More than 100 members of the Ukrainian military are in Poland for intense training on the German-made Leopard 2 battle tanks. Ukrainian leaders say the tanks, promised by Western allies three weeks ago, will help save lives and play a key role in the fight against Russian forces. Myroslava Gongadze has more from an Army base in Swietoszow, Poland. Videographer: Daniil Batu
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Month: February 2023
Ukrainians Near Bakhmut Endure Near-Constant Shelling
Ukrainians in Chasiv Yar — a town near Bakhmut in the east of the country — are enduring near-constant shelling as battles between Russian and Ukrainian forces rage close by. Yaroslava Movchan has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera — Arthur Shagalin.
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Powerful Earthquakes Shake Political Fortunes in Turkey, Syria
Last week’s disastrous earthquakes have shaken the political fortunes of leaders in Turkey and Syria, analysts say. Some see a possible accelerated path to regime normalization for pariah Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while an onslaught of criticism has engulfed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, calling into question his re-election bid.
More than a decade of conflict and blocked borders to aid deliveries have hampered access to the rebel-held area of northwest Syria, decimated by the powerful quakes. Turkey has received the lion’s share of international assistance to date. The Norwegian Refugee Council and 35 other nongovernmental organizations are demanding increased support for Syria’s affected areas, saying “the humanitarian response must match the scale of the disaster.”
Syria expert Charles Lister of the Washington-based Middle East Institute said, “It shouldn’t surprise us that the Assad regime is willing to take advantage of a catastrophic natural disaster to serve its own interests,” citing Syrian government appeals to the United Nations and aid deliveries from the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Iraq and Italy. But he warned against lifting sanctions on the government to further its normalization.
“The main area of exploitation is its demand for sanctions relief,” Lister told the Italian Institute of International Political Studies. “There is no correlation between the sanctions imposed on the regime by the United States, the European Union, Canada or the United Kingdom and the delivery of humanitarian aid. In 2022, the billions of dollars of aid that flowed into regime areas, through Damascus, 91% of that was funded by the four sanctioning entities.”
Lister added that “we do probably appear to be on an accelerated path toward the normalization of the regime, but a lot of it will depend on how the regime responds: whether it is stubborn or more pragmatic as it deals with requests for further aid and how it deals with the governments that continue to press against it.”
Meanwhile, analysts say Erdogan has come under fire for his government’s reaction to the earthquakes, as the death toll rises in the southwest and affects his chances of re-election.
Dorothee Schmid, who leads the Turkey and Mideast program at the French Institute for International Relations in Paris, said Erdogan “was already in a slightly delicate situation because he has not always been leading in the polls last year. Everybody is wondering whether the popularity of the party is going to be damaged by the difficult response to the earthquakes. The party is really on the front line to confront the growing anger of the local population.”
Schmid also said there a debate about whether Erdogan’s “government is totally unable to cope with the situation or if any government would be completely helpless, given the magnitude” of the quakes.
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EU Seeks New Russia Sanctions Package, Targets Iran’s Drones
The European Union is considering a new set of sanctions totaling 11 billion euros against Russia and several countries providing vital goods that Moscow is using to boost its troops on the battlegrounds in Ukraine.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Wednesday that the package under consideration by the EU’s 27 member countries seeks to deprive Russia of military equipment it needs and cannot get anywhere else.
It includes proposals to subject seven Iranian entities to sanctions to try to prevent Russia from using Iranian drones to hit Ukrainian civilian infrastructure.
The proposals put forward by von der Leyen center on additional electronic weapons components for equipment such as drones, missiles, helicopters and thermal cameras. She had hinted at some of the measures during an EU-Ukraine summit early this month.
If the proposals are endorsed unanimously by the EU members, “we have banned all tech products found on the battlefield,” von der Leyen said.
Ambassadors were to assess what is called a 10th package of sanctions against Russia later Wednesday. It is expected to be discussed during a Monday meeting of EU foreign ministers in hopes of having final approval by the February 24 anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The package also tries to close loopholes that have allowed some measures from earlier packages to be circumvented and seeks to go after oligarchs who try to escape sanctions.
EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said it will also target 100 additional individuals and entities, including those who have been involved in kidnappings and taking Ukrainian children to Russia.
Usually, EU sanctions are decided in close cooperation with major Western partners such as the United States and Britain. The partners usually announce similar packages within a very short time frame.
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Trump Gets Republican Challenger for 2024 Presidential Election
At her first presidential campaign event on Wednesday, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley told an enthusiastic crowd in Charleston that it is time for the country “to move past the stale ideas and faded names of the past.”
Haley did not mention former President Donald Trump, instead focusing her criticism on the nation’s current leader, Democrat Joe Biden.
“Our leaders are failing. No one embodies that failure more than Joe Biden,” she said.
To face Biden, however, Haley will need to get past Trump, who has already declared his candidacy, and numerous other expected Republican hopefuls.
Haley, ambassador to the United Nations in the Trump administration, is the first prominent Republican to launch a 2024 campaign to formally oppose her former boss. Her entry into the race reverses a promise she made.
“I would not run if President Trump does,” Haley told reporters on Dec. 4, 2021.
Through a campaign spokesperson, Trump, in a statement to VOA, noted Haley’s previous pledge and said he told her, “She should follow her heart and do what she wants to do,” adding, “I wish her luck!”
Haley, an accountant before entering politics, was relatively unknown in her home state when she made her initial successful run for governor in 2011. She would go on to serve a second term, when she raised her national profile by dealing with a mass shooting by a white gunman in a Black church and signing legislation to remove the Confederate flag from the grounds of the State House.
Haley said she was repeatedly underestimated in her previous political races, noting it was not always easy for her as a child in South Carolina, “a brown girl growing up in a Black and white world.” Haley is the daughter of Punjabi Sikh immigrants from India.
In her inaugural presidential campaign video, released Tuesday, Haley portrays herself as a face of the party’s future rather than one from its past.
“Republicans have lost the popular vote in seven out of the last eight presidential elections. That has to change,” says Haley, a point she also emphasized at Wednesday’s rally.
Haley, who is 51, told supporters at the campaign event there should be “mandatory competency tests for politicians over 75 years old.” Biden is 80. Trump turns 77 in June.
“As U.N. ambassador, she was loyal to President Trump and didn’t break with him as some of the Republican Party did. So those things, I think, would be on the positive side for a Republican voter looking at a new candidate. On the negative side, it’s not clear that she has as strong a lane or as strong an attraction to America, to Republican voters as some others,” says American Enterprise Institute senior fellow John Fortier. He describes Haley as “a dynamic figure.”
