A Turkish court has convicted the head of Turkey’s Medical Association of terrorism propaganda, as rights groups warn of an intensifying legal crackdown on civil society ahead of elections this year. For VOA, Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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Month: January 2023
Classified Documents Found in Garage at Biden Home, White House Says
Documents with classified markings from U.S. President Joe Biden’s time as vice president have been found in the garage of his home in Wilmington, Delaware, the White House said Thursday, days after it confirmed that other sensitive material had been discovered at the Washington think tank where he had an office before running for president in 2020.
In the latest disclosure, Richard Sauber, a special counsel to Biden, said that after the initial documents were found at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, his lawyers searched other locations where records might have been shipped, rather than to the National Archives as required by U.S. law, when Biden’s vice-presidential term ended in early 2017.
Sauber, in a statement, said Biden’s lawyers searched his Wilmington home in the eastern U.S., as well as his vacation retreat near the Atlantic Ocean in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
“The lawyers discovered among personal and political papers a small number of additional … records with classified markings” in the garage, he said, adding that another one-page classified document was found in an adjacent room.
The papers were from Biden’s vice presidency under former President Barack Obama. No classified documents were found at his vacation home.
Sauber said the Department of Justice was “immediately notified” after the documents were found in Wilmington and that department lawyers took custody of the records.
Biden, speaking to reporters on Thursday, attempted to minimize the discoveries in an apparent effort to contrast it with a months-long dispute between former President Donald Trump and the Archives over hundreds of classified documents that were transferred to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in early 2021.
A special counsel is investigating whether Trump committed a criminal offense in failing to turn over the classified material when he left Washington or later, in response to repeated requests from the Archives for their return.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland selected U.S. Attorney John Lausch in Chicago, a holdover Trump appointee, to review the circumstances of how the classified material linked to Biden ended up at one of the president’s offices and in a box beside his Corvette in a locked garage.
“As I said earlier this week, people know I take classified documents and classified material seriously,” Biden told reporters on Thursday, adding that his administration is “cooperating fully … with the Justice Department’s review.”
Some Republicans have called for Garland to name a special counsel to investigate Biden’s retention of classified documents from his vice-presidential years, just as Garland named long-time federal prosecutor Jack Smith to investigate Trump in connection with the classified papers and his attempts to upend the results of the 2020 election to remain in power.
New House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, at a news conference in the U.S. Capitol, said, “I think Congress has to investigate this. I do not think any American believes that justice should not be equal to all.”
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FAA Says US Flights Are Back to Normal
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration reported Thursday that air traffic in the United States was largely back to normal one day after a faulty file in a computer system triggered an outage affecting more than 11,000 flights through delays or cancellations.
The flight-tracking website FlightAware.com also reported delays and cancellations were back to normal levels for Thursday.
FAA officials said they traced the outage to a damaged database file, affecting the Notice to Air Missions System — or NOTAMs, a crucial part in the process of every flight that departs an airport in the United States.
Pilots are required to consult NOTAMS before taking off. The system lists potential adverse impacts on flights, from runway construction to the potential for icing. The system once was telephone-based, with pilots calling dedicated flight service stations for the information, but it has since moved online.
FAA reports say the system stopped working at 8:28 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday, but because there weren’t many departures at that hour, pilots were able to get the information verbally. By dawn Wednesday, the system was still out, and there were too many flights leaving to brief pilots individually.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said it is likely that the main system had a problem, and the backup didn’t work correctly. He said the FAA rebooted the main system around 5 a.m., but it took a while to verify that all the information was validated and available.
Buttigieg said the FAA ordered all flights grounded Wednesday morning and planes were stuck for hours “to make absolutely sure the messages were moving correctly and the information for safety purposes” was “working the way it should.”
The FAA said it is taking steps to ensure a similar failure does not happen again.
Some information for this report came from Reuters and The Associated Press.
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Human Rights Watch: Africa Needs to Develop Policies to Monitor, Respond to Abuses
Human Rights Watch says African nations need to do more to address the widespread displacement, killings and other abuses that have come about from the continent’s many conflicts. The rights group published a new report this week that summarizes human rights trends in 23 African countries.
Mausi Segun, head of Human Rights Watch Africa, said that in many African countries, the population is caught up in conflict and simply has nowhere to turn.
“Some of the most egregious of human rights violations continue to cascade in the context of conflict,” Segun said. “Civilians have continued to bear the brunt of armed conflict, communal violence, political and social unrest as well as government repression against critical and independent voices in several African countries. All of these have resulted in the destruction of lives and livelihoods.”
According to ACLED, the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, there were at least 36,000 violent events and more than 50,000 deaths caused by violence in Africa last year.
Human Rights Watch said in at least 15 armed conflicts, in the Sahel, the Lake Chad Basin area, the Great Lakes region and the Horn of Africa, government forces and armed groups have been implicated in abuses against civilians.
“Armed insurgents, and in many cases, government forces, have inflicted terror and horror on civilians caught amid the fighting,” Segun said, “and forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee both within and outside their national borders where many face discrimination, rejection and sometimes violent repulsion.”
Political, religious and social intolerance have also increased, according to human rights researchers.
The report said hate speech, attacks on perceived political opponents, increased competition for resources and other factors continue to fuel communal tensions, insurgency and extremist recruitment in some African countries.
The rights group praised the African Union and regional blocs including ECOWAS for taking action, such as reconciling Ethiopia’s warring factions, condemning coups in West Africa and refusing to recognize any attempt to seize power by force.
