The largest dam removal in US history has received final federal approval in a major victory for environmentalists and Native American communities. The four dams along the border of California and Oregon have been blamed for the decline of salmon and other species. Matt Dibble reports.
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Month: November 2022
African Cotton Exporter Benin Looks to Local Manufacturing to Reduce Emissions
Africa’s biggest cotton exporter, Benin, has built an industrial park to move the country away from raw exports to finished products. Environmental activists say local manufacturing will also cut down on emissions from shipping that contribute to climate change. Henry Wilkins reports from Djigbé, Benin.
Camera: Henry Wilkins Video Editor: Henry Wilkins
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Millions Without Power After Russian Airstrikes, Zelenskyy Says
Ukrainian officials reported fresh missile strikes Thursday in multiple parts of the country, with targets including gas facilities.
The focus of the strikes, by drones as well as missiles, continues to be energy infrastructure, the Ukrainian military said in statement, adding that the attacks stretched from Kyiv to Odesa in the south.
Ukraine says it has shot down two cruise missiles, five air-launched missiles and five Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones, according to Reuters, which said it could not independently verify battlefield reports.
As the first snow fell in Kyiv, officials said utility workers were trying to restore power nationwide after a barrage of Russian airstrikes earlier this week.
About 10 million people were without power, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday evening in his nightly video report.
A United Nations agency said it feared a humanitarian crisis this winter if the power outages continued.
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted Thursday morning that he was speaking by phone with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken as Russia carried out “another massive missile attack on Ukraine.”
Kuleba said he thanked the United States for providing military aid, and he stressed the need for speeding up deliveries of air defense systems.
He cited the success of the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System that Ukrainian forces began using earlier this month. Kuleba also said he is convinced the time has come for Ukraine to receive the more advanced U.S. Patriot air defense system.
In the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, Russia was using troops pulled from Kherson to unleash heavy fighting. The Ukrainian military said Russian forces fired artillery on the towns of Bakhmut and nearby Soledar, among others.
They were also shelling Balakliya in the Kharkiv region and Nikopol, a city on the opposite bank of the Kakhovka reservoir from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, the statement said. Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield reports.
Also in the Zaporizhzhia area, a Russian strike hit a residential building, killing at least seven people overnight. Rescuers combed the rubble Thursday, searching for any other victims, according to The Associated Press.
In Luch, a village that sits on the border between the Mykolaiv and Kherson regions, the effects of Russian shelling foretell the damage other cities, towns and villages are suffering.
Before Feb. 24, about 1,000 people lived in the village. Now there are only 38.
Luch has been shelled from the side of the Russian-occupied Kherson region almost every day since the start of the war. Today, no buildings remain intact in the village.
“It’s tough. We are constantly hiding; we can’t figure out what side the missiles are coming from,” said Galyna, a resident of the village. “We had such a lovely village, and now there’s nothing left. Everything is in ruins.”
Yelyzaveta Krotyk contributed to this report. Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse, Reuters and The Associated Press.
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In Newly Liberated Kherson, Ukrainians Celebrate but Worry About What’s Next
Under rainy skies on Thursday afternoon, Ukrainian-controlled Kherson’s central square was bustling with humanitarian aid distribution and displays of patriotic celebration tinged with uncertainty about the future.
Last week, Russia pulled its troops out of a pocket on the west bank of the Dnipro River in Ukraine, which included Kherson, the only regional capital it had captured since the February invasion.
Ukrainian officials say Russians destroyed the city’s critical infrastructure before leaving. There is no running water, electricity or central heating.
Hundreds of people stood in line for humanitarian assistance but said they had no idea what they might receive. A few people said they had been waiting for hours.
“It’s not that we’re hungry. We lost our jobs because of the occupation,” said Olga Meshcherikova, who was queuing with her husband Ihor, 48, now an unemployed builder.
Ihor, indicating the east bank of the Dnipro, said nothing was over yet.
“On that bank of the river, the forces are gathering; on this side, they are gathering. We’re in the middle — I’m afraid we’ll end up like Mariupol,” he said.
The port city of Mariupol, on the Sea of Azov, suffered major damage before falling to Russian forces in May.
At one end of the damp central square, a man played the Ukrainian anthem on the accordion as bystanders sang along. At the other end, a man strummed popular Ukrainian rock songs.
Children and teenagers gathered around a kneeling soldier as he signed flags draped around their shoulders.
Moscow illegally declared Kherson to be Russian after a September referendum denounced by Ukraine and its allies as a sham. A billboard advertising the vote was still standing, but someone had scrubbed out the word “Russia.”
Women, children and soldiers posed for photographs on a central marble plinth.
Anya Vostoboinik, 62, a one-legged woman in a wheelchair, clutched a pack of disposable diapers she had been given.
She said the Russian occupiers had arrested her son, a former soldier named Oleksii, 28, three months ago and never released him.
“Where is he now? I don’t know. I would go to the end of the world to find out. If I could just find out where he is. He’s my only son. He was always nearby. Now … ,” she said, before tearing up, unable to go on.
Svetlana Libus, 61, who was wrapped up warm with her tiny dog poking its head out of her coat, said she needed her hormonal medicine as she was recovering from thyroid cancer but could not find it anywhere in Kherson.
She said humanitarian aid included only basic medicines and insulin, but not what she needed.
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FBI Investigating Chinese ‘Police Station’ In New York
The FBI is investigating the operation of an unauthorized “police station” that China is running out of New York as part of a global network of such stations, FBI Director Chrstopher Wray said Thursday, vowing to put a stop to Beijing’s apparently unsanctioned law enforcement activity in the United States.
“I’m very concerned about this,” Wray said in response to a question about the Chinese police stations during a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing. “We’re aware of the existence of these stations. I have to be careful about discussing our specific investigative work, but to me, it’s outrageous to think that the Chinese police would attempt to set up shop in New York, for example, without proper coordination.”
Such an uncoordinated law enforcement operation “violates sovereignty and circumvents standard judicial and law enforcement cooperation processes,” Wray added.
The Chinese embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment. VOA will update this story to include any comment if and when it is received.
In a report released in September, the human rights watchdog Safeguard Defenders said China has set up at least 54 “overseas police service stations” around the world, including one in New York City and three in Toronto.
While tasked with cracking down on Chinese-related illegal activities overseas, the police stations are “but the latest iteration in [China’s] growing transnational repression, where it seeks to police and limit political expression far beyond its own borders,” the report said.
Chinese officials have repeatedly said the stations assist Chinese nationals overseas with routine matters such as renewing driver’s licenses, functions that would normally be handled by an embassy or consulate.
“Chinese public security authorities strictly observe the international law and fully respect the judicial sovereignty of other countries,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning was quoted by U.S.-based National Public Radio on Thursday.
Wray said the FBI is examining “the legal parameters” of the Chinese police operation in the United States and is in talks with the departments of Justice and State about the matter.
“I can tell you from the FBI director’s perspective, I’m deeply concerned about this, and I’m not going to just let it lie,” Wray said.
More investigations
The FBI is not the only law enforcement agency probing an overseas Chinese police station.
