U.S. lawmakers’ investigation into the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol resumed Tuesday with an examination of former President Donald Trump’s encouragement to far-right extremist groups to subvert the democratic process. As VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson explains, investigators argue Trump’s claims of election fraud directly led to the attack.
Produced by: Katherine Gypson
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Month: July 2022
Biden, Mexican President Talk Immigration, Economy in 2nd White House Meet
Mexico’s president made his second White House visit Tuesday as the Biden administration said it is on track to double the number of temporary-worker visas for migrants from Mexico and Central America. The move comes as migration increases from Central America’s Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.
The left-leaning populist leader held a lengthy public discourse with U.S. President Joe Biden in the Oval Office before the two sat down privately to discuss the neighbors’ shared challenges.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador previously met with Biden in the White House in late 2021, for a three-way summit with Canada.
On Tuesday, the left-wing leader had Biden all to himself in the Oval Office.
Biden was visibly amused as López Obrador, through a translator, spoke for more than a half-hour on topics that included economics — “the reality we live in now makes it necessary and indispensable for us to produce everything we consume in our countries and regions,” he said — and the contentious nature of American politics.
“I know that your adversaries, the conservatives, are going to be screaming all over the place,” López Obrador said as Biden chuckled. “Even to heaven, they’re going to be yelling at heaven.”
Both leaders indicated that their previous disagreements, while not forgotten — and possibly not quite forgiven — were firmly in the past.
“In spite of our differences and our grievances that are not easy to forget — neither with time nor with good intentions, on many occasions — we’ve been able to meet and work together as good friends and true allies,” López Obrador said.
“This is a relationship that directly impacts the daily lives, the daily lives of our people,” Biden said. “And despite the overhyped headlines that we sometimes see, you and I have a strong and productive relationship.”
Expanding legal options for migrants
That, the Biden administration said, is evident in their decision to expand legal options for migrants from the Americas. U.S. Border Patrol said the number of attempted crossings has jumped. In fiscal 2021, the border force reported 684,000 encounters at the Southwest border, up from 400,000 the previous year.
“We actually think we will reach that target of doubling the number of H-2 temporary-worker visas for Central Americans this fiscal year,” Katie Tobin, senior director for transborder at the National Security Council, told VOA as the two presidents met.
“This is really at the heart of the Biden administration’s policy of how we want to address irregular migration,” she said. “We know that if we want to reduce the number of people that are migrating irregularly and having to rely on these criminal smuggling networks, we have to expand the number of legal pathways.”
Looking ahead to 2024
While it is notable that Mexico’s president has visited the White House twice within a year, Mexico’s former ambassador to the U.S. told VOA that López Obrador’s focus is largely domestic.
While López Obrador has now visited Washington three times — and New York, once — as president, he has only made five trips abroad in total since being elected to the one-term, six-year post in 2018.
“I don’t think that López Obrador will be a bridge to Latin America simply because López Obrador is not interested in foreign policy,” Arturo Sarukhan told VOA, via Zoom, from London.
“This is a man who famously ran his presidential campaign saying that the best foreign policy is domestic policy,” Sarukhan added. “I think what is really important about this meeting in Washington today is President Biden’s commitment to ensuring that the U.S.-Mexico relationship stays on an even keel, particularly as both countries remember every 12 years Mexico and the United States have presidential elections the same year.”
The next U.S.-Mexico election eclipse comes in 2024.
VOA’s Jorge Agobian and Chris Hannas contributed to this report.
your ad hereFrance: Only a Few Weeks Left to Save Iran Nuclear Deal
France’s new foreign minister said on Tuesday there were only a few weeks before the window of opportunity to revive Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers would close.
Speaking to lawmakers, Catherine Colonna said the situation was no longer tenable and accused Iran of using delaying tactics and going back on previously agreed positions during talks in Doha earlier this month, while forging ahead with its uranium enrichment program.
“There is still a window of opportunity … for Iran to finally decide to accept an accord, which it worked to build. But time is passing,” Colonna said, warning that if Iran kept on its current trajectory, it would be a threshold nuclear-armed state.
“Time is passing. Tehran must realize this,” she said, adding that the U.S. mid-term elections would make it even harder to seal a deal.
“The window of opportunity will close in a few weeks. There will not be a better accord to the one which is on the table.”
Last week, the U.S. envoy for the talks to reinstate the deal said Iran had added demands unrelated to discussions on its nuclear program during the latest talks and had made alarming progress on enriching uranium.
Under the 2015 nuclear pact, Iran limited its uranium enrichment program, a potential pathway to nuclear weapons, though Tehran says it seeks only civilian atomic energy, in return for a lifting of international sanctions.
In 2018, then-U.S. President Donald Trump abandoned the deal, calling it too soft on Iran, and reimposed harsh U.S. sanctions, spurring Tehran to breach nuclear limits in the pact.
Western officials have repeatedly said that the talks between world powers and Iran only had a few weeks to conclude a deal, with Colonna’s predecessor Jean-Yves Le Drian even saying in February it was just a question of days.
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Roe v. Wade Explained
The U.S. Supreme Court has struck down the decades-old Roe v. Wade decision, which said women have a constitutional right to have an abortion. Here’s a look at the case’s beginning.
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Eritrea, Somalia Leaders Vow Cooperation on Defense, Political Efforts
The leaders of Eritrea and Somalia have announced the signing of an agreement covering defense, security, diplomatic and political cooperation.
The agreement, finalized by Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki and Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, was reached following a four-day visit to Asmara by the new Somalia leader.
In a seven-point memorandum of understanding released Tuesday, the two leaders said they have agreed to enhance defense and security cooperation to safeguard peace, stability and security. They also have agreed to strengthen diplomatic and political cooperation, to protect and advance their national interests, and to promote relations between their two peoples, they said.
