Zimbabwean villagers displaced more than a decade ago to make way for a joint government and Chinese-run diamond mine are still waiting for promised compensation and proper housing. Columbus Mavhunga reports from Mutare, Zimbabwe.
Videographer: Blessing Chigwenhembe
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Month: May 2022
Children Abandoned as People Flee Starvation in Tigray
For months, only a trickle of aid has entered Ethiopia’s northern region of Tigray, parts of which the U.N. says are likely in a state of famine. Some Tigrayans fleeing hunger are so hopeless, they tell of abandoning their families. Henry Wilkins reports from Sekota, Ethiopia
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US Senate to Vote on Ukraine Aid
The U.S. Senate is set to vote Thursday on a $40 billion aid package for Ukraine.
The measure includes money for military equipment, training and weapons for Ukraine, replenishing stocks of U.S. equipment sent to Ukraine and financing to help other countries that aid Ukraine.
It also includes billions of dollars in humanitarian aid, including helping money to address global food shortages caused by the conflict.
The House of Representatives overwhelmingly gave its approval to the package last week.
If the Senate approves the measure, it will go to President Joe Biden for his signature.
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US Spy Agencies Urged to Fix Open Secret: A Lack of Diversity
The peril National Security Agency staff wanted to discuss with their director didn’t involve terrorists or enemy nations. It was something closer to home: the racism and cultural misunderstandings inside America’s largest intelligence service.
The NSA and other intelligence agencies held calls for their staff shortly after the death of George Floyd. As Gen. Paul Nakasone listened, one person described how they would try to speak up in meetings only to have the rest of the group keep talking over them. Another person, a Black man, spoke about how he had been counseled that his voice was too loud and intimidated coworkers. A third described how a coworker addressed them with a racist slur.
The national reckoning over racial inequality sparked by Floyd’s murder two years ago has gone on behind closed doors inside America’s intelligence agencies. Publicly available data, published studies of its diversity programs, and interviews with retired officers indicate spy agencies have not lived up to years of commitments made by their top leaders, who often say diversity is a national security imperative.
People of color remain underrepresented across the intelligence community and are less likely to be promoted. Retired officers who spoke to The Associated Press described examples of explicit and implicit bias. People who had served on promotion boards noted non-native English speakers applying for new jobs would sometimes be criticized for being hard to understand — what one person called the “accent card.” Some say they believe minorities are funneled into working on countries or regions based on their ethnicity.
Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, the first woman to serve in her role, has appointed diversity officials who say they need to collect better data to study longstanding questions, from whether the process for obtaining a security clearance disadvantages people of color to the reasons for disparities in advancement. Agencies are also implementing reforms they say will promote diversity.
“It’s going to be incremental,” said Stephanie La Rue, who was appointed this year to lead the intelligence community’s efforts on diversity, equity and inclusion. “We’re not going to see immediate change overnight. It’s going to take us a while to get to where we need to go.”
The NSA call following Floyd’s death was described by a participant who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private discussion. The person credited Nakasone for listening to employees and making public and private commitments to diversity. But the person and other former officials said they sometimes felt that their identities as people of color were discounted or not fully appreciated by their employers.
The NSA declined to comment on the call. It said in a statement that agency officials “regularly examine the outcomes of our personnel systems to assess their fairness.”
“Beyond the mission imperative, NSA cultivates diversity and promotes inclusion because we care about our people and know it is the right way to proceed,” the statement said.
A former NSA contractor alleged this year that racist and misogynistic comments often circulate on classified chatrooms intended for intelligence work. The contractor, Dan Gilmore, wrote in a blog post that he was fired for reporting his complaints to higher-ups. A spokesperson for Haines, Nicole de Haay, declined to comment on Gilmore’s allegations but said employees who “engage in inappropriate conduct are subject to a variety of accountability mechanisms, including disciplinary action.”
The U.S. intelligence community has evolved over decades from being almost exclusively run by white men — following a stereotype that Rep. Jim Himes, a Connecticut Democrat, referred to in a hearing on diversity last year as “pale, male, Yale.” Intelligence agencies that once denied security clearances to people suspected of being gay now have active resource groups for people of different races and sexual orientation.
Testifying at the same hearing as Himes, CIA Director William Burns said, “Simply put, we can’t be effective and we’re not being true to our nation’s ideals if everyone looks like me, talks like me, and thinks like me.”
But annual charts published by the Office of Director of National Intelligence show a consistent trend: At rising levels of rank, minority representation goes down.
Latinos make up about 18% of the American population but just 7% of the roughly 100,000-person intelligence community and 3.5% of senior officers. Black officers comprise 12% of the community — the same as the U.S. population — but 6.5% at the most senior level. And while minorities comprise 27% of the total intelligence workforce, just 15% of senior executives are people of color.
A 2015 report commissioned by the CIA said the “underrepresentation of racial/ethnic minority officers and officers with a disability at the senior ranks is not a recent problem and speaks to unresolved cultural, organizational, and unconscious bias issues.” Among the report’s findings: Progress made between 1984 and 2004 in promoting Black officers to senior roles had been lost in the following decade and recruitment efforts at historically Black colleges and universities “have not been effective.”
“Since its founding, the Agency has been unmistakably weak in promoting diverse role models to the executive level,” the report said.
Lenora Peters Gant, a former senior human capital officer for the CIA and Office of the Director of National Intelligence, wrote last year that the intelligence community constantly imposes barriers on minorities, women and people with disabilities. Gant, now an adviser at Howard University, called on agencies to release some of their classified data on hiring and retention.
“The bottom line is the decision making leadership levels are void of credible minority participation,” Gant said.
ODNI is starting an investigation of the slowest 10% of security clearance applications, reviewing delays in the cases for any possible examples of bias. It also intends to review whether polygraph examiners need additional race and ethnicity training.
The intelligence community currently doesn’t report delays in getting a security clearance — required for most agency jobs — based on race, ethnicity or gender. The months or years a clearance can take can push away applicants who can’t wait that long.
The office is implementing annual grant monitoring and assigning additional staff to work with universities in the intelligence community’s Centers for Academic Excellence program, intended to recruit college students from underrepresented groups. A 2019 audit said it was impossible to judge the program due to poor planning and a lack of clear goals.
The program also got a new logo after ODNI officials heard that the previous “IC CAE” insignia appeared to spell out “ICE,” an unintended reference to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Additional quiet changes are taking place across the agencies. Officials say the changes were in process before Floyd’s death, though conversations held with employees brought new urgency to diversity issues.
The NSA stopped requiring applicants for internal promotions to disclose the date they were last promoted to the boards considering their application. Officials familiar with the change say it was intended to benefit applicants who take longer to move up the agency ladder, often including working parents or people from underrepresented communities.
The CIA two years ago formally tied yearly bonuses for its senior executives to their performance on diversity goals, measured next to factors such as leadership and intelligence tradecraft. Last year’s class of new senior executives was the most diverse in the agency’s history.
Said CIA spokesperson Tammy Thorp: “We are proud of the Agency’s progress in ensuring our hiring, assignment, and promotion processes do not create barriers to advancement.”
La Rue, the chief diversity officer for the intelligence community, has hired several data analysts and plans for her office to issue annual report cards on diversity for each intelligence agency. She acknowledges advocates have to break through enduring skepticism inside and outside government that diversity goals undermine the intelligence mission or require lower standards.
“The narrative that we have to sacrifice excellence for diversity, or that we are somehow compromising national security to achieve our diversity goals, is ridiculous,” she said.
