Month: March 2023

France’s Macron Faces Another Test With Parliamentary Votes on Monday 

Posted on by SeeEU

PARIS, March 19 (Reuters) – President Emanuel Macron faces a critical moment on Monday when the National Assembly is due to vote on no-confidence motions filed after his government bypassed parliament on Thursday to push through an unpopular rise in the state pension age.   

The move, which followed weeks of protests against the pension overhaul, triggered three nights of unrest and demonstrations in Paris and throughout the country, reminiscent of the Yellow Vest protests that erupted in late 2018 over high fuel prices.   

However, while Monday’s votes may put on display anger at Macron’s government, they are unlikely to bring it down.   

Opposition lawmakers filed two motions of no-confidence in parliament on Friday.   

Centrist group Liot proposed a multiparty no-confidence motion, which was co-signed by the far-left Nupes alliance. Hours later, France’s far-right National Rally party, which has 88 National Assembly members, also filed a no-confidence motion.   

But even though Macron’s party lost its absolute majority in the lower house in elections last year, there was little chance the multi-party motion would go through — unless a surprise alliance of lawmakers from all sides is formed, from the far-left to the far-right.   

The leaders of the conservative Les Republicains (LR) party have ruled out such an alliance. None of them had sponsored the first no-confidence motion filed on Friday.   

But the party still faced some pressure.   

In the southern city of Nice, the political office of Eric Ciotti, the Les Republicains leader, was ransacked overnight and tags were left threatening riots if the motion was not supported.   

“They want through violence to put pressure on my vote on Monday. I will never yield to the new disciples of the Terror,” Ciotti wrote on Twitter.   

Macron’s overhaul raises the pension age by two years to 64, which the government says is essential to ensure the system does not go bust.   

“I think there will be no majority to bring down the government. But this will be a moment of truth,” Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told Le Parisien newspaper, commenting on prospects for Monday’s votes.   

“Is the pension reform worth bringing down the government and political disorder? The answer is clearly no. Everyone must take his responsibilities,” he added. 

 
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Tanzania Sends Relief to Cyclone-Hit Mozambique 

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Tanzania has started to dispatch food aid and self-storage equipment to neighboring Mozambique to help thousands of people affected by tropical cyclone Freddy. More than 190 people are feared to have died, at least 584 have been injured, and 37 have been reported missing in the country.

In a press briefing Saturday, the acting director of information of the army, Gaudentius Ilonda, said the shipment includes 1,000 metric tons of flour, 6,000 blankets, and 50 tents, as well as two helicopters for rescue services.

More than 37 large- and small-tonnage trucks will be used to transport the aid provided by the government all the way to Mozambique, Ilonda says.

Members of the army are handling the operation and already two rescue planes with soldiers have been deployed to Mozambique for rescue services to the affected areas.

In a Twitter post last week, Tanzanian President Samia Hassan sent a condolence message to Mozambique President Filipe Nyusi regarding the cylone.

In her message, Hassan said Tanzania stands with Mozambique during this difficult time and prays for the departed souls, and wishes the injured speedy recovery.

Meanwhile, the situation in Mozambique remains challenging, and officials say the efforts of Tanzania to provide assistance will help to address the immediate needs of those affected by the cyclone.
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Lacking Health Workers, Germany Taps Robots for Elder Care

Posted on by SeeEU

The white-colored humanoid “Garmi” does not look much different from a typical robot — it stands on a platform with wheels and is equipped with a black screen on which two blue circles acting as eyes are attached.

But retired German doctor Guenter Steinebach, 78, said: “For me, this robot is a dream.”

Not only is Garmi able to perform diagnostics on patients, it can also provide care and treatment for them. Or at least, that is the plan.

Garmi is a product of a new sector called geriatronics, a discipline that taps advanced technologies like robotics, IT and 3D technology for geriatrics, gerontology and nursing.

About a dozen scientists built Garmi with the help of medical practitioners like Steinebach at the Munich Institute of Robotics and Machine Intelligence.

Part of the Technical University of Munich, the institute based its unit specializing in geriatronics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, a ski resort that is home to one of the highest proportion of elderly people in Germany.

Europe’s most populous country is itself one of the world’s most rapidly ageing societies.

With the number of people needing care growing quickly and an estimated 670,000 carer posts to go unfilled in Germany by 2050, the researchers are racing to conceive robots that can take over some of the tasks carried out today by nurses, carers and doctors.

“We have ATMs where we can get cash today. We can imagine that one day, based on the same model, people can come to get their medical examination in a kind of technology hub,” said Abdeldjallil Naceri, 43, the lead scientist of the lab.

Doctors could then evaluate the results of the robot’s diagnostics from a distance, something that could be particularly valuable for people living in remote communities.

Alternatively the machine could offer a more personalized service at home or in a care home — by serving meals, opening a bottle of water, calling for help in case of a fall or organizing a video call with family and friends.

‘We must get there’

In the Garmisch laboratory, Steinebach sat down at a table equipped with three screens and a joystick as he got ready to test the robot’s progress.

At the other end of the room, a researcher designated as a test model took his spot in front of Garmi, which poses a stethoscope on his chest — an action directed by Steinebach from afar via the joystick.

Medical data immediately appear on the doctor’s screen.

“Imagine if I had had that in my old practice,” Steinebach said, while moving the joystick.

Besides the retired doctor, other medical practitioners also visit the lab regularly to offer their ideas and feedback on the robot.

“It’s like a three-year-old child. We have to teach it everything,” Naceri said.

It’s anyone’s guess when Garmi might be ready on a commercial scale.

But Naceri is convinced that “we must get there, the statistics are clear that it is urgent.”

“From 2030, we must be able to integrate this kind of technology in our society.”

Question of trust

And if it is indeed deployed one day, residents of the Sankt Vinzenz retirement home in Garmisch, a partner of the project, will likely see Garmi whizzing down the corridors.

Just thinking about it made Mrs Rohrer, a 74-year-old resident at the home, smile.

“There are things that a robot can do, for example, serve a drink or bring meals,” she said as Eva Pioskowik, the director of the home, did her nails.

Pioskowik, who battles with staffing shortages on a daily basis, said she did not expect the robot to take the place of health workers.

“But it could allow our staff to spend a bit more time with the residents,” she said.

For Naceri’s team, one of the major challenges is not technological, medical or financial.

Rather, it remains to be seen if most patients will accept the robot.

“They need to trust the robot,” he said. “They need to be able to use it like we use a smartphone today.”
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Vatican Unveils New Ethnographic Display of Rwanda Screens

Posted on by SeeEU

The Vatican Museums officially reopened its African and American ethnographic collections Thursday by showcasing intricately restored Rwandan raffia screens that were sent by Catholic missionaries to the Vatican for a 1925 exhibit.

The display at the Anima Mundi Ethnological Museum featured a scientific presentation of the restoration process as well as the research that preceded it, with consultations with Rwanda’s own ethnographic museum, a UCLA graduate student and Belgium’s Royal Museum for Central Africa. It came as ethnographic museums in Europe and North America are grappling with demands from Indigenous groups and former colonies to return artifacts dating from colonial times.

The Rev. Nicola Mappelli, curator of the Anima Mundi museum, declined to comment on calls for restitution of the Vatican’s own ethnographic holdings, saying these were questions for the museum leadership. Speaking to The Associated Press during a visit to the new exhibit, he noted that the Vatican last year returned three mummies to Peru and a human head to Ecuador in 2017.

The museum director, Barbara Jatta, didn’t refer to the issue in her remarks at the opening, emphasizing, however, what she said was the Anima Mundi’s commitment to transparency and “dialogue with different cultures.”

She said the unveiling of the Rwandan panels was a moment to celebrate the reopening of the African and American section of the museum as well as the 50th anniversary of the transfer of the entire collection into the Vatican Museums itself.

The issue of the Vatican’s ethnographic collection came into the spotlight last year, when Indigenous groups from Canada came to the Vatican to receive an apology from Pope Francis for Canada’s church-run residential school system.

Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission has said the policy of forcibly removing Indigenous children from their families in a bid to assimilate them into Christian Canadian society amounted to “cultural genocide.” The First Nations, Metis and Inuit delegations visited the Anima Mundi and were shown several Indigenous items in the collection, and representatives later said they wanted them back or, at the very least, to have access to them so Indigenous researchers could study them.

The Vatican has long insisted that the basis of its ethnographic collection stemmed from “gifts” to Pope Pius XI, who in 1925 staged a huge exhibit in the Vatican gardens to celebrate the church’s global reach, its missionaries and the lives of the Indigenous peoples they evangelized. Catholic missionaries around the globe sent him artifacts, but some researchers today question whether Indigenous peoples were able to consent to such “gifts” given the power dynamics of the time.

