Month: April 2023

TikTok Fined $15.9M by UK Watchdog for Misuse of Kids’ Data

Posted on by SeeEU

Britain’s privacy watchdog hit TikTok with a multimillion-dollar penalty Tuesday for misusing children’s data and violating other protections for users’ personal information.

The Information Commissioner’s Office said it issued a fine of $15.9 million to the short-video sharing app, which is wildly popular with young people.

It’s the latest example of tighter scrutiny that TikTok and its parent, Chinese technology company ByteDance, are facing in the West, where governments are increasingly concerned about risks that the app poses to data privacy and cybersecurity.

The British watchdog, which was investigating data breaches between May 2018 and July 2020, said TikTok allowed as many as 1.4 million children in the U.K. under 13 to use the app in 2020, despite the platform’s own rules prohibiting children that young from setting up accounts.

TikTok didn’t adequately identify and remove children under 13 from the platform, the watchdog said. And even though it knew younger children were using the app, TikTok failed to get consent from their parents to process their data, as required by Britain’s data protection laws, the agency said.

“There are laws in place to make sure our children are as safe in the digital world as they are in the physical world. TikTok did not abide by those laws,” Information Commissioner John Edwards said in a press release.

TikTok collected and used personal data of children who were inappropriately given access to the app, he said.

“That means that their data may have been used to track them and profile them, potentially delivering harmful, inappropriate content at their very next scroll,” Edwards said.

The company said it disagreed with the watchdog’s decision.

“We invest heavily to help keep under 13s off the platform and our 40,000-strong safety team works around the clock to help keep the platform safe for our community,” TikTok said in statement. “We will continue to review the decision and are considering next steps.”

TikTok says it has improved its sign-up system since the breaches happened by no longer allowing users to simply declare they are old enough and looking for other signs that an account is used by someone under 13.

The penalty also covered other breaches of U.K. data privacy law.

The watchdog said TikTok failed to properly inform people about how their data is collected, used and shared in an easily understandable way. Without this information, it’s unlikely that young users would be able “to make informed choices” about whether and how to use TikTok, it said.

TikTok also failed to ensure personal data of British users was processed lawfully, fairly and transparently, the regulator said.

TikTok initially faced a 27 million-pound fine, which was reduced after the company persuaded regulators to drop other charges.

U.S. regulators in 2019 fined TikTok, previously known as Music.aly, $5.7 million in a case that involved similar allegations of unlawful collection of children’s personal information.

Also Tuesday, Australia became the latest country to ban TikTok from its government devices, with authorities from the European Union to the United States concerned that the app could share data with the Chinese government or push pro-Beijing narratives

U.S. lawmakers are also considering forcing a sale or even banning it outright as tensions with China grow.
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Finland Joins NATO in Major Blow to Russia Over Ukraine War

Posted on by SeeEU

Finland joined the NATO military alliance Tuesday, dealing a major blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin with a historic realignment of Europe’s post-Cold War security landscape triggered by Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Nordic country’s membership doubles Russia’s border with the world’s biggest security alliance. Finland had adopted neutrality after its defeat by the Soviets in World War II, but its leaders signaled they wanted to join NATO just months after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine sent a shiver of fear through its neighbors.

The move is a strategic and political setback for Putin, who has long complained about NATO’s expansion toward Russia and partly used that as a justification for the invasion.

“I’m tempted to say this is maybe the one thing that we can thank Mr. Putin for because he once again here precipitated something he claims to want to prevent by Russia’s aggression, causing many countries to believe that they have to do more to look out for their own defense and to make sure that they can deter possible Russian aggression going forward,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said before accepting the documents that made Finland’s membership official.

The U.S. State Department is the repository of NATO texts concerning membership.

Russia warned it would be forced to take “retaliatory measures” to address what it called security threats created by Finland’s membership. It had also warned it would bolster forces near Finland if NATO sends any additional troops or equipment to what is its 31st member country.

The alliance says it poses no threat to Moscow.

Alarmed by Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine last year, Finland, which shares a 1,340 kilometer (832 mile) border with Russia, applied to join in May, setting aside years of military nonalignment to seek protection under the organization’s security umbrella.

“It’s a great day for Finland and an important day for NATO, too,” said Finnish President Sauli Niinisto. “Russia tried to create a sphere around them and, well, we are not a sphere. I’m sure that Finns themselves feel more secure, that we are living in a more stable world.”

Neighboring Sweden, which has avoided military alliances for more than 200 years, has also applied. But objections from NATO members Turkey and Hungary have delayed the process.

Niinisto said Finland’s membership “is not complete without that of Sweden. The persistent efforts for a rapid Swedish membership continue.“

Earlier, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Moscow “will be forced to take military-technical and other retaliatory measures to counter the threats to our national security arising from Finland’s accession to NATO.”

It said Finland’s move marks “a fundamental change in the situation in Northern Europe, which had previously been one of the most stable regions in the world.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Finland’s membership reflects the alliance’s anti-Russian course and warned that Moscow will respond depending on what weapons NATO allies place there. But he also sought to play down the impact, noting that Russia has no territorial disputes with Finland.

It’s not clear what additional military resources Russia could send to the Finnish border. Moscow has deployed the bulk of its most capable military units to Ukraine.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said no more troops would be sent to Finland unless it asked for help.

The country is now protected by what Stoltenberg called NATO’s “iron-clad security guarantee,” under which all member countries vow to come to the defense of any ally that comes under attack.

But Stoltenberg refused to rule out the possibility of holding more military exercises there and said that NATO would not allow Russia’s demands to dictate the organization’s decisions.

“We are constantly assessing our posture, our presence. We have more exercises, we have more presence, also in the Nordic area,” he said.

Finland’s Parliament, meanwhile, said its website was hit with a so-called denial-of-service attack, which made the site hard to use, with many pages not loading and some functions not available.

A pro-Russian hacker group known as NoName057 (16) claimed responsibility, saying the attack was retaliation for Finland joining NATO. The claim could not be immediately verified.

The hacker group, which has reportedly acted on Moscow’s orders, has taken party in a slew of cyberattacks on the U.S. and its allies in the past. Finnish public broadcaster YLE said the same group hit the Parliament’s site last year.

Finland’s entry, marked with a flag-raising ceremony at NATO headquarters, falls on the organization’s very own birthday, the 74th anniversary of the signing of its founding Washington Treaty on April 4, 1949. It also coincides with a meeting of the alliance’s foreign ministers.
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Biden Offers $450M for Clean Energy Projects at Coal Mines  

Posted on by SeeUS

President Joe Biden’s administration is making $450 million available for solar farms and other clean energy projects across the country at the site of current or former coal mines, part of his ongoing efforts to combat climate change.

As many as five projects nationwide will be funded through the 2021 infrastructure law, with at least two projects set aside for solar farms, the White House said Tuesday.

The White House also said it will allow developers of clean energy projects to take advantage of billions of dollars in new bonuses being offered in addition to investment and production tax credits available through the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. The bonuses will “incentivize more clean energy investment in energy communities, particularly coal communities,” that have been hurt by a decade-plus decline in U.S. coal production, the White House said.

The actions are among steps the Biden administration is taking as the Democratic president moves to convert the U.S. economy to renewable energy such as wind and solar power, while turning away from coal and other fossil fuels that produce planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions.

The projects are modeled on a site Biden visited last summer, where a former coal-fired power plant in Massachusetts is shifting to offshore wind power. Biden highlighted the former Brayton Point power plant in Somerset, Massachusetts, calling it the embodiment of the transition to clean energy that he is seeking but has struggled to realize in the first two years of his presidency.

“It’s very clear that … the workers who powered the last century of industry and innovation can power the next one,” said Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, whose agency will oversee the new grant program.

Former mining areas in Appalachia and other parts of the country have long had the infrastructure, workforce, expertise and “can-do attitude” to produce energy, Granholm told reporters on Monday. “And now, thanks to President Biden’s investments in America, we have the resources that can help them bring this new energy economy to life.”

Up to five clean energy projects will be funded at current and former mines, Granholm said. The demonstration projects are expected to be examples for future development, “providing knowledge and experience that catalyze the next generation of clean energy on mine land projects,” the Energy Department said.

Applications are due by the end of August, with grant decisions expected by early next year.

In a related development, the Energy Department said it is awarding $16 million from the infrastructure law to West Virginia University and the University of North Dakota to study ways to extract critical minerals such as lithium, copper and nickel from coal mine waste streams.

