Month: July 2023

Diversify or Die: San Francisco’s Downtown Is Wake-Up Call for Other Cities 

Posted on by SeeUS

Jack Mogannam, manager of Sam’s Cable Car Lounge in downtown San Francisco, relishes the days when his bar stayed open past midnight every night, welcoming crowds that jostled on the streets, bar hopped, window browsed or just took in the night air.

He’s had to drastically curtail those hours because of diminished foot traffic, and business is down 30%. A sign outside the lounge pleads: “We need your support!”

“I’d stand outside my bar at 10 p.m. and look, it would be like a party on the street,” Mogannam said. “Now you see, like, six people on the street up and down the block. It’s a ghost town.”

After a three-year exile, the pandemic now fading from view, the expected crowds and electric ambience of downtown have not returned.

Empty storefronts dot the streets. Large “going out of business” signs hang in windows. Uniqlo, Nordstrom Rack and Anthropologie are gone. Last month, the owner of Westfield San Francisco Centre, a fixture for more than 20 years, said it was handing the mall back to its lender, citing declining sales and foot traffic. The owner of two towering hotels, including a Hilton, did the same.

Shampoo, toothpaste and other toiletries are locked up at downtown pharmacies. And armed robbers recently hit a Gucci store in broad daylight.

San Francisco has become the prime example of what downtowns shouldn’t look like: vacant, crime-ridden and in various stages of decay. But in truth, it’s just one of many cities across the U.S. whose downtowns are reckoning with a post-pandemic wake-up call: diversify or die.

As the pandemic bore down in early 2020, it drove people out of city centers and boosted shopping and dining in residential neighborhoods and nearby suburbs as workers stayed closer to home. Those habits seem poised to stay.

No longer the purview of office workers, downtowns must become around-the-clock destinations for people to congregate, said Richard Florida, a specialist in city planning at the University of Toronto.

“They’re no longer central business districts. They’re centers of innovation, of entertainment, of recreation,” he said. “The faster places realize that, the better.”

Data bears out that San Francisco’s downtown is having a harder time than most. A study of 63 North American downtowns by the University of Toronto ranked the city dead last in a return to pre-pandemic activity, garnering only 32% of its 2019 traffic.

Hotel revenues are stuck at 73% of pre-pandemic levels, weekly office attendance remains below 50% and commuter rail travel to downtown is at 33%, according to a recent economic report by the city.

Office vacancy rates in San Francisco were 24.8% in the first quarter, more than five times higher than pre-pandemic levels and well above the average rate of 18.5% for the nation’s top 10 cities, according to CBRE, a commercial real estate services company.

Why? San Francisco relied heavily on international tourism and its tech workforce, both of which disappeared during the pandemic.

But other major cities including Portland and Seattle, which also rely on tech workers, are struggling with similar declines, according to the downtown recovery study, which used anonymized mobile phone data to analyze downtown activity patterns from before the pandemic and between March and May of this year.

In Chicago, which ranked 45th in the study, major retailers like AT&T, Old Navy and Banana Republic on the Magnificent Mile have closed or soon will as visitor foot traffic hasn’t rebounded.

And midwestern cities like Indianapolis and Cleveland already struggled pre-pandemic with diminished downtowns as they relied on a single industry to support them and lacked booming industries like tech, said Karen Chapple, director of the School of Cities at the University of Toronto and author of the study.

San Francisco leaders are taking the demise of downtown seriously. Supervisors recently relaxed downtown zoning rules to allow mixed-use spaces: offices and services on upper floors and entertainment and pop-up shops on the ground floor. Legislation also reduces red tape to facilitate converting existing office space into housing.

Mayor London Breed recently announced $6 million to upgrade a three-block stretch by a popular cable car turnaround to improve walkability and lure back businesses.

But Marc Benioff, chief executive officer of Salesforce, the city’s largest employer and anchor tenant in its tallest skyscraper, said downtown is “never going back to the way it was” when it comes to workers commuting in each day. He advised Breed to convert office space into housing and hire more police to give visitors a sense of safety.

“We need to rebalance downtown,” Benioff said.

