Month: February 2022

Biden Administration Increases Sanctions on Russia Amid Calls for Stronger US Measures

Posted on by SeeEU

Facing criticism that its initial package of sanctions on Russia was not severe enough, the Biden administration on Wednesday both defended its actions and announced an expansion of the penalties, which are meant to deter what appears to be an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine.

On Wednesday afternoon, in a statement released by the White House, President Joe Biden announced that he had included Nord Stream 2 AG, the company that built a controversial natural gas pipeline between Russia and Germany, as well as its senior executives, on the list of entities being sanctioned.

The move came a day after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced that his government would not certify the pipeline, a necessary step in making it operational. The U.S. sanctions effectively prevent a reversal of Scholz’s decision, because it would subject any company doing business with Nord Stream 2 to U.S. sanctions.

“These steps are another piece of our initial tranche of sanctions in response to Russia’s actions in Ukraine,” Biden said. “As I have made clear, we will not hesitate to take further steps if Russia continues to escalate.”

Also Wednesday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a news conference that the measures the U.S. and its allies have taken will result in a “vicious feedback loop” that will damage Russia’s economy by raising interest rates, encouraging investors to flee Russian assets and weakening the Russian ruble against other currencies.

Initial response criticized

Biden and his administration faced sharp criticism Tuesday, after announcing sanctions on two Russian banks and a handful of wealthy Russian citizens, and imposing restrictions on the purchase of Russia’s sovereign debt.

The measures fell far short of the devastating response that the Biden administration had spent weeks warning Russia to expect and drew criticism from both Democrats and Republicans in Congress.

In an appearance on CNN, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez, a Democrat, said, “I think you should use the overwhelming amount of (sanctions) now. You may reserve something like what I call the ‘mother of all sanctions,’ unplugging Russia from the SWIFT financial system. But at the end of the day, when is it that we’re going to be clear to Putin that there are severe consequences for what he’s doing?”

Marsha Blackburn, a Republican senator from Tennessee, said in a statement, “Joe Biden has refused to take meaningful action, and his weakness has emboldened Moscow.”

Expert sees merit in both approaches

There are reasonable arguments for both the incremental approach to sanctions and a “shock and awe” approach that puts them all in place at the same time, said Daniel Ahn, a global fellow at the Wilson Center in Washington and a former chief economist for the U.S. Department of State.

On the incrementalist side, he said, the argument is that, “You may want to keep some ammunition in reserve in case of different contingencies, and also to achieve as much political consensus as possible, both domestically and internationally.”

On the side of full implementation, he said, the argument is that incrementalism weakens the signaling effect of sanctions and “gives time for adjustments to be made” by Russia.

However, Ahn said, the difference between the ultimate effects of each approach may not be as great as advocates think.

“As long as there is a sense of uncertainty, or market expectation that there could be future sanctions coming online, that already has a bit of a chilling effect on existing economic and financial activity,” he said. “The risk or uncertainty that sanctions could impose could deter a lot of private sector behavior, which is where the bite of sanctions come from. So, I think from an actual impact perspective, there’s less daylight between the two (approaches) than people think.”

More steps possible

After announcing what it described as the “first tranche” of sanctions Tuesday, the White House said that more would be coming.

In an appearance on CNN Wednesday morning, Daleep Singh, a deputy national security adviser, repeated that assurance.

“Yesterday was a demonstration effect,” he said. “And that demonstration effect will go higher and higher. Russia is already feeling the pain, and let’s remember the bigger purpose. Our purpose is not to max out on sanctions. That serves no purpose to itself. Our purpose is to prevent a large-scale invasion and … seizure of large cities in Ukraine. Our purpose is to prevent human suffering that could involve tens of thousands of casualties. And our purpose is to prevent a puppet regime from taking over in Kyiv that bends to the will of Moscow. That’s what this is all about.”

Incremental approach

The administration’s response may have been affected by the limited nature of the actions Putin took on Monday. U.S. officials have, for weeks, been warning that a massive invasion of Ukraine was imminent, pointing to the more than 150,000 Russian troops positioned on its borders.

Putin on Monday announced that Russia had recognized the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk, two Ukrainian provinces that are partially controlled by Russian-backed separatists. He also said that he would send troops, which he characterized as “peacekeepers,” into the two provinces, although on Wednesday it remained unclear whether Russian soldiers had crossed the border.

In a background briefing Tuesday, a senior administration official characterized Russia’s steps as “the beginning of an invasion” and said the first round of sanctions should be seen as “the beginning of our response.”

U.S. consulting with allies

The sanctions announced by the United States are in addition to similar sanctions being levied by the European Union, United Kingdom, and other U.S. allies. In the U.K., in particular, there have been calls to sanction wealthy Russian oligarchs, many of whom own property in London.

In a statement Wednesday, U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said that Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman spoke with representatives of France, Germany, Italy and the U.K.

“The deputy secretary and her counterparts underscored that Russia’s flagrant disregard for international law demands a severe response from the international community and agreed to coordinate closely on next steps, including massive additional economic sanctions, should Russia continue to escalate its aggression against Ukraine,” Price said. “They highlighted their continuing commitment to diplomacy, while reiterating that progress can only be made in an environment of de-escalation.”
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As Ethiopia’s Conflict Shifts to Afar, Injured Overwhelm Hospital

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Fighting has largely died down in Ethiopia’s Tigray region after more than a year of conflict between the federal government and Tigrayan rebels. However, clashes continue in the neighboring Afar region, where civilians have formed self-defense militias to respond to Tigrayan rebel attacks. In the town of Afdera, the main hospital is overwhelmed with injured. Vinicius Assis reports from Afdera, Ethiopia.
Camera: Vinícius Assis Producer: Vinícius Assis
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US Offshore Wind Rights Auction Generates Record Bids

Posted on by SeeUS

The use of wind to generate electricity for the United States was thrust forward Wednesday with the largest-ever offering by the federal government of offshore development rights.

Bidding for the 197,000 hectares of the New York Bight — an area of shallow waters between the coasts of Long Island (in New York state) and the state of New Jersey — attracted record-setting prices, according to the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

“This auction today is a testament to how attractive the U.S. market is,” said Fred Zalcman, director of the New York Offshore Wind Alliance.

Europe is much further along than North America in developing lease areas for offshore wind farms.

There are two small offshore wind facilities in the United States off the coasts of the states of Rhode Island and Virginia. Two more commercial-scale projects were recently approved for development.

“We’re really just at the beginning of a process here. We hope to apply the lessons learned from Europe and take advantage of the cost savings achieved in Europe,” Zalcman told VOA.

Officials say turbines erected in the set of six leases that went up for bidding Wednesday, the first auction conducted during the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden, could eventually provide power for nearly 2 million residences.

Wednesday’s top bids totaled more than $1.5 billion. The largest single lease area offered — totaling nearly 51,000 hectares and located about 50 kilometers off the New Jersey coast — had attracted a record-busting $410 million, with bidding to resume Thursday morning.

The previous auction was held in 2018 during the administration of former President Donald Trump. It was considered a success, with three leases off the coast of the state of Massachusetts bringing in a collective record-breaking $405 million for rights to develop 158,000 hectares south of Martha’s Vineyard, with a potential generating capacity of more than 4.1 gigawatts, enough to supply power to about 1.5 million homes.

Trump, a Republican, repeatedly expressed, at best, skepticism toward wind as a viable renewable source to supply America’s energy needs. He derided “windmills,” saying he had been told the noise from their blades “causes cancer” and “it’s like a graveyard for birds.”

Biden, a Democrat, has veered in a different direction, embracing wind as part of his clean energy ambitions and setting a goal of 30 gigawatts of capacity in the United States by the year 2030.

In his first week in office in 2021, Biden signed an executive order to expand opportunities for the offshore wind industry, predicting, according to the White House, the projects “will create good-paying union jobs” and “spawn new supply chains that stretch into America’s heartland.”

The area included in the ongoing auction, which began with 25 qualified bidders, was cut back by about one-fourth from what was initially proposed last year due to concerns about the potential impact on commercial fishing and military interests.

State and federal officials, according to Zalcman, have been addressing concerns of other ocean users, including recreational and commercial fishers, navigators and the shipping industry, and taking into consideration visual impacts to coastal communities, and concerns of environmental groups about migratory species, such as the North Atlantic right whale.