Carine Kaneza Nantulya, deputy director of Human Rights Watch Africa Division, said the continental body is not doing enough to investigate human rights violations.
“They do hold a summit, they do talk about it,” she said. “For instance, they want the peace and security to conduct a study and assessment of the driving causes behind these different crises, but the gap there is that there is no emphasis of justice and accountability.”
That should be at the core of decisions, Nantulya said, to sustain the processes and to provide redress and justice to the millions of victims of the crises.
In the Central African Republic and Guinea, the rights group noted progress in ensuring justice for serious crimes.
The International Criminal Court in The Hague has opened trials against militia leaders in the Central African Republic and Sudan, both of which have committed serious crimes against civilians.
The Washington-based organization HRW Africa Division urges African leaders and governments to implement policies to monitor and report human rights violations in conflict zones. They say such a move could help prevent atrocities and humanitarian crises.
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Zambia’s Former Ruling Party Rejects IMF Allegation of Corruption Under Lungu
Zambia’s former ruling Patriotic Front party has rejected a report by the International Monetary Fund saying corruption flourished under its government.
The IMF said this week the political elite under former president Edgar Lungu bent rules to access lucrative government contracts. Current President Hakainde Hichilema pledged to tackle corruption and secured $1.3 billion in IMF debt support after Zambia defaulted to creditors.
An IMF mission conducted a study last year focusing on governance weaknesses and corruption vulnerabilities in Zambia at the request of local authorities.
The assessment revealed serious weaknesses across all state functions, especially public financial management and the granting and managing of contracts of large infrastructure projects. It said the cost of high-profile projects were inflated by as much as 200 percent under Lungu, with the extra money going into the pockets of well-connected Lungu supporters.
Several former government officials were arrested on corruption charges. However, the arrests ended in bail, with defendants denying the accusations. No convictions have been secured.
Patriotic Front spokesperson Raphael Nakachinda denied the IMF allegations of large-scale corruption under Lungu.
Nakachinda told VOA that while in government, the Patriotic Front had put in place measures to ensure transparency and accountability in public procurement. He challenged the current government to take legal action against any of its former leaders found wanting.
“We ensured at the time that we were in office that all government contracts go through a rigorous public bidding process to ensure transparency and accountability and there are sufficient laws in Zambia to allow citizens to object, appeal or challenge any government contract process they deem is shrouded in corruption. The tender process is a public process and therefore those allegations are malicious,” Nakachinda said.
Presidential spokesperson Anthony Bwalya told VOA that the IMF report is a confirmation of what the government of Hichilema has always known — that corruption in Zambia had worsened under the Lungu administration.
“This is why the president has made it a fundamental priority to win the fight against corruption as part of the process towards rebuilding the economy,” Bwalya said. “We have set up the financial crimes fast track courts to expedite the process of holding accountable perpetrators of grand scale corruption, we have also reformed the public financial management systems for better transparency as well as reforming the public procurement process.”
For Boyd Muleya, an economist at the research organization the Centre for Policy, Trade and Development, the IMF report is an important step toward enhancing the fight against corruption in Zambia.
“We are happy that there’s a drum up towards ensuring that the rule of law is brought back, that transparency is enhanced, we are still yet to hear the progress on access to information in this country,” Muleya said.
The Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection — a faith-based non-governmental organization that champions social justice — told VOA the alleged corruption affected the poor the most in the past 8 years, because they were left without access to basic social services like water, food, sanitation and health.
According to the World Bank, about two-thirds of Zambia’s population lives on less than two dollars a day.
your ad hereFrench Town to Block Sign Showing Link to Iran’s Khomeini
A town in France has decided to hide from public view a sign noting its brief connection to the former supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
The sign, which includes a portrait of Khomeini, stands on private land in Neauphle-Le-Chateau, outside of Paris, but it is visible from the street.
Khomeini stayed there for several months in late 1978 and early 1979 before returning to Iran.
Amid the current protests in Iran sparked by the death in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, a collection of 40 groups asked the town government to take several steps to distance itself from its links to Khomeini, including hiding the sign.
International Women’s Law League posted on Facebook that its representatives met Wednesday with the town’s mayor, Elisabeth Sandjivy, to discuss their requests.
Agence France-Presse reported that Sandjivy told the news agency the sign “will be hidden,” probably by way of a large panel installed on the sidewalk to block it.
Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse.
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‘Woman King’ Statue Has Role in Sanctions Controversy
A statue in Benin of one of the female warriors of Dahomey, which appeared in the Hollywood film ‘The Woman King,’ was likely built by a sanctioned North Korean company, according to evidence discovered by VOA’s Korean Service. In an exclusive interview with VOA, the Beninois government denies the statue was constructed by North Korea. Henry Wilkins reports from Cotonou, Benin.
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Police Start Clearing German Village Condemned for Coal Mine
Police in riot gear began evicting climate activists Wednesday from a condemned village in western Germany that is due to be demolished for the expansion of a coal mine.
Some stones and fireworks were thrown as officers entered the tiny hamlet of Luetzerath, which has become a flashpoint of debate over the country’s climate efforts, Wednesday morning.
Police spokesperson Andreas Mueller said the attacks on officers were “not nice” but noted that most of the protest so far had been peaceful.
He said police would stick to their tactic of trying to avoid any escalation by offering to let any activists who leave on their own accord to do so without facing further police measures or prosecution.
