U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken encouraged the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to have “free, fair, and on-time elections” while expressing concern over the detention of a Congolese opposition leader arrested soon as Blinken arrived the country for a brief visit.

“We’ve seen just in the last 24 hours a possible setback to the importance of having the right environment for elections and for the civic space with the detention of an opposition political leader,” said Blinken on Wednesday during an election transparency event in the capital, Kinshasa.

“We’re trying to get more facts, we’ve raised this with our colleagues in the government here, we have full respect for the laws of the DRC,” he said. “But we are concerned about any steps taken that could actually reduce the political space, especially as the country heads into elections,” he said.

On Tuesday, Jean-Marc Kabund, a former close political ally of DRC President Felix Tshisekedi but now an opposition leader, was arrested.

His lawyers said Kabund was accused of contempt of the head of state.  Kabund was once seen as a leading figure behind Tshisekedi’s rise to power. The two had a falling out earlier this year and Kabund started his own political party. 

Earlier on Wednesday, Blinken met with DRC’s Prime Minister Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde in Kinshasa where the two “discussed the importance of organizing and holding free and fair elections as scheduled in 2023,” according to the State Department.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) plans to provide an additional $10 million to promote peaceful political participation and transparency in DRC’s elections, bringing total U.S. support for the Congolese elections to $23.75 million.

The central African country is scheduled to have its presidential, legislative and provincial assembly elections next year.

Some information in this report comes from Reuters. 
…

your ad here

Elon Musk has sold nearly $7 billion worth of shares in Tesla as the billionaire gets his finances in order ahead of his court battle with Twitter.

Musk disclosed in series of regulatory filings that he unloaded about 8 million shares of his company Tesla Inc. in recent days.

“In the (hopefully unlikely) event that Twitter forces this deal to close and some equity partners don’t come through, it is important to avoid an emergency sale of Tesla stock,” Musk tweeted late Tuesday.

Musk is by far the largest individual shareholder in both Tesla and Twitter.

Shares of Tesla rose almost 2% before the opening bell Wednesday. Shares of Twitter Inc., up 16% in the past month with most believing Musk faces long-shot odds of success in court, jumped another 3%.

Musk countersued Twitter last week, accusing the company of fraud over his aborted $44 billion acquisition. He claimed that Twitter held back critical information and misled his team about the size of its user base.

Musk alleges that Twitter committed fraud, breach of contract and violation of a securities law in Texas, where Musk lives.

Musk offered to buy Twitter earlier this year, then tried to back out of the deal claiming the social platform was infested with a larger number of “spam bots” and fake accounts than Twitter had disclosed.

Musk said in the spring that he planned no major sales of his stake in Tesla after lining up financing to acquire Twitter, but Dan Ives, an industry analyst with Wedbush, said Wednesday that “the situation has dramatically changed.”

Wedbush raised its target price for shares of Twitter, “With the chances of a Twitter deal now more likely in our opinion and the Street seeing through this poker move by Musk,” Ives wrote to clients.

“We can also see Musk trying to resolve this powder keg situation before the Twitter deal officially heads to court in October,” Ives wrote. “At a minimum, we see Twitter getting a massive settlement from Musk in the $5 billion to $10 billion range that is starting to be factored into the stock.”
…

your ad here

A Mississippi grand jury has declined to indict the white woman whose accusation set off the lynching of Black teenager Emmett Till nearly 70 years ago, most likely closing the case that shocked a nation and galvanized the modern civil rights movement. 

After hearing more than seven hours of testimony from investigators and witnesses, a Leflore County grand jury last week determined there was insufficient evidence to indict Carolyn Bryant Donham on charges of kidnapping and manslaughter, Leflore County District Attorney Dewayne Richardson said in a news release Tuesday. 

The decision comes despite recent revelations about an unserved arrest warrant and the 87-year-old Donham’s unpublished memoir. 

The Rev. Wheeler Parker Jr., Emmett Till’s cousin and the last living witness to Till’s Aug. 28, 1955, abduction, said Tuesday’s announcement is “unfortunate, but predictable.” 

“The prosecutor tried his best, and we appreciate his efforts, but he alone cannot undo hundreds of years of anti-Black systems that guaranteed those who killed Emmett Till would go unpunished, to this day,” Parker said in a statement. 