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North Korea Looms as Biden Makes First Asia Trip
Although U.S. foreign policy during the first part of Joe Biden’s presidency has focused more on issues such as a rising China and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Biden this week will be confronted by another nagging foreign policy issue, a nuclear-armed North Korea.
Biden, who departs Friday for his first trip to Asia as president, may be welcomed by a major North Korean weapons test, according to U.S. and South Korean officials.
U.S. intelligence reflects the “genuine possibility” that North Korea will conduct either a long-range missile launch or a nuclear test, or possibly both, in the days surrounding or during Biden’s Asia trip, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Wednesday.
“We are preparing for all contingencies, including the possibility that such a provocation would occur while we are in Korea or in Japan,” Sullivan said in a briefing.
Much of Biden’s five-day trip is expected to focus on China, where he will work to reassure allies who have questioned long-term U.S. commitment to the region.
During the trip, Biden is expected to launch the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, a long-awaited economic initiative meant to increase U.S. involvement in Asia.
In Tokyo, Biden will hold a meeting of the Quad, a four-country grouping made up of the United States, Japan, India, and Australia – democracies that have a strong interest in containing China’s rise.
In Seoul, Biden will meet South Korea’s newly inaugurated president, Yoon Suk Yeol, who has vowed to take a tougher stance on China and who wants to expand cooperation with Washington on other global issues.
However, South Korean officials have warned for days that a major North Korean test may upend Biden’s agenda. South Korean and U.S. officials have come up with a “Plan B,” which may include altering Biden’s existing schedule in the event of a North Korean provocation, according to Kim Tae-hyo, South Korea’s first deputy national security adviser.
North Korea has often conducted major launches on or around visits to the region by U.S. presidents. Some analysts say such moves may be meant to attract U.S. diplomatic attention or increase North Korean leverage in potential nuclear negotiations.
North Korea has conducted a dizzying number of missile launches this year. In March, the North launched its first intercontinental ballistic missile in almost five years.
South Korea’s National Intelligence Service believes North Korea has also completed preparations for what would be its seventh nuclear test and is currently determining the best time to conduct such an explosion, according to South Korean lawmakers quoted by the country’s Yonhap news agency.
Biden’s visit comes a week after North Korea first acknowledged it is struggling to contain the coronavirus and began reporting an explosion of “fever” cases, which are presumed to be COVID-19-related.
On Thursday, North Korean state media reported 262,270 new fever cases, and one additional death. Over the past week, North Korean officials say nearly 2 million people have been hit by the fever outbreak, including 63 people who have died.
However, analysts are skeptical about North Korean pandemic data, saying Pyongyang may be hiding the true extent of the outbreak for political reasons or may not have the supplies to sufficiently track the virus’ spread.
Medical experts have long warned a coronavirus outbreak could devastate impoverished North Korea, whose dilapidated health care system focuses mainly on the well-being of the elite in richer parts of the country.
Earlier this week, the U.S. State Department expressed support for providing COVID-19 vaccines and other pandemic help to North Korea.
Despite its dire pandemic situation, North Korea may not be any more likely than before to accept outside help, analysts warn.
“Just because North Korea has confirmed infections doesn’t mean it will come hat in hand to the international community,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Seoul’s Ewha University. Instead, North Korea may continue major weapons tests to “avoid showing weakness,” Easley said.
“Such gratuitous launches also reinforce how difficult it will be to reach the North Korean people,” he added.
North Korea has rejected or ignored multiple offers of COVID-19 assistance, including shipments of vaccines from COVAX, the United Nations-backed vaccine sharing mechanism.
North Korea and Eritrea are the world’s only two countries yet to begin mass coronavirus vaccinations, according to the World Health Organization.
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Monkeypox Spreads in Europe; US Reports Its First Case
The Massachusetts Department of Public Health on Wednesday said it had confirmed a single case of monkeypox virus infection in a man who had recently traveled to Canada.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said its labs confirmed the infection to be monkeypox on Wednesday afternoon.
The state agency said it was working with CDC and relevant local boards of health to carry out contact tracing, adding that “the case poses no risk to the public, and the individual is hospitalized and in good condition.”
The Public Health Agency of Canada late on Wednesday issued a statement saying it is aware of the monkeypox cases in Europe and is closely monitoring the current situation, adding no cases have been reported at this time.
Monkeypox, which mostly occurs in west and central Africa, is a rare viral infection similar to human smallpox, though milder. It was first recorded in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the 1970s. The number of cases in West Africa has increased in the last decade.
Symptoms include fever, headaches and skin rashes starting on the face and spreading to the rest of the body.
The Massachusetts agency said the virus does not spread easily between people, but transmission can occur through contact with body fluids, monkeypox sores, items such as bedding or clothing that have been contaminated with fluids or sores, or through respiratory droplets following prolonged face-to-face contact.
It said no monkeypox cases had previously been identified in the United States this year. Texas and Maryland each reported a case in 2021 in people with recent travel to Nigeria.
The CDC also said it is tracking multiple clusters of monkeypox reported in several countries including Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom, within the past two weeks.
A handful of cases of monkeypox have recently been reported or are suspected in the United Kingdom, Portugal and Spain.
Earlier on Wednesday, Portuguese authorities said they had identified five cases of the infection and Spain’s health services said they were testing 23 potential cases after Britain put Europe on alert for the virus.
European health authorities are monitoring any outbreak of the disease since Britain reported its first case on May 7 and has found six more in the country since then.
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China’s Illegal Rosewood Trade with Mali Under Scrutiny
A cursory Google search for “rosewood furniture China” brings up plenty of sites selling the luxury item, but most buyers are likely unaware that their treasured table or chair could be the product of a rampant illegal trade in the protected tree species — one which is decimating forests in West Africa, facilitating elephant poaching, and even aiding jihadi groups.
Between May 2020 and March 2022, China imported from Mali 220,000 trees’ worth —148,000 tons — of a type of rosewood known as kosso despite a ban on its harvest and trade in the troubled West Africa nation, a report released Wednesday by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) found.
The dark wood is used to make expensive antique-style furniture. It is so popular in China, where it is known as “hongmu,” or “red wood,” that some 90% of the world’s exports end up there, according to Haibing Ma, EIA’s Asia policy specialist. Vietnam is also a key buyer of the wood.
“Rosewood is a species traditionally and culturally valued by the Chinese, so there’s almost like an insatiable demand there,” he told VOA.
From 2017-22, China imported half a million kosso trees, worth about $220 million, from Mali, the agency found, with Ma noting that the trade “has already caused tremendous negative ecological, economic and social impacts in the sourcing countries.”
Rosewood used to be sourced mainly from Southeast Asia, but with those forests now over-logged, Chinese traders have turned to West Africa, notably Mali, a chronically unstable nation that has suffered two coups since 2020 and is battling a jihadi insurgency.
Mali regulations and trade
Mali had declared a rosewood harvesting ban in 2020, but that was lifted the next year. Since then, a “log export ban” has been in effect, but exports to China have continued, EIA investigators found, estimating that more than 5,500 shipping containers of kosso were exported to China from May 2020 to March 2022.
Most of the logging is occurring in protected areas such as forest reserves, in violation of Mali’s forest code.
According to the EIA report, both the illegal trade in kosso and an export monopoly granted to Générale Industrie du Bois SARL, a company run by a Malian entrepreneur, allegedly rely on “deeply entrenched corruption” that includes using invalid permits to ship the wood. EIA investigators also learned of civil servants receiving bribes to ignore logging and trafficking, the report said.
Trucks move the logs from Bamako, Mali’s capital, to the port of Dakar in Senegal. From there, they are shipped to China.
