and work conditions in the area, people familiar with those probes told Reuters. None of the probes have yet led to criminal charges or civil penalties, and it’s unclear whether they will.
Spokespeople at the three agencies declined to comment on ongoing investigations. Some details of the probes were first reported by Bloomberg Law.
The investigations follow worries among federal employees overseeing the release of unaccompanied minors caught crossing the Mexican border into the United States. These officials were concerned by the growing number of kids headed to Enterprise, where poultry farms and processing plants offer high demand for employment.
Reuters on Monday profiled one recently arrived Guatemalan minor who uses false identification to work at one plant near Enterprise. The teen found a job with ease, forgoing school as she races to repay debts to smugglers who got her across the U.S. border.
The U.S. government has been on heightened alert for trafficking of migrant minors into the poultry industry since 2014, when authorities discovered Guatemalan teens working without pay and living in ramshackle trailers at an Ohio egg farm.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which oversees Homeland Security Investigations, has said under President Joe Biden that it is shifting its enforcement focus at places of work. Instead of arresting workers for immigration violations, it is targeting employers who exploit undocumented migrants.
Poultry industry workers in and around Enterprise told Reuters that migrants, including minors, easily obtain fake credentials and supply those to staffing firms who help them find work in area plants.
The firms, they said, sometimes dock workers’ pay for services, including transportation to and from the workplace, and deny them benefits like overtime pay, sick days, time off and medical coverage.
Labor law experts say large poultry processors at times have relied on staffing firms to avoid liability for hiring undocumented laborers. The staffing firms, as the direct employers, by law become responsible for vetting applicants and determining if they are allowed to work.
A previous federal investigation into the hiring of poultry workers in Alabama led to criminal convictions last October.
The federal trial in northern Alabama illustrated abusive practices by one staffing firm there and how lucrative the migrant-recruiting business can be. The jury convicted a married couple, Deivin and Crystal Escalante, on charges of money laundering and conspiracy to transport migrants illegally.
According to court documents and transcripts from the trial, the Escalantes supplied undocumented workers, including several minors, to a plant owned by Mar-Jac Poultry Inc. in Jasper, Alabama.
The Escalantes pleaded not guilty and are now awaiting sentencing. They referred questions to Gregory Reid, Deivin’s lawyer. Reid told Reuters that Mar-Jac contracted the couple because of their connections in the local Hispanic community.
Mar-Jac, based in Gainesville, Georgia, hasn’t been accused of wrongdoing. Linda Cox, Mar-Jac’s human resources manager, said the poultry processor cooperated in the investigation and “had a written contract with the contractor requiring lawful workers.”
In trial testimony, Deivin Escalante said that Mar-Jac paid the couple $175 per day for each worker. The Escalantes then paid employees around $120 a day, he said. Over three years, the couple received over $16 million in revenue from Mar-Jac, the U.S. Department of Justice said.
Before federal agents arrested the couple in October 2020, the Escalantes bought multiple properties and luxury cars.
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Senegal’s Cup of Nations Triumph Sees Potential Fulfilled at Last
After final against Egypt finished 0-0 in extra time, Sengal won shoot-out 4-2
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Britain’s NHS Wants People to Stop Delaying Medical Appointments
Britain’s health secretary says he wants the people who have delayed their non-COVID medical appointments to come back to the National Health Service.
Sajid Javid told Sky News, “I want them all to come back because I want them to know the NHS is there, it’s open for them.”
Javid said the NHS estimates between 8 to 9 million people “stayed away from NHS because they were asked to,” as healthcare workers dealt with COVID patients. Now, however, the health secretary said, the NHS is ready to deal with the backlog.
He said a new online service will allow patients to see where they are on a waiting list and that billions of pounds are being invested “to get through the COVID backlog.”
South Korean public health officials have reported the country’s tally of COVID infections passed the one-million-mark Sunday. Authorities also reported a record 38,691 new infections Sunday.
Australia said Monday it is opening its borders and it ready to welcome vaccinated travelers from around the world, beginning February 21. “If you’re double-vaccinated, we look forward to welcoming you back to Australia,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison said. The country’s closed border policy has put a strain on the country’s tourism industry.
