Month: April 2023

Changing Middle East Pushes G7 to Discuss Waning Influence, Say Diplomats

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Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven nations will use talks in Japan next week to assess their strategy in the Middle East, diplomatic sources said Thursday, as strategic shifts bypass Western powers, leaving them scrambling for influence.

The U.S. and its main European allies were caught unprepared in March after China brokered a deal between regional foes Saudi Arabia and Iran to revive diplomatic relations after years of bitter rivalry that has fueled conflict across the Middle East.

The kingdom is also pressing ahead with efforts to thaw bilateral ties with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, joining several other Arab states in moving to formally end Syria’s regional isolation despite Western concerns.

“A reconfiguration is under way,” said a French diplomatic source who was officially briefing reporters but required anonymity as per standard policy.

Foreign ministers to meet soon

The ministers of the G-7 — France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Canada, the U.S. and Japan — meet in Japan April 16-18.

“The region is going through serious upheaval, be it the Iranian nuclear crisis aspect, but also the recomposition of the geopolitical balances with the Iran-Saudi-China deal. We can see something is happening with Syria after the earthquake,” he said.

Certain Middle East allies, notably Saudi Arabia, have questioned U.S. security commitments to the region and have opted to remain neutral about Russia’s war against Ukraine, pushing them to diversify their relationships, including with China, instead of relying on the West.

“The G-7 must be able to preserve its security interests, which incidentally are also in the interest of regional security, but also global security,” the diplomat said.

‘Middle East fatigue’

Some European diplomats have bemoaned a “Middle East fatigue” in the West that has also forced regional players to reconsider their relationships, leaving the door open for others to fill the void.

“The Iran-Saudi-China deal is symptomatic of our problems. Nobody saw it coming, so we need to regroup collectively,” said a second G-7 diplomat.

A third Western diplomat said it was time for the G-7 to take stock of the new dynamics in the region, noting that Saudi Arabian-led efforts to orchestrate OPEC oil cuts, against Western wishes, had been another signal.

The foreign ministers, who are preparing a heads-of-state summit in Hiroshima in mid-May, will center their talks on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament with North Korea, Iran and Russia in mind.

The war in Ukraine and how to prevent Russia from circumventing sanctions, the Indo-Pacific and more broadly how to tackle challenges to the existing international rules-based order also would be on the agenda, the French diplomat said.

“The G-7 will only remain credible if it is able to handle the world’s problems,” he said.
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Ghanaian Activist Swims Volta River to Spotlight Water Pollution

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An activist in Ghana is swimming the nearly 500-kilometer-long Volta River, including Lake Volta, to bring attention to worsening water pollution. Yvette Tetteh is also collecting water samples along the way to test for pollution. Senanu Tord reports from Lake Volta, Ghana.
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US Weather Agency Issues El Nino Watch

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The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center on Thursday issued an El Nino watch for the next six months, a climate pattern that is likely to play a role in this year’s Atlantic hurricane season. 

In a statement, NOAA said the indications are favorable — a 62% chance — for an El Nino pattern to form sometime from May to July. The pattern is characterized by warmer ocean temperatures and higher than normal precipitation in the central to eastern Pacific Ocean. 

The El Nino pattern would follow nearly two continuous years of La Nina conditions in the Pacific. 

El Nino and La Nina are opposite extremes of the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate pattern that occur across the equatorial Pacific and can influence weather across the United States and around the world. NOAA monitors ENSO and issues monthly outlooks on the patterns. 

The agency’s El Nino watch comes as the first forecast for the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season was issued by Colorado State University (CSU), led by meteorologist Philip Klotzbach. 

The CSU forecast calls for a slightly below normal hurricane season but cautions there is a great deal of uncertainly as the forecast depends heavily on the likelihood of El Nino forming and how strong it might be. The warmer than normal ocean temperatures associated with El Nino are conducive to an active hurricane season. 

The CSU forecast predicts 13 named storms to form during the 2023 season compared with the annual average of 14.4. Of those, CSU predicts six would become hurricanes, compared with the annual average of 7.2. 

The forecasters predict two of those will become major hurricanes — those with winds topping 179 kilometers per hour — compared with the average of three. 

The official Atlantic hurricane season of the U.S. National Weather Service, which is part of NOAA, runs from June 1 to November 30 each year. 

Some information for this report came from Reuters. 
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Ghana First to Approve Oxford’s ‘World Changer’ Malaria Vaccine

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Ghana has become the first country to approve a new malaria vaccine described as a “world changer” by scientists who developed it at the University of Oxford.

The mosquito-spread parasitic disease kills more than 600,000 people every year. The majority are children in sub-Saharan Africa.

A statement issued Wednesday by Oxford University says its new malaria vaccine called R21 has secured regulatory approval by Ghanaian officials for use in the age group at highest risk of death from malaria — children age 5-to-36 months.

Malaria is an endemic disease in Ghana. The West African country’s health service says it accounts for 38% of all outpatients, with the most vulnerable groups being children younger than 5 years old.

“We have tested a lot of vaccines — and to be here now, to have a vaccine that is being approved first for use in Ghana — is fantastic. It is what we’ve all been working hard towards,” said Dr. Katie Ewer, head of malaria immunology and professor of vaccine immunology at the Jenner Institute at the University of Oxford.

Ewer said R21 has higher efficacy — about 75% in the data from the phase two trial. “We think perhaps the durability of the response has been better as well,” she said.

Some hesitant to accept vaccine

Ghana was one of three African countries in 2019 to have piloted the first malaria vaccine, known as RTS,S. But public acceptance of the vaccine, according to health officials, was somewhat below target due to hesitancy among parents linked to a fear of the unknown.

Ewer says having more malaria vaccines on the market helps parents make a better choice.

“It’s good news that we’ve now got a second malaria vaccine approved,” said Ewer. “And so, people can trust that these vaccines are safe to use. And I hope that people trust the vaccine and will take it up and see for themselves the effect it has.”

The World Health Organization says a child dies every minute from malaria in Africa, where it is estimated that nine out of 10 malaria deaths occur. It is hoped that the new vaccine will help Ghanaian and African children combat malaria.

Vaccine reduces risk

Dr. Nana Yaw Peprah, the head of the National Malaria Control Program in Ghana, told VOA that the Oxford vaccine is coming at the right time.

“The vaccine has a role in the elimination agenda because it reduces the risk of people having the disease and also its severe form,” said Peprah. “The vaccines are for children. If you allow your child to be given this vaccine, the risk of this child, who is actually in the vulnerable group and the risk of getting malaria, really reduces.”