Still, some protesters complained of undue force by police and others said the scale of the police response — with officers brought in from across the country and water cannons on standby — was itself a form of escalation not justified by the peaceful protest. At least one woman screamed in apparent pain as officers used force to remove her from a roadblock outside the village.
By Wednesday afternoon dozens of activists remained camped out in Luetzerath, some in elaborate tree houses, as police slowly moved through the village clearing barricades and a communal soup kitchen.
Some activists read books or played the accordion while perched atop 3-meter tripods. A few sat or stood on the roofs of Luetzerath’s remaining buildings despite the chilly wind.
“I’m really afraid today,” Petra Schumann, a 53-year-old local who had been at the site for several days, said from a top-floor window of one of the few remaining houses. Schumann said she still held out hope of preserving what’s left of Luetzerath “until nothing is left standing; hope dies last.”
Environmentalists say bulldozing the village to expand the nearby Garzweiler coal mine would result in huge amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. The government and utility company RWE argue the coal is needed to ensure Germany’s energy security.
However, a study by the German Institute for Economic Research calls into question the government’s stance. Its authors found other existing coal fields could be used instead, though the cost to RWE would be greater.
Another alternative would be for Germany to increase production of renewable power, cut demand through energy efficiency measures, or import more coal or gas from abroad, the study found.
Citing the study and the urgent need to curb global carbon emissions, protesters refused to heed a court ruling Monday that effectively banned them from the area.
Some activists expressed particular anger at the environmentalist Green party, which is part of both the regional and national governments that reached a deal with RWE last year allowing it to destroy the village in return for ending coal use by 2030, rather than 2038.
Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck, a Green who is Germany’s economy and climate minister, defended the agreement as a “good decision for climate protection” that fulfills many of the environmentalists’ demands and saves five other villages from demolition.
“I think climate protection and protests need symbols but the empty hamlet of Luetzerath, where no one lives any more, is the wrong symbol from my point of view,” Habeck told reporters in Berlin.
Climate campaigners counter that expanding a massive open-cast coal mine goes against Germany’s international commitments to reduce emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases. The country is expected to miss its ambitious targets for the second year in a row.
Luetzerath “is now the European place of crystallization for the climate movement,” said Lakshmi Thevasagayam, a spokesperson for the Luetzerath Lives activist group. “We know that the coal under Luetzerath isn’t needed for energy security — it must remain in the ground so that we can achieve climate justice.”
“Now we can do something against the climate catastrophe, but at some point we won’t be able to anymore,” Thevasagayam said. She accused police of engaging in “a complete escalation” by moving ahead with the eviction Wednesday.
RWE said in a statement that a 1.5-kilometer fence will be built around the site. It appealed to activists to peacefully “end the illegal occupation” of the site it legally owns.
Andreas Mueller, the police spokesperson, said authorities were prepared for the eviction operation to last weeks, if necessary.
The heads of several environmental organizations planned to visit Luetzerath on Thursday to express solidarity with the activists there. A large protest was also scheduled near the site Saturday, attended by prominent Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg.
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Ukraine Conflict Among Litany of Global Abuses, Human Rights Watch Says
The past year has seen human rights crises worsening around the world, from Ukraine to China to Afghanistan, Human Rights Watch said in its latest annual report, released Thursday.
But new voices of leadership for championing human rights have emerged, according to the report.
World Report 2023 looks at the state of human rights in nearly 100 countries where the New York-based organization works.
“The obvious conclusion to draw from the litany of human rights crises in 2022 —from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s deliberate attacks on civilians in Ukraine and Xi Jinping’s open-air prison for the Uyghurs in China to the Taliban’s putting millions of Afghans at risk of starvation — is that unchecked authoritarian power leaves behind a sea of human suffering,” the report says.
“But 2022 also revealed a fundamental shift in power in the world that opens the way for all concerned governments to push back against these abuses by protecting and strengthening the global human rights system,” says the report.
Ukraine
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the report’s authors say the global community deserves credit for unleashing what it calls the “full arsenal” of the human rights system, including an investigation by the International Criminal Court.
“We saw immediate responses from the international community to mobilize around key human rights supports, including establishing international justice mechanisms [and] evidence gathering for war crimes,” Tirana Hassan, acting executive director at Human Rights Watch, told VOA.
In towns such as Bucha and Izyum, there is widespread evidence of the torture, execution and rape of Ukrainian civilians by occupying Russian soldiers. The United Nations Human Rights Council has documented several hundred civilian killings, thought to be a fraction of the total.
Following a visit to Ukraine in December, Volker Türk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said the war “continues to be marked by gross violations of international human rights law.”
“In some cases, Russian soldiers executed civilians in makeshift places of detention. Others were summarily executed on the spot following security checks — in their houses, yards and doorways. Even where the victim had shown clearly that they were not a threat, for example, by holding their hands in the air. There are strong indications that the summary executions documented in the report may constitute the war crime of willful killing,” Türk told reporters Dec. 15.
Human Rights Watch said the West could have acted against Russia before its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
“Putin’s brazenness has been made possible largely because of his long-standing free hand to operate with impunity,” the report says. “The loss of civilian life in Ukraine comes as no surprise to Syrians who suffered grave abuses from airstrikes following Russia’s intervention to support Syrian forces under Bashar al-Assad in 2015.”
China
Human Rights Watch highlights ongoing abuses in China, including the mass detention, torture and forced labor of as many as a million Muslims in the Xinjiang region. Beijing denies the accusations.
