Month: September 2022

Ukraine’s Zelenskyy Warns Europe Faces Difficult Winter with Russian Fuel Cuts

Posted on by SeeEU

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is warning European countries to expect a difficult winter as Russia cuts its oil and natural gas exports to retaliate for their support of the Kyiv government in its fight against Russia’s invasion. 

“Russia is preparing a decisive energy blow on all Europeans for this winter,” he said in his Saturday night video address after Moscow earlier in the day shut down a main gas pipeline to the continent.  

Moscow has blamed technical issues, along with economic sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies against Russia, for the energy disruptions. European countries that have sent munitions to the Kyiv government and helped train its fighters have accused Russia of weaponizing energy supplies they have purchased from Moscow. 

Some war analysts say the fuel shortages and rising living costs could stress Western resolve in supporting Ukraine. Moscow says it plans to keep the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, its main gas conduit to Germany, closed and the Group of Seven or G-7 leading democratic economies said they would cap the price on Russian oil exports to limit its profits that help fund the war.  

The Kremlin, in turn, said it would not sell oil to any countries that implemented the cap.  

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz promised Sunday that Germany would make it through the winter, telling a news conference in Berlin, “Russia is no longer a reliable energy partner.”  

Scholz announced a $65 billion relief plan that includes one-time payments to households, tax breaks for industries that use substantial amounts of fuel and cheaper public transportation options. The Berlin government also plans to guarantee its citizens a certain amount of electricity at a lower cost.  

Zelenskyy’s wife, first lady Olena Zelenska, told the BBC she realized that higher fuel prices are imposing pain on Europeans, but that they come with an additional price for her homeland. 

“I understand the situation is very tough,” she said. “The prices are going up in Ukraine, as well. But in addition, our people get killed. … So, when you start counting pennies on your bank account or in your pocket, we do the same and count our casualties.” 

On Saturday, European Union Economy Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni said that Europe is “well prepared to resist Russia’s extreme use of the gas weapon” because of its storage capacity and energy conservation measures, even if Russia decides to stop all natural gas deliveries. 

“We are not afraid of Putin’s decisions; we are asking the Russians to respect contracts, but if they don’t, we are ready to react,” Gentiloni said on the sidelines of an economic forum in Italy. 

Gentiloni said that gas storage in the European Union “is currently at about 80%, thanks to the diversification of supplies,” although the situation varies in each country.    

Russian energy giant Gazprom said it could not resume the supply of natural gas to Germany, just hours before it was set to restart deliveries through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline. Russia blamed a technical fault in the pipeline for the move, which is likely to worsen Europe’s energy crisis. 

European Commission spokesperson Eric Mamer said Friday on Twitter that Gazprom acted under “fallacious pretenses” to shut down the pipeline.  

Turbine-maker Siemens Energy, which supplies and maintains some of the pipeline equipment, said Friday that there was no technical reason to stop shipping natural gas. 

Moscow has blamed Western sanctions that took effect after Russia invaded Ukraine for hindering the maintenance of the gas pipeline. Europe accuses Russia of using its leverage over gas supplies to retaliate against European sanctions. 

The jockeying for control of energy supplies comes as Russian and Ukrainian forces traded more strikes near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. 

The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said Saturday that the Russian-controlled

plant in Ukraine was disconnected from its last external power line but still able to run electricity through a reserve line amid sustained shelling in the area. 

 

International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi said in a statement that agency experts, who arrived at Zaporizhzhia Thursday, were told by senior Ukrainian staff the fourth and last operational line was down. The three others were lost earlier during the conflict. 

The IAEA experts learned that the reserve line linking the facility to a nearby thermal power plant was delivering the electricity the plant generates to the external grid, the statement said. That reserve line can provide backup power to the plant if needed. 

“We already have a better understanding of the functionality of the reserve power line in connecting the facility to the grid,” Grossi said. “This is crucial information in assessing the overall situation there.” 

In addition, the plant’s management informed the IAEA that one reactor was disconnected Saturday afternoon because of grid restrictions. Another reactor is still operating and producing electricity both for cooling and other essential safety functions at the site and for households, factories and others through the grid, the statement said.  

Meanwhile, the British defense ministry said Sunday in an intelligence update on Twitter that “Russian forces continue to suffer from morale and discipline issues in Ukraine. In addition to combat fatigue and high casualties, one of the main grievances from deployed Russian soldiers probably continues to be problems with their pay.”  

The ministry’s statement said, “In the Russian military, troops’ income consists of a modest core salary, augmented by a complex variety of bonuses and allowances. In [the conflict with] Ukraine, there has highly likely been significant problems with sizable combat bonuses not being paid. This is probably due to inefficient military bureaucracy, the unusual legal status of the ‘special military operation,’ and at least some outright corruption amongst commanders.”   

“The Russian military has consistently failed to provide basic entitlements to troops deployed in Ukraine, including appropriate uniform, arms and rations, as well as pay,” according to the British ministry. “This has almost certainly contributed to the continued fragile morale of much of the force.”      

(VOA U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this report.)  Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.    
…

your ad here

UN Relief Chief Visits Somalia’s Drought Epicenter  

Posted on by SeeAF

United Nations Relief Chief Martin Griffiths has visited Somalia’s South West state, the epicenter of the country’s severe drought. That drought has already displaced more than 1 million people. 

In his first visit to Somalia, the most drought-affected country in the Horn of Africa, U.N. relief chief Martin Griffiths said the country needs global support to curb the worst drought in 40 years.

In a news conference in Baidoa, the epicenter of the drought, after he met with South West state President Abdiasiis Hassan Mohamed Laftagareen, Griffiths said it is “almost unimaginable” that Baidoa is sheltering 750,000 displaced people.

Somalia’s drought, which devastated 90% of the country, has already displaced more than 1 million people and 7.8 million others need humanitarian assistance.

The U.N. relief chief commended the local community in Baidoa for their efforts to help the displaced.

“One more point, we fear the worst may yet to come, we fear that we will see exponentially increasing need, we fear globally that Baidoa and this South West state is going to need the charity generosity and priority of the world because of the scale of suffering that we anticipate,” he said.

In a brief statement Griffiths posted on Twitter after the visit, he said that he saw babies too weak to cry, and mothers who are still children themselves.

“The silence of the international community is deafening,” he wrote.

For his part, South West state President Laftagareen welcomed the visit by the U.N. delegation.

He says they discussed the current issues such as the drought relief efforts and the way that drought-affected people can be supported. They also spoke of ways to provide emergency relief in South West state.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Somalia office said Saturday that food prices have spiked in the country and hunger is rising.

It said that for the first time since 2017 “catastrophic” levels of food insecurity have been confirmed, with 213,000 people in famine-like conditions.

UNICEF earlier told VOA that drought-related malnutrition has already killed 500 children in Somalia.

Somalia last year declared the three-year drought a national emergency.

According to the prime minister’s office, the drought has also killed more than 2 million livestock and affected 28% of the country’s total livestock population.
…

your ad here

Emotions Raw Before Nice Bastille Day Attack Trial Begins

Posted on by SeeEU

A lawyer was strolling with her mother, friends and a colleague along the beachfront boulevard in Nice to celebrate France’s national day. Four young sisters from Poland had spent a day sightseeing. Two Russian students were on a summer break. And a Texas family, on vacation with young children, was taking in some of Europe’s classic sights. The bright lights of the packed boardwalk glittered along the bay like a string of stars.

Those lights would mark a pathway of murder and destruction that night of July 14, 2016. Shortly after the end of a fireworks display, a 19-ton truck careered through the crowds for 2 kilometers like a snowplow, hitting person after person.

The final death toll was 86, including 15 children and adolescents, while 450 others were injured.

Eight people go on trial on Monday in a special French terrorism court accused of helping the attacker, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, who left a gruesome trail of crushed and mangled bodies across 15 city blocks. Bouhlel himself was killed by police the same night.

“It was like on a battlefield,” said Jean Claude Hubler, a survivor and an eyewitness to the horrific attack that holiday Thursday. He rushed to the boardwalk to help after hearing the desperate screams of people who had been cheering and laughing and dancing on the beach a minute before.

“There were people lying on the ground everywhere, some of them were still alive, screaming,” Hubler said. As he waited for the ambulances to arrive, he kneeled down beside a man and a woman as they lay dying on the pavement, in a pool of blood and surrounded by crushed and mangled bodies.

“I was holding her hand on her last breath,” Hubler said.

Three suspects have been charged with terrorist conspiracy for alleged links to the attacker. Five others face other criminal charges, including for allegedly providing arms to the assailant. If convicted, they face sentences ranging from 5 years to life in prison. The verdict is expected in December.