Downtown housing has been the key to success in Baltimore and Salt Lake City, Chapple said.

Real estate experts also point to office-to-housing conversions as a potential lifeline. Cities such as New York and Pittsburgh are offering sizeable tax breaks for developers to spur such conversions.

But for many cities, including San Francisco, it will take more than housing for downtowns to flourish.

Daud Shuja, owner and designer of Franco Uomo, a luxury clothier based in San Jose, said new customers who live in San Francisco drive at least an hour to the store. He plans to open a shop in a more convenient location in suburban Palo Alto next year.

“They just don’t want to deal with the homelessness, with the environment, with the ambience,” he said.

Still, San Francisco officials say the downtown, which stretches from City Hall to the Embarcadero Waterfront and encompasses the Financial District and parts of the South of Market neighborhood, is in transition.

Gap, which started in San Francisco in 1969, closed its flagship Gap and Old Navy stores near Union Square. But the company isn’t abandoning the city entirely, planning four new stores from its major brands at its headquarters near the waterfront and anticipating other new stores.

Marisa Rodriguez, CEO of the Union Square Alliance, said foot traffic is steadily up and a strong tourism season is expected. Sales tax revenue from fine and casual dining, as well as hotels and motels, is also up, said Ted Egan, the city’s chief economist, defying the narrative that San Francisco is in a doom loop.

Furthermore, new Union Square businesses include upscale fusion restaurants, a hot yoga studio favored by celebrity Jessica Alba and a rare sneaker shop. The area just has to overcome hesitation from local and national visitors due to negative press, Rodriguez said.

“When you’re making your plans to travel, and you’re like, ‘I’ve always wanted to go to San Francisco, but I just keep reading all this stuff.’ When in fact, it’s beautiful. It’s here to welcome you,” she said. “I just hope the noise settles quickly.”
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 7.2-Magnitude Earthquake Hits Alaska Peninsula Region 

Posted on by SeeUS

A 7.2 magnitude earthquake triggered a brief tsunami advisory for southern Alaska late Saturday, but the advisory was cancelled about an hour later, monitoring bodies reported. 

The earthquake was felt widely throughout the Aleutian Islands, the Alaskan Peninsula and Cook Inlet regions, according to the Alaska Earthquake Center. 

In Kodiak, Alaska, sirens warned of a possible tsunami and sent people driving to shelters late at night, according to video posted to social media. 

The United States Geological Survey wrote in a social media post that the earthquake occurred 106 kilometers (65.8 miles) south of Sand Point, Alaska, at 10:48 p.m. Saturday. The quake initially was reported as 7.4 magnitude but downgraded to 7.2 soon after. 

The U.S. National Weather Service sent a tsunami advisory saying the quake occurred at a depth of 13 miles (21 kilometers). The agency cancelled the advisory about an hour after the first alert. 

Before the cancellation, the National Weather Service in Anchorage, Alaska, tweeted that the tsunami advisory applied to coastal Alaska from Chignik Bay to Unimak Pass, but Kodiak Island and the Kenai Peninsula were not expected to be impacted. 

The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency said shortly after the tsunami warning went out that there was no threat to the islands. 

There were an estimated eight aftershocks in the same area of Alaska, including one measuring 5.0 magnitude within three minutes of the original earthquake, KTUU-TV reported. 

Residents were advised not to reoccupy hazard zones without clearance from local emergency officials, KTUU reported. 

Small sea level changes were still possible, KTUU reported. 
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Data Show California New Oil Well Approvals Have Nearly Ground to a Halt

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California, the seventh-biggest U.S. crude oil producer, has put a near halt on issuing permits for new drilling this year, according to state data.

The state’s Geologic Energy Management Division, known as CalGEM, has approved seven new active well permits in 2023. That compares with the more than 200 it had issued by this time last year.

The stalled approvals represent the latest tension between California’s bold environmental ambitions and its role as a major oil and gas producer and consumer.

New drilling permits have steadily declined since Gavin Newsom became governor in 2019, but the current rate of approval represents a sudden and dramatic drop.