Haley’s candidacy declaration likely is just the first among Republicans seeking to thwart Trump’s return to the White House. Among those considering entering the race are three men who served in Trump’s administration — his vice president, Mike Pence, the former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and former national security advisor John Bolton.
“The big person we’re talking in this field as a potential alternative to Donald Trump is the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis,” notes Fortier. “And I think the reasons for that is that he did portray, as a large-state governor in a Republican-leaning state, many of the characteristics of Donald Trump.”
The governor, who focuses on culture war issues as does Trump, is expected to dominate other Republican hopefuls in raising funds. That may make him attractive to party loyalists desiring a strong candidate to face Biden, the expected Democratic Party nominee.
If Haley continues to poll in the single digits, she is more likely to be considered as a running mate (vice presidential candidate) to the eventual party nominee.
Conservative media figures are mostly expressing skepticism, questioning the viability of her campaign and whether she’s a liberal in disguise.
“There’s a rule in politics that you never run for vice president,” said Federalist senior contributor Benjamin Weingarten, speaking on the conservative Newsmax TV channel. “The way the field will ultimately cull that’s the highest seat she could probably attain.”
Haley “is a liberal in outlook and mindset,” declared conservative lawyer Will Chamberlain on Twitter. “She is from South Carolina so she had to run as a Republican. But her views are ultimately formed by The New York Times and The Washington Post.”
The top Republican in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, is not playing favorites, predicting a vigorous primary process for his party.
“I think it’s going to be very, very competitive in these primaries and we’ll hope for the best and obviously I’m going to support whoever the nominee ultimately is,” he told reporters on Tuesday.
A crowd of candidates competing against the former president and each other could pave the way for Trump, who was twice impeached, to repeat what he did as a political newcomer in 2016 – having just enough support to clear the field and capture the Republican Party’s nomination.
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Report Says US Justice Department Escalates Apple Probe
The United States Justice Department has in recent months escalated its antitrust probe on Apple Inc., The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday citing people familiar with the matter.
Reuters had previously reported the Justice Department opened an antitrust probe into Apple in 2019.
The Wall Street Journal report said more litigators have now been assigned, while new requests for documents and consultations have been made with all the companies involved.
The probe will also look at whether Apple’s mobile operating system, iOS, is anti-competitive, favoring its own products over those of outside developers, the report added.
The Justice Department declined to comment, while Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Kenya Launches Operation to Weed Out Bandits
Kenyan security forces have launched an operation to clear bandits from its northern Rift Valley Region and recover illegal firearms. Critics have voiced concern that the operation, led by army-backed police, could lead to abuses.
Kenyan police, backed up by the military, are conducting an operation in the Rift Valley Region to root out bandits who are attacking communities and security forces and stealing people’s livestock.
President William Ruto issued the order after three police officers were killed and eight others injured in an ambush in Kainuk, Turkana County.
Bandits have attacked communities in the country’s northern region for decades, with stolen livestock blamed for most of the conflict.
Kenya’s police chief, Japhet Koome, urged communities to stop attacking each other after visiting Turkana County Tuesday.
“People of this region have no option. They must learn to coexist. This habit of one community attacking another one will not be allowed to continue,” Koome said. “We have the capacity and the will.”
Ahmed Mohamed, the head of the Center for Security and Strategic Studies, says the bandits are interested in stealing animals.
“They cannot face any formidable force whether it’s the police or military,” Mohamed said. “Right now, they are gone, gone where? They are in towns and they will not stress you. You will be alone there for a while, you will be around, you will look for weapons, you will force people but they are not there. They are in town, back to their normal activities.”
The government has given the bandits three days to surrender their weapons.
Last week, suspected bandits sprayed bullets into a vehicle carrying passengers, killing three people, including a student, in Turkana County.
Drought, according to Pokot South MP David Pkosing, is to blame for the current tensions and conflict between his community and the Turkana tribe.
“There is no order of grazing or drinking water and therefore the Pokot can push themselves to the river and maybe this river is on the side in terms of the administration of Turkana and Turkanas feel they are intimidated, or they think they are coming to their own land and vice-versa. And that’s why there are a lot of conflicts. The competition for grass is now very high along that area,” said Pkosing.
The conflict over pastures and water for the animals has heightened tensions in the area and halted other civilian and government activities.
Kenya is one of the countries in the region that is currently affected by the drought. Drought has affected 23 counties, including Baringo, Laikipia, Samburu, West Pokot, and Turkana.
Mohammed says the government will need to provide more resources and development in the affected region to stop animal theft.
“Those communities have lost a lot of animals. They have gone down in terms of numbers,” Mohamed said. “Therefore, when they see others who are doing well, they will definitely go for them. Drought and climate change has had an impact. That is why we are saying as part of future plans, the government must think about development, think of life beyond livestock and all that other means will be used to help people sustain their lives.”
Pkosing fears the security operation may bring more problems for his people than good.
“Out of 16 divisions in West Pokot, three are in distress, so sometimes when you unleash an operation, then they can make everybody a criminal… The past is that it criminalizes society,” said Pkosing. “That’s my fear. There have been incidences of rape in the past, and there are incidences of hunger, and roadblocks. A few months ago, there were roadblocks in Tiaty and 16 schools were closed and people almost died.”
The operation will also include the recovery of stolen livestock and patrolling major roads to ensure the free movement of people and goods.
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Nigerian Politicians Warned About Misinformation Ahead of Elections
Nigeria’s Department of State Services (DSS) has warned politicians not to publish false or harmful information in the run-up to next week’s presidential election. The warning came after the ruling All Progressives Congress party’s campaign director accused the military and an opposition candidate of plotting a coup. Fact checkers are working overtime to debunk false news ahead of the February 25 elections.
The notice to politicians was contained in a statement Tuesday.
The Department of State Services said political parties and their media managers must restrain from spreading misleading information during campaigns and when issuing communiques.
The DSS said such misinformation could lead to violent reactions and disrupt peace and order.
The warning comes in the wake of the agency’s investigation of the campaign director for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
Femi Fani-Kayode alleged on Twitter that the opposition People’s Democratic Party presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, was planning a coup d’etat.
The DSS interrogated Fani-Kayode Wednesday. VOA could not immediately get comments from the service on the investigation.