In the two months since the Safeguard Defenders’ report was released, at least 14 governments, including those of Britain, Canada and Germany, have opened investigations into the operations, according to Safeguard Defenders.
Wray said the FBI has been in talks with its international law enforcement partners about the unauthorized Chinese law enforcement actions “because we’re not the only country where it has occurred.”
While declining to say whether the Chinese are using the police station in the U.S. to monitor U.S. citizens, Wray cited recent federal indictments of Chinese nationals accused of “engaging in uncoordinated ‘law enforcement action’ right here in the United States, harassing, stalking surveilling and blackmailing people who they don’t like or disagree with the Xi regime.”
In October, the Justice Department charged seven Chinese citizens in connection with a scheme to force the return to China of a Chinese citizen living in New York.
The lead defendant in the case, Quanzhong An, was accused of monitoring and conducting a campaign to “harass and coerce” the U.S. resident to return to China as part of an extrajudicial repatriation effort known as Operation Fox Hunt, according to the Justice Department.
In March, the State Department imposed visa restrictions on Chinese Communist Party officials accused of “repressive acts” against religious and ethnic minorities.
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As Ukraine War Hits Pocketbooks, European Discontent Grows
Strikes have been held in France and Spain for higher wages and better working conditions, while discontent in Belgium and Greece over soaring energy prices has drawn thousands into the streets. And that’s only over the past week.
As fallout from the war in Ukraine hits European energy supplies, jobs and pocketbooks, public discontent grows. Europeans have vented their frustration over rising prices and shrinking purchasing power. Analysts say that hasn’t dented European public support for Ukraine or European anger against Russia, although that could change.
“People are pretty angry right now across Europe,” said John Springford, deputy director of the London-based Center for European Reform, a policy institute. “There’s a general understanding I think that the high inflation we have been seeing is down to the war in Ukraine.”
Springford said many are pointing a finger at Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“There is a fair amount of blame placed upon Putin for that — at least according to opinion polls,” he said.
Russia invaded Ukraine in February. Today, Europe is reeling from soaring prices driven by the conflict, but started during the COVID-19 pandemic. Inflation in October rose to nearly 11 percent across the 19 countries using eurocurrency. Experts predict the European Union will likely fall into at least a short-term recession by year’s end.
“People blame their governments for not protecting them against inflation,” said Director Sebastien Maillard of the Paris-based Jacques Delors Institute, a research organization.
Maillard said Europeans don’t want to pay the price for backing Ukraine and sanctioning Russia. He said their governments can’t keep cushioning the shock with more spending — for example on energy subsidies — as France has been doing.
“If there is recession, if there is inflation, your public debt cannot grow forever,” Maillard said. “We saw it’s a problem for Italy, also for the UK. There’s a threshold over which you cannot go — (otherwise) the financial markets will get overuse.”
Philipp Lausberg, an analyst with the European Policy Center, said whether Europe’s autumn of discontent deepens into a winter of rage depends on many factors — including the weather and energy supplies that have shrunk under Russian cutoffs and European Union sanctions on Moscow.
“If we have an unexpected disruption of gas for Europe this winter, we’ll probably see an even further increase in civil unrest and government instability,” said Lausberg.
With EU gas supplies in good shape for now, he said, that bleak scenario is not likely in the immediate future. But if the current warm temperatures turn frosty, and energy supplies grow tight, European solidarity for Ukraine may fade — and European governments may be the first to feel the fallout.
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Webb Space Telescope Spots Early Galaxies Hidden from Hubble
NASA’s Webb Space Telescope is finding bright, early galaxies that until now were hidden from view, including one that may have formed a mere 350 million years after the cosmic-creating Big Bang.
Astronomers said Thursday that if the results are verified, this newly discovered throng of stars would beat the most distant galaxy identified by the Hubble Space Telescope, a record-holder that formed 400 million years after the universe began.
Launched last December as a successor to Hubble, the Webb telescope is indicating stars may have formed sooner than previously thought — perhaps within a couple million years of creation.
Webb’s latest discoveries were detailed in the Astrophysical Journal Letters by an international team led by Rohan Naidu of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The article elaborates on two exceptionally bright galaxies, the first thought to have formed 350 million years after the Big Bang and the other 450 million years after.
Naidu said more observations are needed in the infrared by Webb before claiming a new distance record-holder.
Although some researchers report having uncovered galaxies even closer to the creation of the universe 13.8 billion years ago, those candidates have yet to be verified, scientists stressed at a NASA news conference. Some of those could be later galaxies mimicking earlier ones, they noted.
“This is a very dynamic time,” said Garth Illingworth of the University of California, Santa Cruz, a co-author of the article published Thursday. “There have been lots of preliminary announcements of even earlier galaxies, and we’re still trying to sort out as a community which ones of those are likely to be real.”
Tommaso Treu of the University of California, Los Angeles, a chief scientist for Webb’s early release science program, said the evidence presented so far “is as solid as it gets” for the galaxy believed to have formed 350 million years after the Big Bang.
If the findings are verified and more early galaxies are out there, Naidu and his team wrote that Webb “will prove highly successful in pushing the cosmic frontier all the way to the brink of the Big Bang.”
“When and how the first galaxies formed remains one of the most intriguing questions,” they said in their paper.
NASA’s Jane Rigby, a project scientist with Webb, noted that these galaxies “were hiding just under the limits of what Hubble could do.”
“They were right there waiting for us,” she told reporters. “So, that’s a happy surprise that there are lots of these galaxies to study.”
The $10 billion observatory — the world’s largest and most powerful telescope ever sent into space — is in a solar orbit that’s 1.6 million kilometers from Earth. Full science operations began over the summer, and NASA has since released a series of dazzling snapshots of the universe.
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Democrats’ 4-Year Majority in US House Ends as Republicans Take Power
Republicans won the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives this week and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced she will not seek a leadership position in the new Democratic minority – two of the many changes coming to the new Congress in January. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson has more.
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US Vice President Harris in Asia to Discuss Myanmar, South China Sea Disputes
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is in Thailand this week to promote U.S. economic interests at a regional summit and to discuss concerns about an ongoing military crackdown in Myanmar.
Harris will deliver remarks at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, a gathering that includes 21 members who push for increasing economic integration and prosperity.
Ahead of the trip, a senior administration official told reporters in a briefing that the United States expects talks will result in funding for new economic initiatives.
“We also anticipate they will discuss the situation in Burma, as well as other regional and global developments,” the official said, using another name for Myanmar.
The official said Harris would discuss Myanmar with leaders in Thailand, as well as the Philippines, where she will travel in the coming days. “Thailand and the Philippines are both heavily impacted by the crackdown by the regime” in Myanmar, the official said.
The military staged a coup in Myanmar in 2021, overthrowing the democratically elected government, triggering armed resistance in the country.
Last week, Myanmar was excluded from a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Members of the bloc issued a joint statement warning Myanmar to make measurable progress on a peace plan or risk being barred from the bloc’s meetings as social and political chaos escalates in the country.
Myanmar’s ruling junta rejected the ASEAN statement. The junta has previously blamed the lack of progress on the pandemic and obstruction from armed resistance movements.
