April 2023 - Page 20 of 25

At Easter Vigil, Pope Francis Encourages Hope Amid ‘Icy Winds of War’

Posted on 04/08/2023 by SeeEU

Pope Francis led the world’s Roman Catholics into Easter at a Saturday night vigil Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, decrying the “icy winds of war” and other injustices.

The 86-year-old Francis skipped an outdoor event on Friday night because of unseasonably cold temperatures in Rome. His doctors ordered prudence after he was hospitalized last week for bronchitis.

Francis appeared to be well during the Easter Vigil service, during which he baptized eight adult converts to Catholicism.

After Francis started the service in the rear of the church with the traditional lighting of a large paschal candle, he was taken in a wheelchair to the front to preside at the Mass.

Easter is the most important day in the Christian liturgical calendar because it commemorates the day the Bible says Jesus rose from the dead.

In his homily, read before about 8,000 people in Christendom’s largest church, Francis spoke of the bitterness, dismay and disillusionment many feel today.

“We may feel helpless and discouraged before the power of evil, the conflicts that tear relationships apart, the attitudes of calculation and indifference that seem to prevail in society, the cancer of corruption, the spread of injustice, the icy winds of war,” he said.

Francis has called for an end to all wars, and since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, he has repeatedly referred to Ukraine and its people as being “martyred.”

Reading his homily in a strong, confident voice, Francis said that even when people felt the wellspring of hope had dried up, it was important not to be frozen in a sense of defeat but to seek an “interior resurrection” with God’s help.

Francis concludes Holy Week celebrations on Sunday by presiding at an Easter Mass in St. Peter’s Square and then delivering his twice-annual “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and the world) blessing and message from the central external balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica.
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US to Test Faster Asylum Screenings for Migrants Crossing Border Illegally

Posted on 04/08/2023 by SeeUS

The Biden administration next week will begin testing faster asylum screenings for migrants caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally, the Department of Homeland Security said on Saturday, part of preparations for the end of COVID-19 border restrictions in May.

U.S. asylum officers will conduct initial asylum screenings for a small number of migrants within days while they remain in the custody of border authorities, Homeland Security spokesperson Marsha Espinosa said. The interviews will take place over the phone and migrants will have access to legal counsel during the screenings, she said.

U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, has implemented new border restrictions in recent months as he grapples with record numbers of migrants caught crossing illegally. Former U.S. President Donald Trump, a Republican, also used rapid asylum screenings to speed up the resolution of cases but those screenings were conducted by U.S. Customs and Border Protection personnel and without the guarantee of legal representation.

Since March 2020, U.S. authorities have been able to quickly expel migrants caught crossing the border illegally back to Mexico under a COVID-19 order known as Title 42. The order is set to end on May 11 along with the broader pandemic public health emergency and the Biden administration is bracing for a possible rise in crossings afterward.

The experiment with faster asylum screenings “will inform best practices” if the administration decides to apply it more broadly in the future, Espinosa said. The spokesperson declined to say where on the border it would be implemented next week.

Reuters first reported in December that Biden officials were weighing whether to use the accelerated asylum screenings among other Trump-style restrictions.
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Gunmen Kill 74 in Nigeria’s Benue State

Posted on 04/08/2023 by SeeAF

At least 74 people were killed in Nigeria’s Benue state in two attacks by gunmen this week, local officials and police said on Saturday, the latest clashes in an area where violence between pastoralists and farmers is common.

Violence has increased in recent years as population growth leads to an expansion of the area dedicated to farming, leaving less land available for open grazing by nomads’ cattle herds.

Benue State police spokesperson Catherine Anene said 28 bodies were recovered at a camp for internally displaced people in the Mgban local government area between Friday evening and Saturday morning.

It was not immediately clear what triggered the attack but witnesses said gunmen arrived and started shooting, killing several people.

Shooting follows Wednesday attack at funeral

That followed a separate incident in the same state on Wednesday in the remote Umogidi village of Otukpo local government area, when suspected herdsmen killed villagers at a funeral, Bako Eje, the chairman for Otukpo, told Reuters.

Paul Hemba, a security adviser to the Benue state governor, said 46 bodies were recovered after Wednesday’s attack.

President orders more surveillance

President Muhammadu Buhari, in a statement on Saturday, condemned “the recent bout of killings in Benue State in which tens of people were killed in Umogidi community” and directed security forces to increase surveillance in affected areas.

Many such attacks in remote parts of Nigeria go unreported as thinly stretched security forces often respond late to distress calls by communities.

Benue is one of Nigeria’s Middle Belt states, where the majority Muslim north meets the predominantly Christian south.

Competition over land use is particularly intractable in the Middle Belt, where fault lines between farmers and herders often overlap with ethnic and religious divisions.

In further violence, gunmen abducted at least 80 people in Zamfara state, a hot spot for kidnappings for ransom by armed gangs targeting remote villages, residents said on Saturday.
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Ojibwe Woman Makes History as North Dakota Poet Laureate

Posted on 04/08/2023 by SeeUS

North Dakota lawmakers have appointed an Ojibwe woman as the state’s poet laureate, making her the first Native American to hold the position in the state and increasing attention to her expertise on the troubled history of Native American boarding schools.

Denise Lajimodiere, a citizen of the Turtle Mountain Band in Belcourt, has written several award-winning books of poetry. She’s considered a national expert on the history of Native American boarding schools and wrote an academic book called Stringing Rosaries in 2019 on the atrocities experienced by boarding school survivors.

“I’m honored and humbled to represent my tribe. They are and always will be my inspiration,” Lajimodiere said in an interview, following a bipartisan confirmation of her two-year term as poet laureate on Wednesday.

Poet laureates represent the state in inaugural speeches, commencements, poetry readings and educational events, said Kim Konikow, executive director of the North Dakota Council on the Arts.

Lajimodiere, an educator who earned her doctorate degree from the University of North Dakota, said she plans to leverage her role as poet laureate to hold workshops with Native students around the state. She wants to develop a new book that focuses on them.

Lajimodiere’s appointment is impactful and inspirational because “representation counts at all levels,” said Nicole Donaghy, executive director of the advocacy group North Dakota Native Vote and a Hunkpapa Lakota from the Standing Rock Nation.

The more Native Americans can see themselves in positions of honor, the better it is for our communities, Donaghy said.

“I’ve grown up knowing how amazing she is,” said Rep. Jayme Davis, a Democrat of Rolette, who is from the same Turtle Mountain Band as Lajimodiere. “In my mind, there’s nobody more deserving.”

By spotlighting personal accounts of what boarding school survivors experienced, Lajimodiere’s book Stringing Rosaries sparked discussions on how to address injustices Native people have experienced, Davis said.

From the 18th century and continuing as late as the 1960s, networks of boarding schools institutionalized the legal kidnapping, abuse and forced cultural assimilation of Indigenous children in North America. Much of Lajimodiere’s work grapples with trauma as it was felt by Native people in the region.

“Sap seeps down a fir tree’s trunk like bitter tears…. I brace against the tree and weep for the children, for the parents left behind, for my father who lived, for those who didn’t,” Lajimodiere wrote in a poem based on interviews with boarding school victims, published in her 2016 book Bitter Tears.

Davis, the legislator, said Lajimodiere’s writing informs ongoing work to grapple with the past like returning ancestral remains — including boarding school victims — and protecting tribal cultures going forward by codifying the federal Indian Child Welfare Act into state law.

The law, enacted in 1978, gives tribes power in foster care and adoption proceedings involving Native children. North Dakota and several other states have considered codifying it this year, as the U.S. Supreme Court considers a challenge to the federal law.

The U.S. Department of the Interior released a report last year that identified more than 400 Native American boarding schools that sought to assimilate Native children into white society. The federal study found that more than 500 students died at the boarding schools but officials expect that figure to grow exponentially as research continues.
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Marathon Race Walk Mixed Relay to Debut at Paris Olympics

Posted on 04/08/2023 by SeeEU

World Athletics on Saturday released details of a new event, the marathon race walk mixed relay, to be staged at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

It takes the place of the men’s 50km race walk, which first appeared at the 1932 Olympics, but which has been scrapped in the pursuit of gender equality.

The new mixed relay will feature 25 teams, each comprising one male and one female athlete, who will alternate to complete the marathon distance (42.195km) in four legs.

“This format is designed to be innovative, dynamic and unpredictable,” said World Athletics CEO Jon Ridgeon.

“We believe it will be easily understood by fans, will feature exciting competition and, importantly, it will ensure full gender equality across the Olympic track and field program for the first time,” he added.

The relay will be held on the same course as the individual 20km race walking events, at the foot of the Eiffel Tower in central Paris.

The team qualification “pathway” will be published shortly, World Athletics said.

The 48-event athletics program at Paris 2024 is now perfectly balanced with 23 for both men and women with two mixed events, the 4x400m and walk marathon relay.