Rare earth elements and other minerals are key parts of batteries for electric vehicles, cellphones and other technology. Biden has made boosting domestic mining a priority as the U.S. seeks to decrease its reliance on China, which has long dominated the battery supply chain.

One of the two universities that will receive funding is in the home state of one of Biden’s loudest critics, West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a fellow Democrat who has decried what he calls Biden’s anti-coal agenda. Manchin complained on Friday about new Treasury Department guidelines for EV tax credits that he said ignore the intent of last year’s climate and health care law.

The new rules are aimed at reducing U.S. dependence on China and other countries for EV battery supply chains, but Manchin said they don’t move fast enough to “bring manufacturing back to America and ensure we have reliable and secure supply chains.”

Manchin, who chairs the Senate Energy Committee, also slammed Biden last year after the president vowed to shutter coal-fired power plants and rely more heavily on wind and solar energy.

The powerful coal state lawmaker called Biden’s comments last November “divorced from reality,” adding that they “ignore the severe economic pain” caused by higher energy prices as a result of declining domestic production of coal and other fossil fuels. The White House said Biden’s words in a Nov. 4 speech in California had been “twisted to suggest a meaning that was not intended” and that the president regretted any offense caused.

“No one is building new coal plants because they can’t rely on it, even if they have all the coal guaranteed for the rest of their existence of the plant. So it’s going to become a wind generation,” Biden said in the speech in Carlsbad, California. “We’re going to be shutting these plants down all across America and having wind and solar.”

Biden has set a goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 and achieve a net-zero emissions economy by 2050.

White House climate adviser Ali Zaidi said Monday that Biden believes U.S. leaders “need to be bold” in combating climate change “and that includes helping revitalize the economies of coal, oil and gas and power-plant communities.”
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UConn Tops San Diego State for Men’s College Basketball Championship

Posted on by SeeUS

The University of Connecticut earned its fifth U.S. men’s college basketball championship Monday with a 76-59 victory over San Diego State. 

UConn’s Adama Sanogo, who is originally from Mali, was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player after scoring 17 points and pulling down 10 rebounds in the final game. 

UConn got out to a strong start, building a 16-point lead late in the game’s first half.  But San Diego State responded in the second half, cutting the UConn advantage to just five points with about five minutes left in the game. 

Then a UConn run of nine unanswered points put the game out of reach. 

Monday’s men’s title game followed the women’s championship game Sunday in which Louisiana State University topped the University of Iowa 102-85 to win the school’s first title. 

Jasmine Carson led LSU with 22 points as the team surpassed the previous record of 97 points scored by one team in a women’s championship game. 

There was also record interest in the contest, as 9.9 million viewers made it the most watched NCAA women’s basketball game on record. 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press. 
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One Killed in Train Accident Near The Hague, 30 Injured

Posted on by SeeEU

At least one person was killed and 30 injured, many seriously, when a passenger train carrying about 50 people derailed in the Netherlands early on Tuesday after hitting construction equipment on the track, Dutch emergency services said. 

Rescue teams were at the scene of the accident at Voorschoten, a village near The Hague, the emergency services said. 

A fire department spokesman told Dutch radio that 19 people were taken to hospital. Others were being treated on the spot, the emergency services said. 

The front carriage of the night train from Leiden city to The Hague derailed and ploughed into a field after the accident, ANP news agency said. The second carriage was on its side and a fire broke out in the rear carriage but was later extinguished, it said.   

There were conflicting reports about the cause of the accident. 

Earlier reports had said the passenger train had collided with a freight train. Dutch Railways (NS) spokesman Erik Kroeze said a freight train was involved in the accident but could not give details. 

Dutch Railways said in a tweet that trains between Leiden and parts of The Hague were cancelled due to the accident. 
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Trump Set for Indictment in New York Hush Money Criminal Case

Posted on by SeeUS

Former U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to turn himself in Tuesday to face a criminal indictment in a New York state court, the first ever filed against a current or former U.S. leader.    

Trump’s lawyers say he will plead not guilty to charges linked to his $130,000 hush money payment to a porn actor, just ahead of his 2016 presidential election victory, to silence her about her claim of an alleged tryst with him a decade earlier. Trump has long denied the claim.        

The former president traveled Monday from his home in Florida to New York City.    

Lawyers for Trump argued against allowing cameras in the courtroom Tuesday. In a letter to the court Monday, they said such coverage would “exacerbate an already almost circus-like atmosphere around this case.”     

Officials familiar with the indictment say a grand jury last week charged the 76-year-old former president with more than 30 counts of criminal wrongdoing. The indictment remains sealed, and the exact charges, and possibly supporting evidence, could remain secret until the indictment is publicly disclosed at Trump’s arraignment Tuesday before Judge Juan Manuel Merchan in New York State Supreme Court.        

When he is booked, Trump is likely to be fingerprinted like any criminal defendant and his mugshot taken. But authorities say as a deference to his standing as a former president, he is unlikely to be handcuffed or paraded before photographers in a so-called “perp walk.”     

Dozens of police have assembled near Trump Tower and the courthouse, while Trump’s Secret Service detail has mapped out his passage into the courthouse and walk to Merchan’s courtroom. The White House declined to discuss security arrangements but said the government is “always prepared” for whatever might unfold.     

New York City Mayor Eric Adams warned that “rabble-rousers” coming to the city to protest had better behave. “Our message is clear and simple: Control yourselves. New York City is our home, not a playground for your misplaced anger,” he said.     

When asked if he thought there would be unrest in the city, U.S. President Joe Biden, who was touring a factory in Minnesota, replied, “No, I have faith in the New York Police Department.”      

Barricades have been erected to restrict traffic near the courthouse, but Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Trump ally, and the New York Young Republican Club, say they are planning a “peaceful protest” against Bragg across the street from the courthouse Tuesday afternoon.      

Trump has criticized Bragg on social media for what he says is a political “witch hunt” against him. Trump has contended the judge “hates me” after Merchan, in a separate case earlier this year, fined subsidiaries of The Trump Organization $1.6 million in a tax fraud scheme.         

After the proceeding, Trump, who is trying to win the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and reclaim the White House, is planning to fly back to Florida, where he will deliver remarks Tuesday night from his Mar-a-Lago estate and gather with his supporters.         

Since his indictment last Thursday, Trump’s campaign said it has raised $5 million and logged more than 16,000 volunteer sign-ups, which campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said were “key indicators that Americans from all backgrounds are sick and tired of the weaponization of the justice system against President Trump and his supporters.”        

Before the indictment, Trump led national polls in surveys taken of Republican voters on their choice for the party’s presidential nomination.     

The former president is also facing other criminal investigations. They include federal probes of his efforts to upend his 2020 reelection loss to Biden, including Trump’s role in encouraging supporters to try to block Congress from certifying Biden’s victory on January 6, 2021, and his retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. He was required to turn over the material to the National Archives when he left office.       

Meanwhile, in a narrower case, a prosecutor in the southern state of Georgia is probing Trump’s efforts there to reverse Biden’s win when Trump asked election officials to “find” him enough votes to claim victory.        

While the details of the New York hush money case remain undisclosed, the outcome of any trial could hinge on the intent behind the payment to adult film actor Stormy Daniels. Michael Cohen, Trump’s long-time former lawyer and political fixer, used his own money to make the payment to her just ahead of the November 2016 election and was later reimbursed by Trump in installments, with Trump listing the payments on his corporate ledger as a business expense for Cohen’s legal fees.        

On Sunday, Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina told CNN the payment to Daniels was a “personal expenditure, not a campaign expenditure.” The Wall Street Journal first reported the payment in early 2018. 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 
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What Happens After Trump Is Arraigned

Posted on by SeeUS

Donald Trump’s arraignment scheduled for Tuesday is expected to last less than an hour. But it could take years for his case to reach a conclusion as the litigious former president fights the charges, extending the case beyond the 2024 presidential election in which he is running as a candidate.   

 

Trump became the first former president to face criminal charges when a grand jury in New York voted last week to indict him in connection with a hush money payment to a porn actor in 2016. The indictment remains under seal.  

 

“In a typical felony case, you could be talking about a year of back and forth before the case goes to trial,” said Lance Fletcher, a New York City criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. “If it’s a high-profile case or [involves] very serious charges, this back and forth during the pretrial could easily take two years. So, I wouldn’t be surprised if this took more like two years.” 