A group of residents of the New Jersey summer colony of Long Beach last month sued BOEM over the New York Bight leasing plans, contending the massive wind farm would permanently mar their beautiful view from the beach, hurt the area’s tourism economy and harm property values.

Bob Stern, the president of Save Long Beach Island, told VOA on Wednesday that the organization “is not opposed to offshore wind energy but believes that the federal government’s process of selecting ocean areas for turbine placement is flawed.”

Stern explained that the group’s lawsuit challenges the federal government agency’s selection of “wind energy areas” for offshore wind turbines which “should have been preceded and supported by a structured regional environmental impact statement process with full disclosure of impacts and public input.”

The Sierra Club is terming the New York Bight auction a historic major stride forward for clean energy.

“This lease sale is the first to include stipulations setting out responsibilities for project developers to report on their engagement with stakeholders to minimize conflicting uses, negotiation of project labor agreements, and the development of offshore wind-related manufacturing and supply chain services,” said Allison Considine, a senior campaign representative of the national environmental organization.

A preeminent concern is ensuring that these projects are done responsibly, said Zalcman of the New York Offshore Wind Alliance, of which the Sierra Club is a member.

How developers configure the wind farms will be subject to another rigorous round of environmental review before they are able to erect the huge structures.
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Inside a Special Black History Month Rite at ‘The Lion King’

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During February, a special ritual takes place backstage at The Lion King musical on Broadway.

On show days, the four young actors who play the lion cubs Simba and Nala seek out fellow actor Bonita J. Hamilton in the moments before the curtain goes up at the Minskoff Theatre.

The youngsters have learned their lines and choreography, of course, but during Black History Month, they also tell Hamilton what they’ve learned about a Black historical figure. It might include a birthdate, the figure’s biggest achievements and some facts about their lives.

“February is my favorite month because the children — the cubs — get to teach me about Black history,” said Hamilton, who plays the hyena leader Shenzi onstage and offstage looks after the cubs with warmth and respect. “Every day in the month of February, they bring me a Black history fact.”

Hamilton has led the voluntary ritual for 17 years and the children seem to enjoy the challenge. “Telling Miss Bonita my fact is just really fun to do,” said Sydney Elise Russell, 10, who plays young Nala.

This month, the kids have honored Aretha Franklin, Shirley Chisholm, Whitney Houston, Billie Holiday, Frederick Douglass, James Baldwin, Michael Jordan, George Washington Carver, Angela Davis, Ethel Waters, Maya Angelou, Muhammad Ali, Dorothy Height and Mabel Fairbanks, among others.

“They’re learning, I’m learning. Because I say, ‘You’re teaching me something,'” said Hamilton, a graduate of Alabama State University and Brandeis University. “You’ve got to know whose shoulders you’re standing on.”

Last Friday night, Vince Ermita, 12, who plays Simba for four performances a week, sought out Hamilton to recite what he’d lately learned online about music icon Louis Armstrong.

“Louis Armstrong was born on Aug. 4, 1901, in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was a jazz trumpeter and vocalist, and one of the most iconic people he performed with was Ella Fitzgerald,” Vince said, without notes.

“His improvisation changed the landscape of jazz, and some of his most famous songs were What a Wonderful World, West End Blues and Hello, Dolly! And he passed away on July 6, 1971.”

Vince had clearly nailed the assignment, and Hamilton beamed. But she had a follow-up question: What was Armstrong’s nickname?

“Satchmo?” he answered.

“All right!” Hamilton exclaimed, giving him a hand slap.

The other young actors also offered their facts. Alayna Martus, 12, picked gymnast Dominique Dawes — nicknamed Awesome Dawesome — and Sydney picked writer and poet Phillis Wheatley Peters, whose most famous poem is On Being Brought from Africa to America.

Hamilton also had a question when Sydney was done: “Do you know the name of Peters’ first published book?” Sydney did not but promised to return with the answer.

“Circle back, good job. Good job, guys. Thank you. I learned something today,” said Hamilton.

The backstage February ceremonies have had a lasting impact on generations of actors who have cycled in and out of the show, under Hamilton’s charismatic leadership. This year, several former child alumni of The Lion King — led by Caleb McLaughlin of the Netflix series Stranger Things — got together to make a video for Hamilton — each submitting their Black History figures for February.

Hamilton, from Montgomery, Alabama, the home of the civil rights movement which her family aided, started the tradition after coming to The Lion King and asking her then-young co-stars about the meaning of February.

“One day, just so casually, I said, ‘It’s Black History Month, guys. Let’s talk about it. What do you know about Black History Month?’ And they said, ‘Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks,'” she recalls, shaking her head. “There’s so much more to our history.”

Hamilton mixed it up a bit this year, kicking off the month by picking the names of several Black heroes from South Africa and putting them into a cup for the cubs to pick: Chris Hani, Steve Biko, Mamphela Ramphele and Tsietsi Mashinini, among them. The Lion King is set in South Africa, after all.

“They make me very proud. It’s like a game. It’s not anything that’s homework. Learning can be fun,” she said.

It’s a fitting ritual for a show in which Africa is celebrated and there are six Indigenous languages sung and spoken: Swahili, Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho, Tswana and Congolese.

“The Lion King is steeped in ritual tradition, tribal things. Even the fabrics that we wear in the show have tribal markings, the mask, the makeup — all of it is tribal,” said Hamilton.

The ceremony clearly honors a legacy of greatness — updated, naturally, as the inclusion of gymnast Simone Biles can attest — but also teaches the children to respect how they got here.

“They have to know that there was a time when we weren’t allowed to perform on stage or, if we were, we couldn’t walk into the front door of the theater,” said Hamilton.

“It is a privilege to be able to share your gifts on the world’s largest stage. And that’s what I try to instill in them because we weren’t always able to do it.”
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COVID Prompts Calls for More Investment in Africa’s Health Care Systems

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Experts are calling for increased investment in Africa’s health care infrastructure to support data collection, research and development related to the COVID-19 pandemic and its subsequent impact on African economies.

In a recent discussion on VOA’s Straight Talk Africa program titled COVID-19 in Africa: Virus, Variants and Vaccines, experts pointed out that the global health crisis exposed poor health infrastructure on the continent.

Mo Ibrahim, the billionaire founder and chair of the London-based foundation that bears his name, spoke about inequality in vaccine distribution at the height of the pandemic.

“The vaccine apartheid did not help the situation for Africa,” Ibrahim said. However, he said he remains “quite optimistic that the pandemic in a strange way will help us move forward.”

“Going forward, we need to manufacture our own vaccines,” he said. “We should not rely on the goodwill or the sensible behavior of others.”

Last Friday, the World Health Organization announced that six African nations would be the first on the continent to receive the technology necessary to produce mRNA vaccines. The countries are Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia.

Health experts around the world have raised concerns over the unequal distribution of vaccines. More than 80% of the African continent’s population has yet to receive a single dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to WHO.

“Much of this inequity has been driven by the fact that globally, vaccine production is concentrated in a few mostly high-income countries,” WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a European Union-African Union summit last week.

On the panel, Ibrahim highlighted Africa’s weak and overstretched health care system while stressing the lack of adequate investments and the effects of brain drain on health care.

Amid the COVID-19 crisis, more affluent countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development have lured migrant doctors and nurses with measures such as higher pay, temporary licensing and eased entry, the OECD has reported.

WHO recommends at least one physician for every thousand people. Some African countries, such as Ghana and Chad, had as few as 0.1 medical doctors per thousand in 2019, according to World Bank data.

Panelist Aloysius Uche Ordu dispelled the assumption that infectious diseases always come from poor countries.

“We tend to look at Africa as the place where infectious diseases start. Well, that did not happen with COVID,” said Ordu, who directs the Africa Growth Initiative at Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank. “COVID started with a rich country and spread to other rich countries. In fact, Africa came into the picture later on.”

An official with the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the continent has done a laudable job of dealing with the virus.

“We have kept the numbers low. We have mobilized our political leadership from the very top all the way down to our technical teams,” said Dr. Ahmed Ogwell Ouma, deputy director of the Africa CDC. “We have mobilized the public, and Africa has largely addressed this pandemic as a group. And this is unprecedented, and I will give us a very, very good mark.”

But the dean of health sciences at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa disagrees.

Professor Sabir Madhi noted that his country’s disproportionately high COVID-19 death toll is largely due to “much more robust” contact tracing and data collation tools than other African nations.