Nearly half of the world’s population is at risk of malaria. In 2020, an estimated 241 million people in 85 countries contracted malaria. That same year, the WHO says the disease claimed approximately 627,000 lives.
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Blinken to Visit Vietnam to Boost Bilateral Ties

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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is visiting Vietnam later this week. Blinken’s first trip to Hanoi as the top U.S. diplomat comes as the two countries are eyeing an upgrade in bilateral ties to a strategic partnership. Blinken will also break ground on a new U.S. Embassy compound. State Department Bureau Chief Nike Ching has more from Hanoi, Vietnam.
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World’s Oldest Known Gorilla Turns 66 at Berlin Zoo

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The Berlin Zoo celebrated the 66th birthday of Fatou, the world’s oldest-known living gorilla, with a special dinner that included fruit, vegetables and a watermelon with her age carved into it.

Fatou, a Western lowland gorilla, enjoyed her birthday meal Thursday as zoo visitors snapped pictures. Her keeper, Ruben Gralki, said her species would live 45 to 50 years in nature. While zoo animals tend to live longer, he said that reaching an age beyond 60 years is a special feat.

The zoo said in a press release that Fatou’s exact age is not known. She came to the zoo in 1959, and her age was estimated to be two at the time. The zoo said before that, she was owned by a sailor who exploited her to pay his bar tab at a tavern in Marseille, France. 

Gralki told Reuters that Fatou is one of five gorillas at the Berlin Zoo, but she has a pen to herself due to her advanced age. He said she has the opportunity to visit with the other gorillas but usually keeps to herself.

The World Wildlife Federation says Western lowland gorillas, though among the most common species of gorilla, remain critically endangered, largely because of poaching. 

Some information for this report came from Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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US Howitzers Help Ukraine Counter Russia’s Aggression

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Highly accurate and maneuverable U.S. howitzers have been helping the Armed Forces of Ukraine fight off Russia’s aggression since July 2022. These days, the weapons are used mostly in the Bakhmut district in the Donetsk region. Anna Kosstutschenko has the story. Videographer and video editor: Pavel Suhodolskiy
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Latest in Ukraine: Kyiv Remains Intent on Reclaiming Crimea   

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New developments:

Ukraine remains adamant in its demand that Russia withdraw its troops from all its occupied lands, including the Crimean Peninsula that Moscow illegally annexed in 2014.
Human Rights Watch accused Russian forces who occupied Ukraine’s southern city of Kherson from March until November 2022 of running a “torture center.”
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met Wednesday with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal at the Pentagon to discuss U.S. support for Ukraine.

Ukraine said Thursday it is intent in its demand that Russia withdraw its troops from Crimea, which Moscow illegally annexed in 2014, as well as other territory in eastern Ukraine that Russia claimed last year.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, via video, told the first Black Sea Security Conference in Bucharest, Romania, that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, now in its 14th month, is “a bleeding wound in the middle of Europe,” but that all internationally recognized borders of Ukraine must be honored.

“We are united by U.N. Charter principles and the shared conviction that Crimea is Ukraine and it will return under Ukraine’s control,” Kuleba said.

“Every time you hear anyone from any corner of the world saying that Crimea is somehow special and should not be returned to Ukraine, as any other part of our territory, you have to know one thing: Ukraine categorically disagrees with these statements,” he told representatives of 50 countries attending the conference in the Romanian capital.

While Moscow failed in the early stages of the war last year to take control of all of Ukraine, it has continued to control Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine, even as fierce fighting rages in the eastern industrialized territory. Russia claimed to have annexed the Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia provinces last September but does not control all the land in the four regions.

There are no signs of peace talks anytime soon, although Ukraine and Russia have several times exchanged prisoners of war and engaged in a wartime deal to export Ukrainian grain and Russian grain and fertilizers.

The Washington Post reported Thursday that highly sensitive U.S. government documents leaked online show that the Defense Intelligence Agency has concluded that the war is still likely to be going on in 2024 and that even if Ukraine recaptures “significant” amounts of territory and inflicts “unsustainable losses on Russian forces,” it would not lead to peace talks.

“Negotiations to end the conflict are unlikely during 2023 in all considered scenarios,” the document said.

Video shows beheading

Ukrainian officials on Wednesday opened an investigation into a video on social media purportedly showing one of Kyiv’s soldiers being beheaded.

News agencies could not immediately verify the authenticity of the video. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video message, “There is something that no one in the world can ignore: how easily these beasts kill.”

Zelenskyy said the video showed the “execution of a Ukrainian captive” and that “everyone must react. Do not expect that it will be forgotten, that time will pass.”

The video appears to show a man in green fatigues with a yellow armband, typically worn by Ukrainian fighters. His screams are heard before another man in camouflage uses a knife to decapitate him. The man in camouflage and another man both speak Russian.

Ukraine’s state security service has opened an investigation, said Vasyl Maliuk, head of the agency. Officials are studying the video to identify those responsible, as well as to identify the victim.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the footage “horrible” but said that its authenticity needed to be verified.

Ukraine’s human rights chief Dmytro Lubinets said he will request that the U.N.’s Human Rights Committee investigate.

Writing on Telegram, Lubinets said, “A public execution of a captive is yet another indication of a breach of Geneva Convention norms, international humanitarian law, a breach of the fundamental right to life.”

Ukraine has repeatedly accused Russia of committing war crimes and targeting civilians during its invasion of Ukraine, now in its 14th month, while Moscow says it has only targeted military sites and electrical and water infrastructure.

The International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of war crimes in the abductions of children from Ukraine.

VOA national security correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this report. Some material also came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Cameroonian Villagers Say Elephants Devastate Farmlands, Plead for Help

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Villagers in southern Cameroon are complaining about the destruction of farmland by wild elephants in areas bordering Gabon and Equatorial Guinea and are calling on authorities to help. 

Villagers say elephants have chased people away and made it impossible for farmers on both sides of the border to plant this season’s crops. Officials blame farmers for occupying the elephants’ habitat, provoking human-wildlife conflict.

Officials on Cameroon’s southern border with Gabon and Equatorial Guinea say scores of villagers came out in market squares at Vema and Nkol-Efoulan on Thursday, protesting the destruction of several hundred hectares of their farmland by elephants.

The villagers say the stray elephants chase civilians and make it impossible for farmers to plant on either side of the border with Gabon and Equatorial Guinea since the planting season started six weeks ago.

Speaking to VOA via a messaging app, Justin Enam Ntem, the traditional ruler of Nkol-Efoulan village, said locals are angry and hungry because they can no longer go to their farms since the elephants positioned themselves about 500 meters south of the village from the border with Gabon this week. He said seven of the several hundred hectares of plantain, banana and cassava plantations belonging to his family have been destroyed by the stray elephants.

Ntem said it was difficult for villagers, who are scared and escaping from their homes and farms, to know the number of elephants that are destroying their crops.

The villagers say no civilian has died in an elephant attack but warn that hunger will loom if the government does not step in to force the animals back to their natural habitats.

The Cameroonian government says there are more than 220 forest elephants in the nearly 700,000-hectare Campo Ma’an National Park located near the border area with the other two countries.

The New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society and the National Parks of Gabon report that Gabon harbors about 95,000 forest elephants. Equatorial Guinea says it has about 900 elephants.

