Medyka, Poland, is one of the busiest border crossings for people fleeing the war. Everyday refugees stream across the border form Ukraine, and at the same time volunteers are arriving to help. For VOA News, Julia Riera has the story.
…
Month: April 2022
Tesla CEO Elon Musk Takes a 9% Stake in Twitter
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has taken a 9.2% stake in Twitter, purchasing approximately 73.5 million shares, according to a regulatory filing Monday.
Musk’s stake in Twitter is considered a passive investment, which means Musk is a long-term investor that’s looking to minimize his buying and selling of the shares.
Yet in recent weeks Musk has raised questions about free speech on Twitter and if failing to adhere to its basic principles undermines democracy.
He has also pondered starting up a rival social media network and industry analysts are skeptical about whether the mercurial CEO would remain on the sidelines for long.
“We would expect this passive stake as just the start of broader conversations with the Twitter board/management that could ultimately lead to an active stake and a potential more aggressive ownership role of Twitter,” Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities said in a client note early Monday.
Twitter’s stock surged 25% before the opening bell Monday.
Musk told is more than 80 million followers on Twitter that he was ” giving serious thought ” to creating a rival social media platform and has clashed repeatedly with financial regulators about his use of Twitter.
Early last month, Musk asked a federal judge to nullify a subpoena from securities regulators and throw out a 2018 court agreement in which Musk had to have someone pre-approve his posts on Twitter. U.S. securities regulators said they had legal authority to subpoena Tesla and Musk about his tweets, and that Musk’s move to throw out a 2018 court agreement that his tweets be pre-approved is not valid.
Musk’s revelation about his stake in Twitter shares comes two days after Tesla Inc. posted first-quarter delivery numbers. While the company delivered 310,000 vehicles in the period, the figure was slightly below expectations.
…
Early Official Tally Confirms Win for Serbia Populist Leader
An early official count of Serbia’s national election on Monday confirmed the landslide victory of President Aleksandar Vucic and his populist party – important allies of Russia in the volatile Balkans and in Europe.
Vucic scored an outright victory in Sunday’s presidential vote with the backing of some 60% of the voters, while his Serbian Progressive Party gained 43% of ballots, according to a near-complete tally of the state election authorities.
The results mean that no runoff vote is needed in the presidential election and that Vucic’s party will be able to form the next Serbian government in a coalition with junior partners in the 250-member assembly.
The main opposition group, United for Serbia’s Victory, trailed the populists in the parliamentary election with some 13% of the votes. The group’s presidential candidate Zdravko Ponos gained 17%, the official results showed.
Despite being so far behind nationally, the opposition groups appeared to be in a tight race with the populists in the capital, Belgrade, where ballots are still being counted.
Both the opposition groups and independent observers have listed a series of irregularities and incidents, including violent ones. Ruling populists have denied vote manipulation or pressuring voters.
Since the party came to power in 2012, Vucic has gradually clamped down on mainstream media and institutions, assuming complete control over the years. A former ultranationalist, Vucic has served as defense minister, prime minister and president.
Portraying himself as a guarantor of peace and stability amid the war in Ukraine, Vucic has refused to join Western sanctions against Russia despite formally seeking membership in the European Union for Serbia.
After declaring victory on Sunday evening, he said the new government will face tough decisions but will seek to maintain friendly relations with historically close Slavic ally Russia.
Most of the parties running in the election were right leaning, reflecting the predominantly conservative sentiments among Serbia’s 6.5 million voters. For the first time, however, a green-left coalition made it into the parliament, reflecting rising public interest in neglected environmental problems in the Balkan country.
Turnout was nearly 60%, which is higher than recent votes.
your ad here
Batiste Wins Album Honor, Zelenskyy makes appeal at Grammys
LAS VEGAS — Multi-genre artist Jon Batiste won album of the year and R&B duo Silk Sonic took two of the top honors on Sunday at a Grammy awards ceremony that featured a surprise appeal for support from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine.
Batiste, who leads the band on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” landed five awards overall, including the night’s biggest prize for “We Are,” a jazz album inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement.
“I believe this to my core – there is no best musician, best artist, best dancer, best actor. The creative arts are subjective,” Batiste said. “I just put my head down and I work on the craft every day.”
Batiste’s other wins included best music video for “Freedom,” a vibrantly colored tribute to New Orleans, and an award for composing and arranging of songs for animated Pixar movie “Soul.”
Silk Sonic, featuring Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak, claimed the song and record of the year awards for their 1970s inspired hit “Leave the Door Open.” The pair rose from their seats and danced slowly before making their way to the stage.
“We are really trying our hardest to remain humble at this point,” joked Paak as the pair accepted the second honor.
Olivia Rodrigo, the 19-year-old singer of heartbreak ballad “drivers license” on her album “Sour,” scored three awards, including best new artist.
“This is my biggest dream come true. Thank you so much!” Rodrigo said as she held her trophy.
Midway through the ceremony, host Trevor Noah introduced a video message from Zelenskyy, who contrasted the joy found through music to the devastation caused by Russia’s invasion of his country more than a month ago.
“What is more opposite to music? The silence of ruined cities and killed people,” Zelenskyy, wearing a green t-shirt, said in a hoarse voice.
“Fill the silence with your music,” he added. “Support us in any way you can. Any, but not silence.”
The remarks preceded a John Legend performance that featured two Ukrainian musicians and a Ukrainian poet.
The highest honors in music were postponed from January during a spike in COVID-19 cases and moved from Los Angeles to the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. Stars walked a red carpet and thousands of spectators packed the venue, a contrast to last year’s scaled-down outdoor event.
Noah urged the audience to think of the evening as “a concert where we are handing out awards.”
“We are going to be keeping people’s names out of our mouths,” Noah added, a jab about actor Will Smith, who a week ago slapped comedian Chris Rock at the Oscars and told him not to mention his wife’s name.
Korean pop band BTS, a global phenomenon that has never won a Grammy, left empty-handed again. But the group delivered a high-octane performance of their hit “Butter,” dodging laser beams in what looked like a scene out of a heist movie.
Rock band Foo Fighters, whose drummer Taylor Hawkins died a little over a week ago, won three awards, including best rock album for “Medicine at Midnight.” No one from the band appeared to accept the trophies.
Winners were chosen by some 11,000 voting members of the Recording Academy.
In comedy categories, comedian Louis C.K. won best album for “Sincerely Louis C.K.,” his first comedy special since he admitted to sexual misconduct in 2017.
…
Key Winners at Music’s Grammy Awards
LAS VEGAS — The Grammy awards, the highest honors in the music industry, were out at a live ceremony in Las Vegas on Sunday.
Below is a list of winners in key categories.