Investigators did not find evidence that any of the suspects were directly involved in the murderous rampage on that hot summer night in 2016.

Bouhlel, a 31-year-old Tunisian with French residency, was the lone attacker, and is considered solely responsible for the deaths 86 people, including 33 foreigners from Poland, the United States, Russia, Algeria, Tunisia, Switzerland and elsewhere.

Myriam Bellazouz, the lawyer, lived a few blocks from Nice’s boardwalk. She was strolling along it with her mother on the night of the attack and was killed. It took friends and colleagues three days of frantic searching around the traumatized city and pleas on social media to find her remains.

Only two of the four Chrzanowska sisters, on vacation from Poland, returned home alive.

When the truck sped through the crowd, one of the students from Moscow, Viktoria Savachenko, couldn’t get out of the way in time and was killed. American Sean Copeland, the father of the family from a town near Austin, Texas, also died in the attack along with his 11-year-old son, Brodie.

Christophe Lyon is the sole survivor of an extended French family that had gathered in Nice for the Bastille Day celebrations. His parents, Gisele and Germain Lyon, his wife, Veronique, her parents Francois and Christiane Locatelli and their grandson Mickael Pellegrini, all died in the attack. Lyon is listed among dozens of witnesses, survivors and victims’ family members who will later this month testify in the Paris court to the horrific events of that night.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the carnage. However, French prosecutors said that while Bouhlel had been inspired by the extremist group’s propaganda, investigators found no evidence that IS orchestrated the attack.

Eight months before the Nice attack, on Nov. 13, 2015, a 20-member team of battle-hardened Islamic State extremists, spread around Paris to mount coordinated attacks on the Bataclan concert hall, cafes and the national stadium, killing 130 people and injuring hundreds.

After nine months of trial, the lone survivor of the murderous group that had terrorized the French capital, Salah Abdeslam, was in June convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole for the deadliest peacetime attack in France’s history.

The trial of the eights suspects in the Nice attack will take place in the same Paris courtroom as the proceedings against Abdeslam. French law mandates trials of terrorism are held in the capital.

The proceedings will be broadcast live to the Acropolis Convention Center in Nice for those victims’ family members and general public not traveling to Paris. Audio of the trial will also be available online, with a 30-minute delay.

Many survivors and those mourning loved ones brace themselves for reliving the traumatic events during the trial. For others, the proceedings — although far away from the city that is still reeling from the bloodshed and loss — are an opportunity to recount publicly their personal horrors inflicted that night and to listen to countless acts of bravery, humanity and compassion among strangers.

With the perpetrator dead, few expect to get justice.

Audrey Borla, who lost her twin sister, Laura, will travel to Paris to face the group of eight suspects. She wants to tell them how she’s survived the past six years without the woman she calls her “other half,” and how she plans to live a full life for many years even without her.

“You took my sister away from me, but you are not going to make me stop living,” Borla said in a interview with broadcaster France 3.

“You are not going to make me give up on life.”
…

your ad here

John Paul I, ‘Smiling Pope’ for a Month, Moves Towards Sainthood

Posted on by SeeEU

Pope John Paul I, who died in 1978 after only 33 days as pontiff, moved closer to sainthood on Sunday with the Vatican still having to dismiss lingering conspiracy theories that he was a victim of foul play.

Pope Francis beatified his predecessor at a ceremony in St. Peter’s Square before tens of thousands of people. Beatification is the last step before sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church.

John Paul was known as “The Smiling Pope” because of his meekness and simplicity.

“With a smile, Pope John Paul managed to communicate the goodness of the Lord,” Francis said in his homily, speaking as people huddled under umbrellas in a thunderstorm.

“How beautiful is a Church with a happy, serene and smiling face, that never closes doors, never hardens hearts, never complains or harbors resentment, does not grow angry or impatient, does not look dour or suffer nostalgia for the past”. 

Born Albino Luciani into poverty in a northern Italian mountain village in 1912, he was ordained a priest in 1935, a bishop in 1958 and a cardinal in 1973.

He was elected pope on Aug. 26, 1978, following the death of Pope Paul VI, taking the name John Paul to honor his two immediate predecessors.

Two nuns of the papal household who heard no response to knocks on his door at 5:20 a.m. on Sept. 29 to bring coffee found him dead in his bed. Doctors said he died of a heart attack and aides said he had complained of chest pains the day before but did not take them seriously.

Conflicting versions

At first the Vatican, uneasy saying two women had entered the pope’s bed chambers, said he was found lifeless by a priest.

The Vatican corrected itself, but the misstep sprouted conspiracy theories.

In 1984 “In God’s Name – An Investigation into the Murder of Pope John Paul I,” by British author David Yallop that argued the pope was poisoned by a cabal linked to a secret Masonic lodge, spent 15 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.

The New York Times own review of the book, however, ridiculed Yallop’s investigative techniques and in 1987 another Briton, John Cornwell, wrote a book called “A Thief in the Night,” meticulously dismantling conspiracy theories.

Although widely debunked, the idea of a pope being murdered in his bedroom in the 20th century irresistibly entered the collective consciousness and in the film “The Godfather Part III,” a pope named John Paul I was killed with poisoned tea. 

“There is no truth to it at all,” said Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, when asked about the conspiracy theories on Italian television on Friday. 

“It is a shame that this story, this noir novel, goes on. It was a natural death. There is no mystery about it,” Parolin said.

Italian journalist and author Stefania Falasca, who spent 10 years documenting John Paul’s life and viewed his medical history, wrote several books about him. She called the conspiracy theories “publicity-driven garbage.”

Falasca, who was the deputy postulator, or promoter, of the sainthood cause, said John Paul was being beatified not because of what he did as pope but the way he lived his life.

John Paul is attributed with the miracle healing of an 11-year-old Argentine girl who had a severe brain inflammation, epilepsy and suffered septic shock. Her parents prayed to him.

The Roman Catholic Church teaches that only God performs miracles, but that saints, who are believed to be with God in heaven, intercede on behalf of people who pray to them.

A second miracle will need to be verified for John Paul to be declared a saint.
…

your ad here

Film Opens Debate on Spy Who Leaked US Nuke Plans to Russia

Posted on by SeeUS

The little-known story of a teenage scientist who passed U.S. nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union is the subject of a new documentary that premiered at the Venice Film Festival this week.

A Compassionate Spy, by celebrated U.S. filmmaker Steve James, hopes to reignite debate about nuclear weapons at a time of rising geopolitical tensions.

“Climate change and other issues have taken our attention away from that threat, but it’s always been there and it’s coming back,” James told AFP in Venice.

Ted Hall was just 19 when he was recruited to work on the top-secret Manhattan Project during World War II that led to the creation of the world’s first nuclear weapon.

Sympathetic to the Communist cause and fearing a future in which only the U.S. had the bomb, Hall decided to pass designs to Moscow.

The story has been largely forgotten, even though Hall came clean in the last years of his life in the 1990s.

“Many people will no doubt conclude that he should not have done it, that his fears of the U.S. becoming fascist or the U.S. pre-emptively striking the Soviet Union were not grounded,” said James, who is known especially for his landmark 1994 documentary Hoop Dreams.

“But there’s no question he did it for the right reasons — he didn’t do it for profit or fame, he did it because he had a genuine fear of what the U.S. is capable of.

“And ultimately, we’re the only ones who have dropped a nuclear bomb, so it’s not an unreasonable fear.”

Although the FBI long suspected Hall of espionage, it was never able to find conclusive evidence.

But the tension for him and his family was almost unbearable, especially when two other spies, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, were executed in the U.S. in 1953.

The film makes clear the vastly different attitudes towards Russians in 1944, when the Soviet Union was a wartime ally, seen as heroically standing up to Nazism.

Hall later said he would not have done it had he known about the crimes of Joseph Stalin at the time.

“Maybe he was willfully naive,” said James. “But we have to remember, he was so young.”
…

your ad here

Xinjiang Red Dates, Linked to Forced Labor, Sold in US

Posted on by SeeUS

A trip to an Asian grocery store in the U.S. is like a tour of the Orient. Pickled mustard greens from Thailand, instant noodles from Korea, Japan, Taiwan and China, and packets of dried fungus and fruits — pack the shelves of any given Asian supermarket.

Some of these stores have come to the attention of human rights researchers.

A report released this week by Washington-based Uyghur Human Rights Project, found markets in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area and some online retailers in the U.S. continue to sell more than 70 brands of red dates grown and processed in Xinjiang, a region in China that’s been the focus of a U.S. law on forced labor.