Paul James, an elections program officer at YIAGA Africa, a nonprofit organization promoting democracy, says slander among political parties is not new.
“The DSS is investigating that and has called the person in for questioning, we hope to see how that would end,” said James. “From the Ondo elections in 2020, we saw things like this. The military has come out to outrightly deny that. But not just that, you need to begin to do things, the kind of communications that will inspire confidence.”
Fani-Kayode will report to the DSS every week until the investigation is over.
On Monday, he spoke to journalists in Abuja after being interrogated for five hours and said he regretted posting the tweet without confirmation from authorities.
Nigeria is seeing a heightened spread of fake news and disinformation in a push for votes ahead of the elections.
The country goes to the polls on February 25 to elect a new president, with three candidates as front runners.
A Nigerian Fact Checkers Coalition, made up of 14 newsrooms, is working to curb the spread of falsehoods.
But the coalition’s Kemi Busari says it is more challenging to keep up with the trend of misinformation these days.
“What we noticed currently is a proliferation of false information especially about the election,” said Busari. “We also see a lot of false information about the electoral process. We get a lot more false information these days. Before, I could say the average copies that come to my desk each day was about two to five, but now we’re having nothing less than 10-15 copies in a day and it’s not possible for us to fact check everything.”
Busari says the fact checkers coalition is setting up centers in Lagos and Abuja to monitor the elections and information about the voting in real time.
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Cameroon Dismisses Suspected Marburg Infections After Equatorial Guinea’s First Outbreak
Cameroon’s health ministry has dismissed a report of two suspected cases of Marburg virus in the country after a first deadly outbreak in neighboring Equatorial Guinea. Health officials along the border said Tuesday there were two suspected cases of the severe hemorrhagic fever in Cameroon after Malabo confirmed nine deaths and sixteen possible infections. Despite dismissing the reported cases, Cameroon’s health ministry says it is increasing surveillance and travel restrictions along the border.
Health Minister Manaouda Malachie says Cameroon does not yet have any suspected cases of the Marburg virus, despite reports of two possible infections.
Health officials in Cameroon’s South region on Tuesday said a teenage boy and girl suffering from high fever were rushed to a hospital Monday in Olamze, on the border with Equatorial Guinea.
The health officials said the children were suspected of being infected with the Marburg virus, are in isolation, and are responding to treatment.
But Malachie seemed to contradict those reports when he spoke Wednesday to state broadcaster Cameroon Radio Television.
Malachie says the decision by Cameroon to stop Marburg virus, an illness like Ebola, by restricting movement along the border with Equatorial Guinea is so far yielding fruit. He says as of Wednesday at midday central African time, Cameroon had not reported any deaths or suspected cases of Marburg virus.
Malachie says civilians should avoid contact with animals and people who have travelled to Equatorial Guinea and make sure people with fever, fatigue, and blood-stained vomit and diarrhea are isolated.
But Malachie warned its porous border with Equatorial Guinea, which confirmed Monday its first outbreak of the deadly virus, puts it at risk.
Cameroon last week said it restricted movement along the border after Equatorial Guinea quarantined hundreds of people in Kie-Ntem Province, where the hemorrhagic fever was first reported.
The World Health Organization says Equatorial Guinea sent samples to the Pasteur Institute in Senegal, after an alert by a health official on February 7, and one of them tested positive.
The WHO says Marburg was transmitted to people from fruit bats, spreads between people via bodily fluids, and has a fatality rate of up to 88%.
Marburg is in the same family as the Ebola virus but, unlike Ebola, there are no vaccines for Marburg — just treatments for the symptoms such as dehydration and fever.
Health officials from Cameroon and Gabon, which also shares borders with Equatorial Guinea, met Tuesday in Yaoundé and agreed to work together to prevent the virus from spreading.
University of Yaoundé sociology lecturer Francois Bingono Bingono was in the meeting.
He says the frequent movement of people across the borders will make stopping the virus a challenge.
Bingono says in 2020 Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea restricted movement along their border to protect their populations from COVID-19, but civilians on both sides did not respect the order. He says people living on both sides of the Cameroon-Equatorial Guinea border belong to the same ethnic groups, speak the same language, and celebrate happy events or mourn sad events together.
Bingono says health workers not known in border communities are struggling to educate locals that a deadly virus threatens their lives.
He says they will need traditional rulers to help convince their people.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the virus was first identified in 1967 in simultaneous outbreaks in laboratories in Marburg and Frankfurt, Germany, and in Belgrade.
Marburg is not new to Africa but is relatively new to West Africa.
An outbreak in Ghana in September last year killed two people, while Guinea recorded one death from the virus in 2021 — the first known case in West Africa.
The WHO reported previous outbreaks in Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, South Africa, and Uganda.
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Ukrainians in South Africa Protest Russian Battleship
A group of Ukrainian protesters have sailed a yacht close to a Russian warship docked in Cape Town ahead of South Africa-hosted wargames with the Russian and Chinese navies. Critics say South Africa’s hosting of Russian warships for drills at the one-year anniversary of its ongoing invasion of Ukraine pokes holes in its claim to neutrality.
Military men in uniform stood on the deck of Russia’s Admiral Gorshkov frigate Tuesday and watched protesters aboard a yacht, which bore the Ukrainian flag.
Fearless, the group of eight, mostly women, shouted and held signs reading Stop the War.
The Russian news agency Tass quoted an unnamed official saying the hypersonic Zircon missiles carried by the Admiral Gorshkov will be test-fired during the drills.
Because of their speed, the missiles cannot be detected by existing missile defense systems.
The South African National Defense Force did not reply to requests to confirm the test firing.
Protester Dzvinka Kuchar of the Ukrainian Association of South Africa says human rights activists and environmentalists are begging the South African government to stop the war games.
“Russian state media which is fully controlled by Russian government has already said that they are planning to fire Zircon missiles during those trainings (sic),” said Kuchar. “We understand that this is pure propaganda to take attention away from what Russia is doing in Ukraine. And what Russia is doing they’re killing civilians, they’re destroying hospitals, they’re destroying the lives of millions of people.”
Kuchar says South Africa, which has chosen to take a neutral stance in Russia’s war on Ukraine and abstained on several United Nations resolutions condemning the onslaught, is simply being used by Vladimir Putin.