American figure skater Vincent Zhou tested positive Monday for COVID. He is scheduled to compete Tuesday. He will be tested again before the short program, but if he continues to test positive, he will not be allowed to skate.
Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported early Monday that there are more than 395 million global COVID infections and nearly 6 million global COVID deaths. The center said more than 10 billion COVID vaccines have been administered.
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Cuba Marks Six Decades Under US Sanctions
Cuba on Monday marks 60 years under a U.S. economic blockade that has deeply affected the communist nation’s fortunes and shows no signs of being lifted.
Decreed by U.S. president John F. Kennedy on February 3, 1962, the embargo on all bilateral trade came into effect four days later.
Its purpose, said Kennedy’s executive order, was to reduce the threat posed by the island nation’s “alignment with the communist powers.”
Despite failing to force a change in tack from Havana since then, the sanctions remain in place six decades later, and are blamed by Cuban authorities for damage to the country’s economy amounting to some $150 billion.
Cuba is experiencing its worst economic crisis in 30 years, with inflation at 70 percent and a severe shortage of food and medicines as the COVID-19 pandemic dealt a hefty blow to a key source of income: tourism.
Long lines for essential goods are common, as food imports have been slashed due to dwindling government reserves.
Havana blames the sanctions for all the island’s woes.
The message that “the embargo is a virus too” has been hammered home by authorities for months, as they organize caravans of cars, bikes and motorcycles to crisscross the country and denounce the sanctions.
But detractors say inefficiencies and structural problems in the economy controlled by the one-party state are also to blame.
‘Counterproductive’
“The real blockade was imposed by the Cuban state,” said activist Rosa Maria Paya of lobby group Cubadecide, which she directs from exile.
The embargo would only be lifted, she believes, through “a transition to representative democracy.”
Cuba has little productive capacity and relies on imports for about 80 percent of its food needs.
A monetary reform launched a year ago to try and alleviate pressures on Cubans brought about a significant wage increase in a country where most workers are employed by the government, but further fueled price inflation.
Since 2000, food has been excluded from the U.S. blockade, and between 2015 and 2000, Cuba imported some $1.5 billion worth of food from its neighbor.
But the purchases must be paid in cash and upfront, onerous conditions for a country with limited reserves.
According to Carlos Gutierrez, a Cuban American and former U.S. Secretary of Commerce, the embargo has proven to be “counterproductive.”
“Absolutely nothing has been obtained from Havana” in response, he said.
Geopolitical interests
Instead, Cuba has looked to U.S. rivals such as China and Russia for support.
Two weeks ago, Cuba’s President Miguel Diaz-Canel and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin discussed “strategic partnership” in a phone call.
And Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Riabkov recently said Moscow would not rule out a military deployment to Cuba — just a few hundred kilometers from Miami in the U.S. state of Florida — if tensions with Washington over ex-Soviet state Ukraine escalated.
For some, such posturing recalls the Cold War and the Cuban missile crisis between the United States and the former Soviet Union, which brought the world to the brink of nuclear warfare and was a major motivation for the blockade against Cuba.
Conflict was averted when Moscow agreed to remove Soviet missiles from Cuban soil.
The U.S. blockade started out as a “strategic and military instrument” in the context of war, said political scientist Rafael Hernandez.
And although the Cold War is over, it is still the United States’ “geopolitical interests” that determine its stance towards Cuba, he said.
U.S. domestic politics also play a role, with the vote of a large and vocal anti-Havana Cuban expat community holding the potential to swing battleground states such as Florida.
Somewhat relaxed under a brief period of detente under Barack Obama, sanctions were strengthened by his successor Donald Trump, who added 243 new measures.
And despite campaign promises, current President Joe Biden has done nothing to relieve the blockade, instead announcing new measures against Cuban leaders in response to a clampdown on historic anti-government protests last July.
For the U.S. administration, said James Buckwalter–Arias of the Cuban American Association for Engagement, “electoral considerations weigh heavier than humanitarian duty.”
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US, German Leaders to Discuss Ukraine Crisis
U.S. President Joe Biden hosts German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for a White House meeting Monday that is likely to be dominated by efforts to deter a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The two NATO members have expressed support for bolstering NATO troop positions in the eastern part of the alliance, with the United States ordering extra forces to Poland and Romania and Scholz saying Sunday he was open to strengthening a German-led battlegroup in Lithuania.