The three countries say elephants have been destroying plantations on both sides of their common border within the past six months. Cameroon says at least eight of its border villages and several hundred plantations, especially in Vema and Nkol-Efoulan villages, have reported regular attacks.

The elephants are leaving their habitat because of a lack of food and water due to climate change and the occupation of their living environment by civilians, according to Cameroon’s Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife.

Cameroon, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea say many plantations opened by the governments and civilians reduce the elephant habitat.

Kenneth Angu Angu, a forest program coordinator with the International Union for Conservation of Nature, said central African nations should work together to stop conflicts between humans and elephants.

“We need the governments of the countries to sit together and reinforce cross-border projects so that they can contain these elephants not to encroach in communities and in agricultural land,” said Angu, who spoke to VOA by phone from Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. “But if it is the communities that are encroaching, we start asking the questions: why are they doing so? Is it that their lands are no more fertile? Is it because there is poverty? So, this is where you would have livelihood activities to enable the communities to remain in their respective lands,” he added.

He said human-wildlife conflict remains a major conservation concern in elephant range countries.

Despite the attacks, Cameroonian wildlife groups have been urging civilians not to kill the animals, which are classified as endangered.
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Official: Russia May Discuss Swap Involving Wall Street Journal Reporter

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Russia may be willing to discuss a potential prisoner swap involving jailed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich with the U.S. after a court delivers its verdict, a top Russian diplomat said Thursday.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told state news agency Tass that talks about a possible exchange could take place through a dedicated channel that Russian and U.S. security agencies established for such purposes.

“We have a working channel that was used in the past to achieve concrete agreements, and these agreements were fulfilled,” Ryabkov said, adding that there was no need for the involvement of any third country.

However, he emphasized that Moscow would only negotiate a possible prisoner exchange after a court delivers its verdict in the espionage case against Gershkovich, 31.

In December, American basketball star Brittney Griner was freed after 10 months behind bars in exchange for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.

Another American, Michigan corporate security executive Paul Whelan, has been imprisoned in Russia since December 2018 on espionage charges that his family and the U.S. government have called baseless.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, earlier this month to immediately secure the release of both Gershkovich and Whelan.

Russia’s Federal Security Service, the successor agency to the Soviet era KGB, arrested Gershkovich in Yekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth-largest city, on March 29. He is the first U.S. correspondent since the Cold War to be detained in Russia for alleged spying.

The Federal Security Service, known by its Russian acronym FSB, accused Gershkovich of trying to obtain classified information about a Russian arms factory. Both the U.S. government and Wall Street Journal have vehemently denied Russia’s allegation that Gershkovich is a spy.

On Monday, the U.S. government declared Gershkovich as “wrongfully detained,” a designation that means that a particular State Department office takes the lead on seeking his release.

President Joe Biden spoke to Greshkovich’s parents Tuesday and again condemned the journalist’s detention. “We’re making it real clear that it’s totally illegal what’s happening, and we declared it so,” the president said.

On Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov again emphasized Moscow’s claim that Gershkovich was caught red-handed. He denied reports that Russian President Vladimir Putin had personally sanctioned Gershkovich’s arrest.

“It’s not the president’s prerogative. It’s up to the special services, who are doing their job,” Peskov said in a conference call with reporters.

The U.S. has pressed Russian authorities to grant U.S. consular access to Gershkovich. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Wednesday that Moscow would provide it “in due time in line with the consular practices and Russian legislation.”
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Jury Selection Set for Defamation Case Involving Fox News, Voting Machine Maker

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Jury selection begins Thursday in the defamation case brought by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News and its parent company.

Dominion sued the cable news network Fox News in 2021, seeking $1.6 billion for what it said was damage done to the company by Fox News promoting what it knew were false claims by former U.S. President Donald Trump that Dominion voting machines were used to rig the 2020 against him.

Fox News has denied committing defamation and said it was merely reporting on Trump’s allegations in a manner protected by the free speech rights in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The judge overseeing the case sanctioned Fox News on Wednesday for withholding records. The records included recordings made by a former Fox News producer of Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani saying before a Fox News appearance that he did not have evidence to support allegations of Dominion being involved in vote-rigging.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Report: Discord User Says US Intelligence Leaker Indicated He Worked at Military Base

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The Washington Post reported Wednesday that a member of a group on the social media platform Discord said another member who indicated he worked at a military base was the leaker behind the sharing of classified U.S. intelligence documents that came to prominence last week.

Media outlets reported that the documents included information about Ukraine’s military and other intelligence matters. A Pentagon spokesperson told reporters Monday that the collection presents a “very serious risk to national security.”

The Post said it interviewed a member of the Discord group and had details corroborated by another member of the group.

The report said that according to the group member, the leaker was not hostile toward the U.S. government, but spoke about the U.S. law enforcement and intelligence community as seeking to suppress citizens and keep information from them.

The group member said the leaker initially shared typewritten intelligence reports, but later changed to sharing photos of documents.

The report said the leaker stopped sharing those images in mid-March, a few weeks after another Discord group user posted several dozen of the documents on another Discord server, opening a path of wider dissemination.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press.
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Biden to Meet with Irish Leaders

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U.S. President Joe Biden holds talks Thursday with Irish President Michael D. Higgins and Leo Varadkar, the country’s prime minister, and is set to deliver remarks to the houses of the Oireachtas — the Irish parliament.

Biden’s schedule also includes a youth Gaelic sports demonstration in Dublin as well as a banquet dinner at Dublin Castle.

Biden, who often highlights his Irish heritage, closes his trip with a Friday night speech in Ballina, home of his paternal ancestors, on the west coast of Ireland.

Irish heritage

Biden began his visit to the region in Northern Ireland before heading to Ireland.

Immediately after landing in Dublin on Wednesday, Biden traveled to County Louth, home to his maternal great-great-grandfather, shoemaker Owen Finnegan, and toured Carlingford Castle. According to the White House, that would have been the last Irish landmark that Finnegan saw before departing for New York on March 31, 1849. Finnegan’s family, including his son James, Biden’s great-grandfather, followed him in 1850.

Meeting local residents at a pub in Dundalk, Biden spoke fondly of his roots, repeating the story he told during his 2016 visit to Ireland about Finnegan and Joseph Kearney, former President Barack Obama’s great-great-grandfather who was also a shoemaker from a nearby county and emigrated to the U.S. around the same time.

“In all of their dreams, I’m not sure they could have imagined that 175 years later both their great-great-grandchild would be president of the United States of America, Barack Obama and Joe Biden,” he said.

Northern Ireland

Biden told people in Belfast on Wednesday he hopes Northern Ireland’s devolved power-sharing government can soon be restored, promising that American corporations are ready to invest in the region.

“Many have already made homes in Northern Ireland, employing over 30,000 people,” he said, adding that in the past decade, American business has generated almost $2 billion in investment in the region.

In a speech hailing 25 years of peace in the region, Biden told the hundreds of people gathered at Ulster University that the democratic institutions that established the Good Friday Agreement remain critical.