Philippines trip includes island stop
Chinese President Xi Jinping also is expected to attend the APEC summit but there is no meeting with Vice President Harris. Earlier this week, Xi held a nearly three-hour meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden.
Harris’ trip to the Philippines will focus on a territorial dispute between Manila and Beijing.
Harris also will travel to Puerto Princesa, on the Philippine island of Palawan, to highlight her administration’s commitment to the rule of law in the disputed South China Sea. She will be the highest-ranking U.S. official ever to visit the island bordering an area where China has engaged in a military build-up. Washington has accused Beijing of advancing unlawful maritime claims in the South China Sea.
“This visit demonstrates the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to stand with our Philippine ally in upholding the rules-based international maritime order in the South China Sea, supporting maritime livelihoods, and countering illegal, unregulated, and unreported fishing,” the U.S. official said on Tuesday.
The Philippines and several other governments have competing claims to the resource-rich waterway.
On Monday in Manila, the vice president is also expected to sit down with Philippine leader Ferdinand Marcos Jr. as well as with Vice President Sara Duterte, the daughter of the country’s former president, Rodrigo Duterte.
VOA State Department Bureau Chief Nike Ching contributed to this report. Ralph Jennings also contributed.
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House Speaker Pelosi to Stay in Congress But Not Seek Democratic Party Leadership Role
Nancy Pelosi, the only woman to ever be speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, announced Thursday that she would remain in Congress as Republicans take control of the chamber in January, but not seek a Democratic leadership position, ending her two-decade run as the party’s leader.
In an emotional 15-minute speech on the House floor, the 82-year-old Pelosi recalled the highlights of her 35 years in the House, including eight as speaker, but said, “Now we must move boldly into the future. The hour has come for a new generation” to lead the Democratic caucus.
She has long been a cherished figure among her fellow Democrats but reviled and disparaged by many Republicans who intensely dislike her progressive political views spawned by perhaps the most liberal city in America, San Francisco, California, which she represents in the House.
Democrats in the House chamber cheered as she recalled the increase in the number of Democratic women in the House, from 12 in 1987 when she first became a House member to more than 90 today, and the increasing racial and ethnic diversity of her party’s caucus.
But Democrats and Republicans alike gave her a standing ovation when she paid tribute to her husband, Paul Pelosi, still recovering at their home in San Francisco after an intruder, specifically asking where she was, recently broke into their home and then bashed his head with a hammer, fracturing his skull. Nancy Pelosi was in Washington at the time of the post-midnight attack; the suspect is facing an array of criminal charges.
After her address, countless Democrats warmly embraced her on the House floor, including the Senate Majority Leader, Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer, a longtime ally in policy disputes with Republicans. House Republicans quickly walked out of the chamber.
Democratic President Joe Biden said in a statement, “Because of Nancy Pelosi, the lives of millions and millions of Americans are better, even in districts represented by Republicans who voted against her bills and too often vilify her. That’s Nancy – always working for the dignity of all of the people.”
The president concluded, “She might be stepping down from her leadership role in the House Democratic Caucus, but she will never waiver in protecting our sacred democracy. As a nation, we owe her a deep debt of gratitude for her service, her patriotism, and above all, her absolute dignity.”
California Congressman Kevin McCarthy, who often sparred with Pelosi on contentious legislative proposals, is the odds-on choice to be the new Republican House speaker, and like Pelosi, under terms of the U.S. Constitution, would become second in line to the presidency after the vice president in the event to the top two positions became vacant.
Pelosi’s decision to step aside from party leadership in the new Congress, where Republicans will hold a slim political edge in the House, just barely a majority in the 435-member chamber, immediately set off speculation about who would replace her as the Democratic leader.
Pelosi’s leadership team, including Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland and Democratic Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina, has long worked together but all are now in their 80s. Clyburn says he wants to retain a party leadership role in the new Congress while Hoyer said he would step away from a leadership position.
A younger group of Democratic lawmakers — Representatives Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Katherine Clark of Massachusetts and Pete Aguilar of California – has presented themselves as a new trio to lead the party in the House.
Jeffries did not speak to his aspirations in a statement but praised Pelosi’s tenure.
“The times have found in Speaker Pelosi a legendary legislator, notorious negotiator and a fabulous facilitator for the ages,” Jeffries said. “She has been the steady hand on the gavel during some of the most turbulent times the nation has ever confronted.”
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African Women Entrepreneurs Call for Support of Africa Free Trade
African women entrepreneurs from 35 countries have called for more support from lenders and governments to help them benefit from the African Continental Free Trade Area. Meeting in Cameroon’s capital for the U.N.-sponsored African Women Entrepreneur Forum, the women say their businesses are mostly small, informal, and suffer discrimination.
More than 200 women from 35 countries are meeting in Yaounde for the second African Women Entrepreneurs Forum under the theme, “Female Entrepreneurs, Challenges and Opportunities.”
The African Continental Free Trade Area that started in 2021 brought great hope that a market of 1.2 billion people would boost women-run businesses and reduce poverty.
But while Africa’s women entrepreneurs still see opportunities, they also face many challenges.
Former Interim President of the Central African Republic Catherine Samba-Panza spoke Wednesday night at the forum.
She said many women are missing out on the opportunities of trade integration because their small businesses have low productivity and get little or no funding from governments and lenders.
Panza says as CAR’s former president and an African female leader she wants African governments and funding agencies to know that a majority of Africa’s 30% of women entrepreneurs need assistance. She says the COVID-19 pandemic, climate disruptions, persistent armed conflicts in Africa and Russia’s war in Ukraine are affecting most female-owned businesses.
Panza added that many female businesses in the C.A.R., Cameroon, Chad, Mali, Niger, and Nigeria have been forced to close because of armed conflicts.
Women entrepreneurs say they often face harassment and discrimination in Africa’s male-dominated trade.
Niger’s director for the promotion of rural enterprises Bissso Nakatuma led a 15-member delegation to the three-day Yaoundé forum.
She says women who want to export their farm produce and benefit from opportunities offered by the African Continental Free Trade Area are targeted by customs and police officers who want bribes. Nakatuma says women are forced to depend on their families and communities to fund their businesses because banks refuse to give loans to female investors.
The forum demanded a stop to discriminatory practices against women entrepreneurs. It also called for more access to financing for women-led businesses, including export credits and guarantees.
Achilles Bassilekin is Cameroon’s Minister of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises. He says Africa’s economic ministers are committed to solving the challenges for women that were raised at the forum.
“I am convinced that women entrepreneurs from various countries of Africa will go back to their respective countries with a clearer vision, a clearer picture of what the continental FTA [Free Trade Area] is about and how they can take advantage of this wonderful opportunity, which happens to be the [African] Continental Free Trade Area,” said Bassilekin.
Despite the challenges, the forum said female entrepreneurs this year contributed an estimated $350 billion to Africa’s economic growth, about 13% of the continent’s Gross Domestic Product, or GDP.
The U.N. says the female economy is the world’s largest emerging market with the potential to add $12 trillion to global GDP by 2025.
