Month: September 2022

Without Mentioning China, California Close to Blocking Foreign Buyers From Its Farmland

Posted on by SeeUS

California’s legislature has passed a bill banning foreign entities from buying its agricultural land, a move that is part of reignited discussions about whether the United States should block parties from unfriendly countries from buying farmland.

The California bill makes no mention of China, and Governor Gavin Newsom has until the end of the month to sign it into law. But on a national scale, some experts and politicians are concerned that China’s increasing investments in U.S. agriculture pose a threat to the country’s security. Other analysts told VOA Mandarin that those concerns are overblown, saying there is little evidence to suggest that China’s actions are harmful.

Senator Melissa Hurtado, the Democrat who introduced the California bill, represents a district in the Central Valley with some of the world’s richest and most fertile farmland. For her, security is the key issue behind regulating foreign ownership of farmland. “Food can, and is, being used as a weapon like we are seeing in Ukraine,” she said in a statement.

The Food and Farm Security Act, passed by the California Senate on Aug. 31 after passing the Assembly on Aug. 22, “would prohibit a foreign government from purchasing, acquiring, leasing or holding an interest, as defined, in agricultural land within the State of California.”

California grows two-thirds of all fruits and nuts in the United States and one-third of all vegetables. That production “would be jeopardized if foreign governments controlled our agricultural land,” Hurtado said in a statement to VOA Mandarin.

“My concerns are not with a particular foreign government, but rather with the well-being of Californians, Americans and the millions of people around the world who depend on us for food,” Hurtado said. “My bill will help maintain California’s strong agriculture industry and allow us to remain resilient, even during times of global unrest or international conflict.”

The United States does not have a national law regulating the amount of agricultural land that can be foreign-owned.

“It’s very surprising that there are currently no federal regulations governing ownership of agricultural land in the United States,” Caitlin Welsh, director of the Global Food Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank in Washington, told VOA Mandarin. “I do think that this is something that both the federal and state governments of the United States should look into.”

Just 2.9% of U.S. privately owned agricultural land is foreign-owned, according to a December 2020 report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which was the last time such data was released.

Canada accounts for the largest share of foreign-owned U.S. agricultural land at 32%, or 12.4 million acres, as of 2020, according to the report.

China holds 352,140 acres as of 2020, which is slightly less than 1% of foreign-held acreage in the United States.

Fred Gale, an agricultural economist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, does not think China currently poses a threat to the United States through its agricultural land investments because the investments are so small.

“When we look at the composition of land purchased by Chinese owners, only about one-third is real crop land,” Gale told VOA Mandarin. “Most of the rest is what we call other kinds of farmland, which is just a miscellaneous category.”

Chinese investors’ holdings of U.S. agricultural land increased from 13,720 acres in 2010 to 352,140 acres in 2020, according to a May 2022 report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. This rise was mainly due to Shuanghui International buying Smithfield Foods in 2013.

As of 2019, the Chinese-owned Smithfield properties accounted for 76% of all the U.S. agricultural land owned by Chinese entities, according to the May report.

That rapid increase in China’s holdings from 2010 to 2020 prompted much of the concern over Chinese ownership of U.S. agricultural land, according to Cory Combs, an analyst at the China-focused policy research group Trivium.

“It’s poorly understood what’s driving this investment, and to my mind, the real issue is no one really has a clear idea of — Is this state-led investment? Is this opportunism? Is this food security diversification?” Combs told VOA Mandarin. “The unknown — the uncertainty — is what’s really the most threatening aspect of this.”

China’s Washington embassy did not reply to VOA’s email requesting comment.

There isn’t much concern that the top countries that own U.S. agricultural land — such as Canada and the Netherlands — have harmful motives, since their relationships with the United States have long been friendly, Combs said.

China is facing food security issues at home due to arable land lost to rapid urbanization and industrial growth, population decline and natural disasters, according to a report from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. “Recognizing its challenges, China has also gone abroad to address its needs through investments and acquisitions of farmland,” among other means, the report said.

The question of Chinese ownership of U.S. farmland has been a periodic flashpoint — most recently in July, when a Chinese food manufacturer, the Fufeng Group, bought 300 acres of land near Grand Forks, North Dakota, to set up a corn milling plant. The sale raised national security concerns because the project is located about 20 minutes from the Grand Forks Air Force Base.

Following the controversial sale, Republican Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota introduced a bill in August that would ban the governments of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea from buying or investing in U.S. agricultural land.
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King Charles’ History with US Presidents: He’s Met 10 of Past 14

Posted on by SeeEU

Hanging out with Richard Nixon’s daughter Tricia at a White House supper-dance. Swapping stories with Ronald Reagan about horseback riding. Bending the ears of Donald Trump and Joe Biden about climate change. 

King Charles III, who became head of state following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, has made the acquaintance of 10 of the 14 U.S. presidents who have held office since he was born in 1948. 

He was just 10 when he checked off his first president in 1959. That was when Dwight Eisenhower visited the queen and her family at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, where she died on September 8 after a 70-year-reign. 

“I guess you can’t start too early,” said Barbara A Perry, director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. She noted that Charles’ grandson, Prince George, was a toddler when Kensington Palace released a photograph of him shaking hands with Barack Obama during the president’s trip to London in 2016. 

Charles never met Harry Truman, Gerald Ford, Lyndon Johnson and John F. Kennedy, Perry said. 

His encounters with U.S. presidents included what he recalled as an “amusing” weekend visit to Nixon White House in 1970 with his sister Anne, when the 20-year-old future king — one of the world’s most eligible bachelors — sensed there was an effort afoot to set him up. 

“That was the time when they were trying to marry me off to Tricia Nixon,” he later recalled. 

The king has chatted up presidents on his visits to the U.S. and met others when they traveled in the United Kingdom. He was in the company of Trump, Obama, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush when he represented the British monarchy at the state funeral for former President George H.W. Bush in 2018 in Washington. 

Charles met Biden last year at a climate change conference in Glasgow, Scotland. 

The royal has visited America about 20 times since that memorable first trip in the Nixon years, he told CNN last year. 

The royal siblings had been invited to Washington by Nixon’s daughters and son-in-law, Tricia Nixon, Julie Nixon Eisenhower and her husband, David Eisenhower, grandson of President Eisenhower, for that three-day visit in July 1970. 

The young VIPs had a packed schedule that included frolicking at the Camp David presidential retreat, a nighttime tour of Washington’s monuments, museum visits, a luncheon cruise down the Potomac River to George Washington’s estate at Mount Vernon, Virginia, a dance on the South Lawn for 700 guests, and a Washington Senators baseball game. 

Charles and Nixon also met in the Oval Office. But if the president had his heart set a union between his family and the royals, it wasn’t meant to be. 

In June 1971, less than a year after Charles’ visit, Tricia married longtime beau Edward Cox in the White House Rose Garden. A decade later, in July 1981, Charles married Lady Diana Spencer. They divorced in 1996. 

Nixon, himself, had pushed for Charles to visit the U.S. for the perceived public relations bonanza, according to a January 1970 memo he sent his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger. 

“I think this could do an enormous amount of good for U.S.-British relations,” Nixon said. He wrote that he’d been told that Charles “is the real gem” of the royal family and “makes an enormously favorable impression wherever he goes.” 

Charles returned the praise in a thank-you note. 

“The kindness shown to us at the White House was almost overwhelming and for that we are immensely grateful,” the prince wrote to Nixon. “Both my sister and I take back to Britain the most heartwarming evidence of what is known as the special relationship between our two countries and of the great hospitality shown to us by you and your family.” 

Many of the former Prince of Wales’ conversations with recent U.S. presidents centered on his interest in tackling climate change. Charles has campaigned for the environment for 50 years, but he acknowledged after becoming king that his new role requires that he set aside his activism on that and other issues. 

Charles, 73, and Biden, 79, discussed global cooperation on the climate crisis last year while both attended a summit in Glasgow, Scotland. They also met at Buckingham Palace in June 2021 at a reception the queen hosted before a world leaders’ summit in Cornwall. 

Biden rejoined the 2015 Paris climate agreement after Trump as president withdrew the U.S. from the accord. 

Biden and the king spoke on Wednesday, with Biden offering his condolences over the queen. 

Trump has said that during his visit with Charles, the former prince “did most of the talking” and pressed him on climate during a scheduled 15-minute meeting that stretched to 90 minutes in 2019 at Charles’ residence in London. 

During a three-day visit to Washington in 2011, Charles, an advocate of environmentally friendly farming, met with President Obama. In a speech, he praised Michelle Obama’s campaign against childhood obesity and hunger, and U.S. manufacturers’ efforts to produce healthier foods. 

He criticized U.S. government subsidies for large-scale agriculture and encouraged increased business and government support for organic and environmentally friendly food production. 

In his toast at a White House dinner in 2005, the future king told President George W. Bush that the world looks to the United States “for a lead on the most crucial issues that face our planet and, indeed, the lives of our grandchildren. 

“Truly, the burdens of the world rest on your shoulders,” he said. 

In the remarks, Charles also said the trip reminded him of his first visit to America, “when the media were busy trying to marry me off to Tricia Nixon.” 