“I know South Africa says we are a sovereign country, and we can be friends with any country that we want. And this is true,” said Kuchar. “But if you choose to be friends with a country that is running a war, it also sends a message about yourself. You can be friends but at least say to your friend that is causing gender-based violence “Stop beating your wife.”
The mayor of Cape Town, Geordin Hill-Lewis, who belongs to the main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, replied to a tweet by the Russian Consulate in Cape Town and told the ship to “Voetsek.” That is an impolite Afrikaans word that means go away.
He said the ship is not welcome and that the city would not be complicit in Russia’s evil war.
Political analyst Daniel Silke, Director of the Political Futures consultancy, says if South Africa keeps making decisions to side with Russia, there could be consequences in terms of its global standing.
“I think South Africa is entering a mine field of attempting to find a balancing act here,” said Silke. “But I do think that when it comes to assistance and aid from the United States perhaps from even some Western countries, I think there may well be a reluctance, there may well be a frowning on South Africa’s stance on this particular issue.”
The Admiral Gorshkov left Cape Town harbor Wednesday and is making its way to the site of the military drills off the coast of South Africa’s KwaZulu Natal province.
The exercise is scheduled to take place from February 17 to 27.
This is the second naval exercise South Africa is carrying out with Russia and China – which are two of its four partners in the BRICS alliance. The first took place in 2019.
Several anti-war protests against the drills are planned.
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Retail Sales Jump as Americans Defy Inflation, Rate Hikes
America’s consumers rebounded last month from a weak holiday shopping season by boosting their spending at stores and restaurants at the fastest pace in nearly two years, underscoring the economy’s resilience in the face of higher prices and multiple interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve.
The government said Wednesday that retail sales jumped 3% in January, after having sunk the previous two months. It was the largest one-month increase since March 2021.
Driving the gain was a jump in car sales, along with healthy spending at restaurants, electronics stores and furniture outlets. Some of the supply shortages that had slowed auto production have eased, and more cars are gradually moving onto dealer lots. The enlarged inventories have enabled dealers to meet more of the nation’s pent-up demand for vehicles.
Whether America’s shoppers can continue to spend briskly will help determine how the economy fares this year. The eight interest rate hikes the Fed has carried out in the past year have raised the costs of mortgages and auto loans as well as credit card interest rates. Inflation has also eroded workers’ paychecks, thereby limiting their ability to spend freely.
Yet for all the challenges, consumers continue to show resilience. Several factors likely helped propel last month’s spending. About 70 million recipients of Social Security and other government pension programs last month received an 8.7% boost in their benefit checks, an annual cost-of-living adjustment to offset inflation. It was the largest such increase in 40 years.
The job market also surged in January, with nearly a half-million new jobs added. The unemployment rate reached 3.4%, its lowest level since 1969. With many businesses still eager to hire and keep workers, average wages and salaries have risen about 5% from a year ago — among the fastest such rates of increase in decades.
Those raises have generally been eaten up by inflation. Still, consumer price increases have been slowing. And for many households, a sharp drop in gas prices since summer has freed up more money to spend.
As price increases have slowed, average wage gains have surpassed inflation in some months, lending some consumers additional spending power.
On Tuesday, the government reported that inflation eased again in January compared with a year earlier, the seventh straight such decline, to 6.4% from 6.5% in December. But on a month-to-month basis, price increases accelerated in January compared with November and December, evidence that high inflation won’t be defeated quickly or smoothly.
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All Flights Diverted From Frankfurt Amid Lufthansa IT Glitch
Germany’s air traffic control agency said Wednesday that it is diverting all flights away from the country’s busiest airport, Frankfurt, after a problem with Lufthansa’s computer systems caused major disruption at the German airline.
Agency spokesman Robert Ertler said all plane parking spots in Frankfurt were full because passengers and crews are unable to board the airline’s flights.
“All incoming planes are being diverted to alternative airports” such as as Munich, Nuremberg and Duesseldorf, Ertler told The Associated Press.
Lufthansa Group, which also includes subsidiaries such as Swiss International Air Lines and Eurowings, said the IT outage was caused by construction works in the Frankfurt region.
“This is causing flight delays and cancellations,” the company said. “We regret the inconvenience this is causing our passengers.”
Telephone company Deutsche Telekom later confirmed that an excavator had cut through fiber optic lines at a depth of five meters (16 feet) while working on a railroad line.
The company said parts of the destroyed line had already been repaired and the situation will improve significantly in the course of Wednesday afternoon, German news agency dpa reported.
According to dpa all of Lufthansa’s domestic flights were canceled and passengers were urged to switch to alternative forms of travel, such as trains.
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EU Proposes New Russia Sanctions as NATO Holds Defense Talks
The European Union proposed a new round of Russian sanctions on Wednesday, while NATO defense ministers gathered in Brussels discussed bolstering defense spending and arms production as they pledge ongoing support for Ukrainian forces.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the sanctions package includes a ban on exports of industrial goods and tech products to Russia, saying the measures would deny Russian forces the components needed for their weapons systems.
The proposal also includes sanctions against Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps in response to its supply of Shahed drones that Russian forces have used to attack Ukrainian infrastructure sites.
Another piece targets Russian propagandists and military commanders.
Von der Leyen said Russian President Putin is “waging war in the public space with an army of propagandists and disinformation networks,” and that they are “spreading toxic lies to polarize our societies.”
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said at the start of the second of two days of defense ministerial talks that allies would examine ways to enhance defense industrial capacity.
Stoltenberg has stressed the need to provide Ukraine with more ammunition to keep up with its fight against Russian forces, and for allies to complete pledged deliveries of tanks and other heavy equipment.
Also Tuesday, the U.N. humanitarian affairs office and U.N. refugee agency launched a joint appeal for $5.6 billion to help those affected by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The agencies said the funds were needed to provide food, health care and other aid to those within Ukraine, as well as to help Ukrainian refugees and 10 host countries.
“Almost a year on, the war continues to cause death, destruction and displacement daily, and on a staggering scale,” U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said in a statement.
Some material in this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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At Least 73 Migrants Presumed Dead After Shipwreck Off Libya
At least 73 migrants were reported missing and presumed dead following a shipwreck off the Libyan coast on Tuesday, the official Twitter account of International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Libya said on Wednesday.
Seven survivors made it to shore from the boat, which was carrying around 80 people, who had reportedly departed from Qasr Alkayar, east of Tripoli, to head to Europe, the IOM added.
So far, 11 bodies have been retrieved by the Libyan red Crescent and the local police, while the seven survivors are in hospital, the IOM said.