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UN Commissioner Urges Respect for Human Rights in Sudan’s Democratic Transition
The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights on a visit to Sudan has urged authorities to respect human rights as a core of the country’s transition to democracy. At the end of his four-day visit to Sudan, Volker Tuerk said justice and accountability must be expedited for victims and survivors of rights violations.
The U.N. rights chief said his office has documented serious human rights violations in Sudan in the last few years and yet no one has ever been held accountable.
Speaking at a press conference late Wednesday in Khartoum, Tuerk also cited more recent excessive use of force against protesters in Khartoum.
He said since the military coup in October last year, the use of live ammunition by security forces against pro-democracy protesters killed at least 119 people and injured more than 8,000 others.
Tuerk said his office also has verified 19 cases of sexual and gender-based violence, most of them committed by Sudanese police during the protests.
He said there were likely more that go unreported due to social stigma, lack of faith in Sudan’s justice system, and fear of reprisals.
“We have, over the years, documented violations by all security forces and by many armed actors, and it is really important to follow up on this and that is why we have established a very close cooperation in order to ensure that the national action plan for the protection of civilians gets implemented,” he said.
Tuerk said rights activists and internally displaced people in the Darfur region reported widespread impunity for rights abuses, including by Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces.
The U.N. rights chief said his office documented 11 large-scale clashes that left more than 1,000 people dead since January 2021.
He called on all sides involved in Sudan’s political process to work toward prompt restoration of civilian rule and stressed the need for accountability and justice.
“In my discussions with the authorities, I consistently highlighted the need for trust building measures to earn the confidence of the people,” he said. “I stressed an important point that the respect for human rights builds trust.”
Human Rights Watch researcher Mohammed Osman said the U.N. rights chief’s trip to Sudan came at a crucial time as the political transition seems stuck behind closed doors.
Osman said such a political process is likely to lack inclusivity and transparency, and most importantly, about justice and accountability for the victims of scores of violations that happened in the past.
“Quite crucial, to be honest to see the situation being placed under rights focused scrutiny that would not allow the dynamics of political experience and convenience that surrounded the previous transition and still surrounding the reported negotiations in Sudan to prevail,” Osman said.
Tuerk met late Wednesday with the head of Sudan’s ruling Sovereign Council and military leader General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.
Speaking shortly after that meeting, the head of Human Rights department at the Sudanese Foreign Ministry, Essam Mutwali, said the government was committed to respect for human rights.
Mutwali said authorities were working to expedite the political process to restore Sudan’s civilian-led transitional government.
He said during the meeting with the Tuerk, al-Burhan expressed a readiness to cooperate with the international community.
Mutwali said al-Burhan is keen and committed to all the international and regional treaties that Sudan has ratified. Most importantly, he said, those that respect human rights.
Sudan’s army chief al-Burhan led a military coup in October last year that ousted the civilian bloc from a power-sharing transitional government.
The coup was widely condemned, cut off Sudan from international financing, and sparked near-weekly street protests against military rule and in support of democracy.
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Illegal Device Gives Some Handguns Machine Gun Capabilities
US police are alarmed at the emergence of tiny devices that easily turn some handguns into fully automatic machine guns. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias explains how illegal “switches” are causing death and worry across America
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Top Ugandan Rights Groups File Case Against Internet Law
A coalition of leading Ugandan rights groups and lawyers on Thursday filed a court challenge to a controversial new internet law, which they say is aimed at curbing free speech and targeting government opponents.
The amendment to the Computer Misuse Act, signed into law by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni last month, has been criticized by Amnesty International, which has called for the “draconian” legislation to be scrapped.
Nine rights groups, a former leader of the opposition in parliament and three prominent lawyers lodged the petition at the Constitutional Court on Thursday — the second court challenge to the law.
The petitioners — which include Chapter Four, Uganda’s most prominent rights group — say the law regulates online behavior in a “vague and ambiguous manner.”
Chapter Four’s acting Executive Director, Anthony Masake, told AFP that the new law’s “strict and vague authorization standards” mean that journalists will never know when they are crossing a line by collecting information on people they are reporting on.
“We know that offenses like ‘offensive communication’ have been effectively used to silence dissent and target people expressing politically sensitive views or pushing for government accountability,” he said.
Amnesty has noted that the new legislation contains some useful provisions such as the right to privacy and responsible coverage of children but added that “it introduces punitive penalties for anyone accused of so-called hate speech.”
People convicted under the law are barred from holding public office for 10 years, which Amnesty warned was a way of reinforcing state control over online freedom of expression, including by political opposition groups.
Offenders also face fines of up to 15 million Ugandan shillings (about $3,900) and prison terms of up to seven years.
Uganda has seen a series of crackdowns on those opposed to Museveni’s rule, particularly around the 2021 election, with journalists attacked, lawyers jailed, vote monitors prosecuted, the internet shut down and opposition leaders violently muzzled.
Legal experts have warned that the law will be used to target government critics who are already operating in a shrinking civic space.
Thirteen petitioners, including an online TV station, lodged the first court challenge against the law last month, but no date has been set yet for the hearing.
One of the petitioners, Norman Tumuhimbise, works for Digital TV, which in March this year was raided by security agents. Nine of its staff, including Tumuhimbise, were arrested and charged with computer misuse and spreading false information.
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Tourists Canceling Trips to Uganda Over Ebola Fears
Uganda’s tourism sector is once again being hit by effects from a deadly disease.
In 2021, it was the COVID-19 pandemic. This time, it’s the Ebola outbreak, with 141 confirmed cases and 55 deaths.
President Yoweri Museveni said Tuesday in his address to Ugandans that he had been informed that tourists are canceling trips to the country and some had postponed hotel bookings.
This comes as the outbreak has spread to a sixth district of Jinja in Eastern Uganda, a favorite destination for tourists.
“This is most unfortunate and not necessary. As you have seen, Ebola, if you follow the guidelines, it will not get you. Uganda remains safe and we welcome international guests,” Museveni said.
He also said lists of Ebola contacts are being provided to immigration officials to prevent the virus from spreading outside the country.
December is usually one of the peak months for Uganda’s tourism industry.
Scovia Kyarisima, executive director of Legends Gorilla Tours, a company that provides wildlife experiences for visitors, told VOA that several tourists have postponed their visits.
“I’ve had so far five cancellations from online tourists,” she said. “And they have pushed it to June next year. They don’t say we are not going to come anymore. But they say, considering the situation that is on today, let’s push this to next year.”
Before the pandemic, Uganda was getting a little over 600,000 tourists each year. That number nosedived to about 200,000 when COVID-19 hit in 2020, costing many Ugandans their jobs.
Gessa Simplicious, public relations officer for the Uganda Tourism Board, said that in between the pandemic and the Ebola outbreak, the tourism industry was slowly climbing out of its downturn.
He said industry operators, some of whom borrowed heavily to revamp their facilities, are now facing a crunch as tourism dries up again, while other wildlife destinations like Kenya and Tanzania remain unaffected by the Ebola outbreak.
“And you see this Ebola is only isolating us as a country. So, it means, tourists can go elsewhere for the same thing and omit Uganda,” Simplicious said.