South Africans “constitute less than 5% of the African population yet have contributed 45% of all (COVID-19-related) deaths on the African continent,” he said.

The country of nearly 60 million people has Africa’s highest number of recorded infections and deaths — a total of 3.6 million cases and nearly 99,000 deaths as of this week, according to the Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Resource Center. The center has recorded more than 420 million COVID-19 cases globally and nearly 6 million deaths.

South Africa is emerging from a fourth wave of the pandemic, largely driven by the omicron variant. According to local scientists, the variant no longer leads to high hospitalization rates and deaths in the country, a huge relief for a population reeling under lockdown fatigue.

Madhi told VOA the continent has failed to learn from experiences with the 2009 swine flu, which emphasized the need for good data collection.

He added that “the impact of the pandemic on Africa will, unfortunately, be realized only after the pandemic has passed.”

US support

The United States has committed to helping the world combat the virus. President Joe Biden pledged to donate over 1.2 billion doses through COVAX, the international vaccine-sharing initiative supported by the U.N. and the health organizations Gavi and CEPI. The initiative aims to ensure the equitable distribution of vaccines to developing countries.

So far, the U.S. has donated more than 450 million doses globally, with more than 120 million doses going to 43 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the State Department.

Ordu said it has become imperative to strengthen STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) in Africa. This, he contended, would be a sure way to overcome any future health crisis.

“Because of the growing youthful population in Africa, it is important that STEM education is an area of focus, particularly for women and girls,” he said.

This report originated in VOA’s English to Africa service.
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US Sanctions on Russia Draw Praise, Criticism  

Posted on by SeeEU

White House officials have called the latest package of sanctions against Russia “a severe action,” with President Joe Biden saying the economic restrictions will “cut off Russia’s government from Western financing” — powerful claims that some critics and even some Biden allies say are overblown and will do little to stop President Vladimir Putin on his military push toward Ukraine.

The package of U.S. sanctions announced Tuesday and Wednesday include several elements: action to block Russia’s revenue-raising Nord Stream 2 pipeline plus sanctions on two large banks, Russia’s sovereign debt, and a handful of elites with ties to Putin.

 

Any problem solved?

China, which is Russia’s largest trading partner, came out hard against the very concept of sanctions Wednesday. China, as a rule, follows a policy of noninterference in the internal affairs of other states.

“Our position is that sanctions are never fundamentally effective means to solve problems,” said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying. “We consistently oppose all illegal unilateral sanctions.”

She cited U.S. Treasury data showing the U.S. has increased its use of sanctions tenfold in the last two decades, and asked, rhetorically: “Have the U.S. sanctions solved any problem? Is the world a better place because of those sanctions? Will the Ukraine issue resolve itself thanks to the U.S. sanctions on Russia? Will European security be better guaranteed thanks to the U.S. sanctions on Russia? … I would also like to point out that the illegal unilateral sanctions by some countries including the U.S. have caused severe difficulties to relevant countries’ economy and livelihood.”

But analyst Chris Miller of the American Enterprise Institute predicted that these sanctions would not do much to Putin’s bottom line.

“The sanctions announced [Tuesday] — notably the sovereign debt sanctions — will have a minor, negative macroeconomic impact on Russia,” he told VOA.

Anti-corruption campaigners have lobbied the administration to target several dozen members of Putin’s inner circle.

“Existing sanctions don’t reach enough of the right people,” Vladimir Ashurkov, director of the Moscow-based Anti-Corruption Foundation, said in a January letter to Biden. “The West must sanction the decision-makers who have made it national policy to rig elections, steal from the budget, and poison. It must also sanction the people who hold their money. Anything less will fail to make the regime change its behavior.”

He was referring to allegations that Putin ordered security officials to poison now-jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

The sanctions announced Tuesday target three men from Ashurkov’s list of 35: top intelligence official Aleksandr Bortnikov, whom Ashurkov described as the man “responsible inter alia for the attempted poisoning of Alexei Navalny”;  Bortnikov’s son Denis, who is the deputy president and chairman of the Russian state-owned VTB Bank; and Sergei Kiriyenko, a top official in Putin’s office. Ashurkov accuses Denis Bortnikov of “acting as a wallet for his father’s ill-gotten gains.”

The administration also leveled sanctions at Petr Fradkov, chairman of Promsvyazbank, one of the two banks that the administration has sanctioned.

 

Wiggle room

Jennifer Erickson, an associate professor of political science and international studies at Boston College, said the administration’s decision to impose limited measures at this time could leave it room to seek a diplomatic solution.

“There’s a lot more that the United States could do if they wanted to take really firm, strong action,” she told VOA. “So it’s leaving room to maneuver. And I think there’s a dilemma there for the U.S. You know, do you go really strong now, and hope to make the cost really high to stop further action from Russia? Or do you wait and leave room to sort of escalate your sanctions as Russia might escalate its actions, give it room to back down?”

Administration officials indicated that they were trying to leave space for diplomacy.

“No one should think that it’s our goal to max out on sanctions,” said Daleep Singh, deputy White House national security adviser for international economics. “Sanctions are not an end to themselves.  They serve a higher purpose. And that purpose is to deter and prevent.”

But in Washington, where Biden faces political pressure, that moderation has drawn out his critics.

Republican Senator Ben Sasse described the package as “too little, too late,” arguing that the sanctions should have been issued before Putin ordered troops into the Ukrainian border regions of Luhansk and Donetsk regions — a move that Biden characterized as “the beginning of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.”

“We shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking that today’s incremental sanctions will deter Putin from trying to install a puppet government in Kyiv,” Sasse said.

But perhaps the biggest, loudest criticism came from the nation in Putin’s crosshairs.

“First decisive steps were taken yesterday, and we are grateful for them,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted. “Now the pressure needs to step up to stop Putin. Hit his economy and cronies. Hit more. Hit hard. Hit now.” 
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Eastern Ukrainian City Still Sanguine Despite Looming Russian Threat

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As Ukraine on Wednesday announced plans for a 30-day state of emergency, residents of the eastern city of Kharkiv appeared calm, saying they were preparing for a possible war but still hopeful their city would escape unscathed. VOA’s Heather Murdock reports from Kharkiv. Camera: Yan Boechat.
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US Supreme Court Mulls Republican Bid to Defend Trump Immigration Rule

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U.S. Supreme Court justices on Wednesday struggled over whether to let Republican state officials defend an immigration rule crafted by former President Donald Trump’s administration to bar permanent residency for immigrants deemed likely to need government benefits.

The justices heard oral arguments in an appeal by 13 Republican state attorneys general led by Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich of a lower court’s ruling that rejected their bid to defend Trump’s rule, which expanded the scope of those considered likely to become a “public charge.”

President Joe Biden’s administration dropped the government’s defense of the policy, prompting the action by the states. The rule took effect in February 2020.

Liberal and conservative justices questioned why the administration rescinded the policy in March 2021 based on a November 2020 decision by U.S. District Judge Gary Feinerman in Illinois ordering it vacated nationwide in another case, rather than undertaking a formal rulemaking process to replace it while it remained in effect.

Justice Elena Kagan suggested that the administration evaded requirements under a U.S. law called the Administrative Procedure Act and expressed doubt that the court should be “green-lighting” such behavior. Chief Justice John Roberts said circumventing that statute “is a pretty big deal.”

‘Not unprecedented’

Some justices noted that presidential administrations often stop defending in court certain policies they oppose.

“It’s very much not unprecedented,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh said.

Biden administration lawyer Brian Fletcher raised some eyebrows when he told the justices that the government does not believe that federal administrative law gives judges the power to set aside policies on a nationwide basis, as Feinerman did in this case — a position aligning with that of the Trump administration.

Justice Neil Gorsuch wondered how that admission should affect the case, given that the Biden administration’s decision to rescind Trump’s rule “is premised on what it admits to be an unlawful order” by Feinerman.

The Supreme Court in a separate dispute is weighing whether to let Kentucky’s Republican attorney general defend a restrictive abortion law in his state that was struck down by lower courts, after its Democratic governor dropped the case.

Biden’s administration six days ago announced a new “fair and humane” public charge rule that it said would avoid penalizing people for seeking medical attention and other services. The fact that a new federal rule already has been devised raises questions about what type of remedy would be available to the state officials even if they win and get to defend Trump’s policy.

Brnovich was joined by officials from Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and West Virginia.