Afwerki and Mohamud said the memorandum they signed is based on historical and fraternal ties and common interests they share and on recognition that the successful fight against terrorism in Somalia is a “prerequisite for peace, stability and security, not only in Somalia but in the Horn of Africa.”
Eritrea has been training thousands of Somalia forces for nearly three years. Most of the military has received regular and specialized training, including the naval force, as well as mechanized units.
VOA Somali has reported the number of Somali troops trained in Eritrea at 5,167, a figure later confirmed by former president of Somalia Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo, who sent the troops to Eritrea.
The first wave of Somali soldiers was flown from Mogadishu to Eritrea on Aug. 19, 2019. There were second and third waves in February and June 2020, respectively.
The training of the soldiers was a clandestine operation hidden from the public and the media. The program was criticized by Somali parents of the soldiers and opposition politicians. It attracted controversy after unverified media reports alleged their participation in the conflict in Tigray, a claim strongly denied by the previous Somali government. VOA Somali did not find evidence backing their alleged link to the Tigray war.
During this week’s visit, Mohamud attended a parade by the Somali forces and congratulated them for completing their military training.
According to a statement issued by the president’s office, Mohamud renewed his pledge to return the troops to Somalia and said he has told them about his plans to stabilize the country and to liberate areas still under al-Shabaab control.
“The Somali people will be excited by your sight, and the enemy will be demoralized by [your] strength,” Mohamud told the soldiers, thanking the Eritrean government.
Earlier this month, the new Somali government reported that “some” Somali soldiers died during the training, and “some” died of natural causes. No exact figure was given, but some of the soldiers who defected last year gave mixed figures, with one deserter reporting that four died, and a second soldier saying seven soldiers died.
According to one soldier who deserted and arrived in Somalia in July of last year, one died of dehydration from severe diarrhea, one was electrocuted and a third drowned in a lake while escaping from Eritrean guards.
Ali Said Faqi, the Somali ambassador to the European Union who is among just a few Somali officials to visit the soldiers’ training camp in late 2019, said the troops received “tough training” and most of them were trained as special forces. He said the original plan was that Eritrea would train them and arm them.
“That was the plan, and I believe that is still the decision,” he said.
Faqi said it’s the new president’s call to determine a policy of operation and decide about how specifically the soldiers will be deployed.
“They can participate in the fight against terrorism; they can participate in opening the highway between Afgoye and Baidoa; they can participate in the opening of the highway between Mogadishu and Kismayo,” he said. “These are young personnel who obtained the best military training.”
Somali President Mohamud last week introduced a new security strategy to counter al-Shabab, comprising a military, ideological and economic approach toward the militant group.
Meanwhile, the leader of al-Shabab, Ahmed Umar Abu Ubaidah, vowed in a new audio threat to fight the new government, asserting the group will “never allow a government that is not founded upon Islam and an administration that doesn’t fully implement Sharia [law].”
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US Capitol Riot Investigators Allege Trump Ignited the Mayhem
The congressional panel investigating the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol last year alleged Tuesday that former President Donald Trump ignited the mayhem with an “explosive invitation” for supporters to come to Washington to try to block certification of his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
The committee said the tweet Trump issued in the early hours of Dec. 19, 2020, came after he ignored repeated advice from his White House advisers that he accept the reality that he had lost and that there was no evidence of fraud that was sufficient to upend the outcome.
Instead, after a lengthy, profane meeting at the White House with aides supporting his continued fight against the election outcome and those who advised acceptance of his loss, Trump tweeted, “Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election. Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”
The committee showed snippets of videos from some of Trump’s most ardent right-wing supporters urging fellow adherents to meet in Washington to try to block Congress from certifying that Biden had won the election.
In one clip, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones told his viewers, “He is now calling on the people. The time for games is over.”
Congressman Jamie Raskin, one of the committee members, said Trump’s tweet “reverberated pervasively online.”
The committee showed a clip from Steve Bannon, a onetime White House aide to Trump, saying the day before the January 6 insurrection, “All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. All I can say is, ‘Strap on.'”
The committee played a voice-altered clip from a Twitter employee, who said Trump’s tweet “was a mob being organized. The leader of their cause was asking them to join him.”
One of the convicted rioters at the Capitol that day, Stephen Ayres, a former supervisor at a cabinet-making company in the Midwestern state of Ohio who since has been fired, testified that he came to Washington because he believed Trump’s erroneous claim that the election had been stolen from him.
“I was hanging on every word he said,” Ayres said, describing himself as “pretty hardcore into social media.”
But he said he may not have gone to Washington for Trump’s rally near the White House before the confrontation at the Capitol if he had known that Trump and his associates, despite their claims, had not compiled any evidence of election fraud.
Now, he advised, “Take the blinders off and see what’s going on.” Ayres said he realized Trump’s contention of election fraud was unfounded when he subsequently learned that the former president had lost 60 out of 61 lawsuits claiming election irregularities.
In videotaped testimony, Trump’s White House counsel Pat Cipollone said he agreed that Trump should concede defeat, as did Trump’s daughter Ivanka, a White House adviser.
Instead, Trump, after the tumultuous Dec. 18, 2020, meeting at the White House, accepted the advice of two of his legal advisers, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, and business executive Patrick Byrne, to continue to fight the result to remain in power for another four years.
Other testimony focused on the role played by the Proud Boys, a neofascist group, and the Oath Keepers, another right-wing group supporting Trump’s reelection. Five Proud Boys leaders have been charged with seditious conspiracy in connection with the insurrection at the Capitol and are awaiting trial later this year. The same charge has been filed against 11 Oath Keepers, three of whom have already pleaded guilty.
The investigative panel showed scant direct links between Trump and the extremist groups, but noted that in a September 2020 debate with Biden, Trump, when asked to condemn white supremacists, had told the Proud Boys to “Stand back and stand by.”