Emailed requests for comment to the Chinese Embassy in Bamako and to Mamadou Gackou, secretary-general of Mali’s Ministry of Environment, Sanitation and Sustainable Development, went unanswered.
Rosewood, ivory and jihadis
Rosewood trafficking is also a conduit for the smuggling of other goods, EIA found. Illegal ivory, including some from Mali’s nearly annihilated Gourma desert elephant, has been found inside the logs.
“It appears that the Chinese trader known locally as ‘Frank’ and his business partner, who carry out the largest rosewood trading operation in the country, have also been involved in ivory smuggling between Mali and China, starting in 2017 until at least 2020,” the report said. As of a couple of months ago, when EIA investigators spoke to Frank’s businesses partners, “they were still busy figuring out how to get a maximum of the kosso logs they had in the depot out of the country,” said Raphael Edou, Africa Program Manager at EIA.
Jihadis in Mali are using the timber trafficking issue as a means of propaganda, saying only they can stop the logging of the country’s precious forests, the EIA found.
“Supporters of the rebels have exploited the forest crisis and the frustration among the population in the Southern provinces as a way to promote their cause. They frequently allege that only the strict discipline of the jihadist can put an end to the rosewood crisis and the circles of grand corruption it has fueled,” the report said.
Responses to the logging problem
Beijing, Ma notes, has stipulated that all its foreign investment under its Belt and Road Initiative “should stick to the principle and the directions laid out in the Paris Agreement,” and that President Xi Jinping has stressed “China and Africa cooperation will never be at the cost of the interests of African people.”
The country must now walk the talk and stop the export of illegal timber from Mali, Ma said, adding, “As a responsible great power, China should make efforts to clean up these trade lines.”
China has taken action to stop logging in Gabon, where Chinese companies were linked to the illegal trafficking of timber in 2019. At that time, Beijing signed an agreement with the West African state to help fight illegal logging and develop forest management in Gabon. Since the two countries began cooperating, Gabon has seen a dramatic fall in illegal logging, according to Lee White, Gabon’s minister of water, forests, the sea and environment, as reported by the South China Morning Post.
Asked about what would happen to the loggers if the rosewood trade was shut down, EIA’s Edou said that they usually come from neighboring countries and that Malian communities resent their presence.
“According to our investigation, most of the forest communities in Mali have suffered and not benefited from the rosewood crisis. … Timber is commonly stolen from the communities’ forest area. Local leaders have raised on multiple occasions the problem: Others make money, they pay the price,” he said. Local residents end up losing their forests and receiving no money for the wood. Some communities even patrol their forests in hopes of catching the loggers themselves.
The EIA’s investigation comes as the secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), described as “an international agreement between governments” that aims to protect the survival of species traded globally, is deliberating a regional trade ban. In March, in response to West African countries’ request, a CITES meeting gave states until April 27 to demonstrate their exports were legal or declare a zero-export quota. If they failed to do so, they would face a trade suspension.
“The CITES secretariat is analyzing all information received. … It’s expected this will be completed by the end of this month,” CITES spokesperson David Whitbourn told VOA in an email response.
“When the analysis is complete, a recommendation to suspend commercial trade for Pterocarpus erinaceus (Rosewood) will be set in place for those Parties that have not responded or have not provided a satisfactory justification,” he added.
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US Warns North Korea Could Greet Biden With Nuclear, Missile Tests
U.S. intelligence shows there could be a North Korean nuclear test, or a long-range missile test, or both, before, during or after President Joe Biden’s trip to South Korea and Japan starting this week, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Wednesday.
The White House said Biden would not visit the Demilitarized Zone that divides North and South Korea during his visit to South Korea, which begins Friday, having said last week he was considering such a trip.
“Our intelligence does reflect a genuine possibility that there will be either a further missile test, including long-range missile test, or a nuclear test, or frankly both, in the days leading into, on or after the president’s trip to the region,” Sullivan told a White House briefing.
“We are preparing for all contingencies,” he said.
Sullivan said that the United States was coordinating closely with South Korea and Japan and that he had also discussed North Korea with a senior Chinese diplomat in a phone call Wednesday.
Biden’s trip, which is to run through Tuesday, will be his first to Asia as president. It will include his first summit with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, who took office May 10 and has vowed to take a harder line against North Korean “provocations.”
Sullivan said the United States was prepared to make both short- and longer-term adjustments to its military posture as necessary “to ensure that we are providing both defense and deterrence to our allies in the region and that we’re responding to any North Korean provocation.”
Earlier, U.S. and South Korean officials said North Korea appeared to be preparing to test an intercontinental ballistic missile ahead of Biden’s trip to South Korea, even as it battled a big COVID-19 outbreak.
South Korean deputy national security adviser Kim Tae-hyo said such a test appeared imminent and a U.S. official said it could happen as soon as Thursday or Friday.
Kim Tae-hyo said a “Plan B” had been prepared in the event of a small or large North Korean “provocation,” which could involve altering the summit schedule.
A weapons test could overshadow Biden’s broader trip focus on China, trade and other regional issues, and underscore the lack of progress in denuclearization talks with North Korea, despite his administration’s vow to break the stalemate with practical approaches.
North Korea has conducted repeated missile tests since Biden took office last year and this year resumed launches of ICBMs for the first time since 2017. After each launch, Washington has urged North Korea to return to dialog, but to no response.
Meanwhile, U.S. efforts to encourage tougher international sanctions have met Russian and Chinese resistance.
Analysts say that while China’s view on sanctions might alter with another nuclear test, Russian support appeared unlikely after the campaign of U.S.-led sanctions over Moscow’s Ukraine intervention.
Yoon is expected to seek greater assurances from Biden that Washington will strengthen “extended deterrence” against North Korea — a reference to the U.S. nuclear weapons umbrella protecting its allies.
Yoon’s administration has asked Washington to station more nuclear-capable “strategic assets,” such as long-range bombers, submarines and aircraft carriers in the region.
Kim said the chances that North Korea would conduct a nuclear test this weekend appeared low, but if it staged any major provocation, such assets were ready to be mobilized.
A nuclear test could complicate international efforts to offer Pyongyang help to deal with its COVID crisis.
Yoon has offered to help North Korea with this issue, and analysts expect Biden to endorse this effort, even though his administration has said it has no plans to send vaccines directly to North Korea and Pyongyang has persistently refused help though the global vaccine initiative.
The World Health Organization is worried that the rising caseload and a lack of modern care for COVID-19 in North Korea could give rise to deadlier new variants.
North Korea sent aircraft to China to pick up medical supplies days after it confirmed the outbreak, media reported Tuesday.
A new report by Washington’s Center for International and Strategic Studies said commercial satellite imagery showed work continuing at North Korea’s main nuclear site, where underground testing tunnels were shuttered in 2018 after leader Kim Jong Un declared a moratorium on nuclear and ICBM tests.
He has since said he is no longer bound by that moratorium because of a lack of progress in talks with the United States. While North Korea has resumed ICBM testing, it has not tested a nuclear bomb since 2017.
North Korea has also resumed construction at a long-dormant nuclear reactor that would increase its production of plutonium for nuclear weapons by a factor of 10, researchers at the U.S.-based James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies reported last week, citing satellite imagery.
China talks
Earlier Wednesday, Sullivan discussed the possibility of North Korean nuclear or missile tests with China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, during a call focused on regional security issues and nonproliferation.
Sullivan did not provide further details about the call, but the White House said in a statement that he and Yang had discussed Russia’s war against Ukraine and “specific issues in U.S.-China relations.”