In December, President Joe Biden signed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) into law. Enforcement of the law began in June.  U.S. products wholly or partially produced in China’s northwest region of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) are prohibited from entering the U.S. unless the importer can prove with evidence, they weren’t made by forced labor.

“This includes goods produced in other parts of the PRC [People’s Republic of China] or in other countries that incorporate goods that were mined, produced, or manufactured in the XUAR or by entities on the UFLPA Entity List,” a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) representative told VOA.

Report on findings

The report, titled Fruits of Uyghur Forced Labor: Sanctioned Products on American Grocery Store Shelves, said that “U.S. food retailers and consumers risk complicity in forced labor and other atrocities” as long as red dates from Xinjiang remain on the shelves of U.S. stores.

“Between February and August 2022, we investigated a dozen international grocery stores in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and identified red date products sourced from East Turkistan at seven stores,” the report said. “We also examined online international grocery stores that ship red date products from the Uyghur Region to the D.C. area.”

Most Uyghurs prefer to call the Uyghur region East Turkistan instead of Xinjiang, the name given by the Chinese.

According to the report, U.S. online retailers including Amazon, eBay, and Walmart, sell red dates from Xinjiang.

“At least 15 U.S. companies import red date products for wholesale distribution to retailers, including Bloomington Import, Growland Inc., H&C Food Inc., OCM Globe Inc., and Tristar Food Wholesale Co., Inc,” the report said.

VOA reached out to companies including H&C Food Inc. and OCM Globe Inc., mentioned in the report, but has not received any responses.

The report’s authors said they tried to contact the stores and distributors named in the report but some of the emails bounced back. Others either did not respond directly or only confirmed receiving the correspondence.

Mukta Islam, a consumer in the state of Virginia which borders Washington, told VOA any business should be vigilant about whether the products are free of forced labor.

“Every business [is] supposed to support this law and do not sell … and return them (Xinjing dates),” Islam said.

The report’s author, Nuzigum Setiwaldi, used global, U.S., and China trade data to trace the red dates’ global supply chain.

“Twenty percent of the world’s red dates come from the Uyghur Region and are likely the products of forced labor,” Setiwaldi said. “Ten percent of the world’s red dates are directly tied to the XPCC (The Xinjiang Construction and Production Corps) and forced labor practices.”

The XPCC is a Chinese Communist Party corporate and paramilitary organization in Xinjiang. In 2020, the U.S. sanctioned the XPCC and other Chinese officials for their “connection to serious rights abuses against ethnic minorities in Xinjiang,” including forced labor.

The cotton connection

According to the Uyghur Human Rights Project’s report, growing red dates in Xinjiang is directly linked to cotton production through the practice of intercropping, a method of agricultural production where two crops are grown simultaneously in the same field.

The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act specifically identifies cotton, tomatoes, and polysilicon from Xinjiang as high-priority sectors.

“The direct link between red date(s) and cotton production increases the likelihood that red date production is being tainted by Uyghur forced labor,” the report said.

The report continued, 2018 XPCC data showed “red date-cotton intercropping is the primary form of fruit-cotton intercropping with nearly 80% (1.6 million tons) of red dates produced on cotton farms in 2019.”

The U.S. accuses China of mistreating its Uyghur and other Turkic Muslim ethnic communities in Xinjiang, including the arbitrary detention of more than 1 million Uyghurs in re-education camps, forced labor, forced sterilization of women and torture.

On Wednesday, a U.N. report about human rights stated that Beijing’s labor schemes “involve elements of coercion” in Xinjiang, requiring clarification by Chinese authorities.

China’s response

Beijing has repeatedly denied the accusations and described the facilities as “vocational training schools” aimed to root out terrorist, extremist and separatist thoughts in people’s minds. China vehemently denies Uyghurs are forced into labor and said that the Chinese government implemented poverty alleviation programs to help Uyghurs.

“Some forces manipulate Xinjiang-related issues and fabricated the disinformation on ‘forced labor’ in Xinjiang. In essence, they are using human rights as a pretext to undermine Xinjiang’s prosperity and stability and contain China’s development and revitalization,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin at an August news conference.

Navigating US law

Setiwaldi said companies importing goods from Xinjiang, in order to comply with the UFLPA, should understand which products are at high risk of being made with Uyghur forced labor.

“U.S. companies have not fully mapped out their supply chains which makes it difficult for CBP to identify and trace goods made with Uyghur forced labor. Many products may be exported from mainland China or by intermediary suppliers outside of China that seem to have no links to the XPCC or even the Uyghur Region,” Setiwaldi told VOA.

According to CBP, the agency receives numerous allegations of forced labor from a variety of sources, including government partners, non-government organizations’ reports, media coverage, firsthand accounts and the general public.

“We will continue to use the resources at our disposal to evaluate these allegations and to identify and prevent goods made with forced labor from entering the U.S. commerce,” a CBP representative told VOA.
…

your ad here

Ukraine’s Largest Nuclear Plant Loses Main Power Line

Posted on by SeeEU

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant lost connection to its last main external power line Saturday, according to a statement from the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, but the plant could still send electricity to the grid via a reserve line.

The plant’s senior Ukrainian staff told the International Atomic Energy Agency experts who stayed behind after their inspection this week that the fourth and last of the plant’s operational lines was down due to shelling Friday night.

IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi said Friday that it appeared the power supply to the plant was being deliberately targeted.

“It is clear that those who have these military aims know very well that the way to cripple or to do more damage is not to look into the reactors, which are enormously sturdy and robust,” he said, according to The New York Times. Instead, the power lines that are essential to run the plant are being targeted.

The plant, which has six reactors, has only one operating. The staff disconnected Unit 5 because of electrical grid restrictions, according to the IAEA statement. The remaining reactor is producing electricity for cooling and other essential safety functions at the site and for households, factories and others through the grid.

Russian forces seized the plant soon after the February invasion of Ukraine, but the Ukrainian staff continues to operate it. A team of IAEA inspectors was allowed into the plant this week and maintain a presence there to help secure the site. Grossi said their presence at the site is “a game changer.”

On Saturday, Russia’s defense ministry accused Ukraine of attempting to recapture the plant.

The ministry said a naval force with more than 250 Ukrainian troops tried to land on the bank of the Kakhovka reservoir near the plant Friday night. The attempt was called off after strikes from Russian military helicopters and fighter jets destroyed 20 Ukrainian vessels, the ministry said.

Both Reuters and The Associated Press reported Russia’s claims but said they could not be independently verified.

Also, Kremlin-backed local authorities blamed Ukraine for the shelling Friday night that took down the plant’s last power line and said that was why the plant had stopped supplying electricity to Ukrainian-held areas.

“The provision of electricity to the territories controlled by Ukraine has been suspended due to technical difficulties,” the municipal administration in Enerhodar, where the Zaporizhzhia plant is located, said a post on its official Telegram channel.

Ukraine and Russia have blamed each other for shelling at and near the plant.

The British military confirmed in its regular update Saturday morning that Ukrainian forces were conducting “renewed offensive operations” in the south of Ukraine, advancing along a broad front west of the Dnieper and focusing on three areas within the Russian-occupied Kherson region.

“The operation has limited immediate objectives, but Ukraine’s forces have likely achieved a degree of tactical surprise; exploiting poor logistics, administration and leadership in the Russian armed forces,” the ministry tweeted.

Energy battle

As an energy battle between Russia and the West over the war in Ukraine intensifies, a top European Union leader said Saturday that Europe is “well prepared” if Russia decides to stop all gas deliveries.

“We are well prepared to resist Russia’s extreme use of the gas weapon,” EU Economy Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni told reporters on the sidelines of an economic forum in Italy. “We are not afraid of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s decisions, we are asking the Russians to respect contracts, but if they don’t, we are ready to react.”

Gentiloni’s remarks came on the heels of Moscow’s decision Friday to delay the reopening of its main gas pipeline to Germany. Russia apparently was reacting to the Group of Seven countries’ agreement to cap the price of Russian oil exports, limiting Moscow’s profits.

Gentiloni said that gas storage in the EU “is currently at about 80%, thanks to the diversification of supplies,” although the situation varies in each country.

Russian energy giant Gazprom said it could not resume the supply of natural gas to Germany, just hours before it was set to restart deliveries through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline. Russia blamed a technical fault in the pipeline for the move.

Some information came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
…

your ad here

Pope Dissolves Knights of Malta Leadership, Issues New Constitution

Posted on by SeeEU

Pope Francis on Saturday dissolved the leadership of the Knights of Malta, the global Catholic religious order and humanitarian group, and installed a provisional government ahead of the election of a new grand master.