Past guidelines

U.S. guidelines in place for the past two decades had said immigrants likely to become primarily dependent on direct cash assistance or long-term institutionalization — in a nursing home, for example — at public expense would be barred from legal permanent residency, known as a “green card.”

Trump’s policy expanded this to anyone deemed likely to receive a wider range of even non-cash federal benefits such as the Medicaid health care program, housing and food assistance for more than an aggregate of 12 months over any 36-month period.

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided in 2020 that Trump’s policy impermissibly expanded the definition of who counts as a “public charge.” Other courts made similar rulings.

During the time the policy was enforced, the government issued only three denials of admission under it, according to court filings, all of which have since been reversed.

The Supreme Court’s ruling is expected by the end of June. 
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US Drops Name of Trump’s ‘China Initiative’ After Criticism

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The Justice Department is scrapping the name of a Trump-era initiative that was aimed at cracking down on economic espionage by Beijing but was criticized as unfairly targeting Chinese professors at American colleges because of their ethnicity.

The decision to abandon the China Initiative, announced Wednesday by the department’s top national security official, followed a monthslong review undertaken after charges that the program chilled academic collaboration and contributed to anti-Asian bias. The department also endured high-profile setbacks in individual criminal prosecutions that resulted in the last year in the dismissal of multiple criminal cases against academic researchers.

Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen said the department would “be relentless in defending our country from China,” but no longer would group its investigations and prosecutions under the China Initiative label, in part out of recognition of the threats facing the U.S. from Russia, Iran, North Korea and others beyond China.

“I’m convinced that we need a broader approach, one that looks across all of these threats and use all of our authorities to combat them,” he told reporters before a speech in which he planned to lay out the changes.

The program was established in 2018 under then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions as a way to thwart what officials said were aggressive efforts by China to steal American intellectual property and to spy on American industry and research.

Genuine concerns

Olsen told reporters he believed the initiative was prompted by genuine national security concerns. He said he did not believe investigators had targeted professors on the basis of ethnicity, but he also said he had to be responsive to concerns he heard, including from Asian American groups.

“Anything that creates the impression that the Department of Justice applies different standards based on race or ethnicity harms the department and our efforts, and it harms the public,” Olsen said.

The initiative has resulted in convictions, including against hackers accused of breaching the networks of U.S. companies. Nonetheless, it came to be most associated with efforts to investigate professors at American universities for concealing ties to the Chinese government on applications for federal grants.

Federal prosecutors are still expected to pursue grant fraud cases against researchers when there is evidence of malicious intent, serious fraud and a connection to economic and national security, with prosecutors from the department’s National Security Division in Washington playing a supervisory role. In some cases, prosecutors may opt for civil or administrative solutions instead of criminal charges.

Wednesday’s announcement followed multiple cases in which the department has either dismissed its own prosecutions or had them thrown out by judges.

In January, the department dropped its case against Gang Chen, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor charged in the final days of the Trump administration. Prosecutors concluded that they could no longer meet their burden of proof after they received information from the Department of Energy suggesting that he had not been required to disclose certain information on his forms.

Tennessee professor

A federal judge in September threw out all charges against a University of Tennessee professor accused of hiding his relationship with a Chinese university while receiving research grants from NASA, and the university has since offered to reinstate him.

Olsen said the department continued to stand by cases that were pending against professors and researchers.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a speech last month that the threat from China was “more brazen” than ever, with the FBI opening new cases to counter Chinese intelligence operations every 12 hours or so.

“I’m not taking any tools off the table here,” Olsen said. In his speech at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, he noted that despite the diverse range of threats, “it is clear that the government of China stands apart.”
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As West Ratchets Up Economic Pain on Moscow, Will Unity Hold?

Posted on by SeeEU

Europe is facing calls to impose immediate tougher sanctions on Russia following President Vladimir Putin’s recognition of the separatist-held regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine and his pledge to send in what the Kremlin called “peacekeeping” troops.

“We are anticipating further steps on strengthening sanction pressure,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters Wednesday. “It’s important that Germany decided to halt the certification of the Nord Stream 2. It should be irreversible.”

Nord Stream 2

Berlin announced Tuesday it had officially halted the certification process for Nord Stream 2, the newly built gas pipeline that was designed to take Russian gas directly to Germany. The German move was part of a raft of sanctions announced by Western allies in response to Russia’s actions.

All 27 European Union member states agreed on a range of measures targeting Russian individuals and institutions.

EU sanctions

“We have agreed that the 351 members of the Russia State Duma who voted [for] this violation of international law and territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine will be listed in our sanctions list. We agreed to target 27 individuals and entities who are playing a role in undermining or threatening Ukrainian territorial integrity, sovereignty and independency,” the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said Tuesday.

“And last, but not least, because this is very important, we target the ability of the Russian state and government to access our capital and financial market on services. … This packet of sanctions that has been approved by unanimity by the member states will hurt Russia and it will hurt a lot. And we are doing that in a strong coordination with our partners U.S., UK and Canada,” Borrell told reporters in Paris.

The European sanctions are similar to those imposed by Australia, Canada, Japan and the United States.

“Putin’s actions have really reinforced transatlantic unity. European allies and the United States have been in close coordination, and they seem to be ready to match every move of Putin,” said Sudha David-Wilp, of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, in an interview with VOA.

Russian banks

Britain announced sanctions on five Russian banks, which it said included those favored by oligarchs close to the Kremlin: Rossiya, IS Bank, General Bank, Promsvyazbank and the Black Sea Bank. Britain also imposed asset freezes and travel bans on three Russian billionaires whom it said had supported the invasion of Ukraine: Gennady Timchenko, Boris Rotenberg and Igor Rotenberg.

“We have more individuals that we will target in the event of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and we’ll be targeting them in conjunction with our international allies like the Europeans and like the United States to make sure that these people can’t travel, that their assets are frozen and that they will have nowhere to hide,” British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss told Sky News Wednesday.

Many British lawmakers say the sanctions don’t go far enough. Speaking during a session of Prime Minister’s Questions in parliament Wednesday, opposition Labor Party leader Keir Starmer urged the government to go further. “We all want to deter aggression in Europe. We are not dealing with breakaway republics. Putin is not a peacekeeper. A sovereign nation has been invaded. The prime minister promised that in the event of an invasion he would unleash a full package of sanctions. If not now, then when?” Starmer said.

Long game

It’s important that the West holds some sanctions in reserve, says analyst Sudha David-Wilp of the German Marshall Fund.

“It’s important that the West not put everything out on the table; an element of surprise is also important. This is probably going to be a long conflict and it’s important for the West to be measured and proportionate.”

Russia has long been preparing for this moment, says analyst Amanda Paul of the European Policy Center in Brussels.

“In the last eight years, Russia has done a lot of things to move itself away from its dependency on Western finance and investments. … They have a huge wealth fund of over $600 billion in gold and foreign currency. They do have the ability to keep going for some time despite the pain. So, it means that the West will need to be very committed and very determined to keep pushing and pushing, even though for sure it’s going to cost them painful, painful moments too,” Paul told The Associated Press.

Russian gas threat

Germany’s decision to effectively cancel the gas pipeline elicited a testy response from Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. “German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has issued an order to halt the process of certifying the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. Well. Welcome to the brave new world where Europeans are very soon going to pay €2,000 for 1,000 cubic meters of natural gas!,” Medevdev wrote on Twitter.

Germany has other options, according to energy analyst Claudia Kemfert of the German Institute for Economic Research, in a recent interview with VOA.

“Germany does not need Nord Stream 2. We have enough infrastructure; we have enough pipelines where we can transport and import natural gas to Germany and we can also rely on natural gas, LNG imports from other countries,” Kemfert said.

Western unity

So far, the Western response has been remarkably united – but that may become more strained, according to Nora Müller of the Körber Foundation, a foreign policy research institution in Berlin.

“The more you ratchet up the sanctions regime, the more painful it also is not only for the one who is sanctioned, but also for the one who imposes the sanctions; that’s the logic of sanctions. So, when we talk about targeting the sanctions at the Russian energy market, obviously that will be very painful for EU member states,” Müller told VOA.
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US Lawmakers: Russia Incursion Into Ukraine Is Assault on Democracy 

Posted on by SeeEU

Top U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday called Russian President Vladimir Putin’s incursion into the occupied regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine an assault on democracy.