The informational labels on the new exhibits emphasize the Vatican’s view. The Canada label, for example, reads: “There is a long tradition of gifts sent by the Indigenous peoples of Canada to the popes,” noting that a headdress in the exhibit was given to Francis during his 2022 trip to Canada by Chief Wilton Littlechild.
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How the FDIC Keeps US Banks Stable

Posted on by SeeUS

When the U.S. government announced this month that it had stepped in to take over Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Signature Bank, it was a 90-year-old Great Depression-era agency that took the lead in assuring depositors that their funds were safe and quelling a bank run that threatened broader damage to the industry.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took control of SVB on March 10 and Signature Bank two days later, moves that rendered the publicly traded stock of both institutions worthless but preserved other assets for distribution to account holders and each bank’s creditors.

In a decision some found surprising, the FDIC announced that all deposits held at both banks would be fully guaranteed. Historically, depositors have been protected up to $250,000, a limit designed to keep the overwhelming majority of individual depositors safe from loss.

The agency decided, however, that to prevent “contagion” — panic about one failing bank spreading to broader panic about others — it would make all depositors whole.

The decision was also likely motivated by the fact that many businesses, primarily in the tech sector, kept large accounts at SVB that they used to meet payroll and ordinary business expenses. The impact of so many companies suddenly being unable to pay thousands of employees would have been hard to estimate but could have potentially damaged the economy.

The FDIC and the Biden administration were quick to deny that the two banks had been the subjects of a “bailout,” stressing that bank executives had been fired, stockholders’ equity had been wiped out, and any funds supplied by the agency to make depositors whole would come from an insurance fund financed by premiums paid by insured banks.

The FDIC, however, will have to raise assessments on banks to replenish what money it spends on the resolution of SVB and Signature. Banks will likely pass these costs on to their customers by charging higher fees or increasing interest on loans.

 

History of the FDIC

The FDIC was created in 1933, after the U.S. weathered years of panic during the Great Depression, which led to the closures of thousands of banks. Between 1921 and 1929, approximately 5,700 banks across the U.S. failed, some because of poor management and many because depositors lost confidence and demanded withdrawals so rapidly that the banks simply ran out of cash.

Things worsened between 1929 and 1933, when nearly 10,000 banks across the country failed. During a particularly difficult week in February 1933, bank panics were so pervasive that governors in almost all U.S. states acted to temporarily close all banks.

The FDIC was created in the aftermath of that crisis, when the federal government finally acted on a long-delayed plan to establish national deposit insurance. The agency originally guaranteed individual deposits of up to $2,500, a level that has been periodically increased over the decades.

The agency is funded by premiums that banks and savings associations pay for deposit insurance coverage. It is managed by a board of five presidential appointees. The current chair of the FDIC is Martin J. Gruenberg. By statute, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Comptroller of the Currency, whose agency supervises nationally chartered banks, are also members. Two other appointees round out the board, which cannot have more than three members of the same political party.

In its nine decades, the FDIC has closed hundreds of failed banks, but insured deposits have always been repaid in full.

Promoting financial stability

“The mission of the FDIC is to promote financial stability,” said Diane Ellis, the former director of the agency’s Division of Insurance and Research. “The FDIC does that by exercising several authorities. One is to provide deposit insurance so that bank depositors can be confident that they’ll get their money back regardless of what happens with their bank.”

In addition, the agency has the authority to “resolve” failed banks, which can involve selling the bank outright to another institution, creating a “bridge” bank that provides ongoing services to depositors while the agency works toward a resolution, or selling off the bank’s assets to return as much money as possible to depositors whose holdings exceed the coverage limit.

Ellis, now a senior managing director at the banking network IntraFi, noted that the agency also has oversight authority over the banks it insures.

“For open banks, examiners conduct regular examinations to make sure banks are operating in a safe and sound manner … promoting a healthy, stable banking system, which is important for economic growth,” she told VOA.

 

Avoiding ‘moral hazard’

When the FDIC was established, capping the standard insurance amount per depositor was a central feature of its design. The creators of the agency were concerned about a problem called “moral hazard.” They worried that if the federal government guaranteed 100% of deposits, individuals and businesses would fail to exercise due diligence when deciding what banks to trust with their money, and that lack of scrutiny would result in banks taking excessive risks.

“Legislators wanted to strike a balance, to protect people up to a certain amount, but not everything, so that there’d be an incentive for people to make sure that their money was in a safe bank rather than a dangerous one,” said John Bovenzi, who served as chief operating officer and deputy to the chairman of the FDIC from 1999 to 2009.

Bovenzi, the co-founder of the Bovenzi Group, a financial services consultancy, told VOA that he was initially surprised by the decision of the FDIC and other regulators to make all uninsured depositors whole.

“These weren’t the largest institutions. Silicon Valley and Signature, they were in sort of a second tier and weren’t viewed as ‘too big to fail,'” he said.

However, Bovenzi said, it soon became apparent to regulators that there were other banks in the country that operated with business models similar to that of SVB, which had large amounts of low-interest securities on its books, the value of which was being systematically undercut by the Federal Reserve’s decision to raise interest rates dramatically over the past year.

“What happened was that they saw there was too much spillover effect to other institutions, so they invoked what’s called a ‘systemic risk exception,'” he said. Had this not been the case, he said, the FDIC would have had to conduct the closing in a way that resulted in the least cost to it and the government to save money, “and that would have meant uninsured taking losses. By protecting the uninsured, the FDIC raises its own costs to cover it. And so it needed to say, ‘We don’t want to do it for the institution, but we need to do it for the system.'”

Setting a precedent

The decision to protect all deposits at SVB and Signature was not unique. During the financial crisis sparked by widespread defaults in the subprime mortgage sector from 2007 to 2010, regulators shuttered several hundred banks in the space of a few years, and implemented a policy of protecting all deposits to avoid increasing the damage to the broader economy.

The decision to do so for SVB and Signature, though, absent such a widespread crisis, has raised questions about whether a precedent has been set that will lead depositors to expect to be rescued by the government if their bank fails.

In testimony before Congress Thursday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that the treatment of SVB and Signature should not be taken as a signal that similar protection will be extended to other banks in the future.

Such action, she said, would take place only when “failure to protect uninsured depositors would create systemic risk and significant economic and financial consequences.”
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Putin Visits Crimea on Annexation Anniversary, Day After ICC Warrant

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Russian President Vladimir Putin has visited the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol, according to a report Sunday from the Russian state news agency Tass.

Putin traveled to Crimea on Saturday on the ninth anniversary of Russia’s annexation of the Black Sea peninsula from Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has demanded Russia’s withdrawal from Crimea and all areas it has occupied since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which entered its second year in February.

Saturday’s trip also came the day after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for Putin’s arrest, charging him with being personally responsible for the abduction of children from Ukraine in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Russian leader visited an art center and a children’s center in Crimea.

The International Monetary Fund said Friday its executive board has approved changes to its financing policy aimed at countries facing “exceptionally high uncertainty.”

The measure is widely viewed as a way to open a new loan program for Ukraine as it enters the second year of fighting Russia.

The IMF said in a statement, “The changes apply in situations of exceptionally high uncertainty, involving exogenous shocks that are beyond the control of country authorities and the reach of their economic policies, and which generate larger-than-usual tail risks.”
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Tourists Hoping to See Arizona Falls Forced Out by Flooding

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Shannon Castellano and Travis Methvin should have spent this weekend seeing world-famous waterfalls on the Havasupai Tribe Reservation in the southwestern U.S. state of Arizona.

Instead, the two friends from San Diego spent Friday night along with 40 other hikers camped out on a helipad. But sleep was elusive because tribal members warned that an emergency services helicopter could potentially land anytime during the night.

“Yeah, so we didn’t really sleep,” Castellano said Saturday while driving to a hotel in Sedona. “I just kept one eye open really and one ear open … You just do not expect any of that to happen. So, I think I’m still in shock that I’m not even there right now.”

Tourists hoping to reach the breathtaking waterfalls on the reservation instead went through harrowing flood evacuations.

The official Havasupai Tribe Tourism Facebook page reported Friday that flooding had washed away a bridge to the campground. An unknown number of campers were evacuated to Supai Village, with some being rescued by helicopter.

The campground is in a lower-lying area than the village of Supai. Some hikers had to camp in the village. Others who weren’t able to get to the village because of high water were forced to camp overnight on a trail.

But floodwaters were starting to recede as of Saturday morning, according to the tribe’s Facebook post.

Visitors with the proper permits will be allowed to hike to the village and campground. They will be met with tribal guides, who will help them navigate around creek waters on a back trail to get to the campground.

Tourists will not be permitted to take pictures. The back trail goes past sites considered sacred by the tribe.

Meanwhile, the tribe said in its statement that it has “all hands on deck” to build a temporary bridge to the campground.

Abbie Fink, a spokesperson for the tribe, referred to the tribe’s Facebook page when reached for comment Saturday.

Methvin and Castellano decided to leave by helicopter Saturday rather than navigate muddy trails with a guide. Despite losing money on a pre-paid, three-day stay, Methvin says they can still try to salvage their trip. Having only received permits last month, he feels especially sad for hikers they met with reservations from 2020.