Libya has become a major launching point for migrants seeking to reach Europe via a dangerous route across the desert and over the Mediterranean.
your ad hereDeath Toll in Turkey and Syria from February 6 Earthquake Rises Above 40,000
The combined death toll in Turkey and Syria from last week’s powerful earthquake has now risen above 40,000.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday that 35,418 people were killed in the 7.8 magnitude quake that struck near the southeastern city of Kahramanmaras on February 6, making it the deadliest earthquake in Turkish history.
Eight days after the quake, rescue crews continued to dig more survivors from the rubble Tuesday, including 18-year-old Muhummed Cafer Cetin and his 21-year-old brother, who were pulled from the ruins of a building in Kahramanmaras nearly 200 hours after the earthquake. Another miraculous rescue occurred in the city of Antakya, when a teacher was rescued from the rubble of an apartment building.
Turkish television broadcast scenes of the rescues, but experts warned the window is closing for finding more people alive in what remains of collapsed buildings after so much time.
The quake, which President Erdogan called “the disaster of the century,” destroyed tens of thousands of buildings and rendered an equal number uninhabitable, leaving scores of residents without shelter from bitter winter temperatures. Authorities have arrested several building contractors and charged them with violating Turkey’s building codes.
Meanwhile, more than 5,500 deaths have been confirmed in neighboring Syria, according to figures compiled by the United Nations humanitarian agency and Syria’s state-run news agency. At least 1,400 people were killed in areas under government control, while another 4,400 are dead in Syria’s rebel-held northwest.
An 11-truck U.N. humanitarian convoy entered the rebel-controlled area Tuesday from Turkey through the newly opened Bab al-Salam border crossing, the first since the world agency reached an agreement with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Monday to allow humanitarian workers to use two additional crossing points from Turkey into opposition-held areas to speed deliveries. It is the first time since the civil war broke out in 2011 that Assad has agreed to allow aid to cross from Turkey to rebel-held areas.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres launched a $397 million appeal for the earthquake response in Syria, adding that a similar appeal is being drawn up for Turkey.
The VOA Turkish Service contributed to this report, which includes some information from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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Court Overturns Ban Against Former Haitian Soccer President
A lifetime ban against former Haitian soccer federation president Yves Jean-Bart over allegations he sexually abused female players was overturned Tuesday by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
The court upheld Jean-Bart’s appeal after noting “inconsistencies and inaccuracies in the statements of the victims and witnesses presented by FIFA.”
A FIFA ethics committee in November 2020 had found Jean-Bart guilty of having “abused his position and sexually harassed and abused various female players, including minors” over several years.
The 75-year-old Jean-Bart had also been fined $1.1 million.
Jean-Bart had denied the allegations, which involved national team players, including minors.
The CAS ruling said information submitted by third parties including Human Rights Watch and world players’ union FIFPro was not “sufficiently evidentiary.”
“In conclusion, the Panel of Arbitrators considers that the evidence against Yves Jean-Bart regarding the allegations of sexual abuse is inconsistent, unclear and contradictory and that, as a result, it is not sufficient to establish a violation of (FIFA’s ethics code),” the CAS ruling said.
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US Renews Warning It’ll Defend Philippines After China Spat
The United States renewed a warning that it would defend its treaty ally if Filipino forces come under attack in the disputed South China Sea, after a Chinese coast guard ship allegedly hit a Philippine patrol vessel with military-grade laser that briefly blinded some of its crew.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. summoned Chinese Ambassador Huang Xilian in Manila on Tuesday to express his serious concern “over the increasing frequency and intensity of actions by China against the Philippine coast guard and fishermen,” Communications Secretary Cheloy Garafil said without elaborating.
The Department of Foreign Affairs separately sent a strongly worded diplomatic protest to the Chinese Embassy that “condemned the shadowing, harassment, dangerous maneuvers, directing of military-grade laser, and illegal radio challenges” by the Chinese ship.
The incident took place February 6. when the Chinese coast guard ship beamed high-grade lasers to block the Philippine patrol vessel BRP Malapascua from approaching Second Thomas Shoal on a resupply mission to Filipino forces there, according to Philippine officials.
China claims the South China Sea virtually in its entirety, putting it on a collision course with other claimants. Chinese naval forces have been accused of using military-grade lasers previously against Australian military aircraft on patrol in the South China Sea and other spots in the Pacific.
Despite friendly overtures to Beijing by former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and his successor, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who met Chinese leader Xi Jinping in January in Beijing, tensions have persisted, drawing in closer military alliance between the Philippines and the U.S.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Monday that a Philippine coast guard vessel trespassed into Chinese waters without permission. Chinese coast guard vessels responded “professionally and with restraint at the site in accordance with China’s law and international law,” he said, without elaborating or mentioning the use of laser.
U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said China’s “dangerous operational behavior directly threatens regional peace and stability, infringes upon freedom of navigation in the South China Sea as guaranteed under international law and undermines the rules-based international order.”
“The United States stands with our Philippine allies,” Price said in a statement.
He said that an armed attack on Philippine armed forces, public vessels, or aircraft, including those of the coast guard in the South China Sea, would invoke U.S. mutual defense commitments under a 1951 treaty. The treaty obligates the allies to help defend one another in case of an external attack.
Aside from China and the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei also have overlapping claims in the resource-rich and busy waterway, where a bulk of the world’s commerce and oil transits.
Washington lays no claims to the disputed sea but has deployed forces to patrol the waters to promote freedom of navigation and overflight — moves that have angered Beijing, which has warned Washington to stop meddling in what it says is a purely Asian dispute.
The contested waters have become a volatile front in the broader rivalry between the U.S. and China in Asia and beyond.
Price said the Chinese coast guard’s “provocative and unsafe” conduct interfered with the Philippines’ “lawful operations” in and around Second Thomas Shoal.
In July, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on China to comply with a 2016 arbitration ruling that invalidated Beijing’s vast territorial claims in the South China Sea and warned that Washington was obligated to defend the Philippines under the Mutual Defense Treaty.
On Monday, Price reiterated that the “legally binding decision” underscored that China “has no lawful maritime claims to the Second Thomas Shoal.” China has long rejected the ruling and continues to defy it.
The Philippines filed nearly 200 diplomatic protests against China’s aggressive actions in the disputed waters in 2022 alone.