The United States has also been delivering military aid to Ukraine, including ammunition and anti-tank missiles. To the frustration of some NATO allies, Germany has declined to extend its support to include lethal weapons, with the government citing a policy of not sending such arms into conflict zones.
Another potential point of contention is Germany’s reliance on Russian energy supplies and the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project that is designed to bring Russian natural gas to Germany.
The United States, among others, has viewed the pipeline as part of the deterrence of a Russian attack on Ukraine, saying an invasion would mean the end of the project.
Scholz told German broadcaster ARD ahead of his trip to Washington that in terms of the pipeline, “We have considered all measures and there is nothing that is ruled out.”
In addition to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the White House said Biden and Scholz would discuss several other issues, including climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Macron Flies to Moscow Claiming His Diplomacy Will End Ukraine Crisis
French President Emmanuel Macron Sunday downplayed the likelihood of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, saying in a newspaper interview that the massing of Russian forces on Ukrainian borders is likely part of a wider Kremlin strategy to secure Western concessions rather than a prelude to a full-scale offensive.
“The geopolitical objective of Russia today is clearly not Ukraine, but to clarify the rules of cohabitation with NATO and the EU,” he told France’s Le Journal de Dimanche just hours before boarding a flight to Moscow, where he will hold face-to-face talks Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In a bold claim, Macron said his negotiations with Russia are likely to head off a military conflict.
“The intensity of the dialogue we have had with Russia and this visit to Moscow are likely to prevent [a military operation] from happening. Then we will discuss the terms of de-escalation,” he said. “I have always been in a deep dialogue with President Putin and our responsibility is to build historic solutions.”
His remarks diverge noticeably from how the Biden administration characterizes Moscow’s military buildup and the danger of a Russian offensive.
A Russian invasion of Ukraine “could happen at any time,” White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday, in what would be the biggest military operation in Europe since World War II.
“We believe that the Russians have put in place the capabilities to mount a significant military operation into Ukraine, and we have been working hard to prepare a response,” Sullivan told NBC’s “Meet the Press” show. Sullivan and other U.S. officials estimate that Russia has 70% of a strike force in place for an invasion.
Macron’s claim that his negotiations with Russia will prevent a military conflict prompted scorn from political foes in France who accused him of grandstanding. Some commentators and analysts warned he was putting his credibility as a negotiator on the line, cautioning that his efforts since 2017 to court the Russian leader have come up short.
French presidential elections are to be held in April and Macron’s electoral opponents have accused him of seeking to weaponize foreign policy to try to boost his reelection hopes.
“Whether Macron can win anything from Vladimir Putin is another question entirely,” says Mujtaba Rahman, managing director of the Eurasia Group, a global risk and consulting firm. “Previous attempts by Macron to reason with the Russian president have fallen flat on their face,” he tweeted.
Macron’s language “makes the rest of Europe quite nervous,” says foreign policy analyst Ulrich Speck, a visiting fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Berlin, a research group.
Macron has long called for Russia to be brought back into the Western fold, despite Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. In his 2017 campaign book “Revolution,” Macron said, “It would be a mistake to break ties with this eastern European power [over Crimea] rather than forming a lasting relationship.”
Shortly after entering office, he hosted Putin in Versailles amid talk of detente, but the trip turned sour, the two leaders didn’t meet eye-to-eye and Macron took Putin to task for a host of actions at a joint press conference. Macron criticized Russia for seeking to meddle in Western elections by spreading fake news, disinformation and falsehoods. Macron talked about “very clear lines” of behavior.
Two years later, the French president tried again with his search for detente when he hosted Putin at the French president’s summer residence on the Riviera.
In a speech, he warned about Europe being caught in the middle of a new Cold War, saying, “It’s not in our interest to be weak and guilty, to forget all our disagreements and to embrace each other again [but] the European continent will never be stable, will never be in security, if we don’t pacify and clarify our relations with Russia.”
Macron has been reluctant in the past also to impose fresh sanctions on Putin’s Russia.
Some Macron critics say his attempts to reset relations with Moscow are as much about his personal ambitions and aim to boost his role in international affairs as anything else.