Next year’s Games also include breakdancing for the first time on the Olympic program.
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Biden’s Ancestral Hometowns Prepare Warm Irish Welcome

Posted on 04/08/2023 by SeeEU

Joe Blewitt is just about the busiest man in Ballina. His phone rings constantly with calls from locals and the world’s media as he prepares to welcome a relative — U.S. President Joe Biden.

Biden is scheduled to travel to Ireland next week, with a stop in Ballina, the town from which one of his great-great grandfathers left for the United States in 1850. Blewitt, a distant cousin who first met Biden when he came to town as vice president in 2016, said the U.S. leader pledged to return once he’d won the presidency.

“He said, ‘I’m going to come back into Ballina.’ And sure to God he’s going to come back into Ballina,” Blewitt said. “His Irish roots are really deep in his heart.”

The 43-year-old plumber was among Biden relations invited to the White House for St. Patrick’s Day last month. He says it was a “surreal” experience that included a half-hour private meeting with the president.

“He’s a people person. He loves meeting the Irish people,” said Blewitt, who shares Biden’s high forehead — he says people joke that he looks like the president “from the mouth up.”

“The Irish people love him back.”

Buildings are getting a new coat of paint and American flags are being hung from shopfronts in Ballina, a bustling agricultural town of about 10,000 at the mouth of the River Moy in western Ireland that proclaims itself the nation’s “salmon capital.”

There’s already a mural of a beaming Biden, erected in 2020 in the center of town. Many people from Ballina and the surrounding County Mayo moved to Pennsylvania in the 19th century. Ballina is twinned with Scranton, Biden’s hometown.

“I wouldn’t think there’s a family in Ballina that doesn’t have someone, some connection with the States,” said Anthony Heffernan, owner of Heffernan’s Fine Foods, where Biden had lunch with his local relatives during his 2016 visit.

“It was a fantastic day for Ballina,” Heffernan recalled.

“He was very keen to talk about the town — how it was, and how it is now. He was really connected with the area.”

The White House says Biden will visit Belfast, Northern Ireland, on Tuesday and Wednesday to mark 25 years since the Good Friday peace accord, before heading south to the Republic of Ireland, where he will address the Dublin parliament. In Ballina, he’s due to deliver a speech Friday in front of the 19th-century cathedral, which local lore says was built partly using bricks supplied by his great-great-great grandfather, Edward Blewitt, a brickmaker and civil engineer.

The Irish Family History Center says Biden “is among the most ‘Irish’ of all U.S. Presidents” — 10 of his 16 great-great grandparents were from the Emerald Isle. All of them left for the U.S. during the Great Famine of the mid-19th century, which killed an estimated 1 million people.

Biden also plans to visit the Cooley Peninsula in County Louth, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) from Ballina on Ireland’s east coast. His great-grandfather, James Finnegan, left the mountainous, wind-battered peninsula as a child in 1850, one of more than a million Irish people who emigrated during the famine years.

“There’s a great sense of euphoria around the place. Everyone is asking ‘What’s happening, when’s he coming, where’s he going?'” said Andrea McKevitt, a local politician and distant Biden relative.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that the president would use his Irish trip to highlight “how his family history is part of that larger shared history” between the U.S. and Ireland.

The trip is also a reminder of the central role of Irish Americans in U.S. political life. Ireland has warmly welcomed American presidents since John F. Kennedy became the first to visit in 1963. Barack Obama got a jubilant reception in 2011 when he visited the tiny hamlet of Moneygall, home to one of his great-great-great grandfathers.

“My name is Barack Obama, of the Moneygall Obamas, and I’ve come home to find the apostrophe we lost somewhere along the way,” he joked to a crowd in Dublin.

More than 30 million Americans — almost one in 10 — claim some Irish ancestry. Richard Johnson, senior lecturer in U.S. politics at Queen Mary University of London, said Irish Americans no longer form the solidly Democrat voting bloc of decades gone by, but it’s still “good politics domestically for Americans to emphasize their Irish roots.”

“One of the reasons Irish identity resonates so much with Americans is that U.S. identity is based in part on the notion that the United States broke free from the British Empire and set its own course,” he said. “There is a kind of echo of that story that can be found in the Irish experience. It makes it feel like the Irish have shared a common experience of breaking out of British rule that I think is attractive to Americans.”

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said Biden “has always been a friend of Ireland,” and the visit would be “an opportunity to welcome a great Irish-American president home.”

In Ballina, Blewitt said the town is getting ready to give Biden a rousing welcome.

“The streets will be packed,” he said. “It’ll be like another St. Patrick’s Day.”
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In Africa’s Okavango, Oil Drilling Disrupts Locals, Nature

Posted on 04/08/2023 by SeeAF

Gobonamang Kgetho has a deep affection for Africa’s largest inland delta, the Okavango. It is his home.

The water and wildlife-rich land is fed by rivers in the Angolan highlands that flow into northern Botswana before draining into Namibia’s Kalahari Desert sands. Several Indigenous and local communities and a vast array of species, including African elephants, black rhinos and cheetahs, live among the vibrant marshlands. Much of the surrounding region is also teeming with wildlife.

Fisher Kgetho hails from Botswana’s Wayei community and relies on his pole and dug-out canoe to skirt around the marshes looking for fish. But things have changed in recent years — in the delta and across the country.

“The fish sizes have shrunk and stocks are declining,” Kgetho, whose life and livelihood depends on the health of the ecosystem, told The Associated Press. “The rivers draining into the delta have less volumes of water.”

Drilling for oil exploration, as well as human-caused climate change leading to more erratic rainfall patterns and water abstraction and diversion for development and commercial agriculture, has altered the landscape that Kgetho and so many other people and wildlife species, rely on.

The delta’s defenders are now hoping to block at least one of those threats — oil exploration.

A planned hearing by Namibia’s environment ministry will consider revoking the drilling license of Canadian oil and gas firm Reconnaissance Energy. Local communities and environmental groups claimed that land was bulldozed and cut through, damaging lands and polluting water sources, without the permission of local communities.

Kgetho worries that rivers in his region are drying up because of “overuse by the extractive industries, including oil exploration activities upstream.”

In a written statement, ReconAfrica, the firm’s African arm, said it safeguards water resources through “regular monitoring and reporting on hydrological data to the appropriate local, regional and national water authorities” and is “applying rigorous safety and environmental protection standards.”

The statement went on to say that it has held over 700 community consultations in Namibia and will continue to engage with communities in the country and in Botswana.

The company has been drilling in the area since 2021 but is yet to find a productive well. The hearing was originally scheduled for Monday but has been postponed until further notice. The drilling license is currently set to last until 2025, with ReconAfrica previously having been granted a three-year extension.

Locals have persisted with legal avenues but have had little luck. In a separate case, Namibia’s high court postponed a decision on whether local communities should pay up for filing a case opposing the company’s actions.

The court previously threw out the urgent appeal made by local people to stop the Canadian firm’s drilling activities. It’s now deciding whether the government’s legal fees should be covered by the plaintiffs or waived. A new date for the decision is set for May.

The Namibian energy minister, Tom Alweendo, has maintained the country’s right to explore for oil, saying that European countries and the U.S. do it too. Alweendo supports the African Union’s goal of using both renewable and non-renewable energy to meet growing demand.

There are similar fears of deterioration across Botswana and the wider region. Much of the country’s diverse ecosystem has been under threat from various development plans. Nearby Chobe National Park, for example, has seen a decline in river quality partly due to its burgeoning tourism industry, a study found.

In the Cuvette-Centrale basin in Congo, a dense and ecologically thriving forest that’s home to the largest population of lowland gorillas, sections of the peatlands — the continent’s largest — went up for oil and gas auction last year.

The Congolese government said the auctioning process “is in line” with development plans and government programs and it will stick to stringent international standards.

Environmentalists are not convinced.

Wes Sechrest, chief scientist of environmental organization Rewild, said that protecting areas “that have robust and healthy wildlife populations” like the Okavango Delta, “are a big part of the solution to the interconnected climate and biodiversity crises we’re facing.”

The peatlands also serve as a carbon sink, storing large amounts of gas that would otherwise heat up the atmosphere.

Sechrest added that “local communities are going to bear the heaviest costs of oil exploration” and “deserve to be properly consulted about any extractive industry projects, including the many likely environmental damages and decide if those projects are acceptable to them.”

Steve Boyes, who led the National Geographic Okavango Wilderness Project that mapped the delta, said researchers now have even more data to support the need to maintain the wetlands.

Aided by Kgetho and other locals whose “traditional wisdom and knowledge” led them through the bogs, Boyes and a team of 57 other scientists were able to detail around 1,600 square kilometers of peatlands.

“These large-scale systems that have the ability to sequester tons of carbon are our long-term resilience plan,” said Boyes.

For Kgetho, whose journey with the scientists was made into a documentary released earlier this year, there are more immediate reasons to defend the Okavango.