Sullivan and Yang last met in Rome in March, ahead of Biden’s call that month with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, during which the U.S. president warned Xi of consequences should Beijing offer material support for Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
China has refused to condemn Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions and has criticized sweeping Western sanctions on Russia, but senior U.S. officials say they have not detected overt Chinese military and economic support for Russia.
The United States, India, Australia and Japan agreed in March that what is happening to Ukraine should not be allowed to happen in the Indo-Pacific, an oblique reference to the democratic island of Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its territory.
“If the U.S. side persists in playing the ‘Taiwan card’ and goes further down the wrong path, it will surely put the situation in serious jeopardy,” Xinhua cited Yang as telling Sullivan.
Yang added that China would take “firm actions” to safeguard its sovereignty and security interests, Xinhua said.
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Latest Developments in Ukraine: May 19
For full coverage of the crisis in Ukraine, visit Flashpoint Ukraine.
The latest developments in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. All times EDT:
12:50 a.m.: RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty shares an interview with the mother of a Ukrainian National Guardsman based in Mariupol.
During the May 11 interview in Kyiv, Inna Zatoloka shares some of the texts her 20-year-old son sent her since Russia invaded Ukraine. “Mother, I’m alive,” he once texted. “Love you.”
Mark Zatoloka was one of hundreds of soldiers defending civilians sheltering in the Azovstal steel plant while Russia attacked. Inna does not know whether he made it out alive.
12:30 a.m.: The U.S. Senate is set to vote Thursday on a $40 billion aid package for Ukraine.
The measure includes money for military equipment, training and weapons for Ukraine, replenishing stocks of U.S. equipment sent to Ukraine and financing to help other countries that aid Ukraine.
It also includes billions of dollars in humanitarian aid, including helping to address global food shortages caused by the conflict. The House of Representatives overwhelmingly gave its approval to the package last week.
If the Senate approves the measure, it would go to President Joe Biden for his signature.
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Biden Invokes Defense Production Act for Infant Formula Shortage
President Joe Biden on Wednesday invoked the Defense Production Act to speed production of infant formula and authorized flights to import supply from overseas, as he faces mounting political pressure over a domestic shortage caused by the safety-related closure of the country’s largest formula manufacturing plant.
The Defense Production Act order requires suppliers of formula manufacturers to fulfill orders from those companies before other customers, in an effort to eliminate production bottlenecks. Biden is also authorizing the Defense Department to use commercial aircraft to fly formula supplies that meet federal standards from overseas to the U.S., in what the White House is calling “Operation Fly Formula.”
Supplies of baby formula across the country have been severely curtailed in recent weeks after a February recall by Abbott Nutrition exacerbated ongoing supply chain disruptions among formula makers, leaving fewer options on store shelves and increasingly anxious parents struggling to find nutrition for their children.
“I know parents across the country are worried about finding enough formula to feed their babies,” Biden said in a video statement released by the White House. “As a parent and as a grandparent, I know just how stressful that is.”
The announcement comes two days after the Food and Drug Administration said it was streamlining its review process to make it easier for foreign manufacturers to begin shipping more formula into the U.S.
In a letter Wednesday to the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture, Biden directed the agencies to work with the Pentagon to identify overseas supplies of formula that meet U.S. standards over the next week, so that chartered Defense Department flights can swiftly fly it to the U.S.
“Imports of baby formula will serve as a bridge to this ramped-up production,” Biden wrote.
Regulators said Monday that they’d reached a deal to allow Abbott Nutrition to restart its Sturgis, Michigan, plant, the nation’s largest formula plant, which has been closed since February because of contamination issues. The company must overhaul its safety protocols and procedures before resuming production.
After getting the FDA’s approval, Abbott said it will take eight to 10 weeks before new products begin arriving in stores. The company didn’t set a timeline to restart manufacturing.
“I’ve directed my team to do everything possible to ensure there’s enough safe baby formula and that it is quickly reaching families that need it the most,” Biden said in the statement, calling it “one of my top priorities.”
The White House actions come as the Democratic-led House is expected to approve two bills addressing the baby formula shortage as lawmakers look to show progress on what has become a frightening development for many families.
One bill expected to have wide bipartisan support would give the secretary of the Department of Agriculture the ability to issue a narrow set of waivers in the event of a supply disruption. The goal is to give participants in an assistance program commonly known as WIC the ability to use vouchers to purchase formula from any producer rather than be limited to one brand that may be unavailable. The WIC program accounts for about half of infant formula sales in the U.S.
The other measure, a $28 million emergency spending bill to boost resources at the Food and Drug Administration, is expected to have less bipartisan support and it’s unclear whether the Senate will take it up.
“This is throwing more FDA staff at a problem that needs more production, not more FDA staff,” said Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Michigan.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the Democratic chair of the House Appropriations Committee, said the money would increase FDA staffing to boost inspections of domestic and international suppliers, prevent fraudulent products from getting onto store shelves and acquire better data on the marketplace.
Abbott’s voluntary recall was triggered by four illnesses reported in babies who had consumed powdered formula from its plant. All four infants were hospitalized with a rare type of bacterial infection and two died.
After a six-week inspection, FDA investigators published a list of problems in March, including lax safety and sanitary standards and a history of bacterial contamination in several parts of the plant. Under Monday’s agreement, Abbott must regularly consult with an outside safety expert to restart and maintain production.
Chicago-based Abbott has emphasized that its products have not been directly linked to the bacterial infections in children. Samples of the bacteria found at its plant did not match the strains collected from two babies by federal investigators.
But FDA officials pushed back on that reasoning Monday on a call with reporters — their first time publicly addressing the company’s argument. FDA staffers noted they were unable to collect bacterial strains from two of the four patients, limiting their chances of finding a match.
“Right from the get-go we were limited in our ability to determine with a causal link whether the product was linked to these four cases because we only had sequences on two,” FDA’s food director Susan Mayne said.
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Americans Shed COVID Precautions Despite New Surge
The number of U.S. counties considered to be at high risk of spreading COVID has almost tripled in the last two weeks, according to the CDC. In New York City, the COVID alert level has risen to high, and the number of cases has doubled in the last month. Despite this, a new poll suggests many Americans have stopped wearing facemasks and social distancing. Aron Ranen has the story. Camera: Aron Ranen and Igor Tsikhanenka.
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Jailing of Georgian Media Owner Sends ‘Bad Message’
The jailing of a politician turned media owner sends a “bad message” from Georgia about the country’s commitment to press freedom and Western ideals, international bodies and rights groups say.
Nika Gvaramia, director of the opposition station Mtavari TV, appeared in court in the capital, Tbilisi, on Monday accused of harming the financial interests of a media outlet that he previously ran.
The court convicted Gvaramia of abuse of power related to his time as general manager and director of the independent TV station Rustavi 2. He was sentenced to three years and six months in prison.
His lawyer, Dimitri Sadzaglishvili, told local media they plan to appeal.
Gvaramia left Rustavi in 2019 after the European Court of Human Rights upheld a ruling by Georgia’s Supreme Court that the station should be returned to one of its former owners.
In response to the takeover, Gvaramia accused the government of using the judiciary system to give ownership to Kibar Khalvashi, a businessman seen as loyal to the ruling Georgian Dream party.
Both Gvaramia and other figures in Georgia’s opposition media have said they believe the ruling party is attempting to silence critical media.
In response to VOA’s request for comment, a spokesperson in Georgia’s Embassy in Washington said that the embassy “will refrain from commenting” on the case.
As well as working in media, Gvaramia was previously involved in politics, holding the posts of Minister of Justice and Minister of Education and Science under former President Mikheil Saakashvili in 2007 and 2008.