The government has tightened measures in two of the most Ebola-hit districts of Mubende and Kasanda by extending a lockdown for another 21 days. It is also banning citizens from seeking treatment from traditional healers and trying to limit individuals’ movement in and out of the districts.
your ad hereDutch Court Sentences 3 to Life in Prison for 2014 Downing of MH17
Dutch judges on Thursday convicted three men of murder for their role in the 2014 shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine, and sentenced them to life in prison.
A fourth man was acquitted.
MH17 was a passenger flight that was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 passengers and crew.
“Only the most severe punishment is fitting to retaliate for what the suspects have done, which has caused so much suffering to so many victims and so many surviving relatives,” Presiding Judge Hendrik Steenhuis said, reading a summary of the ruling.
Families of victims stood weeping and wiping away tears in the courtroom as Steenhuis read the verdict.
The three men convicted were former Russian intelligence agents Igor Girkin and Sergey Dubinskiy, and Leonid Kharchenko, a Ukrainian separatist leader.
A fourth, Russian Oleg Pulatov, was acquitted on all charges.
At the time, the area was the scene of fighting between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces, the precursor of this year’s conflict.
Russia invaded Ukraine in February and claims to have annexed the Donetsk province where the plane’s wreckage and victims’ remains were once scattered across cornfields.
Steenhuis said the men did not enjoy any immunity from prosecution as they were not members of the Russian armed services.
“There is no reasonable doubt” that MH17 was shot down by a BUK missile system, Steenhuis said.
Victims’ representatives said the ruling is an important milestone, though the suspects remain fugitives. They are all believed to be in Russia, which will not extradite them.
Ukraine’s president welcomed Thursday’s ruling by a Dutch court that said Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down with a Russian-made missile over eastern Ukraine in 2014, but said that “those who ordered” the attack must now face trial.
“Punishment for all Russian atrocities – both present and past – will be unavoidable,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on Twitter.
Moscow denies any involvement or responsibility for MH17’s downing and in 2014 it also denied any presence in Ukraine.
In a briefing in Moscow on Thursday, Deputy Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ivan Nechaev told reporters the government would examine the court’s findings.
“We will study this decision because in all these issues, every nuance matters,” he said.
The four men were charged with shooting down an airplane and with murder in a trial that was held under Dutch law.
Phone call intercepts that formed a key part of the evidence against the men suggested they believed they were targeting a Ukrainian fighter jet.
Of the suspects, only Pulatov had pleaded not guilty via lawyers he hired to represent him. The others were tried in absentia and none attended the trial.
Victims of MH17, which had been en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, came from 10 different countries. More than half were Dutch.
The investigation was led by the Netherlands, with participation from Ukraine, Malaysia, Australia and Belgium.
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Russia’s Arts Scene Becomes Casualty of Putin’s War
As the Kremlin escalates its war on Ukraine and tightens its clampdown on any domestic opposition to the invasion, the world of Russian arts and culture, historically opposed to violence and war, descends into pessimism. Marcus Harton narrates this report from VOA’s Moscow bureau.
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Being Black in Tunisia
Growing up in a working-class Tunis neighborhood, Zied Rouine didn’t think much about his skin color. Not when children insulted him at school, or when his football teammates nicknamed him Pele, after Brazil’s dark-skinned football legend.
His athletic skills and the fierce protection of his lighter-skinned brother from persecutors were tickets to acceptance. Only years later, while attending an international forum on discrimination, did Rouine realize that something was wrong.
“It was the first time I was around a group of Blacks. And honestly, it was the first time I heard someone talking about racial discrimination in Tunisia,” Rouine, now 33, recalls. “At the time, I was in denial, believing we don’t have any racism in Tunisia.”
Even among the Black people in Tunisia, or elsewhere in the Arab world, such responses aren’t surprising, according to a recent survey on discrimination in 10 countries or regions across the Middle East and North Africa: Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, the Palestinian territories, Sudan, Tunisia and Mauritania.
Published in October by Arab Barometer, a nonpartisan resource for research on the Middle East, the survey found that while most respondents considered discrimination a problem, only a minority believed prejudice against Black people was an issue.
Tunisia is a rare standout in the Middle East and North Africa to consider racism a problem. In 2018, it became the only country in the region to pass a law criminalizing racial discrimination. Yet even in Tunisia, many rights activists say there has been little progress in turning legislation into reality.
“To me, there’s no change,” says Kenza Ben Azouz, who researches discrimination in Tunisia. “We don’t talk about race. We don’t have data based on race. We don’t want to acknowledge it.”
Multiethnic community
Views on race in Tunisia are complicated, shaped by family values, geography and origin, experts say. The country’s Black community is also diverse, counting Tunisians as well as migrants and students from sub-Saharan Africa. The different groups rarely interact, members say, beyond sometimes living in the same neighborhoods.
“Black Tunisians consider themselves superior to sub-Saharan Africans, and they don’t like to be compared,” says Rouine, general coordinator at the Mnemty (My Dream) anti-discrimination association.
Rouine describes growing up with a Black father and a “white” mother. In Tunisia, people are of various skin colorations, from fair to dark.
“There was complete diversity in my family. We just loved each other,” Rouine says. “We didn’t talk about color, or why my brother was light skinned and I was not.”
Surprisingly, it was his father’s family who had the most misgivings about the interracial marriage.
“They would say, ‘Never make your father’s mistake of marrying a white woman.’ They never accepted Mom,” Rouine recalls of his Black relatives.
In a box
Roughly 10% to 15% of Tunisians are Black, many of them descended from slaves, analysts say. While Tunisia became the first Arab country to ban slavery in the 19th century, its legacy remains tangled in Arabic slurs that refer to Black people as slaves and in complicated community relationships, especially in the south.
Reem Garfi’s maternal relatives came from Sudan, although it is unclear how and when they arrived in Tunisia, she says. Her father’s fair-skinned family wanted nothing to do with her parents’ marriage. When her mother got pregnant, things only got worse.
“My paternal grandmother used the ‘N’ word in Tunisian Arabic,” says Garfi, now 25 and a freelance translator. “She said she couldn’t believe my mother would give birth to a monkey.”
Like Rouine, Garfi was teased growing up. Even today, people still wonder about her racial identity.
“When people see me, they can’t put their finger on it,” says Garfi, who has light skin and curly hair. “Only when they see my mother do they connect the dots and put me in a box.”
As in other Arab countries, few Black Tunisians hold top jobs in the media, government, or the private sector. When a Black journalist was tapped as a weather reporter on state TV a few years ago, he told local media he felt a “responsibility” to stand up also against racism.
Tunisia’s Law 50 aimed to do just that. Passed after years of campaigning, the 2018 legislation sets prison sentences of up to three years and maximum fines of nearly $1,000 for those found guilty of racial discrimination.
The law also reflects changing mindsets. Today, more than six in 10 Tunisians agree that racism is a problem, according to the Arab Barometer survey, compared to just 6% of Egyptians, for example.
But few racial discrimination cases have been filed, nor has Tunisia developed a national strategy or action plan to fight racism, rights experts say.
Jamila Ksiksi, Tunisia’s first Black member of parliament and a member of the Islamist-inspired Ennahdha Party, says this year’s dissolution of Tunisia’s National Assembly by authoritarian President Kais Saied has removed another key check.