“They waited three years to get there,” Methvin said. “At least we have the ability to go do something else versus having that whole weekend ruined.”

From Supai to Sedona, several areas of northern Arizona have been slammed this week by storms. The resulting snow combined with snowmelt at higher elevations has wreaked havoc on highways, access roads and even city streets.

The flooding of the Havasupai campground comes as the tribe reopened access last month to its reservation and various majestic blue-green waterfalls — for the first time since March 2020. The tribe opted to close to protect its members from the coronavirus. Officials then decided to extend the closure through last year’s tourism season.

At the beginning of this year, President Joe Biden approved a disaster declaration initiated by the Havasupai Tribe, freeing up funds for flood damage sustained in October. Flooding at that time had destroyed several bridges and left downed trees on trails necessary for tourists and transportation of goods into Supai Village.

Permits to visit are highly coveted. Pre-pandemic, the tribe received an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 visitors per year to its reservation deep in a gorge west of Grand Canyon National Park. The area is reachable only by foot or helicopter, or by riding a horse or mule. Visitors can either camp or stay in a lodge.

Castellano is already planning to try to get a permit again later this year if there are cancellations. “We just want to see i in all its glory, not muddy falls,” she said.
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Top Ukraine, US Defense Officials Discuss Military Aid in Call

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Three senior U.S. security officials held a video call with a group of their Ukrainian counterparts to discuss military aid to Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff said Saturday.

“We discussed the further provision of necessary assistance to our country, in particular vehicles, weapons and ammunition,” Andriy Yermak wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

Yermak said he, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, top general Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, and several other senior commanders and officials had attended the meeting Friday.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, top military commander Mark Milley, and the White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan represented the other side.

“The Ukrainian officials provided an update on battlefield conditions and expressed appreciation for the continued provision of U.S. security assistance,” according to a White House statement released Friday.

Yermak did not give details of specific requests to the U.S. side.

The meeting took place as Kyiv seeks to gather sufficient supplies of arms from its Western backers, of which the U.S. has been the most significant, to mount a counter-offensive and try to take back territory captured by Moscow last year.

Yermak added that Zelenskyy had joined the meeting at the end to give his views on the liberation of Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia since its invasion nearly 13 months ago.

“We briefed our allies in detail about the current situation at the front, combat operations in the most difficult areas, as well as the urgent needs of the Ukrainian army,” Yermak said.

Ukrainian forces continued Friday to withstand Russian assaults on the ruined city of Bakhmut, the focal point for eight months of Russian attempts to advance through the industrial Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine bordering Russia.
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Journalists Held Over South Sudan President Video Are Freed

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South Sudan’s National Security Service has released the remaining journalists who had been detained for weeks over a video apparently showing the country’s president urinating on himself during an event.

At least seven journalists with the state broadcaster were detained in January following the circulation of the video of President Salva Kiir during the inauguration of a road project.

In a statement on Friday, the Union of Journalists of South Sudan said the two remaining journalists had been freed. None of the journalists were charged.

The union “will continue to engage with all stakeholders in the country to ensure journalists work in a free and safe environment,” the journalists’ organization said.

The South Sudan Broadcasting Corporation footage aired in December and was widely shared online. It showed the 71-year-old Kiir standing during the national anthem and then looking down at what appeared to be a spreading stain, before the camera turned away.

One of the released journalists, Garang John, in a Facebook post said his health had been “totally compromised” by the 60 days of confinement.

“I am completely weak and tired, but it shall be well,” he said.
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Police Fire Tear Gas at Mozambican Rapper’s Memorial

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Mozambique police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters planning a march Saturday in memory of a rapper vocal in his criticism of the government, Human Rights Watch said.

The sudden death of Edson da Luz, known by his stage name Azagaia, has sparked rare anti-government demonstrations in the southern African country.

On Saturday, more than a thousand people were expected to take part in a memorial march in central Maputo, with rallies also planned in other cities.

But in the capital, a heavy police presence prevented the procession from taking place.

“They didn’t allow people to gather,” said Zenaida Machado, a senior researcher with HRW in Mozambique, pointing out that the rally had been authorized by city authorities. “Without any sign of violence from the protesters, they started throwing tear gas, and rubber bullets.”

Social media footage showed anti-riot police with armored vehicles and dogs firing tear gas as they dispersed small groups of demonstrators.

“We came here to say thank you to rapper Azagaia for everything he has done for this country. Why are they attacking us?” activist Fatima Mimbire told AFP. “It was a peaceful march.”

At least two people were injured after a tear gas grenade landed inside a house, said Quiteria Guirrengane, a rights activist who was among the organizers of the demonstration.

“Some young people who were in the march were arrested and we are currently trying to free them.”

A police spokesperson did not answer calls from AFP seeking a comment.

Azagaia, who died after an epileptic seizure earlier this month, was popular among Mozambique’s youth for his lyrics focusing on poverty, corruption and human rights issues.

A funeral procession attended by thousands of people earlier this week also saw police firing tear gas. HRW has called on the government to investigate both incidents.

“Authorities in Mozambique appear to be completely paranoid about having seen people on the streets peacefully protesting or marching for a cause,” Machado added.

Political protests are rare in Mozambique, ranked among the poorest nations in the world, where the ruling Frelimo party, has been in power since independence from Portugal in 1975.
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Japan, German Agree to Strengthen Ties, Supply Chain

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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida held the first round of government consultations in Tokyo Saturday and agreed to strengthen economic and defense ties to better cope with China’s growing influence and global security concerns.

Kishida told a joint news conference after the talks that the sides agreed to strengthen supply chains in minerals, semiconductors, batteries and other strategic areas, in order to “counter economic coercion, state-led attempts to illegally acquire technology and nonmarket practices,” apparently referring to China.

“Japan and Germany, both industrial nations that share fundamental values, need to take global leadership to strengthen resilience of our societies,” Kishida said.

Scholz brought six of the 17 Cabinet members for talks with Japanese counterparts, including economy, finance, foreign, interior, transport and defense ministers. They discussed deepening economic and national security cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region, as well as China’s assertiveness in pressing its maritime territorial claims and its closer ties with Russia.

Germany has a similar “government consultations” framework with several countries.

In Tokyo, the two leaders again condemned Russia’s war on Ukraine and agreed to continue tough sanctions against Moscow and strong support for Ukraine, Kishida said.

Russia’s nuclear threat has made atomic weapons disarmament even more difficult and divided the international community, Kishida said, adding that it’s crucial to get China, Russia and other nuclear states to resume discussing nuclear disarmament.

Kishida is an advocate of a world without nuclear weapons, though critics say being under the U.S. nuclear umbrella makes his stance less convincing.

Scholtz said the government consultations will “further advance our strategic cooperation, and they’re a very important part of giving a new drive to this close cooperation we want to achieve together,” German news agency dpa reported.

In separate talks, the two defense ministers confirmed the German armed forces’ continued engagement in the Indo-Pacific region and a stronger military cooperation between the countries.

Japanese Defense Minster Yasukazu Hamada and his German counterpart Boris Pistorius agreed to coordinate closely in future regional deployments of the German military and step-up joint exercises. They also agreed to seek a legal framework to facilitate increased joint defense activities, as well as cooperation in defense equipment and technology, the Japanese Defense Ministry said in a statement.

Japan, noting growing threats from China and North Korea, has been expanding military cooperation beyond its main ally, the United States, and has developed partnerships with Australia, Britain, European and Southeast Asian nations. Kishida’s government last year adopted a new national security strategy under which Japan is deploying long-range cruise missiles to strengthen its strike-back capability, a major break from the country’s postwar self-defense-only principle.

Scholtz visited Japan last year before going to China, making a point of prioritizing Germany’s economic ties with Tokyo over Beijing. Scholz is pushing to diversify Germany’s trade partners, while speaking out against a complete decoupling from China.

Japan, along with the United States, is seeking ways to stand up to increasing Chinese economic influence in the region. Tokyo also wants to reinforce economic security with other democracies in areas such as supply chains and the protection of sensitive technologies, apparently as a counter to China.

But Japan, which is a top U.S. ally and a major trade partner with China, is in a delicate situation and must balance its position between the two superpowers.

For Germany, China was its biggest trading partner in 2021 for the sixth consecutive year, as business ties have flourished even though political relations have turned tense. 
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Vatican Closes Embassy in Nicaragua After Ortega’s Crackdown

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The Vatican said Saturday it had closed its embassy in Nicaragua after the country’s government proposed suspending diplomatic relations, the latest episode in a yearslong crackdown on the Catholic Church by the administration of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega.

The Vatican’s representative to Managua, Monsignor Marcel Diouf, also left the country Friday, bound for Costa Rica, a Vatican official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

The Vatican action came a week after the Nicaraguan government proposed suspending relations with the Holy See, and a year after Nicaragua forced the papal ambassador at the time to leave. It’s not clear what more the proposed suspension would entail in diplomatic terms.