An arraignment is a criminal defendant’s first court appearance. At Trump’s arraignment on Tuesday, the judge will read the charges against him, and as is customary of defendants, Trump will enter a plea of not guilty. 

 

After the arraignment comes a series of pre-trial proceedings, followed by jury selection and trial. Though more than 90% of felony cases in New York end with a plea bargain, Trump is not expected to take that option.  

 

That means he will fight the charges tooth and nail even before the case goes to trial.  

Trump’s lawyers have said in recent days that they’ll try to have the charges dismissed based on the novel legal theory upon which the case is apparently built.  The judge is unlikely to oblige, experts say.  

 

But Trump has other tactics at his disposal to fight and potentially prolong the case.  Another important tool in his toolbox: pre-trial motions.  

 

In criminal cases, common pre-trial motions include motion to dismiss the charges for lack of enough evidence, motion to suppress illegally acquired evidence and motion to change the trial’s venue due to publicity.  

 

In Trump’s case, his defense team is expected to raise all of those issues and more, according to legal experts.   

Among other motions, Trump’s defense lawyers will likely challenge the indictment on the grounds of New York’s statute of limitations, said Cheryl Badar, a clinical associate professor of law at Fordham University School of Law. 

 

A statute of limitations is the maximum time after a crime with which a suspect can be charged. In New York, the statute of limitations is two years for misdemeanors and five years for most felonies. 

 

Given that the hush money payment was made nearly seven years ago, defense lawyers could argue that Trump can’t be legally charged with a crime related to the payment. 

 

Another looming pre-trial fight will likely revolve around discovery, or the process by which the parties share information with each other. 

 

The Trump team is likely to ask for “an ocean of material,” ranging from all the investigation notes and all business and financial records, Fletcher said.  

 

“We could be talking about thousands or tens of thousands of pages of materials,” Fletcher said.  “And, with every page that’s turned over they’ll be able to argue back and forth about whether that’s the complete record of that document.” 

Jonathan Turley, a law professor at the George Washington University, said an “early fight” may arise over a possible gag order on Trump.  

 

In high-profile cases, it has become common for judges in recent years to order defendants to refrain from making public comments on the case.   

 

But Trump is a presidential candidate, and imposing a gag order on him could violate his First Amendment right to free speech, said Turley, who appeared as a Republican-invited witness during Trump’s first impeachment hearing. 

 

“This is someone running for president, and one of the issues he’s running on is the politicization of the criminal justice system,” Turley said in an interview.  

Each motion filed by Trump’s defense team will likely trigger a government response and lead to one or more court hearings, a back-and-forth that could take months to resolve.   

 

To prolong the case, Trump’s attorneys could ask the court for adjournments, “but those are generally at the judge’s discretion and with all the eyes of the nation watching, and primaries right around the corner, this judge may want to keep this case moving without delay,” Badar said. 

 

On the other hand, Badar noted, “there are several legal issues in the case — many of which are novel questions of law, so the judge will need to give Trump’s lawyers a chance to argue their motions.” 

 

If Trump is acquitted, the case will end. But if he is found guilty, Trump could initially challenge his conviction at the trial court level under New York’s criminal procedure law, Fletcher said.  

 

If his attempt fails there, he could appeal the case through the state appellate courts and all the way to the United States Supreme Court. 

 

Turley said an appeal could be filed even before a trial is held.  

 

“If the judge denies the motion to dismiss, Trump’s counsel is likely to ask for a right to go to the Court of Appeals [New York’s highest appellate court], even potentially the Supreme Court before any trial is held,” Turley said. 
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Over 1M Undocumented Ethnic South Sudanese Thought to Be in Sudan

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More than 10 years after South Sudan split from Sudan, as many as 1.2 million ethnic South Sudanese could be living in Sudan without citizenship for either country, the U.N. refugee agency says. In this report from Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, reporter Henry Wilkins meets undocumented people and discovers they have problems accessing work, education and medical care.
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 World Bank Warns of ‘Lost Decade’ Due to Slow Economic Growth

Posted on by SeeUS

In a grim report issued last week, the World Bank warned of a slow-growth crisis in the global economy that could persist over the coming decade unless governments worldwide adopt what it calls “sustainable, growth-oriented policies.”

The World Bank report says that global growth in gross domestic product between 2022 and 2030 is on track to decline to about 2.2%, down one-third from the rate that applied between 2000 and 2010. Although the growth rate in developing economies will be higher, it will also likely decline by one-third, from 6% to 4%, according to the document titled “Failing Long-Term Growth Prospects.”

The report says that a number of factors are depressing long-term growth prospects, including an aging workforce, slower population growth and lower rates of productivity-enhancing investment. The negative effects are exacerbated by global shocks to the economy, including the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing war in Ukraine.

“A lost decade could be in the making for the global economy,” said Indermit Gill, the World Bank’s chief economist, in a release accompanying the report. “The ongoing decline in potential growth has serious implications for the world’s ability to tackle the expanding array of challenges unique to our times — stubborn poverty, diverging incomes, and climate change. But this decline is reversible. The global economy’s speed limit can be raised — through policies that incentivize work, increase productivity, and accelerate investment.”

Growth strategies

The World Bank report includes specific recommendations that, according to its own estimates, would boost the average predicted global economic growth rate to 2.9% from 2.2% through the remainder of the decade.

The report urges governments worldwide to lower inflation and assure stability in the financial sector. The report also recommends reducing sovereign debt levels, which would free up funds for investment in productivity-enhancing infrastructure.

Recommended infrastructure investments include upgraded transportations systems and environmentally sustainable improvements to agriculture, manufacturing, and land and water management systems.

The report also calls on countries to lower barriers to international trade, focus on ways to globalize service economy growth and increase labor force participation.

Social progress slowed

Macroeconomists generally agree with much of the World Bank’s assessment, saying that concerns about global growth have been on the rise for several years, and warn that the consequences of a sustained decline — especially in emerging economies — might be severe.

Liliana Rojas-Suarez, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development and director of its Latin American Initiative, told VOA that growth began to slow several years ago in Latin America.

“A period of high growth in Latin America occurred in 2000 to 2014,” she said. “That was a period when commodity prices were very high and the region was really growing. But the important thing is that social indicators improved dramatically. Poverty declined, income inequality improved, food security, educational health — name any indicators, they were all improving.”

Since then, she said, much of that progress has reversed.

“Growth is not the only thing,” she said. “You need many more things to actually improve poverty and inequality, but growth is an important component. After [2014], it stopped, and now the social indicators are reverting.”

Impacts unevenly distributed

In a news briefing last week, Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said the World Bank was correct to warn of a difficult period ahead but that the effects were not likely to be evenly distributed.

“If you look at the last couple years, not only was there surprising resilience in Europe, but a big surprise — a positive surprise — has been the sustained growth in India, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, as well as China, once you take out COVID. Indonesia plus India plus Brazil plus Mexico is an awful lot of human beings and an awful lot of global GDP.”

He said that all of those economies had weathered a year of Federal Reserve interest rate hikes without apparent damage to their own domestic currencies, and that most appear well-positioned to continue growing. However, he noted, the same thing cannot be said about many other regions of the globe.

“The World Bank, I think, is right to draw concern to the possibility of a lost decade in sub-Saharan Africa and Central America and South Asia,” Posen said. “An awful lot of human beings are at risk or are facing very grim situations. But from a global GDP outlook, or even a global population outlook, most of the major [emerging markets] along with most of the G20, essentially, are doing pretty well. I think it should be a concern for the poor people of the world but not for the world in general.”

New database

As part of the report, the World Bank announced that it is now using a new public database to assess global GDP growth, with data currently extending from 1981 to 2021. The database, according to the World Bank, is the first to track the way in which temporary economic disruptions, including “recessions and systemic banking crises,” affect economic growth over time.

The latter has particular relevance today, given the recent failures of several U.S. banks and the forced takeover of Swiss financial services giant Credit Suisse by UBS.

“Recessions tend to lower potential growth,” Franziska Ohnsorge, a lead author of the report and manager of the World Bank’s Prospects Group, said in a statement. “Systemic banking crises do greater immediate harm than recessions, but their impact tends to ease over time.”

