Month: August 2022

Explainer: Why Kenya’s Presidential Election is Important

Posted on by SeeAF

Kenyans are voting Tuesday to choose a successor to President Uhuru Kenyatta after a decade in power. The race is close and could go to a runoff for the first time.

One top candidate is Raila Odinga, an opposition leader in his fifth run for the presidency who is supported by his former rival Kenyatta. The other is William Ruto, Kenyatta’s deputy who fell out with the president.

Both tend to focus far more on domestic issues, raising the question of how either will follow up on Kenyatta’s diplomatic efforts to quell the tensions in neighboring Ethiopia or disputes between Rwanda and Congo.

What’s at stake?

Kenya is East Africa’s economic hub and home to about 56 million people. The country has a recent history of turbulent elections. Even then, it stands out for its relative stability in a region where some elections are deeply challenged and longtime leaders such as Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni have been declared the winner with almost 99% of votes, or been widely accused of physically cracking down on contenders.

Kenya has no transparency in campaign donations or spending. Some candidates for Parliament and other posts are estimated to be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to gain access to power and its benefits, both legal and illegal.

What are the main candidates’ platforms?

The 55-year-old Ruto promotes himself to the young and poor as a “hustler” who rose from humble beginnings as a chicken seller in contrast to the elite backgrounds of Kenyatta and Odinga. He seeks greater agricultural productivity and financial inclusion.

Agriculture is a main driver of Kenya’s economy and about 70% of the rural workforce is in farming. In his final campaign speech on Saturday, he said if elected, his government will deploy 200 billion shillings ($1.6 billion) a year to increase job opportunities.

The 77-year-old Odinga, famous for being jailed while fighting for multi-party democracy decades ago, has promised cash handouts to Kenya’s poorest and more accessible health care for all. In his final campaign speech on Saturday, he said that if elected, his government in its first 100 days would begin paying 6,000 shillings ($50) to families living below the poverty line.

What do voters care about?

Odinga and Ruto have long circled among contenders for the presidency, and there is a measure of apathy among Kenyans, especially younger ones in a country where the median age is about 20. The electoral commission signed up less than half of the new voters it had hoped for, just 2.5 million.

Key issues in every election include widespread corruption and the economy. Kenyans have been hurt by rising prices for food and fuel in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and that comes after the financial pain of the COVID-19 pandemic. More than a third of the country’s youth are unemployed.

When will Kenya have a winner?

Official results will be announced within a week of the vote. To win outright, a candidate needs more than half of all votes and at least 25% of the votes in more than half of Kenya’s 47 counties. No outright winner means a runoff election within 30 days.

The previous presidential election in 2017 made history when a top court overturned the results and ordered a new vote, a first in Africa. If the courts again call for a new vote, such an election would take place within 60 days of the ruling. Candidates or others have a week after the results are declared to file a petition to the court, which has two weeks to rule on it.

“I want you to know that we as a country are at an inflection point,” Odinga told the crowd listening to his campaign speech Saturday. “Either something very good will happen or something terrible will happen.”

He vowed to shake the hand of his “rivals” whether he wins or loses.

Ruto said Saturday he would “respect the decision of the people of Kenya” and won’t accept violence or participate in anything that undermines the constitution.
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UK Museum Agrees to Return Looted Benin Bronzes to Nigeria

Posted on by SeeEU

A London museum agreed Sunday to return a collection of Benin Bronzes looted in the late 19th century from what is now Nigeria as cultural institutions throughout Britain come under pressure to repatriate artifacts acquired during the colonial era. 

The Horniman Museum and Gardens in southeast London said that it would transfer a collection of 72 items to the Nigerian government. The decision comes after Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments formally asked for the artifacts to be returned earlier this year and following a consultation with community members, artists and schoolchildren in Nigeria and the U.K., the museum said. 

“The evidence is very clear that these objects were acquired through force, and external consultation supported our view that it is both moral and appropriate to return their ownership to Nigeria,” Eve Salomon, chair of the museum’s board of trustees, said in a statement. “The Horniman is pleased to be able to take this step, and we look forward to working with the NCMM to secure longer term care for these precious artifacts.” 

The Horniman’s collection is a small part of the 3,000 to 5,000 artifacts taken from the Kingdom of Benin in 1897 when British soldiers attacked and occupied Benin City as Britain expanded its political and commercial influence in West Africa. The British Museum alone holds more than 900 objects from Benin, and National Museums Scotland has another 74. Others were distributed to museums around the world. 

The artifacts include plaques, animal and human figures, and items of royal regalia made from brass and bronze by artists working for the royal court of Benin. The general term Benin Bronzes is sometimes applied to items made from ivory, coral, wood and other materials as well as the metal sculptures. 

Increasing demand for returns

Countries including Nigeria, Egypt and Greece, as well indigenous peoples from North America to Australia, are increasingly demanding the return of artifacts and human remains amid a global reassessment of colonialism and the exploitation of local populations. 

Nigeria and Germany recently signed a deal for the return of hundreds of Benin Bronzes. That followed French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision last year to sign over 26 pieces known as the Abomey Treasures, priceless artworks of the 19th century Dahomey kingdom in present-day Benin, a small country that sits just west of Nigeria. 

But British institutions have been slower to respond. 

Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Information and Culture formally asked the British Museum to return its Benin Bronzes in October of last year. 

The museum said Sunday that it is working with a number of partners in Nigeria and it is committed to a “thorough and open investigation” of the history of the Benin artifacts and the looting of Benin City. 

“The museum is committed to active engagement with Nigerian institutions concerning the Benin Bronzes, including pursuing and supporting new initiatives developed in collaboration with Nigerian partners and colleagues,” the British Museum says on its website. 

BLM inspires museum to ‘reset’

The Horniman Museum also traces its roots to the Age of Empire. 

The museum opened in 1890, when tea merchant Frederick Horniman opened his collection of artifacts from around the world for public viewing. 

Amid the Black Lives Matter movement, the museum embarked on a “reset agenda,” that sought to “address long-standing issues of racism and discrimination within our history and collections, and a determination to set ourselves on a more sustainable course for the future.” 

The museum’s website acknowledges that Frederick Horniman’s involvement in the Chinese tea trade meant he benefitted from low prices due to Britain’s sale of opium in China and the use of poorly compensated and sometimes forced labor. 

The Horniman also recognizes that it holds items “obtained through colonial violence.” 

These include the Horniman’s collection of Benin Bronzes, comprising 12 brass plaques, as well as a brass cockerel altar piece, ivory and brass ceremonial objects, brass bells and a key to the king’s palace. The bronzes are currently displayed along with information acknowledging their forced removal from Benin City and their contested status. 

“We recognize that we are at the beginning of a journey to be more inclusive in our stories and our practices, and there is much more we need to do,” the museum says on its website. “This includes reviewing the future of collections that were taken by force or in unequal transactions.” 
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New Mexico Police Seek Public’s Help in Probe of 4 Muslim Slayings

Posted on by SeeUS

Police in New Mexico on Sunday asked for the public’s help in locating a “vehicle of interest” in their probe of four fatal shootings of Muslim men whose slayings in Albuquerque over the past nine months are believed by investigators to be related.