Much like France’s iconic post-World War II leader, Gen. Charles de Gaulle, Macron sees France as a “balancing power” between Russia and the United States. His diplomatic forays alarm some of France’s European allies, notably Russia’s near neighbors.
Polish politicians have accused him of ignoring the fact that Russia hasn’t really changed its expansionist ways and they worry Macron’s efforts as a broker between Russia and the United States will lead to the Europeans placing themselves as an equidistant power between Moscow and Washington.
Last month, in a speech at the European Parliament, Macron called for the European Union to pursue its own talks with the Kremlin and said the bloc should negotiate a security and stability pact with the Kremlin. Some central European and Baltic leaders said Macron’s comments were ill-timed and risked encouraging the Kremlin to try to play the U.S. and EU off against each other.
Carl Bildt, the former Swedish prime minister, said he was at a loss to understand what Macron meant about coming up with “a new order of security and stability.”
“These next few months rather seem to call for firm defense of the existing post-1989 order,” he said. Bildt was referencing the European security system based on NATO.
Both the United States and Britain have warned that a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine could be imminent, part of a bid to restore a Russian sphere of influence in eastern and central Europe.
Russia has demanded that Ukraine never become a NATO member and says NATO’s military presence should be removed from the former Communist states of eastern Europe that have joined the Western alliance. NATO officials say countries should be free to decide whether to join the alliance.
In his interview with Le Journal de Dimanche, Macron spoke again about a new European security arrangement, saying that while “the security and sovereignty of Ukraine or any other European State cannot be a subject for compromise,” it is “also legitimate for Russia to pose the question of its own security.”
“We must protect our European brothers by proposing a new balance capable of preserving their sovereignty and peace. This must be done while respecting Russia and understanding the contemporary traumas of this great people and nation,” he said.
Justyna Gotkowska of the Warsaw-based Center for Eastern Studies, a research group, questioned who had mandated Macron to talk about a new European security system.
“What legitimacy does Macron have to propose this? Europeans haven’t agreed in NATO and in the OSCE on ‘a new balance,’ to the contrary,” she tweeted.
French officials say Macron’s trip has been coordinated fully with Western allies and told the Reuters news agency that the Élysée Palace has learned from past errors of judgment to ensure that all EU and NATO allies are kept fully informed about Macron’s talks with Putin.
Speck, of the German Marshall Fund, said it would have been better if Macron had been accompanied by other Western leaders for his trip to Moscow. It “would make Europe look much stronger and make sure that there is a united message,” he tweeted.
He added, “What we get instead: an open-ended meeting between Macron and Putin” and that nobody else is in the room “besides translators.”
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Pope Decries Female Genital Mutilation, Sex Trafficking of Women
Pope Francis on Sunday decried the genital mutilation of millions of girls and the trafficking of women for sex, including openly on city streets, so others can make money off of them.
In remarks to the public in St. Peter’s Square, the pope noted that the day was dedicated worldwide to ending the ritual mutilation, and he told the crowd that some 3 million girls each year undergo the practice, “often in conditions very dangerous for the health.”
“This practice, unfortunately widespread in various regions of the world, humiliates the dignity of women and gravely attacks their physical integrity,” Francis said.
Female genital mutilation comprises all procedures that involve changing or injuring female genitalia for non-medical reasons and violates the human rights, health and the integrity of girls and women, the United Nations says in championing an end to the practice.
The practice can cause severe pain, shock, excessive bleeding, infections, and difficulty in passing urine, as well as consequences for sexual and reproductive health. While mainly concentrated in some 30 countries in Africa and the Middle East, it is also a problem for girls and women living elsewhere, including among immigrant populations.
According to U.N. figures, at least 200 million girls and women alive today have undergone the practice.
The pope also told the faithful that on Tuesday, there will be a day of prayer and reflection worldwide against human trafficking.
“This is a deep wound, inflicted by the shameful search of economic interests, without respect for the human person,” Francis said. “So many girls — we see them on the streets — who aren’t free, they are slaves of the traffickers, who send them to work, and, if they don’t bring back money, they beat them,” the pope said. “This is happening today in our cities.”
“In the face of these plagues on humanity, I express my sorrow and I exhort all those who have responsibility to act in a decisive way to impede both the exploitation and the humiliating practices that afflict in particular women and girls,” Francis said.