The change, which the pope issued in a decree, came after five years of often acrimonious debate within the order and between some top members of the old guard and the Vatican over a new constitution that some feared would weaken its sovereignty.

The group, whose formal name is Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta, was founded in Jerusalem nearly 1,000 years ago to provide medical aid for pilgrims in the Holy Land.

It now has a multimillion-dollar budget, 13,500 members, 95,000 volunteers and 52,000 medical staff running refugee camps, drug treatment centers, disaster relief programs and clinics around the world.

The order has been very active in helping Ukrainian refugees and war victims.

It has no real territory apart from a palace and offices in Rome and a fort in Malta but is recognized as a sovereign entity with its own passports and license plates.

It has diplomatic relations with 110 states and permanent observer status at the United Nations, allowing it to act as a neutral party in relief efforts in war zones.

Cardinal Silvano Tomasi, the pope’s special delegate to the order, told reporters at a briefing along with some members of the provisional government that the order’s new constitution would not weaken its international sovereignty.

But as a religious order, it had to remain under the auspices of the Vatican, said Cardinal Gianfranco Ghirlanda, a member of the working group that prepared the new constitution approved by the pope Saturday.

Francis convoked an extraordinary general chapter for Jan. 25 to begin the process of electing a new grand master.

The last one, Italian Giacomo Dalla Torre, died in April.

“We hope this will reestablish unity in the order and increase its ability to serve the poor and the sick,” Tomasi said. 

Tomasi and the lieutenant of the grand master, Canadian John Dunlap, will lead the group to the general chapter. A new grand master is expected to be elected by March, officials said.

Under the previous constitution, the top knights and the grand master were required to have noble lineage, something reformers said excluded nearly everyone except Europeans from serving in top roles.

The new constitution eliminates the nobility rule as well as the tradition of grand masters being elected for life.

“It will be more democratic. The question of nobility has now become secondary,” Tomasi said.

Future grand masters will be elected for 10-year terms, renewable only once, and will have to step down at age 85.

Reformers, backed by the Vatican, had called for a more transparent government to bring in fresh blood and allow the order to better respond to the massive growth it has seen in recent years.
…

your ad here

At Least 33 Killed in Eastern DR Congo Clashes, Monitor Says

Posted on by SeeAF

At least 33 people were killed following a militia attack on a town in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a respected monitor said Saturday, raising an earlier reported death toll.

Kivu Security Tracker, the monitor, tweeted that at least 33 people, including militia members and civilians, had died following an attack by the notorious CODECO militia on Mongbwalu in Ituri province.

It did not specify how many of the dead were civilians, however.

The death toll raises an earlier reported death toll of 22 people killed during the attack on Mongbwalu town.

Town mayor Jean-Pierre Bikilisende earlier this week told AFP that 22 bodies were discovered following clashes between the militants and Congolese troops.

Fourteen civilians and eight militants were killed, he said, explaining that CODECO members had been staging attacks since Tuesday in a bid to free fellow fighters captured by Congolese security forces.

AFP was unable to independently confirm the death toll from this week’s attack.

The CODECO — the Cooperative for the Development of the Congo — is a political-religious sect that claims to represent the interests of the Lendu ethnic group.

It is considered one of the deadliest of the more than 120 militias operating in the troubled eastern part of the country and has been blamed for a number of ethnic massacres in Ituri.

Last year, Congo’s government put security officials in charge of Ituri and neighboring North Kivu province in a bid to curb violence, but the attacks continue.
…

your ad here

Teacher Shortages Grow Worrisome in Poland and Hungary

Posted on by SeeEU

Ewa Jaworska has been a teacher since 2008 and loves working with young people. But the low pay is leaving her demoralized. She even has to buy her own teaching materials sometimes and is disheartened by the government using schools to promote conservative ideas which she sees as backward.

Like many other Polish teachers, she is considering a career change.

“I keep hoping that the situation might still change,” said the 44-year-old, who teaches in a Warsaw high school. “But unfortunately, it is changing for the worse, so only time will tell if this year will be my last.”

Problems are mounting in schools in Poland, with a teacher shortage growing worse and many educators and parents fearing that the educational system is being used to indoctrinate young people into the ruling party’s conservative and nationalistic vision.

It’s very much the same in Hungary. Black-clad teachers in Budapest carried black umbrellas to protest stagnant wages and heavy workloads on the first day of school Thursday. Teachers’ union PSZ said young teachers earn a “humiliating” monthly after-tax salary of just 500 euros (dollars) that has prompted many to walk away.

Thousands of people marched in solidarity with teachers Friday in Budapest, voicing the view that the teachers’ low compensation is linked to the authoritarian direction of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government.

“Free country, free education!” they shouted.

Teacher shortages could hardly come at a worse time, with both countries trying to integrate Ukrainian refugees. It’s particularly challenging for Poland, where hundreds of thousands of school-aged Ukrainian refugees now live.

Nearly 200,000 Ukrainian students, most of whom do not speak Polish, already entered Polish schools after the war began Feb. 24. The education minister has said the overall number of Ukrainian students could triple this coming school year, depending on how the war unfolds.

Andrzej Wyrozembski, the principal of the high school in Warsaw’s Zoliborz district where Jaworska works, has set up two classes for 50 Ukrainians in his school. He said his Ukrainian students who arrived in the spring are quickly learning Polish, a related Slavic language. The real difficulty is finding teachers, particularly for physics, chemistry, computer science and even for Polish.

Across central Europe, government wages haven’t kept pace with the private sector, leaving teachers, nurses and others with far less purchasing power.

The situation is expected to grow worse as many teachers near retirement and ever fewer young people choose the poorly paid profession, especially when inflation has exploded to 16% in Poland and nearly 14% in Hungary.

According to the Polish teachers’ union, schools in the country are short 20,000 teachers. Hungary, with a much smaller population, has a 16,000-teacher shortage.

“We don’t have young teachers,” said Slawomir Broniarz, the president of the Polish Teachers’ Trade Union, or ZNP, citing the starting salary of 3,400 zlotys ($720) pretax as the key reason.

Polish Education Minister Przemyslaw Czarnek has disputed the figures, saying teacher vacancies were closer to 13,000, adding it isn’t a huge number in proportion to the 700,000 teachers nationwide. He accuses the union and political opposition of exaggerating the problem.

Many educators strongly oppose the conservative ideology of the nationalist government and Czarnek himself, viewing him as a Catholic fundamentalist. His appointment in 2020 sparked protests because he had said LGBTQ people aren’t equal to “normal people” and that a woman’s main role is to have children.

Criticism has recently focused on a new school textbook on contemporary history. It has a section on ideologies that presents liberalism and feminism alongside Nazism. A section interpreted as denouncing in-vitro fertilization was so controversial that it was removed.

In Hungary, Erzsebet Nagy, a committee member of the Democratic Union of Hungarian Teachers, said teachers have been leaving the profession “in droves.”

“Young people aren’t coming into the profession, and very few of those who earn a teaching certificate from high school or university go on to teach,” said Nagy. “Even if they do, most of them leave within two years.”

Hungarian unions have also complained about the centralization of the country’s education system. Curriculums, textbooks and all decision-making are controlled by a central body formed in 2012 by Hungary’s nationalist government.

“Our professional autonomy is continually being eliminated,” said Nagy. “We have no freedom to choose textbooks. There are only two to choose from in each subject and both are of terrible quality. They’ve blocked the possibility for a free intellectual life.”

Worried about their children’s futures, families are rejecting public schools. New private schools are opening but they still can’t meet the demand.

Polish architect Piotr Polatynski was ready to take a second job just to pay private school tuition for his fourth-grade daughter. But as a new school year began this week, a lack of places in private schools forced him and his wife to send her back to a public neighborhood school, which they feel isn’t providing the kind of education his daughter deserves.

He still hopes a spot might open up somewhere as he fumes over the state of the education system.

“We don’t believe that the current government is capable of making changes that would encourage young people to enter the teaching profession and bring any kind of meaningful energy to this whole system,” he said. 
…

your ad here

UK to Begin Rollout of New COVID-19 Vaccination Campaign

Posted on by SeeEU

The U.K. will begin its autumn COVID-19 vaccination campaign in the coming weeks after authorizing booster shots made by Pfizer and Moderna that have been modified to target both the original virus and the widely circulating omicron variant.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency said Saturday that it had approved the Pfizer vaccine for use in people aged 12 and older after finding it was both safe and effective. The agency authorized the Moderna vaccine last month.

The government will offer the vaccine to everyone age 50 and over, as well as front-line health care workers and other groups considered to be particularly at risk of serious illness as the National Health Service prepares for a surge in infections this winter.