In October, a U.N. resolution to open a debate on abuses by Beijing against the Uyghurs fell short by two votes. However, the report says the closeness of the vote “shows the potential in cross-regional alliances and fresh coalitions to come together to challenge the Chinese government’s expectation of impunity.”
Hassan said the U.N. vote was an important moment.
“What we have seen for the first time in a very long time is cracks in the authoritarian armor,” she told VOA.
Afghanistan
In Afghanistan, the Taliban have imposed numerous laws violating the fundamental rights of women and girls, including freedom of movement, right to work and a livelihood, and access to education and health care.
“Taliban security forces throughout the year carried out arbitrary detentions, torture, and summary executions of former security officers and perceived enemies,” the reports says.
Iran
In Iran, protests triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini after she was detained by morality police have grown into nationwide anti-government demonstrations.
Human Rights Watch said the execution of at least four protesters in recent weeks must trigger a stronger global response.
“We need to move beyond international solidarity for protesters and need to make sure that governments all over the world are holding Iranian officials to account,” Hassan told VOA.
Myanmar
The report cites increasing human rights abuses in Myanmar, where the authors say the regime is launching assaults on communities across the country that oppose the 2021 military coup.
“The junta security forces have carried out mass killings, arbitrary arrests, torture, sexual violence, and other abuses that amount to crimes against humanity,” the report says. “Freedom of speech and assembly face severe restrictions. Expanded military operations have resulted in numerous war crimes against ethnic minority populations in Kachin, Karen, Karenni, and Shan States.”
Ethiopia
In Ethiopia, Human Rights Watch says the recent African Union-led peace process has resulted in a fragile truce.
“Ensuring that there is accountability for the egregious crimes that took place in the Tigray region, for example, is going to be critical for this cease-fire and this truce to actually hold,” Hassan said.
Climate change
Human Rights Watch says climate change is having an increasing impact on basic rights in every corner of the world, from devastating floods in Pakistan to wildfires in the United States. It says governments have a legal and moral obligation to regulate industries such as fossil fuel extraction that are incompatible with protecting basic rights.
“Governments should act with urgency in upholding human rights in their responses to climate extremes and slow-onset changes that are already inevitable, protecting those populations most at risk, including Indigenous peoples, women, children, older people, people with disabilities, and people living in poverty,” the report says.
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Ukraine Conflict Among Litany of Global Abuses, Human Rights Watch Says
The past year has seen a litany of human rights crises across the world, from Ukraine to China to Afghanistan, Human Rights Watch says in its latest annual report, released Thursday. The authors also say, however, that new champions of human rights have emerged. Henry Ridgwell reports.
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US Flights Resume After Computer Outage Grounds Planes
Air traffic control operations are returning to normal across the United States after thousands of flights were canceled or delayed by a malfunction in the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration system that left pilots, airlines and airports without crucial safety information for hours. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
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Biden Aides Find Second Batch of Classified Documents at New Location, Reports Say
Aides to U.S. President Joe Biden have discovered at least one more batch of classified documents in a location separate from a think tank office he used after serving as vice president, news outlets reported on Wednesday, citing unnamed sources.
Biden aides have been searching for additional classified materials that might be in other locations since a set of classified documents was found in November at the Washington-based think tank, according to a report in NBC News, which first broke the news, and CNN.
The NBC News report said the classification level, number and precise location of the additional documents was not immediately clear. It also said it was not clear when the additional documents were discovered and whether the search for any other classified materials Biden may have from his time as vice president is complete.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
Senator Mark Warner, the Intelligence Committee’s Democratic chairman, has asked for a briefing on the first Biden document discovery, he said Tuesday.
A spokesperson for Senator Marco Rubio, the committee’s Republican vice chair, said Rubio and Warner had written to Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, asking for access to the classified documents.
The two senators also requested a damage assessment by the intelligence community and a briefing on the retention of classified documents by both Biden, a Democrat, and Republican former President Donald Trump.
The request echoed a similar one sent to Haines on Tuesday by Republican Representative Mike Turner of the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
The reports come two days after a White House lawyer said classified documents from Biden’s days as vice president had been discovered in November by the president’s personal attorneys at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement think tank.
Biden’s attorneys discovered fewer than a dozen classified records inside the office at the center, and informed the U.S. National Archives of their discovery, turned over the materials, and said they were cooperating with the Archives and the Justice Department. The president said on Tuesday that he and his team were cooperating fully with a review into what happened.
The Justice Department is separately probing Trump’s handling of highly sensitive classified documents that he retained at his Florida resort after leaving the White House in January 2021.
Trump kept thousands of government records, a few hundred of which were marked as classified, inside his personal residence in Florida for over a year after departing the White House and did not return them immediately or willingly despite numerous requests by the National Archives.
When he finally handed over 15 boxes of records in January 2022, the Archives discovered more than 100 were marked as classified. It referred the matter to the Justice Department in the spring.
FBI agents carried out a court-approved search on Aug. 8 of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. About 100 documents marked as classified were among thousands of records seized.
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Russia to Send Spacecraft to Space Station to Bring Home Crew
Russia said Wednesday that it will send an empty spacecraft to the International Space Station next month to bring home three astronauts whose planned return vehicle was damaged by a strike from a tiny meteorite.
The Russian space agency, Roscosmos, made the announcement after examining the flight worthiness of the Soyuz MS-22 crew capsule at the space station, which sprang a radiator coolant leak in December.
Roscosmos and NASA officials said at a joint press briefing that an uncrewed Soyuz spacecraft, MS-23, would be sent to the station February 20 to bring Russian cosmonauts Dmitry Petelin and Sergei Prokopyev and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio back to Earth.