The latest victim, police said, was gunned down on Friday night, in a killing that local Islamic leaders said occurred shortly after he had attended funeral services for two others slain during the past couple of weeks.

All three of those men, as well as the very first victim who was shot dead in November, were Muslim men of Pakistani or Afghan descent who resided in Albuquerque, the state’s largest city, police said.

Police have given few details of the latest murder but described the first three killings as ambush shootings. Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has characterized them as “targeted killings of Muslim residents.”

U.S. President Joe Biden posted a message on Twitter on Sunday expressing solidarity with the Muslim community, adding, “These hateful attack have no place in America.”

Albuquerque police officials told a news conference hours later that they were following a number of leads and issued a bulletin with photos of a four-door, dark gray Volkswagen sedan with tinted windows that they described as a “vehicle of interest” in the investigation.

It was left unclear how the car was tied to the case, and police said they had yet to determine whether they were seeking one or more suspects in the investigation.

The three latest victims belonged to the same mosque, according to Tahir Gauba, a spokesperson for the Islamic Center of New Mexico. Officials were withholding the identity of the man killed on Friday pending notification of next of kin.

But Gauba said he was killed shortly after attending the funeral for the two previous victims.

Muhammed Afzaal Hussain, 27, a planning director for the city of Espanola who immigrated from Pakistan, was shot dead on Aug. 1 outside his apartment complex, less than a week after Aftab Hussein, 41, from Albuquerque’s large Afghan community, was found slain on July 26 near the city’s international district, police said. Hussain also worked on the campaign team for U.S. Representative Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico.

Police said they are treating those two slayings, along with Friday’s killing, as linked to the Nov. 7 murder of 62-year-old Mohammad Ahmadi, also a Muslim from Afghanistan, who was shot to death in a parking lot outside a halal supermarket and cafe.

“There are several things in common with all four of the homicides,” city police spokesman Gilbert Gallegos told reporters on Sunday.

Asked whether investigators consider the killings to be hate crimes, Gallegos said, “Hate is determined by motive, and we don’t know that motive at this point.”

Gauba estimated there are 3,000 to 5,000 Muslims living in and around Albuquerque, a city of more than 564,000 residents overall, and they account for about 85% of the entire state’s Islamic population.

New Mexico State Police, the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service are among the agencies assisting in the investigation.
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Ukraine Grain Headed for Lebanon Under Wartime Deal Delayed

Posted on by SeeEU

The scheduled arrival Sunday of the first grain ship to leave Ukraine and cross the Black Sea under a wartime deal has been delayed, a Lebanese Cabinet minister and the Ukrainian embassy said.

The cause of the delay was not immediately clear and Marine Traffic, which monitors vessel traffic and the locations of ships at sea, showed the Sierra Leone-flagged Razoni at anchor in the Mediterranean Sea near Turkey.

Lebanon’s transportation minister, Ali Hamie, tweeted the ship “that was supposed, according to what was rumored, to reach Tripoli port in Lebanon” changed its status. Hamie refused to comment further when contacted by The Associated Press.

The ship left Odesa last Monday carrying Ukrainian corn and later passed inspection in Turkey. It was supposed to arrive in the northern port of Tripoli at about 10 a.m. Sunday. According to Marine Traffic, the ship Saturday changed its status to “order” meaning the ship was waiting for someone to buy the corn.

The Ukrainian embassy in Beirut said the arrival of the ship has been postponed adding that an “update for the ceremony will be sent later when we get information about [the] exact day and time of the arrival of the ship.”

The shipment that was supposed to arrive in Lebanon comes at a time when the tiny Mediterranean nation is suffering from a food security crisis, with soaring food inflation, wheat shortages and bread lines. The ship is carrying some 26,000 tons of corn for chicken feed.

The passage of the vessel was the first under a breakthrough deal brokered by Turkey and the United Nations with Russia and Ukraine. The four sides signed deals last month to create safe Black Sea shipping corridors to export Ukraine’s desperately needed agricultural products as Russia’s war upon its neighbor grinds on.

Lebanon’s worst economic crisis in its modern history that began in late 2019 has left three-quarters of its population living in poverty while the Lebanese pound has lost more than 90% of its value.

The economic meltdown rooted in decades of corruption and mismanagement was made worse by a massive blast in August 2020 that destroyed Beirut’s port and the country’s main grain silos inside the sprawling facility. Large parts of the silos collapsed in recent days after fire caused by remnants of grain that started fermenting and ignited in the summer heat last month.

Lebanese officials said last week that the Razoni was supposed to leave Ukraine and head to Lebanon on Feb. 24 but the departure was delayed by the war that broke out days later.

On Friday, three more ships carrying thousands of tons of corn left Ukrainian ports and traveled through mined waters toward inspection of their delayed cargo, a sign that the international deal to export grain held up since Russia invaded Ukraine was slowly progressing.

Four more ships carrying agricultural cargo held up by the war in Ukraine received authorization Sunday to leave the country’s Black Sea ports.
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Temperatures Rise as France Tackles Worst Drought on Record

Posted on by SeeEU

France on Sunday braced for a fourth heatwave this summer as its worst drought on record left parched villages without safe drinking water and farmers warned of a looming milk shortage in the winter.

Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne’s office has set up a crisis team to tackle a drought that has forced scores of villages to rely on water deliveries by truck, prompted state-run utility EDF to curb nuclear power output and stressed crops.

Temperatures were expected to hit 37 Celsius in the southwest Sunday before the baking hot air spreads north early in the week.

“This new heatwave is likely to set in,” La Chaine Meteo, similar to the U.S. cable service The Weather Channel, said.

National weather agency Meteo France said it was the worst drought since records began in 1958 and that the drought was expected to worsen until at least the middle of the month. On average, less than 1cm of rain fell across France in July.

The corn harvest is expected to be 18.5% lower this year compared with 2021, the agriculture ministry has said, just as Europeans contend with higher food prices as a result of lower-than-normal grain exports from Russia and Ukraine.

Meanwhile, a shortage of fodder because of the drought meant there could be a shortage of milk in the months ahead, the National Federation of Farmers’ Unions said.

Nuclear operator EDF last week reduced its power output at a plant in southwestern France due to high river temperatures on the Garonne, and it has issued rolling warnings for reactors along the Rhone river.

The hot weather has compounded the utility’s problems, with corrosion problems and extended maintenance at half of its 56 reactors reducing capacity as Europe faces an energy crunch.

Water restrictions are in place across almost all of mainland France to conserve water, including hosepipe and irrigation bans.
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Group in California Holds Food Festivals to Aid Ukraine

Posted on by SeeUS

A group of friends in California is organizing food festivals to help Ukraine – volunteers cook Ukrainian food and teach everyone willing to learn. VOA Russian visited a festival in this report narrated by Anna Rice.
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Tiny African Kingdom Offers Skiing as Europe Sweats Summer Heat

Posted on by SeeAF

While millions across Europe sweat through a summer of record-breaking heat, they’re skiing in Africa.