“These innovative vaccines will broaden immunity and strengthen our defenses against what remains a life-threatening virus,” Health Secretary Steve Barclay said in a statement. “If eligible, please come forward for a booster jab as soon as you are contacted by the NHS.”

Previous COVID-19 vaccines targeted the initial strain, even as mutants emerged. In the new “bivalent” boosters, half of the shot targets the original vaccine and half offers protection against the newest omicron variants.
…

your ad here

US OKs $1B Arms Sale to Taiwan as Tensions Rise with China

Posted on by SeeUS

The Biden administration Friday announced a more than $1 billion arms sale to Taiwan as U.S.-China tensions escalate over the status of the island. 

The $1.09 billion sale includes $355 million for Harpoon air-to-sea missiles and $85 million for Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, the State Department said. 

The largest portion of the sale, however, is a $655 million logistics support package for Taiwan’s surveillance radar program, which provides air defense warnings. Early warning air defense systems have become more important as China has stepped up military drills near Taiwan, which it regards as a renegade province. 

The State Department said the equipment is necessary for Taiwan to “maintain a sufficient self-defense capability.” The administration notified Congress of the sale after close of business Friday. 

The administration said the deals comply with the U.S. “One China” policy. It also urged Beijing “to cease its military, diplomatic, and economic pressure against Taiwan and instead engage in meaningful dialogue with Taiwan.” 

Laura Rosenberger, the White House’s senior director for China and Taiwan, said late Friday that as China “continues to increase pressure on Taiwan — including through heightened military air and maritime presence around Taiwan — and engages in attempts to change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait, we’re providing Taiwan with what it needs to maintain its self-defense capabilities.” 

The acrimony and strident rhetoric between the U.S. and China over Taiwan have increased sharply since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island last month. Since Pelosi’s trip to Taipei there have been at least two other congressional visits and several by governors of U.S. states, all of which China has condemned. 

 

On Thursday, Taiwan’s military said it shot down a drone hovering over one of its island outposts just off the Chinese coast in an incident that underscored the heightened tensions. A day earlier, Taiwan said it had warned off drones hovering over three of the islands it occupies off the coast of the Chinese port city of Xiamen. 

China claims Taiwan as its own territory, to be annexed by force if necessary. The sides split after a civil war in 1949 and have no official relations, with China cutting off even informal contacts following the election of independence-leaning Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen in 2016. 

Tsai’s administration has pushed for a strengthening of anti-drone defenses as part of a 12.9% increase in its Defense Ministry’s annual budget next year. That would boost defense spending by an additional 47.5 billion New Taiwan dollars ($1.6 billion), for a total of 415.1 billion NTD ($13.8 billion). 

The U.S. described Chinese drills last month as a severe overreaction and responded by sailing two guided missile cruisers through the Taiwan Strait, which China has declared to be its sovereign waters. 
…

your ad here

UN Chief Appoints Senegal’s Bathily to Head UN Libya Mission

Posted on by SeeAF

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced the appointment Friday of former Senegalese minister and U.N. diplomat Abdoulaye Bathily to be the new U.N. envoy to Libya after the Security Council gave its approval, ending a nine-month search amid increasing chaos in the oil-rich north African nation. 

Libya’s transitional government, which opposed Bathily’s nomination, reportedly sent a protest letter to Guterres, which raises questions about how effective the new envoy can be in trying to resolve the country’s political and economic crisis. 

The last U.N. special representative, Jan Kubis, resigned Nov. 23, 2021, after 10 months on the job, and a number of candidates proposed by Guterres were rejected by council members, Libya or neighboring countries. 

In December, Guterres appointed veteran American diplomat Stephanie Williams, a former U.N. deputy special representative in Libya, as his special adviser — a job that did not require council approval. 

She left at the end of July. So, the mission has had no leader as Libyans grapple with a constitutional and political crisis. 

Years of chaos

Libya has been in chaos since a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. The country has for years been split between rival administrations, each backed by rogue militias and foreign governments. 

U.N. political chief Rosemary DiCarlo warned Tuesday that failure to resolve Libya’s political crisis and hold delayed elections poses a growing threat in the country, pointing to recent violent clashes that killed at least 42 people and injured 159 others, according to Libyan authorities. 

The current stalemate grew out of the failure to hold elections in December and the refusal of Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, who led the transitional government, to step down. In response, the country’s east-based parliament appointed a rival prime minister, Fathy Bashagha, who has for months sought to install his government in Tripoli. 

Diplomatic experience

Guterres said Bathily brings 40 years of experience to the job of special representative and head of Libya’s U.N. political mission. 

He held various ministerial positions in Senegal, taught history for more than 30 years at the Universite Cheikh Anta Diop in the country, held senior U.N. positions including in Mali and Central Africa, and served as the independent expert for the strategic review of the Libya mission in 2021. 

Bathily has doctorates from Universite Cheikh Anta Diop and the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom and is fluent in English, French, Soninke and Wolof. 
…

your ad here

Fast-Moving California Wildfire Prompts Thousands to Evacuate 

Posted on by SeeUS

A rapidly moving fire in Northern California had burned about 1,620 hectares (4,000 acres) of land by Saturday morning and prompted evacuations of thousands of residents, some of whom were also injured. 

The blaze, called the Mill Fire, started Friday nearly 370 kilometers north of Sacramento. By Saturday morning it was about 20% contained, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. 

About 100 homes and buildings were reported destroyed by the fire, authorities said. 

California Governor Gavin Newsom proclaimed a state of emergency for Siskiyou County. The emergency declaration will help residents access federal aid and unlock state resources. 

Newsom’s office said the fire had caused civilian injuries and power outages, destroyed homes and forced thousands of residents to evacuate. Local officials said people should plan for “at a minimum several days” to stay away from evacuated areas. 

Siskiyou County, home to Klamath National Forest, has a population of about 44,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. 

Kim Greene, the mayor of the small city of Weed in Siskiyou County, told the Los Angeles Times that the fire started at a lumber mill. 

Videos posted on Twitter by local media and journalists showed the fire destroying an industrial building in Weed, burning forested land and spreading through residential areas. 

Another fire called the Mountain Fire was also simultaneously spreading in Gazelle, 16 kilometers northwest of Weed. As of Saturday morning, that fire was 5% contained and had burned about 1,375 hectares of land. 

More than two decades of drought and rising temperatures, exacerbated by climate change, have made California more vulnerable than ever to wildfires. The two most devastating years on record were in 2020 and 2021, based on the number of acres burned. 
…

your ad here

3 Green Card Holders Rescued From Afghanistan Arrive in US

Posted on by SeeUS

Three U.S. green card holders rescued from Afghanistan by a Tampa, Florida-based nonprofit landed at JFK International Airport in New York earlier this week.

The organization, Project Dynamo, said that the three Afghans have been hiding in Kabul for a year before being rescued “during a dangerous operation codenamed: SLINGSHOT 8,” the organization said via press release on Tuesday.

In a Skype interview with VOA, Project Dynamo co-founder Bryan Stern called the rescue of Rahima Sadaat, Noor Mohammad Ataie and Ataie’s wife Anisa, a huge success.

“We learned about these three American LPRs [lawful permanent residents] about six or seven weeks ago, and then we started planning the operation very soon thereafter,” he said, explaining that they first had to wait for some things to fall into place.

“We wanted to see if there was going to be any problems on the ground for four Western-affiliated people; either green card holders or American citizens or whomever,” he added. “So, we wanted to really understand the situation on the ground. And then once we felt comfortable that we can put them to our mechanism safely, we executed.”

According to Stern’s organization, 83-year-old Sadaat had traveled to Afghanistan in March of 2021 to visit family and stayed in Kabul. The Ataies were visiting family in Kabul when the Taliban took over the country.

The Ataies say they spent the past year hiding in Kabul, fearful that members of the Taliban might detain, torture, or even kill them if their status as U.S. green card holders were discovered.

In addition to their own U.S. ties, both of their sons worked with the U.S. military — one as an interpreter for NATO forces in Afghanistan and the other as a contractor. Both are U.S. Special Immigrant Visa applicants awaiting approval.

“The situation with the Taliban as you know is dangerous,” said Stern, warning that Afghans discovered in possession of, say, a personal photo of themselves with an American soldier can get one arrested, tortured or even killed.

Masouda Noorzad was rescued from Afghanistan by Project Dynamo in August of last year and now works for the nonprofit as a case manager.

“One year ago, I went to visit my family in Afghanistan, and I had a good time with my family,” she told VOA via Skype. “But suddenly Kabul fell, and I had to get out. I was so scared. Not only me, everyone, the people were so scared. They just wanted to leave. So, I tried to get to into the airport and tried so many times but was not successful.”