The peace deal helped end 30 years of bloody conflict over whether Northern Ireland should unify with Ireland or remain part of the United Kingdom.

“An effective devolved government that reflects the people of Northern Ireland and is accountable to them. A government that works to find ways through hard problems together is going to draw even greater opportunity to this region,” Biden said. “So, I hope the assembly and the executive will soon be restored.”

Biden was referring to the region’s place in the U.K., in which the government in London has transferred a wide range of powers to Stormont, the Northern Ireland Assembly where local politicians instead of lawmakers in London make key decisions.

Fraught with conflict

In practice, power sharing in Northern Ireland has been fraught with conflict, mainly between the two dominant political parties — the Democratic Unionist Party, which favors continued governance with London, and Sinn Féin, which broadly favors reunification with Ireland.

Since it was established in 1998, the government has collapsed numerous times because of boycotts by various parties, the latest one in February 2022 when the DUP boycotted in protest of the Northern Ireland Protocol, a post-Brexit agreement between the U.K. and the European Union for Northern Ireland to maintain an open border and allow trade to continue with the Republic of Ireland, an EU member.

Under the protocol, while Northern Ireland remains in U.K. customs territory, it is also part of the EU’s single market, requiring checks and additional documentation for certain goods imported into Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K. Because of the region’s history of conflict, many people are uneasy with border checks.

The DUP also refused to endorse the Windsor Framework, a deal adopted in March that is designed to fix trade issues including by reducing the number of checks on goods between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K.

Biden-Sunak meeting

In Belfast, Biden and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak reaffirmed their commitment to the Good Friday Agreement and welcomed the Windsor Framework as an important step in preserving peace, according to a White House statement following their meeting.

Earlier this week, Sunak called on parties in dispute to “get on with the business of governance.”

Biden was more cautious in his comments on the Stormont logjam.

“I’m going to listen,” Biden said in response to a reporter’s question on what he was going to say to the Northern Ireland political parties that he met later Wednesday.

DUP’s leader, Jeffrey Donaldson, said Biden’s visit does not move his party’s position.

“It doesn’t change the political dynamic in Northern Ireland. We know what needs to happen,” he said, underscoring that the British government must do more to protect the region’s place within the United Kingdom and its ability to trade within the U.K. internal market.
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Biden Voices Hope for Government Renewal in Northern Ireland  

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U.S. President Joe Biden is in his ancestral home, Ireland, where he will spend the next two days meeting with leaders and family members. Earlier Wednesday in Northern Ireland, he urged that the collapsed power-sharing government be restored. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara reports.
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First Quarter Was Deadly for Migrants in Mediterranean, UN Says

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The first three months of 2023 were the deadliest first quarter in six years for migrants crossing the central Mediterranean Sea in smugglers’ boats, the U.N. migration agency reported Wednesday, citing delays by nations in initiating rescues as a contributing factor.

The International Organization for Migration documented 441 migrant deaths along the dangerous sea route between northern Africa and Europe’s southern shores during January, February and March. In 2017, 742 known deaths were documented in the same period, while 446 were recorded in the first three months of 2015.

“The persisting humanitarian crisis in the central Mediterranean is intolerable,” IOM Director General Antonio Vitorino said of the figures the agency released in a report.

“With more than 20,000 deaths recorded on this route since 2014, I fear that these deaths have been normalized,” Vitorino said. “States must respond. Delays and gaps in state-led SAR [search-and-rescue areas] are costing human lives.”

While this year has started out on a distressing note, IOM tallied higher numbers of people dead or missing in the Mediterranean in six other quarters since 2017, with the most documented in the second quarter of 2018, at 1,430.

The true number of lives lost among migrants who set out on smugglers’ unseaworthy rubber dinghies or decrepit fishing boats is unknown because the bodies of people who perish at sea often are never recovered.

Many deaths only come to light when survivors recount that their vessel set out with more passengers than the number who ultimately make it to safety.

The International Organization for Migration said it also was investigating “several reports of invisible shipwrecks” — cases in which boats are reported missing, where there are no records of survivors, remains or search-and-rescue operations. It estimated that “the fates of more than 300 people aboard these vessels remain unclear.”

Without naming nations, the agency blasted policies aimed at complicating the work of rescue boats operated in the central Mediterranean by humanitarian organizations.

The report cited a March 25 incident in which members of the Libyan coast guard fired shots into the air as a charity rescue boat, Ocean Viking, was responding to a report of a rubber dinghy in distress.

“State efforts to save lives must include supporting the efforts of NGO actors to provide lifesaving assistance and ending the criminalization, obstruction of those efforts” by humanitarian groups, the IOM said.

The agency’s report said the deaths of at least 127 people so far this year came in six incidents in which “delays in state-led rescues in the central Mediterranean were a factor.” The report’s authors lamented the “complete absence of response” in a seventh situation, in which at least 73 migrants died.

The authors also cited a boat carrying 400 migrants that remained adrift between Malta and Italy for two days before the Italian Coast Guard came to its aid.

Italy’s governments have at times impounded charity-run boats for technical reasons or, as the country’s current right-wing government is doing now, required them to disembark their rescued passengers farther from the southernmost ports of the Mediterranean.

On Tuesday, Italy’s far-right premier, Giorgia Meloni, and her Cabinet declared a six-month state of emergency to cope with the country’s latest increase in migrant arrivals.

Among the goals of her coalition, which includes the stridently anti-migrant leader of the League Party, are efforts to step up repatriation of migrants who aren’t eligible for asylum. Many of the asylum-seekers who reach Italy are fleeing poverty, not war or persecution, and see their applications denied.

According to the Italian Interior Ministry, 31,192 migrants had arrived in Italy by sea this year as of Tuesday.

The figure didn’t include about 700 migrants crowded aboard a smuggler’s boat that apparently ran out of fuel and was towed Wednesday morning to a port in Sicily under an Italian coast guard escort.

Migrants aboard that vessel cheered and shouted, “Beautiful Italy,” when they reached Catania, Italian state TV reported.

Italy for years has sought to prod fellow European Union nations to take more of the rescued migrants who step ashore in Mediterranean countries, many with the aim of finding jobs or family members in northern Europe.

Under current EU rules, the country where asylum-seekers first arrive is responsible for them.

“The situation in the Mediterranean has been a humanitarian crisis for over a decade now,” IOM spokesperson Safa Msehli said Wednesday. “And the fact that deaths continue on its own is very alarming, but the fact that that’s increased is extremely alarming because it means that very little concrete action was taken to address the issue.”
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ChatGPT Could Return to Italy if OpenAI Complies With Rules

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ChatGPT could return to Italy soon if its maker, OpenAI, complies with measures to satisfy regulators who had imposed a temporary ban on the artificial intelligence software over privacy worries.

The Italian data protection authority on Wednesday outlined a raft of requirements that OpenAI will have to satisfy by April 30 for the ban on AI chatbot to be lifted.