“We’re not calling it a rescue Soyuz,” said Joel Montalbano, the space station program manager at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “I’m calling it a replacement Soyuz.
“Right now, the crew is safe onboard the space station,” he added.
MS-22 flew Petelin, Prokopyev and Rubio to the space station in September. They were scheduled to return home in the same spacecraft in mid-March.
But MS-22 began leaking coolant on December 14 after being hit by what U.S. and Russian space officials said they believed was a micrometeorite.
“Everything does point to a micrometeorite,” Montalbano said.
Sergei Krikalev, executive director of human space flight programs at Roscosmos, said the “current theory is that this damage was caused by a small particle about 1 millimeter in diameter.”
Krikalev said the decision to use MS-23 to fly the crew home was made because of concern over high temperatures in MS-22 during reentry.
“The main problem to land the current Soyuz with crew would be thermal conditions because we lost heat rejection capability,” he said. “We may have a high temperature situation on Soyuz in the equipment compartment and in the crew compartment.”
Montalbano said discussions were also underway with SpaceX officials about potentially returning one or more crew members on the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule currently docked with the space station.
Four astronauts were flown to the station by a SpaceX rocket in October for a mission expected to last about six months.
“We could safely secure the crew members in the area that the cargo normally returns on the Dragon,” Montalbano said.
“All that is only for an emergency, only if we have to evacuate ISS,” he stressed. “That’s not the nominal plan or anything like that.”
Krikalev said MS-22 would return to Earth after the two cosmonauts and the NASA astronaut leave on MS-23. It would bring back equipment and experiments that are not “temperature sensitive,” he said.
Soyuz MS-23 had been initially scheduled to fly Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub and NASA’s Loral O’Hara to the space station on March 16.
Space has remained a rare venue of cooperation between Moscow and Washington since the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine and ensuing Western sanctions on Russia.
The space station was launched in 1998 at a time of increased U.S.-Russia cooperation following the Cold War space race.
Russia has been using the aging but reliable Soyuz capsules to ferry astronauts into space since the 1960s.
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Top Russian Military Officer Put in Charge of Troops Fighting in Ukraine
Russia’s top military officer was put in charge of troops fighting in Ukraine on Wednesday, a move that appears to reflect the Kremlin’s dissatisfaction with the current leadership and flaws in the military’s performance.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said that General Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, was named the new commander of the unified group of forces in Ukraine.
The previous commander, General Sergei Surovikin, was demoted to become Gerasimov’s deputy along with two other generals.
The reshuffle, which was formally ordered by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, came with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s approval, signaling that he still has trust in his top military leaders who have faced broad criticism for the troops’ performance in the conflict.
It also suggests a recognition of flaws in carrying out what Putin called “the special military operation” in Ukraine.
While announcing Gerasimov’s appointment, the Defense Ministry said it was aimed at improving coordination between various forces fighting in Ukraine.
“Raising the level of leadership of the special military operation is linked to the expansion of the scale of the tasks being fulfilled as part of it and the need to organize closer interaction between branches of the military and to increase the quality of supplies and the efficiency of directing groups of forces,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement.
Surovikin was credited with strengthening coordination and reinforcing control over Russian forces in Ukraine after his appointment in October. His demotion to the No. 2 role signaled that while Putin wasn’t quite happy with his performance, he still trusts the general’s expertise.
Soon after Surovikin was appointed in October, Russian troops pulled back from the southern city of Kherson under the brunt of a Ukrainian counteroffensive. The retreat from the only regional center captured by Russia since it sent troops into Ukraine on February 24 came weeks after its annexation by Moscow and dealt a painful blow to the Kremlin.
In his turn, Gerasimov, who was seen as the top architect of the Russian action in Ukraine as the country’s top military officer in charge of strategic military planning, was also widely blamed for Moscow’s military setbacks.
His critics included Yevgeny Prigozhin, a millionaire businessman with close ties to Putin. Prigozhin, whose Wagner Group military contractor has played an increasingly prominent role in the fighting, has accused Gerasimov of incompetence and blamed him for a string of Russian military setbacks.
Such criticism was shared by Chechnya’s leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, who deployed troops from his region to fight in Ukraine and repeatedly urged the Kremlin to up the ante in the conflict.
The criticism of Gerasimov from Prigozhin and Kadyrov rose to a high pitch in September, when Russian troops were forced to pull back from Ukraine’s northeastern region of Kharkiv by a swift Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Kadyrov particularly accused Gerasimov of covering up for his protege, Col. Gen. Alexander Lapin, who was in charge of the troops that retreated from the Kharkiv region.
Despite such attacks, Lapin was promoted to become the chief of staff of ground forces earlier this week. His promotion along with Gerasimov’s new appointment appear to signal that Prigozhin and Kadyrov have little influence over the Kremlin’s decision-making despite their increasing public activity.
Putin on Wednesday also gave a televised dressing down to Denis Manturov, a deputy prime minister in charge of aviation and other high-tech industries.
Putin demanded that Manturov act more quickly in contracting new aircraft and cut him short during a televised video call with Cabinet members when he tried to defend his performance.
When Manturov said he would try to make sure it’s done during the first quarter, Putin angrily snapped that it should be done within a month. “You don’t try to do all you can, you do it within a month, no later than that,” Putin said.
your ad hereIran Sentences Ex-Official to Death Over Alleged UK Spying
Iran has sentenced a former senior defense official to death after convicting him on charges of spying for Britain, state-linked media reported Wednesday.