Relations between the church and Ortega’s government have been deteriorating since 2018, when Nicaraguan authorities violently repressed anti-government protests.

Some Catholic leaders gave protesters shelter in their churches, and the church later tried to act as a mediator between the government and the political opposition.

Ortega branded Catholic figures he saw as sympathetic to the opposition as “terrorists” who had backed efforts to overthrow him. Dozens of religious figures were arrested or fled the country.

Two congregations of nuns, including from the Missionaries of Charity order founded by Mother Teresa, were expelled from Nicaragua last year.

Prominent Catholic Bishop Rolando Álvarez was sentenced to 26 years in prison last month after he refused to board an airplane that flew 222 dissidents and priests to exile in the United States. He also was stripped of his Nicaraguan citizenship.

Pope Francis had remained largely silent on the issue, apparently not wanting to inflame tensions. But in a March 10 interview with Argentine media outlet Infobae, after Alvarez’s sentencing, he called Ortega’s government a “rude dictatorship” comparable to Hitler’s that was led by an “unbalanced” president.

According to Vatican News, the care of the Vatican’s embassy, or nunciature, was entrusted to the Italian government, according to diplomatic conventions. The report said diplomats of the European Union, Germany, France and Italy gave Diouf, the chargé d’affaires, a farewell salute before he shuttered the diplomatic post and left.

During the farewell ceremony, Germany’s ambassador to Nicaragua, Christoph Bundscherer, expressed regret at the embassy’s closure and asked Diouf to share a message with Pope Francis, according to a statement on the German Embassy’s Facebook page.

“Together with the Catholic Church, the representatives of the European Union in Nicaragua will also always defend the Christian values of freedom, tolerance and human dignity,” Bundscherer said, according to the statement.

The Nicaraguan government, which since September 2018 has banned all opposition demonstrations in the country, also restricted Catholic activities inside churches, including banning the traditional street processions that thousands of Nicaraguans used to celebrate in the lead up to Holy Week and Easter.

The restrictions forced church authorities to hold the Stations of the Cross procession on the grounds of the Metropolitan Cathedral of Managua, as they did Friday.
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Pro-Moscow Voices Tried to Steer Ohio Train Disaster Debate

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Soon after a train derailed and spilled toxic chemicals in Ohio last month, anonymous pro-Russian accounts started spreading misleading claims and anti-American propaganda about it on Twitter, using Elon Musk’s new verification system to expand their reach while creating the illusion of credibility.

The accounts, which parroted Kremlin talking points on myriad topics, claimed without evidence that authorities in Ohio were lying about the true impact of the chemical spill. The accounts spread fearmongering posts that preyed on legitimate concerns about pollution and health effects and compared the response to the derailment with America’s support for Ukraine following its invasion by Russia.

Some of the claims pushed by the pro-Russian accounts were verifiably false, such as the suggestion that the news media had covered up the disaster or that environmental scientists traveling to the site had been killed in a plane crash. But most were more speculative, seemingly designed to stoke fear or distrust. Examples include unverified maps showing widespread pollution, posts predicting an increase in fatal cancers, and others about unconfirmed mass animal die-offs.

“Biden offers food, water, medicine, shelter, payouts of pension and social services to Ukraine! Ohio first! Offer and deliver to Ohio!” posted one of the pro-Moscow accounts, which boasts 25,000 followers and features an anonymous location and a profile photo of a dog. Twitter awarded the account a blue check mark in January.

Social accounts spread propaganda

Regularly spewing anti-U.S. propaganda, the accounts show how easily authoritarian states and Americans willing to spread their propaganda can exploit social media platforms like Twitter to steer domestic discourse.

The accounts were identified by Reset, a London-based nonprofit that studies social media’s impact on democracy and shared with The Associated Press. Felix Kartte, a senior advisor at Reset, said the report’s findings indicate Twitter is allowing Russia to use its platform like a bullhorn.

“With no one at home in Twitter’s product safety department, Russia will continue to meddle in U.S. elections and in democracies around the world,” Kartte said.

Twitter did not respond to messages seeking comment for this story.

The 38-car derailment near East Palestine, Ohio, released toxic chemicals into the atmosphere, leading to a national debate over rail safety and environmental regulations while raising fears of poisoned drinking water and air.

The disaster was a major topic on social media, with millions of mentions on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, according to an analysis by San Francisco-based media intelligence firm Zignal Labs, which conducted a study on behalf of the AP.

Online comments try to affect opinions

At first, the derailment received little attention online but mentions grew steadily, peaking two weeks after the incident, Zignal found, a time lag that gave pro-Russia voices time to try to shape the conversation.

The accounts identified by Reset’s researchers received an extra boost from Twitter itself, in the form of a blue check mark. Before Musk purchased Twitter last year, its check marks denoted accounts run by verified users, often public figures, celebrities or journalists. It was seen as a mark of authenticity on a platform known for bots and spam accounts.

Musk ended that system and replaced it with Twitter Blue, which is given to users who pay $8 per month and supply a phone number. Twitter Blue users agree not to engage in deception and are required to post a profile picture and name. But there’s no rule that they use their own.

Under the program, Twitter Blue users can write and send longer tweets and videos. Their replies are also given higher priority in other posts.

The AP reached out to several of the accounts listed in Reset’s report. In response, one of the accounts sent a two-word message before blocking the AP reporter on Twitter: “Shut up.”

While researchers spotted clues suggesting some of the accounts are linked to coordinated efforts by Russian disinformation agencies, others were Americans, showing the Kremlin doesn’t always have to pay to get its message out.

One account, known as Truth Puke, is connected to a website of the same name geared toward conservatives in the United States. Truth Puke regularly reposts Russian state media; RT, formerly known as Russia Today, is one of its favorite groups to repost, Reset found. One video posted by the account features ex-President Donald Trump’s remarks about the train derailment, complete with Russian subtitles.

In a response to questions from the AP, Truth Puke said it aims to provide a “wide spectrum of views” and was surprised to be labeled a spreader of Russian propaganda, despite the account’s heavy use of such material. Asked about the video with Russian subtitles, Truth Puke said it used the Russian language version of the Trump video for the sake of expediency.

“We can assure you that it was not done with any Russian propagandist intent in mind, we just like to put out things as quickly as we find them,” the company said.

Other accounts brag of their love for Russia. One account on Thursday reposted a bizarre claim that the U.S. was stealing humanitarian earthquake relief supplies donated to Syria by China. The account has 60,000 followers and is known as Donbass Devushka, after the region of Ukraine.

Another pro-Russian account recently tried to pick an online argument with Ukraine’s defense department, posting photos of documents that it claimed came from the Wagner Group, a private military company owned by a Yevgeny Prigozhin, a key Putin ally. Prigozhin operates troll farms that have targeted U.S. social media users in the past. Last fall he boasted of his efforts to meddle with American democracy.

A separate Twitter account claiming to represent Wagner actively uses the site to recruit fighters.

“Gentlemen, we have interfered, are interfering and will interfere,” Prigozhin said last fall on the eve of the 2022 midterm elections in the U.S. “Carefully, precisely, surgically and in our own way, as we know how to do.” 
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West Spotlights North Korea Rights Abuses; China Opposes

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The United States, its Western allies and experts shone a spotlight on the dire human rights situation and increasing repression in North Korea at a United Nations meeting Friday that China and Russia denounced as a politicized move likely to escalate tensions on the Korean peninsula.

China blocked the U.S. from broadcasting the informal Security Council meeting globally on the internet, a decision criticized by U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield as an attempt to hide North Korea’s “atrocities from the world.”

Webcasting requires agreement from all 15 council members. But the U.S. envoy said Beijing’s effort was in vain because the meeting will be made public, and the U.S. and many others will continue to speak out against Pyongyang’s human rights abuses and threats to international peace.

James Turpin, a senior official in the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the ongoing tensions on the Korean peninsula pose a threat to regional and international peace and security, and “these tensions cannot be separated from the dire human rights situation in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” the North’s official name.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, North Korea has been isolated. The U.N. has no international staff in the country and Turpin said this “coincides with an increase in the repression of civil and political rights.”

He pointed to stronger government measures to prevent people from getting access to information from the outside world, an extreme level of surveillance, people’s homes being subjected to random search for material not authorized by the state, and punishments for anyone trying to exercise basic rights including freedom of expression, religion and peaceful assembly.

Elizabeth Salmon, the U.N. special investigator on human rights in North Korea, also stressed “the interdependence of international peace and security and human rights,” saying peace and denuclearization can’t be addressed without considering the current human rights violations.

She told the meeting that the limited information available shows the suffering of the North Korean people has increased and their already limited liberties have declined. Access to food, medicine and health care remains a priority concern, “people have frozen to death during the cold spells in January,” and some didn’t have money to heat their homes while others were forced to live on the streets because they sold their homes as a last resort.