The watchdog last month ordered the company to temporarily stop processing Italian users’ personal information while it investigated a possible data breach. The authority said it didn’t want to hamper AI’s development but emphasized the importance of following the European Union’s strict data privacy rules.

OpenAI, which had responded by proposing remedies to ease the concerns, did not reply immediately to a request for comment Wednesday.

Concerns about boom grow

Concerns are growing about the artificial intelligence boom, with other countries, from France to Canada, investigating or looking closer at so-called generative AI technology like ChatGPT. The chatbot is “trained” on huge pools of data, including digital books and online writings, and able to generate text that mimics human writing styles.

Under Italy’s measures, OpenAI must post information on its website about how and why it processes the personal information of both users and non-users, as well as provide the option to correct or delete that data.

The company will have to rely on consent or “legitimate interest” to use personal data to train ChatGPT’s algorithms, the watchdog said.

Regulators question legal basis

The Italian regulators had questioned whether there’s a legal basis for OpenAI to collect massive amounts of data used to teach ChatGPT’s algorithms and raised concerns the system could sometimes generate false information about individuals.

San Francisco-based OpenAI also will have to carry out a publicity campaign by May 15 through radio and TV, newspapers and the internet to inform people about how it uses their personal data for training algorithms, Italy’s watchdog said.

There’s also a requirement to verify users’ ages and set up a system to filter out those who are under 13 and teens between 13 and 18 who don’t have parental consent.

“Only in that case will the Italian SA (supervisory authority) lift its order that placed a temporary limitation on the processing of Italian users’ data … so that ChatGPT will be available once again from Italy,” the watchdog said on its website.
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New US Electric Vehicle Rule Would Speed Supply Chain Changes

Posted on by SeeUS

A Biden administration proposal would force U.S. automakers to sharply increase their production of electric cars and trucks over the next decade, lending greater urgency to the effort to build raw material supply chains that reduce the industry’s dependence on China.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday announced a proposed rule that would place stricter limits on the average tailpipe emissions of vehicles built in the United States. The proposal would reduce the allowable limit by so much that automakers would have no way to comply unless about two-thirds of the vehicles they produce by 2032 are emission-free electric vehicles.

Automakers have generally recognized that EVs represent the future of the industry, but Wednesday’s proposal would greatly accelerate the trend. The proposal, which will be open to public comment before it is finalized, would greatly reduce a leading cause of air pollution in the U.S., as well as the greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.

“By proposing the most ambitious pollution standards ever for cars and trucks, we are delivering on the Biden-Harris administration’s promise to protect people and the planet, securing critical reductions in dangerous air and climate pollution, and ensuring significant economic benefits like lower fuel and maintenance costs for families,” said EPA Administrator Michael Regan.

The proposal, which would apply to new light-duty vehicles made in 2027 and beyond, would be the strictest environmental standard the federal government has ever applied to automobiles. If it does force the industry to make EVs account for two-thirds of production, it could also exceed President Joe Biden’s previously articulated target of making 50% of new cars either plug-in hybrids or completely emission-free by 2030.

Supply chain questions

Well before the EPA released its proposed rule Wednesday, the Biden administration had been moving to strengthen the EV market in the U.S. and to build a pipeline for raw materials that would reduce the auto industry’s reliance on China for key raw materials.

Accomplishing that reduction will be no small task. According to an analysis by the International Energy Agency last year, China produced three-quarters of the world’s lithium-ion batteries, the key component in the majority of EVs on the road.

China also has a dominant hold on much of the market for the components of those batteries, including lithium, cobalt and graphite. According to the IEA, more than half of the world’s capacity for processing and refining those materials is located in China.

According to the IEA, as of last year, the U.S. accounted for only 10% of EV production worldwide, and just 7% of production capacity for batteries.

Infrastructure projects

Last year’s passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which contained hundreds of billions of dollars in climate-related spending, included the creation of large tax breaks restricted to EVs made at least partly in the U.S. The tax breaks are meant to extend over several years, but the restrictions become tighter as time goes on, creating incentives for manufacturers to “onshore” production to the U.S.

Tax breaks specific to the batteries used in EVs require that the raw materials used to assemble them come from domestic sources or from countries with which the U.S. has existing trade agreements.

Other pieces of legislation meant to spur investment in the U.S., including a major bipartisan infrastructure bill and the CHIPS and Science Act, also contain money and incentives that will help build out electric infrastructure in the U.S.

Achievable goals

Luke Tonachel, senior director for clean vehicles and buildings with the Natural Resources Defense Council, told VOA that building an EV supply chain centered on domestic production and imports from friendly countries is ambitious, but achievable.

Tonachel said the necessary raw materials are available from U.S. allies, but that the capacity for processing them needs to be built domestically. He said the creation of that capacity is already underway.

“There are robust incentives for building out that battery manufacturing and supply chain here in the U.S.,” he said, adding that he believes the administration’s time frame is feasible, especially now that the new standards have created certainty about future demand for EVs.

“It is realistic,” he said. “These are technologies that are known. We can certainly get more economies of scale as we ramp up production.”

Automakers tentative

Industry representatives said achieving the administration’s goal will require that a lot of disparate efforts be successful at the same time, not all of which are under their control. For example, a nationwide network of charging stations and the increased capacity to meet new demand for power will be essential to driving customer demand.

“It’s aggressive, and a lot of pieces have to work perfectly together,” Genevieve Cullen, president of the Electric Drive Transportation Association, told VOA. “Aside from the technology piece, the market piece has to work, and supply chain speed is part of that. Consumer incentives are working to help bring them into the equation, and we need to keep expanding infrastructure at a pace that meets, and perhaps exceeds, the needs in the beginning so that people feel the confidence that they need to switch to battery electric.”

John Bozzella, president of the trade group Alliance for Automotive Innovation, said in a blog post Wednesday that the administration’s plan is “aggressive by any measure” and that its success would depend on more than just automakers being able to ramp up production.

“To some extent, the baseline policy framework for the transition has come into focus,” Bozzella said. “But it remains to be seen whether the refueling infrastructure incentives and supply-side provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act, the bipartisan infrastructure law, and the CHIPS and Science Act are sufficient to support electrification at the levels envisioned by the proposed standards over the coming years.”
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False Espionage Charge a ‘Tough Situation,’ Says Former Jailed Journalist

Posted on by SeeUS

As the last American journalist to be detained in Russia and falsely accused of espionage, Nicholas Daniloff has some understanding of what Evan Gershkovich is going through.

“It’s a tough situation to be in,” the veteran reporter told VOA.

Daniloff was held for about a month during the Cold War in 1986 under circumstances similar to Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal.

Moscow has accused Gershkovich of espionage, without providing evidence. It’s a charge The Journal and Gershkovich’s lawyer strongly deny.

“It’s very easy to accuse journalists of espionage because some of the work is rather similar,” Daniloff told VOA this week. “Digging up information, particularly information that’s not widely known — that gives something of an impression of espionage, although it’s not.”