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11 States Consider ‘Right to Repair’ for Farming Equipment
On Colorado’s northeastern plains, where the pencil-straight horizon divides golden fields and blue sky, a farmer named Danny Wood scrambles to plant and harvest proso millet, dryland corn and winter wheat in short, seasonal windows. That is until his high-tech Steiger 370 tractor conks out.
The tractor’s manufacturer doesn’t allow Wood to make certain fixes himself, and last spring his fertilizing operations were stalled for three days before the servicer arrived to add a few lines of missing computer code for $950.
“That’s where they have us over the barrel, it’s more like we are renting it than buying it,” said Wood, who spent $300,000 on the used tractor.
Wood’s plight, echoed by farmers across the country, has pushed lawmakers in Colorado and 10 other states to introduce bills that would force manufacturers to provide the tools, software, parts and manuals needed for farmers to do their own repairs — thereby avoiding steep labor costs and delays that imperil profits.
“The manufacturers and the dealers have a monopoly on that repair market because it’s lucrative,” said Rep. Brianna Titone, a Democrat and one of the bill’s sponsors. “[Farmers] just want to get their machine going again.”
In Colorado, the legislation is largely being pushed by Democrats, while their Republican colleagues find themselves stuck in a tough spot: torn between right-leaning farming constituents asking to be able to repair their own machines and the manufacturing businesses that oppose the idea.
The manufacturers argue that changing the current practice with this type of legislation would force companies to expose trade secrets. They also say it would make it easier for farmers to tinker with the software and illegally crank up the horsepower and bypass the emissions controller — risking operators’ safety and the environment.
Similar arguments around intellectual property have been leveled against the broader campaign called ‘right to repair,’ which has picked up steam across the country — crusading for the right to fix everything from iPhones to hospital ventilators during the pandemic.
In 2011, Congress tried passing a right to repair law for car owners and independent servicers. That bill did not pass, but a few years later, automotive industry groups agreed to a memorandum of understanding to give owners and independent mechanics — not just authorized dealerships — access to tools and information to fix problems.
In 2021, the Federal Trade Commission pledged to beef up its right to repair enforcement at the direction of President Joe Biden. And just last year, Titone sponsored and passed Colorado’s first right to repair law, empowering people who use wheelchairs with the tools and information to fix them.
For the right to repair farm equipment — from thin tractors used between grape vines to behemoth combines for harvesting grain that can cost over half a million dollars — Colorado is joined by 10 states including Florida, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, Texas and Vermont.
Many of the bills are finding bipartisan support, said Nathan Proctor, who leads Public Interest Research Group’s national right to repair campaign. But in Colorado’s House committee on agriculture, Democrats pushed the bill forward in a 9-4 vote along party lines, with Republicans in opposition even though the bill’s second sponsor is Republican Representative Ron Weinberg.
“That’s really surprising, and that upset me,” said the Republican farmer Wood.
Wood’s tractor, which flies an American flag reading “Farmers First,” isn’t his only machine to break down. His grain harvesting combine was dropping into idle, but the servicer took five days to arrive on Wood’s farm — a setback that could mean a hail storm decimates a wheat field or the soil temperature moves beyond the Goldilocks zone for planting.
“Our crop is ready to harvest and we can’t wait five days, but there was nothing else to do,” said Wood. “When it’s broke down you just sit there and wait and that’s not acceptable. You can be losing $85,000 a day.”
Representative Richard Holtorf, the Republican who represents Wood’s district and is a farmer himself, said he’s being pulled between his constituents and the dealerships in his district covering the largely rural northeast corner of the state. He voted against the measure because he believes it will financially hurt local dealerships in rural areas and could jeopardize trade secrets.
“I do sympathize with my farmers,” Holtorf said, but he added, “I don’t think it’s the role of government to be forcing the sale of their intellectual property.”
At the packed hearing last week that spilled into a second room in Colorado’s Capitol, the core concerns raised in testimony were farmers illegally slipping around the emissions control and cranking up the horsepower.
“I know growers, if they can change horsepower and they can change emissions they are going to do it,” said Russ Ball, sales manager at 21st Century Equipment, a John Deere dealership in Western states.
The bill’s proponents acknowledged that the legislation could make it easier for operators to modify horsepower and emissions controls but argued that farmers are already able to tinker with their machines and doing so would remain illegal.
This January, the Farm Bureau and the farm equipment manufacturer John Deere did sign a memorandum of understanding — a right to repair agreement made in the free market and without government intervention. The agreement stipulates that John Deere will share some parts, diagnostic and repair codes and manuals to allow farmers to make their own fixes.
The Colorado bill’s detractors laud that agreement as a strong middle ground while Titone said it wasn’t enough, evidenced by six of Colorado’s biggest farmworker associations that support the bill.
Proctor, who is tracking 20 right to repair proposals in a number of industries across the country, said the memorandum of understanding has fallen far short.
“Farmers are saying no,” Proctor said. “We want the real thing.”
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A Cold War on Two Fronts? No Thanks, Says Biden
Despite intense pressure from his Republican opposition, President Joe Biden appears intent on maintaining a measured response to the Chinese spy balloon that crossed the continental United States early this month.
The approach appears calibrated to avoid escalation with a second major adversary as his administration deals with Russia’s almost 1-year-old war on Ukraine.
John Kirby, the National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, told reporters Tuesday the balloon drama does not change the fact that the administration intends to avoid a conflict and continues to seek open lines of communication with China.
Nothing has changed about the president’s desire “to move this relationship forward in a better place than it is right now,” Kirby said.
This despite Republican demands for a tougher stance on Beijing.
“[Biden] only shot down the Chinese spy balloon after public pressure demanded it,” said John Barrasso, a Republican senator from Wyoming, in a briefing Tuesday. “This is a complete violation of our integrity as a nation, and the president’s indifference and inaction showed weakness not just to China but to the world.”
U.S.-China tensions have been high since the discovery of the balloon that Biden ordered shot down on February 4. Administration officials say the device was part of an international “high-altitude balloon program for intelligence collection” by China’s People’s Liberation Army. Beijing maintains it was a civilian airship used for meteorological research.
Kirby said the administration’s approach to its adversaries has not changed, pointing to the National Security Strategy released in October that identifies the main U.S. strategic challenges as competition with China and Russia in shaping the global order, while working with allies and adversaries alike on transnational problems such as climate change, food insecurity, energy shortages and inflation.