Xing Jisheng, a counselor at China’s U.N. Mission, criticized the U.S. for discussing human rights in the Security Council whose mandate is ensuring international peace and security, saying it “is not constructive in any way.” Instead of easing tension, he said, “it may rather intensify the conflict, and therefore it’s an irresponsible move.”

“Using U.N. WebTV for live broadcast is a waste of U.N. resources,” Xing added, saying if countries are really concerned about the situation on the Korean peninsula and well-being of the people, they should work to relaunch dialogue, deescalate tensions, and support lifting sanctions that affect the livelihood of North Koreans and the country’s deteriorating humanitarian situation.

Stepan Kuzmenkov, a senior counselor at Russia’s U.N. Mission, echoed China’s opposition to having the Security Council discuss human rights and said there were no grounds for convening the meeting “which has a clear anti-North Korean bent.”

He accused the U.S. of using human rights “to settle scores with the governments not to their liking” and condemned what he called “streams of disinformation” about North Korea disseminated by the U.S. and its allies “on the pretext that they’re trying to protect human rights.”

“What we see is that the United States, South Korea and Japan are engaging in aggressive, militaristic activities, thereby whipping up tensions in northeastern Asia, putting the security of countries in the region at risk,” Kuzmenov said. “The Americans are ignoring initiatives which would help ease tensions as well as the substantive and constructive signals (North Korean leader) Kim Jong Un is sending, which could bring about possible de-escalation.”

Thomas-Greenfield, of the U.S., countered that “the regime’s widespread human rights abuses and its threats to our collective security could not be clearer.”

North Korea’s ballistic missile and weapons of mass destruction programs threaten international peace and security and are “inextricably linked to the regime’s human rights abuses,” she said.

“In the DPRK, the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction always, always trumps human rights and humanitarian needs of its people,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
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UBS Mulls Credit Suisse Takeover with Swiss Government Assurances

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UBS AG was mulling a takeover of its embattled Swiss peer Credit Suisse Saturday, sources said, which could allay fears that an unfolding crisis at the bank might destabilize the global financial system.

The 167-year-old Credit Suisse is the biggest name ensnared in the turmoil unleashed by the collapse of U.S. lenders Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank over the past week, spurring a broad-based loss in investor confidence globally.

Both U.S. and European banking executives and regulators have taken extraordinary measures to shore up the industry to try to restore confidence. The Biden Administration moved to backstop consumer deposits while the Swiss central bank lent billions to Credit Suisse to stabilize its shaky balance sheet.

UBS was under pressure from the Swiss authorities to carry out a takeover of its local rival to get the crisis under control, two people with knowledge of the matter said. The plan could see the Swiss government offer a guarantee against the risks involved, while Credit Suisse’s Swiss business could be spun off.

UBS, Credit Suisse and Switzerland’s financial regulator FINMA declined to comment.

The Financial Times said the three were rushing to finalize a merger deal as soon as Saturday evening, citing people familiar with the matter.

U.S. authorities are involved, working with their Swiss counterparts to help broker a deal, Bloomberg News reported, also citing those familiar with the matter.

Credit Suisse shares lost a quarter of their value in the last week. It was forced to tap $54 billion in central bank funding as it tries to recover from a string of scandals that have undermined the confidence of investors and clients. This made it the first major global bank to take up an emergency lifeline since the 2008 financial crisis.

The company ranks among the world’s largest wealth managers and is considered one of 30 global systemically important banks whose failure would ripple throughout the entire financial system.

The banking sector’s fundamentals are stronger, and the global systemic linkages are weaker than during the 2008 global financial crisis, Goldman analyst Lotfi Karoui wrote in a late Friday note to clients. That limits the risk of a “potential vicious circle of counterparty credit losses,” Karoui said.

“However, a more forceful policy response is likely needed to bring some stability,” Karoui said. The bank said the lack of clarity on Credit Suisse’s future will pressure the broader European banking sector.

A senior official at China’s central bank said Saturday that high interest rates in the major developed economies could continue to cause problems for the financial system.

There were multiple reports of interest for Credit Suisse from other rivals. Bloomberg reported that Deutsche Bank was looking at the possibility of buying some of its assets, while U.S. financial giant BlackRock denied a report that it was participating in a rival bid for the bank.

Interest rate risk

The failure of California-based Silicon Valley Bank brought into focus how a relentless campaign of interest rate hikes by the U.S. Federal Reserve and other central banks — including the European Central Bank this week — was pressuring the banking sector.

SVB and Signature’s collapses are the second- and third-largest bank failures in U.S. history behind the demise of Washington Mutual during the global financial crisis in 2008.

Banking stocks globally have been battered since SVB collapsed, with the S&P Banks index falling 22%, its largest two weeks of losses since the pandemic shook markets in March 2020.

Big U.S. banks threw a $30 billion lifeline to smaller lender First Republic, and U.S. banks altogether have sought a record $153 billion in emergency liquidity from the Federal Reserve in recent days.

This reflects “funding and liquidity strains on banks, driven by weakening depositor confidence,” said ratings agency Moody’s, which this week downgraded its outlook on the U.S. banking system to negative.

While support from some of the titans of U.S. banking prevented First Republic’s collapse, investors were startled by disclosures on its cash position and how much emergency liquidity it needed.

In Washington, focus has turned to greater oversight to ensure that banks and their executives are held accountable.

U.S. President Joe Biden called on Congress to give regulators greater power over the sector, including imposing higher fines, clawing back funds, and barring officials from failed banks.
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Malawi Intensifies Search and Rescue for Cyclone Victims

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Malawi rescue teams started using sniffer dogs Friday to locate the bodies of people trapped under rubble left after Cyclone Freddy destroyed their houses. The Malawi government announced that Zambia has sent two aircraft to help with rescue efforts and more nations are pledging to do so.

Authorities in Malawi are still coming to terms with the scale of Cyclone Freddy’s destruction.

Police spokesperson Peter Kalaya told VOA Friday about the challenges they face locating the remains of people trapped under muddy rubble, which is why sniffer dogs are an asset.

“Most of the dead bodies are under rubble and it is becoming difficult to find out where the bodies are. So, today we engaged these dogs from this morning,” Kalaya said.

Early this week, Malawi search and rescue teams — comprised of police, the Red Cross and the military — were deployed to rescue people trapped in trees and rooftops by the cyclone.

Lameck Kalenga is deputy chief of military operations in Malawi.

He told a news conference Thursday that the military team also faced significant challenges.

“Our boat capsized, and we had all occupants in that boat submerged in water,” Kalenga said. “They managed to swim, others to the shore but others … they swam on and held on to trees that were surrounded by water. So, we had like three officers who were surrounded by water, but by yesterday [Wednesday] all of them were rescued.”

Authorities in Malawi say there are still many areas that cannot be accessed by either vehicles or boats.

However, the Zambian government Friday sent two aircraft to help the search and rescue team in Malawi access those hard-to-reach areas.

“One of these aircrafts is a relief aid aircraft, which is bringing relief aid to Malawi,” Kalenga said. “And the other one is [an] MI8 helicopter, which will be used to gain access in those inaccessible areas. Mainly Mulanje, Phalombe and Nsanje.”

The Department of Disaster Preparedness in Malawi said search and rescue teams from South Africa, Switzerland, the United States and the United Kingdom are expected to arrive soon.

In the meantime, Mozambique has also pledged to assist Malawi with an aircraft.   
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Paris Calm for Now, Garbage Still Piling Up

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A spattering of protests were planned in France over the weekend against President Emmanuel Macron’s controversial pension reform, as garbage continued to reek in the streets of Paris and beyond amid a strike by refuse collectors.

An eerie calm, returned to Paris Saturday after two nights of thousands-strong protests across the French capital, with one flash point at the elegant Place de la Concorde where angry protesters tossed an effigy of Macron into a bonfire to cheers from the crowd. Police dispersed people with tear gas and water cannons and there were hundreds of arrests.

Protesters are trying to pressure lawmakers to bring down Macron’s government and doom an unpopular retirement age increase he’s trying to impose without a vote in the National Assembly.

Further protests were planned Saturday in Paris as well as in the cities of Marseille and Nantes, but they were expected to be smaller than in previous days.

In Paris’ 12th district Saturday, trash piled up meters away from a bakery, wafting fumes encouraged by the mild weather and sunshine. Some Parisian residents buying their weekend baguette blamed Macron’s administration.

“The government should change its position and listen to the people because what is happening is extremely serious. And we are seeing a radicalization,” said Isabelle Vergriette, 64, a psychologist. “The government is largely responsible for this.”

The district’s mayor, Emmanuelle Pierre-Marie, was out and about from the crack of dawn voicing concern in her neighborhood about the consequences of the refuse pile-up, which has become a visual and olfactory symbol of the anti-pension action.

“Food waste is our priority because it is what brings pests to the surface,” said Pierre-Marie. “We are extremely sensitive to the situation. As soon as we have a dumpster truck available, we give priority to the places most concerned, like food markets.”

Strikes in numerous sectors, from transport to energy, are planned for Monday. The Civil Aviation authority asked that 30% of flights be canceled at Orly, Paris’ second airport, and 20% in Marseille. 