Jason Van Tatenhove, a former spokesman for the Oath Keepers, described the group as white nationalists, “a dangerous militia.”
He said the group saw the riot at the Capitol as a moment that “could have been the spark that started a new civil war” in America, but also one that gave the Oath Keepers “a path forward that would have given them legitimacy.”
Trump has derided the committee’s investigation, calling its nine members — seven Democrats and two vocal anti-Trump Republicans — “political thugs and hacks.”
The committee has no power to charge Trump with any criminal offenses, although the Justice Department is conducting a lengthy investigation of how the riot unfolded. At the end of Tuesday’s hearing, Liz Cheney, the committee’s Republican vice chairwoman, said Trump had attempted to call one witness who has spoken to the committee but has not yet been called for public testimony.
Cheney said the witness refused to take Trump’s call and that the committee had referred the incident to the Justice Department as a possible case of witness tampering.
The protesters who stormed into the Capitol ransacked congressional offices, scuffled with police and for hours blocked the certification of Biden’s victory. Eventually the Capitol building, a symbol of American democracy, was cleared of protesters, and Biden won the Electoral College vote by a 306-232 count.
In the United States, presidents are effectively chosen in separate elections in each of the 50 states, not through the national popular vote. Each state’s number of electoral votes is dependent on its population, with the biggest states holding the most sway.
More than 800 of the protesters have subsequently been charged with an array of offenses from trespassing to assaulting police officers, and more than 300 have pleaded guilty or been convicted in trials. Sentences have ranged from a few weeks in prison to more than four years. The sedition charges filed against the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers carry substantially longer terms.
At a June 28 hearing, the panel heard testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, the top assistant to Mark Meadows, Trump’s last chief of staff, that Trump in the waning weeks of his presidency became increasingly angry and volatile regarding his reelection loss.
She testified that Trump knew some of his supporters at a rally near the White House were armed but still urged them to walk to the Capitol.
Hutchinson said Trump berated his Secret Service detail for not driving him to the Capitol, and in December 2020, threw his lunch against a wall of a White House dining room when he learned that then-Attorney General William Barr had concluded there was no election fraud.
After her dramatic testimony, Trump derided her as a “total phony” and “bad news.” But committee member Raskin on Tuesday told NBC News that “Cipollone has corroborated almost everything that we’ve learned from the prior hearings. I certainly did not hear him contradict Cassidy Hutchinson.”
Witnesses at earlier hearings told the investigative panel that there were minimal voting irregularities, not enough to overturn Biden’s Electoral College victory.
In addition, Trump was told it would be illegal for then-Vice President Mike Pence to unilaterally block Biden’s victory as Pence presided over the congressional Electoral College vote count. Still, Trump privately and publicly demanded the vice president block certification of Biden’s win. To this day, Trump contends he was cheated out of another White House term.
Over the weekend, Trump said in a letter that he would allow Bannon to testify before the investigative panel. He also said the committee had “allowed no Due Process, no Cross-Examination, and no real Republican members or witnesses to be present or interviewed. It is a partisan Kangaroo Court.”
Republicans blocked a full-scale probe that would have been patterned after the investigation of the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States.
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Nearly One-Fourth of World’s Population at Risk of Floods: Study
More than 1.8 billion people worldwide are at risk of severe floods, new research shows. Most reside in low- and middle-income countries in Asia, and four out of 10 live in poverty.
The figures are substantially larger than previous estimates. They show that the risk is concentrated among those least able to withstand and recover from flooding.
“I thought it was a valuable paper, indeed. Because this link between poverty and flood risk is kind of overlooked,” said hydrologist Bruno Merz, of the German Research Center for Geosciences, who was not involved in the study.
Flood risk assessments typically consider risk in monetary terms, which is highest in rich countries where more wealth is at stake. The new study focused on how flood exposure and poverty overlap.
Published in the journal Nature Communications, the study combined a global flood risk database with information on population density and poverty. The research focused on places where floods 15 centimeters deep or deeper happen at least once every 100 years on average.
The study found that nearly 90% of people at risk of severe flooding live in poor countries, not rich ones. More than 780 million flood-exposed people live on less than $5.50 per day.
The substantial overlap between high flood risk and poverty feeds into a vicious cycle that further concentrates flood protections in rich countries that have more resources to deal with floods in the first place, said flood risk researcher Jeroen Aerts of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Aerts was not involved in the study.
“It’s doing a cost-benefit analysis,” Aerts said. “Less money is going to poorer countries, because, of course, if the country is poorer, there are less dollars exposed.” Aerts said that this also happens within countries, which tend to invest in pricey flood protections for wealthy urban centers rather than for poorer rural areas.
The new estimate for global flood exposure is higher than some earlier ones. For instance, one previous study predicted that 1.3 billion people would be exposed to severe floods by 2050 — 500 million fewer than are exposed today, according to the new estimate. The authors attribute their higher number to their use of better data covering more regions at higher resolution and combining the risks from coastal, river and surface water floods.
The study did not consider protections, such as levees or dikes, in its assessment of flood exposure. This “distorts the picture,” Merz said, since some flood-prone populations are well-protected, such as those in the Netherlands.
Rather than undermining the study’s findings, Merz thought that this could mean that an even greater proportion of the people threatened by floods lives in poor regions.
“In many low-income countries, there is no flood protection, so people will be flooded by a small flood … that occurs on average every five years. On the other hand, in Europe, in North America, many of the areas are protected (from floods that happen once every) 100 years, 200 years or even higher. And so, this is not included,” he said.
Unprotected, poorer regions could thus shoulder an even greater share of the actual risks from flood exposure than the paper suggests.