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German Leader’s Stance on Russia Looms Over First Visit to US
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz set off Sunday for Washington seeking to reassure Americans that his country stands alongside the United States and other NATO partners in opposing any Russian aggression against Ukraine.
Scholz has said that Moscow would pay a “high price” in the event of an attack, but his government’s refusal to supply lethal weapons to Ukraine, bolster Germany’s troop presence in Eastern Europe or spell out which sanctions it would support against Russia has drawn criticism abroad and at home.
“The Germans are right now missing in action. They are doing far less than they need to do,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat and member of the Armed Services Committee, recently told an audience of Ukrainian Americans in his state, Connecticut.
This sentiment was echoed by Republican Sen. Rob Portman, who questioned why Berlin hadn’t yet approved a request to let NATO member Estonia pass over old German howitzers to Ukraine. “That makes no sense to me, and I’ve made that very clear in conversations with the Germans and others,” Portman told NBC.
Ahead of his trip, Scholz defended Germany’s position not to supply Kyiv with lethal weapons but insisted that his country is doing its bit by providing significant economic support to Ukraine.
Asked about the future of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that seeks to bring Russian natural gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea, bypassing Ukraine, Scholz refused to make any explicit commitments.
“Nothing is ruled out,” he told German public broadcaster ARD.
Germany has come under criticism over its heavy reliance on Russian energy supplies and the gas pipeline has long been opposed by the United States. But it is strongly supported by some in Scholz’s center-left Social Democratic Party, including former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.
The 77-year-old Schroeder is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin and heads the shareholders’ committee of Nord Stream AG and the board of directors of Nord Stream 2.
In a move likely to embarrass Scholz ahead of his first official trip to Washington, the Russian state-owned gas company Gazprom announced Friday that Schroeder — who has accused Ukraine of “saber-rattling” in its standoff with Russia — has been nominated to join its board of directors.
Scholz’s spokesman declined repeated requests for comment on Schroeder’s ties to Putin.
Despite Germany’s reluctance to officially put the new pipeline — which has yet to receive an operating permit — on the negotiating table with Russia, the United States has made clear that even without Berlin’s agreement the project is dead should Moscow launch an attack.
“One way or the other, if Russia invades Ukraine, Nord Stream 2 will not move forward,” U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan told “Fox News Sunday.”
Scholz will meet President Joe Biden and members of Congress on Monday to try to smooth out differences. The 63-year-old’s performance in Washington could have broad implications for U.S.-German relations and for Scholz’s standing at home.
While former President Donald Trump frequently slammed Germany, accusing it of not pulling its weight internationally, his successor has sought to rebuild relations with Berlin.
“Biden has taken some real risks, including on the the issue of the German-Russian gas pipeline,” said Jeff Rathke, president of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies.
“(Scholz’s) visit to Washington is an opportunity for him to try to turn that page,” said Rathke.
Having succeeded long-time German leader Angela Merkel last year, Scholz also needs to appease doubters at home who accuse him of pulling a diplomatic vanishing act compared to his European counterparts. With the phrase “Where is Scholz?” trending on social media last week, German conservative opposition leader Friedrich Merz called for “clear words” from the government on the Ukraine crisis.
“We must rule nothing out as a reaction to a further military escalation,” the leader of Merkel’s center-right bloc said, though he too has been skeptical about sending possible German arms shipments to Ukraine.
Others in Scholz’s three-party governing coalition have struck a harsher tone toward Russia.
Speaking alongside her Russian counterpart in Moscow last month, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock of the Green Party branded Russia’s troop deployment at the border with Ukraine a “threat.” She plans to visit Ukraine on Monday and Tuesday and inspect the front line between Ukrainian troops and areas held by Russian-based separatists in the east.
Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, a member of the Free Democrats who chairs Germany’s parliamentary defense committee, said Schroeder’s work for Moscow “harms the country he should serve” and suggested removing the privileges he enjoys since leaving office.
Whatever Germany does to support Ukraine will likely come at a cost.
Berlin’s approval of 5,000 helmets for Ukrainian troops last week drew widespread mockery. Kyiv has since asked Germany for more military hardware, including medium-range and portable anti-aircraft missile systems, as well as ammunition.