He is also one of the lawyers representing Saakashvili, who was imprisoned in October 2021 upon returning to Georgia after eight years in exile. A court convicted the former leader in absentia of misuse of power.
International reaction
The arrest of a prominent media figure sparked international condemnation, with analysts and rights groups calling the case politically motivated.
David Kramer, managing director for global policy at the George W. Bush Institute, told VOA’s Georgian Service he believes the sentencing “is the latest evidence of the government abusing the judicial system to go after the political opponents.”
“It is not the first time; I fear it won’t be the last time,” said Kramer, who under President George W. Bush was the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.
The U.S embassy in Georgia said the case brings into question Georgia’s commitment to Western orientation.
“From its inception, this case has raised questions, including about the timing and the charges,” the U.S embassy statement read. It added that the ruling “calls into question Georgia’s commitment to rule of law, and further demonstrates the fundamental importance of having an independent, impartial judiciary.”
European Parliament member Rasa Jukneviciene noted that the arrest comes as Georgia pushes for membership to the EU.
“It’s one more bad message from Georgia, in terms of the Georgian people’s attempt to join the European Union one day,” Jukneviciene, a politician from Lithuania, told VOA. “This message comes as the European Commission will very soon be making a proposal to the EU Council on countries like Ukraine and Georgia for their candidacy status.”
Georgia applied for EU membership in early March, shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Georgia says it wants EU integration. But Kramer said he believes that the Georgian Dream party is using government institutions for its own interests.
“I think the way to handle this is through a tough love approach, if you will, which is to continue to support Georgia, the country, the people, while going after the people who are responsible for taking Georgia in a wrong direction politically,” he said.
The nongovernmental organization Transparency International-Georgia said the case appeared to be politically motivated and aimed at “punish[ing] Nika Gvaramia and disrupt[ing] the activities of a critical media outlet.”
“The use of the justice system for media censorship and intimidation sends a clear message to other critical media outlets as well,” Transparency International-Georgia said in a statement.
Keti Khutsishvili, executive director of the Open Society Georgia Foundation, said the case showed “no signs of criminal liability, and therefore it should be discussed as an entrepreneurial affair.”
Linking income, liability
The investigation into Gvaramia started in 2019.
According to the public defender, the Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia was trying to prove that Gvaramia “could have brought more income to the company but he did not do so, and that this is a crime.”
The office of Public Defender Nino Lomjaria, however, told the Tbilisi court via a letter that Gvaramia’s actions were not criminal.
“An entrepreneurial decision may not lead even to corporate liability, not to mention criminal liability. The decision made by the director might be to make less profit, but it might serve the best interests of the corporation and aim to insure against short-term or long-term risks,” the letter read.
Deputy Public Defender Giorgi Burjanadze believes the court ruling sets a dangerous precedent for media and media managers.
“This action has a very big impact on the media,” he told VOA.
“We are talking about actions inside media, and a director gets punished because government tells him that he had to bring more income,” Burjanadzde said. “If theoretically we agree that this is right and the government can punish someone for this, in future this will have chilling effect for others, because every manager will think that if they did not get profit, they automatically are guilty.”
Such an approach could impact Georgia’s standing on press freedom rankings and be a “step back,” he added.
Currently, Georgia ranks 89 out of 180 countries, where 1 is freest, according to the annual index by Reporters Without Borders. The media watchdog warns that “official interference undermines efforts undertaken to improve press freedom.”
This article originated in VOA’s Georgian Service.
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Tigray War Costing 1 Million Children a Third Year of School, UN Says
A total of 1.39 million children in the Tigray region are currently missing out on education because of Ethiopia’s civil war, according to the United Nations.
While journalists are banned from entering Tigray, VOA was able to access the neighboring Amhara region, where schools are beginning to reopen, after Tigrayan forces that occupied much of the region withdrew in December.
But the occupation left deep scars. Residents in the town of Gashena say Tigrayan forces used the classrooms as a base, left graffiti on classroom walls, insulting the Amhara ethnic group and Ethiopia’s prime minister, and dumped bodies into a mass grave on school grounds.
The Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front has denied such accusations and called for an independent investigation.
One student, Ayten Mune, recounted returning to the school after the Tigrayan forces had left.
He said that when he returned to the school, there were bloodstains, broken desks, and broken computers here and there. The TPLF had used the school as a hospital, which is why there was so much blood, he said.
The deputy headmaster of the school, Getnet Habtamu, said he had to mobilize local authorities to exhume the mass grave filled with bodies of soldiers and civilians killed during the fighting because of the psychological impact it had on students.
He said students refused to attend because the school was a total mess and that there was blood all over the place. He added that the community worked together to bring the students back to school, but teachers had to go door to door to the students’ houses to persuade them to come back.
Children traumatized
Farther north, near the town of Sekota, the U.N. provides schooling for children displaced by the conflict, but many of them, like Bertukan Gebrat, have been traumatized from witnessing the fighting.
She said her brother was killed in an explosion while he was playing with his friend and that she had seen many bad things. “I even saw people killed after having their limbs cut off,” she said.
Yasmine Sherif, the director of Education Cannot Wait, a U.N.-funded nonprofit, said education can play an essential part in helping children like Bertukan and Mune build resilience to trauma.
“When you see family members, parents, siblings, rape, killing, injury, a child during the formative years see all this violence or are even the subject of this violence, will logically become traumatized and that’s why mental health and psychosocial services are another very existential, lifesaving component of education,” she told VOA via Zoom.
She added that while food security and access to water are essential to people displaced by war, education is also essential in the long term if countries are to build back effectively and avoid future conflict.
For the nearly 1.4 million students entering their third school year disrupted by war in Tigray, the consequences will likely be felt for the rest of their lives.
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Health Officials Say Parts of US May Consider Calls for Mask Wearing
COVID-19 cases are increasing in the United States and could get even worse over the coming months, federal health officials warned Wednesday in urging areas hardest hit to consider reissuing calls for indoor masking.
Increasing numbers of COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations are putting more of the country under guidelines issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that call for masking and other infection precautions.
Right now, the increases are concentrated in the Northeast and Midwest. “(But) prior increases of infections, in different waves of infection, have demonstrated that this travels across the country,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC director, at a White House briefing with reporters.
For an increasing number of areas, “we urge local leaders to encourage use of prevention strategies like masks in public indoor settings and increasing access to testing and treatment,” she said.
However, officials were cautious about making concrete predictions, saying how much worse the pandemic gets will depend on several factors, including to what degree previous infections will protect against new variants.
Last week, White House COVID-19 coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha warned in an interview with The Associated Press the U.S. will be increasingly vulnerable to the coronavirus this fall and winter if Congress doesn’t swiftly approve new funding for more vaccines and treatments.
Jha warned that a lack of funding from Congress to fight the virus could cause “unnecessary loss of life” in the fall and winter, when the U.S. runs out of treatments.
He added the U.S. was already falling behind other nations in securing supplies of the next generation of COVID-19 vaccines and said that the domestic manufacturing base of at-home tests is drying up as demand drops off.
Jha said domestic test manufacturers have started shuttering lines and laying off workers, and in the coming weeks will begin to sell off equipment and prepare to exit the business of producing tests entirely unless the U.S. government has money to purchase more tests, like the hundreds of millions it has sent out for free to requesting households this year.
That would leave the U.S. reliant on other countries for testing supplies, risking shortages during a surge, Jha warned. About 8.5 million households placed orders for the latest tranche of eight free tests since ordering opened on Monday, Jha added.