Visiting with Reagan in the Oval Office in 1981, the two discussed their interest in horseback riding as a steward brought tea. But it was not served the British way. 

Of the experience, Reagan later wrote in his diary: 

“The ushers brought him tea — horror of horrors they served it our way with a tea bag in the cup. It finally dawned on me that he was just holding the cup and finally put it down on the table. I didn’t know what to do,” Reagan confessed. 
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Ukrainian President: Burial Site Contains Torture Victims

Posted on by SeeEU

Investigators searching through a mass burial site in Ukraine have found evidence that some of the dead were tortured, including bodies with broken limbs and ropes around their necks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday.

The site near the northeastern city of Izium, recently recaptured from Russian forces, appears to be one of the largest discovered in Ukraine.

Zelenskyy spoke in a video he rushed out just hours after the exhumations began, apparently to underscore the gravity of the discovery. He said more than 440 graves have been found at the site but that the number of victims was not yet known.

Digging in the rain, workers hauled body after body out of the sandy soil in a misty pine forest near Izium. Protected by head-to-toe suits and rubber gloves, they gently felt through the decomposing remains of the victims’ clothing, seemingly looking for identifying items.

Associated Press journalists who visited the site saw graves marked with simple wooden crosses. Some of the markers bore people’s names and had flowers hanging from them.

Before digging, investigators with metal detectors scanned the site for explosives, and soldiers strung red and white plastic tape between the trees.

Zelenskyy said hundreds of civilian adults and children, as well as soldiers, had been found near Izium’s Pishchanske cemetery after being tortured, shot or killed by artillery shelling.

He cited evidence of atrocities, such as a body with a rope around its neck and broken arms. In another sign of possible torture, one man was found with his hands tied, according to Serhiy Bohdan, the head of Kharikiv police investigations, and Ukraine’s commissioner for human rights, Dmytro Lubinets.

Ukrainian authorities warned that their investigation was just beginning, and the scale of the killings could rise dramatically.

“The harsh reality indicates that the number of dead in Izium may be many times higher than the Bucha tragedy,” Oleg Kotenko, an official with the Ukrainian ministry tasked with reintegrating occupied territories, said on Telegram.

Bucha is a Kyiv suburb where authorities have said 458 bodies were found after a 33-day Russian occupation. Authorities say they have uncovered the bodies of more than 1,300 people elsewhere, many in mass graves in the Kyiv-area forest.

Zelenskyy, who visited the Izium area Wednesday, said the discoveries showed again the need for world leaders to declare Russia a state sponsor of terrorism.

Meanwhile, in his first public comments on Ukraine’s recent battlefield gains, Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed to press on with the war and warned that Moscow could ramp up its strikes on the country’s vital infrastructure if Ukrainian forces target facilities in Russia.

“If the situation develops this way, our response will be more serious,” Putin told reporters Friday after attending a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Uzbekistan.

Russia has reported numerous explosions and fires at civilian infrastructure sites near Ukraine, as well munitions depots and other facilities. Ukraine has claimed responsibility for some of the attacks and refrained from commenting on others.

The “liberation” of Ukraine’s entire eastern Donbas region remained Russia’s main military goal, Putin said.

“We aren’t in a rush,” he said, adding that Russia has only deployed volunteer soldiers to fight in Ukraine.

Some hardline Russian politicians and military bloggers have lamented manpower shortages and urged the Kremlin to follow Ukraine’s example and order broad mobilization to beef up the ranks.

Ukrainian forces gained access to the site near Izium after recapturing the city and much of the wider Kharkiv region in a lighting advance that suddenly shifted the momentum in the nearly seven-month war. Ukrainian officials also found evidence of torture elsewhere in the region.

The U.N. human rights office said it would investigate, and the human rights group Amnesty International said the discovery of the mass burial site confirmed “our darkest fears.”

“For every unlawful killing or other war crime, there must be justice and reparation for victims and their families and a fair trial and accountability for suspected perpetrators,” said Marie Struthers, the group’s director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Most of the people buried at the site were believed to be civilians, but a marker on one mass grave said it contained the bodies of 17 Ukrainian soldiers.

Russian officials distanced themselves from responsibility for the site.

The Khariv region’s Russian-installed governor, Vitaly Ganchev, told Russia’s state-run Tass news agency that Ukrainian, not Russian, forces were responsible for civilian casualties in Izium. Tass also quoted a member of Russia’s parliament, Alexander Malkevich, claiming that Ukrainian troops had abandoned their dead, so Russian forces buried them.

Elsewhere in Ukraine, the war continued to claim lives and wreak destruction.

Ukraine’s presidential office said Russian shelling killed five civilians and wounded 18 in a 24-hour span. Missile strikes were also reported, with Zelenskyy’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih among the targets for a third consecutive day Friday. Air raid sirens howled in the capital, Kyiv.

More killings targeting pro-Russian separatist officials were reported in areas under their control. Separatist authorities said a blast killed the prosecutor-general and his deputy of the self-proclaimed republic in the Luhansk region. Moscow-backed authorities said two Russian-installed officials were also killed in Berdyansk, a city in the Zaporizhzhia region occupied earlier in the war. And local authorities reported three people were killed in a Ukrainian missile strike on an administrative building in Russian-occupied Kherson.

To bolster the Ukrainian offensive, the Biden administration announced another $600 million package of military aid.

Izium resident Sergei Gorodko said that among the hundreds buried in individual graves were dozens of adults and children killed in a Russian airstrike on an apartment building, some of whom he pulled out of rubble “with my own hands.”

Izium was a key supply hub for Russian forces until they withdrew in recent days. Izium city council member Maksym Strelnikov told reporters that hundreds of people had died during the fighting and after Russia seized the town in March. Many couldn’t be properly buried, he said.

His claims could not be immediately verified, but similar scenes have played out in other cities Russian forces captured, including Mariupol.

Ukraine’s national police chief, Ihor Klymenko, said “torture chambers” have been found in the Kharkiv region’s recaptured towns and villages. The claim could not be independently verified.

Seven Sri Lankan students who fell into Russian hands in Kupiansk, also in the Kharkiv region, have also said that they were held and mistreated, he said.

“They are scared, they were abused,” Klymenko said. They include “a woman who can barely speak” and two people with torn toenails.
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Biden Hosts South African President for First White House Visit

Posted on by SeeAF

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa made his first visit to the White House on Friday, where he and US President Joe Biden discussed global security, climate change, trade, food security and health — and African nations’ reluctance to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from the White House.
Video editor: Kim Weeks
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Biden Meets with Families of Whelan, Griner at White House

Posted on by SeeUS

President Joe Biden met Friday with family members of WNBA star Brittney Griner and another American detained in Russia, Paul Whelan, the first face-to-face encounter that the president has had with the relatives.

In a statement after the meetings, which were held separately, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden stressed to the families his “continued commitment to working through all available avenues to bring Brittney and Paul home safely.”

“He asked after the well-being of Elizabeth and Cherelle and their respective families during this painful time,” Jean-Pierre said. “The president appreciated the opportunity to learn more about Brittney and Paul from those who love them most, and acknowledged that every minute they are being held is a minute too long.”

Still, administration officials have said the meetings were not an indication that negotiations with Russia for their release have reached a breakthrough.

Earlier Friday, John Kirby, a spokesperson for the National Security Council, said that Russia has not responded to what administration officials have called a substantial and serious offer to secure Griner and Whelan’s release.

“The president is not going to let up,” Kirby told reporters. “He’s confident that this is going to remain in the forefront of his mind and his team’s mind, and they’re going to continue to work as hard as they can.”

Griner has been held in Russia since February on drug-related charges. She was sentenced last month to nine years in prison after pleading guilty and has appealed the punishment. Whelan is serving a 16-year sentence on espionage-related charges that he and his family say are false. The U.S. government regards both as wrongfully detained, placing their cases with the office of its top hostage negotiator.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken took the unusual step of announcing two months ago that the administration had made a substantial proposal to Russia. Though he did not elaborate on the proposal, a person familiar with the matter has said the U.S. has offered to release convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.

The administration carried out a prisoner swap last April, with Moscow releasing Marine veteran Trevor Reed in exchange for the U.S. releasing a Russian pilot, Konstantin Yaroshenko, convicted in a drug trafficking conspiracy.

Jake Sullivan, the president’s national security adviser, participated in both meetings. Biden sat down with Elizabeth Whelan, the sister of Paul Whelan. Then the president met with Cherelle Griner, the wife of Brittney Griner, as well as the player’s agent, Lindsay Colas, according to the White House.
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US Asks Appeals Court to Lift Judge’s Mar-a-Lago Inquiry Hold

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The Justice Department asked a federal appeals court Friday to lift a judge’s order that temporarily barred it from reviewing a batch of classified documents seized during an FBI search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida home last month.

The department told the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta that the judge’s hold was impeding the “government’s efforts to protect the nation’s security” and interfering with its investigation into the presence of top-secret information at Mar-a-Lago. It said the hold needed to be lifted immediately so work could resume.