Meanwhile, some German officials worry that any mention of further sanctions against Russia, let alone a full-blown conflict, could drive up Europe’s already high gas prices. Constanze Stelzenmueller, a specialist on trans-Atlantic relations at the Brookings Institution, noted that Europe will bear the brunt of blowback costs from economic sanctions against Russia.
“You have populists in Europe always looking for ways to exploit political differences and tensions,” she said. “That’s what’s at stake here.”
In an uncharacteristic outburst at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, Scholz — who was then Germany’s finance minister — announced that he would be pulling out a figurative “bazooka” to help businesses cope with the crisis by setting aside more than 1 trillion euros ($1.1 trillion) in state aid.
Scholz may need to make a similarly expansive gesture to ease concerns in Washington and beyond, said Rathke.
“Germany is going to have to show that it is not only committed to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, but that it’s putting real resources behind it now, not just pointing to what it’s done in the past,” he said.
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Former RFE/RL Photographer Detained in Minsk on Unknown Charges
A photographer who previously worked for RFE/RL’s Belarus service has been arrested and taken to pretrial detention in Minsk, his relatives say.
Relatives of photographer Uladz Hrydzin told RFE/RL on Sunday that he was taken to the Akrestsina detention center and that his trial would take place Monday.
The Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAZh) also said police arrested Hrydzin, according to The Associated Press.
Hrydzin stopped communicating on Friday, according to his relatives, who went to his house on Sunday and saw evidence that it had been searched. They said things were scattered on the floor and his laptop and camera were missing.
The relatives said they subsequently found out he had been taken to the Akrestsina detention center, where many inmates have said they were tortured.
Hrydzin worked as a photo correspondent for RFE/RL’s Belarus service until August 29, 2020, when his accreditation was revoked. Since then, he has worked as a freelancer.
The BAZh also said Hrydzin had been taken to pretrial detention in Minsk but didn’t identify the facility by name. It said no information was available on charges against him and that his lawyer had not been able to meet with him, according to AP.
Hrydzin was arrested in 2020 for filming a protest that arose after a disputed presidential election and served 11 days in detention.
The protest rally took place after authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko claimed victory in the election, which the opposition and many Western governments said was rigged.
Hrydzin has won the Belarus Press Photo contest, and his pictures were published by international agencies and mass media.
Some material for this report came from The Associated Press.
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Tunisian Judges Accuse President of Seeking Control, Setting Up New Struggle
Tunisian judges on Sunday rejected President Kais Saied’s moves to disband the council that oversees them, a move they see as undermining their independence, setting up a new struggle over his consolidation of power.
Saied announced overnight he was dissolving the Supreme Judicial Council, one of the few remaining state bodies still able to act independently of him, the latest in a series of moves his opponents call a coup.
In July he suddenly suspended parliament, dismissed the prime minister and said he could rule by decree, and has since said he will rewrite the 2014 democratic constitution before putting it to a public referendum.
Saied has vowed to uphold rights and freedoms won in the 2011 revolution that introduced democracy, but his critics say he is leaning increasingly on the security forces and fear he will take a harsher stance against dissent.
Tunisia’s dire economic problems and a looming crisis in public finances risk undermining Saied’s declared plan to reset the 2011 revolution with a new constitution, raising the possibility of public unrest.
Saied has been tussling with the judiciary for months, criticizing its decisions, accusing it of corruption and saying it has been infiltrated by his political enemies.
The Supreme Judicial Council head, Youssef Bouzakher, early on Sunday said its dissolution was illegal and marked an attempt to bring judges under presidential instruction.
“Judges will not stay silent,” he warned.
Later, two other judicial organizations condemned the move as unconstitutional. The Young Magistrates Association said it was part of a political purge of the judiciary and the Judges Association said Saied was trying to amass all powers in his own hands.
Saied, a constitutional law professor before running for president in 2019, is married to a judge and has repeatedly said that the judiciary should remember it represents a function of the state rather than being the state itself.
In January, he revoked financial privileges for the council’s members, accusing the independent body established in 2016 of appointing judges to their positions based on loyalty to its leadership.
“Their place is not where they sit now, but where the accused stand,” Saied said of the council members in his overnight speech, delivered from the building of the Interior Ministry, which oversees Tunisia’s security forces.