The pandemic is now 2½ years old. And the U.S. has seen — depending how you count them — five waves of COVID-19 during that time, with the later surges driven by mutated versions of the coronavirus. A fifth wave occurred mainly in December and January, caused by the omicron variant.
The omicron variant spread much more easily than earlier versions.
Some experts are worried the country now is seeing signs of a sixth wave, driven by an omicron subvariant. On Wednesday, Walensky noted a steady increase in COVID-19 cases in the past five weeks, including a 26% increase nationally in the last week.
Hospitalizations also are rising, up 19% in the past week, though they remain much lower than during the omicron wave, she said.
In late February, as that wave was ebbing, the CDC released a new set of measures for communities where COVID-19 was easing its grip, with less of a focus on positive test results and more on what’s happening at hospitals.
Walensky said more than 32% of the country currently live in an area with medium or high COVID-19 community levels, including more than 9% in the highest level, where CDC recommends that masks and other mitigation efforts be used.
In the last week, an additional 8% of Americans were living in a county in medium or high COVID-19 community levels.
Officials said they are concerned that waning immunity and relaxed mitigation measures across the country may contribute to a continued rise in infections and illnesses across the country. They encouraged people — particularly older adults — to get boosters.
Some health experts say the government should be taking clearer steps.
The CDC community level guidelines are confusing to the public, and don’t give a clear picture of how much virus transmission is occurring in a community, said Dr. Lakshmi Ganapathi, an infectious diseases specialist at Harvard University.
When the government officials make recommendations but do not set rules, “it ultimately rests on every single individual picking and choosing the public health that works for them. But that’s not what is effective. If you’re talking about stemming hospitalizations and even deaths, all of these interventions work better when people do it collectively,” she said.
your ad hereNew Somali President Hopes to Secure Capital from Al-Shabab
Somalia’s newly-elected president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, says his government will focus on urgent issues including security, economic recovery, political stability, and debt relief during his first 100 days in office.
Mohamud was elected Sunday for the second time, defeating incumbent Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed. Mohamud returns to power after serving as president from 2012 to 2017.
“We want to implement what we want to do in my first 100 days in office. We want to reform the old legal framework and the structure of our security agencies; we want to federalize the security apparatus,” Mohamed told VOA Somali in an exclusive interview.
Battling al-Shabab, the al-Qaida-affiliated terror group that has stepped up its attacks in Mogadishu in recent months, is one of the biggest challenges that lies ahead for the president.
Defeating al-Shabab has remained beyond the grasp of Mohamud and every other Somali president since the group came into being about 15 years ago. Mohamud knows first-hand the danger al-Shabab poses, having survived several assassination attempts during his first term.
Mohamud, however, has voiced confidence that his country will turn the corner, saying securing Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, is one of the priorities in his first 100 days.
“To secure Mogadishu, we want to operate and secure it from its corridors such as the Lower and Middle Shabelle regions and inside the city we will establish a strong intelligence presence,” the president said. “We will ask for support and collaboration from anyone who is willing to help us to ensure the security.”
Hours ahead of the VOA exclusive interview, Mohamud welcomed word that U.S. special operations forces will again be based in Somalia to help in the fight against the terror group.
He thanked U.S. President Joe Biden in a tweet Tuesday, calling the United States “a reliable partner in our quest to stability and fight against terrorism.”
His re-election on Sunday follows nearly a year of political uncertainty marked by disputes between the president and prime minister and the federal and regional levels of government.
The turmoil nearly boiled over in February 2021 when parliament passed a motion to extend President Mohamed’s term by two years. Lawmakers reversed their decision in the face of strong pressure both domestically and abroad.
Despite assuming office with daunting tasks, Mohamud pledges to steer the country toward peace and reconciliation.
“To create political stability is also one of my priorities in my first 100 days. We must come up with an inclusive agreement with the leaders of the federal-member states that federalizes the most important issues, including security,” he said.
While he is in office, Mohamud said he will work on a national plan that would scrap the clan-based complex election formula and lead the country to a one-person, one-vote system.
“When I was handing over my presidency in 2016, I also handed over a detailed plan that would have led the country to a different voting system and now my plan is to work on that so that the county will not go back to the controversial clan-based power sharing system,” he told VOA.
Mohamud said he will soon nominate a prime minister and work on legal reforms designed to resolve the chronic power struggles, between Somali presidents and prime ministers, that derailed the efforts of the past governments and weakened cooperation among federal government institutions.
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Russian Soldier Pleads Guilty to Killing Ukrainian Civilian
A 21-year-old Russian soldier pleaded guilty Wednesday to killing an unarmed Ukrainian civilian in the first war crimes case Kyiv has brought since the Russian invasion three months ago.
Sergeant Vadim Shishimarin could be sentenced to life in prison for shooting a 62-year-old Ukrainian man in the head through an open car window four days after Russia launched the invasion in late February.
Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova previously has said her office is preparing war crimes cases against 41 Russian soldiers for offenses that included bombing civilian infrastructure, killing civilians, rape and looting. It is not clear how many of the Russians are in Ukrainian custody or how many might be tried in absentia.
In Shishimarin’s case heard in a Kyiv court, Venediktova alleged that he was among a group of Russian soldiers that fled Ukrainian forces on February 28, driving to Chupakhivka, a village about 320 kilometers east of the capital, Kyiv.
The prosecutor-general said that on the way the Russian soldiers saw a man riding his bicycle and talking on his phone. Shishimarin, according to Venediktova, was ordered to kill the man so he wouldn’t be able to report them to Ukrainian military authorities but did not say who gave the order.
Shishimarin fired his Kalashnikov rifle through the open window and hit the victim in the head, Venediktova wrote in a Facebook account.
“The man died on the spot just a few dozen meters from his house,” she said.
In a brief video account of the incident produced by the Ukrainian Security Service, Shishimarin said, “I was ordered to shoot. I shot one (round) at him. He falls. And we kept on going.”
Venediktova’s office has said it is investigating more than 10,700 potential war crimes involving more than 600 suspects, including Russian soldiers and government officials. International authorities are also investigating possible Russian war crimes, while Moscow is believed to be working on crimes cases against Ukrainian troops.
Russia has denied targeting civilians and accused Ukraine of staging atrocities. Ukraine says thousands of its civilians have been killed.
Some material in this report came from The Associated Press.
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Families Scattered as Mariupol Falls to Russian Forces
After months of siege, Russia is taking control of Ukraine’s strategic port city, Mariupol, and aid workers say they do not know how many civilians remain. VOA’s Heather Murdock reports from Zaporizhzhya, Ukraine, that many risked everything to get out but even now, they still live in fear.
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Will Biden Visit Ukraine?
A slew of top U.S. officials have made the dangerous voyage into Ukraine since the war began in February, raising the question: When will President Joe Biden make the trip? VOA’s Anita Powell reports from the White House.
Produced by: Brian Allen
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Nigeria Becoming Destination for Africa’s Promising Tech Startups
Nigerian startups, mostly in financial technology, attracted nearly a quarter of the $5.2 billion invested in African startups last year. Timothy Obiezu profiles the mobile money service CrowdForce to examine what is attracting investors to Nigeria.
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US: Africa Needs Tailored Strategies to Fight ISIS Groups
African countries are being encouraged to use both soft and hard power to counter the growing threat posed by Islamic State on the continent. The U.S. government is giving more than $100 million to African states to overcome terrorism. Top U.S. security officials say African leadership and voices are needed to ensure security assistance is targeted to where it’s needed most.
Last week, security leaders from the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS pledged to support African security agencies in dealing with the terrorist activities of the Islamic State.