Don’t worry. This isn’t another sign of climate change but rather the fascinating anomaly of Lesotho, a tiny mountain kingdom completely surrounded by South Africa. Lesotho has an obscure geographical claim to fame: It’s the only country on Earth where every inch of its territory sits more than 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) above sea level.

That gives Lesotho snow in the southern hemisphere’s winters. And while cold winters aren’t rare in southern Africa, snow is and ski resorts are even rarer. At an altitude of 3,000 meters (9,842 feet), Afriski in Lesotho’s Maluti Mountains is Africa’s only operating ski resort south of the equator.

“I’ve never seen snow in my life,” said Kafi Mojapelo, who traveled the short distance from South Africa for a skiing vacation she never thought she’d take. “So, this is a great experience.”

Bafana Nadida, who comes from the sprawling urban township of Soweto in Johannesburg, was delighted with putting ski boots on for the first time. He planned a day of ski lessons, taking pictures and just playing about in the snow.

Skiers and snowboarders lined up to rent the proper gear. Some were given pointers by Hope Ramokotjo, who is from Lesotho and has worked as a self-taught ski and snowboard instructor for 12 years. His wide smile and deep, reassuring voice puts beginners at ease.

“Push your heels out. Don’t pull your shoulders,” Ramokotjo called out to his class of keen yet inexperienced African skiers as they wobbled along on the snow. “Here you go! Nice!”

Afriski’s Kapoko Snow Park is the only freestyle snow park on the continent. Competitors lined up last month for the annual Winter Whip Slopestyle snowboard and ski competition. Sekholo Ramonotsi, a 13-year-old from the Lesotho city of Butha-Buthe who practices regularly at Afriski, won the junior snowboard and ski divisions.

“I would really like to ski in Europe,” he said.

London-born Meka Lebohang Ejindu said he has taught skiing and snowboarding in Austria for more than a decade, and this is his first season in the southern hemisphere. He has family roots in Lesotho.

“For a competition like this to happen in southern Africa is so heartwarming,” he said.

Afriski may not be at the level of Europe’s vast Alpine resorts, but a love of winter sports is catching.

At Afriski’s Sky Restaurant and Gondola Cafe, happy hour starts at 10 a.m. and skiers and boarders show off their winter fashions and party to house music, beers in hand. Some claim the bar is the highest in Africa, although that’s challenged by the Sani Mountain Lodge, 130 kilometers (80 miles) to the east on the Lesotho-South Africa border.

What no one can dispute is this crowd went skiing in Africa.
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At Least 100,000 Expected for NASA’s Moon Launch

Posted on by SeeUS

Sold-out hotels. Excitement that seems to grow by the day. The potential for hundreds of thousands of visitors, support staff, and more.

These are just a few of the factors being calculated into preparations for Artemis I, the first launch of NASA’s moon-focused Space Launch System rocket slated for Aug. 29. Standing 322 feet tall, it promises to be the biggest, most powerful rocket to launch from the Space Coast in years – bringing with it a level of excitement to match.

All told, Space Coast officials are expecting at least 100,000 visitors for the rocket’s first window, which includes opportunities on Aug. 29, Sept. 2, and Sept. 5 (Labor Day). Currently, T-0 on Aug. 29 is set for 8:33 a.m. ET. Pad 39B will host.

The rocket is part of NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to put humans back on the moon sometime this decade. That starts with the uncrewed Artemis I mission and its plan to take an Orion capsule on a four-to-six-week journey to the moon and back. Artemis II will do the same with astronauts, then Artemis III will put two astronauts on the surface sometime after 2024.

Hotels and tourism

The Space Coast isn’t a stranger to launch day crowds. During the space shuttle era that ran through 2011, half a million or more visitors would sometimes flood the area, scooping up hotel rooms and packing local businesses.

Since then, crowds have been smaller, but still significant. Even during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, thousands still flocked to Brevard County to see launches.

Some of the recent SpaceX Crew Dragon launches, which take astronauts to the International Space Station from KSC, have drawn between 100,000 and 250,000 visitors, according to Peter Cranis, executive director of the Space Coast Office of Tourism. It wouldn’t be a stretch to expect more than 100,000 for Artemis I.

“I think the crewed launches and these Artemis launches are going to be of equal interest to people,” Cranis said. “I would expect certainly over 100,000, if not more, coming for that.”

As of June, Cranis said, Brevard County had 10,734 hotel rooms and 4,500 vacation rental units. Each unit can obviously accommodate more than one person, but those numbers likely won’t be impacted by spectators driving from Orlando, for example, to see the launch without staying overnight.

Speaking to the greater launch cadence, Cranis said Artemis also supports his office’s efforts at marketing the Space Coast. Both KSC and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station have hosted 32 launches this year, a pace not seen since the 1960s.

“Our marketing line is we’re the only beach that doubles as a launch pad and now that’s a message we can put out there because the frequency is so elevated,” he said. “Being known for that is something that makes us special among our peers who obviously have beaches to promote, but no space program.”

Just glancing at hotel room listings shows a rapidly dwindling supply among those that haven’t been sold out.

The space-themed Courtyard by Marriott Titusville – Kennedy Space Center is one of the area’s newest hotels. Completed this year and opened to the public in April, it boasts views of KSC and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station pads and even has a rooftop “Space Bar” specifically for launch viewing.

All the Courtyard’s rooms, along with the Space Bar, are sold out for Artemis I.

“We’ve had more and more people discover the hotel since it opened in April, with steadily increasing room bookings and patronage of The Space Bar on the roof,” said Glen White, director of corporate communications for Delaware North. The company franchised the Courtyard hotel brand and paid for the project.

“We also anticipate having people book rooms and visit the Space Bar to feel the excitement of seeing Artemis on the launch pad in the days leading up to launch,” White said.

Delaware North’s main Space Coast operation is the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, which is expecting to sell out its Artemis day offerings.

“We are expecting capacity crowds at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex for the upcoming Artemis launch,” said Therrin Protze, the visitor complex’s chief operating officer. “(The visitor complex) will offer special Artemis launch viewing packages that will include some of the closest public viewing opportunities with distinctive experiences like live commentary from space experts and access to select exhibits and attractions.”

Artemis I’s launch ties in with the complex’s recently opened “Gateway: The Deep Space Launch Complex” exhibit, which focuses on the future of spaceflight. Inside the new exhibit is a scale model of the SLS rocket, a flown Orion capsule similar to the one on Artemis I, and other items like a ceiling-mounted SpaceX Falcon Heavy booster.

The visitor complex’s tickets for Artemis I viewing will go on sale 11 a.m. Tuesday, Aug. 2, at the Kennedy Space Center website.

Kennedy Space Center and media

Crowds gathering to see the launch as spectators aren’t the only visitors expected on the Space Coast. Hundreds of media members from around the world have signed up to cover the liftoff, too.

KSC’s public affairs team confirmed at least 700 media have signed up so far, a figure that dwarfs typical launches and is closer to crowds seen during the space shuttle program. Heather Scott, a spokesperson for the Space Force’s Space Launch Delta 45, said the military branch will also be pitching in to help manage media.