Rojas-Suarez of the Center for Global Development praised the creation of the new database, saying that it “could be very useful, not only for future research but also for monitoring countries moving forward, and for international comparisons.”
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NASA Announces Diverse International Crew for First Moon Mission Since 1970s

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Three U.S. astronauts and one Canadian astronaut are slated to make history in NASA’s upcoming Artemis II mission. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh has more on the diverse crew scheduled to make the first lunar journey since 1972. Camera: Adam Greenbaum
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Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine Heralds New Era of Warfare

Posted on by SeeEU

There are growing concerns among top U.S. military and intelligence officials that Russia’s use of cyberattacks during its war against Ukraine is ushering in a new era of combat in which the line between virtual and real-life battlefields is being erased, along with the notion that any targets will remain off limits.

Instead, top officials are warning that U.S. adversaries are likely to look at Moscow’s efforts to topple Kyiv and conclude that not only do they need to coordinate cyber strikes with conventional, kinetic military tactics, but that a cyberattack may be the best first-strike option.

“The [Russian] operation in Ukraine as it relates to red lines for conflict should be of concern to many people,” a senior defense official told reporters during a briefing to the Defense Writers Group this past Friday.

“If you’re willing to drop a bomb on a power station, or if you’re willing to drop a bomb on a rail network, then you’re certainly willing to execute a cyberattack against them,” the defense official said in response to a question from VOA, speaking on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set for the briefing.

“As a just general commonsense sort of military tactic, I don’t believe you would reduce something to rubble if you had the ability to neutralize it otherwise,” the official added. “You don’t want to use high-end kinetic tools unless you have to.”

Russia, though, has been using some of its top-end weaponry, including its Kinzhal hypersonic missile, to take out Ukrainian power plants and other critical infrastructure that have already been targeted by a series of cyberattacks.

“My belief is that had the Russians had the ability to significantly shut down Ukrainian critical infrastructure via cyber, they wouldn’t have wasted kinetic munitions on it,” the senior defense official said.

Despite the apparent failure of Russian cyberattacks to do more damage, Ukrainian officials have warned the pace of such attacks has picked up, and U.S. Cyber Command has warned the Kremlin’s cyber exploits could well “become bolder and look at broader targets.”

China taking notice

U.S. officials also assess that China is learning from Russia’s cyber failures as they prepare for future military confrontation, including potential plans to retake Taiwan.

“I think there’s been a general assessment that what the Russians did in Ukraine was not very well coordinated,” the senior defense official told reporters. “I think the Chinese will look at that, and if the Chinese have a plan to invade Taiwan in 2027, I would expect they have a cyber plan to go along with that. … They will study what happened, and they will try and not make the same mistakes.”

Other U.S. officials have gone as far as to suggest the first indication of a Chinese attack on Taiwan could come in cyberspace.

The first signs of a looming military confrontation in Taiwan “could probably start well below the threshold of a conflict,” Doug Wade, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency’s China Mission Group, said during a virtual event last month. “It would probably include a wide variety of activities, starting with things like cyber.”

Some analysts studying cyberwarfare agree that Russia’s war against Ukraine has changed the cyber landscape, potentially setting up another test for the effectiveness of cyberattacks with China and Taiwan.

“I think that you could see the first steps in a conflict over Taiwan, for example, to be trying to blind the U.S., in particular, to what China was about to do and then also blind the Taiwanese to what was about to happen, as well,” Emily Harding, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told VOA.

“I suspect that the cost-benefit analysis will come down on the side of cyberattacks, [which] are a reasonably low cost, reasonably high benefit way to at least confuse your adversary and perhaps undermine their ability to fight. So, it will be tried again,” she said.

Yet there are also those who think it will still take time before Russia, China or another nation is able to effectively use a cyberattack as a first-strike option.

“I think framing it as a first strike is a little bit misleading,” said Jason Blessing, a visiting research fellow at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute.

Blessing told VOA that while there is ample evidence that an increase in cyberactivity could be an indication of a looming physical attack, cyberattacks have yet to show they are capable of doing more than paving the way for conventional military operations.

“The drawback to using cyber operations, though, is it requires intense time and resources to plan something like that,” he said. “Cyber operations are almost always going to be complementary to the broader strategic goals and broader conventional aims. … It’s not that it’s going to replace launching a missile or driving a tank into some territory.”
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As Russia’s Invasion Grinds On, Young Ukrainian Dancers Resume Training

Posted on by SeeEU

After an extensive warmup, the dance students break into groups. The most experienced children — from 12 to 16 years old — show off complex jazz-funk and hip-hop routines to songs like K7’s “Come Baby Come.”

Outside the technical college hosting the class, snow falls over the mostly abandoned and heavily damaged city. Russian forces who occupied Izium were driven out in September, but the area is still laden with bombs and other explosives. Most families fled and haven’t returned.

During the occupation, the dance team didn’t practice, and all academic schools were closed. Water and electricity were cut off as Ukraine fought bitterly to win back the city. Remaining families had little to do but wait for the violence to end.

“In the first days of occupation, we spent our time counting the falling shells,” explained Ivan Pustelnik, a 12-year-old dancer in black sweatpants and kneepads. After seven years of training, he is a veteran of Izium’s dance team. “In one day, we counted 400 strikes.”

As the months of war dragged on, families tried to get back to a somewhat normal life, added Olesya Bilyaga, the dance coach.

“We knew Russia was in charge at that time,” she says. “But we always considered ourselves Ukrainian and waited for Ukraine to come back.”

Ukraine did come back, taking this strategic city and restoring a key supply line to their forces on the front lines. Some families began to rebuild their damaged homes.

“After Ukraine returned to Izium, water came back and we could clean the apartment,” said Milana Tytarenko, a 10-year-old student who started dance classes a month ago.

She speaks in a quick, stoic voice and wears a bright pink shirt that says “Chief Happiness Officer” in small, white letters.

“It was hard to live under Russia because our windows were covered with plastic sheets,” she said.

At that time, there was no point in repairing windows that would break again in the next inevitable blast, she said.

But some damage cannot so easily be fixed, added Bilyaga.

“If you watch the children in dance class, you can see which ones stayed during the occupation,” she explained. “You can see the trauma on their faces.”

After her dance class, Tytarenko’s face grows pale as she remembers the time, and those she lost.

“My grandpa. My grandma,” she said. She continues listing relatives as her eyes glaze with tears and her voice fades to silence.

Moving on

Before the war, the Izium dance team was competitive, winning medals in regional, national and international meets. Most of the dancers fled with their families, but some have come back. About 30% of the original members are now dancing again.

“This summer we are going to Odesa,” said Pustelnik, the 12-year-old boy with seven years of training.

He described what he expects to be a dance conference that includes a friendly competition in the southern port city.

“My teacher will choreograph a solo for me,” he adds, appearing just a little bit excited.

Dance classes began again in December, and they are still among the very few activities Izium children can do outside their homes with other children. School is online and almost all community facilities are damaged or destroyed.

A nearly hundred-year-old theater that used to host the dance classes, concerts and a library is now damaged beyond use. Blown out windows are covered with fraying plastic tarps, and shattered glass litters the floor. An explosion of index cards that catalogued the library books is scattered throughout the facility.

The books were packed into a storage room by Russian soldiers, locals say, but they were destroyed when the room caught fire after a bombing.

“We are going to rebuild the theater one day,” said Bilyaga, the dance coach. “But the municipality doesn’t have the money right now.”

For now, dance classes continue at the technical college, which is also starting to host their students in person for some classes, some of the time.

In the class, after the more experienced dancers demonstrate their routines, younger and newer students spread out on the dance floor. In brightly colored leotards, sweats and sneakers, the children learn a combination of stomping, clapping and twisting. Some dance with abandon, others focus on getting the steps right.

The war in Ukraine seems far from over, with both sides gearing up for spring battles after a long, brutal winter. Many people died, and neither side gained much ground.

But dancers in Izium say the fighting is now barely in earshot and they hope it will never return to their city. The nearest battle zone is now at least 60 kilometers away, which for children in Izium, seems far away.

“Not long ago we heard shelling,” said Alona Gurova, an 11-year-old who recently began dancing after a friend told her it was fun. “But it was a long way off.”

Oleksandr Babenko contributed to this report.
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As Russia’s Invasion Grinds On, Young Ukrainian Dancers Resume Training

Posted on by SeeEU

As bloody, stalemated battles in Ukraine grind on, young dancers in the eastern city of Izium are training again, hoping to resume competition despite the destruction of their theater. VOA’s Heather Murdock reports from Izium, Ukraine. Camera: Yan Boechat.
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Trump Heads to New York to Face Hush Money Criminal Case

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Former U.S. President Donald Trump is flying from his Florida estate to New York, where he plans to spend Monday night at his Trump Tower residence and then turn himself in Tuesday to face a criminal indictment, the first ever filed against a current or former U.S. leader.