The new result offers a snapshot of flood risk around the world as it is today, not a projection of how it will develop in the future. Climate change is projected to increase the frequency and intensity of floods in much of the world. And although early warning systems have decreased flood fatalities, including in resource-poor regions, population growth in flood-prone areas will also put more people at risk in the future, Aerts said.
“The exposure to natural hazards, exposure to flooding — it’s larger than previously investigated. And the majority of those exposed people live in a vulnerable, poor region,” Aerts said. “I think that’s the takeaway, I think, and maybe one sentence more: This means that investments in … flood adaptation should be targeted at those areas.”
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How Slavery Figures in US Abortion Battle
For half a century, abortion rights were rooted in the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, passed after the Civil War to guarantee equal rights to all after slavery. Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down a right to abortion, critics say women could once again be forced to reproduce — as were slaves.
VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias examines the argument. Warning: This piece contains video that some may find offensive.
Videographer and video editor: Veronica Balderas Iglesias
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8 British Lawmakers Make Cut to Replace Outgoing PM Johnson
Eight British Conservative Party lawmakers have made the cut to replace outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who resigned earlier this month amid scandals.
Each of the eight needed support from at least 20 fellow Conservative Party lawmakers before the Tuesday deadline.
Runoff voting among fellow Conservative lawmakers, to narrow the field to two, is scheduled to begin Wednesday.
Among the eight are former Treasury chief Rishi Sunak, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, Trade Minister Penny Mordaunt and backbench lawmaker Tom Tugendhat. Former health secretary Sajid Javid was not among the eight.
Lawmakers aim to narrow the field to two by the summer break, which starts July 21. The two finalists will then campaign across the country, after which party members will vote on the winner.
The new leader is due to be announced when the House of Commons returns on September 5.
Some information in this report came from The Associated Press.
your ad hereWhite House Stresses Vaccines, Boosters, Testing Against BA.5 Subvariant of Coronavirus
Citing the fast-spreading omicron BA.5 coronavirus subvariant that now makes up a majority of U.S. cases, the White House on Tuesday said it will ensure the availability of COVID-19 vaccines, boosters, treatments and testing to combat the disease.
“Currently, many Americans are under-vaccinated, meaning they are not up to date on their COVID-19 vaccines,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at a news briefing Tuesday. “Staying up to date on your COVID-19 vaccines provides the best protection against severe outcomes.”
The subvariant, which the CDC says accounts for 65% of the variants circulating in the United States as of last week, reportedly could spread more easily despite vaccination or natural immunity.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s chief medical advisor, Dr. Anthony Fauci, speaking at the same briefing, said the subvariant does not cause a more severe illness or hospitalizations compared to other subvariants.
“Variants will continue to emerge. The virus circulates globally and in this country. We should not let it disrupt our lives, but we cannot deny that it is a reality that we need to deal with,” Fauci said.
The White House says it will focus on boosters, at-home testing, making good masks available and supporting people who are immunocompromised.
“We can prevent serious illness; we can keep people out of the hospital and especially out of the ICU. We can save lives, and we can minimize the disruptions caused by COVID-19. Even in the face of BA.5, the tools we have continue to work,” said Ashish Jha, the White House’s COVID-19 response coordinator.
“We are at a point in the pandemic where most COVID-19 deaths are preventable,” he said.
Some information in this report comes from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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Sub-Saharan Africa Facing Severe Food Shortage
The International Committee of the Red Cross warns hundreds of millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa are going hungry due to conflict, climate shocks, and rising food prices triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The ICRC warns Africa’s food crisis is set to worsen. It says conflict and armed violence, failing harvests due to years of drought, and increases in food and other commodity prices are driving more people into extreme poverty and hunger.
A recent U.N. assessment estimates 346 million people on the continent face severe food insecurity, meaning one-quarter of the population does not have enough to eat.
The ICRC regional director for Africa, Patrick Youssef, says the situation is urgent. He warns many lives will be lost without a concerted effort by different actors to meet the challenges ahead. He says aid agencies, international financial institutions, and governments must collaborate to prevent the humanitarian crisis from becoming irreversible.
“As we look at 2023, we know that this will repeat itself. These climate shocks will repeat themselves; food insecurity will remain as acute as it is,” said Youssef. “It will not end with the calendar year. So, we all will better collectively be prepared for a long haul, for a situation, for a crisis that will certainly increase in size and volume.”
The ICRC reports the war in Ukraine has caused a sharp increase in fuel and fertilizer prices. That, it says, has added significant pressure on farmers, many of whom are weathering the combined impact of conflict and climate shocks.
Youssef says the Horn of Africa is most seriously affected. He notes, however, that other parts of Africa, from Mauritania to the Sahel to Lake Chad and, to a lesser extent, the Central African Republic, are suffering from the effects of the Ukraine crisis.
“Countries are equally, at least those who are, as you mentioned, so dependent on grains and wheat from Russia and Ukraine. Somalia is the worst—90 percent,” said Youssef. “But Nigeria has also a large dependency on that. Sudan and South Sudan as well. And, indeed the situation is extremely difficult for people that are inaccessible for humanitarian organizations, such as Somalia.”
Youssef says lack of access to people in areas affected by conflict and armed violence, such as Somalia and Burkina Faso raise the challenges to a different level.
The ICRC reports more than 35 armed conflicts are taking place on the continent and around 30 million people are internally displaced and refugees. The Swiss-based humanitarian agency says people uprooted from their homes are particularly vulnerable to extreme weather, fluctuation of food prices and hunger.
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Mozambican Artist Who Paints With Feet Sees COVID as Crippling
Nicktar Benedito, an artist in south-central Mozambique, has physical disabilities that have limited the use of his hands but honed his determination and empathy. Andre Baptista reports from Chimoio, capital of Manica province, in this story narrated by Carol Guensburg. Camera: Andre Baptista
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Russian Anti-War Journalist Fined Under ‘Gay Propaganda’ Law
Russian journalist Yury Dud was fined 120,000 rubles ($2,024) by a Moscow court Tuesday under a law that bans “propaganda” in support of gay relationships.