“The growing sense of energy and excitement that has been steadily building around Kennedy and among our workforce in the last year is tangible,” said Mike Bolger, director of KSC’s Exploration Ground Systems. “A sense of anticipation is growing daily as we close in on launching this amazing rocket and spacecraft.”

From an employee perspective, launch day car passes that can be used to bring personal vehicles – and family and friends, in most cases – are highly sought after.

And it’s not just about launch day viewing: employees not directly working on Artemis have been handling non-critical items for those who are, even going as far as buying their lunch to help free up time.

“Our teams are laser-focused on walking SLS and Orion through the final steps before its maiden flight around the moon, but the excitement across the center is palpable,” KSC Director Janet Petro said. “You can see it in peoples’ faces, you can hear it in their voices, and when we all stand together with our eyes to the sky on launch day, I don’t think there will be a feeling in the world like it.”
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WW2 Bomb Revealed in Drought-Hit Waters of Italy’s Po River

Posted on by SeeEU

Heatwaves sweeping Europe this summer have brought not just record high temperatures and scorched fields: the drought-stricken waters of Italy’s River Po are running so low they revealed a previously submerged World War Two bomb.

Military experts defused and carried out a controlled explosion on Sunday of the 450-kg (1,000-pound) bomb, which was discovered on July 25 near the northern village of Borgo Virgilio, close to the city of Mantua.

“The bomb was found by fishermen on the bank of the River Po due to a decrease in water levels caused by drought,” Colonel Marco Nasi said.

It was no easy task to clear the bomb.

About 3,000 people living nearby were evacuated for the disposal operation, the army said. The area’s airspace was shut down, and navigation along that stretch of the waterway as well as traffic on a railway line and state road close by were halted.

“At first, some of the inhabitants said they would not move, but in the last few days, we think we have persuaded everyone,” said Borgo Virgilio’s mayor, Francesco Aporti, adding that if people had refused to go, operations would have been halted.

Bomb disposal engineers removed the fuse from the U.S.-manufactured device, which the army said contained 240 kg (530 pounds) of explosive.

Then the bomb squad, escorted by police, transferred the device to a quarry in Medole municipality about 45 km (30 miles) away, where it was destroyed.

Italy declared a state of emergency last month for areas surrounding the Po, which is the country’s longest river. It accounts for roughly a third of Italy’s agricultural production and is suffering its worst drought for 70 years.
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Somali Parliament Endorses New Cabinet Amid Al-Shabab Attacks      

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Somali members of parliament gathered at the presidential palace in the capital, Mogadishu, Sunday and overwhelmingly endorsed new Cabinet ministers appointed by Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre last week. During the vote, several mortar explosions hit the capital.

Somali parliament speaker Adan Mohamed Nur Madobe told the gathering at the palace’s highly fortified villa Hargaisa that 229 members of parliament voted in favor of the Cabinet, seven voted against it and one abstained.

Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre addressed parliament after the vote and welcomed the outcome.

He said, “I want to pledge another time that we will work on how to help our people who are facing droughts, to work on security and implement our program that is in front of you while we are working with unity and accountability to overcome all the challenges we are facing. I want to thank you again for your overwhelming approval.”

Among the ministers whom parliament endorsed was Mukhtar Robow Ali, known as Abu Munsor— the former deputy leader and spokesman in militant group al-Shabab. He is now becoming the religious affairs minister.

Mursal Mohamed Khaliif, a member of the federal parliament, spoke to VOA about the approval process.

“Despite a handful of members of parliament trying to create chaos during the proceedings, the overwhelming majority of parliamentarians, 229 of them, voted in favor of approving the new Cabinet. I am very excited to have been a part of those proceedings and I wish all the new Cabinet success in executing their duties,” he said.

Anwar Abdifatah Bashir, a lecturer at Somali National University and a Horn of Africa political analyst, VOA by phone that the new government is taking over at a crucial time.

“This comes as Somalia is facing a number of challenges including, but not limited, to protracted drought, insecurity within the country, as well as the border with Ethiopia where al-Shabab recently attacked in the Somali region in Ethiopia,” he said.

During the vote in the capital, several mortar shells hit the city.

Eyewitness in Mogadishu’s Warta Nabada neighborhood told VOA that several rounds of shells landed near the presidential palace.

A police officer confirmed the attack to VOA but declined to give details on casualties.

Al-Shabab claimed responsibility and said it had shelled the palace with seven mortar rounds.

Meanwhile, in the town of Jowhar, the capital of Somalia’s Hirshabele state, a bomb blast near a hotel that al-Shabab attacked last month wounded at least five people, including a soldier, two children and two women. No one has claimed responsibility.

Ibrahim Ali Nur, a local journalist in the town, spoke with VOA and said the explosion destroyed several properties. Jowhar is an agricultural town located 90 kilometers north of Mogadishu.

 
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US Senate Democrats Poised to Approve Climate, Tax Legislation 

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U.S. Senate Democrats, over uniform Republican opposition, are poised Sunday to approve sweeping legislation to combat climate change, trim health care costs and raise taxes on highly profitable corporations.

The measure, a scaled-down version of President Joe Biden’s long-stalled economic legislative plan, calls for the biggest U.S. investment ever in attacking the effects of global warming, $370 billion to boost the use of clean energy, encourage Americans to buy electric vehicles and reduce plant-warming emissions 40% by 2030.

The legislation would also for the first time authorize the U.S. government to negotiate the cost of some drugs with pharmaceutical companies to potentially lower the cost of medicines for older Americans, extend health insurance subsidies for millions of people and impose a 15% minimum tax on billion-dollar companies that now pay nothing. The bill would also add 87,000 more federal tax agents to further scrutinize individual and corporate tax returns to catch tax cheaters and cut the chronic U.S. budget debt by about $300 billion.

The measure narrowly survived a key test vote Saturday by a 51-50 margin, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote after all 50 Senate Democrats supported the legislation and the 50-member Republican caucus uniformly opposed it.

Democrats engaged in months of rancorous debate over what was originally a $2 trillion measure, what Biden called his Build Back Better plan. Now, with U.S. consumers worried about the sharpest increase in consumer prices in four decades — a 9.1% annualized surge in June — Democrats are calling the legislation the Inflation Reduction Act.

However, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office review of the legislation said the bill’s provisions would have a “negligible effect” on inflation during the remainder of 2022 and little effect next year either.

The entirety of the legislation appeared doomed until Senate Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, with Biden’s approval, was recently able to reach agreement with two centrist Democrats, Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, on tax and climate control provisions in the proposal that they would accept.

As debate opened Saturday, before lawmakers from both parties offered an array of amendments that were rejected, Schumer said, “This historic bill will reduce inflation, lower costs, fight climate change, and it’s time to move this nation forward.”

Senate debate on the measure was continuing Sunday but Democrats are hoping to approve the legislation later in the day, almost certainly on the same 51-50 party-line margin requiring Harris to cast the tie-breaking vote as she did on the opening vote to begin debate. If the Senate approves it, the House of Representatives is expected to pass it Friday and send it to the White House for Biden’s signature.

The debate also played out on Sunday television talk shows.

Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, who supports the legislation, told CNN’s “State of the Union” show that its passage would give the tax-collecting Internal Revenue Service agency the greatly expanded staff it needs to “go after” tax cheats and “the biggest earners.”

He also noted that Americans “overwhelmingly want to cut the cost of their medicine,” a provision that could be achieved for some drugs prescribed for older Americans under the country’s Medicare health insurance program.

But Republican Senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina balked at Blumenthal’s analysis of the measure, saying that tax agents are “going after Uber drivers and nurses. They’re going after everyone.”

He said the legislation is “going to make everything worse. It’s not going to help [cut] inflation.”
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Ivory Coast President Pardons Predecessor Gbagbo to Boost ‘Social Cohesion’

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Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara on Saturday said he had offered a presidential pardon to longtime rival Laurent Gbagbo, as part of a reconciliation drive with his predecessors ahead of elections in 2025. 

Gbagbo, president from 2000-2011, returned to Ivory Coast last year after being acquitted in 2019 by the Hague on war crimes charges for his role in a civil war sparked by his refusal to concede defeat after the 2010 election.

Back home, he still faced a 20-year prison sentence for a 2019 conviction linked to the robbery of funds from the Abidjan central bank during the post-election period. He has always denied the charges.

“In order to further strengthen social cohesion, I have signed a decree granting a presidential pardon to Laurent Gbagbo,”  Ouattara said in a televised speech to the nation ahead of its independence day on Sunday.

He said he had also asked for Gbagbo’s accounts to be unfrozen and for the payment of the arrears of his presidential lifetime annuity.

The decision follows a rare meeting in July between Ouattara, Gbagbo, and former president Henri Konan Bedie.

The trio have dominated Ivory Coast’s fractious political scene since the 1990s. Bedie was president from 1993 until his ouster in a 1999 coup. Gbagbo governed from 2000 until his election defeat to Ouattara in 2010.

Tensions came to a head most dramatically after the 2010 election. Gbagbo refused to concede defeat, leading to a brief civil war that killed about 3,000 people before rebel forces aligned with Ouattara swept into the main city Abidjan.

Ouattara has presided over relative stability during his decade in power. But dozens of people were killed in clashes that broke out around the 2020 election, when he stood for a third term that Gbagbo and Bedie said was unconstitutional. 

The president has not yet said whether he plans to run for a fourth term in 2025. He has said he would like to step down but also suggested he would need Gbagbo and Bedie to commit to withdrawing from politics in order to do so.

They have not so far indicated what their plans are.
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Ukrainian Risks Her Life To Rescue Wild Animals From War

Posted on by SeeEU

Natalia Popova has found a new purpose in life: Rescuing wild animals and pets from the devastation wrought by the war in Ukraine.

“They are my life,” says the 50-year-old, stroking a light-furred lioness like a kitten. From inside an enclosure, the animal rejoices at the attention, lying on her back and stretching her paws up toward her caretaker.

Popova, in cooperation with the animal protection group UA Animals, has already saved more than 300 animals from the war; 200 of them went abroad and 100 found new homes in western Ukraine, which is considered safer. Many of them were wild animals who were kept as pets at private homes before their owners fled Russian shelling and missiles.

Popova’s shelter in the Kyiv region village of Chubynske now houses 133 animals. It’s a broad menagerie, including 13 lions, a leopard, a tiger, three deer, wolves, foxes, raccoons and roe deer, as well as domesticated animals like horses, donkeys, goats, rabbits, dogs, cats and birds.

The animals awaiting evacuation to Poland were rescued from hot spots such as eastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv and Donetsk regions, which see daily bombardments and active fighting. The Ukrainian soldiers who let Popova know when animals near the front lines need help joke that she has many lives, like a cat.

“No one wants to go there. Everyone is afraid. I am also scared, but I go anyway,” she said.

Often, she is trembling in the car on her way to rescue another wild animal.

“I feel very sorry for them. I can imagine the stress animals are under because of the war, and no one can help them,” Popova said.

In most cases, she knows nothing about the animals she rescues, neither their names and ages nor their owners.

“Animals don’t introduce themselves when they come to us,” she joked.

For the first months of the war, Popova drove to war hot spots alone, but a couple from UA Animals recently offered to transport and help her.

“Our record is an evacuation in 16 minutes, when we saved a lion between Kramatorsk and Sloviansk,” Popova said. An economist by education with no formal veterinary experience, she administered anesthesia on the lion because the animal had to be put to sleep before it could be transported.

Popova says she has always been very attached to animals. In kindergarten, she built houses for worms and talked to birds. In 1999, she opened the first private horse club in Ukraine. But it wasn’t until four years ago that she saved her first lion.

An organization against slaughterhouses approached her with a request for help saving a lion with a broken spine. She did not know how she could help because her expertise was in horses. But when she saw a photo of the big cat, Popova could not resist.

She built an enclosure and took in the lion the next morning, paying the owner. Later, Popova created a social media page titled “Help the Lioness,” and people began to write asking for help saving other wild animals.

Yana, the first lioness she rescued, has become a family member since she could not find a new home due to a disability. Popova took care of her until she died two weeks ago.

The shelter is just a temporary stop for the animals. Popova rehabilitates them and then looks for new homes for them. She feels a special connection with each big cat but says she does not mind letting them go.

“I love them, and I understand that I do not have the resources to provide them with the comfortable life they deserve,” says Popova.

At first, she bankrolled the shelter with her own funds from the horse business. But since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, the horse business has not been profitable. With more than $14,000 a month needed to keep animals healthy and fed, she has turned to borrowing, and seen her debt grow to $200,000.

She gets some money from UA Animals and from donations but worries about how to keep everything together have kept her up at night.

“But I will still borrow money, go to hot spots and save animals. I can’t say no to them,” she said.

Popova sends all her animals to the Poznań Zoo in Poland, which helps her evacuate them and find them new homes. Some animals have already been transported to Spain, France and South Africa. Her next project is sending 12 lions to Poland this week.

With no end to the fighting in sight, Popova knows she will still be needed.

“My mission in this war is to save wild animals,” she says.
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Tons of Grain Leaving Ukraine

Posted on by SeeEU

Four grain ships are to sail from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports Sunday.

The Joint Coordination Center, the body set up under the Black Sea Grain Initiative to monitor its implementation, has authorized the departures through the maritime humanitarian corridor.

The ships moving out of Ukrainian ports are headed to China, Italy and two locations in Turkey.

A fifth ship has been authorized to sail to Ukraine to pick up cargo.

Ukraine is one of the world’s breadbaskets and the blockage of its ports has resulted in rising global food prices and the threat of famine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in his daily address Saturday denounced Amnesty International for its “eloquent silence” in failing to address the Russian shelling of Zaporizhzhia NPP, the Ukrainian power plant that is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. The silence, Zelenskyy said, “indicates the manipulative selectivity of this organization.”

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency addressed the nuclear power plant situation in a statement Saturday, saying, “Military action jeopardizing the safety and security of the Zaporizhzya nuclear power plant is completely unacceptable and must be avoided at all costs.” 