It is not known how Trump’s appearance at a state courthouse will play out. But his lawyers say he emphatically will not plead guilty to charges linked to his $130,000 hush money payment to a porn actress just ahead of his 2016 presidential election victory to silence her about her claim of an alleged tryst with him a decade earlier. Trump has long denied the claim.  

Officials familiar with the indictment say a grand jury last week charged the 76-year-old former president with more than 30 counts of criminal wrongdoing. The indictment remains sealed, and the exact charges, and possibly supporting evidence, could remain secret until the indictment is publicly disclosed at Trump’s arraignment Tuesday before Judge Juan Merchan in New York State Supreme Court.  

When he is booked, Trump is likely to be fingerprinted like any criminal defendant, and his mugshot taken. But authorities say as a deference to his standing as a former president, he is unlikely to be handcuffed or paraded before photographers in a so-called “perp walk.”   

But questions remain: Will the entirety of the indictment be read in open court? Will cameras — for still shots or television — be allowed in the courtroom, as media outlets are asking for? Will demonstrators, either those supporting Trump or angry at Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for bringing the charges or expressing hope for a conviction, gather near the courthouse? If they materialize, will the protests be peaceful?

Barricades have been erected to restrict traffic near the courthouse, but Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Trump ally, and the New York Young Republican Club, say they are planning a “peaceful protest” against Bragg across the street from the courthouse on Tuesday afternoon.  

Trump already has criticized Bragg on social media for what he says is a political “witch hunt” against him. Trump has contended the judge “hates me,” after Merchan, in a separate case earlier this year, fined subsidiaries of The Trump Organization $1.6 million in a tax fraud scheme.   

After the proceeding, Trump, who is trying to win the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and reclaim the White House, is planning to fly back to Florida, where he will deliver remarks Tuesday night and gather with his supporters.  

Since his indictment last Thursday, Trump’s campaign said it has raised $5 million and logged more than 16,000 volunteer sign-ups, which campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said were “key indicators that Americans from all backgrounds are sick and tired of the weaponization of the justice system against President Trump and his supporters.”

Before the indictment, Trump led national polls in surveys taken of Republican voters on their choice for the party’s presidential nomination. Whether news of the indictment changes that show of support is not known.  

The former president is also facing other criminal investigations. They include federal probes of his efforts to upend his 2020 reelection loss to Democrat Joe Biden, including Trump’s role in encouraging supporters to try to block Congress from certifying Biden’s victory on January 6, 2021, and his retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate. He was required to turn over the material to the National Archives when he left office.

Meanwhile, in a narrower case, a prosecutor in the southern state of Georgia is probing Trump’s efforts there to reverse Biden’s win when Trump asked election officials to “find” him enough votes to claim victory.  

While the details of the New York hush money case remain undisclosed, the outcome of any trial could hinge on the intent behind the payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. Michael Cohen, Trump’s long-time former lawyer and political fixer, used his own money to make the payment to her just ahead of the November 2016 election and was later reimbursed by Trump in installments, with Trump listing the payments on his corporate ledger as a business expense for Cohen’s legal fees.  

On Sunday, Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina told CNN the payment to Daniels was a “personal expenditure, not a campaign expenditure.” The Wall Street Journal first reported the payment in early 2018.   

U.S. legal analysts say prosecutors in the hush money case will face the difficult task of proving that the money paid to Daniels was a campaign contribution to help him win the presidency and not merely intended for personal reasons to hide an alleged marital infidelity.  

Tacopina said he and other lawyers will develop Trump’s legal strategy to refute the charges once they see the indictment. In Sunday talk show interviews, he brushed aside as premature questions about whether he would ask for a venue change or file a motion to dismiss the case.  

“We’re way too early to start deciding what motions we’re going to file or not file, and we do need to see the indictment and get to work,” he told ABC’s “This Week” show. “I mean, look, this is the beginning.”  

But he added, “We’re ready for this fight. And I look forward to moving this thing along as quickly as possible to exonerate him.”
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UN Calls for Urgent Help for Malawi Cyclone Survivors

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The United Nations and humanitarian partners in Malawi are calling for $70.6 million to help more than a million people who were affected by Cyclone Freddy. 

The storm, which also hit Mozambique and Madagascar, killed hundreds of people and displaced more than 650,000 in southern Malawi. 

The U.N. says the flash appeal will provide shelter, nutrition, health, water and sanitation for those hardest hit by the crisis.

The appeal comes on top of the $45.3 million called for earlier this year by humanitarian partners to respond to a cholera outbreak, bringing the total revised flash appeal to $115.9 million.

The U.N. says the funds would enable it to work swiftly in support of the Malawi government-led response to assist communities affected by Cyclone Freddy and cholera.

U.N. resident coordinator in Malawi Rebecca Adda-Dontoh said Malawians have mobilized to support one another in this time of tremendous need, and the appeal aimed to step up solidarity as the international community.

The cyclone destroyed many bridges and cut off roads in Malawi, making many areas reachable only by boats and aircraft.   

Government statistics show that the cyclone left at least 676 people dead, and the death toll is expected to rise, as more than 600 others are still missing. 

Werani Chilenga, chairperson for the committee on natural resources and climate  

change in Malawi’s parliament, said the devastation caused by the cyclone would have been less had the country done a better job of managing its natural resources.  

“We have almost lost all the forests. Our land is degraded,” he said. “What we have already started doing as a committee is to lobby the government to come up with deliberate policies where they should distribute these gas stoves for free to people living in cities and towns. Because if you look at the charcoal market, it is found in cities.”

The committee donated gas-powered stoves to cyclone victims living in a camp in Blantyre on Sunday to dissuade them from using charcoal.  

“If we can’t do that then these calamities are here to stay,” Chilenga said. “And each year out, year in, we shall be coming here donating food items to people staying in camps, which is what we don’t want as Malawians.”

The U.N. said in a statement that the appeal aims to provide an integrated response — including shelter, nutrition, health, water, sanitation and hygiene and protection — for those hardest hit by the crisis.

Reverend Moses Chimphepo, director for preparedness for the Department of Disaster Management Affairs in Malawi, said the government is now working on helping survivors move away from disaster-prone areas and start a new life.

“With the food which the government is providing, we are trying to put together a package and mobile (mobilize) enough resources and then give it to the district councils so that they can give to those people who are willing to move,” he said.

In the meantime, Malawi Vice President Saulosi Chilima has asked city authorities in Blantyre to override a court ruling that allowed residents to build unauthorized homes in hilly areas. 

Thousands of people in Blantyre had their houses washed away and hundreds of others were killed when Cyclone Freddy caused mudslides on hills in Chilobwe Township.
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Immigration Reform Remains Stalled Decade After Gang of 8’s Big Push

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Ten years ago this month, Senator Chuck Schumer declared, “We all know that our immigration system is broken, and it’s time to get to work on fixing it.” Senator John McCain quoted Winston Churchill. But it was Lindsey Graham who offered the boldest prediction.

“I think 2013 is the year of immigration reform,” the South Carolina Republican said.

It wasn’t. And neither has any year since those “Gang of Eight” senators from both parties gathered in a Washington auditorium to offer hopeful pronouncements. In fact, today’s political landscape has shifted so dramatically that immigrant advocates and top architects of key policies over the years fear that any hope of an immigration overhaul seems further away than ever.

Many Republicans now see calling for zero tolerance on the border as a way to animate their base supporters. Democrats have spent the last decade vacillating between stiffer border restrictions and efforts to soften and humanize immigration policy — exposing deep rifts on how best to address broader problems.

“There are big questions about whether or not anything in the immigration family — anything at all — has the votes to pass,” said Cecilia Muñoz, who served as President Barack Obama’s top immigration adviser and was a senior member of Joe Biden’s transition team before he entered the White House.

The last extensive package came under President Ronald Reagan in 1986, and President George H.W. Bush signed a more limited effort four years later. That means federal agents guarding the border today with tools like drones and artificial intelligence are enforcing laws written back when cellphones and the internet were novelties.

Laying the problem bare in the deadliest of terms was a fire last month at a detention center on the Mexican side of the border that killed 39 migrants.

Congress came the closest to a breakthrough on immigration in 2013 with the Gang of Eight, which included Schumer, a New York Democrat who is now Senate majority leader, and Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. Their proposal cleared the Senate that June and sought a pathway to citizenship for millions of people in the country illegally and expanded work visas while tightening border security and mandating that employers verify workers’ legal status.