“It’s stunning to see – in this day and age – a tyrant rolling into a country. This is the same tyrant who attacked our democracy in 2016,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a press conference, recalling Putin’s interference in U.S. elections.

Pelosi and other top Democrats returning from participation in the Munich Security Conference this week praised President Joe Biden for working with European allies to maintain a united front in deterring Russia.

“The decision to essentially cancel the process of moving forward with the [Nord Stream 2] pipeline, I think, is a very strong indication of the solidarity of NATO and our other allies to punish Putin for this naked aggression and the prospect of further devastating sanctions,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff told reporters of the decision to cancel certification of the key pipeline delivering Russian gas to Europe.

Biden announced Tuesday that the U.S. also would sanction Russian officials and banks in response to Putin’s speech claiming Donetsk and Luhansk were independent of Ukraine. The White House is expected to announce additional sanctions this week.

Sequence of sanctions

Despite significant bipartisan unity for deterring Russian aggression in Ukraine, Democrats and Republicans have struggled to agree on how to sequence sanctions to discourage and penalize Putin for incursions into the independent eastern European nation.

An estimated 150,000 Russian troops have massed at the border with Ukraine in recent weeks. Putin’s claim that Donetsk and Luhansk were no longer a part of Ukraine opened the door for so-called Russian “peacekeeping” troops to go into those areas. The U.S. and its allies called this mission a false-flag operation to allow further incursion into Ukraine.

Congressional Republicans have criticized the White House’s approach to the crisis, calling the Russian leader’s move an invasion and accusing the Biden administration of waiting until it is too late to deter Putin.

Republican Senator Ben Sasse, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the first round of sanctions was “too little, too late. First, these sanctions should have happened before Putin further invaded Ukraine — not after. Second, economic sanctions now need to more aggressively target Putin’s oligarchs to make sure they feel real pain. Third, we shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking that today’s incremental sanctions will deter Putin from trying to install a puppet government in Kyiv.”

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a top Capitol Hill ally of former President Donald Trump, had a direct message for Biden late Tuesday: “You said a couple years ago that Putin did not want you to win because you’re the only person that could go toe-to-toe with him. Well, right now, Mr. President, you’re playing footsie with Putin. He’s walking all over you and our allies.”

Working with allies

Democrats praised Biden, though, for working in concert with European allies and avoiding escalating the crisis.

“I think the administration handled this, given the Russian intentions, as well as it could be handled,” Schiff told reporters Wednesday. “They telegraphed in advance the punitive sanctions that would be applied if Russia invaded. I think it makes sense not to enforce those sanctions before Russia invaded. If you do that, then Russia loses its disincentive and figures, ‘Well, we’ve already been sanctioned. We might as well move forward with it.’ ”

Small minorities within both the Republican and Democratic parties have cautioned against escalating tensions with Putin.

“While we work in coordination with our European allies to respond and impose targeted sanctions, we must continue to do all we can to de-escalate and utilize the full power of diplomacy to find a negotiated solution to this crisis,” Democratic Representative Barbara Lee – the only member of Congress to vote against authorizing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – said in a statement Wednesday.

“I am confident in President Biden’s repeated commitment to keep U.S. military personnel out of any conflict in Ukraine itself,” Lee continued.

Several members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus have expressed concern the U.S. could become mired in a ground war in Ukraine, despite Biden’s repeated statements that the U.S. would not commit troops to the conflict.

Senator Bob Menendez and Senator Bob Risch, the top-ranking Democrat and Republican, respectively, on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, have separately introduced sanctions bills that would end Russian access to international banking transactions, provide hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine, and cut off funding for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

Congress is in recess this week and will be back in session at the end of the month.
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African Health Authorities Meet in Nigeria, Discuss Vaccination Goals 

Posted on by SeeAF

African health authorities are calling for better coordination to ensure COVID-19 vaccines are distributed quickly to all African nations.

Vaccine supplies have surpassed demand for the first time since the pandemic began two years ago. But health officials at a conference in Nigeria said Wednesday that a lack of refrigeration and poor infrastructure were major challenges for vaccine equity.

The African Union’s Vaccine Delivery Alliance organized the conference to highlight hurdles many African countries face delivering COVID-19 vaccines to their citizens. 

 

Tian Johnson, an AU community engagement official, said, “What we see before us through the magnifying glass of COVID-19 are the fruits of decades of deprioritizing health at country levels. The fact remains, as Africans we must be absolutely sure that we leave no one behind.”

About 20 percent of Africa’s 1.2 billion people have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, a poor record compared with those of many Western nations, where vaccination rates are at 70 percent or better.

Lack of infrastructure

 

Many African countries, including Nigeria, lack the infrastructure and cooling systems to store vaccines in large quantities.  

 

Last year, up to 1 million doses of COVID vaccines expired in Nigeria, the highest single number in any country.

Officials said the vaccination gap is made worse by lack of funding, which limits African countries’ ability to properly receive and distribute vaccines.  

A February publication by COVAX — the global vaccine program supported by the WHO and Gavi — showed low-income countries requested only 100 million doses of vaccines out of 436 million doses available.

In Nigeria, where only about 6 percent of people are vaccinated, authorities also have been battling widespread vaccine hesitancy, which authorities partly blame for the low inoculation rate.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said at the Vaccine Delivery Alliance conference, “Global solidarity and proactive leadership is the only way we will beat this virus. This high-level summit calls for greater solidarity and for the world to hear Africa’s voice on how we can beat the virus together.”

Buhari said authorities were accelerating vaccinations in Nigeria to save lives and kick-start economic recovery. 

Vaccine production

 

The World Health Organization last week said Nigeria and five other African countries would be the first on the continent to begin local production of COVID-19 vaccines. The WHO said training for vaccine production could begin in a matter of weeks.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, one of the speakers at Wednesday’s conference, said, “WHO and our partners are working day and night to address the bottlenecks that remain in partnership with countries. We are on ground to do whatever it takes to reach country goals, not only on vaccines but for testing and treatment.”

Experts say until Africa is largely vaccinated against the virus, the world will remain unsafe.
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UN Rejects Central African Republic Suspicions Against Peacekeepers 

Posted on by SeeAF

The U.N. peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic has rejected accusations that four of its personnel who were arrested Monday were engaged in suspicious activity. The C.A.R.’s public prosecutor said the four men, arrested at the airport shortly before the arrival of the country’s president, were heavily armed.

The U.N. peacekeeping mission, known as MINUSCA, is demanding the release of the four peacekeepers, all French soldiers.

C.A.R. authorities have not filed any charges against the men, but the country’s public prosecutor said on national radio that an investigation is open on the case.

He said the four men “were arrested aboard a suspicious vehicle… carrying a heavy military arsenal.”

Right after the arrest, messages on social media accused the peacekeepers of planning to assassinate C.A.R. President Faustin-Archange Touadéra, whose plane was about to land at the airport.

MINUSCA spokesperson Vladimir Monteiro dismissed the accusations during a press conference on Wednesday.

“We have nothing to hide, he said. MINUSCA is here as a partner, as a friend. What’s said on social media is disinformation,” he said. “MINUSCA regrets the incident of Monday, February 21st and condemns again the intent to manipulate public opinion and firmly rejects the accusations of attacking state security.”

The four military personnel remain in police custody, but they are being treated well, says a source at the U.N. peacekeeping mission.

The C.A.R. government has refused to comment the case.
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US Maternal Mortality Soars Amid Widening Racial Disparities

Posted on by SeeUS

The U.S. maternal mortality rate — already the worst in the industrialized world — rose in 2020 to its highest level in half a century, with Black women three times more likely to die than white women, data showed Wednesday.

A National Center for Health Statistics report showed the rate was 23.8 deaths per 100,000 live births, far higher than comparable countries, such as Canada where it was 7.5 per 100,000, according to OECD statistics for the same year.

Overall, 861 women were identified as having died of maternal causes, which the World Health Organization defines as a death while pregnant or within 42 days of the end of pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by pregnancy or its management.

In 2019, the number of deaths per 100,000 live US births was 20.1, while in 2018 it was 17.4.

“We observed increases across a broad number of categories, and Covid-19 likely contributed,” Donna Hoyert, who authored the report, told AFP.

But, she added, the disease was not mentioned in 88 percent of cases, and was thus only a part of the overall picture.