ALBUM OF THE YEAR
“We Are” — Jon Batiste
RECORD OF THE YEAR
“Leave The Door Open” — Silk Sonic
SONG OF THE YEAR
“Leave The Door Open” — Silk Sonic
BEST NEW ARTIST
Olivia Rodrigo
BEST POP DUO/GROUP PERFORMANCE
“Kiss Me More” – Doja Cat Featuring SZA
BEST POP VOCAL ALBUM
Sour — Olivia Rodrigo
BEST ROCK PERFORMANCE
“Making A Fire” – Foo Fighters
BEST RAP PERFORMANCE
“Family Ties” — Baby Keem Featuring Kendrick Lamar
BEST COUNTRY ALBUM
“Starting Over” – Chris Stapleton
BEST MUSIC FILM
“Summer Of Soul” — Various Artists
…
Libyan Artisans Restore Old Qurans for Ramadan
TRIPOLI — With the arrival of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in war-scarred Libya, a group of volunteers work around the clock to restore old or damaged copies of the Quran.
Khaled al-Drebi, one of Libya’s best-known restorers of Islam’s holy book, is among the artisans who arrive at a Tripoli workshop daily to meet the needs of the influx of customers during Ramadan.
For Muslims, Ramadan is a month of spirituality, where a daily dawn-to-dusk fast is accompanied with prayer and acts of charity — often translating into a surge in sales of Qurans.
“The purchase of new Qurans traditionally increases before the month of Ramadan, but this has recently changed in Libya,” Drebi told AFP.
For many, tradition has been interrupted by an increase in the cost of Qurans, especially “since the state stopped printing” them in Libya, he added.
The North African nation has endured more than a decade of conflict, leaving many of its institutions in disarray and dealing a major blow to the oil-rich country’s economy.
“The cost of buying (Qurans) has increased, and so the turnout for restoring old Qurans has gained unprecedented popularity,” Drebi said.
Compared to the cost of a new Quran — at more than $20 depending on the binding — Drebi’s workshop charges just a few dollars to restore one.
‘Indescribable joy’
But cost is not the only factor — for many, the older copies also have a sentimental value.
“There is a spiritual connection for some customers,” Drebi said, adding that many choose to preserve Qurans passed on from relatives. “Some say this Quran has the smell of my grandfather or parents.”
At the back of the room, Abdel Razzaq al-Aroussi works on sorting through thousands of Qurans based on their level of deterioration.
“The restoration of Qurans with limited damage takes no more than an hour, but for those that are very damaged, they could require two or more hours,” Aroussi said.
They “must be undone, restored and then bound,” he said — a meticulous process that requires a great deal of “time and concentration.”
Mabrouk al-Amin, a supervisor at the workshop, said the restoration process “requires a good number of artisans.”
“Working with the book of God is very enjoyable and we don’t get bored… there is an indescribable joy in this work,” he said.
Restorers say they have repaired a staggering half a million Qurans since the workshop opened in 2008, and more than 1,500 trainees have graduated from 150 restoration workshops.
Women restorers
In recent years, more and more women have been joining the ranks of the volunteer restorers.
“A large number of women were trained on restoring the holy Quran and today they have their own workshops,” Drebi said.
One female restorer, Khadija Mahmoud, has even held training sessions for blind women.
“We would not have been able to think of doing this… were it not for this capable woman,” Drebi added.
For Mahmoud, who trains women at a workshop in Zawiya, 45 kilometers west of Tripoli, restoring Qurans in a women’s workshop allows them to work comfortably and at a faster pace.
She added that the restoration work has given many women a meaningful way to fill their “spare time.”
“A large segment of trainees and restorers are retirees,” she said. “For them, there is nothing better than spending their spare time in the service of the Quran.”
…
Ukrainian Refugees Targeted by Human Traffickers
Four million people have fled Ukraine since the start of Russia’s invasion, according to U.N. data. The vast majority are women and children – populations that are especially vulnerable to human trafficking. Lesia Bakalets has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. VOA footage by Andrey Degtyarev.
…
Generations of Ukrainian Women Flee War, Share Their Stories
Grandmothers, mothers and children account for most of those fleeing Russia’s war on Ukraine. Each refugee has a story as well as hopes for the future. VOA’s Celia Mendoza reports from Medyka, Poland. Julia Riera contributed.
…
US Calls Reports of Many Killed in Mali ‘Extremely Disturbing’
The United States is following “extremely disturbing accounts” of large numbers of people killed in a village in central Mali, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said on Sunday.
Mali’s military said on Saturday that it had killed more than 200 Islamist militants in the latest clash in a month of escalating violence.
Tensions with the West have increased since a move by Mali’s ruling military junta to delay democratic elections in February, as well as over its collaboration with private military contractors belonging to Russia’s Wagner Group.
In a statement, Price said there were conflicting reports about who was responsible for the killings that took place in late March in the village of Moura, about 250 miles (400 km) northeast of the capital, Bamako.
“We are concerned that many reports suggest that the perpetrators were unaccountable forces from the Kremlin-backed Wagner Group. Other reports claim the Malian Armed Forces (FAMa) had targeted elements of known violent extremist groups,” he said.
“These conflicting reports illustrate the urgent need for the Malian transition authorities to give impartial investigators free, unfettered, and safe access to the area where these tragic events unfolded.”
Officials at Russia’s embassy in Washington declined immediate comment on reports of the Wagner Group’s involvement.
The European Union has imposed sanctions on the Wagner Group, accusing it of clandestine operations on the Kremlin’s behalf. President Vladimir Putin has said the group does not represent the Russian state, but that private military contractors have the right to work anywhere in the world as long as they do not break Russian law.
The United Nations has repeatedly accused Malian soldiers of summarily executing civilians and suspected militants over the course of their decade-long fight against groups linked to al-Qaida and Islamic State.
The military has in some cases acknowledged that its forces were implicated in executions and other abuses, but few soldiers have faced criminal charges.
Meanwhile a surge in attacks since early March by an Islamic State affiliate has killed hundreds of civilians, according to official and military sources.
…
Ukraine’s President Calls Russian Assault ‘Genocide’
Ukraine’s president has called Russia’s ongoing and unprovoked war a “genocide” while Western officials have condemned what they call atrocities committed by Russian forces in a Kyiv suburb. The U.S. secretary of state travels to Europe this week to meet with NATO allies. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more. GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING: The following video contains content which some people may find disturbing.
…
Blinken Condemns Russian War Atrocities as Bodies of Ukrainians Left in Streets
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken sharply condemned Russia on Sunday, accusing it of committing war atrocities in Ukraine as the world saw its first glimpse of the bodies of dead Ukrainians left behind like trash in the streets of the Kyiv suburb of Bucha after Russian troops departed the area.