U.S. President Joe Biden has called Russia’s detention of Gershkovich “totally illegal.”

The president, who spoke with Gershkovich’s parents on Tuesday as he flew to Belfast, has condemned the reporter’s arrest.

“We’re making it real clear that it’s totally illegal what’s happening, and we declared it so,” Biden said earlier that day before he left Washington.

Few people understand the plight of Gershkovich like Daniloff. The pair are among the lone members of a club no journalist wants to join.

Different time, same prison

Daniloff had just a few days left of his five-year tour as Moscow bureau chief for U.S. News & World Report when on August 30, 1986, the KGB arrested him in a park while he was saying goodbye to someone he thought was a friend.

Daniloff was then accused of being a spy and taken to Moscow’s Lefortovo prison — the same prison where Gershkovich is being held.

It’s the kind of prison the Kremlin uses “to house prisoners when Moscow wanted to make an example of them,” Daniloff wrote in a recent article in The Wall Street Journal.

Daniloff was released following negotiations between U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze. The reporter and two human rights dissidents were swapped for a Soviet physicist who was caught receiving classified U.S. information in the New York subway.

Daniloff, now 88 and living in Boston, Massachusetts, said the memories of that time have started to fade, but he has been thinking about Gershkovich since the reporter’s arrest.

“Some of it is very upsetting,” he said.

Daniloff said his initial reaction on hearing of Gershkovich’s arrest was, “This stinks.”

“Being arrested and held in the custody of Russian authorities is never a happy situation,” he added. “But if you speak Russian,” which both Daniloff and Gershkovich do, “when you are dealing with your jailers, you discover that they also are human beings,” Daniloff said.

Daniloff said his primary concern about Gershkovich is his physical safety.

“If I had a conversation with him at this moment, the first thing I want to know is, ‘How are you being treated? Are you being treated like a human being?’” Daniloff said. ‘Or are you being in some fashion denigrated by the folks who are holding you?’”

‘An intimidating signal’

Daniloff and Gershkovich are also linked in other ways. Daniloff is the American grandson of a Russian general who fled after the Russian Revolution, whereas Gershkovich is the American son of Soviet-born Jewish emigres.

“Arresting a journalist who speaks Russian and has family ties to the country is designed to send an intimidating signal to others,” Daniloff wrote in The Wall Street Journal.

Gershkovich’s arrest was likely intended to frighten all foreign reporters still working inside Russia, according to Julia Davis, founder of Russian Media Monitor, which tracks Russian state TV.

“It serves as a message to other journalists who are still there and who would dare to talk about what’s really happening with Russia’s economy and with its defense industry,” Davis said. “That if they do that, they will be portrayed as a spy and not a journalist, and might end up being imprisoned, which is especially horrific in a country like Russia that is truly lawless under (Russian President Vladimir) Putin.”

That apparent lawlessness is what gives Daniloff particular concern about what could happen to Gershkovich.

“It seems to me that you have to stand up for the things that you believe in as a Western correspondent, which probably will irritate your so-called hosts,” Daniloff said. “The thing that impresses me are the journalists who find themselves in this situation who don’t crumble but who stand up for the values that they have been taught by their Western background and their Western mentors. And I think you need to stick with that.”

Russia’s Washington embassy did not reply to a VOA email requesting comment.

‘Try to avoid crumbling’

Daniloff said the most important thing Gershkovich can do is to remain strong as best he can.

“The question is, ‘How do you behave when you are in custody?’” he said. “I think that one should try to avoid crumbling. One should try to avoid coming under the sway of your captors. And you should try to speak the language of the free press and so forth. That’s not so easy to do. But I would hope that that would be the stance that one might take.”

Since Gershkovich was arrested, a lot of attention has been paid to updates on his situation from the media and the U.S. government.

Less than two weeks after his arrest, and just a few days after he was formally charged with espionage, the State Department on April 10 designated Gershkovich as “wrongfully detained,” a label that unlocks additional government resources to help free the reporter.

‘It’s important to stand up’

Daniloff said he hopes that attention will not wane in the coming weeks.

“I think coverage of his situation is important. And it’s important from the point of view of […] journalists who try to tell the truth so they know it. Because on their side of the border, there might well be a temptation to say things that are not completely true,” he said.

Despite the obvious safety risks facing foreign reporters inside Russia, Daniloff said he still thinks it is important for foreign reporters to do their best to cover the country from within.

“I think that it’s important for journalists — Western journalists — to be there and to try to live by Western standards,” Daniloff said. “Western standards may well violate customs or perhaps even laws in Russia. Still, it’s important to stand up and speak out.”
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Battleground Towns: In the Heart of Russia’s War in Ukraine

Posted on by SeeEU

Buried in a field across the street from an apartment complex is Sergei Kotako. His neighbors say he was a good man, a retired electrician who helped care for elderly women in his building.

During two months of heavy battles here last summer, cluster bombs fell, and on one occasion, Kotako didn’t make it to a shelter in time. He was in his mid-60s.

Like most people we meet in Siversk, a small town only a few kilometers from the front lines of the Russia’s war in Ukraine, Angelina, a resident, does not want to share her last name. She says she didn’t know Kotako well before the war. But since Russia’s February 2022 invasion, everyone in town knows everyone.

“The war somehow …” she says, stopping short. She then motions with her hands the formation of a group. She pats a large imaginary dough ball into an invisible loaf of round bread.

“There’s not many of us left here,” she explains. “Before, there [were] 11 or 12,000 people here. Now, it’s only around 2,000. When the humanitarian aid comes, we all go to the same place to collect it.”

Around the corner, dusty aid vans come through, pausing to distribute food or water. Most shops are closed, and most people don’t have money. Even if they did, there’s no available running water, gas or electricity.

WATCH: In the Heart of Russia’s War in Ukraine

Front-line cemetery

Siversk has been a war zone since 2014, but most of the people who lived here didn’t flee until after Russia invaded last year.

Since then, gardens, fields and backyards have become makeshift graveyards. The local cemetery, residents say, is right up against the front line.

“It’s far too dangerous to go there,” says Galyna, 71. “It’s only 4 kilometers away, but you can’t even ask soldiers to go there for burials.”

On homemade crosses labeling the graves, the dates reveal the nature of the war. Many deaths occurred last summer, when Siversk was not just near the front line but a center of battle.

Others are more recent, like a 97-year-old woman buried by the entrance to an apartment building. She was a friend of Galyna and died last week. We found her daughter sitting on the building’s stoop.

She asked us not to take pictures of the freshly turned-up ground over her mother. The death was too recent, she says.

“We buried her with our neighbors’ help,” she says, declining to give her name. “Everyone uses their own shovel.”

In Pictures: Siversk, Ukraine Battleground Town

Wartime priorities

In Siversk, tanks and artillery are hidden behind apartment buildings. We are also told not to take pictures of weapons, in case it gives away their positions. The crash of fire going in and out of town is sometimes deafening.