Despite spending more than twice per person on health than the average of high-income nations, the United States has historically remained an outlier on maternal mortality compared to its peers.

Across the world, maternal mortality dropped throughout the 20th century thanks to advances in medical care such as antibiotics and basic hygiene. But the United States has seen backsliding since the year 2000, unlike most other countries.

In fact, the last time the US rate was officially this high was 1968, though a new reporting methodology was introduced in 2018.

“Most of the peer countries have some form of universal health care,” Boston University professor Eugene Declercq, who studies the field, told AFP.

“What we do in the United States is we focus on care so intently on the time of birth — and that’s nice — but the fact of the matter is, women enter their pregnancies in a less healthy state because they’re not covered.”

Certain conservative-led states, such as Texas and Alabama, have increased hurdles to eligibility to Medicaid, the publicly funded health insurance program, said Declercq.

Upper income limits to enroll in Medicaid are lower for women who are pregnant, but there is a greater chance that by the time they become pregnant, they have untreated chronic conditions.

Limiting access to abortion — as conservative-led states have increasingly done in recent years — is also linked to worse maternal health outcomes a 2021 study in the American Journal of Public Health found.

Racial disparities

The racial breakdown of the 2020 figures reveal widening disparities.

The number of maternal deaths per 100,000 live births was 55.3 among Black women, compared to 19.1 among white women, which would by itself still be higher than peer countries.

Here too, there are thought to be many factors, and experts say it’s not as simple as race being a surrogate for socioeconomic conditions such as access to care and environmental stressors, though these undoubtedly play a role.

In fact, a 2016 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed for a Black woman with a college education, the likelihood of maternal death is still 60 percent greater than for a white woman with less than a high school education.

“Black women are time and time again shown to not receive the same level of treatment or medications,” Ebony Hilton, an anesthesiologist at the University of Virginia – Charlottesville, and an expert in disparities in health care, told AFP.
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US Truckers Plan Pandemic Protest, Inspired by Canadian Counterparts 

Posted on by SeeUS

Taking a cue from demonstrations that paralyzed Canada’s capital city for weeks, U.S. truckers on Wednesday plan to embark on a 2,500-mile (4,000-km) cross-country drive toward Washington D.C. to protest coronavirus restrictions.

Organizers of the “People’s Convoy” say they want to “jumpstart the economy” and reopen the country. Their 11-day trek will approach the Beltway around the U.S. capital on March 5 “but will not be going into D.C. proper,” according to a statement.

The Pentagon said on Tuesday it had approved 400 D.C. National Guard troops to “provide support at designated traffic posts, provide command and control, and cover sustainment requirements” from Feb. 26 through March 7.

About 50 large tactical vehicles were also approved to be placed at traffic posts.

Brian Brase, a truck driver who is one of the organizers, said regardless of where the trucks stop “we’re not going anywhere” until the group’s demands are met. Those demands include an end to COVID-19 vaccine and mask requirements.

Most U.S. states are already easing some restrictions. In California, where the convoy begins, universal mask requirements were lifted last week while masks for vaccinated people are required only in high-risk areas such as public transit, schools and healthcare settings.

Another convoy was expected to leave Scranton, Pennsylvania – President Joe Biden’s hometown – on Wednesday morning and arrive on the 495 Beltway (highway) in Washington sometime during the afternoon.

Organizer Bob Bolus told WJLA news, an ABC affiliate in Washington, that his convoy has no intention to break laws or block traffic, but warned this could happen if their demands regarding pandemic mandates and the cost of fuel are not meant.

“They are not going to intimidate us and they are not going to threaten us. We’re the power, not them,” he said.

In Canada, pandemic-related protests choked streets in the capital Ottawa for more than three weeks and blocked the busiest land crossing between Canada and the United States – the Ambassador Bridge connecting Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario – for six days.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked rarely used emergency powers to end the protests, and Canadian police restored a sense of normalcy in Ottawa over the weekend.

“We plan to stay a while and hope they don’t escalate it the way Trudeau did with his disgusting government overreach,” Brase said from Adelanto, California, where the convoy will begin, about 80 miles (130 km) northeast of Los Angeles.

Brase said he expected thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, would participate. Organizers bill the convoy as nonpartisan, trucker-led, and supported by a wide range of ethnic minorities and religious faiths.

Economic growth in the United States – as in other countries – was brought to a juddering halt by the imposition of lockdowns in 2020 to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

The economy has boomed since the federal government pumped in trillions of dollars in relief, growing 5.7% in 2021, the strongest since 1984 albeit from a low ebb in 2020, the Commerce Department reported in January.

Meanwhile, unemployment stands at 4%, close to the 3.5% rate of February 2020, just before the pandemic took hold, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But headwinds related to strained supply chains and inflation remain.

“It is now time to reopen the country,” the protest organizers said in a statement.

Among other demands, the protesters want an immediate end to the state of emergency in California – the most populous U.S. state with one of the world’s largest economies -that Governor Gavin Newsom has extended.

Nationwide, new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations due to the coronavirus have plummeted from all-time highs hit a month ago, though nearly 2,000 people per day are still dying from the disease and the number of total deaths is closing in on 1 million since the pandemic began. 
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Kenyan Journalists Flag High Rates of Newsroom Harassment

Posted on by SeeAF

Kenyan journalists report the highest level of harassment in the newsroom, a global media study finds. For VOA, Victoria Amunga has more from Nairobi. Video: Amos Wangwa
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US Abolition Newspaper Revived for Nation Grappling with Racism

Posted on by SeeUS

America’s first newspaper dedicated to advocating for the end of slavery is being resurrected and reimagined more than two centuries later as the nation continues to grapple with its legacy of racism.

The revived version of The Emancipator is a joint effort by Boston University’s Center for Antiracist Research and The Boston Globe’s Opinion team that’s expected to launch in the coming months.

Deborah Douglas and Amber Payne, co-editors-in-chief of the new online publication, say it will feature written and video opinion pieces, multimedia series, virtual talks and other content by respected scholars and seasoned journalists. The goal, they say, is to “reframe” the national conversation around racial injustice.

“I like to say it’s anti-racism, every day, on purpose,” said Douglas, who joined the project after working as a journalism professor at DePauw University in Indiana. “We are targeting anyone who wants to be a part of the solution to creating an anti-racist society because we think that leads us to our true north, which is democracy.”

The original Emancipator was founded in 1820 in Jonesborough, Tennessee, by iron manufacturer Elihu Embree, with the stated purpose to “advocate the abolition of slavery and to be a repository of tracts on that interesting and important subject,” according to a digital collection of the monthly newsletter at the University of Tennessee library.

Before Embree’s untimely death from a fever ended its brief run later that year, The Emancipator reached a circulation of more than 2,000, with copies distributed throughout the South and in northern cities like Boston and Philadelphia that were centers of the abolition movement.

Douglas and Payne say drawing on the paper’s legacy is appropriate now because it was likely difficult for Americans to envision a country without slavery back then, just as many people today likely can’t imagine a nation without racism. The new Emancipator was announced last March, nearly a year after the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in May 2020 sparked social justice movements worldwide.

“Those abolitionists were considered radical and extreme,” Douglas said. “But that’s part of our job as journalists — providing those tools, those perspectives that can help them imagine a different world.”

Other projects have also recently come online taking the mantle of abolitionist newspapers, including The North Star, a media site launched in 2019 by civil rights activist Shaun King and journalist Benjamin Dixon that’s billed as a revival of Frederick Douglass’ influential anti-slavery newspaper.

Douglas said The Emancipator, which is free to the public and primarily funded through philanthropic donations, will stand out because of its focus on incisive commentary and rigorous academic work. The publication’s staff, once it’s ramped up, will largely eschew the typical quick turnaround, breaking news coverage, she said.

“This is really deep reporting, deep research and deep analysis that’s scholarly driven but written at a level that everyone can understand,” Douglas said. “Everybody is invited to this conversation. We want it to be accessible, digestible and, hopefully, actionable.”

The publication also hopes to serve as a bulwark against racist misinformation, with truth-telling explanatory videos and articles, she added. It’ll take a critical look at popular culture, film, music and television and, as the pandemic eases, look to host live events around Boston.

“Every time someone twists words, issues, situations or experiences, we want to be there like whack-a-mole, whacking it down with the facts and the context,” Douglas said.