“You can’t help but feel a punch to the gut,” the top U.S. diplomat told CNN’s “State of the Union” show. “We cannot become numb to this. We cannot normalize this.”
Blinken said the United States would be “looking hard to document” Russian war crimes throughout Ukraine even as Ukraine is claiming it has retaken control of the north-central region around the capital. Moscow’s troops have pulled back from the Kyiv territory to concentrate new attacks in southern Ukrainian cities along the Black Sea and in the contested Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.
Reflecting on the bodies found in the streets, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told CBS’s “Face the Nation” show, “Indeed. This is genocide.” He said Ukraine is being “destroyed and exterminated” by Russian forces.
Watch related video by Arash Arabasadi:
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told CNN, “It is a brutality against citizens we have not seen in decades” in Europe. “It is [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin’s responsibility to end the war.”
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Twitter, “I am deeply shocked by the images of civilians killed in Bucha, Ukraine. It is essential that an independent investigation leads to effective accountability.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry contended in a statement Sunday that it had not killed civilians in Bucha and claimed that video footage and photographs showing the dead were “yet another provocation” by the West.
Both Blinken and Stoltenberg voiced skepticism about the immediate implications of the Russian military pullback from fighting near Kyiv, which Moscow once appeared to think might be captured within days of launching its Feb. 24 invasion of eastern Ukraine and aerial bombardment of numerous targets.
“They could be regrouping and then coming back to Kyiv,” Blinken said, but added that the resistance of the Ukrainian fighters over the last five-plus weeks has shown that “the will of the Ukrainian people will not be subjected to occupation” by Russia.
Stoltenberg said, “This is not a real withdrawal but a shift in strategy to the east and south.”
Blinken said Western economic sanctions are taking a toll on Russia and predicted its economy would shrink 10% this year compared to a projected 3% year-over-year U.S. advance. He said the U.S. and its allies are looking to tighten sanctions they have already imposed on Russia and add more.
Blinken is traveling to Brussels for meetings this week with other NATO foreign ministers, looking to highlight the military alliance’s resolve to hold Russia responsible for continued fighting in Ukraine.
The Reuters news agency reports that Ukraine has “retaken more than 30 towns and villages around Kyiv.”
Zelenskyy, however, warned that what Russia has left behind in Kyiv and its nearby areas is a “complete disaster,” a territory with mined land, houses and equipment. The president claimed even the bodies of the dead have been mined.
Zelenskyy said Saturday in his nightly address, “We should not cherish empty hopes that” the Russians “will simply leave our land.” He said peace could only be gained through “hard battles,” “negotiations” and “daily vigorous work.”
Reports from Odesa, on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, say a Russian missile strike on an oil refinery there has destroyed the facility. The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement, “This morning, high-precision sea- and air-based missiles destroyed an oil refinery and three storage facilities for fuel and lubricants near the city of Odesa, from which fuel was supplied to a group of Ukrainian troops.”
British military intelligence said Sunday that reported mines in the Black Sea are a serious risk to maritime activity. The agency said that the origin of the mines is disputed and unclear but is likely to be due to Russian military activity.
Ukraine’s chief negotiator has indicated, however, that talks between Zelenskyy and Putin could be possible after “Moscow’s negotiators informally agreed to most of a draft proposal discussed during face-to-face talks in Istanbul” last week, according to an Associated Press news report.
In the besieged southeastern port city of Mariupol Sunday, residents continued to wait for an International Committee of the Red Cross humanitarian convoy designed to evacuate residents and bring humanitarian aid. The Associated Press reports that as many as 100,000 people are thought to be trapped in the city that has been surrounded by Russian troops for more than a month.
…
Tiger Woods Calls Masters a ‘Game-Time Decision’
Golf legend Tiger Woods announced Sunday that his participation in this week’s Masters will be a “game-time decision.”
“I will be heading up to Augusta today to continue my preparation and practice,” Woods tweeted. “It will be a game-time decision on whether I compete.”
Woods, who reportedly played a practice round at Augusta National Golf Club on Tuesday, has not played in an official tournament since his February 2021 car crash.
The Masters begins on Thursday. Woods won the green jacket in 1997, 2001, 2002, 2005 and 2019.
Woods, 46, hasn’t played a round on the PGA Tour since the pandemic-delayed 2020 Masters, which was played in November of that year.
The 15-time major champion underwent multiple surgeries on his right leg following a single-car accident near Los Angeles on Feb. 23, 2021.
In Sunday’s Twitter post, Woods also offered his congratulations to 16-year-old Anna Davis for her victory Saturday in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur. A sophomore in high school who still doesn’t have her driver’s license, Davis was the only player to finish under par and became the youngest winner in the tournament’s history.
your ad here
Cameroon Advocates Education for Children With Autism
Cameroon observed World Autism Awareness Day Saturday with rights groups advocating for autistic children to be given an education. Supporters say autistic children often can’t go to school because autism is falsely believed to be a result of witchcraft.
The Timely Performance Care Center, a school for disabled children in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, organized a campaign for parents and communities to stop the stigma that autistic kids often are subject to.
The center has an enrollment of 70 autistic children.
The school’s manager, Betty Nancy Fonyuy, said autistic children are frequently kept at home because of stigma. She said many communities and parents abuse the rights of autistic children by refusing to educate them or give them the freedom to socialize with other children.
“We want parents to accept the children that God has given them and to be able to educate the society that these children are not a form of divine punishment for witchcraft or a class of any evil thing. These children have a lot to offer to society if given a chance. Give them the chance. The world needs to know what autism is. Accept individuals born and living with autism,” she said.
Fonyuy said in January 2021, the center organized a door-to-door campaign to urge parents to send their autistic children to school. She said the response was encouraging, but that many parents still hide their autistic children at home.
To mark World Autism Awareness Day on Saturday, scores of community leaders, parents of autistic children and heads of educational establishments in Cameroon’s economic capital, Douala, emphasized at an event that autistic children, like any other children, need love, care and education.
Among the speakers was Carine Bevina, a psychologist at the University of Douala.
Bevina said parents should enroll their children in school because the parents would find it difficult to train their autistic children on their own. Bevina spoke by a messaging app from Douala.
She said autism level one means that a child needs regular attention and help to surmount difficulties initiating social interactions and maintaining reciprocity in social interactions. She said autism level two means that a child has repetitive behaviors and requires substantial support, and autism level three means the child’s communication skills are regressing.
Ndefri Paul, 45, is the father of an 11-year-old autistic child.
Paul said he came out on World Autism Awareness Day to tell anyone who doubted it that autistic children can compete with other children if well educated. He says in 2021, his autistic son, like many children without autism, wrote and passed the entrance examination to get into secondary school.