Lefortovo district court said the 35-year-old was fined for disseminating “propaganda for non-traditional sexual relationships among minors.”
Former sports reporter Dud is one of Russia’s top media stars, having risen to prominence via acerbic, politically tinged interviews and documentaries uploaded to YouTube, where he has more than 10 million subscribers.
In October last year, Dud was fined 100,000 rubles ($1,689) on charges of “drugs propaganda,” after a pro-Kremlin lobby group asked Russia’s internal affairs ministry to investigate him.
On April 15, Dud was designated a foreign agent by Russia’s justice ministry after publicly opposing Russia’s war in Ukraine, which he dubbed an “imperial frenzy.”
Human rights lawyer Pavel Chikov said the case against Dud was based on a 2021 YouTube interview he conducted with a gay performance artist, although Chikov said the interview was not about homosexuality.
Russia has since 2013 criminalized “propagandizing” non-traditional sexual orientations to children, as part of the Kremlin’s wider conservative agenda. Last week, parliamentary speaker Vyacheslav Volodin called for a complete ban on promoting “non-traditional values” in Russia.
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COVID Pandemic Still Shaking Up US Housing Market
Industry experts say post-pandemic trends are still driving the U.S. real estate market. Home prices are up nearly 30% compared with two years ago, according to Zillow, a U.S.-based real estate marketplace. Maxim Moskalkov has the latest. Camera – Andrey Degtyarev.
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Ukrainian Rockets Strike Russian-Held Area in Southern Ukraine
Ukrainian and Russian officials gave differing accounts Tuesday of a Ukrainian attack in the Kherson region in southern Ukraine.
According to the Ukrainian side, a long-range rocket struck a Russian ammunition depot in Nova Kakhovka, killing 52 Russian troops.
Russia said the Ukrainian strike instead hit civilian infrastructure.
Also Tuesday, Britain’s defense ministry said Russian forces continued to make “incremental territorial gains” in Donetsk province, the area of eastern Ukraine where it has focused its efforts.
The British statement said Russia is likely maintaining pressure on Ukrainian forces while “regrouping and reconstituting for further offensives in the near future.
Officials in the Donetsk town of Chasiv Yar said the death toll from a Russian missile strike on an apartment building rose to 34, with nine people having been safely rescued from the rubble.
The five-story apartment building was demolished by a rocket attack Saturday.
Chasiv Yar is about 20 kilometers southeast of Kramatorsk, a city that is expected to be a major target of Russian forces as they push farther westward into Donetsk province after claiming victory a week ago in the adjoining Luhansk province.
Some information in this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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After Biden Visit, Israel Hopes for Diplomatic Relations With Saudis
President US Joe Biden arrives in Israel on Wednesday for his first visit to the Middle East since taking office. He will fly directly from Israel to Saudi Arabia, a move the US leader called “symbolic.” Israel hopes the visit will pave the way for eventual full diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Linda Gradstein reports from Jerusalem with videographer Ricki Rosen.
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NASA to Release Images from Most Powerful Space Telescope
The U.S. space agency is set to release the full set of the first full-color images from the James Webb Space Telescope on Tuesday, a day after sharing a full-color picture showing stars and galaxies from deeper into the cosmos than ever seen before.
During a news briefing at the White House Monday to unveil the first NASA image, U.S. President Joe Biden said the telescope was “a new window into the history of our universe.”
The $10 billion telescope, the largest and most powerful telescope ever launched into space, peers farther into the cosmos than any before it.
A peek into the past
Scientists describe the telescope as looking back in time. That is because it can see galaxies that are so far away that it takes light from those galaxies billions of years to reach the telescope.
“Light travels at 186,000 miles per second. And that light that you are seeing on one of those little specs (in the picture) has been traveling for over 13 billion years,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, who attended Monday’s news briefing along with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
The Webb telescope can see light that was created just after the Big Bang, the farthest humanity has peered into the past.
A successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, Webb is about 100 times more sensitive than its 30-year-old predecessor. It is also able to use the infrared spectrum, while the Hubble used mainly optical and ultraviolet wavelengths.
The telescope is so precise, Nelson said, that scientists will be able to see the chemical composition of planets deep in space and determine if they are habitable or not.
“We are going to be able to answer questions that we don’t even know what the questions are yet,” he said.
Harris said the telescope would “enhance what we know about the origins of our universe, our solar system and possibly life itself.”
Into the cosmos
The telescope was launched December 25 from French Guiana in South America and traveled 1.6 million kilometers from Earth before beginning to capture images.
Biden said the telescope took a “journey 1 million miles into the cosmos … along the way unfolding itself, deploying a mirror 21 feet wide, a sunshield the size of a tennis court, and 250,000 tiny shutters, each one smaller than a grain of sand.”
Nelson said future images would peer even farther back into the origin of the cosmos, looking about 13.5 billion years into the past.
Scientists will use the Webb telescope to study stars, galaxies and planets as far as the edges of the cosmos, as well as look at objects closer to us with a sharper view, including our own solar system.
Some information in this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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Most Democrats Would Prefer Biden Not Run Again in 2024, Poll Finds
A large majority of Democrats would prefer that their party nominate someone other than incumbent President Joe Biden as its candidate in the 2024 presidential election, a new poll from The New York Times and Siena College found.
The poll asked respondents who plan to vote in the Democratic primary elections whether they want the party to renominate Biden. Only 26% said that they would like to see Biden on the ballot again, compared to 64% who said they would prefer someone else.