Democrats cheered a modernized approach to immigration. Republicans were looking for goodwill within the Latino community after Obama enjoyed strong support from Hispanic voters while being reelected in 2012.

Prominent supporters of the proposal were as diverse as the powerful AFL-CIO labor union and the pro-business U.S. Chamber of Commerce. There was more momentum than there had been for large immigration changes that fizzled in 2006 and 2007 under President George W. Bush.

Still, Republican House Speaker John Boehner gauged support for the Gang of Eight bill in the GOP-controlled chamber in January 2014 and said too many lawmakers distrusted the Obama administration. By that summer, the bill was dead.

Obama then created a program protecting from deportation migrants brought illegally to the United States as children. The Supreme Court has previously upheld it, but the court’s relatively recent 6-3 conservative majority could pose long-term threats.

Years after the creation of Obama’s program, President Donald Trump called for walling off all of the nation’s 3,219-kilometer southern border, and his administration separated migrant children from their parents and made migrants wait in Mexico while seeking U.S. asylum.

Biden endorsed a sweeping immigration package on his Inauguration Day, but it went nowhere in Congress. His administration has since loosened some Trump immigration policies and tightened others, even as his party has seen Republican support rise among Hispanic voters.

Officials have continued to enforce Title 42 pandemic-era health restrictions that allowed for migrants seeking U.S. asylum to be quickly expelled, although they are set to expire May 11. The Biden White House is also considering placing migrant families in detention centers while they wait for their asylum cases, something the Obama and Trump administrations did.

Gil Kerlikowske, who was commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection under Obama, said, “A lot of things are coming together at once,” including Title 42 possibly ending, a spike in the number of South American migrants crossing through the treacherous rainforests of the Darian Gap between Colombia and Panama, and a 2024 presidential election ratcheting up the political pressure.

“Two-and-a-half years into the administration, there really hasn’t been any announcement of what is our immigration policy,” Kerlikowske said. “Getting laws passed is almost impossible. But what’s been the policy?”

The League of United Latin American Citizens is so desperate for meaningful progress that it has begun advocating for a full moratorium of up to six months on U.S. asylum as a way of calming things at the border. Its president, Domingo Garcia, said that migrants know they are processed and allowed to remain in the U.S. for years fighting for asylum in court, and that authorities need to “turn off the faucet” to help strained border cities.

“We need a total reset,” said Garcia, whose group is the nation’s oldest Latino civil rights organization. “I think that people on the far left are just as wrong as those who believe they should close the border and let no one in.”

Biden’s administration announced in early January that it would admit up to 30,000 people a month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela for two years with authorization to work and make it easier to apply online. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas argues that the new rules are designed to weaken cartels that help migrants cross into the U.S. illegally.

Mayorkas said recently that officials aim to create “lawful, safe and orderly pathways for people to reach the United States to claim asylum and to cut out the smuggling organizations.”

It appears to be working, for now. After federal authorities detained migrants more than 2.5 million times at the southern border in 2022 — including more than 250,000 in December, the highest monthly total on record — the number of encounters with migrants plummeted during the first two months of this year.

But fewer crossings have created a backlog of thousands of migrants hoping to seek U.S. asylum waiting on the Mexican side of the border. Last month’s fire at a Mexican government facility began amid a protest by migrants fearing deportation. Some of those being held said they’d been attempting to apply online when they were rounded up by Mexican authorities.

Meanwhile, warmer months often see major increases in the number of migrants at the U.S. border. And activists say that Biden has sent mixed signals by continuing to enforce Title 42 and considering reopening family detention centers — a possibility that even top Democrats are now decrying.

“We urge you to learn from the mistakes of your predecessors and abandon any plans to implement this failed policy,” Schumer and 17 other Senate Democrats recently wrote in a letter to Biden that called family detention policies “morally reprehensible and ineffective as an immigration management tool.”

Republicans have criticized Biden’s “border crisis” and, since Trump’s rise, made gains among voters in some heavily Latino areas. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, widely expected to be the leading alternative to Trump in next year’s Republican presidential primary, flew migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, arguing that Democrats around the country were ignoring the crush of migrants on the U.S.-Mexico border.

In Miami, Nery Lopez was among a group of activists who recently mobilized to oppose a state bill that would punish people who transport migrants in the country illegally. Now 27, she was brought to the U.S. as a 4-year-old from Mexico and is protected from deportation by the Obama-era program.

Lopez said advocates were counting on the Biden administration to counter Republicans’ hard-line immigration policies.

“People feel defeated. I feel defeated,” she said. “It’s like we are going into the same cycle.”
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Zimbabwean Farmers Turning to Conservation Agriculture

Posted on by SeeAF

Zimbabweans in the agriculture sector are dealing with rising fertilizer costs and poor rainfalls due to climate change. Now, some are turning to organic farming and conservation agriculture to make ends meet, and officials say they are making progress against the odds. Columbus Mavhunga has more from Mashava, one of Zimbabwe’s poorest and most drought-prone districts. (Camera: Blessing Chigwenhembe)
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UN: Children in Central African Republic Are Victims of Appalling Abuse, Brutality 

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A review by U.N. independent experts of the human rights situation in the Central African Republic reveals rampant ethnic violence and systemic gross violations throughout the country with children suffering appalling abuse and brutality at the hands of armed groups, defense and security forces, and private military and security companies.

“It is rare to find a country with a human rights record so alarming, which has been forgotten by the rest of the world,” said Volker Türk, U.N. high commissioner for human rights in his opening salvo at the U.N. human rights council Friday.

“The people of the Central African Republic face a daily reality of sudden spikes of violence where fear is used as a weapon and serious trauma, which has been caused by years of violence.”

He said children were not spared the ravages of the conflict that has been ongoing since 2012, noting that girls especially were subjected to horrific acts of sexual violence linked to the conflict.

“Last year, the Human Rights Division recorded 647 children who were victims of child rights violations. The majority concerning the use of children in the armed conflict, attacks on their physical integrity, their freedom, arbitrary detention, and sexual violence linked to the conflict,” he said.

Reports received by the U.N. human rights office estimate that armed groups who signed last year’s peace agreement were responsible for 35% of the documented abuses, including killings, abductions, detention, ill-treatment, the destruction of infrastructure and appropriation of property.

Virginia Gamba, Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict said the number of grave violations committed against children in 2022 had decreased compared to the previous year.

However, she added that conflict continued to take a heavy toll on boys and girls with many being killed and maimed by gunshots and explosive remnants of war.

Sexual abuse

“The recruitment and use of children remained the most prevalent violation verified in 2022,” she said. “While boys were most affected, girls were also recruited and used by parties to conflict and most of them were subjected to sexual violence during their association. Some of the girls became pregnant following the rape.”

She said children were driven to join armed groups because of poverty and protection of their communities from attacks by rival armed groups.

More than a decade of armed conflict has kept the CAR in a state of perpetual impoverishment, hunger, and ill health. The U.N. office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs, OCHA reports more than two million people, or more than one-third of the population needs humanitarian assistance to survive.

A recent U.N. food assessment finds 2.7 million people, nearly half the population, are acutely food insecure, with 642,000 on the verge of famine. OCHA reports hundreds of thousands of people are suffering from acute malnutrition, most are children under age five. In addition, more than half a million children aged three to 17 are out of school, making them susceptible to recruitment, exploitation, and trafficking.

Mohamed Ag Ayoya, deputy special representative of MINUSCA, the U.N. peacekeeping force in CAR warns children continue to be raped, abducted, killed, maimed, and recruited by armed groups and security forces with impunity.

“There is no peace without justice. Despite the government and partners’ efforts, there is still a lot of impunity,” he said.

“There are no criminal courts operating. So, rape is often tried as a minor crime, trivialized. And that stops peace and security efforts,” he said. “I urge all partners to support the government to bring an end to inequality and to give justice to the victims of rape.”

Calls for dialogue

The minister said there was no military solution to this long-lasting conflict and urged the warring parties to lay down their weapons and “take up a dialogue for the sake of all children in the country.”

His sentiments were echoed by rights chief Türk who urged the Government to adopt measures to prevent serious violations from occurring and to provide comprehensive care for the child victims.

Arnaud Djoubaye Abazene, minister of state in charge of justice, human rights and good governance of the CAR responded to these pleas by assuring members of the U.N. human rights council that attention was being paid to all children’s issues at the highest level in the country.