The educational talk at the Douala city council courtyard on Saturday was part of activities marking World Autism Awareness Day.
Similar activities were held in towns, including Bafoussam, a western commercial city, Garoua and Maroua on Cameroon’s northern border with Nigeria, and Yaounde.
Officials in Cameroon say there are 750,000 autistic children in the central African state. Sixty-five percent of them are denied education.
Cameroon’s Social Affairs minister, Pauline Irene Nguene, said communities should stop stigmatizing autistic children with the erroneous belief that autism is divine punishment for parents of autistic children. She said communities should denounce parents who hide autistic children at home and schools that refuse to teach children with the disorder.
The U.N. says that autism is genetic and families with one child with autism have an increased risk of having another child with autism. The U.N. says family members of a person with autism also tend to have higher rates of autistic traits.
World Autism Awareness Day celebrates the resilience of people affected by the disorder and supports causes that promote awareness of autism. Children in schools are educated about autism and encouraged to accept it. The U.N. launched World Autism Awareness Day for the first time in 2007.
…
Police say 6 Dead, at Least 10 Injured in Sacramento Shooting
Police in California are searching for at least one suspect in connection with a mass shooting early Sunday in downtown Sacramento that claimed six lives and left 10 other people injured.
Sacramento Police Chief Kathy Lester said at a news conference that police were patrolling the area at about 2 a.m. when they heard gunfire. When they arrived at the scene, they found a large crowd gathered on the street and six people dead. Another 10 either took themselves or were transported to hospitals. No information was given on their conditions.
Authorities don’t know whether one or more suspects were involved and are asking for the public’s help in identifying who is responsible. Lester did not give specifics on the type of gun used.
This is “a very complex and complicated scene,” she said. Lester issued a plea to the public, asking for witnesses or anyone with recordings of the incident to contact police.
Shortly after the shooting, video was posted on Twitter that showed people running through the street amid the sound of rapid gunfire. Video showed multiple ambulances at the scene.
Residents were asked to avoid the area, which is packed with restaurants and bars that leads to the Golden One Center, where the Sacramento Kings play basketball.
Berry Accius, a community activist, said he came to the scene shortly after the shooting happened.
“The first thing I saw was like victims. I saw a young girl with a whole bunch of blood in her body, a girl taking off glass from her, a young girl screaming saying, ‘They killed my sister.’ A mother running up, ‘Where’s my son, has my son been shot?'” he said.
Kay Harris, 32, said she was asleep when one of her family members called to say they thought her brother had been killed. She said she thought he was at London, a nightclub at 1009 10th Street.
Harris said she has been to the club a few times and described it as a place for “the younger crowd.”
Police have the streets around the club closed, with yellow police tape fluttering in the early morning breeze. She has spent the morning circling the block waiting for news.
“Very much so a senseless violent act,” she said.
…
Accusations Of Russian Atrocities in Ukraine Prompt Calls for Tougher Sanctions, Prosecutions
Russia faced mounting international condemnation amid reports of possible war crimes committed by Russian forces in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha and other parts of Ukraine.
In a post on Twitter on April 3, European Council President Charles Michel said Moscow will face “further EU sanctions.”
Michel said he was “shocked by haunting images of atrocities committed by Russian army in Kyiv liberated region.”
U.K. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said in a statement that her government has seen “increasing evidence of appalling acts by the invading forces in towns such as Irpin and Bucha.”
Bucha Mayor Anatoly Fedoruk said on April 2 that some 300 local civilians had been shot during the time the town was occupied by Russian forces. About 280 were allegedly dumped in a mass grave, while the rest were left in the streets.
Moving and graphic images of the bodies have been distributed on social media.
“These are the consequences of Russian occupation,” Fedoruk was quoted as saying.
GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING – The following tweet contains sensitive content which some people may find offensive or disturbing.
Russia has not responded to the reports.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko told Germany’s Bild newspaper that “what happened in Bucha and other suburbs of Kyiv can only be described as genocide.” He said Russian President Vladimir Putin bore responsibility.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dymtro Kuleba said the “Bucha massacre was deliberate.”
“I demand new, devastating G7 sanctions NOW,” Kuleba wrote in an April 3 post on Twitter, referring to the Group of Seven leading economies.
The accusations of alleged atrocities have emerged as Russian forces pull back from positions around Kyiv and the northern cities of Chernihiv and Kharkiv.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on April 3 that it had “documented several cases of Russian military forces committing laws-of-war violations against civilians in occupied areas of Chernihiv, Kharkiv, and Kyiv regions of Ukraine.”
The NGO said that, on March 4, Russian forces in Bucha shot at least one man in the back of the head.
Truss said on April 2 that she was “appalled by atrocities in Bucha and other towns in Ukraine” and promised that perpetrators would be prosecuted.
In his post on Twitter, Michel said the European Union was assisting Ukraine “in gathering of necessary evidence for pursuit in international courts.”
The International Criminal Court had earlier opened an investigation into alleged war crimes committed by Russian forces in Ukraine.
The Human Rights Watch report included several allegations of rapes, two cases of summary executions involving seven victims, and other instances of threats and violence against civilians.
“The cases we documented amount to unspeakable, deliberate cruelty and violence against Ukrainian civilians,” Hugh Williamson, HRW’s Europe and Central Asia director, was quoted as saying.
…
Hungarians Head to Poll in Shadow of War in Ukraine
Polls opened across Hungary early Sunday as voters in the Central European country faced a choice: take a chance on a diverse, Western-looking coalition of opposition parties, or grant nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban a renewed mandate with a fourth consecutive term in office.
The contest is expected to be the closest since Orban took power in 2010, thanks to Hungary’s six main opposition parties putting aside ideological differences to form a united front against his right-wing Fidesz party.
Recent polls suggest a tight race but give Fidesz a slight lead, making it likely that undecided voters will determine the victor in Sunday’s vote.
Opposition parties and international observers have pointed out structural impediments to defeating Orban by electoral means, highlighting pervasive pro-government bias in the public media, domination of commercial news outlets by Orban allies and a heavily gerrymandered electoral map.
Yet despite what it calls an uneven playing field, the six-party opposition coalition, United For Hungary, has asked voters to support its efforts to introduce a new political culture in Hungary based on pluralistic governance and mended alliances with the EU and NATO.
The coalition’s candidate for prime minister, Peter Marki-Zay, has promised to bring an end to what he alleges is rampant government corruption, and to raise living standards by increasing funding to Hungary’s ailing health care and education systems.