“We must protect the delta,” Kgetho said. “It is our livelihood.”
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Tennessee Becomes New Front in Battle for American Democracy

Posted on 04/08/2023 by SeeUS

Tennessee has become a new front in the battle for the future of American democracy after Republicans expelled two Black lawmakers from the state Legislature for their part in a protest urging passage of gun-control measures.

In separate votes Thursday, the GOP supermajority expelled Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, a move leaving about 140,000 voters in primarily Black districts in Nashville and Memphis with no representation in the Tennessee House.

Kevin Webb, a 53-year-old teacher from Pearson’s district, said removing him “for such a small infraction” is “classic America.”

“There’s been bias against Black individuals in this country for 500 years,” Webb said. “What makes us think that it’s going to stop all of a sudden?”

Pearson and Jones were expelled in retaliation for their role in the protest, which unfolded in the aftermath of a school shooting in Nashville that killed six people, including three young students. A third Democrat was spared expulsion by a one-vote margin.

The removal of the lawmakers, who were only recently elected, reflects a trend in dozens of states where Republicans are trying to make it harder to cast ballots and challenging the integrity of the election process.

At least 177 bills restricting voting or creating systems that can intimidate voters or permit partisan interference were filed or introduced in dozens of states so far this year, according to the Brennan Center.

“It represents a really slow erosion of our democracy,” said Neha Patel, co-executive director of the State Innovation Exchange, a strategy center for state legislators working toward progressive policies.

Patel called the expulsions “the third prong of a long-range strategy.” She said it was once “unprecedented” for states to make it harder for people to vote, but the practice has become “commonplace.”

It’s also become common for the GOP to challenge the electoral process and raise questions about election integrity. The next question is whether states with Republican supermajorities will follow Tennessee’s lead in expelling opponents with different points of view, she said.

Fred Wertheimer, founder and president of Democracy 21, a nonpartisan organization advocating for better government, said expulsions have generally been reserved for lawmakers involved in criminal activity.

Voters losing their chosen representatives for doing their jobs is “unheard of,” Wertheimer said. He has not learned of any similar action in other states, “but this stuff travels.”

The action in Tennessee drew outcries from a range of groups.

National Urban League President Marc Morial said the issue was about race, but “it’s not only about race. It’s about basic American values.”

Referring to the right to vote, freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, he said, “It appears as though the Tennessee Legislature needs a refresher on the American Constitution.”

The president of the Congressional Black Caucus, Nevada Rep. Steven Horsford, called for the Tennessee lawmakers to be returned to their seats and for Attorney General Merrick Garland to look into potential violations of the Voting Rights Act.

NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson said the civil rights organization was prepared to take legal action “to ensure that this heinous attempt to silence the voice of the people is addressed in a court of law.”

House Speaker Cameron Sexton pushed back against criticism that he was leaving thousands of Tennesseans without representation and taking away their voice.

“There are consequences for actions,” he said. “Those members took away the voice of this chamber for 45 minutes when they were on the House floor leading the protest and disrupting the business that we’re doing.”

The trio’s participation in the demonstration lasted only a few minutes. It was Sexton who called for a recess to meet with lawmakers.

Webb questioned why Jones and Pearson would be expelled while Rep. Gloria Johnson, who is white, was not.

Clayton Cardwell, who lives in Jones’ district in Nashville, said in a telephone interview that the protest in favor of stricter gun laws last week was “the right thing to do.”

“I was hoping that the entire House would join in,” he said. When the retired teacher was getting his master’s degree in special education, Cardwell remembers being told that teaching was the safest occupation you could have. “Now I think it is one of the most dangerous.”

Cardwell, who is white, also questioned the motives behind the expulsions: “We’ve just got a lot of old white men there who are prejudiced.”

Nashville attorney Chris Wood was so concerned about the possible expulsion of his representative that he went to the Capitol on Thursday to watch the proceedings.

“It was appalling,” he said. “It was an abuse of power.”

Wood has three children in public schools and called it “unbelievable and immoral” that the Republican majority would refuse to even consider gun restrictions.

No issue could be more important to the community “than ending gun violence and letting our kids come home at the end of the day,” he said. “This is the only country in the world where this happens.”

Wood expects Jones and Pearson to be back soon. They could be reappointed to the House by county commissions in their districts and run again in a special election.

Andrea Wiley, a lifelong Tennessee resident who lives and works in Pearson’s district, said she was embarrassed for the state.

“It’s really hard to be from here and see us in the national news at this level,” she said. “It is really scary to me that I don’t have a voice in Nashville that’s representing me, my community, my neighborhood.”

Tamala Johnson said she and her family voted for Pearson and she agreed with him about changing gun laws.

“I don’t think he should have been expelled for voicing his opinion,” Johnson said.

The vote to expel “makes me feel like we don’t have a word,” she said. “You threw him out just because he’s fighting to improve gun laws. … There’s no trust.”
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South Africa Outraged After UAE Denies Gupta Extradition

Posted on 04/08/2023 by SeeAF

South Africa’s justice minister has expressed shock after a court in the United Arab Emirates refused to extradite two brothers from the wealthy Gupta family.

The Minister of Justice Ronald Lamola said he was dismayed to learn this week that a United Arab Emirates court held an extradition hearing for Atul and Rajesh Gupta in February. The court denied Pretoria’s request, but South Africa was only informed now.

The Indian-born siblings were close friends of former President Jacob Zuma and are suspected of using that connection to influence Cabinet appointments and win lucrative government contracts — a scandal that’s become known here as “state capture.”

Zuma is facing charges in a separate corruption case. He and the Guptas deny all allegations.

The Guptas fled South Africa in 2018. They were arrested in the UAE last year on South Africa’s request.

Lamola says South Africa will appeal the court’s decision, which the UAE court denied on a technicality.

The court said the charge of money laundering related to crimes committed in the UAE as well as South Africa, meaning the UAE has jurisdiction to prosecute it. The court also found the arrest warrant relating to the charge of fraud and corruption had been canceled, which the Justice Ministry called “inexplicable.”

“This level of noncooperation is highly unprecedented in the arena of extradition requests,” the Justice Ministry statement said.

“South Africans would be justified to believe that they are being denied justice,” the statement continued, adding the denial flies “in the face of the assurances given by the Emirati authorities that our requests meet their requirements.”

It’s unclear if the Guptas are still in the UAE, after recent media reports that they were spotted in Switzerland.
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Russia Loses Election to Three UN Bodies Over Ukraine

Posted on 04/08/2023 by SeeEU

Russia lost elections to three United Nations bodies this week, a sign that opposition to its invasion of Ukraine over a year ago remains strong.

The votes in the 54-member U.N. Economic and Social Council follow approval of six non-binding resolutions against Russia by the 193-member U.N. General Assembly. The latest — on Feb. 23, the eve of the first anniversary of the invasion — called for Moscow to end hostilities and withdraw its forces and was adopted by a vote of 141-7 with 32 abstentions.

In the ECOSOC votes, Russia was overwhelmingly defeated by Romania for a seat on the Commission on the Status of Women. It lost to Estonia to be a member of the executive board of the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF. And it was defeated by Armenia and the Czech Republic in secret ballot votes for membership on the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said after Wednesday’s votes, “This is a clear signal from ECOSOC members that no country should hold positions on critical U.N. bodies when they are in flagrant violation of the U.N. Charter.”

In the voting for members of 14 commissions, boards and expert groups that ECOSOC oversees, Russia was elected to the Commission for Social Development by acclamation – which the United States and the United Kingdom dissociated their countries from, saying Russia’s invasion violates international law and Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

Russia was also elected by acclamation to the Intergovernmental Working Group of Experts on International Standards of Accounting and Reporting.
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US States Consider Ban on Cosmetics With ‘Forever Chemicals’

Posted on 04/08/2023 by SeeUS

A growing number of state legislatures are considering bans on cosmetics and other consumer products that contain a group of synthetic, potentially harmful chemicals known as PFAS.

In Vermont, the state Senate gave final approval this week to legislation that would prohibit manufacturers and suppliers from selling or distributing any cosmetics or menstrual products in the state that have perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, as well as a number of other chemicals.

The products include shampoo, makeup, deodorant, sunscreen, hair dyes and more, said state Sen. Terry Williams, a Republican, and member of the Senate Committee on Health and Welfare.

“Many known toxic chemicals are used in or found as contaminants in personal care products, including PFAS, lead and formaldehyde,” Williams said in reporting the bill to Senate colleagues.

California, Colorado and Maryland passed similar restrictions on cosmetics that go into effect in 2025. Other proposals are under consideration in Washington and Oregon while bills have also been introduced in Illinois, Rhode Island and Georgia.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, studies have linked PFAS exposure to increased cancer risk, developmental delays in children, damage to organs such as the liver and thyroid, increased cholesterol levels and reduced immune functions, especially among young children.