“The government and the public would suffer irreparable harm absent a stay,” department lawyers wrote in their brief to the appeals court.

The judge’s appointment of a “special master” to review the documents and the resulting legal tussle appear certain to further slow the department’s criminal investigation. It remains unclear whether Trump, who has been laying the groundwork for another potential presidential run, or anyone else might be charged.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon earlier this month directed the department to halt its use of the records until further court order, or until the completion of a report of an independent arbiter who is to do his own inspection of the documents and weed out any covered by claims of legal privilege.

On Thursday night, she assigned Raymond Dearie, the former chief judge of the federal court based in Brooklyn, to serve as the arbiter — also known as a special master. She also declined to lift an order that prevented the department from using for its investigation about 100 seized documents marked as classified, citing ongoing disputes about the nature of the documents that she said merited a neutral review.

“The Court does not find it appropriate to accept the Government’s conclusions on these important and disputed issues without further review by a neutral third party in an expedited and orderly fashion,” she wrote.

The Justice Department last week asked Cannon to put her own order on hold by Thursday, and said that if she did not, it would ask the appeals court to step in.

The FBI says it took about 11,000 documents, including roughly 100 with classification markings found in a storage room and an office, while serving a court-authorized search warrant at the home. Weeks after the search, Trump lawyers asked a judge to appoint a special master to do an independent review of the records.

In her Sept. 5 order, Cannon agreed to name a special master to sift through the records and filter out any that may be potentially covered by claims of executive privilege or attorney-client privilege.

In appointing Dearie on Thursday, she granted him access to the entire tranche of documents, including classified records. She directed him to complete his review by Nov. 30 and to prioritize the review of classified documents and directed the Justice Department to permit the Trump legal team to inspect classified records with “controlled access conditions.”

The Justice Department disagreed with the judge that the special master should be empowered to inspect the classified records. It said the classified records that were seized do not contain communication between Trump and his lawyers that could be covered by attorney-client privilege and said the former president could not credibly invoke executive privilege to shield government documents that do not belong to him from the investigation.

Though the department had argued that its work was being unduly impeded by the judge’s order, Cannon disagreed, noting in her order Thursday that officials could proceed with other aspects of their investigation, such as interviewing witnesses. 
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Namibia Discovers Oil While Pursuing Green Energy

Posted on by SeeAF

The first “green hydrogen” power plant being built in Africa is expected to begin producing electricity in Namibia in 2024, an official from France-based HDF Energy told Reuters news agency this week.

That presents something of a dilemma for Namibia, which is championing the clean energy but also said this month that huge oil deposits had been discovered off its coast after many failed attempts at drilling.

Green hydrogen is produced by using renewable energy — like wind and sun, both of which Namibia has in abundance — to power the electrolysis of water. A plant producing green hydrogen, a clean power source that can potentially be used for industry and electric vehicles, is due to open in less than two years.

But at the same time, oil companies Shell and Total recently discovered the oil deposits, estimated to amount to more than 1 billion barrels, about 290 kilometers off the Namibian coast. 

Herbert Jauch, the head of a local nonprofit, the Economic and Social Justice Trust, wants Namibia to forsake oil drilling and focus on green hydrogen, a much-touted energy source of the future.

However, Jauch said, it’s “tricky” for Namibia to give up possible oil revenues when advanced nations are still making heavy use of fossil fuels, even as carbon admissions cause global warming.

“The oil discovery coincides with what needs to be the end of fossil fuels, and therefore it is quite tricky for Namibia to move into that direction, to go into large-scale oil exploration,” he said, noting the potential for ecological danger in drilling and the effects of climate change in many countries. By accenting solar energy and green hydrogen, “Namibia could become a front-runner in renewable energy.”

Maggy Shino, the petrol commissioner at the Ministry of Mines and Energy, cautioned that there was still a long way to go before Namibia could become an oil-producing nation.

“We need to understand that for us as explorers, we have a very long journey ahead of us before we can be able to change the narrative to say that we are an oil-producing nation,” Shine said. “We are oil finders, we have oil accumulation, but we are not yet an oil-producing nation. For us to get to that stage, a lot of work still needs to be done.”

Minister of Mines and Energy Tom Alweendo said even if Namibia did begin to produce oil, it would have competition from other African countries, and citizens should not expect a financial windfall from oil revenue. 

“We just came from an oil and gas conference that was held in Senegal,” he said. “Senegal has discovered a lot of oil; so has Ghana; Uganda has oil, although they have not produced yet. So has Equatorial Guinea, so has Angola, so has Nigeria.”
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Turkish Regulator Criticized Over Public Service Video

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Turkish media and LGBTQ groups are questioning a decision by the country’s regulator to classify a video from a coalition of conservative groups as a public service announcement.

The Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTUK) voted to list a video promoting an event scheduled for Istanbul on Sunday as a public service announcement.

The video shows pictures of Pride parades in Turkey, as a narrator calls for people who are “against the LGBT impositions and propaganda” and want to see an end to “global and imperialist lobbies who want to abolish gender, reduce the human generation, and destroy the family unit,” to join the rally.

The video was produced by the Unity in Ideas and Struggle Platform, a group of about 150 conservative nongovernmental organizations.

Critics, including some members of the RTUK board, say the video contains hostile language and could result in attacks on the LGBTQ community.

RTUK did not respond to VOA’s request for comment.

The Unity in Ideas and Struggle Platform has denied promoting hate speech. In a tweet, its head, Kursat Mican, blamed misinformation for the criticism over the video.

“This meeting is not against LGBTI+ individuals,” Mican said in response to an open letter from a parent whose child is gay. “We want to put an end to this trend that threatens the existence of humanity by raising awareness against LGBTI+ propaganda and imposition. We have no other intention than this, beyond that it is a needless assumption.”

Ilhan Tasci, an opposition member of RTUK’s board who voted against the decision, told VOA he believes the video could lead to hate crimes and so should not be broadcast as a public service announcement.

“If something bad happens to some people from the LGBTQ community tomorrow after this public service announcement, which makes them a target, will the RTUK’s president take responsibility?” Tasci said.

Under law, RTUK has the power to list informative or educational content from public institutions and nongovernmental organizations as public service announcements if it deems them to be in the public interest.

The regulator advises radio and TV channels to broadcast the announcements, but media outlets have editorial discretion over what they use.

RTUK shared the video on its website but did not upload it to YouTube, where it often shares public service announcements.

Tasci says the RTUK president has discretion over what is posted to the regulator’s social media accounts.

YouTube guidelines define hate speech as content that “incites hatred or violence against groups based on protected attributes such as age, gender, race, caste, religion, sexual orientation, or veteran status.” In the case of violation, the platform removes the content.

At a panel Thursday, RTUK President Ebubekir Sahin said the media can play a role “in the escalation of hate crimes.” He did not reference the regulator’s decision at the event.

“It is not possible for us to accept the normalization of hate speech and its imposition on society through the media. Hate speech in traditional media is on the rise. At the same time, we unfortunately see that the new media and social media are having the same discourse,” Sahin said.

Several journalism organizations criticized RTUK’s decision.

“Supporting a protest that marginalizes a certain group and supports hostility towards them is definitely not an acceptable attitude. It is an outright contradiction that RTUK paves the way for an anti-LGBTQ public service announcement to be broadcast on TV channels,” Gokhan Durmus, chair of the Journalists Union of Turkey, told VOA.

Yildiz Tar, a journalist and coordinator for KAOS GL — a LGBTQ rights organization and news portal — said the decision appears to reflect a wider policy in Turkey.

“For a long time, there have been lynching calls and campaigns on social media targeting LGBTQ+ people,” Tar told VOA. “With this public service advertisement, the government has said that ‘these lynching calls and hate speeches are our policy.’”

“LGBTQ+ people are portrayed as a community that needs to be fought and destroyed in this country,” Tar said.

Kerem Dikmen, a legal coordinator for KAOS GL, said the RTUK decision contradicts its regulatory role.

“RTUK, as a regulatory body, needs to take measures to prevent hate speech. But it took and executed a decision that would spread hate speech, contrary to its full responsibility, and this is completely illegal,” Dikmen told VOA.

“It is forbidden for LGBTQ+ people to organize Pride Parades in Turkey, and they are prevented from having picnics by the police. But this group can have a protest that spreads hate speech, and this is a political disposition,” Dikmen said.

Pride events have been banned in Turkey since 2015. When a parade took place in Istanbul in 2021, police arrested hundreds of people, including several journalists.

In its 2021 report on human rights in Turkey, the U.S. State Department found “LGBTQI+ individuals experienced discrimination, intimidation and violent crimes.”

This story originated in VOA’s Turkish Service. 
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Air Strikes, Floods Prompt Boko Haram to Flee Nigeria Forest

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Hundreds of Boko Haram jihadists have fled a forest enclave in northeast Nigeria, escaping air strikes by the military and floods from torrential rains to seek shelter on Niger’s side of Lake Chad, sources told AFP.

Northeast Nigeria is facing a 13-year armed insurgency by jihadist groups that has killed more than 40,000 people and forced about 2 million from their homes.