After voting along with his family in his hometown of Hodmezovasarhely, where he serves as mayor, Marki-Zay on Sunday called the election an “uphill battle” due to Fidesz’s superior economic resources and advantage in the media, “but if everybody will vote, we still know that there are more people that want change in Hungary.”
“There is still a chance that we can defeat our 1,000-year-old history’s most corrupt government,” Marki-Zay said.
Orban – a fierce critic of immigration, LGBTQ rights and “EU bureaucrats” – has garnered the admiration of right-wing nationalists across Europe and North America.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson broadcast from Budapest for a week last summer, where he extolled Orban’s hardline approach to immigration and the razor wire fence he erected along Hungary’s southern border.
A proponent of what he calls “illiberal democracy,” Orban has taken many of Hungary’s democratic institutions under his control, and depicted himself as a defender of European Christendom against Muslim migrants, progressivism and the “LGBTQ lobby.”
In his frequent battles with the EU, of which Hungary is a member, he has portrayed the 27-member bloc as an oppressive regime reminiscent of the Soviet occupiers that dominated Hungary for more than 40 years in the 20th century, and has bucked attempts to draw some of his policies into line with EU rules.
Those policies, including what critics view as violations of the rights of LGBTQ people, misuse of EU funds and exerting undue control over Hungary’s media, have put him at odds with Brussels and resulted in billions of euros in EU funding being withheld from his government.
While Orban had earlier campaigned on divisive social and cultural issues, he dramatically shifted the tone of his campaign after Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine in February, and has portrayed the election as a choice between peace and stability or war and chaos.
While the opposition called for Hungary to support its embattled neighbor and act in lockstep with its EU and NATO partners, Orban, a longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has insisted that Hungary must remain neutral and maintain its close economic ties with Moscow, including continuing to import Russian gas and oil.
At his final campaign rally on Friday, Orban told a crowd of supporters that supplying Ukraine with weapons – something that Hungary, alone among Ukraine’s EU neighbors, has refused to do — would make the country a military target, and that sanctioning Russian energy imports would cripple the economy.
“This isn’t our war, we have to stay out of it,” Orban said.
But Marki-Zay said on Sunday that the stakes of the election were about even more than the immediate conflict next door, and that he and his movement were “fighting for decency, we are fighting for the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law in Hungary.”
“We are fighting for the whole world. We want to show that this model that Orban has … introduced here in Hungary is not acceptable for any decent, honest man,” Marki-Zay said.
…
Omicron Variant Causes Spike in COVID-19 Cases in Britain
Britain is experiencing a record number of COVID-19 cases, with almost 5 million people, or 1 person in every 13 infected, according to official data.
The news of the spike in infections came on the same day that Britain stopped giving free rapid COVID tests to most of its population, as part of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s “living with COVID” plan.
Under Johnson’s plan, people who do not have conditions that make them vulnerable to COVID-19 must pay for tests to find out if they have been infected.
The uptick is blamed on the highly contagious omicron variant BA.2, which is also causing an increase in hospitalization and death rates. However, the number of infections is expected to start decreasing this month and next month, officials say.
“Any infection that spreads rapidly, peaks quickly and decreases rapidly on the other side,” Paul Hunter, professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia, told The Guardian.
According to an Associated Press report, a University of Oxford biology professor said he believes most people in the country will be infected with the variant this summer.
James Naismith said, “This is literally living with the virus by being infected with it.”
Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported early Sunday that it has recorded more than 490,000 global COVID cases and more than 6 million deaths. Nearly 11 billion vaccines have been administered, according to Johns Hopkins.
…
Pope Evokes Malta’s Welcome of St. Paul In Migrant Appeal
Pope Francis visited the grotto Sunday where St. Paul lived after washing up on Malta, recalling the welcome the apostle received and urging better treatment of modern-day arrivals on the Mediterranean island.
On the final day of his weekend trip to Malta, the 85-year-old pontiff will also hold open-air mass before visiting a migrant center that will soon host refugees from the Ukraine war.
According to Christian tradition, Paul was shipwrecked on Malta in 60 AD while en route to Rome and performed several miracles in his three months there.
Following in the footsteps of former popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, Francis visited the holy grotto in Rabat, lighting a candle and saying a prayer.
He recalled how Paul and his fellow travelers were welcomed, even though “no one knew their names, their place of birth or their social status.”
He called on God to “help us to recognize from afar those in need, struggling amidst the waves of the sea, dashed against the reefs of unknown shores” and grant that “our compassion be more than empty words.”
The pope, who last summer underwent colon surgery and canceled an event in February due to acute knee pain, appeared to have trouble walking during the visit, where he also met the sick and disabled at the connected Basilica of St. Paul.
Safe harbor
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has overshadowed the pope’s first trip to Catholic-majority Malta, a voyage delayed two years by coronavirus.
Addressing politicians and diplomats Saturday, he warned that “some potentate, sadly caught up in anachronistic claims of nationalist interests, is provoking and fomenting conflicts” in a thinly veiled accusation against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Asked by a reporter about a possible trip to Kyiv, he said a visit to Ukraine’s capital was “on the table.”
The war has caused the worst refugee crisis in Europe since World War II, which feeds into a key theme of Francis’ nine-year papacy — the need to welcome those fleeing war, poverty or the effects of climate change.
Malta is on the frontline of the route from North Africa into Europe and thousands of people who risked the crossing in overcrowded boats have ended up here.
But charity groups have accused Malta of turning a blind eye to desperate people in its waters, and the pope on Saturday reminded the archipelago of its status as a “safe harbor”, while adding that other countries must also step in.
“The growing migration emergency — here we can think of the refugees from war-torn Ukraine — calls for a broad-based and shared response,” he said.
‘Very tired’
After visiting the grotto, the pope headed to Floriana, near the capital Valletta, where he was set to conduct mass for a 10,000-strong crowd of followers.
Awaiting him among the crowd was 67-year-old Anna Balzan from the nearby city of Qormi and her extended family. Over her shoulders was draped a Vatican flag she purchased during John Paul II’s visit in 1990.
“I’ve seen Benedict and John Paul when they came to Malta,” she said, expressing concern for the current pope’s health.
“I saw him as very tired yesterday… I think he is suffering.”
Later Sunday, Francis will return to the theme of migrants by visiting the John XXIII Peace Lab, a center inspired by the pope of that name, which is preparing for the arrival of Ukrainian refugees.
Run for the past five decades by a Franciscan friar, now 91, it already hosts around 55 young men from different parts of Africa who arrived in Malta without any legal papers.
…
Native, First Nations Scholars: Fake Indians Prevalent in Higher Education
In June 2021, an anonymous report began circulating in Canadian academic circles. It listed six faculty and staff members at Queen’s College in Kingston, Ontario.