Laurent Berger, head of the moderate CFDT union, said the retirement reform “must be withdrawn.”

“We condemn violence. … But look at the anger. It’s very strong, even among our ranks,” he said on RMC radio.

On Friday, one day after Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne invoked a special constitutional power to skirt a vote in the chaotic lower chamber, lawmakers on the right and left filed no-confidence motions to be voted on Monday.

 
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Trump Says He Will Be Arrested Tuesday

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Former U.S. president Donald Trump is indicating he will be arrested within days.

Former president Donald Trump, in a message on his Truth Social media platform on Saturday morning, said he will be arrested Tuesday and called on his supporters to “protest.”

He did not give details. It is known that authorities in New York City have been looking at charges against Trump in a so-called hush money case in which a former adult film performer was paid to keep silent about an alleged affair with Trump before he was president. 

Media reports say law enforcement has been preparing for security in and around the Manhattan Criminal Court, where Trump would surrender if he is indicted. 
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Sudanese Officials to Speed Up Forming Civilian Government

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Signers of the political deal in Sudan say a transitional civilian government is expected to be named in April. Both civilian and military officials agreed Wednesday to expedite restoration of civilian rule in Sudan, where the military has ruled since a 2021 coup. But some groups are against the framework agreement and many Sudanese are skeptical that the military will ever give up power. 

Signatories to the December 2022 Political Framework Agreement met on Wednesday to discuss progress toward restoring a civilian-led government in Sudan.

Speaking to the press shortly after the meeting, Khalid Omer Yousif, the official spokesperson of the civilian coalition that signed the agreement, says the meeting focused on expediting the process of drafting a new constitutional document.

The document, he said, will be the basis to govern the upcoming transition in Sudan.

He says participants also resolved to form a technical team that consists of representatives of the civilian coalition and military forces and other experts,

The body will be tasked with reviewing the agreement and drafting the constitution.

He said, “the meeting discussed the general progress on the political process and resolved a number of issues, including discussion on the remaining two complex matters, the transitional justice and military and security reforms. He said, those two issues are to be discussed in the ongoing political conference that should end before the holy month of Ramadan.”

Ramadan begins March 23.

The December 2022 framework agreement requires that the parties to the political process organize a conference to discuss issues that need a national consensus.

Yousif says once discussions on transitional justice and military and security reforms are finished, the technical committee will start drafting a final political agreement that will lead to the establishment of a new civilian government in early April.

He said, “The joint technical and coordinated committee that comprises the signatories to the agreement and the trilateral mechanism is expected to urgently draft a new timeframe for the discussion of the remaining issues before signing of the final political agreement as soon as possible.”

Some signatories of the 2018 peace deal aimed at settling Sudan’s internal conflicts refuse to join the ongoing political process because they reject the framework and want to maintain the 2019 constitutional declaration made after the overthrow of longtime president Omar al-Bashir. 

Many Sudanese are skeptical the military will completely give up power, regardless of any deals that are struck.

Khartoum resident Sahar Al-Jazuli says the October 2021 military coup negatively affected the revolution for democratic rule in Sudan and said supporters of democracy will not accept any agreement that doesn’t serve justice. 

Speaking to VOA via a messaging application Friday, Al-Jazuli says Sudanese people are now more aware of their rights and they will continue to speak up once they realize the framework agreement doesn’t serve their interest.

Our people have learned a lot, he said, and they became more aware of their political rights as citizens by participating in the revolution. The Sudanese people learned and understood the meaning of uprooting rights, he said. They became determined toward achieving the slogans of the revolution, freedom, peace and justice.

However, another Khartoum resident, Al-Nazir Adam Musa, applauded the military for what he called “courageous” steps to leave the political scene and allow the country to be under civilian rule.

He said, “What we expect from the current framework agreement is that it would help the country to overcome the ongoing political deadlock because the military is determined to hand over the power to civilians. He said, “This is a good gesture so far.”

Ibrahim Al-Merghani, the head of the political bureau at the opposition Democratic Unionist Party, predicted the ongoing talks on the framework will bear fruit. 

There are not many differences among national political forces about the transitional issues, he said.  He added, the differences will not affect the dialogue, which he forecasts will lead to “completion of the transitional period and sustainable democracy in the country.”
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Before Xi Visit, Russia Says It Held Naval Drills With China and Iran in Arabian Sea

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Russia, China and Iran have completed three-way naval exercises in the Arabian Sea that included artillery fire at targets on the sea and in the air, the Russian defense ministry said on Saturday.

The exercises, off the Iranian port of Chabahar, took place as Russian President Vladimir Putin prepares to host his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Moscow for a three-day state visit starting on Monday.

Russia has continued to stage military exercises with partners, especially China, despite the strain on its armed forces from the year-long war in Ukraine, where it has failed to achieve any major advance since last summer.

The Russian frigate Admiral Gorshkov and the Chinese destroyer Nanjing were involved in the drills that took place on Thursday and Friday, the defense ministry said.

The Gorshkov, which is equipped with Russia’s latest-generation Zircon hypersonic cruise missiles, also took part in joint naval exercises last month with China and South Africa.
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Burundi Declares Polio Emergency

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Burundi has declared a national public health emergency after polio was detected in a 4-year-old and two other children who had been in contact with the child.  

The polio outbreak is Burundi’s first in more than 30 years. 

The landlocked African country is preparing a vaccination campaign targeting eligible children, from newborns to 7-year-olds. It will be ready in a few weeks. 

In addition to the children, health officials found five polio samples in its surveillance of wastewater, confirming the presence of circulating poliovirus type 2.  Early detection is critical in containing an outbreak of the disease.

Type 2 infections can occur when the weakened strain of the virus contained in the oral polio vaccine circulates among under-immunized populations for long periods. 

The highly infectious disease is also spread through contaminated water and food or contact with an infected person.  
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British Defense Ministry: Russia Likely Preparing for Wider Conscription

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Russia is “likely” gearing up to cast a wider net to increase its military forces, according to the British Defense Ministry’s daily Intelligence update on Ukraine.

Earlier in the week, the report says, Russian Duma deputies introduced a bill changing the age requirement for conscription to men 21 years of age to 30 years.  Currently, the age bracket is 18 to 27.

The law will “likely” pass, the ministry said, and would go into effect in January. “Russia continues to officially bar conscripts from operations in Ukraine, though at least hundreds have probably served through administrative mix ups or after being coerced to sign contracts,” the ministry said in the update.

The report said many 18- to 21-year-old men are claiming exemptions to continue their education.

The International Monetary Fund said Friday its executive board has approved changes to its financing policy aimed at countries facing “exceptionally high uncertainty.”

The measure is widely viewed as a way to open a new loan program for Ukraine as it enters the second year of fighting back a Russian invasion.

The IMF said in a statement, “The changes apply in situations of exceptionally high uncertainty, involving exogenous shocks that are beyond the control of country authorities and the reach of their economic policies, and which generate larger than usual tail risks.”

Meanwhile, Florida-based app developer and sleep research company DreamApp recently conducted a sleep quality research study on 745 Ukrainians and how the Russian invasion has affected their sleep, dreams and mental health.

A little more than 82% of the participants said they remembered their dreams, which is an indication, DreamApp said, of “superficial sleep that does not provide a full rest.”

“When the brain does not receive enough sleep, traumatic experiences cannot be processed adequately, causing further strain on mental health,” according to Jesse Lyon, DreamApp’s chief dream scientist.  “It effectively traps these experiences in the brain causing a state of constant tension and heightened fight-or-flight response.” 
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Wagner’s Convicts Tell of Horrors of Ukraine War and Loyalty to Their Leader

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In October last year, a Russian news site published a short video of Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner Group, the Russian mercenary army, sitting with four men on a rooftop terrace in the resort town of Gelendzhik, on Russia’s Black Sea coast. Two are missing parts of a leg. A third has lost an arm. They are identified as pardoned former convicts, returned from the front in Ukraine after joining Wagner from prison.

“You were an offender, now you’re a war hero,” Prigozhin tells one man in the clip. It was the first video to depict the return of some of the thousands of convicts who joined Wagner in return for the promise of a pardon if they survived six months of war.

Reuters used facial recognition software to examine this video and more than a dozen other videos and photographs of homecoming convict fighters, published between October 2022 and February 2023. Reporters were able to identify more than 30 of the men by cross-checking the images with social media and Russian court documents.

In their ranks are murderers, thieves and a self-declared “Satanist.” Several are in hospital recovering from wounds sustained in the fighting. Reuters managed to make contact with 11 of these men. Five agreed to be interviewed by phone and messaging app. What follows is the most detailed insider account yet of Wagner’s convict army: the fighters’ recruitment and training, the combat they saw in Ukraine, and their uncertain future in a Russia turned upside down by war with its neighbor.