“I’m committed to work with China where we can advance American interests and benefit the world,” Biden said in his State of the Union address this month, just days after he ordered his military to shoot down the spy balloon. “But make no mistake about it: as we made clear last week, if China threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country. And we did.”
Incentive to avoid escalation
Biden has incentives to avoid escalation with China. His administration is already seeking to manage the NATO response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine while facing other foreign policy challenges, including North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs, and a volatile Middle East following the formation of an extremely right-wing Israeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The administration has committed more than $27.1 billion in security assistance to Kyiv since the war started on February 24, 2022, and it is mindful not to provoke Beijing to further side with Moscow.
Beijing has spread Moscow’s anti-Western propaganda and ramped up trade with Russia, but it has not provided direct military support for Putin’s war effort — nor has it helped his government and banks to evade tough Western sanctions.
“One of the key areas where the Biden administration wants to talk to Beijing is making sure that it stays out of the war in Ukraine, that Beijing does not provide any kind of political, military support for Russia,” Erik Brattberg, senior vice president in the Europe practice at Albright Stonebridge Group, told VOA.
With China’s top diplomat Wang Yi scheduled to fly to Moscow this week and President Xi Jinping expected to follow within the next few months, analysts say the administration is left with limited options.
“The best the United States can hope for is to effectively deal with the immediate threat Russia poses and weaken Russia to the point where it cannot pose a major military threat to its neighbors, and then turn its attention to the far more serious challenge China poses,” said David Sacks, research fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
“The biggest issue, in my view, is the stress that the war in Ukraine is putting on the U.S. defense industrial base, which is seriously unprepared for a direct conflict with China,” Sacks told VOA.
“Unless the Biden administration addresses this issue with urgency and significantly ramps up production of critical munitions and weapons, the United States will be extremely vulnerable if China uses force against Taiwan in the coming years.”
Beijing is also making overtures to another U.S. adversary – Iran. Chinese President Xi Jinping was in Tehran on Tuesday, defending the Islamic Republic’s right to safeguard its rights and interests, according to Chinese state media.
“What we see emerging is a longterm competition between the global West — U.S., EU, and developed democracies — and China, Russia, Iran, and a few other nations that resent the global West’s domination of international systems,” said Robert Daly, director of the Wilson Center’s Kissinger Institute on China and the United States.
Hot-button issue
Several Republican politicians have used the incident to raise campaign contributions, at once attacking Biden and Beijing, according to Pundit Analytics, which tracks communications and social-media postings of elected officials and candidates.
With Republicans helping to stoke voters’ anger, the balloon is becoming a hot-button political issue. Ordinary Americans who had been largely ignoring U.S.-China tensions are now beginning to realize what many in the foreign policy circle agree on – that the U.S. has been on a cold war footing with China for a while now, Daly told VOA.
“This is the real significance of the spy balloon — not that it poses a new threat to the U.S., but that more Americans are signing on to the ‘China Threat’ narrative that had formerly been limited to Washington,” Daly said.
Should Biden decide to run again in 2024 as his officials say he intends to, observers say the political cost of appearing soft on China will be even greater.
VOA Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson contributed to this report.
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US: Ukraine Preparing a Spring Offensive Against Russia
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says he expects Ukraine to conduct an offensive against Russia in the spring, and that the 54 members of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group are focused on providing Kyiv with the ammunition, fuel and spare parts they will need. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports.
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Automakers Emphasize Choice Amid Push to Electrification
The average price for a new vehicle in the United States soared above $49,000 in December, a record high.
With Americans increasingly price conscious at a time of high inflation and elevated interest rates, customer choice is a prominent theme at the 2023 Chicago Auto Show, the largest and longest-running auto show in North America.
A launchpad for manufacturers to showcase their latest offerings, previous auto shows have highlighted battery powered electric vehicles — commonly known as EVs and BEVs — that herald a carbon-free future for ground transportation.
While many EVs are also on display this year, manufacturers want customers to know they still have other options.
“We believe it shouldn’t be just one formula,” said Toyota regional manager Curt McAllister, noting that the company’s current product lineup, a mix of electric and gas-powered automobiles, reflects customer feedback. “Our customers are telling us they want choices. They just don’t want us to try to pigeonhole them into one subset.”
Which is why Toyota is profiling a fifth-generation Prius, a best-selling hybrid that uses both a battery and a gasoline-powered engine.
“We now have 21 hybrids across Toyota and Lexus,” said McAllister. “So it’s a big part of our carbon neutrality message.”
McAllister said Toyota isn’t ignoring the rapidly growing but more expensive battery powered electric vehicle market. “We know that BEVs are part of the future, but we want to make sure that we have something that not only makes sense but makes sense for their pocketbook.”
Though overall car sales down, EV sales up
Higher interest rates for car loans in 2022 slowed new vehicle purchases, marking the first drop in sales in a decade, even as carmakers worked to overcome supply chain problems such as shortages of microchips.
Even so, the number of EVs sold increased by about 65% from a year earlier, according to research firm Motor Intelligence. EVs made up nearly 6% of all new vehicles sold in the U.S. last year.
Despite recent price cuts for some electric vehicles that make them more competitive with gasoline-powered cars, many Americans remain reluctant to purchase battery powered electric vehicles.
One primary obstacle is what’s known as “range anxiety” — the concern about how far a vehicle can travel before having to recharge in a nation where gas stations still outnumber charging stations.
“Our customer base, some of them are not ready for EVs,” explained Chad Lyons, who is representing General Motors Chevrolet brand at the Chicago Auto Show. “So, actually our plan for the next five years is to offer EVs for those that are ready … but at the same time offer gas-powered vehicles for those that are not ready.”
Lyons said demand for gas-powered sedans has plummeted. As a result, his company’s lineup is focused on sport utility vehicles — commonly known as SUVs — including the redesigned gasoline-powered Trax compact SUV launching later this year, and priced similarly to Chevrolet’s sedans.
“People want vehicles that are higher up [higher riding] — that’s why you see so many SUVs right now being so popular,” he said.
‘The jelly bean proportion’
That preference is also reflected in Chevrolet’s electric vehicle lineup. Later this year, the brand will roll out two new SUV EVs, the Equinox and Blazer, and the choices don’t end there.
“Pickup trucks are the heart of America, and so we are going to offer the Silverado EV as well,” said Lyons.