The violence has spilled into neighboring Niger, Chad and Cameroon, with the jihadists maintaining camps in the vast Lake Chad region straddling the four countries.

A Nigerian security source said Boko Haram militants have been leaving the Sambisa forest since last month because of sustained bombing of their hideouts.

Nigeria has also recorded a more intensive rainy season, which usually runs from May through September, and floods have hit almost every part of the country.

“The exodus of the Boko Haram terrorists has increased in recent days as the bombardments have intensified, coupled with the floodings that have submerged many of their camps,” said the security source in the region who asked not to be identified.

On Monday, a convoy of more than 50 trucks carrying Boko Haram fighters and their families passed through villages on a route linking Sambisa with Lake Chad, several residents in the region said.

The fighters are believed to be loyal to Bakura Buduma, a Boko Haram factional leader, the sources said.

“The Boko Haram convoy is definitely heading to the islands on Lake Chad in the Bosso area of Niger where the group has camps,” said a fisherman named Kallah Sani who said he was familiar with Boko Haram movements in the region.

Niger authorities could not immediately confirm the movement.
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Jackson, Mississippi Lifts Boil Water Advisory, but Residents Still Traumatized

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Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves announced progress this week in stemming a prolonged water crisis. For weeks, the 150,000 residents of the state capital, Jackson, were instructed to boil water before drinking it or using it to cook, wash dishes or brush their teeth.

On Thursday, Tate announced the boil-water advisory was lifted, but citizens of America’s poorest state are left with the aftermath of the failure of an essential service — safe, plentiful tap water — that Americans in Jackson and some other parts of the country can no longer take for granted.

“It’s been frustrating to run the water in my bathtub and see it come out brown,” said Ellen Rodgers Daniels, who has lived in Jackson for 16 years. “My family and I brush our teeth with bottled water, and we go to a friend’s house outside city limits to shower, but that’s not a luxury everyone in Jackson has.”

By almost any economic measure, Jackson is an especially impoverished city. A quarter of its residents live below the poverty line, and Jackson’s per capita income of under $23,000 lags far behind a statewide average income that itself is the lowest in the nation.

Lacking clean drinking water has added to people’s woes.

“I haven’t drank tap water in Jackson for years,” Daniels told VOA. “I just drink bottled water, but then I go outside my office and see lines of cars outside the distribution center — people already struggling who now have to leave their jobs so they can get safe drinking water to bring home to their families. It’s heartbreaking.”

Decades in the making

The city had been under a continuous boil water advisory since July. Late last month, flooding from the Pearl River, which runs through Jackson, forced the city’s largest water treatment facility to stop treating drinking water.

As a result, water pressure across Jackson dropped dramatically, leaving residents and businesses with dry taps and few options.

“When the water pressure dropped, we had multiple groups cancel their events,” said Ebony Jones, the owner of a Jackson-based catering company. “And I can’t blame them. Who wants to pay for a caterer making premium locally sourced food at an event with Porta-Johns and paper plates?”

But residents are especially frustrated because this episode was far from an isolated event. In fact, Jackson’s water-related headaches have been going on for decades, said Cristiane Queiroz Surbeck, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Mississippi.

“The only difference this time is that most of the city went without running water for many days due to the major flooding,” Surbeck told VOA. “So there was flooding and a lack of usable water at the same time. But this isn’t new. Jackson has had an ongoing crisis of lead in its drinking water, an ongoing crisis of boil water alerts, an ongoing crisis of leaking water mains, and an ongoing crisis of mismanaged water bills.”

These crises pose real health risks. Consuming water containing high levels of lead can cause health problems in adults and children; in the latter, it can damage the brain and nervous system, slow growth and development, and lead to problems with learning, behavior, hearing and speech. Drinking untreated water that has not been boiled can lead to dangerous microbial infections.

In 2010, a winter storm destroyed several water mains and caused widespread outages. Two years later, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found that Jackson’s drinking water was below national safety standards.

Another winter storm in February 2021 shut down the same water treatment facility that failed in August, leaving residents without water for a month.

Residents say that since the 2021 shutdown, they have often complained of low water pressure, and even of floating sewage in the city’s streets. City officials asked the state to fund repairs, but most of that funding has not arrived, resulting in a series of boil water advisories. Last year alone, Jackson was under such an advisory for a whopping 225 days.

But for many in Jackson, a city in which 83% of the population is Black, the problem goes back even further and is far deeper.

“Mississippi, unfortunately, has a long history of racism, and when the Black population in Jackson sees their water supply in shambles while elsewhere in the state is fine, they don’t just see dangerous lead and damaged pipes,” said attorney Corey Stern, who represented victims of another water crisis in Flint, Michigan, and is now doing the same in Jackson.

“They see decades of institutional racism through which their communities are being ignored and not being invested in.”

A broader problem

Failing infrastructure is a problem confined neither to Jackson nor to water treatment plants. Last year, the American Society of Civil Engineers, or ASCE, estimated it would cost $2.6 trillion over the next decade to fix America’s crumbling roads, dams, airports, railroads, pipes and more.

President Joe Biden’s $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, passed in November, will cover but a fraction of those needs.

“If something costs a certain amount of money to fix and you only give me half, then I can’t fix the problem,” Stern said to VOA. “Unless we meet the price tag to fix our water infrastructure, it’s going to continue to crumble and it’s going to continue to poison our children.”

Experts say communities across the country will suffer as Jackson has if proper investments are not made.

“No drinking water or wastewater infrastructure is designed to last forever,” said Jason Barrett, an assistant extension professor in the Mississippi Water Resources Research Institute at Mississippi State University. “There will be maintenance required for all systems, and you can’t delay the inevitable. If you don’t invest, the results can be disastrous.”

Water system disasters have popped up across the country: Flint, Michigan; Baltimore, Maryland; New York City; and now Jackson.

The ASCE estimates that by 2029, $109 billion will be needed per year to maintain the country’s drinking water and wastewater systems. Jackson is currently requesting $1 billion for its drinking water infrastructure.

“Jackson is not unique,” Barrett told VOA. “Not even in Mississippi. Jackson is the capital city and the largest water system in the state, but we’re seeing the same issues play out all over, from cities to communities of less than 500 people.”

Making things right in Jackson

Stern said Jackson shares some important similarities with Flint, where in 2014 water was found to be contaminated with lead and dangerous bacteria.

“The demographics are suspiciously similar,” he said. “These are areas made up of poorer minority residents, and they’ve experienced decades without getting the investment they should have gotten.”

In his recent announcement, Governor Reeves warned there could be additional boil water advisories for Jackson as federal, state and city officials struggle to get the crisis under control.

Stern believes the sooner the residents of Jackson advocate for themselves in large numbers, the sooner they will force their government’s hand.

“As a lawyer, my job is to fight so my clients get safe and clean drinking water, as well as get compensated for the damage their children have suffered as a result of these systemic failures,” he said. “But what we learned in Flint is that when real people stand up and say, ‘This is my child, and this is what you did to her,’ that’s when they see real results.”

Many Mississippians who live and work in Jackson say they have had enough and are eager for long-term solutions.

“It’s like we’ve become numb to it over the years — these boil water advisories happened so often,” said Jessica Davenport, a Black businesswoman who lives outside Jackson but works in the city. “But this isn’t normal. This is a class issue, and there are specific communities who aren’t receiving the assistance they need. They’ve been forgotten while politicians blame each other, and it needs to stop.”
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King Charles, Siblings Stand Vigil as Mourners Line Grows

Posted on by SeeEU

King Charles and his siblings stood vigil by the coffin of their late mother Queen Elizabeth II on Friday as tens of thousands of mourners queuing to pay their final respects as she lies in state were told they faced a wait of up to 24 hours.  

Charles, Princess Anne, Princes Andrew and Edward, attired in military uniforms, stood in silence with their heads bowed for the 15-minute vigil at the historic Westminster Hall where the coffin of the late monarch has been lying since Wednesday. 

Most of the other members of the British royal family, including some of the queen’s great-grandchildren, watched from a gallery. 

Tens of thousands of people of all ages and from all walks of life have filed past the coffin in a constant, solemn stream to pay tribute to the queen, who died in Scotland on September 8 at age 96 after a 70-year reign. 

Despite the warning of how long it would take to reach the building, mourners continued to join a well-organized line that stretched along the south bank of the Thames, then over the river to Parliament’s Westminster Hall, knowing their wait would last through the night when temperatures were forecast to be cold. 

“We have been overwhelmed by the tide of emotion that has engulfed us and the sheer number of people who have gone out of their way to express their own love, admiration and respect to such a very special and unique person,” Prince Edward, the queen’s youngest son, said in a statement. 

Rosie Beddows, 57, from Sussex, had queued with her husband and son, and happened to pass by the coffin when it was being guarded by the royal family.  

“It was absolutely amazing, so moving, so beautiful. It was an incredibly long day, but we saw the king,” she said, sounding elated. “I can’t believe it. I think he’s going to be a brilliant king.”  

Despite the warning of lengthy queues, repeated across local rail stations, people had flooded into Southwark Park to join the line, many in high spirits. In contrast, those who emerged from Westminster Hall were quiet, reflective and a little stiff.  