Founded in 2021, Project Dynamo — self-described as veteran-led, donor-funded, and comprised of volunteers — has conducted over 100 independent rescue operations from Afghanistan, evacuating American citizens, green card holders, Special Immigrant Visa holders and vetted allies who could then travel safely to the United States and neighboring countries.

While Project Dynamo has been conducting rescue operations in Afghanistan since August of 2021, it has also conducted operations in Ukraine since January of 2022.

This story originated in VOA’s Urdu Service.
…

your ad here

No Longer Young, ‘Dreamers’ in US Uneasily Watch a Legal Challenge

Posted on by SeeUS

When Juliana Macedo do Nascimento signed up for an Obama-era program to shield immigrants who came to the country as young children from deportation, she enrolled at California State University, Los Angeles, transitioning from jobs in housekeeping, child care, auto repair and a construction company.

Now, a decade later at age 36, graduate studies at Princeton University are behind her and she works in Washington as deputy director of advocacy for United We Dream, a national group.

“Dreamers” like Macedo do Nascimento, long a symbol of immigrant youth, are increasingly easing into middle age as eligibility requirements have been frozen since 2012, when the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program was introduced.

The oldest recipients were in their early 30s when DACA began and are in their early 40s today. At the same time, fewer people turning 16 can meet a requirement to have been in the United States continuously since June 2007.

The average age of a DACA recipient was 28.2 years in March, up from 23.8 in September 2017, according to the Migration Policy Institute. About 40% are 30 or older, according to fwd.us, a group that supports DACA.

As fewer are eligible and new enrollments have been closed since July 2021 under court order, the number of DACA recipients fell to just above 600,000 at the end of March, according to government figures.

Beneficiaries have become homeowners and married. Many have U.S. citizen children.

“DACA is not for young people,” Macedo do Nascimento said. “They’re not even eligible for it anymore. We are well into middle age.”

Born out of President Barack Obama’s frustration with Congress’ failure to reach an agreement on immigration reform, DACA was meant to be a temporary solution, and many saw it as imperfect from the start. Immigration advocates were disappointed the policy didn’t include a pathway to citizenship and warned the program’s need to be renewed every two years would leave many feeling in limbo. Opponents, including many Republicans, saw the policy a legal overreach on Obama’s part and criticized it as rewarding people who hadn’t followed immigration law.

In a move intended to insulate DACA from legal challenge, the Biden administration released a 453-page rule Aug. 24 that sticks closely to DACA as it was introduced in 2012. It codified DACA as a regulation by subjecting it to potential changes after extensive public comment.

DACA advocates welcomed the regulation but were disappointed that age eligibility was unchanged.

The rule was “a missed opportunity,” said Karen Tumlin, an attorney and director of Justice Action Center. DACA, she said, was “locked in time, like a fossil preserved in amber.”

The administration weighed expanding the age eligibility but decided against it, said Ur Jaddou, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which administers the program.

“The president told us, ‘How do we preserve and fortify DACA? How do we ensure the security of the program and how best to do that?’ and this was the determination that was made after a lot of thought and careful consideration,” Jaddou said Monday in Los Angeles.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is considering a challenge to DACA from Texas and eight other states, asked both sides to explain how the new rule affects the program’s legal standing.

Texas, in a court filing Thursday, said the rule can’t save DACA. The states conceded that it’s similar to the 2012 memo that created the program but that they “share many of the same defects.”

The executive branch has “neither the authority to decide the major questions that DACA addresses, nor the power to confer substantive immigration benefits,” the states wrote.

The Justice Department argued the new rule — “substantively identical” to the original program — renders moot the argument that the administration failed to follow federal rule-making procedures.

DACA has been closed to new enrollees since July 2021 while the case winds its way through the New Orleans-based appeals court, but two-year renewals are allowed.

Uncertainty surrounding DACA has caused anxiety and frustration among aging recipients.

Pamela Chomba, 32, arrived with her family from Peru at age 11 and settled in New Jersey. She worries about losing her job and missing mortgage payments if DACA is ruled illegal. She put off becoming a mother because she doesn’t know if she can stay in the U.S. and doesn’t want to be a “burden” on her children.

“We’re people with lives and plans, and we really just want to make sure that we can feel safe,” said Chomba, director of state immigration campaigns for fwd.us.

Macedo do Nascimento was 14 when she arrived with her family from Brazil in 2001. She has not seen her brother in 10 years, he returned to Brazil just before DACA was announced. International travel under DACA is highly restricted.

Like Biden and many DACA advocates, she believes legislation is the answer.

“Congress is the ultimate solution here,” she said. “(Both parties) keep passing the ball between each other.

The uncertainty has affected her, the eldest of three siblings.

“The fear of being deported has come back,” Macedo do Nascimento said, because “you never know when this policy is going to end.”
…

your ad here

Mali Denies UN Accusations of Human Rights Abuses

Posted on by SeeAF

Mali’s foreign ministry is denying accusations of human rights violations made by the United Nations.

An 11-page statement posted on the official social media accounts of Mali’s foreign ministry denies all allegations leveled in a U.N. note that implicated Malian state security forces.

The U.N. mission to Mali, MINUSMA, released a quarterly note on human rights Wednesday, accounting for the period between April 1 and June 30 of this year. The note said that most of the human rights violations in Mali during that period were committed by Islamist militant groups but also says it has documented “serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law” by state security forces. 

The note adds that there was a decrease in all recorded human rights violations compared to the first quarter of 2022.   

Mali’s foreign ministry statement called the allegations against state security forces biased, and said they were made without “tangible proof” and “under the threat of terrorist groups,” with an objective “to tarnish the image of state security forces.”  

Tensions between Mali’s military government and MINUSMA have been rising in recent months. In July, Mali arrested 49 soldiers from Ivory Coast who had arrived as support for a U.N. contingent on their arrival at Bamako’s airport, accusing them of being mercenaries. 

Also in July, MINUSMA’s spokesperson was expelled from the country after he made comments on Twitter claiming the U.N. had notified the Malian government of the soldiers’ arrival. 

The Malian government denied the U.N. access to Moura, Mali, in April, where it wanted to carry out a human rights investigation into an alleged massacre committed by Malian forces working with Russian mercenaries. 

MINUSMA’s quarterly note also claimed to have documented the killing of 50 civilians in Hombori, Mali, by state security forces working with “foreign military personnel.”

The Malian government statement did not address accusations that it is working with foreign military forces. Mali says it only works with official Russian trainers and has received military aircraft and weapons shipments from Russia. 

A number of countries have accused Mali of working with mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner Group. After nearly 10 years there, France withdrew from Mali in August because of concerns about the country working with the Kremlin-linked paramilitary organization.
…

your ad here

Gunmen Abduct Worshippers in Northwest Nigeria

Posted on by SeeAF

Police in northwest Nigeria say worshippers have been kidnapped while they were observing jumu’at prayers, despite intensified action against armed gangs ordered by Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari.

Zamfara state police spokesperson Mohammed Shehu said the attack took place Friday afternoon at the Jumu’at Central Mosque in the Gummi local government area as worshippers gathered for prayers.

Eyewitnesses told local media the attackers, disguised as worshippers, hid guns in their clothes until they infiltrated the mosque.

The attackers shot sporadically into the air and herded dozens of worshippers into a nearby forest.

Zamfara state police responded to the incident, but Shehu said he could not immediately offer VOA any additional details about the attack.

Armed gangs have terrorized northwest and central Nigeria for years. More recently, violence spread to the southeast, where separatist group Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has been largely blamed for causing unrest. IPOB denies the allegations.

Security analyst Senator Iroegbu said the government’s approach to addressing insecurities has not worked.

“It’s a continued red flag,” he said. “I feel most of the responses have been too reactionary and ad hoc in nature. There has not been [a] holistic definition of what is actually happening in the northwest and how to arrest the situation. And this also hampers the effectiveness of the security operatives because for them to operate effectively, their scope of operation need to be well defined.”

Last month during a top security meeting, President Buhari ordered security chiefs to deal with terrorists without constraints.

Days later, the Nigerian air force said airstrikes in the northwest and central regions killed 55 gang members and freed some hostages.
…

your ad here

Swim Cap for Black Swimmers’ Hair Gets Race Approval After Olympic Ban

Posted on by SeeEU

A cap designed for Black swimmers’ natural hair that was banned from the Tokyo Olympics has been approved for competitive races.

Swimming governing body FINA said on Friday the Soul Cap was on its list of approved equipment.

 

“Promoting diversity and inclusivity is at the heart of FINA’s work,” executive director Brent Nowicki said in a statement, “and it is very important that all aquatic athletes have access to the appropriate swimwear.”