The poll’s findings paint a grim picture for the incumbent president, whose standing with the public is being battered by high inflation and the inability of his party to push its agenda through the closely divided Senate.
In one of the survey’s only bright spots for the president, it found that among all voters, in a rematch of the 2020 election, with Biden facing former President Donald Trump in 2024, Biden would win 44% of the vote to Trump’s 41%.
Age a major factor
Democratic respondents who said they would prefer that the party nominate a different presidential candidate in 2024 were asked to explain why. One-third said that Biden’s age is a factor. At 79, Biden is already the oldest person ever to serve as president, and he will be nearly 82 at the time of the 2024 election.
It was the oldest cohort of survey respondents, those over 65, who were most concerned about Biden’s age, with 60% citing it as their primary reason for wanting a different candidate. The youngest cohort, those aged 18 to 35, were the least likely to cite Biden’s age, with only 14% choosing it as their primary concern.
Nearly as many respondents, 32%, cited Biden’s job performance as their reason. Twelve percent said they would simply prefer someone else, and 10% said that they don’t view the president as being “progressive enough.”
Country seen moving in ‘wrong direction’
The new poll found that 77% of Americans believe that the country is headed in the wrong direction, versus only 13% who believe it is headed in the right direction.
The stark assessment of the country’s trajectory held across all the different subgroups tracked by the poll. A majority of Republicans (89%), Independents (81%), and Democrats (63%) chose the “wrong direction.” When pollsters divided respondents by age, education, and ethnicity, majorities of each agreed with the negative assessment.
The subgroup with the least negative assessment of the country’s path was Black Americans, 54% of whom said they believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, versus 30% who believe it is on the right track. White Americans were most dissatisfied with 82% viewing the country as moving in the wrong direction while just 9% see it as on the right track.
Low approval of Biden
Asked whether they approve or disapprove of how Biden is handling his job, only 33% of respondents said they approved. Among Democrats, the number was 70%, a low figure for a party’s incumbent president. Among Republicans, the figure was just 8%.
The poll tried to separate respondent’s personal feelings about Biden from their sense of how he is performing as president. When asked if they have a favorable or unfavorable impression of Biden personally, the numbers were not much better.
Only 39% said they had a favorable impression of the president, with 58% reporting an unfavorable impression. The partisan divide was stark, with 85% of Democrats reporting a favorable impression, compared to 30% of Independents and just 7% of Republicans.
White House reacts
Asked about the poll during a news briefing Monday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre noted that it also found that 92% of Democrats would vote for Biden in a rematch against Trump. More broadly, though, she said that the administration is not focused on polls.
“There’s going to be many polls; they’re going to go up and they’re going to go down,” she said. “This is not the thing that we are solely focused on.”
Instead, she said, the White House is focused on things like the bipartisan gun control legislation that Biden signed into law Monday, fighting inflation, and creating jobs
Bad sign for midterms
Kyle Kondik, the executive editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, told VOA that Biden’s approval numbers in the new poll are significantly lower than those in most other public polling, but said they still reflect a troubling trend for the president and his party.
“The numbers have been slowly slipping, really for a long time going back to last year,” he said. “There’s just been this erosion and the erosion continues. Whatever the bottom is, it doesn’t seem like he’s hit it yet.”
It’s bad news for the Democrats, given that November’s midterm elections, which will decide which party controls Congress for the next two years, are only four months away.
“Typically bad approval is a contributor to a bad midterm outcome for a president’s party,” Kondik said.
Rumors of a primary challenge
The news that many Democrats would prefer that Biden not run for a second term will fuel speculation that another Democratic leader might challenge the president in a primary election.
While primary challenges to a sitting president are uncommon, they are not unheard of. In 1992, Republican President George H.W. Bush faced a primary challenge from conservative firebrand Pat Buchanan. In 1980, Democratic President Jimmy Carter was challenged by Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy. In 1976, Republican President Gerald Ford was challenged by Ronald Reagan, then the governor of California.
In all three cases, the sitting president defeated his primary challenger. All three, however, went on to lose in the general election.
While Biden insists that he will run again, and there are no prominent Democratic politicians who have publicly broken from Biden, experts said that if Biden’s numbers continue to decline, the likelihood that one or more Democrats will challenge him increases. If that happens, Biden will likely feel the need to take dramatic action to demonstrate that he remains in control of the party.
“The problem of an unpopular incumbent is that his problems and limitations are concrete, but all his potential replacements’ advantages and disadvantages are hypothetical,” Chris Stirewalt, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told VOA in an email exchange.
“As (California Governor) Gavin Newsom, (Illinois Governor) J.B. Pritzker and others are emboldened to position themselves for 2024, Biden will feel increased pressure to be more radical and confrontational,” he said.
During the 2020 presidential campaign, Biden touted himself as a dealmaker who would find common ground between Democrats and Republicans to pass critical legislation. As president, he has signed into law bipartisan bills to overhaul American infrastructure and curb gun violence, both of which are broadly popular. But many Democratic priorities remain undone, from protecting voting rights to an ambitious plan to combat climate change, boost educational opportunities, and help working families.
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China, US Meeting Could Slowly Mend Relations
A five-hour meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi set the stage for gradually improving relations, analysts told VOA on Monday, though immediate progress is not expected.
Wang and Blinken met Saturday at the G-20 talks in Bali, Indonesia, their first in-person encounter since May when Blinken first publicized President Joe Biden’s strategy to compete with China.
They exchanged views on a list of issues that have troubled the two superpowers over the past five years.
Blinken and Wang pressed each other on core issues of disagreement, with Blinken lamenting that China had aligned with Russia during the war in Ukraine, and Wang telling the U.S. not to make an “overwhelming mistake” on Taiwan — a self-ruled island and informal American ally that Beijing claims as its own.