Like in Colorado and California, the proposed Vermont crackdown on PFAS — known as “forever chemicals” for their persistence in the environment — goes beyond cosmetics. The bill, which now must be considered by the Vermont House, would extend the ban to apparel, including outdoor apparel for severe wet conditions, athletic turf, clothing, ski wax and textiles, including upholstery, draperies, towels and bedding that intentionally contain PFAS. The bill has been referred to a House committee and the chairwoman said Friday that she’s not sure if the panel will get to it this session. The legislation gives various timelines for the phaseouts.

“We must stop importing dangerous chemicals like PFAS into our state so we can prevent the harms they are causing up and down the supply chain — from their production and use to their disposal,” Lauren Hierl, executive director of Vermont Conservation Voters, said in a statement.

In March, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed the first federal limits on the chemicals in drinking water, saying the protection will save thousands of lives and prevent serious illnesses, including cancer. The chemicals had been used since the 1940s in consumer products and industry, including in nonstick pans, food packaging and firefighting foam. Their use is now mostly phased out in the U.S., but some still remain. Pressure is also growing to remove PFAS from food packaging.

A study by University of Notre Dame researchers released in 2021 found that more than half the cosmetics sold in the United States and Canada were awash with a toxic industrial compound associated with serious health conditions.

Researchers tested more than 230 commonly used cosmetics and found that 56% of foundations and eye products, 48% of lip products and 47% of mascaras contained fluorine — an indicator of PFAS.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says on its website that there have been few studies of the presence of PFAS in cosmetics, and the ones published found the concentration is at very low levels.

The Personal Care Products Council, which represents the cosmetics industry, says in 2020 it supported California legislation to phase out certain ingredients, including 13 PFAS in cosmetics, and identical legislative language in Maryland the following year. The group called for states to pass uniform laws to avoid confusion.

As for bans on apparel containing the chemicals, the American Apparel & Footwear Association supports the bill passed unanimously in the Vermont Senate and appreciates that amendments were made to align with phase-out timelines in existing PFAS restrictions in California and New York, said Chelsea Murtha, AAFA’s director of sustainability, in a statement.

The Outdoor Industry Association, based on Colorado, said overall it supports the Vermont bill, also noted the current version more closely matches the timeline for compliance with California’s.

“We are also appreciative of the exemption for outdoor apparel severe wet conditions until 2028, as our industry is diligently working to move toward non-regrettable alternatives that will not compromise consumer safety or the quality of the product,” said association President Kent Ebersole in a statement.
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How Africa’s Sahel Region is Becoming a Media Desert

Posted on 04/08/2023 by SeeAF

Last month, French journalist Olivier Dubois, who was held hostage in Mali for over a year, was finally released, but foreign and local journalists working in the Sahel tell VOA that press freedoms continue to be eroded in the region, making it more dangerous for those reporters who are still working.

In the past decade, five journalists have been killed and six have gone missing in the Sahel, a vast, semiarid region of western and north-central Africa that stretches along the Sahara desert’s southern rim from Senegal to Eritrea.

In 2013, French journalists Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon were kidnapped and killed by an armed insurgent group in Mali; in 2021, two Spanish journalists, David Beriain and cameraman Roberto Fraile, were attacked and killed by a terrorist group in Burkina Faso; in 2018, Malian journalist Birama Toure disappeared and likely died following torture by Mali’s intelligence agency, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

Home to numerous violent Islamist extremists, the region suffers from political instability and sometimes regular coups, including two in Mali and Burkina Faso and one in Chad since 2020.

In some Sahel countries, journalists are persecuted by armed Islamist factions and ruling military juntas alike — the former abducting or killing reporters, the latter restricting press freedoms or conducting arbitrary arrests.

“We have seen the trends that after taking power, the military juntas have not hesitated to reshape the media landscape in order to better serve their interests,” said Sadibou Marong, sub-Saharan Africa director at Reporters Without Borders, which this week published a new report on the region. “This has been the case in Mali and Burkina Faso, where local broadcasting of several French media outlets has been suspended.”

While the release of Dubois after 711 days in captivity — the 48-year-old French freelancer had been held by al-Qaida-linked Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin — is cause for celebration, Marong said threats to reporters covering the region are growing.

Contacted by VOA, Dubois’ wife, Deborah, said her husband, who was freed at the end of March, is not currently giving interviews.

An editor who has worked with Dubois, Sonia Delesalle-Stolper, told VOA the French newspaper she works for has been affected by the unrest across the Sahel.

“It’s been quite challenging over the last two years for Liberation and our coverage of the Sahel,” said Delesalle-Stolper, the newspaper’s chief foreign editor. “First of all, we had our correspondent in Mali, Olivier Dubois, who was taken hostage in April 2021 and has just been freed over the last two weeks … and the other correspondent who worked afterwards in Mali has decided recently to come back to France, because it has become too dangerous and there are too many threats towards freedom of press.”

Things aren’t much better in neighboring Burkina Faso, she added, noting that Liberation and Le Monde each saw a correspondent expelled from the country in recent days after publishing content perceived by leaders of its military junta as critical of the government.

“So it has become very difficult for the foreign press and Liberation, but as well for the press who have been working locally in Burkina, who are still there, and have more and more difficulties to cover what’s going on,” Delesalle-Stolper said.

Although Dubois has been freed, other local reporters who have been abducted haven’t been heard from since, the Reporters Without Borders report said. Among them are Malian radio journalist Moussa M’Bana Dicko, who was kidnapped in 2021, and Hamadoun Nialibouly, abducted in Mali in 2020.

Not in the field

Benin-based freelance journalist Flore Nobime says working in her country is also becoming more fraught.

“It is becoming more and more difficult for journalists to travel to the northern border areas of Benin to work because of the insecurity that now prevails there,” she told VOA. “We fear armed groups — and, on the other hand, it can turn into a nightmare when we come across the defense and security forces.”

Nobime was detained along with a Dutch reporter last year while reporting from the country’s northern region. Both were accused of espionage, and the foreign journalist was deported.

With so many restrictions on movement and threats to security, some journalists are opting to cover large parts of the Sahel from the various capitals or even from abroad.

Since last year, Mali has permanently suspended Radio France International (RFI) and France24, while Burkina Faso has banned their broadcasts.

David Bache, who worked in Mali as RFI’s correspondent for some four years, has been unable to acquire a Malian visa or press accreditation since early last year — prior to the RFI ban.

“It’s more difficult for the Malian colleagues who are in the country,” he told VOA. “The journalists who used to work for our broadcasts, for Radio France International and who were based in Mali, some of them have traveled and are now in another country.

“One of them is now in Senegal,” he added, “and other people are still in Mali but don’t work for us anymore because it’s too dangerous for them.”

In Mali itself, according to an RSF report, numerous local radio stations have been shuttered, reflecting a similar trend in Burkina Faso.

Bache says he uses his large network of contacts to continue reporting on Mali from Paris, but that it’s always better to be on the ground.

For many Sahel reporters, though, that remains too difficult and risky at the moment.
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China: We’re Still a Developing Nation. US Lawmakers: No Way

Posted on 04/08/2023 by SeeUS

The U.S. House of Representatives has voted unanimously to challenge China’s status as a developing nation, a classification made by organizations such as the World Bank and the United Nations that gives the world’s second-largest economy special treatment for trade and low-interest loans.

Young Kim, a Republican congresswoman from Southern California who introduced the bill, told lawmakers before the vote that China accounted for 18.6% of the global economy.

“Their economy size is second only to that of the United States. [The] United States is treated as a developed country, so should PRC,” Kim said before the March 27 vote on The PRC Is Not a Developing Country Act. Kim, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Indo-Pacific Subcommittee, introduced the bill with Gerry Connolly, a Virginia Democrat.

China’s state-backed media Global Times responded by saying that the U.S. has no right to play referee on China’s developing country status.

“Such attempt has only further exposed Washington’s sinister intentions to increase China’s development cost and force China to assume international responsibilities beyond its ability,” it said.

How is China, the world’s second-largest economy and home to the most billionaires —China has 969 while the U.S. has 691 — still categorized as a developing country, which means it enjoys the same special treatment in international trade as nations such as Bolivia and Zambia? When will China graduate and join the U.S. as a developed country?

Developing or developed?

China has long referred to itself as a developing country in its official narrative. Wang Yi, director of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Foreign Affairs Office, said when he was serving as China’s foreign minister in 2019 that China’s per capita GDP was only one-sixth that of the United States.

“Requiring a country that has only been developing for a few decades to shoulder the responsibilities of those industrial countries who have developed for hundreds of years, this itself is unfair,” he said at a news conference when meeting with European scholars, according to Xinhua News Agency.

Yet on the world stage, people are watching China’s economic power explode. Since 1978, its GDP has increased from less than $150 billion to $18.3 trillion in 2022, making it the second-largest economy after the United States. In 2023, China’s military spending will reach $230 billion, ranking second in the world after the U.S., which will spend more than $800 billion in fiscal year 2023.