“The government is resolved to ensure the protection and promotion of the rights of the child and to combatting the recruitment of children by armed groups.

“The government also reaffirms its commitment to prosecute and punish the perpetrators of crimes against children and other serious human rights violations,” he said.
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Pension Protests Raise Tension Between Police, Demonstrators 

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French authorities see the police as protectors who are ensuring that citizens can peacefully protest President Emmanuel Macron’s contentious retirement age increase. But to human rights advocates and demonstrators who were clubbed or tear-gassed, officers have overstepped their mission.

In the months since mass protests of the proposed pension changes began roiling France, some law enforcement officers have been accused of resorting to gratuitous violence. A man in Paris lost a testicle to an officer’s club, and a police grenade took the thumb of a woman in Rouen. A railroad worker hit by grenade fragments lost an eye.

“Where is your humanity?” a woman shouted at officers who knocked an apparently homeless man to the ground in Paris, kicked him and used vulgar language while ordering him to get up and go. In a video posted on Twitter, another passerby helped the man to his feet at the scene last month near the Place de la Bastille.

The violence adds to the anger in the streets and complicates efforts to invite dialogue between the government and labor unions, who are planning an 11th round of mass demonstrations Thursday.

The protests, which began in January, gained momentum after Macron’s decision last month to push a bill to raise the retirement age through the lower house of parliament without a vote. The common French reference to law enforcement officers as “forces of order” has been turned on its head. Now the question is whether police represent force or order.

Jarred by the bad publicity, authorities have shifted to damage control by offering accolades for security forces.

“There is no police violence,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said Wednesday on RTL radio while condemning “individual acts” of officers who use disproportionate force. “Can’t we occasionally thank the forces of order?” he pleaded.

The concerns about police brutality have reverberated beyond France. Amnesty International, the International Federation of Human Rights and the Council of Europe — the continent’s main human rights body — were among the organizations that cited excessive police violence during what has been a largely peaceful protest movement.

French police are sent into demonstrations with weapons that are prohibited in most European countries, including stun grenades and rubber bullets, according to Sebastian Roche, an expert on security forces with France’s National Center for Scientific Research.

Demonstrations and potentially mutilating weapons are a combustible combination, Roche said, because “the temptation will be very big to use these armaments” especially when police come under a cascade of objects hurled at them, including Molotov cocktails.

The strategy is “at once very violent” and in some aspects illegal, Roche said, citing cases in which demonstrators were detained en masse and then released without charges the next morning. Lawyers’ and magistrates’ associations have said such practices are an abuse of the law.

Jonas Cardoso, a 20-year-old student, was among more than 100 people detained during a March 23 protest in Paris.

“I spent hours in a cell for four people with nine other protesters. I slept on the floor,” he told The Associated Press. Cardoso denied any wrongdoing and was released without charges.

Worse, Cardoso said, is that violence may beget more violence.

“If the government doesn’t listen to us, the violence will rise. Our worst fear is that someone will die while protesting,” the young man said.

Videos of police brutality posted on social media largely fail to capture the presence of black-clad ultra-leftists or anarchists who have infiltrated the protest marches, destroyed property and attacked police officers.

“There are troublemakers, often extreme left, who want to take down the state and kill police and ultimately take over the institutions,” Darmanin said after a protest in March that turned especially violent.

The ranks of these provocateurs have grown, bolstered by opportunists and some leftist students. The intruders work in small, highly mobile groups, appearing and disappearing in formations known as black blocs.

Black blocs are not a new phenomenon, but they represent a danger to police. In one dramatic video posted on social networks, an officer is seen crashing to the ground after being hit with a paving stone. Colleagues dragged him away.

Violence by and against police is not limited to Paris, or to protests over Macron’s retirement plan.

Gendarmes and militants opposed to an artificial water basin recently clashed in rural France. Four people — two gendarmes and two protesters — were hospitalized in serious condition.

According to French policing rules, the use of force “must be absolutely necessary, strictly proportionate and graduated.”

“Of course, the police response is proportionate,” Paris Police Chief Laurent Nunez insisted in a television interview. Police intervene only when black blocs move into action, he said.

“Without police, demonstrations wouldn’t take place,” he said, insisting on their role as guardians of peace.

However, some protesters have found themselves trapped by police tactics such as encirclement, in which officers surround marchers so police can chase down troublemakers. But protesters stuck inside the police bubble can’t escape tear gas fumes.

Roche said the latest tensions show that France has “an accumulation of [police] crises that no other European country has.”

He cited the 2018-2019 Yellow Vest protests for social and economic justice where a brutal police response left two people dead, and multiple protesters lost eyes. Next came a debacle during last year’s Champions League Cup final when British soccer fans were gassed by police at the Stade de France.

Amnesty International’s France chief, Jean-Claude Samouiller, said last week at a news conference that France should improve its policing strategy and cited “a doctrine of de-escalation and dialogue” that is observed in Germany, Belgium and Sweden.

Compared with other European countries, Samouiller said, the two protest deaths in France in recent years put the nation at the bottom of the class, in the category of “bad student.”
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What Do We Know About Russian Blogger Tatarsky and the Bomb That Killed Him?

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Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky was killed in a bomb attack in a St Petersburg cafe on Sunday in which some 30 other people were wounded. Here’s what we know so far.   

Who was Tatarsky? 

Tatarsky – real name Maxim Fomin – was among the best-known members of an influential group of military bloggers who have provided a running commentary on Russia’s war in Ukraine. Although frequently scathing about the defense establishment, they have been enthusiastic cheerleaders for the war and avoided direct criticism of President Vladimir Putin. Tatarsky, 40, was among those who publicly demanded that Russia pursue the war even more aggressively. For example, when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Kherson after Russia retreated from the city last November, Tatarsky demanded to know why Moscow had not taken the chance to assassinate him with a drone.   

What happened in the café? 

Tatarsky was giving a talk to an audience of about 100 people on Sunday evening at an event organized by a group called “Cyber Z Front”, whose name refers to the letter ‘Z’ that Russia has adopted as a symbol of the war. According to Russian news outlets, the explosion took place several minutes after a woman calling herself Nastya presented Tatarsky with a bust that she said she had made of him.   

Who is the suspect? 

Russia’s state Investigative Committee said on Monday that Darya Trepova, a 26-year-old woman from St Petersburg, had been arrested. The interior ministry earlier placed her on its wanted list but gave no further information about her.   

What could have been the motive? 

Tatarsky was the second high-profile war propagandist to be assassinated in Russia since its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The first was Darya Dugina, the journalist daughter of a prominent ultra-nationalist figure, who was killed by a car bomb near Moscow last August. The killing is an attack on the hardline pro-war camp in Russia, and sends a warning to other members of this group that they could be targeted anywhere. Tatarsky had survived extensive reporting trips on the war’s front lines but was killed hundreds of miles away, in the heart of Russia’s second city. 

Tatarsky also had ties to Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner mercenary group fighting for Russia in Ukraine and the former owner of the cafe. Prigozhin is a highly divisive figure who has frequently argued with the defense establishment, accusing it at times of starving his men of ammunition and denying them credit for advances.   

Who could have been behind the attack? 

No one has produced clear evidence, but some Russians have pointed the finger at Ukraine. Denis Pushilin, the Moscow-installed leader of the part of Ukraine’s Donetsk province that is occupied by Russia, said: “The Kyiv regime is a terrorist regime. It needs to be destroyed, there’s no other way to stop it.” Prigozhin, however, said he would not blame Kyiv. Mykhailo Podolyak, a Ukrainian presidential adviser, wrote on Twitter that it had only been a matter of time – “like the bursting of a ripe abscess” – before Russia became consumed by what he called domestic terrorism. 
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UN Experts Name South Sudan Officials for Rights Abuses

Posted on by SeeAF

A panel of U.N. rights experts on Monday named several high-ranking South Sudanese officials they say warrant criminal investigation and prosecution for their part in grave atrocities against civilians.   

Top government and military leaders were identified in a new report by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan that details state responsibility for widespread murder, rape and sexual slavery.   

The commission, which conducted a year-long investigation across six states in South Sudan and released a partial summary of its findings in March, said none of those named in the final report had faced any accountability for their crimes.   

“Over several years, our findings have consistently shown that impunity for serious crimes is a central driver of violence and misery faced by civilians in South Sudan,” commission chair Yasmin Sooka said.    

“So we have taken the step of naming more of the individuals who warrant criminal investigation and prosecution for their role in gross human rights violations.”   