Those issues, along with trade, Chinese military activity in the disputed South China Sea and U.S. perceptions of human rights problems in China, have kept ties icy since former President Donald Trump’s term.
“I think Blinken is signaling very clearly that he is not satisfied towards China’s actions in the South China Seas, and as well as (in) East Asia and Taiwan,” said Sean Su, an independent political analyst in Taiwan. “All these are indicative of continued U.S.
interest in the East Asian area, and (that) is not going to be giving too much space for the Sinosphere to expand its power.”
The duo reached no deals Saturday, but the fact that they met could augur an eventual warming of relations, some experts believe. The two governments are now planning a virtual meeting between their leaders as soon as the end of July, VOA reported Monday
“I don’t see evidence that either side is making serious compromises or concessions, but dialogue is important,” said Timothy Heath, senior international defense researcher at the U.S.-based Rand Corp. “It is helpful to hear that message from the other side.”
Both sides hope to “de-escalate” the tension, Heath said, as they recognize each other’s role in improving their economies and the world’s. “Neither side is eager for a fight,” he said.
A senior State Department official said the simultaneous interpretation during Saturday’s meetings allowed for longer discussions, including a “pretty in-depth exchange, more specifically on areas that we disagree, including human rights and concerns over the stability across the Taiwan Strait.”
The next move could come from a third party, said Satu Limaye, vice president of the East-West Center in Hawaii.
“I am watching to see if U.S. domestic legislation to compete with China moves (ahead) and how key allies and partners assess ongoing high-level U.S.-China discussions,” Limaye said. By itself, he said, “the Blinken-Yi visit has not moved the dial on the troubled state of U.S.-China relations.”
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British Olympic Champion Farah Reveals He Was Trafficked to UK as a Child
Olympic champion Mo Farah revealed in an article published Monday that he was brought to Britain illegally under the name of another child to work as a domestic servant.
Farah told the BBC that he was given the name Mohamed Farah by a woman who flew him to the UK from the East African country Djibouti when he was 9.
The 39-year-old, whose father was killed in Somalia when he was 4, said his real name is Hussein Abdi Kahin and claimed he was made to look after another family’s children in Britain.
“The truth is I’m not who you think I am,” he said as part of a documentary to be aired Wednesday.
“Most people know me as Mo Farah, but it’s not my name, or it’s not the reality.
“The real story is I was born in Somaliland, north of Somalia, as Hussein Abdi Kahin. Despite what I’ve said in the past, my parents never lived in the UK.
“When I was 4 my dad was killed in the civil war, you know, as a family we were torn apart.
“I was separated from my mother, and I was brought into the UK illegally under the name of another child called Mohamed Farah.”
Farah, who became the first British track and field athlete to win four Olympic gold medals, said his children have motivated him to be truthful about his past.
“I’ve been keeping it for so long, it’s been difficult because you don’t want to face it, and often my kids ask questions, ‘Dad, how come this?’ And you’ve always got an answer for everything, but you haven’t got an answer for that,” he said.
“That’s the main reason in telling my story because I want to feel normal and don’t feel like you’re holding on to something.”
‘Just being honest’
Farah’s wife, Tania, said in the year leading up to their 2010 wedding she realized “there was lots of missing pieces to his story” but she eventually “wore him down with the questioning” and he told the truth.
During the television program, Farah said he thought he was going to Europe to live with relatives and recalled going through a UK passport check under the guise of Mohamed at the age of 9.
“I had all the contact details for my relative and once we got to her house, the lady took it off me and right in front of me ripped them up and put it in the bin and at that moment I knew I was in trouble,” he said.
Farah eventually told his physical education teacher Alan Watkinson the truth and moved to live with his friend’s mother, Kinsi, who “really took great care” of him, and stayed seven years.
It was Watkinson who applied for Farah’s British citizenship, which he described as a “long process” and on July 25, 2000, Farah was recognized as a British citizen.
Farah, who named his son Hussein after his real name, said: “I often think about the other Mohamed Farah, the boy whose place I took on that plane, and I really hope he’s OK.
“Wherever he is, I carry his name and that could cause problems now for me and my family.
“The important thing is for me to just be able to look, this is what’s happened and just being honest, really.”
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Heat Wave Grips Spain as UK Readies for Soaring Temperatures
Spain and Portugal were sweltering in their second heat wave in a month Monday, with scorching temperatures also expected in France and Britain in the coming days.
People in Spain baked with the temperature in the central town of Candeleda hitting a stifling 43.3 degrees Celsius (110 degrees Fahrenheit) shortly after 6 p.m. (1600 GMT), according to Spain’s meteorological agency AEMET.
The mercury meanwhile hit 42.4C in the southern city of Seville.
The southwestern cities of Badajoz and Merida also saw temperatures of 42C.
AEMET forecast 46C in Badajoz on Thursday and Friday with Seville predicted to swelter in 45C on Wednesday and Thursday.
“This heat wave really has the potential to be exceptional,” said AEMET representative Ruben del Campo.
The current temperature surge began Sunday and could “last nine or 10 days, which would make it one of the three longest heat waves Spain has seen since 1975,” he told AFP.
Heat waves have become more frequent due to climate change, scientists say. As global temperatures rise over time, heat waves are expected to become more intense.
June had already seen Spain grapple with temperatures above 40C in swathes of the country.
The previous month was Spain’s hottest May since the beginning of the century.
In August 2021, Spain recorded its highest ever temperature when the mercury reached 47.4C (117 degrees Fahrenheit) in the small southern town of Montoro.
Meteorologists did not rule out the prospect of that record being broken in the coming days.
The heightened temperatures have been accompanied by a lack of rainfall.
Reservoirs in Spain stood at 45.3% of capacity Monday, well below the average of 65.7% recorded during the same period over the past decade.