“Everyone loves muscle cars,” said Dodge design manager Deyan Ninov, adding that customers want vehicles that look less electric and more classic. “I think if you look at all the electric cars out there right now, they all sort of look the same, they all have the same feeling and character they kind of have the same proportions — the jelly bean proportion.”
Ninov’s team has been working on an electric version of Dodge’s iconic Challenger, hoping to bring the “muscle car experience” to the battery-powered vehicle segment.
While manufacturers continue to emphasize choice, President Joe Biden has outlined a plan to ensure 50% of all vehicles on the road by 2030 are all electric. As a number of states consider mandates for electric vehicle adoption, California is leading the way, requiring all new vehicles sold in the state to be electric or hydrogen powered by 2035.
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US Arrests Four in Haiti President Assassination Plot
U.S. federal agents arrested four Florida men on Tuesday in connection with the July 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise, bringing to 11 the number of defendants in the United States facing charges over the plot.
Following the arrests, a federal grand jury in Florida returned a superseding indictment charging all 11 with a variety of crimes related to Moise’s killing in his residence in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince on July 7, 2021. Moise’s wife was shot multiple times during the attack but survived.
“We have one case, one indictment charging the 11 defendants for their individual roles in the plot,” Markenzy Lapointe, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, announced during a press conference in Miami.
Plot to kill allegedly ‘advanced’ in US
The four suspects arrested Tuesday were identified as Arcángel Pretel Ortiz, a Colombian national and U.S. permanent resident; Antonio Intriago, a Venezuelan businessman and U.S. permanent resident; Walter Veintemilla, a U.S. citizen originally from Ecuador living in Florida, and Frederick Bergmann, a U.S. citizen.
The charges announced on Tuesday arise from U.S. laws that prohibit conspiracies to kill or kidnap persons abroad and to provide material support to such efforts, said Matt Olsen, assistant attorney general for national security.
“This assassination was carried out in Port-au-Prince, but as alleged in the complaint, aspects of this deadly plot were advanced inside the United States by co-conspirators and facilitators located here,” Olsen said during the press conference.
“Let me be very clear: The United States will not tolerate those who would plot from our soil to carry out acts of violence abroad, just as we will not tolerate those outside the U.S. who would plot to conduct violence in this country,” Olsen said.
Lapointe said “much of the planning, funding and direction” of the plot to assassinate Moise took place in southern Florida beginning in early 2021.
Three kinds of suspects
Lapointe said the suspects in the assassination plot fall into three broad groups.
“There were the planners and financiers in south Florida,” he said. “Then you also had operators with boots on the ground in Haiti. And there was a third group — those were the hired soldiers from Colombia who traveled to Haiti to carry out the coup.”
The four men arrested Tuesday were among the planners and organizers of the plot, Lapointe said.
Pretel Ortiz and Intriago, principles of a South Florida company called the Counter Terrorist Unit Federal Academy, and Counter Terrorist Unit Security [collectively CTU Security], were the planners, Lapointe said.
Veintemilla, the head of a finance company, is accused of financing the operation. Bergmann is charged with smuggling ballistic vests for the former Colombian soldiers who carried out the assassination.
Lawyers for the four defendants could not be immediately reached for comment.
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California Senator Feinstein Says She Won’t Run for Reelection
Democratic U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein announced Tuesday that she will not seek reelection in 2024, signaling the end of a groundbreaking political career spanning six decades in which she shattered gender barriers and left a mark on political battles over reproductive rights, gun control, and environmental protection.
“I am announcing today I will not run for reelection in 2024 but intend to accomplish as much for California as I can through the end of next year when my term ends,” Feinstein said in a statement.
“Even with a divided Congress, we can still pass bills that will improve lives. Each of us was sent here to solve problems. That’s what I’ve done for the last 30 years, and that’s what I plan to do for the next two years. My thanks to the people of California for allowing me to serve them.”
Feinstein was first elected to the Senate in 1992 and is the oldest member of Congress.
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Botswana’s Longtime Diamond Deal With De Beers Under Threat
Botswana’s president, Mokgweetsi Masisi, is threatening to walk away from a diamond mining deal with industry giant De Beers unless the firm offers better terms. Under the current deal, which expires in June, Botswana – Africa’s largest diamond producer – is entitled to purchase up to 25% of the stones mined in a joint venture. Analysts say Botswana is in a strong position to push for a 50-50 arrangement.
Addressing ruling party supporters in his home village of Moshupa, just outside Gaborone, President Mokgweetsi Masisi said his country is well positioned to push for a better deal with De Beers.
“We now know how the diamond industry operates. We used to receive 10% of the stake, but now, under my leadership, we are receiving 25%,” he said.
Botswana currently earns about $4.5 billion per year in sales, taxes and royalties from its contract with De Beers.
Masisi says if negotiations with the South African diamond company break down, then Botswana is prepared to pull out of the long-standing arrangement.
“We are dealing with a giant. It is the first time it has been shaken like this. We want what is ours. This is our company, we want a majority stake, and we are doing so through negotiations. If the talks become difficult, we will say, no, let everyone pack and go separate ways,” he said.
It is unclear what other options Botswana might have, but a Belgian-based researcher on diamond mining, Hans Merket, says there could be an alternative.
Merket notes President Masisi’s praise for another supply arrangement between private diamond miner Lucara, which operates a mine in Botswana, and Belgian-based buyer, HB Antwerp.
The two entered into an agreement, which sees HB Antwerp purchase all of Lucara’s large high value diamonds.
“Botswana’s President Masisi has regularly praised the business arrangement between HB Antwerp and Lucara. In the current arrangement with De Beers, Botswana fears it is missing out on the profits from its diamonds, because it has no idea of or control over how much value the country’s rough production generates further down the supply chain after it is cut and polished,” he said.
Merket therefore suggests Botswana could be looking for a much more beneficial arrangement similar to Lucara and HB Antwerp’s.
“The business model between HB Antwerp and Lucara closes this gap through a vertically integrated supply chain that generates that allows all parties, including the government, to share in the profit from the final polished products,” he said.
The leader of Botswana’s main opposition party, Dithapelo Keorapetse, recently told parliament that the government needs to be more transparent with its mining deals.
“Mining agreements are not even available to the auditor general as they’re considered to be confidential, especially for Debswana or companies with partnership with the Botswana Government. Who then guards the guardians? Who scrutinizes these agreements? What is the role of parliament?”asked Keorapetse.
A 10-year sales agreement between Botswana and De Beers expired in 2021 but was extended to June 2023, pending negotiations.
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