The report identifies Joseph Monytuil, governor of Unity State, and Lieutenant General Thoi Chany Reat of the South Sudan People’s Defense Forces, in relation to state-sanctioned killings in Mayom County in August 2022.   

Four captured rebel officers were summarily executed by government troops in killings that were captured on video and shared widely. Three were killed by firing squad and a fourth was burned alive in a hut.   

The report also names Gordon Koang, the county commissioner of Koch, who was accused of leading horrific attacks on civilians in neighboring Leer County between February and April 2022.   

Other top-ranking officials in Warrap, Upper Nile, Jonglei and the Equatoria states were identified as warranting further scrutiny or investigation for their role in various abuses.   

“The Commission found that while the Government of South Sudan has announced special investigation committees into several situations, not one has led to any form of accountability,” the panel said in a statement.   

“Government and military personnel implicated in these serious crimes remain in office.”   

The government has accused the commission of interfering in its national affairs and rejected past findings from the three-member panel.   

South Sudan achieved independence from Sudan in 2011 but collapsed into a civil war two years later that devastated the world’s newest country.   

Close to 400,000 people died before a peace deal was signed in 2018 but core tenets of the agreement remain unfulfilled, and the country is riven by armed violence.   

A promised tribunal led by the African Union to prosecute offenders and deliver justice for victims of war crimes has never eventuated. 
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NASA to Reveal Crew for 2024 Flight Around the Moon

Posted on by SeeUS

NASA is to reveal the names on Monday of the astronauts — three Americans and a Canadian — who will fly around the Moon next year, a prelude to returning humans to the lunar surface for the first time in a half century.   

The mission, Artemis II, is scheduled to take place in November 2024 with the four-person crew circling the Moon but not landing on it.   

As part of the Artemis program, NASA aims to send astronauts to the Moon in 2025 — more than five decades after the historic Apollo missions ended in 1972.   

Besides putting the first woman and first person of color on the Moon, the US space agency hopes to establish a lasting human presence on the lunar surface and eventually launch a voyage to Mars.   

NASA administrator Bill Nelson said this week at a “What’s Next Summit” hosted by Axios that he expected a crewed mission to Mars by the year 2040.  

The four members of the Artemis II crew will be announced at an event at 10:00 am (1500 GMT) at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.   

The 10-day Artemis II mission will test NASA’s powerful Space Launch System rocket as well as the life-support systems aboard the Orion spacecraft.   

The first Artemis mission wrapped up in December with an uncrewed Orion capsule returning safely to Earth after a 25-day journey around the Moon.   

During the trip around Earth’s orbiting satellite and back, Orion logged well over 1.6 million kilometers and went farther from Earth than any previous habitable spacecraft.   

Nelson was also asked at the Axios summit whether NASA could stick to its timetable of landing astronauts on the south pole of the Moon in late 2025.   

“Space is hard,” Nelson said. “You have to wait until you know that it’s as safe as possible, because you’re living right on the edge.   

“So I’m not so concerned with the time,” he said. “We’re not going to launch until it’s right.”   

Only 12 people — all of them white men — have set foot on the Moon. 
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Trump to Deliver Remarks Tuesday Night After His Arraignment

Posted on by SeeUS

Former President Donald Trump will deliver remarks Tuesday night in Florida after his scheduled arraignment in New York on charges related to hush money payments, his campaign announced Sunday. 

Trump will hold the event at his Mar-a-Lago club after returning from Manhattan, where he is expected to voluntarily turn himself in. He is expected to be joined in Florida by supporters as he tries to project an image of strength and defiance and turn the charges into a political asset to boost his 2024 presidential campaign. 

Trump is facing multiple charges of falsifying business records, including at least one felony offense, in the indictment handed up by a Manhattan grand jury last week, two people familiar with the matter have told The Associated Press. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss information that is not yet public because the indictment remains under seal. 

Trump has denied any wrongdoing and has blasted the investigation as part of a yearslong “witch hunt” aimed at damaging his candidacy. 

Trump aides and lawyers had been going back and forth over the wisdom of his appearing before reporters after the arraignment as they grasped the news of an indictment that caught many of them by surprise. Trump has been catapulted back into the headlines by the criminal charges and he relishes media attention, and while some of his lawyers would have preferred he stay silent, his campaign believes the development has energized his supporters. 

Already, Trump’s campaign says it has raised more than $5 million and logged more than 16,000 volunteer signups since the indictment, which Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said were “key indicators that Americans from all backgrounds are sick and tired of the weaponization of the justice system against President Trump and his supporters.” 

Trump was indicted Thursday by a grand jury in the case involving hush money paid during the 2016 presidential campaign to a porn actor who alleges Trump had an extramarital sexual encounter with her years earlier. 

In television interviews Sunday, Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina said he would pore over the indictment once he receives it, then devise the next legal steps. He dismissed questions about whether he would ask for a venue change or file a motion to dismiss the case as premature, though it’s common for defense attorneys to do both. 

“We’re way too early to start deciding what motions we’re going to file or not file, and we do need to see the indictment and get to work,” he told ABC’s “This Week.” “I mean, look, this is the beginning.” 

The former president is expected to fly to New York midday Monday and stay at his Trump Tower in Manhattan overnight ahead of his planned arraignment Tuesday, according to two people familiar with his plans who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss Trump’s travel plans. 

He is expected to report to the courthouse Tuesday morning, where he will fingerprinted and have a mug shot taken, like anyone else facing charges. Investigators will complete arrest paperwork and check to see if he has any outstanding criminal charges or warrants. 

Once the booking is complete, Trump will appear before a judge for an afternoon arraignment. That will take place in the same Manhattan courtroom where his company was tried and convicted of tax fraud in December and where disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein’s rape trial took place. 

But Tacopina said that most of what will happen Tuesday remains “up in the air,” given Trump’s unique status as a former president, “other the fact that we will very loudly and proudly say, ‘Not guilty.'” 

“Obviously, this is different. This has never happened before. I have never had Secret Service involved in an arraignment before at 100 Centre Street,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” using the courthouse’s street address. “Hopefully this will be as painless and classy as possible for a situation like this.” 

The judge could at some point decide to bar anyone involved in the case from talking about it publicly, but that is unlikely to happen at Tuesday’s proceeding. A gag order generally is used as a way to avoid tainting potential jurors. But it’s often done at the request of the defendant, and in this case, Trump is the one talking 

Officials from the Secret Service and the New York Police Department toured the courthouse and met about security plans on Friday. 

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., a key Trump ally, and the New York Young Republican Club, are planning a “peaceful protest” against Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg across the street from the courthouse on Tuesday afternoon. 
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Kenya Opposition Leader Odinga Calls Off Monday’s Protest

Posted on by SeeAF

Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga said Sunday he was suspending anti-government protests temporarily as he was ready for talks after an appeal from President William Ruto.   

Early Sunday, Ruto addressed the nation live on television. It is the first time he has done so publicly since nationwide protests began over the high cost of living and alleged elections irregularities. Thousands have attended the protests that began March 20 and were organized by Odinga.   

Ruto said, “Our country has experienced grave acts of lawlessness, widespread violence, looting and invasion of private property by persons taking advantage of political demonstrations called by the opposition.”   

In the speech, he pleaded for Odinga to call off the protests scheduled for Monday.  

Three people have been killed since the protests began, more than 400 others have been injured, Ruto said Sunday. 

The opposition has been pushing for electoral reforms, and Ruto said there could be bipartisan reform to the election commission. 

Odinga warned that protests would resume if the government does not resolve the issues.   

Last week, Odinga claimed his convoy was attacked and his car was hit with seven live bullets, each aimed at him. There’s “no justification for the excessive force used against peaceful unarmed citizens exercising their democratic rights,” he told reporters.  

Three people have been killed since the protests began, more than 400 others have been injured, Ruto said Sunday.   

Odinga wrote on Twitter earlier Sunday, before calling off protests, “We are all ready and set for #MegaMonday.”  

He also continued to claim that he was victorious in the August elections and urged Ruto to “vacate his office immediately.”   

In his Sunday morning address, Ruto said that last August’s elections were free and fair. And that he hopes the opposition’s claim of election irregularities can be handled in parliament and by a bipartisan group.      

There have been reports of more than 20 journalists being attacked, harassed and injured since the protests began.  

Addressing that issue, Ruto said his country believes in free media and any engagement that puts media in danger is unacceptable. He said media should be allowed to carry out its duties. 
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