Amnesty International released a report last week saying that “Ukrainian forces have put civilians in harm’s way by establishing bases and operating weapons systems in populated residential areas, including in schools and hospitals, as they repelled the Russian invasion that began in February.”

In response, Zelenskyy said then, “There cannot be, even hypothetically, any condition under which any Russian attack on Ukraine becomes justified. Aggression against our state is unprovoked, invasive and openly terroristic.”

Oksana Pokalchuk, the head of Amnesty International Ukraine, also took issue with the global organization’s report and has resigned from her post in protest.
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The Ugandan Woman Behind TV for the Deaf

Posted on by SeeAF

When Susan Mujawa Ananda heard a deaf man had been shot and wounded during the global health crisis, she decided to act.

His family says he didn’t know there was a curfew.

Ananda’s solution to bridging the information gap was to set up an online television channel for deaf people.

“The security guys called upon him to explain why he was moving beyond curfew hours and unfortunately because he did not hear, he kept on moving.”

Late last year Ananda, who is a sign language interpreter, teamed up wither her friend Simon Eroku, who is deaf.

After winning a grant, they founded Signs TV.

In a typical broadcast the news is read by two deaf anchors and simultaneously signed by an interpreter, going slowly to match the anchor’s pace.

The screen also carries subtitles.

Eroku said the future of communication must be inclusive.

“This implies that we have to ensure that everyone in the community should be able to understand the message you’re passing on and we believe that if information is inclusive for everyone even us as deaf people will be able to benefit from it.”

Signs TV made its first broadcast in April and employs eight staff including four deaf anchors. For now it produces only one weekly news roundup on Saturdays due to financial, staffing and technical constraints.

Up to about 800 viewers have watched individual bulletins so far and the numbers are growing. Ananda says Signs TV has ambitions to expand including offering sports and talk shows.
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US Supreme Court Ruling Could Topple State, Local Gun Laws

Posted on by SeeUS

The Supreme Court ruling expanding gun rights threatens to upend firearms restrictions across the country as activists wage court battles over everything from bans on AR-15-style guns to age limits.

The decision handed down in June already has led one judge to temporarily block a Colorado town from enforcing a ban on the sale and possession of certain semi-automatic weapons.

The first major gun decision in more than a decade, the ruling could dramatically reshape gun laws in the U.S. even as a series of horrific mass shootings pushes the issue back into the headlines.

“The gun rights movement has been given a weapon of mass destruction, and it will annihilate approximately 75% of the gun laws eventually,” said Evan Nappen, a New Jersey gun rights attorney.

The court battles come as the Biden administration and police departments across the U.S. struggle to combat a surge in violent crime and mass shootings, including several high-profile killings carried out by suspects who purchased their guns legally.

And given the sheer number of cases now working through the courts, a lot more time will be spent in courtrooms no matter who wins.

“We will see a lot of tax dollars and government resources that should be used to stop gun crime being used to defend gun laws that are lifesaving and wildly popular,” said Jonathan Lowry, chief counsel and vice president at Brady, the gun control group.

Congress broke through years of deadlock to pass a modest gun violence prevention package weeks ago, and the House voted to renew a ban on high-powered semi-automatic weapons, though that effort is likely doomed in the Senate as Republicans push back on firearms restrictions and say recent spikes in gun violence should be met with a stepped-up police response.

The Supreme Court decision struck down a New York law requiring people to demonstrate a particular need to get a license to carry a concealed gun in public, saying it violates Second Amendment rights. Several other states including California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island have similar laws expected to be directly impacted by the ruling.

In Massachusetts, for example, police chiefs can no longer deny or impose restrictions on licenses just because the applicant doesn’t have a “good reason” to carry a gun. New York quickly passed a new concealed-weapon law, but Republicans there predict it will also end up being overturned.

In its New York ruling, the high court’s conservative majority also changed a test lower courts had used for evaluating challenges to gun laws.

Judges should no longer consider whether the law serves public interests like enhancing public safety, the opinion authored by Justice Clarence Thomas said. Instead, they should only weigh whether the law is “consistent with the Second Amendment’s text and historical understanding.”

“Basically, the Supreme Court has given an invitation for the gun lobby to file lawsuits against virtually every gun law in America,” Lowry said.

The Supreme Court has ordered lower courts to take another look at several other cases under the court’s new test. Among them: laws in California and New Jersey that limit the amount of ammunition a gun magazine can hold and a 2013 ban on “assault weapons” in Maryland.

Gun rights groups are also challenging similar bans in California, New York, New Jersey and Delaware.

“The rifles at issue in this case are the sorts of bearable arms in common use for lawful purposes that responsible and peaceable people across the United States possess by the millions. And they are, moreover, exactly what they would bring to service in militia duty, should such be necessary,” a New Jersey lawsuit brought in June by the Firearms Policy Coalition says, referencing the language of the Second Amendment.

The ruling also has come up in challenges to restrictions on gun possession for 18- to 20-year-olds in Texas and Pennsylvania. And it has been cited in a case challenging a federal ban on gun possession for people convicted of nonviolent crimes punishable by more than a year behind bars, as well as a prohibition on concealed guns on the subway in Washington, D.C.

In addition, a gun rights group is suing Colorado over the state’s 2013 ban on magazines that hold more than 15 rounds, saying the high court ruling reinforces the group’s argument that it infringes on Second Amendment rights. And the ruling has public defenders in New York City asking judges to drop gun possession cases.

Not all those lawsuits will necessarily be successful. The Texas attorney general, for example, argues the Supreme Court ruling doesn’t affect the state’s age limit law, and more state and local governments can certainly defend their gun laws as being in line with U.S. history.

Adam Skaggs, chief counsel and policy director at the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, predicted that when the dust settles, only laws “along the margins” will eventually be struck down.

“Most judges are going to see these for what they are, which is overreaching and lacking in any merit,” he said.

Backers of gun restrictions can also look to a concurring opinion from Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, Kavanaugh stressed that the Second Amendment does allow for a “variety” of gun regulations. He cited the use of background checks and mental health records as part of a licensing process to carry a gun and noted that states can forbid the carrying of firearms in “sensitive places” such as schools and government buildings.

But the Colorado decision handed down last month, while still early in the process, was a rosy sign for gun rights groups.

U.S. District Court Judge Raymond Moore, who was nominated by President Barack Obama, said he was sympathetic to the town’s goal of preventing mass shootings like the one that killed 10 people at a grocery store in nearby Boulder last year. But Moore said he didn’t know of “historical precedent” for a law banning “a type of weapon that is commonly used by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes,” so the gun rights groups have a strong case against the ordinance.

Encouraged by that decision, Taylor D. Rhodes, the executive director of the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, told The Associated Press that his group was considering going after other gun measures in Colorado, where Democrats hold the majority in the state legislature and the governor’s office.

Referring to the Supreme Court’s ruling, Rhodes said: “The Bruen decision gave us a 4-ton wrecking ball.”
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Study: Wildfires Are Destroying California’s Forest Carbon Credit Reserves

Posted on by SeeUS

Carbon offsets generated from forests to counteract future climate-warming emissions from California’s big polluters are rapidly being depleted as trees are ravaged by wildfire and disease, new research published on Friday suggests.