Four of the men said they were personally recruited by Yevgeny Prigozhin as he toured Russia’s prison system to bolster his private army. Some of the men were deployed to Ukraine’s eastern Bakhmut region, site of some of the most intense fighting of the one-year-old conflict, where one man described the “utter hell” of the battlefield. Thousands have been killed on both sides. The battle for the city of Bakhmut now hangs in the balance. A former Wagner commander who fled to Norway in January has said he witnessed members of Wagner’s internal security administering brutal treatment to prisoner recruits, including executions for desertion.

Combat training, some conducted by veterans of Russia’s special forces, was short but intensive, according to the men. Ukrainian and Western officials say Wagner is sending poorly prepared fighters to certain death in eastern Ukraine. Mike Kofman, an expert in the Russian military at the Arlington County, Virginia-based CNA think tank, told Reuters the two to three weeks of training received by the convict recruits would be unlikely to bring them up to speed, even if some of the men had prior military experience.

“It takes time to learn combat basics, receive individual training, and you also need some collective training as a unit on top of it – a couple of weeks alone isn’t going to do that much for you,” Kofman told Reuters. A more rigorous training scheme would last several months.

All five ex-prisoners expressed a fierce loyalty to Prigozhin for giving them a second chance at life. Though Reuters could not independently confirm the men’s accounts of their service, many of the details were consistent with one another. Russia’s Defense Ministry and penal service did not respond to detailed questions for this article, nor did Prigozhin and Wagner. Prigozhin has previously described Wagner as “probably the most experienced army that exists in the world today” and said its casualty rate is comparable with other Russian units.

From jail to the Ukraine front

When Prigozhin began touring Russia’s sprawling penal system in summer 2022 offering pardons to those who agreed to fight in Ukraine, word quickly spread among prisoners.

Rustam Borovkov, from the small town of Porkhov, near Russia’s border with Estonia, was one of the four men filmed on the rooftop terrace. Court records show that the 31-year-old was six years into a 13-year term for manslaughter and theft in late July when Prigozhin reached his prison, Penal Colony No. 6 in Russia’s western Pskov region. Borovkov and two friends had broken into a house to steal homebrewed alcohol, according to the court papers. One of them struck the homeowner, who died as a result.

Borovkov had heard from inmates in St Petersburg that Prigozhin was traveling from prison to prison in search of recruits. “I knew right away that I would go,” he told Reuters, “even before he came to us.”

Borovkov said he stood with several hundred other prisoners to hear Prigozhin speak. They were given three days to decide whether to join Wagner in return for freedom. About 40 signed up and after three days and a polygraph test, aimed at rooting out drug addicts, they were on their way to war.

Two months later, in September, as a Ukrainian counter-offensive gathered pace, a film emerged on social media of Prigozhin telling convicts in the Volga River region of Mari El that they had only five minutes to make a decision – and those who changed their minds after joining would be shot as deserters.

In another video, published in February this year, Prigozhin tells convicts that fighters are paid 100,000 rubles ($1,300) monthly, with the possibility of additional bonuses. That’s far above Russia’s average monthly wage of around 65,000 rubles . But Borovkov told Reuters his only motivation for joining Wagner was the promise of a pardon. “I have a small child. I wanted to get back to my family.” He said prison officers tried to persuade him not to go because he played an important role as head of his cellblock’s medical unit.

Six-time convicted thief Yevgeny Kuzhelev said a sense of patriotic duty drew him to Wagner. The 29-year-old was serving time in Russia’s southwestern Samara region for stealing cognac, beer and instant coffee from supermarkets in the Volga car-making city of Togliatti, according to court papers.

“I was sentenced to 3 years and 7 months and I’d already served two years. So I didn’t have long left. But I went anyway. Why? I thought about it, and I am sure that if I had been free at the time, I would have one hundred percent gone to fight. I would have gone as a volunteer,” he said. “I remember how from February, when it all started, I called my aunt from time to time from prison. She kept telling me that this friend of yours went [to Ukraine], then another one, then a third, a fourth … And I knew that I would have done the same.”

Kuzhelev said the recruitment process took about two weeks, and during this time inmates were free to back out without consequence. Those who enlisted were moved to separate accommodation in the prison, where they encountered a new respect from the prison officers.

“Among us there was a man who was serving a 25 year sentence,” Kuzhelev said. “He had a few months left of his term and he signed up. The prison officers asked him: ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ And he told them: ‘Everything is fine, I’m going.’ How can you not respect such a decision?”

Reuters was unable to establish the identity of the prisoner or what happened to him.

‘It was clear they were going to die’

Prigozhin has said previously that Wagner’s convict fighters spend a month undergoing rigorous combat drills, sleeping for only four hours a day. The fighters who spoke to Reuters said they received two to three weeks of intensive and well-organized training. Some credited it with saving their lives.

The war in Ukraine is straining Russia’s military capacity. Late last year, Putin announced the mobilization of reservists into the army. They would receive just 10 to 20 days’ training before deployment to the front. Basic training for infantrymen in the U.S. and British armies is around 22 weeks.

One of the convict recruits told Reuters he traveled to a Wagner training camp in the Russian-controlled part of eastern Ukraine’s Luhansk region. Borovkov said training was conducted by former members of Russia’s special forces. “Everything was organized at the highest level,” said Borovkov, who previously served with the military force that secures Russia’s railways. “It wasn’t that they gave me a machine gun, showed me how to shoot and that’s it. No, they explained everything, and in great detail. Mining, demining, tactics, shooting, physical training. Everything.”

The men who spoke to Reuters said that most of the inmates who joined Wagner had some kind of military experience. They had previously served as conscripts under Russia’s one-year military draft or as professional soldiers. The convicts with the most military experience were appointed squad commanders, two of the men said.

“When we got to training, we were asked in detail who knew what, who had served, where they served,” said 38-year-old Dmitry Yermakov, who joined Wagner 10 years into a 14-year sentence for kidnapping. He declined to discuss his criminal record. “And then, when we had been divided into units, they let the lads choose their own commanders. By that time I had already earned some kind of authority, so I was chosen.”

Yermakov said the recruits who realized the gravity of the situation and asked instructors to repeat drills were the best prepared for what was to come. “Those were the men who were genuinely ready to go to war,” he said. Others hoped merely to run down the clock on their six-month stints, hoping that they would receive their pardon having seen as little combat as possible. Of these men, Yermakov said: “It was absolutely clear they were going to die.”

Paralyzing fear and adrenaline

Of the five men who spoke to Reuters, three said that they had fought in the area around the eastern city of Bakhmut, where intense fighting has cost thousands of lives on both sides. Wagner is spearheading Russia’s months-long push to take the city, which had a pre-war population of 75,000 but is now in ruins. Prigozhin has referred to Bakhmut as a “meat grinder,” and said his men’s task there is to bleed the Ukrainian army dry.

Ukrainian and Western officials have compared the battles around Bakhmut to the First World War, and accused Wagner of using convicts in human wave attacks. According to the United States, by mid-February Wagner had suffered more than 30,000 casualties in Ukraine, including 9,000 dead, almost all of them convicts. Prigozhin has insisted, however, that the casualty rate among convict fighters is comparable to other Russian units.

Yermakov, the convicted kidnapper, said that some fighters lost their nerves in the first hours of battle. “What do they see there? Corpses ripped to shreds. And what do they do? Some of them vomit, some of them cry, and some of them don’t want to climb out of the trench. Fear takes over.”

Other fighters recalled only the thrill of combat.

“It was amazing,” said Andrei Yastrebov, a 22-year-old native of St Petersburg, who was serving time for car theft when he joined Wagner. Yastrebov also goes by the name Andrei Kiriyenko on social media. “So much adrenalin. I wish all real men would join Wagner. You can write that. The Ukies ran and Wagner fucked them up.”

Four of the men interviewed by Reuters were seriously injured and invalided out of Ukraine long before completing their stints. They said Wagner had told them that time spent in hospital and rehabilitation would be counted towards their six-month terms and they would receive clemency regardless. Two said they have already got their pardons.

Yermakov lasted only four days before receiving a serious wound to his arm and groin in mid December while dragging a wounded comrade to safety. He said his squad had been tasked with taking and holding a road junction near the village of Pokrovske, on the eastern approach to Bakhmut. He described his final day on the front as “utter hell,” lying flat on the ground for 24 hours as Ukrainian tanks and mortars shelled his squad’s position and drones flew overhead.

“In a war, you’re almost always lying flat on the ground. It’s the only way to survive,” said Kuzhelev, the convicted thief. He told Reuters he spent two months at the front before receiving a shrapnel wound to his arm. “We always wish people ‘Happy Birthday’ after they have been wounded” because they have dodged death. “That’s what they said to me,” he added.

A new start

Now free years ahead of schedule, whether at home or facing long periods of treatment and rehabilitation, the surviving fighters are returning to a country where their actions on the frontline are lionized by many. Prigozhin has previously said that he is giving convicts who join Wagner a “second chance” at life, and an opportunity to redeem themselves.