Among their number was former England soccer captain David Beckham, who looked tearful as he waited to file past the coffin, having queued for more than 13 hours on his own, snacking on crisps, sweets and doughnuts.  

“We were all here celebrating her majesty today and it didn’t matter how long we were there,” said Beckham. “We were there for a reason. And everyone was together. It was a special few hours.” 

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, in London for the funeral, was another of those who visited Westminster Hall on Friday, stopping to curtsy as she filed past the coffin. 

More than 750,000 people in total are expected to file past the coffin ahead of the state funeral on Monday, which presidents, prime ministers, royalty and other world leaders are due to attend.  

U.S. President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and the leaders of Australia, Canada and Jamaica will join the emperor of Japan among the congregation. 

London’s police force said the funeral would be the biggest security operation it has ever undertaken.  

Visit to Wales 

Charles, who acceded to the throne on his mother’s death, earlier visited Wales on Friday, the last stage of a tour of the United Kingdom to acknowledge his status as the new monarch and head of state and to greet the public.  

Charles and his wife, Camilla, the Queen Consort, attended a service at Cardiff’s Llandaff Cathedral, then talked with cheering well-wishers outside.  

Wales has a particular significance for the new king, who for five decades preceding last week’s accession had the title Prince of Wales. 

There were a few anti-monarchy protesters outside Cardiff Castle, where Charles met Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford.  

Similar small protests have been held outside parliament in London and in Edinburgh over the past days, although Charles has enjoyed a surge in support since he succeeded Elizabeth.  

Defender of faiths 

Later, the new king returned to London to meet faith leaders at Buckingham Palace, where he said he was determined to be “sovereign of all communities.” 

As monarch and Supreme Governor of the Church of England, Charles holds the title “Defender of the Faith,” but he said he his saw his role as stretching beyond his own strong Christian beliefs, and that he had a duty to protect diversity. 

“By my most profound convictions, therefore – as well as by my position as sovereign – I hold myself bound to respect those who follow other spiritual paths, as well as those who seek to live their lives in accordance with secular ideals,” he told the faith leaders.  

“I am determined, as king, to preserve and promote those principles across all communities, and for all beliefs, with all my heart.” 

Following the vigil of the queen’s children on Friday, her eight grandchildren, including the new Prince of Wales, William, and his brother Prince Harry will stand vigil at the coffin on Saturday evening. 

In an adjustment to protocol, both Harry and his uncle Prince Andrew have been allowed to wear military uniforms when they take their turns, royal officials said.  

Both are war veterans, but so far only “working royals” have appeared in uniform while Andrew and Harry have appeared in processions in morning suits after they lost their honorary military titles when they stepped back from public royal duties.
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Botswana to Cull More Than 10,000 Cattle to Fight Disease Outbreak

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Botswana has announced it will cull more than 10,000 cattle in the country’s northeast in a bid to fight an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. One of Africa’s largest beef producers, Botswana was forced in August to halt beef exports over the virus, including to the lucrative European Union. 

Assistant Minister for Agriculture Molebatsi Molebatsi said the decision to kill affected livestock was taken following consultations with disease control experts. 

“The decision to depopulate is the one we have taken,” Molebatsi said. “We took the decision after consultation with experts. We don’t want any traces of the virus to remain or to have any further viral circulation.” 

Molebatsi said 19,000 cattle are in the affected zone, which is near the Zimbabwe border, and more than 10,000 will be slaughtered. Some goats and sheep will also be culled. 

Veterinarian Mbatshi Mazwinduma said culling means farmers must be compensated. 

“It comes at a great cost because it means people have to be compensated,” Mazwinduma said. “And there is also environmental issues of animals that have been slaughtered … on how do you dispose of them safely.”

Mazwinduma said in disease control, there should be certain considerations, particularly for the affected farmers.  

“When you are trying to control the disease, you have to consider the economic, social and often political impact. Politically speaking, remember at times you are going to be slaughtering animals that belong to farmers, and you might push them further into abject poverty,” Mazwinduma said. “Most of the time, the compensation of animals that are slaughtered is nowhere near the equivalent value if they were to sell them at the market.”           

Bose Sethupa, a farmer from the affected region, said while the livelihoods of many people will be affected, the government has to contain the disease. 

“It is a good move to try and contain the spread of the disease, but at the same time, it is not too good to the farmers because the government compensation is lower than the value of what the farmer will be having,” Sethupa said. “But apart from that … the move is good. It is truly meant to protect the export market, which is very key to our economy.” 

Roughly half of Botswana’s beef exports — or about 9,000 tons — are sent to the EU each year. 

 
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Tears, Uncertainty as Migrants Depart Martha’s Vineyard Amid Political Standoff

Posted on by SeeUS

The state of Massachusetts transported migrants off the wealthy island of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, on Friday morning, in response to an unusual move by Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis to fly them there from the border state of Texas.

About 50 migrants, including some half-dozen children, boarded buses to head to the ferry to Cape Cod, leaving some of the island residents who volunteered to shelter them in a church for two nights in tears.

Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, a Republican, said the migrants would be housed temporarily at a Cape Cod military base, organized by state emergency officials.

“I want them to have a good life,” said Lisa Belcastro, who helped organize cots and supplies at St. Andrews Episcopal Church, which sits among expensive white-clapboard homes in Edgartown. “I want them to come to America and be embraced. They all want to work.”

The migrants were flown to Martha’s Vineyard as part of an escalating effort by Republican governors to call attention to what they view as Democratic U.S. President Joe Biden’s failure to secure the U.S.-Mexico border amid record attempted crossings.

DeSantis, who is running for reelection in November, has taken credit for transporting the migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, though the legal basis for the Florida government to round up migrants in a different state remained unclear.

U.S. government attorneys are exploring possible litigation around the efforts by the governors to move migrants north, a Biden administration official told Reuters.

The flights follow a busing scheme by the Republican governors of Texas and Arizona that has sent more than 10,000 migrants to the Democrat-controlled cities of Washington, New York and Chicago since April.

Immigration is a motivating issue for Republican voters, and the party has sought to focus attention on that issue in the run-up to November 8 midterm elections that will decide control of Congress and key governorships.

The White House has decried the efforts, saying migrants were being used in a political stunt.

U.S. border agents have made 1.8 million arrests at the U.S.-Mexico border since last October. Many migrants are immediately expelled to Mexico or other countries under a COVID-19 pandemic policy. But some nationalities, including Venezuelans, cannot be expelled because Mexico will not accept them.

The migrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard said they had recently been admitted into the United States on humanitarian parole after fleeing Venezuela, and had been staying at a shelter in San Antonio, Texas, when they were approached by a woman who identified herself as Perla.

The woman persuaded them to board the flights by misleading them into thinking they were heading to Boston and would be provided shelter and assistance finding work for three months, they said. Many said they told the flight organizers they had appointments with immigration authorities they needed to attend in other cities but were told not to worry, said Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal, the director of Lawyers for Civil Rights, a group in Boston assisting the migrants.

Rallying to help

Martha’s Vineyard is home to about 20,000 year-round residents and is known as a vacation spot for affluent liberals like former Democratic presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

The migrants arrived without notice on chartered flights Wednesday that landed at the island’s small airport.

Residents lined up at a table to donate money, toiletries and toys for the migrants. A local thrift shop donated clean clothes. Local restaurants took turns organizing meals and a Spanish-language Mass was organized at St. Andrews. Pro-bono lawyers flew in to help the migrants with paperwork and immigration cases.

Chris Stern, a writer who married his wife at the church in 1990, was among those who stopped by to donate.

“I think that they’re using real people as political pawns, almost as a sarcastic joke,” he said. “It’s a cruel way to treat people in a difficult situation.”
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Queen’s Death Prompts Commonwealth Nations to Question Monarchy Ties

Posted on by SeeEU

The death of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II last week has sparked renewed debate in many Commonwealth countries, most of them former British colonies, about their future ties to the monarchy. 

Britain wasn’t alone in proclaiming a new king upon the death of Elizabeth. Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Jamaica are among 14 other nations where King Charles III is the new head of state. Echoing the ceremonies in London, proclamation ceremonies were held in several capitals, from Nassau in the Bahamas to Suva in Fiji.

Fifty-six countries are members of the Commonwealth, an association of mostly former British colonies. In 2018, the organization agreed to appoint Charles as its head upon the death of Queen Elizabeth II, prompting anger among some members, especially in the Caribbean.

“The death of Queen Elizabeth absolutely will mark a turning point,” said Sonjah Stanley Niaah of the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, in an interview with VOA on Wednesday.

“Many countries have really been considering their own role, their own place in the commonwealth. And I think that now that Queen Elizabeth has passed, there is going to be certainly more of a move to disassociate themselves from the commonwealth,” Niaah said.

Republicanism

Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, an avowed republican who was elected in May, wants a referendum on removing the British monarch as head of state in the next parliament.

“It’s not appropriate now … to talk about constitutional change. What is appropriate right now is to commemorate the life of service of Queen Elizabeth II,” Albanese told reporters this week.

Antigua and Barbuda, as well as St. Lucia, both in the Caribbean, have expressed similar plans. For the first time, the government of the Bahamas this week said such a referendum was possible.