Another critical focus of the publication will be spotlighting solutions to some of the nation’s most intractable racial problems, added Payne, who joined the project after working as a managing editor at BET.com and an executive producer at Teen Vogue.

“There are community groups, advocates and legislators who are really taking matters into their own hands so how do we amplify those solutions and get those stories told?” she said. “At the academic level, there’s so much scholarly research that just doesn’t fit into a neat, 800-word Washington Post op-ed. It requires more excavation. It requires maybe a multimedia series. Maybe it needs a video. So, we think that we are really uniquely positioned.”

The project has already posted a couple of representative pieces. To mark the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol building, The Emancipator published an interview with a Harvard social justice professor and commentary from a Boston College poetry professor.

It also posted on social media a video featuring Ibram X. Kendi, founding director of BU’s anti-racism center and author of “How to be an Antiracist,” reflecting on white supremacy. Kendi co-founded the project with Bina Venkataraman, editorial page editor at The Boston Globe.

And while the new Emancipator is primarily focused on the Black community, Douglas and Payne stress it will also tackle issues facing other communities of color, such as the rise in anti-Asian hate during the global coronavirus pandemic.

They argue The Emancipator’s mission is all the more critical now as the debate over how racism is taught has made schools the latest political battleground.

“Our country is so polarized that partisanship is trumping science and trumping historical records,” Payne said. “These ongoing crusades against affirmative action, against critical race theory are not going away. That drumbeat is continuing and so therefore our drumbeat needs to continue.”
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Report: Role of Women in Cameroon Conflict Overlooked 

Posted on by SeeAF

Cameroon’s women and children have suffered disproportionately in the country’s five-year separatist conflict. But a report by the International Crisis Group says the role of women has expanded from just being victims to being rebels and peacemakers.

The anglophone separatist conflict in the country’s western regions has severely impacted women and put them at greater risk of violence.

Brussels-based think tank the International Crisis Group (ICG), in a report released Wednesday, says women have suffered more than the region’s men since armed conflict broke out in 2017.

“Some of the violence women have suffered include kidnaping, rape, torture and execution,” said Arrey Elvis Ntui, the ICG’s senior consulting analyst for Cameroon. “The conflict has destroyed critical medical infrastructure thereby depriving women of access to health. It has further exposed them to other ills like trafficking and sexual exploitation. The authorities should persecute those who are responsible for crimes and include women in the peace process. Separatists must ensure an effective end to the school sabotage and stop the practice of requiring women to serve them in their camps.”

Cameroon’s separatist groups deny abusing women — and say that some women have joined their forces freely.

Capo Daniel is deputy defense chief of the Ambazonia Defense Forces (ADF), one of the biggest rebel groups in Cameroon.

“It is unfortunate that the Crisis Group will target the Ambazonian forces for something that is not substantiated. There have been no circumstances where women have been seen in our camps against their will. There are members within our forces who are women, who are volunteers,” he said.

Rights activists accuse government troops of abusing women too, though officials deny it.

Marie-Thérèse Abena Ondoa, Cameroon’s minister of Women’s Empowerment and the Family, says Cameroon is working with female peace campaigners in initiatives to end the conflict.

“The Ministry of Women’s Empowerment and the Family along with women leaders stepped up to express their indignation on the murder of their sisters and children by secessionists in the North West and South West regions. The government has made the promotion of human rights of its citizens a major concern,” she said.

More than a thousand Cameroonian women converged in Yaounde last August for a first-ever peace convention to try to end the conflict.

They asked rebels and government troops to lay down their guns so peace could return to the restive regions, but fighting has continued.

Violence erupted in Cameroon’s western regions in 2017 after English-speaking teachers and lawyers protested against discrimination by the country’s French-speaking majority. The military responded with a crackdown and separatists took up arms.

The United Nations says about 3,500 people have been killed and at least 700,000 displaced, with women and children the most affected.
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Zelenskyy Under Pressure to Mobilize Ukrainians, Start Serious Defense Planning  

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called up army reservists and ordered military exercises for volunteers in newly created territorial defense brigades, but senior opposition lawmakers and former ministers fear the country is ill-prepared for war with Russia — despite their pleas to the government to get organized.

With credible reports mounting of more Russian forces crossing into Moscow’s breakaway republics in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, a clamor is building from opposition parties in the Verkhovna Rada, the country’s parliament, for much more intensive war-planning. They are demanding the government start in earnest to draft civil defense orders and to mobilize Ukrainians.

Zelenskyy, in a televised address February 22, said Russia’s threat to Ukraine’s sovereignty has compelled him to recall reservists to active duty, but he has urged civilians to go about their normal lives and he has turned his back on mobilizing civilians and to allocate civil defense and emergency roles.

In his short speech overnight Monday, he said: “Regarding security and defense. Today there is no need for general mobilization. We need to promptly replenish the Ukrainian army and other military formations.”

Zelenskyy has been saying for weeks that Ukrainians should remain calm, and he publicly upbraided earlier this month US politicians for warning of an imminent invasion — saying it was damaging Ukraine’s economy and risked panicking Ukrainians unduly. He is being restrained in defense planning for the same reason, political allies told VOA.

Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, a former deputy prime minister in the government of Zelenskyy’s predecessor Petro Poroshenko and now a lawmaker, complains Zelenskyy has been much too slow to prepare Ukraine for an existential war. She harbors no doubts that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is methodically uncoiling his forces on her country’s borders — and that serious defense planning should have been under way long before now.

For months she and some other opposition lawmakers have been trying to get additional funding for Ukraine’s armed forces, but the legislation has languished in the Verkhovna Rada. The extra funding has only just been included for consideration.

State of emergency

“I really hope that finally today [Wednesday] we will take the decision in the Parliament on allocating additional money to the armed forces of Ukraine in order to both raise salaries for the officers and soldiers but also to be able to buy more weaponry,” she told VOA. She says Zelenskyy should be asking the United States for a Lend-Lease program, modeled on the one Franklin D. Roosevelt set up in World War II, which enabled the US to supply Britain, Russia, and Free France with food, oil and military equipment.

On Wednesday the country’s defense and security council asked Zelenskyy to declare a state of emergency and Zelenskyy has agreed to do so. But he is also being urged by lawmakers to announce martial law in Donbas, something his aides say would be spun by Moscow as provocative.

Klympush-Tsintsadze and other lawmakers are alarmed at the absence of serious civil defense and emergency planning. “We are pushing the government to ensure we have strategic resources available — energy, food, water and medical supplies. We also need to know how many medical professionals we have capable of treating war injuries,” she says.

Asked why she thinks there has been little detailed planning for a bigger war going far beyond eastern Ukraine, she fumes: “I think it’s because for three years, Zelenskyy has been hoping that his special charm will soothe Putin. He seems to think that in order to stop the war all we have to do is stop shooting. And obviously that has proven wrong. There has been a lack of professionalism.”

She says she is being inundated by friends, acquaintances and constituents asking what they can do in a national effort to defend Ukraine, but there is no guidance from the government. Only on Monday did Zelenskyy meet leaders of all the parliamentary factions and parties — the first time he has done so in the three years he has been in office, she complains.

Other prominent lawmakers are anxious about Ukraine’s preparedness for war, although they all believe that Moscow is seriously underestimating the fighting spirit of Ukrainians. They say the international media is too focused on stories about individual Ukrainians displaying fortitude and expressing defiance, but the nuts-and-bolts of fighting a war will be crucial and the media should be asking questions of the government about defense planning.

Opposition discontent

Lesia Vasylenko, one of 20 parliamentarians from Holos (Voice), a liberal and pro-European political party judges that Putin’s speech on Monday amounts to a “declaration of war,” or rather an intention to wage a bigger war, a continuation of aggression against Ukraine that goes back to 2014 when Russia annexed forcibly Crimea and shaped the creation of what she sees as “make-believe” republics in eastern Ukraine.

But she isn’t happy with Zelenskyy’s performance. She says he should have given his response to Putin’s speech not in the early hours of the morning and on television “but in parliament, on the podium, addressing lawmakers, the representatives of the Ukrainian people.”

She told VOA: “It would have had immense impact and meaning to the people of Ukraine and could have raised morale and sent a much more powerful message to Putin.” But she is also frustrated by the lack of preparedness and thinks Zelenskyy thinks only one step ahead, unlike Putin who is thinking four or five moves ahead.

Zelenskyy, a 44-year-old former television star and political novice, has been determined to keep his nerve and to try to cool tensions, say allies.