“The Tunisian people have no voice without a parliament,” Ksiski told the BBC recently, noting the now-dismissed legislators can no longer flag reports of alleged racism to authorities or monitor government efforts to address them.
Tunisian authorities did not respond to a VOA request for comment. But a lawmaker close to Saied’s government told the BBC the judicial system continues to apply the anti-racism law.
Mobilizing grassroots action and solidarity against racism, including by Black people themselves, also appears challenging.
Rouine says that Mnemty held a single Black Lives Matter protest in 2020 that garnered only a few hundred people.
“Black Tunisians have been trying to integrate essentially through silence,” says researcher Ben Azouz, echoing other observers like Rouine. “It’s extremely difficult to get them to acknowledge any difference between them and white Tunisians, and they don’t want to be compared to the migrant community.”
Sub-Saharans are frequent targets
A recent Sunday market in La Marsa outside of Tunis offered a snapshot of Tunisia’s multiethnic reality. Congolese traders plied cheap watches; Ivorians and Tunisians plowed through piles of secondhand clothes.
But for the tens of thousands of sub-Saharan Africans living around Tunis and elsewhere in the country — some studying, and others working in low-paying jobs— the boisterous interaction ends there.
“Life is less expensive here,” says Ivorian immigrant Serge Kakou, who helped start Maghreb Ivoire TV, an online TV channel. “But there are lots of attacks, and especially sub-Saharans aren’t protected here.”
Rights groups say women are especially vulnerable to sexual insults and acts, and Black Tunisian women are also targeted.
Earlier this year, dozens of migrants staged a monthslong sit-in in front of the United Nations Refugee Agency’s Tunis office protesting racist acts they endured and demanding to be relocated to another country. The protests ended after the agency relocated them to what it described as “safe shelters.”
University student Christian Kwongang from Cameroon says he and other sub-Saharan Africans studying in Tunisia are also frequent targets of racism. They have little or no interaction with migrants or with Black Tunisians, he says.
“We always have to be really careful about when and where we go out,” adds Kwongang, who heads the executive board of the Tunisian Association of Sub-Saharan Students (AESAT), which represents some 8,000 African students and interns in Tunisia. “It’s a reflection we all develop because things can go bad at any moment.”
He described multiple attacks targeting AESAT members, including a machete assault on Nigerian students in southern Tunisia as they returned home from the mosque. They suffered hand and foot injuries, but survived, Kwongang says.
Reporting such incidents to the police can be complicated, Kwongang says.
“Sometimes, they take really long to respond, or make you go around in circles to file charges,” he says. “The first thing they’ll ask for is your papers.”
Over his six years studying mechanical engineering in Tunis, Kwongang has seen little change in attitudes, including since Law 50 was passed. But along with discrimination, he also describes rare acts of support and kindness.
After a long struggle, he landed an internship with a Tunisian business, where he was treated “very, very well.”
“When you’re around people who have traveled, who have an open mind, you’re treated like everyone else,” he says.
For his part, Rouine believes time may change mindsets more powerfully, perhaps, than legislation.
“There is another Tunisia now, without the traditions,” he says. “Young people are open to the world. I think the issue of discrimination will change.”
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Republicans Critical of Biden’s Stance During Meeting with Xi
Congressional Republicans mostly condemned President Joe Biden for saying that there “need not be a new Cold War” between the U.S. and China, following a three-hour summit meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Indonesia.
A few Republicans, however, joined members of Biden’s Democratic Party in cautiously welcoming signs that the meeting may have helped to head off misunderstandings that could lead to unnecessary conflict.
Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas tweeted, “Joe Biden has again failed to address or even acknowledge China’s Cold War against the United States. His naive return to a policy of appeasement will hurt the United States, endanger Taiwan, and further embolden Xi Jinping.”
Biden also said, “I don’t think there’s any imminent attempt by China to invade Taiwan,” despite escalating military moves by Beijing in the Taiwan Strait.
Before the meeting, Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu told VOA that “if the senior leaders or the president, the vice president of the United States are able to speak with the Chinese leaders to address the concerns about the peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait or China’s violation of the status quo, I think it’s going to be very helpful to regional peace.”
Biden’s remarks drew a backlash from several Republican lawmakers.
Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn, also a Republican, tweeted, “Xi Jinping is focused on global domination, not working with the Biden administration on climate change.”
Meetings described as ‘candid and constructive’
The leaders of the world’s two largest economies met this week on the eve of the G-20 summit in Bali. Each of the men had scored recent political victories at home — Xi starting an unprecedented third term and Biden riding on what is seen as a win for his Democratic Party after a strong showing in the U.S. midterm elections.
The two engaged in a frank conversation about their respective priorities and intentions on a range of issues, according to minutes of the meeting released by the White House.
Biden emphasized the necessity for the U.S. and China to work together on transnational challenges, including climate change, global macroeconomic stability including debt relief, health security, and global food security, according to the readout.
China’s Foreign Ministry said, “Both presidents viewed the meeting as in-depth, candid and constructive. They instructed their teams to promptly follow up and implement the important common understandings reached between them, and take concrete actions to put China-U.S. relations back on the track of steady development.”
Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who is vice chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence and a senior member of the Committee on Foreign Relations, said the Bali meeting was not a turning point in U.S.-China relations.
Rubio told VOA Mandarin during an interview on Monday that “no meeting is going to solve the deep issues between the U.S. and China … which will remain the challenge of the centuries.”
In a written statement issued on Monday before Xi and Biden met, Rubio criticized Biden for “dangerously” misunderstanding “the CCP [Chinese Communist Party], which openly pushes for conflict with the United States and its allies.”
“This meeting should have held the CCP accountable for its rampant human rights abuses, ongoing theft of American intellectual property, and its refusal to investigate the origins of COVID-19,” Rubio said. “Instead, President Biden demonstrated that he is willing to sacrifice everything — including our national security and the security of our allies — for the sake of pursuing ill-fated climate talks with our nation’s greatest adversary.”
‘It’s good that we’re talking’
Democratic Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, however, thinks the long meeting indicated a positive development.
“Three hours isn’t necessarily a good sign, but I think it’s positive, because there’re so many issues, and that tells me that both went into the meeting understanding how important U.S.-China communication is at a minimum,” he told VOA Mandarin on Monday. “So I was happy to hear that.”
Republican Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota told VOA Mandarin on Monday that it’s important to maintain good relations with China.
“The Chinese Communist Party may have different points of view about how to get there,” he said. “We want to make clear our positions, but we also want them to understand that you would much rather have peace than to have conflict.
“I am always hopeful that communications and diplomacy can win out,” he added. “Time will tell whether or not we had a successful meeting. But it’s good that we’re talking.”
Democratic Representative Gregory Meeks of New York and Republican Representative Ami Bera of California said in a statement that “candid dialogue and sustained diplomacy are necessary to ensure that this competition is healthy, constructive, and does not devolve into conflict.”
But, they added, engagement with China “will continue to be based on the principle of strategic competition … as long as Beijing continues to ignore international rules and norms — whether it’s China’s aggression in the Taiwan Strait, its genocide in Xinjiang, its oppression in Hong Kong and Tibet, or its support for Russia’s and North Korea’s destabilizing actions.”
Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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Climate Change Fueled Rains Behind Deadly Nigeria Floods, Study Finds
Heavy rains behind floods that killed more than 600 people in Nigeria this year were about 80 times likelier because of human-induced climate change, scientists reported Wednesday.
The floods mainly struck Nigeria but also Niger, Chad and neighboring countries, displacing more than 1.4 million people and devastating homes and farmland in a region already vulnerable to food insecurity.
Researchers from the World Weather Attribution (WWA) consortium said in a study that the floods, among the deadliest on record in the region, were directly linked to human activity that is exacerbating climate change.
They matched long-term data on climate, which shows the planet has warmed by about 1.2 degrees Celsius since 1800 as carbon emissions have risen, against weather events.
The heavy rainfall that sparked the floods was 80 times more likely because of “human-caused climate change,” according to their findings.
In addition, “this year’s rainy season was 20% wetter than it would have been without the influence of climate change,” they said.
“The influence of climate change means the prolonged rain that led to the floods is no longer a rare event,” the study found.
“The above-average rain over the wet season now has approximately a 1 in 10 chance of happening each year; without human activities it would have been an extremely rare event.”
More than 600 people were killed in Nigeria alone because of the floods from June to October this year, and nearly 200 in Niger and 22 in Chad.
The report comes as COP27 climate talks are under way in Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh, where developing nations are demanding rich polluters pay for climate-change linked calamities.
Africa is home to some of the countries least responsible for carbon emissions but hardest hit by an onslaught of weather extremes, with the Horn of Africa currently in the grips of a severe drought.
“This is a real and present problem, and it’s particularly the poorest countries that are getting hit very hard. So it’s clear that solutions are needed,” Maarten van Aalst, director of the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, said at a WWA press conference.
The WWA publishes rapid-response reports following extreme climate events.
Their studies are not peer-reviewed, a process that can take months, but are widely backed by scientists.
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Experts See Gridlock, Dysfunction Likely in Incoming Congress
As the final races for the House of Representatives and Senate plod toward a conclusion, both bodies are taking initial steps to organize themselves for a 118th Congress of the United States that few experts expect to be particularly productive.
Republicans will control the House when the new Congress is seated in early January, though by a very small margin. The Senate will remain in Democrats’ hands, though their ultimate margin of control depends on a runoff election in Georgia scheduled for early December.
It’s an arrangement that seems more suited to partisan trench warfare than legislating, scholars who study Congress told VOA.
“Congress will experience continued partisan polarization, gridlock and dysfunction with divided party government,” James Thurber, professor emeritus of government at American University and founder of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, told VOA. “The permanent presidential and congressional campaigns will continue with ‘wedge issues’ dominating [Capitol] Hill. The budget and appropriations process will be bloody from the lame duck to the next election.”
More of the same
Asked what Americans should expect from Congress in 2023 and beyond, David King, a senior lecturer in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, told VOA, “Unfortunately, more of the same.”
King, who serves as faculty chair of Harvard’s Bipartisan Program for Newly Elected Members of Congress, said incoming lawmakers can expect to serve in a body where virtually all power is concentrated at the top, and where committees and individual members have little sway.
“The power in Congress will be held in the hands of a few leaders. Most of the members of Congress will stick very close to their party, because neither one can afford to lose a couple of key votes,” he said. “And the decisions around policy will largely be negotiated from the leadership’s office.”
What legislating does take place, King said, will likely come in a small number of large catchall bills that take care of basics, like establishing budgets and appropriations, so that the government can continue to operate.
“I think you’ll probably see two large reconciliation packages that manage to get most of the real lawmaking done,” King said. “Otherwise, it’ll be largely symbolic anger thrust at each other, as people prepare for some kind of decisive outcome in the presidential election of 2024.”
Some hope for progress
Not everyone has given up on the possibility of bipartisan cooperation. G. William Hoagland, a senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, told VOA that while difficult, it would not be impossible for congressional leaders to find areas on which they can work together.
“I do think the general thought would be, ‘Boy, we’re in for two years of nothing but messaging and preparing for the ’24 elections.’ But I do think there’s still room for achieving something. I think it’s possible that there could still be some successful legislative achievement,” Hoagland said.
A former Republican staff director of the Senate Budget Committee, Hoagland pointed to immigration policy as an area where both parties have things they want, and a compromise might be forged. Republicans, for instance, want increased border security, and Democrats want a formalized path to legal status for unauthorized immigrants brought to the United States as minors, and there might be room for agreement on legislation that does both.
Biden’s future
Split control of Congress means President Joe Biden is likely to see relatively few of the legislative victories that served as landmarks during his first two years in office. But Hoagland noted that those packages, including the Inflation Reduction Act, with its huge investments in the fight against climate change, and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act leave Biden with enormous amounts of work to do.
“He’s got a lot of authorities that had been granted to him already,” Hoagland said. “I think a lot of his focus may shift to just managing the implementation of the IRA and other legislation that’s already been adopted.”
Biden may also spend more time focusing overseas, said Harvard’s King, who added that when a president is stymied on domestic policy, “one thing that tends to happen is that they look for victories internationally.”
While Biden would struggle to get any new treaties ratified in the closely divided Senate, King said, “International agreements are possible. And certainly more of the kind of G-20 sort of diplomacy with the president, as commander in chief, working with other countries around the pivot that’s happening in Europe away from Russia.”
Leadership contests
In the Senate, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is expected to retain his position. On Wednesday, incumbent Minority Leader Mitch McConnell fought off a challenge by Senator Rick Scott and was reelected to his position.
Republicans on Wednesday voted on whom to nominate as the new speaker. Current Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy won the nomination, but his path to leadership may not be smooth.
The entire House must vote on a speaker, and the Republicans will have only a small majority. Several dozen members of the Republican Party’s ultra-conservative wing declined to support McCarthy’s nomination. Without their votes in the full House, and facing unified Democratic opposition, McCarthy cannot win.
The most likely outcome is a negotiation in which McCarthy makes specific promises to members of his own party in exchange for their votes.
Current Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has, so far, not said whether she intends to remain in a leadership role when her party enters the minority in January.
Investigations guaranteed
One thing that all the experts VOA spoke with agreed on is that new and aggressive investigations into the Biden administration and into the president’s family are inevitable in the House.
Republicans have already promised to institute wide-ranging inquiries into the Biden administration’s handling of the crisis on the southern border and into the business dealings of the president’s son, Hunter Biden.
Another possibility is impeachment proceedings against members of the administration who, in Republicans’ estimation, have failed to do their jobs. Some members have already proposed impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over the state of U.S. border security. Some of the more radical members of the House have already proposed passage of articles of impeachment against the president.
It is unlikely that any impeachment seen as politically motivated would lead to a conviction in the Senate, for which two-thirds backing in the chamber would be needed to remove an administration official from his or her position.
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Qatar Authorities Apologize for Threatening Danish Film Crew at World Cup
Qatar’s Supreme Committee said it has apologized after a Danish film crew was threatened by security staff live on air as they broadcast in the capital Doha ahead of the World Cup.