The London-based Soul Cap brand was designed larger than existing styles to contain and protect dreadlocks, weaves, hair extensions, braids, and thick and curly hair.

Last year, British swimmer Alice Dearing was refused permission to wear a Soul Cap in the 10-kilometer marathon swim in Tokyo, with FINA suggesting the size could create an advantage.

The furor at that decision prompted an apology from the governing body and a promise to review the application.

Soul Cap welcomed the approval that has come more than one year later as “a huge step in the right direction” in a sport that historically has had few Black athletes.

“For a long time, conventional swim caps have been an obstacle for swimmers with thick, curly, or volume-blessed hair,” the company said. “They can’t always find a cap that fits their hair type, and that often means that swimmers from some backgrounds end up avoiding competitions or giving up the sport entirely.

“We’re excited to see the future of a sport that’s becoming more inclusive for the next generation of young swimmers.”
…

your ad here

Thousands Pay Last Respects to Gorbachev at Funeral Snubbed by Putin

Posted on by SeeEU

Thousands of people lined up in Moscow Saturday to pay their final respects to the last leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, an architect of drastic reforms that helped end the Cold War.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was notably absent, with the Kremlin saying the president’s busy schedule prevented him from attending the funeral ceremony.

Mourners passed by Gorbachev’s open casket flanked by honor guards under the Russian flag in Moscow’s historic Hall of Columns, which has served as the venue for state funerals since Soviet times. Gorbachev’s daughter, Irina, and his two granddaughters sat beside the coffin.

Gorbachev was to be buried later on September 3 at Moscow’s Novodevichy Cemetery next to his wife, Raisa.

Gorbachev died on August 30 at the age 91 following a “serious and long illness” the hospital where he was treated said.

Gorbachev took over the Communist Party and Soviet leadership in 1985 and presided over six turbulent years that saw the fall of the Iron Curtain, the reunification of Germany, and ultimately the Soviet demise.

Despite the choice of the prestigious site for the farewell ceremony, the Kremlin stopped short of calling it a state funeral. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the ceremony will have “elements” of a state funeral, such as honor guards, and the government’s assistance in organizing it.

Declaring a state funeral for Gorbachev would have obliged Putin to attend it and would have required Moscow to invite foreign leaders, something that Russia was apparently reluctant to do amid growing tensions with the West over its unprovoked war in Ukraine.

The only senior foreign official to announce he would attend the funeral was Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has often been critical of the Western sanctions against Russia.

Before the Ukraine conflict, Orban had a close relationship with Putin, but the Kremlin said there were no talks planned during his visit to Moscow.

Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of Russia’s Security Council who served as Russia’s president in 2008-2012, attended the farewell ceremony. Medvedev then released a post on social media, referring to the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and accusing the United States and its allies of trying to engineer Russia’s breakup, a policy he described as a “chess game with death.”

Flags were also flying at half-mast in Berlin on September 3, to honor the man who held back Soviet troops as the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.

Some informarion for this report came from the Associated Press and Agence France-Presse.
…

your ad here

IAEA Visit to Ukraine Nuclear Plant Highlights Risks

Posted on by SeeEU

Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency are used to risky missions — from the radioactive aftermath of the Fukushima disaster in Japan to the politically charged Iranian nuclear program. But their deployment amid the war in Ukraine to Zaporizhzhia takes the threat to a new level and underscores the lengths to which the organization will go in attempts to avert a potentially catastrophic nuclear disaster.

The 6-month war sparked by Russia’s invasion of its western neighbor is forcing international organizations, not just the IAEA, to deploy teams during active hostilities in their efforts to impose order around Ukraine’s nuclear power plants, pursue accountability for war crimes and identify the dead.

“This is not the first time that an IAEA team has gone into a situation of armed hostilities,” said Tariq Rauf, the organization’s former head of verification and security, noting that the IAEA sent inspectors to Iraq in 2003 and to former Soviet Republic Georgia during fighting. “But this situation in Zaporizhzhia, I think it’s the most serious situation where the IAEA has sent people in ever, so it’s unprecedented.”

The IAEA’s Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi highlighted the risks Thursday when he led a team to the sprawling plant in southern Ukraine.

“There were moments when fire was obvious — heavy machine guns, artillery, mortars at two or three times were really very concerning, I would say, for all of us,” he said of his team’s journey through an active war zone to reach the plant.

Speaking to reporters after leaving colleagues inside, he said the agency was “not moving” from the plant from now on, and vowed a “continued presence” of agency experts.

But it remains to be seen what exactly the organization can accomplish.

“The IAEA cannot force a country to implement or enforce nuclear safety and security standards,” Rauf said in a telephone interview. “They can only advise and then it is up to … the state itself,” specifically the national nuclear regulator. In Ukraine, that is further complicated by the Russian occupation of the power station.

The IAEA is not the only international organization seeking to locate staff permanently in Ukraine amid the ongoing war.

International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan has visited Ukraine three times, set up an office in the country and sent investigators into a conflict zone to gather evidence amid widespread reports of atrocities. National governments including the Netherlands have sent expert investigators to help the court.

Khan told a United Nations meeting in April: “This is a time when we need to mobilize the law and send it into battle, not on the side of Ukraine against the Russian Federation or on the side of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, but on the side of humanity to protect, to preserve, to shield people … who have certain basic rights.”

The International Commission on Missing Persons, which uses a high-tech laboratory in The Hague to assist countries attempting to identify bodies, has already sent three missions to Ukraine and set up an office there.

Grossi, an Argentine diplomat, was previously a high-ranking official at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, an organization that, after he had left, also was forced to send inspectors to conflicts.

In April 2018, an OPCW team sent to collect evidence of a suspected chlorine attack in Douma, Syria, was forced to wait in a hotel for days because of security concerns in the town, which was at the time under the protection of Russian military police.

When a U.N. security team visited Douma, gunmen shot at them and detonated an explosive, further delaying the OPCW’s fact-finding mission.

The IAEA’s biggest operation to monitor any country’s nuclear program is Iran, where it has been the key arbiter in determining the size, scope and aspects of Tehran’s program during the decades of tensions over it. Since Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, the IAEA has had surveillance cameras and physical inspections at Iranian sites, even as questions persist over Iran’s military nuclear program, which the agency said ended in 2003.

But that monitoring hasn’t been easy. Since then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the deal in 2018, Iran has stopped the IAEA from accessing footage from its surveillance cameras. Other online monitoring devices have been affected as well.

In 2019, Iran alleged an IAEA inspector tested positive for suspected traces of explosive nitrates while trying to visit Iran’s underground Natanz nuclear facility. The IAEA strongly disputed Iran’s description of the incident, as did the U.S.

Another risky and challenging mission was in the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in Japan. About two weeks after the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami that caused reactor meltdowns and hydrogen explosions at reactor buildings, IAEA sent experts to monitor radiation, sample soil and check food safety, but they largely stayed outside of the plant. They returned later in full hazmat suits, masks, gloves and helmets to inspect the remains of the stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant.

The situation in Zaporizhzhia, with Russia and Ukraine trading accusations of shelling the area, has the potential to be just as devastating.

“Any time a nuclear power plant is in the middle of armed hostilities, shelling on its territory and nearby creates unacceptable risks,” Rauf said. “So, you know, any misfired shell could hit one of the reactors or disable some system that can lead to much bigger consequences.”
…

your ad here

Native American News Roundup Aug. 28 – Sept. 3, 2022

Posted on by SeeUS

First Alaska Native Elected to U.S. Congress

Mary Peltola, an Alaska Yup’ik Native, has won a special election to become the first Alaska Native and the first Alaskan woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

“I am honored, humbled, and absolutely speechless,” Peltola posted on Facebook shortly after the results were announced. “Thank you, Alaska…Together, we overcame all odds and showed that Alaskans can come together––regardless of party affiliation––to put Alaska first.”

The election was held August 16, but it took some time to tally the votes. Under the state’s new ranked-choice election system, voters list candidates in order of preference. If a candidate wins a majority of first-preference votes, that candidate is the winner. If no candidate wins a majority of first-preference votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and a new count is made. That process is repeated until one candidate wins a majority of votes.

Peltola is a member of the Democratic Party and will serve the remaining four months of the late Republican Representative Don Young’s term. She defeated former Alaska governor and 2008 vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, whom former President Donald Trump endorsed in April as a “true America First fighter.”

Alaska Native elected to Congress

 

DOI to Consult with Tribes on Draft Guidelines for Plugging Abandoned Wells

The Interior Department has released draft guidelines to help tribes apply for $50 million in grants to help clean up abandoned oil and gas wells on tribal lands.