“The fact remains that the people who abducted, tortured, and murdered Emmett did so in plain sight, and our American justice system was and continues to be set up in such a way that they could not be brought to justice for their heinous crimes.” 

Ollie Gordon, another one of Till’s cousins, told The Associated Press that some justice had been served in the Till case, despite the grand jury’s decision. 

“Justice is not always locking somebody up and throwing the keys away,” Gordon said. “Ms. Donham has not gone to jail. But in many ways, I don’t think she’s had a pleasant life. I think each day she wakes up, she has to face the atrocities that have come because of her actions.” 

A third cousin, Deborah Watts, who leads the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation, said the case is an example of the freedom afforded to white women to escape accountability for making false accusations against Black men. 

“She has still escaped any accountability in this case,” Watts said. “So, the grand jury’s decision is disappointing, but we’re still going to be calling for justice for Emmett Till. It’s not over.” 

An email and voicemail seeking comment from Donham’s son Tom Bryant weren’t immediately returned Tuesday. 

In June, a group searching the basement of the Leflore County Courthouse discovered the unserved arrest warrant charging Donham, then-husband Roy Bryant and brother-in-law J.W. Milam in Till’s abduction in 1955. While the men were arrested and acquitted on murder charges in Till’s subsequent slaying, Donham, 21 at the time, was never taken into custody. 

Visiting family

The 14-year-old Chicago boy was visiting relatives in Mississippi when he and some other children went to the store in the town of Money where Carolyn Bryant worked. Relatives told the AP that Till had whistled at the white woman, but denied that he touched her as she’d claimed. 

In an unpublished memoir obtained last month by the AP, Donham said Milam and her husband brought Till to her in the middle of the night for identification but that she tried to help the youth by denying it was him. She claimed that Till then volunteered that he was the one they were looking for. 

Till’s battered, disfigured body was found days later in a river, where it was weighted down with a heavy metal fan. The decision by his mother, Mamie Till Mobley, to open Till’s casket for his funeral in Chicago demonstrated the horror of what had happened and added fuel to the civil rights movement. 

Acquitted, then admitted killing

Following their acquittal, Bryant and Milam admitted to the abduction and killing in an interview with Look magazine. They were not charged with a federal crime, and both have long since died. 

In 2004, the U.S. Department of Justice Department opened an investigation of Till’s killing after it received inquiries about whether charges could be brought against anyone still living. 

Till’s body was exhumed, in part to confirm it was he. A 2005 autopsy found that Till died of a gunshot wound to the head, and that he had fractures in his wrist bones, skull and femur. 

In 2006, the FBI launched its Cold Case Initiative in an effort to identify and investigate racially-motivated murders. Two years later, Congress passed the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act. 

The Justice Department said the statute of limitations had run out on any potential federal crime, but the FBI worked with state investigators to determine if state charges could be brought. In February 2007, a Mississippi grand jury declined to indict anyone, and the Justice Department announced it was closing the case. 

“Insufficient evidence”

But federal officials announced last year that they were once again closing their investigation, saying there was “insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she lied to the FBI.” 

Timothy Tyson, the North Carolina historian who interviewed Donham for his 2017 book, “The Blood of Emmett Till,” said the newly rediscovered warrant did nothing to “appreciably change the concrete evidence against her.” But he said the renewed focus on the case should “compel Americans” to face the racial and economic disparities that still exist here. 

“The Till case will not go away because the racism and ruthless indifference that created it remain with us,” Tyson wrote in an email Tuesday. “We see generations of Black children struggle against these obstacles, and many die due to systemic racism that is every bit as lethal as a rope or a revolver.” 

For Gordon, the renewed attention on the Till case has been a reminder of the social progress it helped spark. 

“It helps the younger generations identify how far we’ve come with the many liberties and civil rights that we’ve gained since Emmett’s death,” Gordon said. “As his mother would say, his death was not in vain.”
…

your ad here

The U.S. has completed its final step in ratifying NATO’s expansion to include Sweden and Finland. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb reports on the most significant expansion of the military alliance in more than two decades, which needs only seven more countries for completion
…

your ad here

Former President Donald Trump claims he is being politically persecuted after the Federal Bureau of Investigation searched his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida on Monday, in what appeared to be part of a long-running investigation of whether he has kept official documents instead of sending them to the National Archives when he left office. White House bureau chief Patsy Widakuswara looks at the political fallout of the search.
…

your ad here

A 51-year-old man from Afghanistan was charged Tuesday with killing two Muslim men in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and authorities said he is suspected in the slayings of two others whose deaths sparked fear in Muslim communities nationwide. 