TV2 reporter Rasmus Tantholdt was speaking as part of a live broadcast when he was approached by security staff that had appeared on a golf buggy next to the newly-opened Chedi Hotel at Katara Cultural Village.
In the footage, which went viral on social media, Tantholdt is seen remonstrating with the security officials, displaying his accreditation before accusing them of declaring they want to break the camera equipment.
A statement from the Supreme Committee said the Danish broadcast crew were “mistakenly interrupted” during a live broadcast.
“Upon inspection of the crew’s valid tournament accreditation and filming permit, an apology was made to the broadcaster by on-site security before the crew resumed their activity.
“Tournament organizers have since spoken to the journalist and issued an advisory to all entities to respect the filming permits in place for the tournament.”
Tantholdt was also caught on camera asking: “You invited the whole world here. Why can’t we film?”
The decision to award Qatar hosting rights for the 2022 World Cup has been marred by controversy — including allegations of corruption and human rights violations — since it was first announced 12 years ago. How the host country treats visitors is being heavily scrutinized.
Watch VOA’s related special project video:
The Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy was set up by the Qatar government to plan and prepare for the World Cup.
The tournament gets under way on Sunday as Qatar take on Ecuador in the tournament opener.
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Ukraine Military Victory Unlikely Soon, Top US General Says
The top U.S. general on Wednesday said Ukraine’s chances of any near-term, outright military victory were not high, cautioning that Russia still had significant combat power inside Ukraine despite suffering battlefield setbacks since its invasion in February.
Ukraine has vowed to keep the pressure on Russian forces until it reclaims control of all occupied territory. Over the weekend, Ukrainian forces recaptured the strategic southern city of Kherson, stoking optimism about Kyiv’s broader military prospects heading into winter.
Still, U.S. Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, urged caution.
“The probability of a Ukrainian military victory — defined as kicking the Russians out of all of Ukraine to include what they claim as Crimea — the probability of that happening anytime soon is not high, militarily,” Milley told a news conference at the Pentagon.
“There may be a political solution where, politically, the Russians withdraw. That’s possible,” he said, adding that Russia “right now is on its back.”
Milley added that the United States would support Ukraine in defending itself for as long as it takes, comments echoed by U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at the same event.
Milley and Austin addressed reporters after a virtual meeting between dozens of defense ministers supporting Ukraine’s military with billions of dollars in military hardware as well as training, advising and intelligence support.
“Ukraine will continue to endure. Ukraine is not going to back down,” Milley said, adding that Ukraine was free, “and they want to remain free.”
Attacks on power grid
Milley accused Russia of “imposing a campaign of terror” on Ukraine with its attacks on cities and energy plants.
“The deliberate targeting of the civilian power grid, causing excessive collateral damage, and unnecessary suffering on the civilian population is a war crime,” Milley said.
The Pentagon has stressed the importance of military-to-military communication with Moscow during the nine-month war. Austin and Milley both spoke with their Russian counterparts last month after Moscow accused Ukraine of planning a “dirty bomb” attack.
But Milley acknowledged unsuccessful attempts to reach his Russian counterpart on Tuesday after a deadly missile strike in Poland raised concerns about spillover of the war into NATO territory. Ukraine is not a member of the trans-Atlantic defense alliance but aspires to join.
NATO leaders said on Wednesday that the missile that hit Poland was probably a stray fired by Ukraine’s air defenses and not a Russian strike.
Austin said Ukraine knows that it would be a mistake to allow Russia to refit and rearm its troops.
“They have to continue to keep the pressure on the Russians going forward and I think (a) winter fight favors the Ukrainians,” Austin said.
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Somalia Fights Back Against Al-Shabab Attack on Education Sector
The Somali government said it plans to reopen schools in territories recently recovered from militant group al-Shabab.
Education Minister Farah Sheikh Abdulkadir says his ministry has a plan to take education to the areas seized by the government and local forces.
Somali security forces supported by local clan militias have been dislodging al-Shabab from towns and villages in central Somalia since August.
“The Somali people have risen up in support of their government, a sizable land has been liberated; we are going to reopen the schools, we are going to take the curriculum there, and we are going to send teachers there,” Abdulkadir said in an interview with VOA Somali. “The government will utilize all of its power to provide education service to the people who have not had regular or proper education for a long time.”
He said the government already sent school supplies to Hirshabelle State, which was a focal point for the offensive against the militants.
Abdulkadir said only 24% of Somalis currently have opportunity to access education.
“They [al-Shabab] have taken advantage of this lack of knowledge and ignorance, and God willing; we are going to put a lot of effort into that to change,” he said.
The minister’s pledge to revive education in areas captured from al-Shabab is not a coincidence. It comes nearly three weeks after two consecutive al-Shabab bombs targeted the Ministry of Education in Mogadishu, killing 121 people and injuring more than 330 others.
On the day of the attack, the Ministry was issuing high school certificates to some of the 35,000 secondary students who took the national exam.
After the explosions, a senior al-Shabab official, Mahad Karate, who had his bounty increased by the U.S. on Monday to $10 million, launched a stinging verbal attack on the Ministry of Education.
“Some people are asking themselves why the Ministry of Education was attacked, we say this ministry was the center for dozens of projects intended to undermine Islam,” he said in an audio published by al-Shabab media. “It’s used by the enemy for the psychological warfare against the Somali Muslims; it’s fighting Islamic curriculums and is used for spreading misguided curriculums brought in by the infidels.”
Karate, whose real name is Mahad Warsame Qaley, also accused the Ministry of Education of helping to recruit Somali students into the national army.
Al-Shabab has targeted education institutions and students for years. In a suicide bombing at a graduation ceremony on December 3, 2009, a bomber killed 26 people including graduates, teachers and four government ministers. On October 4, 2011, al-Shabab detonated a suicide truck bomb as hundreds of students lined up seeking scholarships from Turkey, killing more than 100 people, most of them students.
In addition, the group has warned students and schools not to take part in government-sponsored exams. In October 2018, al-Shabaab spokesman Ali Dhere told private schools to “beware” of having relationships with the federal government.
Al-Shabab has also been trying to influence the curriculum, going so far as to introduce its own curriculum for primary schools in April 2017 and middle schools in June 2021.
The group has run its own schools to teach the curriculum in areas it controls.
“Conditions for admission is there should be at least 70 students in each institution, between 13 and 25 years of age, unmarried. Clans pay institution expenses; al-Shabab provides the teachers,” said former Al-Shabab education official Ibrahim Nadara.
He said at the end of two-year education period, the top 10 students are entered into a special institute for higher education; the remaining 90 are taken straight into al-Shabab training camps.
Nadara said al-Shabab recruits hundreds of fighters from these institutions.
“It’s the only never-ending recruitment factory,” he said.
Abdulkadir said the threats from al-Shabab “fell on deaf ears” as the government went ahead in developing its own curriculum. In 2018, it completed the primary and middle school curriculum, and in 2020 succeeded in completing the same for high schoolers.
He dismissed al-Shabab claims of foreign involvement in the government curriculum and criticized al-Shabab’s curriculum, which he said instructs children to carry out killings and explosions.
“It’s teaching people savagery,” he said.
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