The coalition, which has 85 members, met in Morocco to discuss ways of dislodging fighters allied to ISIS from Mali, Burkina Faso, Mozambique and several other African countries.
Terror activities by these militants have increased in recent years, killing tens of thousands and displacing millions — creating a humanitarian crisis.
Chris Landberg. the State Department’s acting principal deputy coordinator for counterterrorism, says some African governments will receive millions of dollars to improve their efforts in fighting terrorism.
“So, we are increased in this every year, and we’re looking to use it to improve capabilities of our partnered civilian, law enforcement, and judiciary with the goals of disrupting and apprehending, prosecuting, and convicting terrorists across the continent,” he said.
Akinola Olojo, a senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, says the ISIS affiliates in Africa are different from each other and will require tailored strategies to defeat them.
“While we recognize that there seems to be a similarity at a certain level, in a different way we see that even the actors involved or the insecurity actors involved as well as the way they relate with communities, the way they sort of act against the state takes different expressions. And we need to understand these nuances in order to have approaches that adequately match what is manifesting in the different contexts,” he said.
The deputy Special Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS Doug Hoyt said countering the militants’ messaging is critical.
“So, the coalition itself will probably continue to launch platforms against what we see as the vulnerable youth certainly in the Sahara — in the Sahel and trans-Sahara region. So, what we’re emphasizing with communications is it’s not top-down, it’s bottom-up. So we start at the local level and we work with member governments and we tailor this messaging in language and customs and traditions and what’s going on here, and we very much want the African members out front on that,” he said.
The U.N. Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, an instrument meant to enhance the international effort to counter terrorism, calls for nations to address the conditions terror groups use to spread terrorism. It also aims at building the states’ capacity to prevent and combat terrorism while adopting measures to respect human rights and the rule of law.
Olojo says African security agencies were encouraged to use different ways to tackle terrorism apart from the usual military response.
“Hard responses have a role to play, of course, but then going beyond this to address governance gaps, addressing ideologies pushed by these affiliates, addressing issues of human rights violations,” he said. “Engaging communities more deeply or more effectively, having a dialogue on several levels within communities. All these components are things that are highlighted at this meeting and then we see how they fit into a broader approach.”
U.S. officials say the lessons used to weaken ISIS in Iraq and Syria can be apply in Africa but will need individuals present on the continent to get results.
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Burkini Disputes Resurface in Southwestern France
A simmering controversy over burkinis — a type of head-to-toe swimsuit favored by conservative Muslim women — has roared back to life in France. This week, the southwestern city of Grenoble approved the use of burkinis in public pools, but the French government says it will challenge the ruling.
The move revives long-running tensions about Islamic apparel and the country’s staunchly secular values.
Interviewed on French radio, Greens Mayor Eric Piolle said it was important that all city dwellers could access public services — including pools.
The ruling allows women to swim in burkinis but also topless.
The mayor’s views aren’t universally accepted. Dissenters on the Grenoble city council say Piolle had no authority to pass the measure. The conservative regional council head for the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes area has suspended subsidies to Grenoble, saying the burkini a sign of women’s submission and political Islam.
Now, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin says he will challenge the Grenoble swimsuit decision in court, calling it an unacceptable provocation. Even members of Piolle’s leftist party are divided over it.
This is not the first time burkinis have caused a splash in fiercely secular France. They were banned on Marseille beaches a few years ago — until a French court overturned the move, judging it discriminatory.
Burkini bans in French public pools are different — they’re based on hygiene grounds which also prohibit men’s long swim trunks.
But burkinis also fit into a hot debate over France’s 1905 law separating religion and state, and simmering fears of political Islam. France bans headscarves in public schools and for female French Football Federation players competing in matches. The face-covering niqab is banned in all public spaces.
A recent poll by the conservative C-News channel found most French oppose burkinis in public pools, but some swimmers don’t care.
“Everyone should be free to wear what they want,” says Marie, who was swimming at a public pool in Paris. “So long as it’s not imposed on me, it’s not a problem.”
That also seems to be the attitude in the Brittany city of Rennes. A few years ago, local authorities quietly changed pool rules allowing all kinds of swimsuits, including burkinis. Initial controversy soon quieted down. Now, of the thousands swimming in Rennes public pools each year, local government says, just over a handful wear burkinis.
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USAID Chief Discusses Efforts to Counter Actions by Russia, China
U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power highlighted to lawmakers Tuesday a number of areas of concern, including the effects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on those displaced by the conflict, resulting shocks to global energy and food markets, the COVID-19 pandemic and the effects of climate change.
Speaking to the House Foreign Affairs Committee about President Joe Biden’s budget request for the next fiscal year, Power said, “The world is now less free and less peaceful than at any point since the end of the Cold War,” and that the free nations of the world can work together with the private sector and multilateral institutions to “extend the reach of peace, prosperity, and human dignity to billions more people.”
Power told the committee that efforts to help those impacted in Ukraine include an anti-trafficking hotline and training Ukrainian psychiatrists to help internally displaced persons deal with “the new issues that they are reporting having suffered, even as they were being displaced from their homes or as survivors of sexual violence.”
“It involves a combination of expanding programming that we’re doing because of the prior conflict and because of our steady state investment in women and girls’ empowerment, and the prevention of gender-based violence,” Power said. “But then, as these large international organizations and others come in, to make sure that they have protection services as part of their mandates, so not just food, water, medicine, all of that is essential, but also to meet the needs of women and girls who’ve gone through these horrors.”
Power said the United States wants to sustain its level of contribution for development, humanitarian and economic assistance for Ukraine.
“The U.S. share so far, despite all the generosity and the resources that we’ve expended, is 11% of the overall international contribution to the crisis in Ukraine right now,” she said.
Committee Chairman Gregory Meeks, a New York Democrat, said the situation in Ukraine “has only added to the critical work USAID does around the world,” and called attention to how the conflict is affecting other nations as well.
“Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has also exacerbated the worsening food security situation around the world,” Meeks said. “The blocking of the port of Odesa has further restricted exports that could feed 400 million people. Staples that countries around the world rely upon for basic food needs. And already we’re seeing how the Russian invasion is affecting food prices, particularly in high import countries such as Egypt, and Indonesia, and Bangladesh.”
Discussing another aspect of Russia’s efforts, Power said her agency is also focusing on countering disinformation, including by working to support independent media in Ukraine.
“Sometimes, congressman, it entails providing flak jackets and helmets to independent journalists via our program OTI (Office of Transition Initiatives) so that they continue to be out in the field, able to themselves document what’s true. There’s a Center for Media and Disinformation that is actually government-affiliated, and actually a number of independent journalists left civil society and went to work for this center for combating disinformation,” Power said. “That is something that we have increased support for as the government seeks to react in real time to memes as they develop, whether on telegram, or on Twitter, or on Russian-backed television.”
Committee ranking member Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican, said USAID needs to be “more strategic in using foreign aid as a key tool to counter the malign actions of both Russia and China.”
McCaul highlighted his concerns about China’s Belt and Road Initiative in which it is working to open trade routes by building infrastructure throughout Eurasia, and what he called “debt trap diplomacy efforts” to secure strategic investments while “saddling developing countries with unsustainable debt.”
He also pointed to diplomatic pressure that China exerts on other countries.
“They also use their leverage to coerce countries to break diplomatic relations with Taiwan and to refrain from criticizing China’s appalling human rights violations,” McCaul said.
Asked about how USAID might help countries that are dependent on China to reduce such influence, Power said many are eager to “secure resources that don’t entail decades of debt” while ensuring that infrastructure projects do not harm the environment and even quicken their transition to using clean energy.