“The only challenge with us moving to a republic is that I can’t, as much as I would wish to do so, I can’t do it without you all to consent. I would have to have a referendum and hear what the people have to say to me … it is our people who will have to decide,” Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis said September 9.

A poll taken in August, before the queen’s death, showed that 56% of Jamaicans are in favor of removing the British monarch as head of state. 

In November last year, the Caribbean Island of Barbados became a republic, severing ties with the British monarchy. Guy Hewitt, a former high commissioner to the U.K., told VOA he did not believe the Barbadian people disliked the monarchy.

“I make the point that Barbados’ journey to a republic was not a rejection of the queen or of monarchy, but more so an affirmation of a right toward self-determination,” Hewitt said.

New members

This year Togo and Gabon, both former French colonies in Africa, joined the Commonwealth – evidence the organization is not in decline, Hewitt said.

“What we have seen is in the post-independence era, rather than the commonwealth getting smaller, it’s actually getting bigger. Charles, as the new head of the commonwealth, worked closely with his mother as the Prince of Wales, traveled extensively around the commonwealth in his own right, championing causes like sustainable development and environmental protection,” Hewitt said.

“It has started to feel somewhat antiquated, and it may be that King Charles is able to inject – as his mother did – some dynamism some new direction and a new sense of purpose for the Commonwealth of nations,” Hewitt added.

Slavery

Intrinsic to the debate is the legacy of colonial rule. Britain and other European nations enslaved millions of Africans until the 19th century, forcing them to work on plantations in the Caribbean and the Americas. Critics argue the monarchy’s wealth is partly based on profits from the slave trade.

“This commonwealth of nations, that wealth belongs to England. That wealth is something we never shared in. So, for us in Jamaica, the monarchy is a harsh reminder of our unfortunate past,” Bert Samuels of the Reparation Council of Jamaica told Associated Press.

The monarchy has expressed sorrow over colonial abuses, but Britain has not formally apologized. Visiting Jamaica earlier this year, Prince William addressed the issue at a gala dinner hosted by Jamaican governor-general. “Slavery was abhorrent, and it should never have happened,” William told the audience.

Reparations

That does not go far enough, said Sonjah Stanley Niaah of the University of the West Indies. “An apology is necessary. We must see remorse and we must see a time when reparations become important in the ways in which we move forward as former colonies.”

“There is a critical mass of us in in the former colonies who are aware that a relationship in terms of the Commonwealth means very little to the real day-to-day conditions of persons who dwell in these countries. And so, I think that there is more awareness about reparatory justice, there is more awareness about the role that that slavery still plays in today’s society,” Niaah told VOA.

That apology should come from the British government, Hewitt said.

“Yes, there is a need for those colonial powers to take responsibility for what they have done. But in the case of the head of the Commonwealth or the king of the United Kingdom and its other realms, that is not their constitutional responsibility.” 

“The discussion around reparations is not one that I think can be taken to the doorstep of Buckingham Palace. It is one that has to be taken to Downing Street,” Hewitt said.

Some of the information in this report came from Reuters and Associated Press.
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Survey Shows Over Half of South Africa’s Graduates Considering Emigration

Posted on by SeeAF

A survey in South Africa shows more than half of graduates are considering moving to another country because of few opportunities at home. Business Unity South Africa, which represents the private sector, says they are seeing the lowest levels of confidence in the country’s future since World War II.

The survey was conducted by the Social Research Foundation which calls itself a start-up think tank. Its director Frans Cronje dismissed social media criticism, which said it is funded by the main opposition Democratic Alliance Party.

Cronje says they are privately funded and not affiliated with any organization. He says his pollsters surveyed just over 3,000 people.

“On the question of emigration, what it identifies is that roughly a quarter of adult South Africans are considering emigration and that figure rises pretty steeply as you go to the top echelons of the skills base,” he said. “So, university graduates figure comes in at around 50 percent and also top earners.”

Cronje says the emigration figures are in line with other public opinion research the foundation has recently conducted.

“And this is all very consistent with broader public opinion based on South Africa, which shows that in response to tough economic circumstances and an increasingly troubling outlook towards the political future of the country, levels of concern about the long-term future have hit rates that I haven’t seen in 20 years of doing this stuff.”

Joshua Jacobs has been looking for a job since graduating from college last year. He is considering emigrating to Vietnam or South Korea to teach English, even though it is not what he studied.

“It’s quite dire at the moment. It doesn’t look like there’s an opportunity,” said Jacobs. ”I have a few friends who have already gone over and, based on what they are experiencing, it seems like way more viable than being here.”

Jacobs says he studied for three years and graduated with a degree in human resources management last year.

“I’ve been looking more or less in my field, but no luck there,” he said. “It is a weird position that I’m in. Because when I started studying, the market was a bit better in terms of HR, whereas now it doesn’t seem like there’s the same opportunities. The ones that there are, the pay has decreased and the experience needed has now increased.”

Bonang Mohale, president of Business Unity South Africa, says he thinks it’s regrettable when a country cannot hold onto the future workers in whom it’s invested so much.

He asks, what will happen if graduates leave in droves?

“The economy is already on its knees. It will further exacerbate the condition.”

The Social Research Foundation is planning follow-up research.
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UN Provides $100 Million to Aid People in ‘Forgotten Emergencies’

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The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, is releasing $100 million from its Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to assist millions of people in what it calls “forgotten emergencies.”

OCHA reports money for 11 humanitarian operations in Africa, Asia, the Americas and the Middle East has dried up, putting the lives and livelihoods of millions of people at risk. 

The United Nations says it needs $49.5 billion this year to assist 204 million people threatened by conflict, climate shocks, hunger and forced displacement.

To date, only $17.6 billion of this total amount has been received. While this is a large amount of money, OCHA deputy spokesman Jens Laerke said the funding gap is nearly $32 billion, the largest it has ever been. 

He said the release of $100 million is meant to shrink this critical funding gap and address the problem head on.

“It may seem like a drop in the bucket and if you look at it from that perspective, it is a drop in the bucket,” he said. “But, the CERF funds, a key criterion is it has to go to lifesaving projects. So, it is the worst of the worst that we are trying to address with the CERF funding. And I guarantee you, for those whose lives are hanging by a thread, it means something.”

Laerke said the consequences for hundreds of millions of vulnerable people will be many and very severe, if money to assist them at this time of greatest need is not forthcoming.

“That can range from loss of life to victims of or survivors of gender-based violence who receive no support,” he said. “Children who do not get the vaccines that they need and so on and so forth.”

Laerke said the $100 million will help scale up lifesaving operations in the 11 countries, which include Yemen, South Sudan, Myanmar, and Venezuela.

He noted that CERF has allocated a record $250 million dollars so far this year to countries that are in a desperate state, but largely overlooked.
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Former Kenyan President to Lead Peace Process in DRC, Ethiopia

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Kenya’s President William Ruto has appointed his predecessor, former President Uhuru Kenyatta, as a peace envoy to the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia.

As president, Kenyatta was previously involved in peace efforts in both countries, which are dealing with resurgent rebels and ongoing war. While Kenyatta’s new role as peace envoy has been welcomed, analysts say mediation in the DRC and Ethiopia will be no small challenge.

Ruto said Kenyatta accepted the task and will be working on behalf of Kenya.

Kenneth Ombongi, a senior lecturer at the University of Nairobi, said continuity is vital in finding a peaceful solution to a conflict.

“[Kenyatta] comes into it with some level of continuity which is important for dealing with delicate issues that touch on peace, reconciliation, and also post-conflict development… that’s extremely important,” Ombongi said. “He comes with a very clear memory of what has been going on and what the development has been.”

In April, Kenyatta hosted DRC President Felix Tshisekedi and some rebel groups operating in the east of the country for peace talks. East African Community leaders subsequently agreed to deploy regional troops to the eastern DRC in a bid to restore normalcy in the region.

In November last year, Kenyatta visited Ethiopia to work on peace efforts and bring together the government and rebel group Tigray People’s Liberation Front in the country’s north.

Professor Chacha Nyaigotti Chacha, an expert in diplomacy and international relations, said Kenya stands to benefit from the peace efforts it’s undertaking in the region. 

“This is a national, regional and international assignment and it’s important that assignment is undertaken because when these countries neighboring Kenya in the East Africa Community region, as well as the Horn region, when they are peaceful, then Kenya is also peaceful and Kenya can, for example, derive a lot of gains especially as far as trade, communication and transport are concerned,” Chacha said.

Ombongi said Kenyatta will likely get a cool reception from countries that didn’t like his foreign policy when he was president, especially Ethiopia.

“The relationship between Addis Ababa and Nairobi has been what we describe in archaic language –ish –ish, he said. “So he will face certain challenges but of course, there is a possibility that his status as a senior statesman can very easily actually work to his advantage.”

Calls for peace in the DRC and Ethiopia have grown, but the warring factions have yet to agree on the issues to be discussed or who will chair the peace process.

Chacha said Kenyatta will deal with rigid warring sides that are not afraid to walk out of the peace process and continue with the armed conflict.