In neighboring Portugal temperatures topped 44C over the weekend, fueling wildfires and vast smoke clouds which were visible in the capital Lisbon.
Firefighters brought the largest blaze under control Monday after it had burned through swathes of the central municipality of Ourem, local officials said.
‘Maximum risk’
While temperatures eased somewhat in Portugal on Monday, they were expected to soar again in the coming days with 44C forecast for the southeastern city of Evora.
“In the coming days we will experience conditions of maximum risk,” Prime Minister Antonio Costa said.
“The slightest lapse in vigilance could result in a fire of significant proportions.”
A front of hot air began pushing into France Monday, with the mercury rising above 30C across much of the country, according to national weather forecaster Meteo-France.
Temperatures could hit 39C in some parts of France Tuesday, Meteo-France added. The heat wave should reach its peak between Saturday and next Tuesday, said Sebastien Leas of Meteo-France.
Britain on Monday issued an extreme heat warning, with temperatures predicted to hit more than 30C across large parts of England and Wales.
The extreme heat warning was classified as “amber,” the second-highest alert level, indicating a “high impact” on daily life and people.
Met Office deputy chief meteorologist Rebekah Sherwin said the U.K. highs would continue into early next week.
“From Sunday and into Monday, temperatures are likely to be in excess of 35C in the southeast (of England), although the details still remain uncertain,” she said.
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Drought Forces Somali Livestock Farmers to Live in Camps for Displaced People
Somalia is normally a top exporter of livestock to the Middle East, especially during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. But a record drought in the Horn of Africa has wiped out millions of livestock, leaving Somali livestock farmers struggling — some forced to live in camps for displaced people. For VOA, Mohamed Sheikh Nor reports from Mogadishu, Somalia.
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UN: World Population to Reach 8 Billion on November 15
The world’s population is expected to reach 8 billion on November 15, the United Nations said Monday, with India replacing China as the world’s most populous country.
The United Nations released its report, World Population Prospects 2022, on World Population Day, which is observed every year on July 11. This year’s theme is “A world of 8 billion: Towards a resilient future for all — Harnessing opportunities and ensuring rights and choices for all.”
Despite 2022 being a “milestone year” for global population, according to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, the population growth rate fell below 1% in 2020 and is growing at its slowest pace since 1950.
The U.N. said global population could potentially reach 8.5 billion in 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050 and 10.4 billion by the 2080s. The population is projected to remain steady at 10.4 billion until 2100.
More than half of the growth by 2050 is expected to come from Africa, which is the world’s fastest-growing continent, the U.N. said. The growth in Africa comes despite a slowing global fertility rate, which is expected to decline to 2.2 births per woman by 2050, down from 2.5 births in 2019, and 3.2 births in 1990.
World Population Day is a reminder of the world’s most pressing issues, including overpopulation. The current global population stands at 7.942 billion people.
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In Spain, Culture Battle Rages over Store Signs
The red on beige sign outside La Torre shop advertises the kind of underwear earlier generations might have worn, mostly knickerbockers and girdles.
The shop — known as The Tower in English — has been a standard in Barcelona for more than 120 years, preserving a glimpse into the city’s past.
La Torre has withstood the relentless march of Starbucks, McDonald’s, and other international corporate chains which, critics say, have eaten up the souls of downtowns. Other period shops, cinemas or libraries have not been so fortunate and have been forced to close.
Campaigners in Spain are determined to safeguard a form of heritage which they say is increasingly under threat: the shop signs which advertise small businesses often run by families.
Described as the “Indiana Jones of the Lost Shop Signs” by the Spanish newspaper ABC, they advocate for everything from the Art Deco cinema signs, old-fashioned flashing Buy Easy signs and the ornate golden shoe shop signs.
The commercial signs outside shops that have long shaped the identity of cities, towns and villages are a part of our past, said volunteers from the Iberian Network in Defense of Graphic Heritage, a collective of about 50 projects across Spain.
Heritage
To most people, heritage sums up the idea of castles, priceless paintings, and royal jewels. But these campaigners contend that the urban landscape which most people inhabit every day is as much a part of our treasured past too.
Heritage legislation in Spain protects everything from cathedrals to castles to bullfighting but not shop signs – so far. So, campaigners must first convince local councils to protect these symbols of everyday life.
“We are against nostalgia because it says that the past is better than the present or the future. We want to preserve these shop signs because they represent something from the past that we can use to learn about for the future,” Alberto Nanclares, of the Iberian Network, told VOA in an interview.
Nanclares said the organization began in 2014 after the then government abolished a law which guaranteed cheap rents to companies, driving many small shops out of business. He said they plan to open a museum to show off the signs they have saved.
“It should be very popular because it will attract designers, architects, elderly people who want to see the past and people who want to take their grandparents to see the place where they grew up,” he added.
Laura Asensio is a graphic designer who has been working for an organization called Valladolid with Character. They hope to stop Valladolid, a northern Spanish, from becoming a bland version of many other cities across Europe.
Volunteers are mapping out the old shop signs which have been saved or at risk from being lost.
Asensio said she hopes to convince the city council to change local laws to preserve this part of the city’s heritage. A book will be published with photographs in December detailing this part of the city life for future generations.
“The reason we started this organization is to stop shop signs from being lost to globalization. All over Europe, city centers are being dominated by McDonalds, Zara, or Burger King,” she told VOA.
Laura Aseguradade, an interior designer, and member of the Iberian Network, said younger people may not appreciate the value of the architectural heritage of their own cities.
“But if you don’t value traditions and distinctiveness of your cities then Madrid ends up looking much like Barcelona or London with the same chains springing up due to globalization,” she told VOA from her home in Madrid.
“We are not against globalization, but the architectural heritage brings value to your city because it makes it different to other places which is important for tourism and the quality of life.”
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