“Queen’s College is currently overrun with white Canadians making false claims to Indigenous — especially Algonquin — identity,” it read. “We are confident that our thorough research has focused on six of the most prominent and harmful cases.”
The college rejected the allegations, prompting a written protest signed by more than 100 Indigenous scholars, condemning “white faculty claiming Indigeneity on the basis of family lore or one Indigenous ancestor from hundreds of years ago … claiming both trauma and healing that never belonged to them as they enact what scholars and advocates recognize as the final … stage of settler colonization: ‘settler self-indigenization.'”
In response, Queen’s College promised to review its hiring policies.
Native Americans complain that problem is widespread in U.S. colleges and universities.
Dartmouth University in 2015 withdrew Susan Taffee Reed as Native American program director after learning that her “tribe” was a Pennsylvania nonprofit organization, some of whose members have no Native ancestors at all. Dartmouth shifted her to another position.
As The New York Times reported in 2021, University of California, Riverside, scholar and activist Andrea Smith falsely claimed Cherokee identity for years and received fellowship awards meant for underrepresented groups in academia.
Cases like these prompted journalist Jacqueline Keeler in 2021 to begin investigating the problem. So far, she has drawn up a list of 200 “suspects.”
“A lot of these people are names I’ve been hearing in tribal circles for a while and have been proven to be frauds,” said Keeler, a citizen of the Navajo Nation whose father was Yankton Sioux.
“As a reporter, I’d be working on a story about someone, only to find out that person wasn’t actually Native.”
Keeler works with tribal enrollment departments, genealogists and historians.
“We go back into their family histories as far back as the 1600s to try to find someone who was enrolled in or who lived in an Indian community and was clearly associated with a tribe.”
VOA obtained a copy of the list, which names artists, authors, actors and dozens of academicians. VOA is not publishing the list because it cannot be independently verified.
Some people have criticized Keeler for conducting a witch hunt. But she has strong support in Native circles.
“I don’t think Jackie intends to do anything with it,” Ben Barnes, chief of the Shawnee tribe in Oklahoma, told VOA. “I think it’s a place for Natives to come together and say, ‘Hey, you’re not crazy. We’ve been saying this all along, that academia is rife with paternalism!'”
‘Step-offs’ and high cheekbones
Federally recognized tribes are sovereign nations that have exclusive rights to determine membership. Criteria vary; most tribes require documented lineage, historic rolls and/or blood quantum, a certain degree of Native American blood.
Other factors are also important, such as a person’s knowledge of his or her tribe’s culture, knowledge system, history, language, religion, familial kinships and how strongly a person identifies himself or herself as American Indian or Alaska Native.
Native Americans contend that pretendians often fabricate histories to explain “Indian” identity, claiming ancestors who refused to be included on government rolls or were misidentified on state census forms. Some cite high cheekbones or straight dark hair as evidence of indigeneity.
Charles Gourd, a Cherokee Nation citizen and former director of the Oklahoma Indian Affairs Commission, admitted to having been fooled by a pretendian.
“He claimed to be Cherokee,” said Gourd. “So, one day I asked him which one of the three Cherokee tribes he was from. And he said, ‘No, no we were —’ and he used a term I’d never heard before —’step-offs,’ Indians who supposedly stepped off the Trail of Tears (forced removal to Oklahoma) and hid out in the mountains.”
Pretendians across the country have organized into phony tribes such as the “Southern Cherokee Agency” to access benefits and rights set aside for Native Americans or other minorities.”
Policy shapers
In March, the University of Michigan launched an online forum series, “Unsettling Genealogies: A Forum on Pseudo Indians, Race-Shifting, Pretendians and Self-Indigenization in Media, Arts, Politics and the Academy.”
Chief Barnes participated, as did Kim TallBear, a Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate professor at the University of Alberta.
“Non-Indigenous people with non-Indigenous community standpoints who pose as Indigenous and who rise through the professional ranks falsely represent our voices,” TallBear said. “They theorize Indigenous peoplehood, sovereignty and anticolonialism. They become thought leaders, institutional decision-makers and policy advisers to governmental leaders with regulatory and economic power over our peoples and lands.”
Race shifting is particularly harmful in academia, she said. Pretendians write books and shape academic and public discourse about who Indigenous people are, how they live, and how Indigenous policy should be formulated.
“Pretendians cut to the very trust we must have in academia, where much of what we know (about Native history and thought) originates,” said David Cornsilk, a retired Cherokee Nation historian and genealogist. “If an institution is unwilling to vet their hires for authenticity, that speaks volumes about their scholarship.”
Race vs. citizenship
But is vetting hires legal?
U.S. civil rights law prohibits employers from considering race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in any aspect of employment unless they have a legitimate business need, such as meeting diversity guidelines.
In such cases, the law allows employers to collect racial information on separate “tear-off” sheets but says the information may not be used in the selection process.
The U.S. government recognizes as American Indian/Alaska Native anyone who has blood degree from and is recognized as such by a federally recognized tribe or village as an enrolled tribal member. Further, it says “Indian” is not a racial designation but a political one.
“If someone asks me if I’m a resident of the state of Oklahoma, I pull out my driver’s license,” said Shawnee chief Barnes. “Why is asking somebody to show their tribal identification card a problem?”
In March, the National Indigenous University Senior Leaders’ Association and the First Nations University of Canada (FNU) held an online National Indigenous Identity Forum to explore the best ways to validate identity claims. Though the forum was closed to media, FNU president NIUSLA co-chair Jacqueline Ottmann later spoke to media via Zoom.
“Universities are wrestling with this whole topic and trying to figure out what to do,” Ottman told reporters. “On the one hand, they don’t want to insert themselves into the role of being the ones to determine identity or citizenship. But on the other hand, they don’t want to be giving opportunities to people who aren’t Indigenous.”
…
Ramadan Begins in Much of Middle East Amid Soaring Prices
The Muslim holy month of Ramadan — when the faithful fast from dawn to dusk — began at sunrise Saturday in much of the Middle East, where Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sent energy and food prices soaring.
The conflict cast a pall over Ramadan, when large gatherings over meals and family celebrations are a tradition. Many in the Southeast Asian nation of Indonesia planned to start observing Sunday, and some Shiites in Lebanon, Iran and Iraq were also marking the start of Ramadan a day later.
Muslims follow a lunar calendar, and a moon-sighting methodology can lead to different countries declaring the start of Ramadan a day or two apart.
Muslim-majority nations including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates had declared the month would begin Saturday morning.
A Saudi statement Friday was broadcast on the kingdom’s state-run Saudi TV and Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and de facto leader of the United Arab Emirates, congratulated Muslims on Ramadan’s arrival.