“The challenges he will face are going to be challenges of the groupings in these countries that there is an antagonistic grouping of some who are belligerent,” he said. “They usually agree to talk but sometimes they don’t fulfill their commitment to ensuring that they can return to the peaceful coexistence in their countries.”

The U.S. government and the European Union have welcomed the appointment of Kenyatta and said they are ready to support the efforts to bring lasting peace to the two countries.
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Pelosi to Visit Armenia as Cease-Fire With Azerbaijan Holds

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The speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, said Friday she plans to make a weekend visit to Armenia, where a cease-fire held for a second day after an outburst of fighting with neighboring Azerbaijan that killed more than 200 troops from both sides.

Pelosi told reporters in Berlin she would travel to Armenia on Saturday with a delegation that includes Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., who is of Armenian descent. Pelosi declined to give further details about the trip, saying that traveling members of the Congress “don’t like to be a target.”

“In any case, it is all about human rights and respecting the dignity and worth of every person,” she said.

The Armenian Defense Ministry said the situation on the border with Azerbaijan has remained quiet since the cease-fire took effect at 8 p.m. Wednesday, and no violations were reported.

The cease-fire declaration followed two days of heavy fighting that marked the largest outbreak of hostilities in nearly two years.

Speaking in parliament Friday, Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said that at least 135 Armenian troops were killed in the fighting, revising his earlier statement that 105 died in combat. Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry said Friday it had lost 77.

Edvard Asryan, the chief of the General Staff of the Armenian armed forces, said at a briefing for foreign ambassadors in Yerevan that the Azerbaijani forces had forged 7.5 kilometers into Armenian territory near the town of Jermuk, a spa resort in southern Armenia.

Asryan said that the Azerbaijani troops also went 1-2 kilometers into Armenian territory near the village of Nerkin Hand in the Syunik province and the village of Shorja in the Gegharkunik province.

He noted that the Azerbaijani forces have remained in those areas.

The ex-Soviet countries have been locked in a decades-old conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, which is part of Azerbaijan but has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a separatist war there ended in 1994.

During a six-week war in 2020, Azerbaijan reclaimed broad swaths of Nagorno-Karabakh and adjacent territories held by Armenian forces. More than 6,700 people died in the fighting, which ended with a Russia-brokered peace agreement. Moscow deployed about 2,000 troops to the region to serve as peacekeepers under the deal.

Pashinyan said his government has asked Russia for military support amid the latest fighting under a friendship treaty, and also requested assistance from the Moscow-dominated Collective Security Treaty Organization. The security grouping of ex-Soviet nations responded by deploying a team of top officials to Armenia.

Pashinyan called Russian President Vladimir Putin when the hostilities erupted, and they had another call Friday to discuss the situation.

Yerevan’s plea for help has put the Kremlin in a precarious position as it has sought to maintain close relations with Armenia, which hosts a Russian military base, and also develop warm ties with energy-rich Azerbaijan.

Putin on Friday is scheduled to meet with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in the Uzbekistan city of Samarkand. The Russian leader is also set to have talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose country has strongly backed Azerbaijan.

Speaking at the summit, Aliyev accused Armenia of “a large-scale military provocation” that derailed efforts to negotiate a peace treaty. “The Armenian provocation has dealt a heavy blow to the process of normalizing ties between our countries,” Aliyev said.

Pashinyan told lawmakers earlier this week that Armenia is ready to recognize Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity in a future peace treaty, provided that it relinquishes control of areas in Armenia its forces have seized.

The opposition saw the statement as a sign of Pashinyan’s readiness to submit to Azerbaijani demands and recognize Azerbaijan’s sovereignty over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Thousands of angry protesters besieged the government’s headquarters and the country’s parliament during the past two days, accusing Pashinyan of treason. Protests were also held in other Armenian cities.
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US Treasury Recommends Exploring Creation of a Digital Dollar

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The Biden administration is moving one step closer to developing a central bank digital currency, known as the digital dollar, saying it would help reinforce the U.S. role as a leader in the world financial system.

The White House said on Friday that after President Joe Biden issued an executive order in March calling on a variety of agencies to look at ways to regulate digital assets, the agencies came up with nine reports, covering cryptocurrency impacts on financial markets, the environment, innovation and other elements of the economic system.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said one Treasury recommendation is that the U.S. “advance policy and technical work on a potential central bank digital currency, or CBDC, so that the United States is prepared if CBDC is determined to be in the national interest.”

“Right now, some aspects of our current payment system are too slow or too expensive,” Yellen said on a Thursday call with reporters laying out some of the findings of the reports.

Central bank digital currencies differ from existing digital money available to the general public, such as the balance in a bank account, because they would be a direct liability of the Federal Reserve, not a commercial bank.

According to the Atlantic Council nonpartisan think tank, 105 countries representing more than 95% of global gross domestic product already are exploring or have created a central bank digital currency. The council found that the U.S. and the U.K. are far behind in creating a digital dollar or its equivalent.

Treasury, the Justice Department, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, the Securities and Exchange Commission and other agencies were tasked with contributing to reports that would address various concerns about the risks, development and usage of digital assets. Several reports will come out in the next weeks and months.

On Capitol Hill, lawmakers have submitted various pieces of legislation to regulate cryptocurrency and other digital assets.

The director of the National Economic Council, Brian Deese, told reporters that “we’ve seen in recent months substantial turmoil in cryptocurrency markets and these events really highlight how, without proper oversight, cryptocurrencies risk harming everyday Americans’ financial stability and our national security.”

“It is why this administration believes that now more than ever,” he said, “prudent regulation of cryptocurrencies is needed.”
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Griner, Whelan Families to Meet With Biden Amid US-Russia Talks

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President Joe Biden plans to meet at the White House on Friday with family members of WNBA star Brittney Griner and Michigan corporate security executive Paul Whelan, both of whom remain jailed in Russia, the White House announced Thursday.

“He wanted to let them know that they remain front of mind and that his team is working on this every day, on making sure that Brittney and Paul return home safely,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at Thursday’s press briefing at the White House.

The separate meetings are to be the first in-person encounter between Biden and the families and are taking place amid sustained but so far unsuccessful efforts by the administration to secure the Americans’ release. The administration said in July that it had made a “substantial proposal” to get them home, but despite plans for the White House meetings, there is no sign a breakthrough is imminent.

“While I would love to say that the purpose of this meeting is to inform the families that the Russians have accepted our offer and we are bringing their loved ones home — that is not what we’re seeing in these negotiations at this time,” Jean-Pierre said.

She added: “The Russians should accept our offer. The Russians should accept our offer today.”

Griner has been held in Russia since February on drug-related charges. She was sentenced last month to nine years in prison after pleading guilty and has appealed the punishment. Whelan is serving a 16-year sentence on espionage-related charges that he and his family say are false. The U.S. government regards both as wrongfully detained, placing their cases with the office of its top hostage negotiator.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken took the unusual step of announcing two months ago that the administration had made a substantial proposal to Russia. Since then, U.S officials have continued to press that offer in hopes of getting serious negotiations underway, and have been following up through the same channel that produced an April prisoner swap that brought Marine veteran Trevor Reed home from Russia, said a senior administration official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity in advance of Thursday’s formal announcement.

The negotiations, already strained because of tense relations between Washington and Moscow over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, have also been complicated by Russia’s apparent resistance to the proposal the Americans put on the table.

The Russians, who have indicated that they are open to negotiations but have chided the Americans to conduct them in private, have come back with suggestions that are not within the administration’s ability to deliver, said the administration official, declining to elaborate.

The administration has not provided specifics about its proposal, but a person familiar with the matter previously confirmed it had offered to release Viktor Bout, a convicted Russian arms dealer who is imprisoned in the U.S. and who has long been sought by Moscow. It is also possible that, in the interests of symmetry, Russia might insist on having two of its citizens released from prison.

Biden spoke by phone in July with Griner’s wife, Cherelle, and with Whelan’s sister, Elizabeth, but both families have also requested in-person meetings. On Friday, Biden plans to speak at the White House with Cherelle Griner and with the player’s agent in one meeting and with Elizabeth Whelan in the other, according to the official.

The meetings are being done separately so as to ensure that each family has private time with the president. But the fact that they are happening on the same day shows the extent to which the two cases have become intertwined since the only deal that is presumably palatable to the U.S. is one that gets both Americans — a famous WNBA player and a Michigan man who until recently was little known to the public — home together at the same time,

In the past several months, representatives of both families have expressed frustration over what they perceived as a lack of aggressive action and coordination from the administration.

Cherelle Griner, for instance, told The Associated Press in an interview in June that she was dismayed after the failure of a phone call from her wife that was supposed to have been patched through by the American Embassy in Moscow left the couple unable to connect on their fourth anniversary.

Whelan’s relatives have sought to keep attention on his case, anxious that it has been overshadowed in the public eye by the focus on the far more prominent Griner — a two-time Olympic gold medalist and seven-time WNBA all-star. They also conveyed disappointment when Whelan, despite having been held in Russia since December 2018, was not included in a prisoner swap last April that brought home Reed.