The judiciary said Ali Reza Akbari, who was deputy defense minister until 2001, was a “key spy” for British intelligence, the semiofficial Tasnim news agency reported. It said Iranian intelligence unmasked the spying by feeding him false information.
Tasnim also reported that he had spied on past nuclear talks between Iran and Western powers. Akbari had served as deputy defense minister under President Mohammad Khatami, a reformist who had pushed for improved relations with the West.
Britain called for the execution to be halted and for Akbari’s immediate release.
“This is a politically motivated act by a barbaric regime that has total disregard for human life,” Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said in a statement.
For several years, Iran has been locked in a shadow war with the United States and Israel, marked by covert attacks on its disputed nuclear program. The killing of Iran’s top nuclear scientist in 2020, which Iran blamed on Israel, indicated foreign intelligence services had made major inroads.
Akbari, who ran a private think tank, has not been seen in public since 2019, when he apparently was arrested.
Authorities have not released any details about his trial. Those accused of espionage and other crimes related to national security are usually tried behind closed doors, where rights groups say they do not choose their own lawyers and are not allowed to see evidence against them.
Tasnim said the Supreme Court upheld his sentence and that he had access to an attorney. There was no word on when the execution might be carried out.
Akbari had previously led the implementation of a 1988 cease-fire between Iran and Iraq following their devastating eight-year war, working closely with U.N. observers.
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Uganda Declares End to Ebola Outbreak
The World Health Organization declared Uganda free from Ebola on Wednesday, 42 days since the last infection was recorded.
The outbreak of the Sudan strain of the virus, which started in September, has left 55 people dead. The declaration was made at a function in Mubende district, now known as the epicenter of the fifth outbreak of the Ebola Sudan virus in Uganda.
Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng, Uganda’s health minister, noted that the major drivers of transmission were household infection and gatherings at private facilities. The three main portals of transmission were physical contact, sexual contact and trans-placental transmission.
“I now confirm that all transmission chains have been fully interrupted,” Aceng said. “And take this opportunity to declare that outbreak is over and Uganda is now free of active Ebola transmission.”
The Mubende district registered the highest number of confirmed cases with 64 patients and 29 deaths.
At the onset of the Ebola outbreak, Naiga Juliet worked her usual routine as a laboratory attendant at Mubende Referral Hospital. With about seven health workers dying due to Ebola, many people were afraid to approach patients.
Juliet, who later was to be the Ebola laboratory sample coordinator, recalled that on September 17, a patient was admitted who tested positive for Ebola the next day. That was the start of the Ebola outbreak, and a followup of contacts was quickly carried out.
“I took off those samples. They were eight patients, six turned out positive. I was in panic,” Juliet said. “I had to notify my lawyers and my family about what might happen. I was traumatized, psychologically tortured. Because even my colleagues feared and they didn’t even enter there. But me, actually, I knew how to put on the PPE [Personal Protective Equipment], practicing infection, prevention and control. That’s what saved me.”
By the end of October, the neighboring Kassanda district registered 12 cases within two days, prompting health authorities to open up an Ebola treatment unit there.
Nabuuma Maska, a resident of Kassanda district, has adopted a third name, Kawonawo, literally meaning survivor. Maska said she visited a sick relative, unaware that the relative had Ebola and would die soon after from the virus.
Maska told VOA that three days later, she showed symptoms of Ebola, including severe headache, bleeding through the nose, diarrhea and vomiting.
She said she called the ambulance and was taken to hospital, then lost consciousness for three weeks. When she regained her senses, she said she was greeted with health workers saying, “welcome back, welcome back.”
Maska said she has since faced social stigma in her village.
She said her family suddenly ran away from her, and her landlord kicked her out of her house for failure to pay her rent. She said she used to own a business but lost it, and now can’t afford to buy food or pay for shelter.
By the end of the pandemic, Kassanda district registered 49 confirmed cases and 21 deaths among the 143 cases and 55 deaths countrywide.
Ugandans have been urged to continue being vigilant and report any person in the community that displays Ebola-like symptoms.
The Health Ministry, working with international partners, said it continues to look for the possible source of the outbreak and the reason why Uganda tends to suffer from Ebola outbreaks from July to October.
your ad hereUS Lawmakers Move to Reevaluate US Policy Towards China
A congressional reassessment of American policy towards China is expected to get underway in earnest early next month.
In a 365-65 vote, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution Tuesday creating a special Select Committee on China. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has tapped Republican Representative Mike Gallagher to chair the committee’s work.
“A lot of people are interested. I spoke to the Republican caucus this morning and a lot of people have expressed interest. I’m optimistic that we’re going to have a pretty serious group of members with a broad range of experience that’s relevant to the issues we’re facing right now,” said Gallagher in an interview with VOA Mandarin.
Gallagher told VOA the committee expects to hold its first hearing in early to mid-February and will be comprised of a bipartisan group of lawmakers.
“The Democrats who have expressed interest in joining me are people I respect and have experience that would be a good fit for this committee,” he said.
In a floor speech ahead of the vote, McCarthy said, “We spent decades passing policies that welcomed China into the global system. In return, China has exported oppression, aggression, and anti-Americanism. Today, the power of its military and economy are growing at the expense of freedom and democracy worldwide.”
He said the committee will be scrutinizing policies which should be changed.