One of California’s key policy tools to combat climate change may be falling far short of its goals, the researchers said – raising questions about similar carbon offset programs around the world.

The study, published in the journal Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, was conducted by CarbonPlan, a San Francisco-based non-profit that researches the integrity of programs designed to offset carbon emissions. The group’s research has questioned the value of the California forest carbon offset program in fighting climate change in the past.

“The problems we observe here aren’t unique to the California program and raise broader concerns about the integrity of offsets’ permanence claims,” Freya Chay, one of the study’s authors, said in a statement.

Under California law, large emitters face carbon limits and can buy allowances if they exceed them. They may offset up to 4% of their emissions with offset credits, such as those generated from the program’s forest conservation projects in 29 states, according to the California Air Resources Board.

A portion of those credits are put into a buffer account, an insurance mechanism tapped in the event that projects are lost to wildfire, disease, pests or financial risks such as bankruptcy. Those credits are meant to guarantee carbon stocks for at least 100 years. But that promise is falling short as climate change fuels intense wildfires, drought and disease, the researchers said.

Wildfires have depleted nearly one fifth of that buffer pool in less than a decade, the analysis found.

The researchers also projected potential losses associated with the disease sudden oak death, which has killed millions of trees in California and Oregon in the last two decades. Widespread tree mortality due to sudden oak death could wipe out all the credits set aside for disease and insect risks to offset projects, the study estimated.

In an emailed statement, a spokesman for the California Air Resources Board (CARB) said its Compliance Offsets Program was “a prudent part of our program,” and that its risk metrics were based on the information available to the state agency at the time the policy was developed.

“We will of course again assess all relevant science and new information when we conduct our next protocol update,” CARB spokesman David Clegern said, without giving a timeline.
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US Secretary of State Arrives in South Africa

Posted on by SeeAF

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in South Africa on Sunday, the first leg of his three-nation African tour.

In addition to South Africa, Blinken is also set to visit the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda.

Blinken is slated to deliver a major speech in South Africa on Monday on U.S. strategy toward sub-Saharan Africa. Climate change, trade, health and food insecurity will all be topics of discussion.

While in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, State Department officials say Blinken will work to reduce tensions between Congo and Rwanda. Congo has accused its neighbor of backing the M23 armed group, a charge Kigali denies.

In Rwanda, Blinken will raise the “wrongful detention” of U.S. permanent resident Paul Rusesabagina, according to the State Department. Rusesabagina’s actions helped save hundreds of lives during the 1994 genocide and inspired the movie Hotel Rwanda.

His trip comes just days after the top Russian diplomat, Sergey Lavrov, completed his tour of the continent, where he defended Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and blamed Western sanctions for Africa’s rising fuel and food costs.  The United States has blamed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for driving up prices.

Political analysts say Africa has again become a battleground for influence and ideology decades after the end of the Cold War.

This is Blinken’s second trip to Africa as secretary of state, after visiting Nigeria, Senegal and Kenya in November.
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Amnesty International Ukraine Report Sparks Furor, Resignation

Posted on by SeeEU

The head of Amnesty International’s Ukraine chapter has resigned, saying the human rights organization shot down her opposition to publishing a report that said Ukrainian forces had exposed civilians to Russian attacks by basing themselves in populated areas.

In a statement posted Friday night on Facebook, Oksana Pokalchuk accused her former employer of disregarding Ukraine’s wartime realities and the concerns of local staff members who had pushed for the report to be reworked.

The report, released Thursday, drew angry denouncements from top Ukrainian officials and criticism from Western diplomats, who accused the authors of making vague claims that appeared to equate the Ukrainian military’s defensive actions to the tactics of the invading Russians.

“It is painful to admit, but I and the leadership of Amnesty International have split over values,” Pokalchuk wrote. “I believe that any work done for the good of society should take into account the local context and think through consequences.”

Russia has repeatedly justified attacks on civilian areas by alleging that Ukrainian fighters had set up firing positions at the targeted locations.

Pokalchuk said her office had asked the organization’s leadership to give the Ukrainian Defense Ministry adequate time to respond to the report’s findings and argued that its failure to do so would further Kremlin misinformation and propaganda efforts.

“I am convinced that our surveys should be done thoroughly, bearing in mind the people whose lives often depend directly on the words and actions of international organizations,” she said.

In a news release that accompanied the report’s publication, Amnesty International Secretary-General Agnes Callamard said the organization had “documented a pattern of Ukrainian forces putting civilians at risk and violating the laws of war when they operate in populated areas.

“Being in a defensive position does not exempt the Ukrainian military from respecting international humanitarian law,” she said Thursday.

Russian state-sponsored media quoted the report to support Moscow’s claim that Russia has only launched strikes on military targets during the war. The spokesperson for Russia’s Foreign Ministry cited the Amnesty International assertions as proof that Ukraine was using civilians as human shields.

Multiple Western scholars of international and military law went on social media to reject the human shield claim. They said the report contained poor phrasing that muddied legal distinctions and ignored the combat conditions in Ukraine.

United Nations war crimes investigator Marc Garlasco, tweeting in a personal capacity Friday, accused Amnesty International of “getting the law wrong” and said Ukraine was taking steps to protect civilians, such as helping them relocate.

Ukrainian authorities at the national and regional level have repeatedly urged residents of front-line areas to evacuate, although tens of thousands of people who left their homes since Russia’s invasion have returned after running out of support or feeling unwelcome.

Ukrainian leaders, including President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the country’s foreign and defense ministers, have been scathing in their condemnation of the report, which they said failed to provide context on Russia’s bombardments of populated areas and documented attacks on civilians.

Callamard posted a tweet Friday that defended the organization’s work and took aim at its critics. 

“Ukrainian and Russian social media mobs and trolls: they are all at it today attacking Amnesty investigations. This is called war propaganda, disinformation, misinformation. This won’t dent our impartiality and won’t change the facts,” she wrote.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba issued an angry response to Callamard in which he accused her organization of “fake neutrality” and playing into the Kremlin’s hands.

“Apparently, Amnesty’s Secretary General calls me a ‘mob’ and a ‘troll’, but this won’t stop me from saying that its report distorts reality, draws false moral equivalence between the aggressor and the victim, and boosts Russia’s disinformation effort. This is fake ‘neutrality’, not truthfulness,” Kuleba wrote on Twitter.
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Beluga Whale Caught in France’s Seine Not Accepting Food

Posted on by SeeEU

French environmentalists are working around the clock to try and feed a dangerously thin Beluga whale that has strayed into the Seine River. So far, they have been unsuccessful.

Marine conservation group Sea Shepherd France tweeted Saturday that “our teams took turns with the Beluga all night long. It always ignores the fish offered to him.”

The lost Beluga was first seen in France’s river, far from its Arctic habitat, earlier this week. Drone footage subsequently shot by French fire services showed the whale gently meandering in a stretch of the river’s light green waters between Paris and the Normandy city of Rouen, many dozens of kilometers (miles) inland from the sea.