In other parts of Ukraine, wartime has galvanized patriots, with many people supporting the idea of fighting until total victory or total defeat.

But here in the war zone among the pockets of people remaining, it is not unusual to find locals who identify with Russia. Most people we meet won’t declare support for either side publicly. They don’t know who will rule the area in the months and years to come.

Galyna, however, says openly that she doesn’t care who wins if they stop firing.

“I only want peace,” she says. “Only calmness.”

Oleksandr Babenko contributed to this report.
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Millions of Quake Survivors Still Living in Tents as Turkey Election Looms

Posted on by SeeEU

More than two months after the February 6 earthquake in Turkey and Syria that killed more than 50,000 people, millions of survivors are still living in tents with little hope of returning home anytime soon.

As Turkey’s presidential election campaigns enter full swing ahead of the May 14 first-round vote, some survivors say they feel forgotten.

Yunus Emre Yildiz, his wife and their three children live in a tent on stony waste ground in their hometown of Hassa in Hatay province. On one side is a busy highway; on the other, the damaged apartment block where the family used to live.

The family has spent two months living outside in Turkey’s bitter late winter.

“Living in a tent is not like living in a house,” Yildiz told VOA. “There are difficulties living in a tent. There are stones on the ground, it is cold, it rains.”

Cracks are visible on the exterior of Yildiz’s home. But he said the damage isn’t sufficient to qualify his family for a place in a better-equipped camp for earthquake survivors, with improved accommodations, sanitation and social care.

Yildiz said fear keeps them from returning home.

“The night of the earthquake, the two children were in their room. The baby was in our room. I could not reach the two children to rescue them from their room because the tremors were pushing me away,” he said.

“They say that we should go and live in our house. But how can we do that? It is not easy for us,” Yildiz said.

Since the earthquake, the region has been hit by aftershocks. Many families say the children fear returning home.

“There is no serious damage to our house. We sometimes go back, but we are scared when we go home,” said Ozer Guner, whose family occupies a nearby tent.

“We adults are somehow OK, but mentally, the children are suffering very badly. We cannot do anything about that. There are no social programs here for that. If they had entertainment activities or any social activity program, the children could handle it more easily,” Guner told VOA.

The Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency of Turkey says over 2 million earthquake survivors are living in tents. Some local media put the figure at over 2.5 million.

The Turkish government, along with the United Nations and other aid agencies, are still constructing more permanent camps. Ankara says it has given accommodation to over 2.1 million homeless survivors at 500 sites.

Johan Karlsson, managing director of the Better Shelter aid agency, which is providing 5,000 shelters in Turkey and Syria, said it is vital that survivors are given more permanent accommodations.

“People are sleeping in their cars, on the streets and under temporary rubble shelters. So, there is an acute need just to have a place to stay. But then you also have the entire psychosocial comfort of a shelter or home, somewhere where you can sort of close the door from the world outside,” Karlsson told The Associated Press.

Turkey is due to hold presidential elections beginning May 14. Some of the survivors say they feel forgotten.

“As you can see on TV, on the streets, in coffee houses, all they talk about is politics,” said Mustafa Ketti, whose family is living in a tent on the roadside in Hassa. “They forgot everything. They forgot the earthquake. They forgot those killed. They forgot the children’s schools. They forgot about education. They forgot about the health system. They just started to talk about politics,” he told VOA.

In its election manifesto, the ruling AK Party under incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has pledged to build 650,000 new homes in the region, with almost half completed within the next year.

Meanwhile, critics blame Erdogan’s government for lax building regulations, which they say contributed to the widespread destruction.

Memet Aksakal contributed to this report.
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Juul Agrees to Pay $462 Million Settlement to 6 US States, DC

Posted on by SeeUS

Electronic cigarette-maker Juul Labs will pay $462 million to six states and the District of Columbia, marking the largest settlement the company has reached so far for its role in the youth vaping surge, New York Attorney General Letitia James said Wednesday.

The agreement with New York, California, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Mexico and Washington, D.C., marks the latest in a string of recent legal settlements Juul has reached across the country with cities and states.

The vaping company, which has laid off hundreds of employees, will pay $7.9 million to settle a lawsuit alleging the company violated West Virginia’s Consumer Credit and Protection Act by marketing its products to underage users, the state’s Attorney General Patrick Morrisey announced Monday. Last month, the company paid Chicago $23.8 million to settle a lawsuit.

Minnesota’s case against Juul went to trial last month with the state’s Attorney General Keith Ellison asserting that the company “baited, deceived and addicted a whole new generation of kids after Minnesotans slashed youth smoking rates down to the lowest level in a generation.”

Like some other settlements reached by Juul, this latest agreement includes various restrictions on the marketing, sale and distribution of the company’s vaping products. For example, it is barred from any direct or indirect marketing that targets young people, which includes anyone younger than 35. Juul is also required to limit the purchases customers can make in retail stores and online.

“Juul lit a nationwide public health crisis by putting addictive products in the hands of minors and convincing them that it’s harmless,” James said in a statement. “Today they are paying the price for the harm they caused.”

James said the $112.7 million due to New York will pay for underage smoking abatement programs across the state.

District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb said in a statement that Juul “knew how addictive and dangerous its products were and actively tried to cover up that medical truth.”

A spokesperson for the Washington, D.C.-based Juul said that with Wednesday’s settlement, “we are nearing total resolution of the company’s historical legal challenges and securing certainty for our future.”

The spokesperson added that underage use of Juul products has declined by 95% since 2019 based on the National Youth Tobacco Survey. According to the CDC, since surveys were administered online instead of on school campuses during the pandemic, the results cannot be compared to prior years.

In September, Juul agreed to pay nearly $440 million over a period of six to 10 years to settle a two-year investigation by 33 states into the marketing of its high-nicotine vaping products to young people. That settlement amounted to about 25% of Juul’s U.S. sales of $1.9 billion in 2021.

Three months later, the company said it had secured an equity investment to settle thousands of lawsuits over its e-cigarettes brought by individuals and families of Juul users, school districts, city governments and Native American tribes.

Juul rocketed to the top of the U.S. vaping market about five years ago with the popularity of flavors like mango and mint. But the startup’s rise was fueled by use among teenagers, some of whom became hooked on Juul’s high-nicotine pods.

Parents, school administrators and politicians have largely blamed the company for a surge in underage vaping.
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IS Group-Affiliated Militants Take Key Mali Village

Posted on by SeeAF

Militants affiliated to Islamic State group have taken Tidermene in Mali, further isolating the regional capital, Menaka, in a region that has fallen almost entirely under their control, officials and witnesses told AFP on Wednesday. 

Tidermene’s fall follows months of fighting by Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, or ISGS, to seize the northeastern village of a few thousand inhabitants about 75 kilometers north of Menaka. 

All the region’s main administrative subdivisions are now under the group’s control. 

The village was captured Monday night. 

“Tidermene has fallen into the hands of Daesh,” an elected official from the town, who has retreated to Menaka, told AFP, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State organization.  