Jordan, a predominantly Sunni country, also said the first day of Ramadan would be on Sunday, in a break from following Saudi Arabia. The kingdom said the Islamic religious authority was unable to spot the crescent moon indicating the beginning of the month.
Indonesia’s second-largest Islamic group, Muhammadiyah, which counts more than 60 million members, said that according to its astronomical calculations Ramadan begins Saturday. But the country’s religious affairs minister had announced Friday that Ramadan would start on Sunday, after Islamic astronomers in the country failed to sight the new moon.
It wasn’t the first time the Muhammadiyah has offered a differing opinion on the matter, but most Indonesians — Muslims comprise nearly 90% of the country’s 270 million people — are expected to follow the government’s official date.
Many had hoped for a more cheerful Ramadan after the coronavirus pandemic blocked the world’s 2 billion Muslims from many rituals the past two years.
With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, however, millions of people in the Middle East are now wondering where their next meals will come from. The skyrocketing prices are affecting people whose lives were already upended by conflict, displacement and poverty from Lebanon, Iraq and Syria to Sudan and Yemen.
Ukraine and Russia account for a third of global wheat and barley exports, which Middle East countries rely on to feed millions of people who subsist on subsidized bread and bargain noodles. They are also top exporters of other grains and sunflower seed oil used for cooking.
Egypt, the world’s largest wheat importer, has received most of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine in recent years. Its currency has now also taken a dive, adding to other pressures driving up prices.
Shoppers in the capital, Cairo, turned out earlier this week to stock up on groceries and festive decorations, but many had to buy less than last year because of the prices.
Ramadan tradition calls for colorful lanterns and lights strung throughout Cairo’s narrow alleys and around mosques. Some people with the means to do so set up tables on the streets to dish up free post-fast Iftar meals for the poor. The practice is known in the Islamic world as Tables of the Compassionate.
“This could help in this situation,” said Rabei Hassan, the muezzin of a mosque in Giza as he bought vegetables and other food from a nearby market. “People are tired of the prices.”
Worshippers attended mosque for hours of evening prayers, or tarawih. On Friday evening, thousands of people packed the al-Azhar Mosque after attendance was banned for the past two years to stem the pandemic.
“They were difficult (times) … Ramadan without tarawih at the mosque is not Ramadan,” said Saeed Abdel-Rahman, a 64-year-old retired teacher as he entered al-Azhar for prayers.
Higher prices also exacerbated the woes of Lebanese already facing a major economic crisis. Over the past two years, the currency collapsed and the country’s middle class was plunged into poverty. The meltdown has also brought on severe shortages in electricity, fuel and medicine.
In the Gaza Strip, few people were shopping on Friday in markets usually packed at this time of year. Merchants said Russia’s war on Ukraine has sent prices skyrocketing, alongside the usual challenges, putting a damper on the festive atmosphere that Ramadan usually creates.
The living conditions of the 2.3 million Palestinians in the impoverished coastal territory are tough, compounded by a crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade since 2007.
Toward the end of Ramadan last year, a deadly 11-day war between Gaza’s Hamas rulers and Israel cast a cloud over festivities, including the Eid al-Fitr holiday that follows the holy month. It was the fourth bruising war with Israel in just over a decade.
In Iraq, the start of Ramadan highlighted widespread frustration over a meteoric rise in food prices, exacerbated in the past month by the war in Ukraine.
Suhaila Assam, a 62-year-old retired teacher and women’s rights activist, said she and her retired husband are struggling to survive on their combined pension of $1,000 a month, with prices of cooking oil, flour and other essentials having more than doubled.
“We, as Iraqis, use cooking oil and flour a lot. Almost in every meal. So how can a family of five members survive?” she asked.
Akeel Sabah, 38, is a flour distributor in the Jamila wholesale market, which supplies all of Baghdad’s Rasafa district on the eastern side of the Tigris River with food. He said flour and almost all other foodstuffs are imported, which means distributors have to pay for them in dollars. A ton of flour used to cost $390.
“Today I bought the ton for $625,” he said.
“The currency devaluation a year ago already led to an increase in prices, but with the ongoing (Ukraine) crisis, prices are skyrocketing. Distributors lost millions,” he said.
In Istanbul, Muslims held the first Ramadan prayers in 88 years in the Hagia Sophia, nearly two years after the iconic former cathedral was converted into a mosque.
Worshippers filled the 6th-century building and the square outside Friday night for tarawih prayers led by Ali Erbas, the government head of religious affairs. Although converted for Islamic use and renamed the Grand Hagia Sophia Mosque in July 2020, COVID-19 restrictions had limited worship at the site.
“After 88 years of separation, the Hagia Sophia Mosque has regained the tarawih prayer,” Erbas said, according to the state-run Anadolu Agency.
…
Russian and Ukrainian Musicians Find Harmony in Music
The friendship of Ukrainian musician Valeriya Sholokhova and Russian musician Nikita Morozov transcends the fighting between their countries. For VOA News, Iacopo Luzi has the story.
Camera: Iacopo Luzi
…
Skepticism Meets Migrant Smuggler Crackdown in Guatemala
Eager to show it’s trying to slow the steady flow of its people north to the United States, Guatemala recently tripled prison sentences for migrant smugglers.
The day after Guatemala’s legislature approved the measure in February, 18-year-old Yashira Hernández left her home near the Mexican border for the trip north — hiring a smuggler to help.
A month later, Hernández was back, deported from the U.S., fretting over her family’s debt and contemplating a second attempt — again with her smuggler.
While the legal reform is supposed to dissuade smugglers and cast the government as a willing partner of the U.S. in managing migration, experts and lawmakers say it will only make the trip more expensive. The poverty, violence and other factors pushing Guatemalans to migrate remain strong and the smuggling networks continue to ply their trade — sometimes with the help of public officials.
Possible prison sentences hold little importance if those responsible rarely make it to trial.
Guatemala’s government says it is preparing for further increased migration after a decision announced Friday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control to end a system limiting asylum at the southwest border May 23. That policy had been based on reducing the spread of COVID-19 during the pandemic.
Officials throughout the region expect migrant smugglers to seize on the policy change to drum up more business with misinformation about the sort of reception migrants will meet.
Guatemala’s immigration agency said it was forming a multidisciplinary group to respond to changes in migration flows, including securing the country’s borders.
In 2020, more than 21,000 Guatemalans were deported home from the U.S., but prosecutors only charged 12 people in connection with migrant smuggling, according to data from the Attorney General’s Office, said lawmaker Andrea Villagran. Only four of the 12 were convicted.
“You have to see the lack of capacity the Attorney General’s Office has to bring these criminal structures to justice,” said Villagran who voted against the reform. “The law change is only a show. What this law did was increase the price of smuggling. If the problem isn’t really resolved, the people are going to continue wanting to migrate.”