And China has established a series of international organizations, including the Asian Infrastructure Investment bank and the Shanghai Cooperation Origination, to challenge the international aid order established by the U.S. after World War II.

“A widely adopted understanding for assessing a country’s development status is the income per capita, not the size of the whole economy,” said Weifeng Zhong, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

The World Bank uses gross national income (GNI) per capita and categorizes the world’s economies into four income groups: low, lower-middle, upper-middle and high income. The high-income countries, which need to have a GNI per capital above $13,205, are commonly considered to be developed countries.

The latest GNI per capita for China, $11,880 in 2021, is $1,325 below the threshold, so it is a developing country by the World Bank standard. Yet experts cautioned that classifying a country’s development status is inexact.

“International organizations … do not always have a clear income threshold for a country to ‘graduate’ from a developing country status,” Zhong told VOA in an emailed response.

The United Nations uses an aggregate indicator called the Human Development Index, which includes but is not limited to income. By this measure, China is a developing country.

The World Trade Organization allows countries to self-declare whether they are a developing country, and China always maintains that it is.

With that self-declaration being approved by other members when China joined the WTO in 2001, Beijing is able to enjoy special treatment, such as higher subsidies and better tariff rates, reserved for developing countries.

Robert Ross, a professor of political science at Boston College and an associate at Harvard’s John King Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, told VOA Mandarin that the WTO classification of China is political rather than economic.

“China lobbies hard to pressure countries not to change China’s status because it benefits immensely from the conditions for its exports and tariff levels and other issues. The U.S. has been unable to reach a consensus among WTO membership to change China’s status,” he said in a phone interview last week.

Why China wants the label

Experts who spoke with VOA Mandarin said there are tangible benefits in international trade to being recognized as a developing country.

When China joined the WTO in 2001, its GDP per capita was less than $1,000. Trading as a developing country meant China could impose an import tariff of 14%, compared with the 7% imposed by developed countries, according to the WTO. Developing countries also enjoy relaxed restrictions on trade subsidies and receive technical assistance from developed countries.

“Being considered a developing country for an unduly long time may allow China to enjoy a host of special and differential treatments that it may no longer fairly deserve,” said Zhong of George Mason University.

He said the Chinese government is known for heavily subsidizing preferred sectors to encourage growth. For example, as the world confronts the challenge of over-fishing, being considered a developing country would allow China, a world leader in fishing capacity, to retain more subsidies in negotiations with other countries, making the global over-fishing problem harder to tackle.

James Wen, an emeritus professor of economics at Trinity College in the U.S. state of Connecticut, said that in addition to tariff reductions and subsidies, China also enjoys special treatment in terms of loans from international financial institutions.

“International financial institutions have long been providing low-interest or interest-free loans to developing countries. China is qualified for such preferential treatment as a developing country. There are also many private NGOs offering financial aid to developing countries; China has benefited immensely from them as well,” he told VOA Mandarin via phone.

Brian Hart, a fellow with the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that apart from material benefits, China is using the label as a political signaling tool.

“I think in places like the WTO, what China really likes to do is to be able to cast itself as the leading developing country. It sees itself as being able to corral developing countries together on certain issues, and that’s a place where it really likes to be,” he told VOA Mandarin.

Ross from Boston College told VOA Mandarin said that the contradiction between China’s developing country status and its economic and political influence worldwide is “frequently frustrating to other countries, because China has these advantages that enable it to have a greater impact than it would otherwise have if we examine its political and economic clout.”

Zhong from George Mason University cautioned that the vote in the U.S. House of Representative won’t be enough to change China’s status.

He told VOA Mandarin, “U.S. representatives at various international organizations would need to work with like-minded countries to challenge China’s development status, which, depending on an international organization’s rule, may be a bigger undertaking than Washington policymakers think.”
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Trump Is Indicted. Now What?

Posted on 04/08/2023 by SeeUS

Former President Donald Trump was arraigned on 34 felony charges earlier this week, accused of falsifying New York business records to conceal his role in paying hush money to an adult film actress before the 2016 election. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara looks at how the unprecedented charges could inject fresh uncertainties into the 2024 presidential race.
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Western, Ukraine War Documents Leaked on Social Media

Posted on 04/08/2023 by SeeUS

Leaked Western documents with information about the war in Ukraine appear to have been doctored by Russia to minimize their own losses and exaggerate Ukraine’s. VOA’s Laurel Bowman reports.
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British Iranian Man Says He Will Continue Hunger Strike for 100 Days

Posted on 04/08/2023 by SeeEU

A British Iranian man who has been on a hunger strike outside the British Foreign Ministry building in London for 44 days says he is ready to continue his protest for 100 days.

Vahid Beheshti told Forbes that he is preparing to more than double the length of his strike, despite not knowing “how long my physical body can cooperate with me.”

Beheshti is on a hunger strike to pressure the British government to add the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to the country’s list of terrorist organizations.

He met with British Security Minister Tom Tugendhat on March 27 but told Forbes he has yet to hear anything from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

Beheshti, who began his strike in February, has lost more than 13 kilograms (29 pounds).

The Guardian newspaper reported that Beheshti, 44, had been a friend of the journalist and activist Ruhollah Zam, who was abducted by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iraq. Zam was executed while imprisoned in Iran in 2020.
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US Hopes Aid Will Stop Violence From Spilling Into Coastal West Africa

Posted on 04/08/2023 by SeeAF

The United States is preparing long-term assistance for the Ivory Coast, Benin and Togo as concerns rise that jihadi violence in the Sahel could spill into coastal West Africa, officials said.

Speaking to AFP, the officials said Western support was also critical to halting Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, which has made major inroads in violence-torn Sahel countries, including by allying with Mali’s military junta.

Vice President Kamala Harris, visiting Ghana last month as part of a growing U.S. push in Africa, promised $100 million over 10 years to reinforce resilience in coastal West Africa. State Department officials are looking at additional funding, including some from the counterterrorism budget.

In a new global strategy to prevent conflict and promote stability, President Joe Biden’s administration identified coastal West Africa as a priority for the coming decade.

The report, released in March, said that the Sahel to the immediate north had experienced more terrorist attacks than any other region and that it was critical to “prevent violent conflicts from emerging or further spreading across the region.”

While coastal cities connected to the world through seaports have been unscathed, violence has been rising in areas bordering Mali and Burkina Faso.

“It’s a significant and burgeoning threat,” said Michael Heath, the deputy assistant secretary of state in charge of West Africa.

“It’s something of concern to us because the capabilities of the governments in place — they’ve never faced a threat like this before,” he told AFP.

“They’re trying to cope with this, and we’re trying to see what kind of tools they need,” said Heath, who recently returned from a trip to the region with other State Department officials to assess needs.

Heath said he has not yet seen a presence in the three countries of the Wagner Group, which has been accused of human rights abuses in several countries including Ukraine, where the unit has played a key role in the invasion.

“They’re not yet in the coastal West African states, but we know they’re looking for opportunities to take advantage of instability wherever they see it,” he said.

U.S. officials accuse Russia of stepping up disinformation in French-speaking Africa, seeing a ripe audience due to post-colonial resentments.

Holistic approach

Concerns in the Sahel about violence as well as Russia have grown in the months since France ended an eight-year campaign against jihadis, which some critics faulted as overly focused on military solutions.

U.S. officials said that coastal West Africa would not be seeing violence without spillover from the north, but that instability can also be attributed to local factors and competition for resources as climate change aggravates scarcities.

U.S. officials said assistance would focus in part on addressing economic gaps that would help extremists recruit.

“We want to obviously help these governments who are more interested in a holistic approach and good governance address the problems of the north, where the resources are sparser,” said Gregory LoGerfo, a senior State Department counterterrorism official who was on the trip.

One key area, U.S. officials said, will be helping West African governments build their legal systems so they can distinguish between legitimate refugees fleeing the Sahel and security threats.

“There’s a lot of people with family ties across borders in Burkina Faso and back and so forth,” LoGerfo said. “You want a management system where you’re not shutting off families or economies, but you also have to address the security problem.”
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Somalia Bans Guns From Streets of Mogadishu

Posted on 04/07/2023 by SeeAF

Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud announced Friday that his government has banned people from carrying weapons on the streets of Mogadishu, the country’s capital.

“We impose a strict ban on carrying guns in the streets of Mogadishu. One cannot justify having machine guns mounted on vehicles and rocket propelled grenades in the streets, for protection from a hiding al-Shabab militant armed with a pistol,” the president said.

The president announced the ban during a Friday prayers sermon held inside his presidential compound in Mogadishu.

He said flouting the ban would not be tolerated.

“We will fight against those who fail to abide by the measures,” he warned.

Mohamud has also banned traders from importing all kinds of military gear, from uniforms to boots to equipment.

“No businessman can bring any kind of military gear into the country, let alone weapons. The traders cannot even import Abdi Bile vehicles in the country,” the president said.