“It didn’t start under this administration, but the current administration has clearly made it worse. Their policies have weakened our economy and made us more vulnerable to threats from the CCP. But here’s the good news – there is bipartisan consensus that the era of trusting Communist China is over.”
A spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry had a muted response to the creation of the committee Wednesday. Wang Wenbin told reporters at a routine news conference that he hopes U.S. politicians will view relations with Beijing “in an objective and rational way” and will work on policies benefiting both countries.
A commentary published Wednesday in the state-backed Global Times newspaper took a more skeptical view, accusing the committee of having a “strong ideological undertone” and worried it could stoke “anti-China public opinion.”
Bipartisan support for China Committee
The new speaker said the idea for a bipartisan committee to investigate all aspects of the U.S. relationship with China — from economics to COVID — came to him while on a diplomatic trip commemorating the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, a key turning point in World War II.
The resolution creating the committee passed with significant support from Democrats.
“House Democrats will work in a serious, sober and strategic manner to evaluate our relationship with the Chinese government and to address the rise of authoritarianism globally. House Democrats will firmly speak out against xenophobic rhetoric and conspiracy theories should this committee devolve into extreme MAGA Republican talking points that further anti-Asian hate crimes in this country,” Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement after the vote.
Jeffries succeeded former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi as leader of House Democrats at the start of the 118th Congress.
In a statement Tuesday, House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul said the committee would build on the work undertaken by Republicans during the 117th Congress on the House China Task Force.
“The Republican House is laser-focused on the CCP as an existential threat to our nation. The Select Committee is also an opportunity for House Democrats to finally join bipartisan efforts to counter the CCP, which they declined to do on the China Task Force,” said McCaul
VOA Mandarin journalist Yi-Hua Lee contributed to this report.
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In Odesa, Volunteer Brigade Does What It Takes to Protect Homeland
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian shells have been a part of daily life in the city of Odesa. But a determined set of locals is fighting back, from hairdressers to police officers who are part of a territorial defense effort. Anna Kosstutschenko reports. Camera: Pavel Suhodolskiy
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UN Rights Chief: New US Border Policy Undermines Refugee Law
The U.N.’s top human rights official warns the U.S. government’s new border enforcement measures risk undermining peoples’ basic rights to seek asylum.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk says he fears the new border policy will undercut the basic foundations of human rights and refugee law to protect the lives of people fleeing for safety.
Türk’s spokeswoman, Ravina Shamdasani, tells VOA the High Commissioner is concerned the measures will lead to an increase in collective expulsions without having protection needs assessed individually.
She adds that people who undertake these dangerous journeys are fleeing very difficult circumstances in their home countries.
The new U.S. policy would allow some 30,000 individuals from Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti, and Nicaragua to come to the United States every month for a limited period of two years. Shamdasani says the High Commissioner welcomes measures that would create and expand regular safe pathways for migration.
“However, we are worried that these are very restrictive and that those who are most vulnerable, and those who are most in need of asylum, are unlikely to meet the requirements to be granted this humanitarian parole,” said Shamdasani. “For example, one of the requirements is that you have to have a financial sponsor in the U.S. Now, obviously, those who are most vulnerable would not be in a position to provide that.”
Shamdasani says the announced changes to the so-called public health order known as Title 42 are also of concern. That policy, she says, will be expanded to include increased use of expedited removals of migrants from the United States.
She says Title 42 will permit the fast-track expulsion to Mexico of some 30,000 Venezuelans, Haitians, Cubans, and Nicaraguans each month.
“You may be aware that Title 42 has already been used some 2.5 million times at the southern border of the United States to expel people to Mexico go back to their home countries without an individualized assessment of their protection needs. This is of obvious concern to us,” she said.
High Commissioner Türk reiterated his call for the human rights of all refugees and migrants to be respected and protected at international borders. While there is a great deal of talk about migration crises, he says, the reality is that it is those who are migrating who often are the ones truly in crisis.
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Tigray Forces Start Handing Over Heavy Weapons as Part of Peace Deal
Ethiopia’s military says Tigrayan forces have started handing over heavy weapons as part of the peace deal to end the two-year civil war.
Ethiopia’s federal defense force in a statement Wednesday confirmed Tigray forces have started handing over heavy weapons— the latest progress in line with a November peace deal.
The statement said the “first round” of weapons were transported on Tuesday in Agula camp, 36 kilometers from Tigray’s capital, Mekelle.
Ethiopian Army Commander Lieutenant Colonel Aleme Tadele said the arms transfer included tanks, rockets, and mortars.
The statement said observers from the African Union and various countries’ militaries were present to verify the transfer from the Tigray People’s Liberation Army.
The confirmation came after TPLF spokesman Getachew Reda early Wednesday tweeted news of the handover.
He said they “hope and expect this will go a long way in expediting the full implementation of the agreement.”
The AU-brokered peace deal, signed in South Africa, saw the two sides agree the TPLF would disarm in return for restoration of aid and services to Tigray and the withdrawal of foreign forces.
The deal came after two years of devastating war that saw Tigray largely cut off from the rest of the world, hundreds of thousands of people killed, and millions displaced.
The two sides have met a few times in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, to discuss implementing the deal.
Since December, Ethiopia has allowed humanitarian aid to enter Tigray and restored power, water, banking, and telecommunications to the region.
Witnesses say in late December Eritrean troops who fought on the side of federal forces withdrew from two cities in Tigray.
However, the TPLF accuses Eritrean troops of committing atrocities during the conflict and says they are still active in some areas of Tigray.