“They are distributing Qurans to the population [and] moving around town with weapons,” he said.  

He and others spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. 

Another elected official told AFP the militants had instructed the village’s residents to continue with business as usual, but to be prepared to begin paying “zakat,” an Islamic tax. 

A major ISGS offensive has been underway since early 2022 in the region of Menaka and that of Gao, further west. 

The regions have seen intense battles between ISGS fighters and the al Qaida-linked Group to Support Islam and Muslims (JNIM), as well as with former Tuareg independence fighters who signed a peace deal in 2015, and loyalists who once fought the independence fighters. 

The militants have stepped into a vacuum left when French forces departed last year, experts say. 

Hundreds of civilians have been killed in the violence, and communities have been displaced en masse. 

Some have fled across the border to Niger. 

The U.N. and human rights organizations say militants have carried out punitive attacks against communities they accuse of helping the state or refusing to join their ranks. 

One Tidermene refugee now in Menaka told AFP that, given the town is a former JNIM stronghold, ISGS fighters are now seeking out civilians who own weapons or walkie-talkies. 

“The Malian army controls Menaka and is ensuring the protection of civilians,” an army officer told AFP when asked about the capture of Tidermene. 

The Malian military, the U.N. stabilization mission and armed groups loyal to the state remain present in Menaka. 
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Fighters Take Weapons From Police Station Amid Clashes With Ethiopia’s Military

Posted on by SeeAF

Residents in northern Ethiopia’s Amhara region say local fighters briefly took over a police station and seized weapons amid ongoing clashes between protesters and the military.

The fighting was sparked last week when Ethiopia’s government ordered all regional forces to integrate with federal forces or regional police. Amhara residents say gunfights have erupted in cities and authorities have shut off the internet. 

In the Amhara region town of Mezzezo, residents said they heard heavy gunfire early Wednesday as armed Amhara fighters, known as FANO, took over a police station.

One resident who did not want to be identified due to security concerns, told VOA the fighters were after a delivery of weapons.

He said at around 4 a.m., there was heavy gunfire at the police station and bullets were raining down on their roofs.

“When we asked the police what happened,” he said, “They told us ‘They (armed fighters) hit us.'”

After “a lot” of gunshots, the fighters packed up weapons and left around 5:30 a.m.,  he said.

Protesters attack army camp

Protests and clashes erupted in Ethiopia’s Amhara region last week after the government ordered regional forces such as FANO to integrate into the federal military or police.

While the numbers of those injured in the region’s clashes could not be immediately confirmed, Reuters news agency quoted the mayor of Kombolcha as saying several people were shot there on Tuesday.

Mayor Mohammed Amin told Reuters that protesters attacked an army camp after false rumors spread that federal troops had taken Amhara regional fighters into custody.

Witnesses reported casualties in the city of Debre Birhan, 130 kilometers northeast of Addis Ababa, though numbers could not be confirmed.

One resident, who would give only his first name, Esayas, told VOA there have been ongoing clashes since Tuesday.

“Protesters are refusing to let security forces enter while defense forces are saying they will control the town.,” said Esayas. “FANO and the residents of the town have taken up whatever (weapons) they can, such as sticks or machetes, and they are waiting. ”

Residents told VOA that authorities have taken their usual response of shutting down internet access in cities such as Gondar and Amhara’s regional capital, Bahir Dar.

An explosion at a bar in Bahir Dar on Monday killed two people and wounded several others.

Insecurity growing 

Aid group Catholic Relief Services said two of its staff were shot and killed on Sunday in Amhara as they were returning to Addis Ababa.

While it was not immediately clear if the deaths were related to the unrest, they have underscored concerns about worsening insecurity in the region.

Yonas Adaye is the former director of the Institute for Peace and Security Studies at Addis Ababa University. He said the integration of regional forces is needed for a lasting peace.

“Nine or eleven special armies, that is really not amicable for Ethiopia’s economy, social development, and sustainable security,” he said.

Ethiopia’s federal government has not confirmed casualty figures from the clashes and unrest in Amhara.

Last week, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said regional forces would not be disarmed but vowed their integration would be carried out by force if necessary.

Ethiopia is emerging from a devastating two-year war in the north of the country, after the federal government and Tigrayan forces signed a peace deal in November.

Amhara forces fought alongside the Ethiopian and Eritrean armies against the Tigrayan rebels in the war, which left hundreds of thousands of people dead and displaced millions.
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In US, National Public Radio Abandons Twitter

Posted on by SeeUS

Broadcaster National Public Radio said Wednesday it would no longer post its news content on 52 official Twitter accounts in protest of the social media site labeling the independent U.S. news agency as “government-funded media.” 

NPR is the first major news organization to go silent on Twitter. The social media platform owned by entrepreneur Elon Musk at first labeled NPR as “state-affiliated media,” the same tag it applies to propaganda outlets in China, Russia and other autocratic countries. 

Twitter then revised its label to “government-funded media,” but NPR said that, too, was misleading because NPR is a private, nonprofit company with editorial independence. NPR says it receives less than 1% of its $300 million annual budget from the federally funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting.  

NPR chief executive John Lansing said that by not posting its news reports on Twitter, the network is protecting its credibility and would continue to produce journalism without “a shadow of negativity.” 

In an email to staff explaining the decision, Lansing wrote, “It would be a disservice to the serious work you all do here to continue to share it on a platform that is associating the federal charter for public media with an abandoning of editorial independence or standards.”  

He said that even if Twitter were to drop any description of NPR, the network would not immediately return to the platform. 

“At this point I have lost my faith in the decision-making at Twitter,” Lansing said in an article posted by NPR. “I would need some time to understand whether Twitter can be trusted again.”

Twitter has also labeled Voice of America, a U.S. government-funded but independent news agency, and the BBC in Britain, as “government-funded media,” a description more commonly employed in describing state-controlled propaganda outlets. VOA has not dropped its use of Twitter but said its description of the news outlet left the impression that it was not independent. 

Bridget Serchak, VOA’s director of public relations, said, “The label ‘government funded’ is potentially misleading and could be construed as also ‘government-controlled’ — which VOA is most certainly not.” 

“Our editorial firewall, enshrined in the law, prohibits any interference from government officials at any level in its news coverage and editorial decision-making process,” Serchak said in an email. “VOA will continue to emphasize this distinction in our discussions with Twitter, as this new label on our network causes unwarranted and unjustified concern about the accuracy and objectivity of our news coverage.” 

VOA is funded by the U.S. government and is part of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, but its editorial independence is protected by regulations and a firewall. The BBC said it “is, and always has been, independent.” 

Press freedom advocates have also objected to Twitter’s labeling of NPR, VOA and the BBC.

“The confusion between media serving the general interest and propaganda media is dangerous, and is yet further proof that social media platforms are not competent to identify what is and is not journalism,” Vincent Berthier, head of the technology desk at Reporters Without Borders, said in a statement. 

Liam Scott contributed to this report.
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