Abdi Bile is a local name for a Toyota pickup model named after a Somali American runner who won the 1987 World Championship 1,500-meter in Rome, and it is popular in Somalia for being the best to mount self-propelled anti-aircraft guns.

An effort to restore stability

Some security experts see the move as a big step in the process of restoring stability in Mogadishu, which has not had reliable security plans since the collapse of the Siad Barre military regime in 1991.

“Since the collapse of the military regime, there has not been a single reliable and effective security plan that helped the city’s stability. Now, banning weapons from the streets is a good sign forward,” said General Mohamed Farah Aliyow, a veteran Somali military general, and Toronto-based security analyst.

Mogadishu, a densely populated seaside capital, was known as the White Pearl of the Indian Ocean before the civil war.

Over the years, the business community has set up its own security teams to protect their lives and properties. Government officials and lawmakers also have their own heavily armed guards, and armed private security guards operate in the city, making the city awash with guns.

Guns and other small arms are still available for sale in some areas of the city, though not as openly as they were in the past.

Government goes after al-Shabab

Hours before the announcement of the weapons ban, government media declared that the second phase of the government’s war with al-Shabab militants has begun in the Central Somalia region of Hiran.

Last week, government officials said they ended an eight-month-long military operation against al-Shabab militants.

During military operations early Friday, the Somali National Army, backed by local clan militias, took control of several villages in the Hiran region from the militants.

“The liberated areas have been hideouts of al-Shabab militants, but not strong bases, we will pursue them to their strongholds in the West of Beledweyne town,” said Hiran regional governor Ali Jeyte Osman. “I told before and repeat again: al-Shabab fighters are cowards who can’t face the army and the locals.”

Osman said the army took over the villages of Berhano, Tarejento, Burdaar and Nuur-Fanah, located south of Beledweyne, which has been the center of local communities’ mobilizations against al-Shabab. Beledweyne is about 300 kilometers north of Mogadishu.

On March 25, Somalia’s Ministry of Information said that 3,000 al-Shabab militants had been killed and 3,700 more injured in the first phase of military operations from August 2022 through January 2023. The government also said 70 towns and villages had been liberated from al-Shabab.

Meanwhile, the militant group claimed that the first phase of military operations by the Somali government and local fighters had failed. There have never been independent sources confirming the claims of either side, especially the number of war casualties.

In an interview with VOA’s Somali Service this March, Hussein Sheikh Ali, the national security adviser for the Somali president, said the three neighboring countries — Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya — were to send new troops to support Somali forces against al-Shabab in the second phase of the military operations, but it is not known when these troops will arrive.

Abdiaziz Ahmed contributed to this report from Mogadishu.
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Study Says Warming Likely to Push More Hurricanes Toward US Coasts

Posted on 04/07/2023 by SeeUS

Changes in air patterns as the world warms will likely push more and nastier hurricanes up against the United States’ East and Gulf coasts, especially in Florida, a new study said.

While other studies have projected how human-caused climate change will probably alter the frequency, strength and moisture of tropical storms, the study in Friday’s journal Science Advances focuses on where hurricanes are going.

It’s all about projected changes in steering currents, said study lead author Karthik Balaguru, a Pacific Northwest National Laboratory climate scientist.

“Along every coast they’re kind of pushing the storms closer to the U.S.,” Balaguru said. The steering currents move from south to north along the Gulf of Mexico; on the East Coast, the normal west-to-east steering is lessened considerably and can be more east-to-west, he said.

Overall, in a worst-case warming scenario, the number of times a storm hits parts of the U.S. coast in general will probably increase by one-third by the end of the century, the study said, based on sophisticated climate and hurricane simulations, including a system researchers developed.

The central and southern Florida Peninsula, which juts into the Atlantic, is projected to get even more of an increase in hurricanes hitting the coast, the study said.

Climate scientists disagree on how useful it is to focus on the worst-case scenario as the new study does, because many calculations show the world has slowed its increase in carbon pollution. Balaguru said because his study looks more at steering changes than strength, the levels of warming aren’t as big a factor.

The study projects changes in air currents traced to warming in the equatorial eastern Pacific Ocean, just off the coast of South America. Climate change is warming different parts of the world at different rates, and models show the eastern Pacific area warming more quickly, Balaguru said.

According to the study, that extra warming sets things in motion through Rossby waves — atmospheric waves that move west to east and are connected to changes in temperature or pressure, like the jet stream or polar vortex events.

“I like to explain it to my students like a rock being dropped in a smooth pond,” said University of Albany atmospheric scientist Kristen Corbosiero, who wasn’t part of the study. “The heating is the rock and Rossby waves are the waves radiating away from the heating which disturbs the atmosphere’s balance.”

The wave ripples trigger a counterclockwise circulation in the Gulf of Mexico, which bring winds blowing from east to west in the eastern Atlantic and south to north in the Gulf of Mexico, Corbosiero and Balaguru said.

It also reduces wind shear — which is the difference in speed and direction of winds at high and low altitudes — the study said. Wind shear often decapitates hurricanes and makes it harder for nascent storms to develop.

Less wind shear means stronger storms, Balaguru said.

Overall, the steering current and wind shear changes increase the risk to the United States, Corbosiero said in an email.
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Russians Accused of Doctoring Leaked Western Documents on Ukraine War

Posted on 04/07/2023 by SeeUS

Classified U.S. and NATO planning documents related to the war in Ukraine have appeared on social media, prompting officials in Washington to scramble to have them removed from Twitter and other online platforms.

Officials in Kyiv, meanwhile, cautioned that the documents were altered by the Russians, in part to cover up the true extent of casualties suffered by Moscow’s forces and inflate the number of Ukrainians they killed.

Photographs of documents labeled “top secret” and “secret,” including some containing folds and creases, were posted on Twitter and Telegram in recent days, according to officials and media reports. The files include charts and maps indicating locations of military forces and weaponry in Ukraine as of March 1 and appear to have been disseminated online as soon as that day.

“We are aware of the reports of social media posts, and the department is reviewing the matter,” the U.S. Defense Department said in a statement.

A Pentagon official insisted to VOA that there was no formal investigation underway, despite news reports to the contrary.

The disclosure was the first public intelligence breakthrough for Russia since it invaded Ukraine in late February 2022, according to The New York Times, which initially reported the leak Thursday.

The Times on Friday evening reported that a second batch of documents had surfaced on social media that “appear to detail American national security secrets from Ukraine to the Middle East to China.”

The first batch of documents also contain specific information about training schedules for Ukrainian combat brigades and expenditure rates for the HIMARS rocket launcher system the United States has provided ahead of Kyiv’s expected spring counteroffensive, according to media reports.

“I do not see any risks from the publication of this information, including the distorted information about the plans the General Staff of Ukraine is developing,” Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukraine’s president, told VOA’s Ukrainian Service. “They are irrelevant to what will work in a month or at a certain time when these scenarios will be implemented on the battlefield.”

Podolyak added that if the intercepted documents were wholly authentic, the Russians “would certainly not release them. You would pretend that you don’t know the plans.”

An altered chart lists Russian fatalities at 16,000 to 17,500, far below the plausible estimates of up to 200,000 killed, wounded or missing by numerous analysts and lowered from the 35,500 to 43,500 listed on an earlier leaked version. The doctored chart also lists the estimate of Ukrainian soldiers killed at 61,000 to 71,500, up from 16,000 to 17,500 in an earlier photograph of the document posted online.

“The altered numbers expose them [the Russian intelligence services] completely. And it shows that the main reason of this was to convince the Russian public that only 17,000 [Russian] soldiers died,” said Andrey Piontkovsky, senior fellow at the Institute of Modern Russia, headquartered in New York.

“This is a propaganda operation designed primarily for Russian public opinion,” Piontkovsky told VOA’s Russian Service on Friday, adding that what has been released does not contain “any detailed harmful military information.”

Some Russian military bloggers are pointing fingers in the other direction, asserting the documents were leaked by Western intelligence to mislead Russian commanders ahead of the upcoming counteroffensive by the Ukrainians.

Such a warning was posted to Telegram by the Grey Zone account, which is associated with the Russian private paramilitary force known as the Wagner Group.

More than 30 of the documents initially appeared on a Discord server on March 1 and 2, according to Aric Toler, a researcher at Bellingcat, a fact-checking and open source intelligence group based in the Netherlands. Discord is a popular voice, video and text communication service based in San Francisco.

“They were all photographed from hard copies,” as the hand of a person can be seen in the pictures, Toler told VOA on Friday.

By March 5, after they propagated to other Discord servers and the anonymous 4chan online bulletin board, a doctored document and others apparently unaltered were posted on Russian Telegram channels, according to Toler.

U.S. government officials have been requesting that social media companies delete the postings, although it is unknown when they first became aware of the leak. It is also not known how successful they have been in getting the documents deleted or how Twitter responded to the requests.