Villagran also said there’s little motivation for the government to slow migration.
“The interest is in continuing to export Guatemalans so they can continue sending remittances and continue sustaining this country’s economy,” she said. Last year, despite the global pandemic, Guatemalans sent home $15 billion.
Hernández said she decided to leave last month to escape poverty. Her family scraped together thousands of dollars to hire a smuggler, but in a month’s time she was back where she started, now with a massive debt that is virtually unpayable if she stays in Guatemala.
She was unaware that the penalties for migrant smuggling had risen to 30 years from 10, now on par with sentences for kidnapping and murder.
The tougher sentences were proposed by the office of President Alejandro Giammattei. His relationship with Washington has been tense, in part because the U.S. government has listed corruption as one of the root causes of immigration in Central America and has accused his administration of undermining Guatemala’s justice system while inventing charges to prosecute anticorruption crusaders.
Ursula Roldán, a migration expert at the Rafael Landivar University, said that while poverty and corruption remain rampant, emigration will continue.
Guatemalans have featured prominently in recent high-profile — and deadly — smuggling cases in Mexico.
In January 2021, the incinerated bodies of 19 people, including 16 Guatemalan migrants, were found in northern Mexico near the Texas border. Prosecutors said they were shot by a Tamaulipas state police unit and then burned.
In December, 55 migrants were killed and more than 100 injured when a semitrailer carrying them crashed in southern Mexico. Again the majority were from Guatemala.
This year, Guatemalan authorities, under pressure to show they’re taking smuggling seriously, arrested 10 people allegedly involved in smuggling the migrants killed last year near the Texas border.
“People keep migrating because the structural causes of migration are still there, they haven’t changed,” Roldán said.
Stuardo Campos, the prosecutor charged with applying the new law, sees the increased sentences as a positive development and says smuggler arrests are up, but concedes that the factors driving migration are strong and says he lacks the resources to effectively tackle the problem.
Campos noted that the new law requires prosecutors to show proof that moving, housing and helping migrants was done for an economic benefit. That’s a tall order when migrants seldom agree to testify against their smugglers.
Many smugglers offer a second or third try if the first fails, and migrants have almost no hope of paying off the original debt without reaching the United States. So there’s a large disincentive to helping prosecute their smuggler.
In the case of those killed in northern Mexico, Campos said the leader of the smuggling ring was a former mayor who is now a fugitive.
“There are criminal networks within the government that facilitate the entrance and exit and even (false) documents for migrants,” said Villagran, the federal lawmaker.
“The whole system is so coopted that any popularly elected public official could be tied to these networks,” she said. “Ultimately, they need political favors to survive and those favors translate to financing” of electoral campaigns.
…
Macron Holds 1st Big Rally; Rivals Stir up ‘McKinsey Affair’
French President Emmanuel Macron held his first big rally Saturday in his race for reelection, promising the French more “progress” and “solidarity” over the next five years, but his campaign has hit a speed bump.
It’s been dubbed “the McKinsey Affair,” named after an American consulting company hired to advise the French government on its COVID-19 vaccination campaign and other policies. A new French Senate report questions the government’s use of private consultants and accuses McKinsey of tax dodging. The issue is energizing Macron’s rivals and dogging him at campaign stops ahead of France’s April 10 first-round presidential vote.
Macron, a centrist who has been in the forefront of diplomatic efforts to end the war in Ukraine, has a comfortable lead in polls so far over far-right leader Marine Le Pen and other challengers.
“We are here to make possible a project of progress, of independence, for the future, for our France,” Macron told a crowd of about 30,000 at a stadium that usually hosts rugby matches. “I see difficulties to make ends meet, situations of insecurity … and so much more to accomplish to turn back extremism.”
Inflation, bonuses, pensions
Speaking to those who see “all their salary go into gasoline, bills, rent” as the war in Ukraine is driving up food and energy prices, Macron promised to let companies give a tax-free bonus to employees of up to 6,000 euros ($6,627) as soon as this summer.
He also promised to raise the minimum pension to 1,100 euros ($1,214) a month for those who have worked full time — up from about 700 euros now. The retirement age will need to be progressively raised from 62 to 65 to finance the plan, he said.
Supporters welcomed him, chanting “Macron, president!” “One, two, five more years!” and waved the French tricolor flag.
McKinsey
But for those trying to unseat Macron, the word “McKinsey” is becoming a rallying cry.
Critics describe the French government’s 1 billion euros spent on consulting firms like McKinsey last year as privatization and Americanization of French politics and are demanding more transparency.
The French Senate, where opposition conservatives hold a majority, published a report last month investigating the government’s use of private consulting firms. The report found that state spending on such contracts has doubled in the past three years despite mixed results, and warned they could pose conflicts of interest. Dozens of private companies are involved in the consulting, including giants like Ireland-based multinational Accenture and French group Capgemini.
Most damningly, the report says McKinsey hasn’t paid corporate profit taxes in France since at least 2011, but instead used a system of “tax optimization” through its Delaware-based parent company.
McKinsey issued a statement saying it “respects French tax rules that apply to it” and defending its work in France.
McKinsey notably advised the French government on its COVID-19 vaccination campaign, which got off to a halting start but eventually became among the world’s most comprehensive. Outside consultants have also advised Macron’s government on housing reform, asylum policy and other measures.
Macron’s defense
The Senate report found that such firms earn smaller revenues in France than in Britain or Germany, and noted that spending on outside consultants was higher under conservative former President Nicolas Sarkozy than under Macron.
Budget Minister Olivier Dussopt said the state money spent on consultants was about 0.3% of what the government spent on public servants’ salaries last year and that McKinsey earned only a tiny fraction of it. He accused campaign rivals of inflating the affair to boost their own ratings.
The affair is hurting Macron nonetheless.
A former investment banker once accused of being “president of the rich,” Macron saw his ratings surge when his government spent massively to protect workers and businesses early in the pandemic, vowing to do “whatever it takes” to cushion the blow. But his rivals say the McKinsey affair rekindles concerns that Macron and his government are beholden to private interests and out of touch with ordinary voters.
Everywhere Macron goes now, he’s asked about it.
“The last few days, I heard a lot speaking about tax evasion, an American company,” Macron said at Saturday’s rally. “I want to remind those who show outrage that they used them (consulting firms)” in local government as well.
He also pointed to his government’s fight to make sure corporations pay their fair share of taxes.
“The minimum tax in Europe, we fought for it, we did it,” he said.
France is pushing for quick implementation in the 27-nation European Union of the minimum corporate tax of 15%, on which more than 130 countries agreed last October.
…