Friday’s meetings were scheduled before news broke this week of an unconnected trip to Russia by Bill Richardson, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who has been a veteran emissary in hostage and detainee cases. Administration officials reacted coolly to that trip, with State Department spokesman Ned Price saying Wednesday that dialogue with Russia outside the “established channel” risks hindering efforts to get Griner and Whelan home.

Administration officials say work on hostage and detainee cases persists regardless of whether a family receives a meeting with the president, though there is also no question such an encounter can help establish a meaningful connection.

Biden met in the Oval Office in March with Reed’s parents after the Texas couple stood with a large sign outside the White House calling for their son’s release. The following month, he returned home.
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EU Wants to Ensure Independent Media, Tougher Rules for Media Mergers

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Media groups seeking to take over smaller rivals will have to make sure that their deals ensure media pluralism and safeguard editorial independence under draft rules announced by the European Commission on Friday.

The Media Freedom Act (MFA) is part of the European Union’s strategy to prevent political interference in media outlets and spying on journalists. It also requires state advertising to media service providers to be transparent and non-discriminatory.

The proposed rules come amid worries about media freedom in Hungary, Poland and Slovenia and foreign interference in countries holding national elections.

“Democracy will work only if journalists have the means and the necessary protection to keep in check those in power and those with power, be it political or economic actors,”

Commission Vice President Vera Jourova told a news conference.

“This law should be seen as a piece of a broader puzzle. It is part of our efforts to protect democracy at large and to bring some order in our digital information space,” she said.

The rules will apply to TV and radio broadcasters, on-demand audiovisual media services, press publications and very large online platforms and providers of video-sharing platforms.

They will need to be thrashed out with EU countries and lawmakers before they can become law in a process likely to take a year or more.

The proposed rules require regulators to examine whether the merging companies would remain economically sustainable if there was no deal.

There are safeguards against the use of spyware against media, journalists and their families. The EU executive and a new European Board for Media Services can offer their opinions on whether the two criteria have been met.
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Germany Seizes Russian Energy Firm’s Subsidiaries

Posted on by SeeEU

Berlin on Friday took control of the German operations of Russian oil firm Rosneft to secure energy supplies which have been disrupted after Moscow invaded Ukraine.

Rosneft’s German subsidiaries, which account for about 12% of oil refining capacity in the country, were placed under trusteeship of the Federal Network Agency, the economy ministry said in a statement.

“The trust management will counter the threat to the security of energy supply,” it said.

The seizures come as Germany is scrambling to wean itself off its dependence on Russian fossil fuels. Moscow has stopped natural gas deliveries to Germany via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline.

The move covers the companies Rosneft Deutschland GmbH (RDG) and RN Refining & Marketing GmbH (RNRM) and thereby their corresponding stakes in three refineries: PCK Schwedt, MiRo and Bayernoil.

Fears had been running high particularly for PCK Schwedt, which is close to the Polish border and supplies around 90% of the oil used in Berlin and the surrounding region, including Berlin-Brandenburg international airport.

The refineries’ operations had been disrupted as the German government decided to slash Russian oil imports, with an aim to halt them completely by year’s end.

By taking control of the sites, the German authorities can then run the refining operations using crude from countries other than Russia.

Energy earthquake

Russia’s war in Ukraine has set off an energy earthquake in Europe and especially in Germany, with prices skyrocketing as Moscow dwindled supplies.

Germany has found itself severely exposed given its heavy reliance on Russian gas.

Moscow had also built up a grip over Germany’s oil refineries, pipelines and other gas infrastructure through energy giants Rosneft and Gazprom over the years.

Energy deals with Russia were long seen as part of a German policy of keeping the peace through cooperation with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime.

The cheap energy supplied by Russia was also key in keeping German exports competitive. As a result, the share of Russian gas in Germany had grown to 55% of total imports before the Ukraine war.

But that approach has come back to haunt Germany.

In early April, the German government took the unprecedented step of temporarily taking control of Gazprom’s German subsidiary, after an opaque transfer of ownership of the company sent alarm bells ringing in Berlin.

Germany has also been scrambling to find new sources of energy as deliveries from Russia have dwindled in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine.

The German government has also taken the stark step of firing up mothballed coal power plants, while putting two of its nuclear power plants on standby through April, rather than phasing them out completely as planned by year’s end.
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Patagonia Founder Donates Company to Charity

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Yvon Chouinard, the 83-year-old founder of the outdoor clothing and equipment company Patagonia, announced that he has placed 100% of the shares of his $3 billion company in a trust, which will direct future profits of the company to efforts to protect the environment and combat climate change.

“Earth is now our only shareholder,” Chouinard wrote in an open letter describing the decision, which places all of the voting stock in the company under the control of the Patagonia Purpose Trust, and all of the non-voting stock under the control of the Holdfast Collective, a nonprofit “dedicated to fighting the environmental crisis and defending nature.”

Under the plan, the Chouinard family will control the Patagonia Purpose Trust, and through it will exercise control over the company’s operations. The family will also “guide the philanthropic work performed by the Holdfast Collective,” according to a release issued by Patagonia.

Under the new structure, the company will continue to function and to invest in its operations, but all profits not reinvested in the company will be distributed as dividends to the Holdfast Collective, which will direct them to environmental causes.

Avoiding ‘disaster’

The move adds Chouinard to the list of billionaires, including Berkshire Hathaway founder Warren Buffett, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and former Wipro Limited chairman Azim Premji, who have promised to give large shares of their personal wealth to charity.

Chouinard said that he made the decision after considering other options, including selling the company and donating the profits. “But we couldn’t be sure a new owner would maintain our values or keep our team of people around the world employed,” he said.

Likewise, he dismissed the idea of taking the company public, writing, “What a disaster that would have been. Even public companies with good intentions are under too much pressure to create short-term gain at the expense of long-term vitality and responsibility.”

Former mountaineer

Chouinard was born in Lewiston, Maine, in 1938, but moved with his family to Southern California in 1947. It was in California that he became deeply involved in rock climbing and eventually, alpine climbing.

As a young man, Chouinard taught himself blacksmithing in order to make some of his own climbing equipment, and the sales of his handmade pitons — spikes driven between rocks in order to create points of stability — were the beginning of the business that would eventually become Patagonia.

The company has long been environmentally active. In the early 1970s, when it became clear that the widespread use of its pitons was damaging mountain faces, Patagonia invented a hexagonal aluminum “chock” that could be used as a non-damaging alternative. Since the 1980s, it has dedicated 10% of profits to environmental causes.

Billionaires and charity

In turning over the profits of his company to a charitable organization, Chouinard is far from the only extremely wealthy person in the world to surrender the bulk of their wealth to philanthropic pursuits, but doing so isn’t the norm, either.

In 2010, Gates and Buffett announced the launch of the Giving Pledge campaign, an effort to persuade the world’s wealthiest people to commit to giving away at least 50% of their net worth at or before their deaths.

To date, 236 individuals, the vast majority of them billionaires, have signed the pledge. However, they represent a small fraction of what Forbes magazine estimates to be the approximately 2,700 billionaires in the world.

Around the world

Some of the world’s wealthiest people have, with or without signing a formal pledge, donated considerable sums to charity.

Premji, the Indian billionaire who built Wipro, has reportedly donated well over 25% of his net worth, including $7.6 billion worth of shares in his company, to charitable causes, including education initiatives in his native country.

Sheik Sulaiman bin Abdulaziz bin Saleh Al Rajhi, a native of Saudi Arabia who earned his fortune in Islamic banking, announced a decade ago that he would give away most of his $7.7 billion fortune, and has spent large sums endowing a university, among other efforts.

Huang Zheng, founder of Chinese online shopping giant Pinduoduo and one of the wealthiest people in China, has given away billions of dollars, including a recent donation of $1.85 billion to a charitable foundation.

Strive Masiyiwa, the Zimbabwean telecommunications billionaire, has funded many large philanthropic efforts in his home country and around the world, and is also a signatory of the Giving Pledge.

Some giving deferred

Forbes, which has long tracked the wealth of the richest citizens in the United States, has developed a philanthropy score, which tracks, on a scale of one to five, how much the country’s wealthiest have given away.

Those who score a five are among the most charitable, having given away 20% or more of their net worth. Those who score a one, meaning they are among the least charitable, have given away less than 1% of their net worth.

In 2021, the magazine found that 156 of the 400 richest Americans scored in the lowest quintile, while just 19 were in the top two quintiles, meaning they had given away at least 10% of their net worth.

Notable names among those scoring in the lowest quintile include America’s two wealthiest men, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos and Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk. Also listed as having donated less than 1% of their net worth were Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and Oracle founder Larry Ellison.

Bezos stepped up his philanthropic activities in 2022, and others, including Musk and Ellison, have signed the Giving Pledge, indicating that at some point, they plan to make substantial philanthropic donations.
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Biden Hosts Unity Summit Amid Political Division

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At a White House summit Thursday aimed at combating division and hate-fueled violence, US President Joe Biden railed against white supremacists and urged the nation to overcome its ‘toxic’ political division. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara reports that Biden’s critics say he is the one fomenting discord.
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