Rights groups say all sides in the conflict are guilty of rapes, torture, and extra-judicial killings that could amount to war crimes, and cite evidence of ethnic cleansing against Tigrayans.
While the rapid progress on implementing the peace deal has been welcomed internationally, it’s not yet clear what action, if any, will be taken to see justice for the victims.
your ad hereSomali Government Says Funding Sources to al-Shabab Shut Down
The Somali government says it has shut down the financial infrastructure that supports Islamist militant group al-Shabab.
Speaking Wednesday to a gathering of Somali diaspora members in Cairo, Somali Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre said his government has closed every known account connected with the militants.
“The government has closed down about 250 militant-connected accounts in four banks and also shut down the network and the data services of about 70 mobile phones the militants were using to transfer money,” Hamza said.
“This was a major victory and was only possible because of the tips of the Somali citizens and we are in the process of investigating the amount of the frozen money in the closed accounts,” said the prime minister.
Hamza said Somali security forces have also arrested individuals carrying money to al-Shabab financial offices.
Al-Shabab has funded itself for years by extorting businesses in Mogadishu and collecting taxes in the areas under its control.
Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud declared a “total war” against the al-Qaida-linked militants shortly after being elected last year.
Working with local clan fighters, the government has claimed multiple military victories against al-Shabab in the past six months, retaking towns and villages in Hirshabelle state that the militants had controlled for years.
Hamza said Tuesday that about 2,000 al-Shabab fighters have been killed in military operations conducted by the Somali army, supported by what he called international partners.
VOA could not independently verify the government’s claimed death toll.
Al-Shabab, meanwhile, has continued its attacks since Mohamud was elected president.
On Saturday, it carried out two attacks on government forces in Somalia’s central region of Hiran in two days, killing more than 43 people, including senior military officers.
An October twin car bombing in Mogadishu killed at least 120 people.
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US Indicts Chinese Student in Democracy Case
A Chinese national who has been studying in Boston has been indicted by a U.S. federal grand jury for allegedly stalking and threatening another Chinese citizen for posting fliers that support democracy in China.
The U.S. Justice Department said Tuesday that 25-year-old Xiaolei Wu, a student at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, was indicted on one count of cyberstalking and one count of interstate transmissions of threatening communications. He was arrested in December on a single count of stalking.
The department says an individual posted a flier either on or near the Berklee campus in mid-October written with pro-democracy slogans “We Want Freedom” and “We Want Democracy.”
Wu allegedly harassed the individual through social media, even threatening to chop off the person’s hands if any more fliers were posted. He also allegedly told the target that he had informed security authorities in China about the fliers and that agents would visit the victim’s family. Prosecutors also say Wu discovered the victim’s email address and posted it online to trigger further harassment.
Wu faces up to five years in prison on each charge of cyberstalking and interstate transmissions of threatening communications, along with a fine of up to $250,000 for each charge. VOA’s Mandarin Service says the Berklee College of Music has temporarily canceled Wu’s student status.
According to VOA’s Mandarin Service, Wu’s alleged harassment efforts began shortly after an October incident in Beijing in which a man identified online as Peng Zaizhou hung a banner on the city’s Sitong Bridge opposing President Xi Jinping’s strict “zero-COVID” lockdown policy. His stance resonated with Chinese students overseas, who began putting up pro-democracy posters.
But the posters were often torn down by Chinese students loyal to Beijing and that some of the Chinese students were harassed to varying degrees. The Chinese Students’ and Scholars Association, which has close ties to Chinese embassies and consulates, has been blamed for the on-campus harassment.
A report by the Hoover Institution, a U.S.-based research center, accuses the CSSA of undermining the academic freedom of other Chinese students and scholars on U.S. campuses.
Some information for this report came from VOA’s Mandarin Service.
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US Flights Gradually Resuming after FAA Computer Outage
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration says normal air traffic operations are gradually resuming across the U.S. after an outage affected one of its computer systems.
The FAA had earlier ordered airlines to pause all domestic departures Wednesday due to an issue with its Notice to Air Missions System but now says the “ground stop has been lifted.”
“We continue to look into the cause of the initial problem.” The FAA tweeted.
“I have been in touch with FAA this morning about an outage affecting a key system for providing safety information to pilots,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg tweeted. “FAA is working to resolve this issue swiftly and safely so that air traffic can resume normal operations, and will continue to provide updates.”
President Joe Biden said he has spoken to Buttigieg and directed the Department of Transportation to report directly to him about the matter..
“Aircraft can still land safely, just not take off right now. They don’t know what the cause of it is. They expect in a couple of hours they’ll have a good sense of what caused it and will respond at that time,” Biden told reporters Wednesday morning.
Earlier, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said President Joe Biden has been briefed by Buttigieg on the matter and has called for a full investigation by the. Department of Transportation..
“There is no evidence of a cyberattack at this point, but the President directed DOT to conduct a full investigation into the causes. The FAA will provide regular updates,” Jean-Pierre tweeted.
The problem was first reported around 6 a.m (Eastern Standard Time)., and by 7 a.m. there were 1,200 delayed flights, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware. Most were concentrated on the U.S. East Coast.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press.
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Six Wounded in Paris Knife Attack
Authorities in France say an attacker armed with a knife wounded six people Wednesday morning at a busy train station in Paris.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told reporters police shot the attacker, who was “between life and death” after being taken to a hospital.
The attack happened at the Gare du Nord station, one of the busiest in Europe.
The motive for the attack was unclear, and authorities say they have opened a criminal investigation.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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