An e-mailed query from VOA on Friday to the social media platform generated an automated reply with a “poop” emoji, Twitter’s standard response recently to all media inquiries.

A number of the documents were still visible on Twitter as of Friday afternoon, with some racking up hundreds of thousands of views.

Tatiana Vorozhko and Rafael Saakyan contributed to this report.
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Ghana Beefs Up Security Near Burkina Border as Ethnic War Attracts Terrorists

Posted on 04/07/2023 by SeeAF

Ghana has deployed 1,000 special forces to its northern border with Burkina Faso after gunmen this week shot at immigration officers in a border town, killing one. The attack has sparked fears that Islamist militants in Burkina Faso are stirring unrest to expand in the region.

The 40-year-old ethnic conflict between the Mamprusi and Kusasi people over a chieftaincy seat in Bawku — an hour drive from Burkina Faso’s border with Ghana — has escalated into a war, reportedly involving foreign combatants, leaving more than 30 people dead between December and April, according to police records.

Experts said the porous borders and smuggling routes have become major threats to the peaceful atmosphere in Ghana as Islamist militants take advantage of political instability in Ouagadougou to expand their frontiers in coastal West Africa from the Sahel region.

Amadu Hamza, the mayor of the border town of Bawku in the Upper East Region of Ghana, told VOA that the lax security situation at unmanned entry points is worrying.

“The challenge we have is that there are a lot of loopholes where there could be permanent posts,” said Hamza. “However, the government of Ghana for one or two reasons have not committed enough resources to be able to have those permanent soldiers policing those areas to prevent the Jihadists.”

Bawku victim of instability, conflict

Hamza said the internal conflict, coupled with the instability in Burkina Faso, has adversely affected the town’s once thriving economy, making the unemployment situation worse and young people more vulnerable to recruitment by Islamist militants.

“There is complete reduction in the general economy of Bawku,” said Hamza, adding that the “majority of the people can’t come in from Burkina Faso, Togo, Niger and Mali. People from Bawku cannot also cross. Only a few of them risk their lives to go. The fear is that when you go the Jihadists will kill you and unemployment is the major cause of the Jihadists for them to get you and recruit you into their camps.”

‘Access to education is key’

Mahama Ayariga, a member of parliament representing a district in Bawku and a member of the opposition National Democratic Congress, said terrorists are knocking on Ghana’s door from volatile northern frontiers and are calling on the government to channel more resources toward resolving the decades-long ethnic conflict within Bawku.

“As for this talk about terrorism, you see, we have a problem, and we are not focusing our resources on it, and we are not concerned about the lives of people in Bawku that are dying,” said Ayariga. “We are [rather] concerned about terrorists crossing over. Come on, are you saying that the Ghana Armed Forces cannot manage that small geographical space? That is my real fundamental problem.”

As the Ghanaian government increases its security presence in Bawku by sending more troops to ensure safety, Adib Saani, the executive director of the Jatikay Center for Peace Building, said officials must focus more on improving the lives of locals by providing them basic amenities.

“Access to education is key,” he said. “Access to basic necessities of life — food, water, sanitation and shelter — especially opportunities for young people who are largely unemployed and sit under trees to talk the whole day and they have guns on them.”

So far, Ghana has been spared a direct attack linked to Islamist militants in Burkina Faso. But with Bawku fast becoming the epicenter of violent attacks on citizens — especially women and children — the security agencies are pressed to up their game to protect its 144,000 inhabitants and secure the borders
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UN Weekly Roundup: April 1-7, 2023

Posted on 04/07/2023 by SeeEU

Editor’s note: Here is a fast take on what the international community has been up to this past week, as seen from the United Nations perch.

Taliban bans Afghan women from working for UN

The United Nations said Wednesday that it will not comply with a Taliban decree banning Afghan women from working for the organization and called on them to revoke it. Taliban officials informed the United Nations verbally on Tuesday that an existing ban on women working for humanitarian organizations has been extended to include the U.N. The U.N. is continuing to engage with the Taliban to try to get the edict reversed. In the meantime, it has instructed both female and male Afghan staff to work from home.

UN Demands Taliban Reverse Ban on Afghan Female Staff

Q&A: Linda Thomas-Greenfield

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield spoke to VOA Monday about her recent trip to Costa Rica for the 2023 Democracy Summit and the important role of youth in government, her concerns about Russia’s and China’s influence in the region and calls for a non-U.N. international force to help Haiti.

Q&A: US UN Envoy: ‘Standing with Russia is a Losing Proposition’

ICC-indicted Russian official briefs Security Council

The Russian official charged alongside President Vladimir Putin by the International Criminal Court for the alleged abduction of thousands of Ukrainian children said Wednesday that Moscow is “fully open” to cooperation in the interest of the children. Maria Lvova-Belova told an informal Security Council meeting via video link that Russia is protecting children in its custody. Ukraine says more than 16,000 children have been forcibly abducted to Russia during the 13-month war. Several council members walked out in protest when Lvova-Belova made her remarks.

Russian Official Indicted by ICC Briefs UN Security Council

Report: Enforced disappearances rife in Iraq

A U.N. watchdog committee is urging the Iraqi government to take action to stop the practice of enforced disappearances, which has resulted in the abduction and disappearance of up to a million people in the past five decades. The U.N. Committee on Enforced Disappearances expressed “deep concern” that the practice is not criminalized and continues to be widespread and practiced with impunity.

Up to 1 Million Iraqis Are Victims of Enforced Disappearance

Mozambique battles cholera after cyclone

The World Health Organization says Mozambique is experiencing its worst cholera outbreak in 20 years, following the devastation of Cyclone Freddy, which killed hundreds of people in Mozambique, Madagascar and Malawi in February and March. Tom Gould reports for VOA from Quelimane, Mozambique, on the outbreak.

Mozambique Battles Cholera in Record Cyclone’s Aftermath

In brief

— Cindy McCain took up her post as executive director of the World Food Program on Wednesday. It is a challenging time for the agency, which delivered food last year to a record 158 million people as it deals with funding shortages and unprecedented levels of global food insecurity. Since 2021, McCain has served as the U.S. ambassador to the three U.N. food and agriculture agencies in Rome. She succeeds David Beasley, who held the post from 2017 until earlier this week.

— International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Mariano Grossi went to Kaliningrad, Russia, on Wednesday, where he met with officials on his efforts to secure a demilitarized zone in and around Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. The plant has come under repeated shelling and blackouts during the war and is currently occupied by Russian troops. A team of IAEA experts is also based at the facility. Grossi met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the city of Zaporizhzhia last week.

— A new report by the World Health Organization this week said 1 in 6 people worldwide is experiencing infertility. The WHO said this shows the urgent need to increase access to affordable, high-quality fertility care for those in need. In most countries fertility treatments are largely paid out of pocket, putting the cost of starting a family beyond the reach of many.

Good news

The U.N. said Thursday that it has secured a supertanker to replace the decaying oil tanker FSO Safer, which is moored off the coast of Yemen and poses a serious environmental threat. The Nautica set sail from Zhoushan, China, this week and will arrive in Yemen in early May. A salvage company will oversee the transfer from the Safer to the Nautica of more than a million barrels of oil that the U.N. has warned for years would cause a catastrophic environmental disaster if the nearly 50-year-old Safer started leaking or exploded. Read more from our archive about the efforts to get this mission underway.

UN Buys Oil Tanker to Begin Salvage Operation Off Yemeni Coast

Did you know?

The World Health Organization turned 75 on Friday. When the United Nations was founded in San Francisco in 1945, diplomats agreed there was a need for a body to encourage collaboration to control the spread of dangerous diseases, and the WHO was born. On April 7, 1948, the WHO’s constitution entered into force. Now that day is recognized as World Health Day. The health agency began with a focus on mass campaigns against tuberculosis, malaria, yaws, syphilis, smallpox and leprosy. When the polio vaccine was developed in 1952, the agency began work to eradicate the disease worldwide. The WHO also brings health care to refugees, displaced persons and people living in conflict zones. Most recently, the WHO has been at the forefront of coordinating the global response to the COVID-19 virus, including vaccinations.
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Ugandan Court Charges Government Minister With Corruption

Posted on 04/07/2023 by SeeAF

Activists in Uganda are welcoming the rare prosecution of a government minister on corruption charges but are skeptical that other high-level officials will be charged in the scandal.

Karamoja Affairs Minister Mary Goretti Kitutu was charged Thursday with fraud and causing loss of public property in the theft of thousands of metal roofing sheets meant for poor residents in her community. She will remain in jail over the holiday weekend and was expected to remain in custody until her next court appearance Wednesday.

Uganda’s public prosecutor said other ministers implicated in the scheme would be held accountable.

The prosecutor’s office said Kitutu, her younger brother and Joshua Abaho, a senior assistant secretary in the same ministry who was reported to be on the run, had diverted roofing meant for beneficiaries under the Karamoja community empowerment program. Karamoja is the least developed part of Uganda, with hundreds of thousands still living in mud-thatched houses known as manyattas.