Officials announced the arrest of Muhammad Syed a day after he was taken into custody. 

Police Chief Harold Medina made the announcement on Twitter, saying that authorities had tracked down a vehicle believed to be involved in one of the slayings in New Mexico’s largest city. 

“The driver was detained, and he is our primary suspect for the murders,” the tweet said. 

Investigators received tips from the city’s Muslim community that pointed them toward Syed, who arrived in the U.S. sometime in the last several years, police said. 

He was pulled over and taken into custody along Interstate 40 in Santa Rosa, about 110 miles east of Albuquerque. 

The slayings drew the attention of President Joe Biden, who said such attacks “have no place in America.” They also sent a shudder through Muslim communities, where some people questioned their safety and limited their movements. 

When told about the announcement, Muhammad Imtiaz Hussain, brother of one of the victims, Muhammad Afzaal Hussain, said he felt relieved but needed to know more about the suspect and the motive. 

“This gives us hope that we will have (the) truth come out,” he said. “We need to know why.” 

Naeem Hussain was killed Friday night, and the three other men died in ambush shootings. 

Hussain, 25, was from Pakistan. His death came just days after those of Muhammad Afzaal Hussain, 27, and Aftab Hussein, 41, who were also from Pakistan and members of the same mosque. 

The earliest case involves the November killing of Mohammad Ahmadi, 62, from Afghanistan. 

Authorities on Monday sought help searching for a vehicle that appeared to be the one discovered on Tuesday. 

The common elements in the deaths were the victims’ race and religion, officials said, and police were trying to determine if the deaths are linked. 

Debbie Almontaser, a Muslim community leader in New York, said that a female friend who lives in Michigan and wears the hijab head covering shared with her over the weekend just how rattled she was. “She’s like, ‘This is so terrifying. I’m so scared. I travel alone,'” Almontaser said. 

Aneela Abad, general secretary at the Islamic Center of New Mexico, described a community reeling from the killings, its grief compounded by confusion and fear of what may follow. 

“We are just completely shocked and still trying to comprehend and understand what happened, how and why,” she said. 

Some people have avoided going out unless “absolutely necessary,” and some Muslim university students have been wondering whether it is safe for them to stay in the city, she said. The center has also beefed up its security. 

Police initially said the same vehicle was suspected of being used in all four homicides — a dark gray or silver four-door Volkswagen that appeared to be a Jetta or Passat with dark tinted windows. But the police chief’s tweet referred only to the vehicle’s connection with one slaying. 

Authorities released photos hoping people could help identify the car and offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to an arrest. 

Investigators did not say where the images were taken or what led them to suspect the car was involved in the slayings. Police spokesperson Gilbert Gallegos said in an email Monday that the agency has received tips regarding the car but did not elaborate. 

Gallegos said he could not comment on what kind of gun was used in the shootings, or whether police know how many suspects were involved. 

Few anti-Muslim hate crimes have been recorded in Albuquerque over the last five years, according to FBI data cited by Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism and a professor of criminal justice at California State University at San Bernardino. 

From 2017 through 2020, there was one anti-Muslim hate crime a year. The highest recent number was in 2016, when Albuquerque police recorded six out of a total of 25 hate crimes. 

That largely tracks with national trends, which hit the lowest numbers in a decade in 2020, only to increase by 45% in 2021 in a dozen cities and states, Levin said. 

Albuquerque authorities say they cannot determine if the slayings were hate crimes until they have identified a suspect and a motive. 

It was not clear whether the victims knew their attacker or attackers. 

The most recent victim was found dead after police received a call of a shooting. Authorities declined to say whether the killing was carried out in a way similar to the other deaths. 

Muhammad Afzaal Hussain had worked as a field organizer for a local congresswoman’s campaign. 

Democratic Rep. Melanie Stansbury issued a statement praising him as “one of the kindest and hardest working people” she has ever known. She said the urban planner was “committed to making our public spaces work for every person and cleaning up legacy pollution.” 

As land-use director for the city of Española — more than 137 kilometers (85 miles) north of Albuquerque — Hussain worked to improve conditions and inclusivity for disadvantaged minorities, the mayor’s office said. 

 
…

your ad here