The Environmental Defense Fund says there are 81,000 inactive wells which fuel extraction companies failed to plug before leaving. Thousands are located on reservations. Orphaned wells leak gases and chemicals into the air and groundwater, posing significant health risks to humans, wildlife and the environment.

While no longer producing oil and gas, they have yet to be shut down — a process that involves cementing the well bore, clearing off equipment, cleaning up any pollution in the soil or water, and grading and seeding the land to resemble what it once was.

Last year’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law allocates $4.7 billion to help plug these orphaned wells across the U.S., including $150 million for Tribal communities.

“We are making historic investments to reclaim orphaned oil and gas wells on Tribal lands and restore habitats and ecosystems in the degraded areas,” Secretary Deb Haaland said. “We have engaged in nation-to-nation consultations since the inception of this program and are eager to hear from Tribal leaders as we work to finalize this guidance.”

Biden-Harris Administration releases draft guidance on new Tribal orphaned well program

 

University Acknowledges It Holds Boxed Up Native American Remains, Artifacts

The University of North Dakota (UND) says it found dozens of remains of Native Americans and historic artifacts on its Grand Forks campus and is working to repatriate them to their families.

In a Zoom conference Wednesday, UND President Andrew Armacost said a group of educators discovered in March the partial skeletal remains of about 70 individuals, along with artifacts — more than 250 boxes in all — likely taken from burial mounds “over the course of decades.”

One of those educators was Laine Lyons, an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians and director of development at the College of Arts & Sciences. She described the shock of the discovery.

“In that moment, my heart sank into my stomach,” she said. “It was at that moment that I knew we were another institution that didn’t do the right thing.”

Armacost did not say why the University had not returned the remains and artifacts earlier, as mandated by the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) but said the school is “fully committed to righting this wrong.”

The school has organized a NAGPRA Compliance Committee to work with more than a dozen tribal representatives to come up with a process for sending home the ancestors and artifacts.

Nathan Davis, director of the North Dakota Indian Affairs Commission and also a member of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa, said he is feeling hurt and angry.

“In our way, in our culture…when one of our loved ones passes on, they are mourned over, they are prayed over, and there is a ceremony for them to begin their journey,” he said. “And once we put them in the ground, and they become one with our mother, that is where they are to stay.”

Indigenous ancestors found on North Dakota college campus

 

 

NAJA to Change Its Name and Blur ‘Medicine Line’

The Native American Journalists Association is rebranding and expanding.

At its annual conference in Arizona, NAJA president Francine Compton said the group has “talked about changing the name for a couple of years now, and we were finally able to show our membership in person how we have a new local concept and that we’re going in the direction of changing our name to Indigenous Journalists Association.”

NAJA was founded in 1983 to help bring Indigenous voices to mainstream newsrooms. NAJA membership is to citizens of Native American tribes, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, citizens of First Nations, and their non-Indigenous allies in media.

Compton is a citizen of the Sandy Bay Ojibway First Nation in Canada and a reporter for CBC Indigenous in Winnipeg. She told VOA, “Some indigenous journalists in Canada they have said, ‘I didn’t know NAJA included me because of its name. So, [the name change] will help us expand north to Canada and allow us to represent any indigenous journalist around the world who needs our support or wants to support us.”

Compton said the board first proposed the name change during a virtual conference in 2020, adding that some NAJA members opposed the move.

“We still want to consider and hear their concerns and have done our duty to give them time for consultation and feedback,” she said.

Former NAJA president and current Indian Country Today editor-at-large Mark Trahant said he supports the idea.

“Especially since [the Indigenous Canadian sovereignty movement] Idle No More and Standing Rock, there have been far more social media connections on both sides of the Medicine Line — and a growing number from other Indigenous communities,” Trahant said in an email.

He used a term Indigenous North Americans used for more than a century to reference the U.S.-Canada border, which split homelands, tribes, economies and families, preventing free movement tribes had enjoyed for millennia.

“Some of the discussions NAJA/IJA has been having are also taking place here,” Trahant said, adding that eight percent of his publication’s readership is in Canada. “We rebranded as ICT for many of the same reasons.”

 

 

Chinook Tribe to Lawmakers: If BIA Won’t Acknowledge Us, Will You?

The Chinook Nation in Washington State is launching a new push for federal recognition with a rally and #ChinookJustice Twitterstorm, hopeful that Congress can restore their official relationship with the federal government.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) officially recognized the Chinook Nation in 2001, giving the tribe access to health, housing, medical and other federal benefits and protections.

But the BIA rescinded that status 18 months later, ruling that between 1873 and 1951 the tribe did not exist as a distinct and “substantially continuous” entity, one of seven criteria tribes must meet to be officially recognized.

Tribe members rallied on the steps of a federal building in Seattle on Monday, calling on Washington Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell to help pass legislation recognizing the Chinook.

But the Chinook face strong opposition from the Quinault Nation, also in Washington State, a factor that could discourage lawmakers from acting.

In a statement to Northwest Radio, Senator Murray acknowledged the importance of tribal recognition, saying only that she would “do her best to serve as a voice for Washington’s tribal people.”

Chinook Nation rallies in support of federal recognition

 

Yellowstone at 150: Acknowledging Indigenous History

This year marks 150 years since President Ulysses S. Grant set aside nearly 9,000 square kilometers in parts of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho as “a park and pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.”

What became Yellowstone National Park was not the unclaimed wilderness that explorers described. For at least 10,000 years it had been inhabited, first by the so-called Clovis people, the ancestors of today’s Indigenous North Americans, who left behind spear points, pictographs and other evidence of their occupation of the land.

In more recent centuries, the park was home—permanently or seasonally—to 49 tribes, according to William “Bill” Snell Jr., President of the Pretty Shield Foundation, Executive Director of Rocky Mountain Tribal Leaders Council and an enrolled citizen of the Crow Nation.

In a 2007 article in the Public Land and Resources Law Review, “Ethnic Cleansing and America’s Creation of National Parks, Montana lawyer Isaac Kantor noted that for the most part, tribes continued to maintain their presence in the park, exercising their treaty rights to hunt there in spite of local and state bans.

“Both forcible and legal efforts were pursued to end Indian use of Yellowstone,” he wrote. “In July of 1895, when pressure from park officials and Indian agents proved inadequate, a Jackson Hole area lawman, William Manning, decided on a violent approach to ‘get the matter to the courts.’”

In the 1990s, tribes requested formal association with the park. Today, the National Park Services says it meets and consults with 27 tribes, exploring possibilities for giving them a greater voice in resource management and decision-making.

VOA correspondent Natasha Mozgovaya traveled to Yellowstone for ceremonies marking its 150th anniversary and spoke with members of several tribes with historic ties to the park.

Yellowstone Park Anniversary Highlights Stories of First Tribes

 

 

 
…

your ad here

Taiwan Sends Special Envoy to Former Pope’s Beatification

Posted on by SeeEU

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen has sent a special envoy to attend this weekend’s beatification of former Pope John Paul I, saying it demonstrates the close relations between the island and the Vatican, which has been courting China.

The Vatican is Chinese-claimed Taiwan’s sole European diplomatic ally, and Taipei has watched with concern as Pope Francis has moved to improve relations with China. The democratically governed island has formal ties with only 14 countries, largely due to Chinese pressure.

In a statement late Friday, Taiwan’s presidential office said former Vice President Chen Chien-jen, a devout Catholic, would attend Sunday’s ceremony as part of a nine-day trip.

The visit “demonstrates the close friendship between the two countries,” it said. Chen will also take part in a reception with the pope for members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, it added.

Tsai expressed hope that Chen would “continue to deepen the friendship between Taiwan and the Vatican, and continue to protect the shared belief in universal values between Taiwan and the Vatican.”

He went to the Vatican three times while in office, in 2016, 2018 and 2019, including attending the canonization ceremony of Mother Teresa.

Pope Francis told Reuters in July said that while the Vatican’s secret and contested agreement with China on the appointment of Roman Catholic bishops is not ideal, he hoped it could be renewed in October because the Church takes the long view.

The deal, which was struck in 2018 and comes up for renewal every two years, was a bid to ease a longstanding divide across mainland China between an underground flock loyal to the pope and a state-backed official church.

Both sides now recognize the pope as supreme leader of the Catholic Church.

China’s constitution guarantees religious freedom, but in recent years the government has tightened restrictions on religions seen as a challenge to the authority of the ruling Communist Party.

Taiwan puts no restrictions on freedom of faith and has a thriving religious community that includes Christians, Buddhists and Muslims. 
…

your ad here