An informal adviser to Ukraine’s leader said he “also wants to avoid doing anything Moscow could claim is provocative and war-like.” He added: “We need to pace ourselves.” He spoke on condition he not be identified in this article.

Vasylenko adds: “Ukraine is trapped with a national leader who does not think strategically because he doesn’t have the people around him who think strategically. I think that’s the thing that he will be blamed for later. It’s not about knowing everything. It’s about refusing to have in your entourage experts who know what questions to ask and having advisers who can contradict and challenge you. He picked close friends and trusted allies with little technical or government experience over real experts, and we may pay a price for that.”

She and other opposition lawmakers say they have for weeks pleaded with ministers to draw up strategic civil defense plans. Vasylenko has been at the forefront clamoring for details on what energy and food reserves the country has readied but she hasn’t been able to secure answers.

On Friday, some key committees have an oversight hearing with the cabinet of ministers and will be pressing again for details. “But to be honest, I’m very skeptical we will get any answers, because every time we make specific requests for information from ministries or regional departments, we get nothing — they just don’t have any information,” she says.

Some lawmakers who attended last week’s Munich Security Conference say they were disappointed when some European politicians told them Ukraine should be readying to form a government in exile. The suggestions dovetail with unconfirmed reports that U.S. officials have raised with Zelenskyy the idea of relocating from Kyiv to Lviv in western Ukraine near the Polish border — to where the U.S. and some other Western powers have moved their ambassadors.

Klympush-Tsintsadze says when the idea was raised with her at Munich that plans should be drawn up for a government-in-exile, she responded with disgust. “We are not going anywhere,” she says. “People were very disappointed when Western military instructors were withdrawn from Ukraine and when the embassies were relocated. It did not play well with Ukrainians.”

She adds: “I was mad yesterday when a TV journalist from a foreign broadcaster asked me why we would fight back and try to withstand an attack from Russia, which has one of the biggest armies in the World. I reacted emotionally. If my services as a lawmaker are not needed, at that point I will either get a weapon or do something useful and bandage the wounded, I know how to do that.”
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US Announces Steps to Bolster Critical Mineral Supply Chain US China Materials

Posted on by SeeUS

The Biden administration announced on Tuesday actions taken by the federal government and private industry that it says will bolster the supply chain of rare earths and other critical minerals used in technologies from household appliances and electronics to defense systems. They say these steps will reduce the nation’s dependence on China, a major producer of these elements. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
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Russia Extends Drills in Belarus – What Does It Mean?

Posted on by SeeEU

With Russia announcing it will continue its military drills with Belarus, many observers believe it is just another step by Moscow to prepare for a wider invasion of Ukraine. Russia had originally said the drills would end on February 20 – as Maxim Moskalkov reports.
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Nigerian Women Also Involved in Sex Trafficking of Women, Say Authorities

Posted on by SeeAF

Nigerian women make up one of the largest groups of international sex trafficking victims, according to U.N. agencies, but women also are among the perpetrators of this crime. Timothy Obiezu has this report from Abuja on the women who exploit other women and the activists trying to stop them.
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‘We Need Help’: Another Cyclone Batters Madagascar

Posted on by SeeAF

ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar — Cyclone Emnati crashed into the southeastern coast of Madagascar in the early hours of Wednesday, ripping roofs off houses and raising fears of flooding and food shortages in a region still recovering from the destruction inflicted by another tropical storm just weeks ago.

More than 30,000 people were moved to safe accommodation before Emnati arrived and Madagascar’s National Office for Risk and Disaster Management estimates more than 250,000 people could be impacted by the latest cyclone.

There were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries from Emnati as authorities waited for the worst to pass, but local officials and witnesses reported extensive damage to houses and other buildings in at least one southeastern city.

Madagascar, an island off the east coast of Africa renowned for its wildlife and unspoiled natural treasures, has now been hit by four major tropical storms in the last month, killing nearly 200 people already and compounding issues of food insecurity. A drought in the south of the country left around 400,000 at risk of starvation last year, according to the U.N. World Food Program.

The cyclones have again underlined how climate change may be affecting weather patterns and putting lives at risk in vulnerable places like Madagascar. The U.N. weather agency previously warned of more “high-impact tropical cyclones” that are linked to climate change hitting the region.

A string of aid agencies said that Emnati will be a double blow for the eastern and southeastern regions that were hit by Cyclone Batsirai early this month. Batsirai ultimately left more than 120 people dead and displaced 143,000. More than 20,000 houses were destroyed or damaged by Batsirai, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said, and more than 21,000 people remain displaced.

The U.N. humanitarian office said before Emnati arrived that it was in “a race against time” to protect people again.

Emnati made landfall around midnight local time in the district of Manakara Atsimo in the southeast, with average sustained winds of 135 kph (84 mph) and gusts as strong as 190 kph (118 mph), Madagascar’s Department of Meteorology said. Six regions in the southeast are on red alert, most of them already hard-hit by Batsirai.

“We can’t go out so it’s hard to see what happened but from what I can see from the gendarmerie barracks, there’s a lot of damage. Many houses no longer have roofs,” said Lt. Col. Harinaivo Randriamihajamanana, the commander of the Gendarmerie Group in the Fitovinany region and based in the city of Manakara. “We have not received any calls because the telephone communication has been very disrupted. We have had no electricity and water since yesterday (Tuesday) morning.”

The Emnati system had weakened as it worked its way over the Indian Ocean toward Madagascar, the meteorology department said, but it warned that flooding was still likely.

Manakara resident Gabriel Filiastre said his family joined others in taking refuge inside the main hall of a hotel where he works as Emnati hit.

“My house is completely flooded,” Filiastre said. “We couldn’t sleep inside. It’s a wooden house. I saw a lot of houses around our house that are destroyed. For us, this cyclone did more damage than the one before.”

“Even in the hotel there is a lot of damage. One of the walls collapsed … the roof tiles have been blown away and some of the ceilings of the rooms have collapsed. We need help.”

The U.N. World Food Program and other aid organizations have warned of the risk of critical food shortages due to crops being destroyed and transport links disrupted. Forecasters have also predicted eight to 12 more cyclones in the Madagascar region before the cyclone season normally ends in May.

Emnati is expected to cross the southeastern part of Madagascar and spin out to sea again, according to the meteorology department, meaning it should miss mainland Africa, where previous cyclones have also caused deaths and destruction.
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Greek Authorities Suspend Search for 10 Missing in Ferry Fire

Posted on by SeeEU

Greek authorities have suspended the search for 10 people missing in a ferry fire near Greece. The vessel is being towed to a mainland port five days after the blaze started.  

The Euroferry Olympia caught fire last Friday three hours after leaving Igoumenitsa, Greece, for Brindisi, Italy. The ferry was carrying 292 people. Only 278 were evacuated safely to shore. 

Ten people remain unaccounted for. Greek officials said they were thought to be truck drivers from Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey, BBC News reported. 

Greek authorities requested Tuesday that the ferry be towed from a spot off the Island of Corfu, where it was originally towed after the blaze, to a safe harbor on mainland Greece. Rescuers will continue operations once the ferry arrives at the mainland.  

Greece’s fire service said Tuesday that “its operational capability for search and rescue (on the ship), in its present position, has been exhausted,” according to a coast guard statement, The Associated Press reported. 

The ferry is expected to arrive midday in the harbor of Astakos, a small port town in western Greece. Relatives of the missing will be provided with housing in Astakos as the search resumes.  

The ferry had been towed Sunday to Corfu, in the Ionian Sea off Greece’s northwest coast. Dozens of fire survivors were taken to a hotel on the island. Extreme temperatures, darkness and smoke made it difficult to search the vessel, said Greek coast guard spokesperson Nikolaos Alexiou, according to The New York Times. 

Earlier Sunday, a 21-year-old truck driver from Belarus was found alive at the stern of the ferry.  

“Tell me I’m alive,” he shouted as rescuers helped him off the ferry, BBC News reported.  

Hours later, a fire crew found the body of a 58-year-old Greek truck driver, the first confirmed death.  

The cause of the fire is still under investigation. The company that operates the ferry said the fire had begun in a hold where vehicles were parked, AP reported. Truckers interviewed by Greek state TV said Saturday that some truck drivers might have chosen to sleep in their vehicles rather than in the ferry’s crowded cabins.  

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press. 

 
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