Earlier this month the State Duma passed a law making it a crime to “discredit” Wagner fighters. The law, which previously applied more narrowly to Russia’s armed forces, was extended at Prigozhin’s request.

Prigozhin’s growing power has not been greeted warmly by all sections of the Russian elite. In February, a long-running feud between the Wagner leader and Russia’s military chiefs exploded into open hostility. Prigozhin accused Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov of “treason,” saying they were starving Wagner of munitions out of personal animosity towards him. Shoigu and Gerasimov could not immediately be reached for comment. Earlier the same month, Prigozhin said he had ended Wagner’s recruitment of prisoners, hinting in an interview that he was forced to do so by unnamed officials.

The five fighters interviewed by Reuters felt a deep personal gratitude to Prigozhin for recruiting them and wiping their criminal records.

“We’re better than ordinary citizens,” said Yastrebov, the car thief, now at home in his native St Petersburg. “We are not ex-convicts now, thanks to Wagner.”

In a January video, Prigozhin is shown telling injured convict fighters: “The police must treat you with respect. Everything has already been agreed at various levels, so that there is no nit-picking… If necessary, I myself will call and talk to the governors and so on, and we will find a solution.”

For Kuzhelev, who as of February had been in a Krasnodar region hospital for four months, Prigozhin had given him a new lease on life. Court documents show he spent almost seven of his 29 years in prison for six separate convictions. “The last time I was sent to prison, I was thinking: ‘Well, here I am again, what’s next?'” he said. “I’ll serve a year, another, a third, and then what? I’ll go out, and what am I going to do on the outside? What am I going to do with myself, given my background?”

“Well, now I’m clean. I have some money. I can think about the future. Think about getting a mortgage to buy an apartment … I have all this thanks to our esteemed Yevgeny Viktorovich,” Kuzhelev added, using Prigozhin’s patronymic as a sign of respect.

All five of the men who spoke to Reuters said either that they would remain with Wagner after their six month service, or were seriously considering doing so.

Some said they wanted to get back to the frontlines as soon as they were able to. Nikita Lyubimov, a native of the Volga city of Cheboksary who had been serving a four and a half year sentence for grievous bodily harm, said his first priority was “to support the lads, to recover as soon as possible, and get back to the front line.” The 23-year-old had received a shrapnel wound two months into his initial stint in Ukraine, and was invalided out.

The men said that the able-bodied among them were offered the chance to sign on as professional full-time mercenaries, while the injured were offered supporting roles. Borovkov, who is getting a prosthetic arm after amputation, said that he had been offered a job at a Wagner hospital in Luhansk when he recovers.

Yermakov said he hoped to recover sufficiently to re-enroll as a contract mercenary, and hoped to be deployed in future to Libya, Syria or the Central African Republic, where Wagner operations predate the group’s present campaign in Ukraine. He cited limited prospects available in Russia’s civilian economy as pushing him towards returning to Wagner.

“People work hard without days off for 12-14 hours a day, and at best they earn 50-60,000 rubles ($672-$806) a month,” said Yermakov, who told Reuters he has two small daughters. “I will return to the (Wagner) company and I will definitely be able to earn 150,000 rubles ($2,000) a month.”

For others, a return to Wagner offers an alternative to sinking back into a life of crime. Kuzhelev, who has spent almost seven of his 29 years in prison, told Reuters that he hoped that service in Wagner would enable his young daughter to build a career in future, without the stigma of her father’s criminal past.

“My daughter, when she grows up, can go on to study banking, or attend the police academy,” said Kuzhelev. “And she will not have problems because her father was in prison. Isn’t that motivation? Of course it is.”
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Feds Want Justices to End Navajo Fight for Colorado River Water

Posted on by SeeUS

States that rely on water from the over-tapped Colorado River want the U.S. Supreme Court to block a lawsuit from the Navajo Nation that could upend how water is shared in the Western U.S.

The tribe doesn’t have enough water and says that the federal government is at fault. Roughly a third of residents on the vast Navajo Nation don’t have running water in their homes.

More than 150 years ago, the U.S. government and the tribe signed treaties that promised the tribe a “permanent home” — a promise the Navajo Nation says includes a sufficient supply of water. The tribe says the government broke its promise to ensure the tribe has enough water and that people are suffering as a result.

The federal government disputes that claim. And states, such as Arizona, California and Nevada, argue that more water for the Navajo Nation would cut into already scarce supplies for cities, agriculture and business growth.

The high court will hold oral arguments Monday in a case with critical implications for how water from the drought-stricken Colorado River is shared and the extent of the U.S. government’s obligations to Native American tribes.

A win for the Navajo Nation won’t directly result in more water for the roughly 175,000 people who live on the largest reservation in the U.S. But it’s a piece of what has been a multi-faceted approach over decades to obtain a basic need.

Tina Becenti, a mother of five, made two or three short trips a day to her mom’s house or a public water spot to haul water back home, filling several five-gallon buckets and liter-sized pickle jars. They filled slowly, sapping hours from her day. Her sons would sometimes help lift the heavy containers into her Nissan SUV that she’d drive carefully back home to avoid spills.

“Every drop really matters,” Becenti said.

That water had to be heated then poured into a tub to bathe her young twin girls. Becenti’s mother had running water, so her three older children would sometimes go there to shower. After a couple of years, Becenti finally got a large tank installed by the nonprofit DigDeep so she could use her sink.

DigDeep, which filed a legal brief in support of the Navajo Nation’s case, has worked to help tribal members gain access to water as larger water-rights claims are pressed.

Extending water lines to the sparsely populated sections of the 69,000-square-kilometer reservation that spans three states is difficult and costly. But tribal officials say additional water supplies would help ease the burden and create equity.

“You drive to Flagstaff, you drive to Albuquerque, you drive to Phoenix, there is water everywhere, everything is green, everything is watered up,” said Rex Kontz, deputy general manager of the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority. “You don’t see that on Navajo.”

The tribe primarily relies on groundwater to serve homes and businesses.

For decades, the Navajo Nation has fought for access to surface water, including the Colorado River and its tributaries, that it can pipe to more remote locations for homes, businesses and government offices.

It’s a legal fight that resonates with tribes across the U.S., said Dylan Hedden-Nicely, the director of the Native American Law Program at the University of Idaho and an attorney representing tribal organizations that filed a brief in support of the Navajo Nation.

The Navajo Nation has reached settlements for water from the San Juan River in New Mexico and Utah. Both of those settlements draw from the Colorado River’s Upper Basin.

The tribe has yet to reach agreement with Arizona and the federal government for water rights from the Colorado River in the Lower Basin that includes the states of California, Arizona and Nevada. It also has sought water from a tributary, the Little Colorado River, another major legal dispute that’s playing out separately.

In the U.S Supreme Court case, the Navajo Nation wants the U.S. Department of the Interior to account for the tribe’s needs in Arizona and come up with a plan to meet those needs.

A federal appeals court ruled the Navajo Nation’s lawsuit could move forward, overturning a decision from a lower court.

Attorneys for the Navajo Nation base their claims on two treaties the tribe and the U.S. signed in 1849 and 1868. The latter allowed Navajos to return to their ancestral homelands in the Four Corners region after being forcibly marched to a desolate tract in eastern New Mexico.

The Navajo Nation wants the Supreme Court to find that those treaties guaranteed them enough water to sustain their homeland. And the tribe wants a chance to make its case before a lower federal court.

The federal government says it has helped the tribe get water from the Colorado River’s tributaries, but no treaty or law forces officials to address the tribe’s general water needs. The Interior Department declined to comment on the pending case.

“We absolutely think they’re entitled to water, but we don’t think the lower Colorado River is the source,” said Rita Maguire, the attorney representing states in the Lower Basin who oppose the tribe’s claims.

If the Supreme Court sides with the Navajo Nation, other tribes might make similar demands, Maguire said.

Arizona, Nevada and California contend the Navajo Nation is making an end run around another Supreme Court case that divvied up water in the Colorado River’s Lower Basin.

“The first question in front of the court now is: why is the lower court dealing with the issue at all?” said Grant Christensen, a federal Indian law expert and professor at Stetson University.

Even if the justices side with the Navajo Nation, the tribe wouldn’t immediately get water. The case would go back to the U.S. District Court in Arizona, and rights to more water still could be years, if not, decades away. The Navajo Nation also could reach a settlement with Arizona and the federal government for rights to water from the Colorado River and funding to deliver it to tribal communities.

Tribal water rights often are tied to the date a reservation was established, which would give the Navajo Nation one of the highest priority rights to Colorado River water and could force conservation on others, said Hedden-Nicely of the University of Idaho.

Given the likelihood of a long road ahead, Kontz of the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority says many older Navajo won’t live to see running water in their homes.

Becenti, the 42-year-old mother of five, remembers shedding tears of joy when running water finally was installed in her house and her family could use a flushable indoor toilet.

It was a relief to “go to the facility without having to worry about bugs, lizards, snakes,” she said.

 
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