Conservationists have tried since Friday to feed a catch of herring to the ethereal white mammal. Calling it “a race against the clock,” Sea Shepherd fears the whale is slowly starving in the waterway and could die.

Authorities in the l’Eure region said in a Friday night statement that the wild animal has a “fleeing behavior vis-a-vis the boats” and has not responded to attempts to guide it to safer waters.

The people trying to help the whale are being as unobtrusive as possible to “avoid stress that could aggravate his state of health,” according to the statement.
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Huge Crowds Watch Amsterdam Pride’s Canal Parade Celebration

Posted on by SeeEU

Hundreds of thousands of spectators lined Amsterdam’s historic canals Saturday to celebrate the Canal Parade, a Pride flotilla of 80 brightly decorated boats packed with people partying, singing and waving rainbow flags, balloons and umbrellas. 

The boats representing rights groups, bars, clothing brands and even the Dutch military made their way slowly through the waterways in a resumption of the hugely popular LGBTQ Pride event that had been canceled for two years amid the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“We are looking forward to a special edition where ‘being who you are and loving who you want’ is the norm and the struggle for equal rights is the message,” Amsterdam Pride director Lucien Spee de Castillo Ruiz said. 

Spectators were packed several people deep along the Dutch capital’s canals and bridges to watch the 25th version of the parade that was the highlight of the city’s nine-day Pride event. 

Earlier, Dutch police stopped a boat supporting farmers protesting government climate plans to cut nitrogen emissions from joining the parade. Only 80 boats were allowed to take part and they had to register ahead of time. 

The farmers’ boat was decorated with flags saying, “Proud of the Farmers” and “No farmer, no food.” On board was a person in a cow costume and others wearing pink clogs and pink cowboy hats. 

 
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Ethiopia’s Military: 800 Al-Shabab Fighters Killed in Recent Clashes

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Ethiopia’s military says security forces killed more than 800 fighters from the Somali militant group al-Shabab after Shabab fighters launched a rare cross-border attack.

General Tesfaye Ayalew, the head of deployment for Ethiopia’s national defense forces, said more than 800 al-Shabab fighters, including 24 top leaders, were killed in recent operations against the group. 

He said al-Shabab tried to infiltrate Ethiopia through the country’s eastern border but they have been “successfully thwarted by the joint efforts of the security forces.” 

The president of Ethiopia’s Somali state, Mustafe Omar, said in a Twitter statement Friday that another 100 al-Shabab fighters were captured in the recent clashes. He said the group’s misadventure into Ethiopia ended with “a rout of the terrorists.” 

VOA could not independently verify the figures from either official. 

Other security officials in Ethiopia’s Somali state told VOA that there were heavy casualties on Ethiopia’s side and several officials, including local administrators, were captured by al-Shabab. 

Late last month, hundreds of al-Shabab fighters crossed Somalia’s border with Ethiopia and clashed with specially-trained counterterrorism forces known as the Liyu police. The group entered Ethiopia at several sites from Somalia’s border regions of Hiran and Bakool. 

U.S. assessments suggest the Shabab fighters may have penetrated as far as 150 kilometers into Ethiopia before being stopped. 

The president of Ethiopia’s Somali state announced last week that Ethiopian forces will establish a buffer zone inside Somalia to stop further al-Shabab attacks across the border.   

Authorities in Somalia’s Bakool region welcomed the announcement and said it would help stabilize the region.  

Al-Shabab has been fighting the Somali government and African Union troops in Somalia for more than 15 years, carrying out attacks in Somalia and neighboring Kenya. 

Experts believe that the group’s attack in Ethiopia was meant to show the group still poses a danger to Horn of African countries. 

Meanwhile, on Friday, a suicide truck bomb blast targeted a military base in the Hiran region, near the Somali-Ethiopian border, that houses Turkish-trained special forces.  

Officials in the region told VOA by phone that the bombing killed at least one soldier and wounded three.  

Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the attack and said more than 40 soldiers were killed or wounded. 

 
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Blinken Heads to South Africa Amid New ‘Cold War’

Posted on by SeeUS

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrives in South Africa on Sunday, in what analysts say is an attempt to counter Chinese and Russian influence in the region.

Relations between the U.S. and South Africa became strained during President Donald Trump’s time in office. President Joe Biden has taken pains to repair them, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has proved contentious. 

The secretary of state’s second trip to Africa, and his first to South Africa — the continent’s most developed economy and a key democratic ally — comes after a flurry of visits to the region by top Chinese and Russian officials. 

Analysts say that after disregarding Africa for some time, the U.S. is now playing catch-up and trying to counter the growing influence of Beijing and Moscow in the region, in what some say has elements of a new “Cold War.” 

Washington also wants to build support for Ukraine, as many African governments have been loath to condemn Russia’s invasion, in part due to the Soviet Union’s support for African liberation movements during the years when the continent threw off European colonial rule.  

Steven Gruzd, head of the African governance and diplomacy program at the South African Institute for International Affairs, said he doubted South Africa would be pushed into criticizing Russia, its partner, along with China, in the BRICS group of countries.  

“I think Secretary Blinken is not going to find a receptive audience for his message that South Africa must come down on the side of the West, and the U.S. in particular, on the Ukraine-Russian conflict,” Gruzd said. 

Meanwhile, Bob Wekesa, director of the African Center for the Study of the United States at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, noted that China’s influence in Africa has grown considerably, and many African leaders look to Beijing for no-strings-attached infrastructure investments. Russia, too, to a far lesser extent, has made investments in the continent, and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made a four-country visit to Africa last month. 

“It’s actually true that there’s some form of Cold War, even if it’s not the kind of Cold War we saw from the end of the World War II, but it’s a form of geopolitical competition and the U.S. must, therefore, be prepared to be seen to be competing with other powers for influence in Africa,” Wekesa said. 

Nontobeko Hlela, a researcher at the South African office of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, said negative comments about African and other developing countries by former U.S. president Donald Trump did nothing to improve relations. 

“The U.S. will have to work hard to walk back some policy decisions and statements made by the former occupant of the White House,” Hlela said. 

While in South Africa, Blinken will visit Johannesburg’s famous Soweto township, once home to liberation icon and first democratic president Nelson Mandela, as well as take part in South Africa’s Women’s Day celebrations. 

On Monday, he will meet South African counterpart Naledi Pandor and launch the new U.S. Strategy for Sub-Saharan Africa. Climate change, trade, health and food insecurity will all be topics of discussion. 

America’s top diplomat then heads to the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, which are in the middle of a conflict. 

 
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Biden Tests Negative for COVID, White House Physician Says

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President Joe Biden has tested negative for COVID-19 after testing positive with a breakthrough case for days, the White House physician said on Saturday. 

The Democratic president will remain in isolation until he tests negative on a second test, Dr. Kevin O’Connor said in a letter. 

Biden, 79, emerged from isolation on Wednesday after testing positive for COVID-19 for the first time on July 21. He tested positive again on July 30 in what O’Connor described as a “rebound” case seen in a small percentage of people who take the antiviral drug Paxlovid. 

 
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