Saied had called on supporters to protest against the council on Sunday, but only a few hundred people turned up. Some held a banner saying, “The people want to cleanse the judiciary.”
Several main parties in the suspended parliament, including the moderate Islamist Ennahda which has been part of successive governments since 2011, accuse Saied of a coup.
Ennahda leader Rached Ghannouchi, who is also the speaker of the suspended parliament, said in a statement on Sunday that the body rejected Saied’s decision to dissolve the council and voiced solidarity with the judges.
Three other parties, Attayar, Joumhouri and Ettakatol, issued a joint statement rejecting the move.
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Cyclone Kills at Least 10 in Madagascar, Destroying Homes and Cutting Power
A cyclone killed at least 10 people in southeastern Madagascar, the second to hit the Indian Ocean island in just two weeks, triggering floods, bringing down buildings and cutting power, officials said on Sunday.
One of the worst-hit towns was Nosy Varika on the east coast where almost 95% of buildings were destroyed “as if we had just been bombed” and floods cut access, an official said.
Cyclone Batsirai swept inland late on Saturday, slamming into the eastern coastline with heavy rain and wind speeds of 165 km/h (100 mph). It was projected it could displace as many as 150,000 people.
The damage from the storm compounded the destruction wreaked by Cyclone Ana, which hit the island, with a population of nearly 30,000,000, two weeks ago, killing 55 people and displacing 130,000
Madagascar’s office of disaster and risk management said in a bulletin late on Sunday 10 people had been killed. State radio said some died when their house collapsed in the town of Ambalavao, about 460 kilometers south of the capital Antananarivo.
“We saw only desolation: uprooted trees, fallen electric poles, roofs torn off by the wind, the city completely under water,” Nirina Rahaingosoa, a resident of Fianarantsoa, 420 kilometers south of the capital, told Reuters by phone.
Electricity was knocked out in the town as poles were toppled by gusts of winds that blew all night into Sunday morning, he said.
Willy Raharijaona, technical adviser to the vice president of Madagascar’s Senate, said some parts of the southeast had been cut off from the surrounding areas by flooding.
“It’s as if we had just been bombed. The city of Nosy Varika is almost 95% destroyed,” he said. “The solid houses saw their roofs torn off by the wind. The wooden huts have for the most part been destroyed.”
Another resident who gave only one name, Raharijaona, told Reuters even schools and churches that had been preparing to shelter the displaced around Mananjary in the southeast had their roofs torn off.
In the central region of Haute Matsiatra, villagers shoveled mud from a road to clear damage from a landslide caused by Batsirai.
Cyclone Ana that struck the Indian Ocean Island nation on Jan. 22, leaving at least 55 dead from landslides and collapsed buildings and causing widespread flooding.
After ravaging Madagascar, Ana moved west, making landfall in Mozambique and continuing inland to Malawi. A total of 88 people were killed.
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Israeli Leader Talks to Biden About Islamic State, Iran
Israel’s prime minister on Sunday congratulated President Joe Biden for last week’s deadly raid in Syria that killed the leader of the Islamic State group, the Israeli premier’s office announced.
In a phone call with the president, Naftali Bennett told Biden that “the world is now a safer place thanks to the courageous operation of the U.S. forces,” his office said.
Bennett and Biden also discussed Iranian military activity across the Middle East and efforts to block Iran’s nuclear program, it said.
Israel and Iran are arch-enemies, and Israel has raised vocal concerns about U.S.-led efforts to revive the 2015 international nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.
The deal unraveled after President Donald Trump withdrew from it in 2018. Israel objected to the initial deal and believes any attempts to restore it will not include sufficient safeguards to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapons capability. Israel also says any deal should address Iranian military activity across the region as well as its development of long-range missiles capable of striking Israel.
Earlier Sunday, Bennett said Israel is closely watching world powers’ negotiations with Iran in Vienna, but reiterated his position that Israel is not bound by any agreement reached by them. Israel has repeatedly threatened to strike Iran if it believes it is necessary to halt the country’s nuclear program. Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.
“Anyone who thinks such an agreement will increase stability is wrong,” Bennett told his Cabinet early Sunday. “Israel reserves its right to act in any case, with or without an agreement.
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