The prosecution of government ministers for corruption is rare in Uganda, where theft and misuse of public funds and materials is routine. As investigations into the scandal continue, nine other ministers, including executive members of the government such as the vice president, the speaker of parliament and the prime minister, are potential suspects.

Marlon Agaba, with the Anti-Corruption Coalition of Uganda, told VOA he doubted the remaining ministers would be held accountable.

‘Sacrificial lamb’

“In a way, she has been given in as a sacrificial lamb,” Agaba said of Kitutu. “That doesn’t take away her culpability. It has happened before, where probably one person or two are taken to court and the others go away scot-free. So to me, it’s not surprising at all. But we also need to know that, yes, she has been taken to court, [but] it’s not time for rejoicing yet, because in the country where we are, we don’t have a history of convicting actually the ministers.”

The vice president and the prime minister have publicly stated that Kitutu gave them the roofing sheets. Agaba said those were flimsy excuses.

“If you’re a prime minister or a speaker or whatever and the minister of Karamoja is giving you iron sheets, you think those iron sheets are coming from where?” he said. “They knew that these iron sheets were for the people of Karamoja. Because even information came out showing that they even discussed on WhatsApp and other platforms and agreed how they were going to share these iron sheets.”

The Committee on Presidential Affairs in Uganda’s parliament is conducting a separate probe. Legislator Jacob Karubanga told VOA those who benefited from the diverted roofing sheets should not have received what belonged to Karamoja.

“If anybody diverted iron sheets meant for a particular group, that was wrong,” he said. “But to what extent it is wrong is the problem. Because on the other hand, those who received the iron sheets, in any case, are also vulnerable. But it was not meant for those particular vulnerables who received them. [The sheets that Kitutu gave out] should have been delivered to the originally identified vulnerables in Karamoja.”

Jacquelyn Okui, spokesperson for the Director of Public Prosecutions, said the case was getting the attention it deserved. When asked by VOA if Kitutu was being used as a scapegoat in the scandal. Okui said, “No, it’s just a process. You see, the iron sheets scandal is, I would say, like a big elephant. So it’s been decided that it be handled piecemeal. There are other cases filed for other suspects, which are still being investigated.”
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US Helps to Remove Landmines Left Behind After Wars in Southeast Asia

Posted on 04/07/2023 by SeeUS

The U.S. is committed to removing landmines and other explosive remnants of the war in Vietnam throughout Southeast Asia, according to an annual report released by the State Department.

According to the report, To Walk the Earth in Safety, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia all face challenges in the safe removal of explosive remnants of war.

Iraq is the largest recipient of the U.S. government’s global program, having received more than $675 million since 1993. It is followed in the top five recipients by Afghanistan with nearly $574 million, then Laos with more than $355 million, Vietnam with over $206 million and Cambodia with nearly $192 million.

One of the biggest challenges to the implementation of the conventional weapons destruction (CWD) programs in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia is the impact of climate change that causes hotter weather, flooding, landslides and droughts, according to the report.

Karen Chandler, deputy assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs at the State Department, told VOA Vietnamese on Tuesday, “There are two effects: One is that unexploded ordnance that previously has been hidden becomes exposed … and suddenly you see all of this new contamination that’s been laid bare by these landslides. … Another aspect of it is that it slows down the work and makes it more difficult.”

Difficult job, but ‘big payoff’

Chandler described the work of removing unexploded ordnance as “a hard job, but one with a big payoff of people’s lives and well-being.” To leave ordnance behind had “catastrophic consequences for civilians living in proximity to these dangerous depots.” Removing the lethal leftovers also boosts food security by making the land safe for cultivation.

The U.S. is the world’s single largest financial supporter of CWD programs. Since 1993, the U.S. has spent more than $4.6 billion for the safe clearance of landmines and explosive weapons of war, as well as for securing and safely disposing of excess small arms and light weapons and munitions in more than 120 countries and areas, according to the report.

In fiscal 2022, the U.S. supported conventional weapons destruction in more than 65 countries and areas with more than $376 million.

The U.S. has provided nearly $753 million over the past three decades for conventional weapons destruction in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. They receive the largest amounts of U.S. funding for CWD in the East Asia and Pacific region. The three countries received almost $75 million in the past fiscal year. Laos received just over $45 million, Vietnam received more than $20.2 million and Cambodia received the rest, or just over $9.5 million, according to the report.

“Vietnam is one of our longest and strongest programs,” Chandler told VOA Vietnamese when referring to the CWD program the U.S. is implementing in more than 120 countries around the world. “Our assistance in the East Asia Pacific region overall spans about $822 million since 1993, and about $168 million of that has been assistance between the United States and the government of Vietnam.”

Nguyen Hanh Phuc, deputy director of the Vietnam National Mine Action Center, which partners with the State Department for the CWD programs in Vietnam, told a conference in Hanoi commemorating the International Day for Mine Awareness on April 4 that the unexploded ordnance contaminates 6.1 million hectares. Most of the ordnance is lethal cluster munitions concentrated in the central provinces near the former Demilitarized Zone, according to the report.

Chandler said removal efforts are focused on “addressing the contamination in Quang Binh and Quang Tri provinces. … Those are the central provinces where we see the highest amount of, or the highest density of, legacy contamination from the Vietnam War.”

The report said that significant concentrations of unexploded ordnance also remain in parts of southern Vietnam as well as landmine contamination along the country’s northern border with China, where the neighboring countries fought in 1979.

40,000 deaths

Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said last April that bombs and mines left behind by the U.S. and its allies after the Vietnam War had killed more than 40,000 people and injured 60,000 since 1975.

In Laos, most of the explosive remnants of war are from U.S. aerial bombing campaigns against the communist Pathet Lao conducted during the Vietnam War, according to a 2019 report by the Congressional Research Service, War Legacy Issues in Southeast Asia: Unexploded Ordnance (UXO). Unexploded cluster munitions, referred to locally as “bombies,” remain in most of the country’s provinces.

Laos received more than $355 million in 1995 from the U.S. for CWD. During the so-called “shadow war” from 1964 to 1973, the U.S. dropped more than 2 million tons of bombs on Laos, making it, per capita, the most heavily bombed country in history.

In Cambodia, according to the report, in addition to the explosive remnants of war from the Vietnam War, internal conflicts that ended in 1999 also left behind unexploded ordnance. The report said extensive minefields were laid by the Khmer Rouge, Royal Cambodian Armed Forces, and Vietnamese and Thai militaries during fighting and occupations.

“We’ve provided approximately $191.5 million for clearance operations in Cambodia and about $9 million of that was just this year,” said Chandler, adding that the Cambodia Mine Action Center has sent some of its people to train Ukrainian deminers because Cambodians are expert in using a “very specific type of landmine detector that Japan has provided.” It is more modern than the aging Russian-built detectors Ukrainians are using as they fight invading Russian forces.

Chandler told VOA Khmer after the briefing that “with the Cambodian government, it’s absolutely a priority for us to be able to continue to help Cambodia remove landmines and explosive remnants of war as a way to return lands to Cambodian people and promote economic prosperity and food security.”

VOA Khmer’s Khemara Pov Sok contributed to this report.
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only the best

Month: April 2023

At Easter Vigil, Pope Francis Encourages Hope Amid ‘Icy Winds of War’

US to Test Faster Asylum Screenings for Migrants Crossing Border Illegally

Gunmen Kill 74 in Nigeria’s Benue State

Ojibwe Woman Makes History as North Dakota Poet Laureate

Marathon Race Walk Mixed Relay to Debut at Paris Olympics

Biden’s Ancestral Hometowns Prepare Warm Irish Welcome

In Africa’s Okavango, Oil Drilling Disrupts Locals, Nature

Tennessee Becomes New Front in Battle for American Democracy

South Africa Outraged After UAE Denies Gupta Extradition

Russia Loses Election to Three UN Bodies Over Ukraine

US States Consider Ban on Cosmetics With ‘Forever Chemicals’

How Africa’s Sahel Region is Becoming a Media Desert

China: We’re Still a Developing Nation. US Lawmakers: No Way

Trump Is Indicted. Now What?

Western, Ukraine War Documents Leaked on Social Media

British Iranian Man Says He Will Continue Hunger Strike for 100 Days

US Hopes Aid Will Stop Violence From Spilling Into Coastal West Africa

Somalia Bans Guns From Streets of Mogadishu

Study Says Warming Likely to Push More Hurricanes Toward US Coasts

Russians Accused of Doctoring Leaked Western Documents on Ukraine War

Ghana Beefs Up Security Near Burkina Border as Ethnic War Attracts Terrorists

UN Weekly Roundup: April 1-7, 2023

Ugandan Court Charges Government Minister With Corruption

US Helps to Remove Landmines Left Behind After Wars in Southeast Asia