“I think everything from the Countering Chinese Influence Fund, which you all have generously supported, to investments we make in an open, and secure internet in the digital sphere, to these kinds of investments, that again, don’t come with the transaction or with the strings attached that PRC (People’s Republic of China) investments come with, I think these are the domains in which USAID and our partners across the U.S. government thrive,” Power said.
Lawmakers also asked about the situation in Lebanon, where results from a Sunday election showed the militant group Hezbollah and its allies losing a majority in parliament.
Power said the “paralysis of government institutions” the country has experienced in recent years “cannot be really separated from the economic downturn that the people of Lebanon have had to endure.”
She said USAID has worked to help with technical advice to support Lebanon’s economy, and that a current focus is on humanitarian assistance, with 81% of the country’s wheat supplies coming from Ukraine.
Power said she hopes a new government in Lebanon “will be more dedicated to making hard choices in the economic reform area. It’s those structural changes that are needed to stop the freefall,” she said.
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Pope Remarks on Needing Tequila Go Viral
Pope Francis recently joked with seminarians about needing some alcohol to deal with severe pain in his knee. He recently cancelled a foreign trip because of the ailment, sparking speculation about his declining health.
Pope Francis has been suffering from pain in his right knee due to strained ligaments in recent weeks which has also forced him to use a wheelchair on more than one occasion. Doctors have also prescribed physical therapy to help him with his ailment.
But following his general audience this week, he seemed to think there was something else that could help him with his pain.
He was riding on his popemobile at the end of the audience when some Mexican seminarians shouted out to him asking him how he was doing with his knee. The exchange between the pope and the seminarians went viral when Francis said he could use some tequila to deal with his knee pain.
The seminarians asked him in his native Spanish how his knee was doing, and Francis responded it was “capricious.”
The pope said: “Do you know what I need for my knee? A little tequila.” The Mexicans laughed heartily and promised to bring Pope Francis a bottle of the potent liquor — considered Mexico’s national drink — the next time they pay a visit to the Santa Marta house in the Vatican where Francis lives.
The faithful saw the pope limping badly when he was presiding at ceremonies recently for the Easter festivities. He uses a cane to walk.
There have been concerns that at 85-years of age the pope’s health is not what it used to be when he was elected more than nine years ago. But close advisers have rejected any speculation that the pope is generally unwell.
Argentine Bishop Victor Manuel Fernandez from La Plata met with the pope on May 14 and later tweeted: “He’s in very good health and the same lucid reflection as always.”
Pope Francis has a busy travel schedule for the remainder of this year with confirmed trips to the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan in early July and a separate trip to Canada later the same month.
Still, doubts have persisted after he recently cancelled a planned two-day trip to Lebanon in June due to his knee problem.
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US Soccer Equalizes Pay in Milestone With Women, Men
The U.S. Soccer Federation reached milestone agreements to pay its men’s and women’s teams equally, making the American national governing body the first in the sport to promise both sexes matching money.
The federation announced separate collective bargaining agreements through December 2028 with the unions for both national teams on Wednesday, ending years of often acrimonious negotiations.
The men have been playing under the terms of a CBA that expired in December 2018. The women’s CBA expired at the end of March but talks continued after the federation and the players agreed to settle a gender discrimination lawsuit brought by some of the players in 2019. The settlement was contingent on the federation reaching labor contracts that equalized pay and bonuses between the two teams.
“I feel a lot of pride for the girls who are going to see this growing up, and recognize their value rather than having to fight for it. However, my dad always told me that you don’t get rewarded for doing what you’re supposed to do — and paying men and women equally is what you’re supposed to do,” U.S. forward Margaret Purce said. “So I’m not giving out any gold stars, but I’m grateful for this accomplishment and for all the people who came together to make it so.”
Perhaps the biggest sticking point was World Cup prize money, which is based on how far a team advances in the tournament. While the U.S. women have been successful on the international stage with back-to-back World Cup titles, differences in FIFA prize money meant they took home far less than the men’s winners.
The unions agreed to pool FIFA’s payments for the men’s World Cup later this year and next year’s Women’s World Cup, as well as for the 2026 and 2027 tournaments.
Each player will get matching game appearance fees in what the USSF said makes it the first federation to pool FIFA prize money in this manner.
“We saw it as an opportunity, an opportunity to be leaders in this front and join in with the women’s side and U.S. Soccer. So we’re just excited that this is how we were able to get the deal done,” said Walker Zimmerman, a defender who is part of the U.S. National Team Players Association leadership group.
The federation previously based bonuses on payments from FIFA, which earmarked $400 million for the 2018 men’s tournament, including $38 million to champion France, and $30 million for the 2019 women’s tournament, including $4 million to the champion United States.
FIFA has increased the total to $440 million for the 2022 men’s World Cup, and its president, Gianni Infantino, has proposed that FIFA double the women’s prize money to $60 million for the 2023 Women’s World Cup, in which FIFA has increased the teams to 32.
For the current World Cup cycles, the USSF will pool the FIFA funds, taking 10% off the top and then splitting the rest equally among 46 players — 23 players on the roster of each team. For the 2026-27 cycle, the USSF cut increases to 20% before the split.
After missing the 2018 World Cup, the men qualified for this year’s World Cup in Qatar starting in November. The women’s team will seek to qualify this year for the 2023 World Cup, cohosted by Australia and New Zealand.
For lesser tournaments, such as those run by the governing body of North America, players will earn identical game bonuses. And for exhibition games, players will receive matching appearance fees and performance payments based on the match result and opponent rank. Players who don’t dress will earn a fee that is the equivalent of participating in a national team training camp.
The women gave up guaranteed base salaries which had been part of their CBA since 2005. Some players had been guaranteed annual salaries of $100,000.
“I think we’ve outgrown some of the conditions that may look like we have lost something, but now our (professional) league is actually strong enough where now we don’t need as many guaranteed contracts, you know, we can be on more of a pay-to-play model,” Purce said.
Child care, covered for women for more than 25 years, will be extended to men during national team training camps and matches.
The women and men also will receive a portion of commercial revenue from tickets for matches controlled by the USSF, with bonuses for sellouts, and each team will get a portion of broadcast, partner and sponsor revenue.
Players will get a 401(k) plan and the USSF will match up to 5% of a player’s compensation, subject to IRS limits. That money will be deducted from the shares of commercial revenue.
“There were moments when I thought it was all going to fall apart and then it came back together and it’s a real credit to all the different groups coming together, negotiating at one table,” said federation President Cindy Parlow Cone, a former national team player who became head of the governing body in 2020
“I think that’s where the turning point really happened. Before, trying to negotiate a CBA with the women and then turn around and negotiate CBA terms with the men and vice versa, was really challenging. I think the real turning point was when we finally were all in the same room sitting at the same table, working together and collaborating to reach this goal.”
Women ended six years of litigation over equal pay in February in a deal calling for the USSF to pay $24 million, a deal contingent on reaching new collective bargaining agreements.
As part of the settlement, players will split $22 million, about one-third of what they had sought in damages. The USSF also agreed to establish a fund with $2 million to benefit the players in their post-soccer careers and charitable efforts aimed at growing the sport for women.
Mark Levinstein, counsel for the men’s union, said the agreement ended “more than 20 years of federation discrimination against the USWNT players.”
“Together with the USWNTPA, the USMNT players achieved what everyone said was impossible — an agreement that provides fair compensation to the USMNT players and equal pay and equal working conditions to the USWNT players,” he said. “The new federation leadership should get tremendous credit for working with the players to achieve these agreements.”
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