“It’s just fallen off the cliff,” Rock Zierman, chief executive of the California Independent Petroleum Association (CIPA), said in an interview. The industry has more than 1,400 permit applications for new wells awaiting CalGEM approval, half of which are more than a year old, he said.

In an email, CalGEM attributed the smaller number of approvals to both the broader decline in California oil production and litigation that has paused permitting by Kern County, the center of the state’s oil industry.

CalGEM is processing far more approvals to permanently close wells than for any other activity, the agency said.

“We expect this permitting trend to continue as California transitions away from fossil fuels,” CalGEM said.

The approved new wells include one for Sentinel Peak Resources in San Luis Obispo County and five for E&B Natural Resources Management in Kern County.

In an apparent concession to the oil and gas industry, approvals to improve or repair established wells are up nearly 50% to 1,650 in the first half of this year, according to an analysis of the CalGEM data by environmental group FracTracker Alliance that was provided to Reuters by the consumer advocacy non-profit Consumer Watchdog.

Reworking existing wells to boost their production cannot replace volumes from new wells that are needed to meet California’s energy needs, CIPA’s Zierman said.

The governor wants to phase out oil drilling in the state by 2045.

California also passed a law last year banning oil and gas drilling within 3,200 feet of structures including homes, schools and hospitals. But CIPA has blocked implementation of that law by qualifying a referendum to overturn it for the November 2024 ballot.

Nearly half of the wells with rework permits approved this year are within the contested buffer zone.

Consumer Watchdog criticized those approvals as a threat to public health because they extend the lives of low- and non-producing wells, which the group argues would likely have been plugged had the setback law not been paused.

“The state is simply helping the oil industry cut costs by issuing permits to tinker with unproductive wells rather than making them plug and remediate those wells that endanger the public and environment by emitting toxic compounds,” said Liza Tucker, a consumer advocate for Consumer Watchdog.

CalGEM said it is required to evaluate permits so long as the law is barred from being implemented.
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Tourists Are Packing European Hotspots, Boosted by Americans

Posted on by SeeEU

Tourists are waiting more than two hours to visit the Acropolis in Athens. Taxi lines at Rome’s main train station are running just as long. And so many visitors are concentrating around St. Mark’s Square in Venice that crowds get backed up crossing bridges — even on weekdays.

After three years of pandemic limitations, tourism is expected to exceed 2019 records in some of Europe’s most popular destinations this summer, from Barcelona and Rome, Athens and Venice to the scenic islands of Santorini in Greece, Capri in Italy and Mallorca in Spain.

While European tourists edged the industry toward recovery last year, the upswing this summer is led largely by Americans, boosted by a strong dollar and in some cases pandemic savings. Many arrive motivated by “revenge tourism” — so eager to explore again that they’re undaunted by higher airfares and hotel costs.

Lauren Gonzalez, 25, landed in Rome this week with four high school and college friends for a 16-day romp through the Italian capital, Florence and the seaside after three years of U.S. vacations. They aren’t concerned about the high prices and the crowds.

“We kind of saved up, and we know this is a trip that is meaningful,” said Gonzalez, who works at a marketing agency. “We are all in our mid-20s. It’s a (moment of) change in our lives. … This is something special. The crowds don’t deter us. We live in Florida. We have all been to Disney World in the heat. We are all good.”

Americans appear equally unperturbed by recent riots in Paris and other French cities. There was a small drop in flight bookings, but it was mainly for domestic travel.

 

“Some of my friends said, ‘It’s a little crazy there right now,’ but we thought summer is really a good time for us to go, so we’ll just take precautions,” Joanne Titus, a 38-year-old from Maryland, said while strolling the iconic Champs-Elysees shopping boulevard.

The return of mass tourism is a boon to hotels and restaurants, which suffered under COVID-19 restrictions. But there is a downside, too, as pledges to rethink tourism to make it more sustainable have largely gone unheeded.

“The pandemic should have taught us a lesson,” said Alessandra Priante, director of the regional department for Europe at the U.N. World Tourism Organization.

Instead, she said, the mindset “is about recuperating the cash. Everything is about revenue, about the here and now.”

“We have to see what is going to happen in two or three years’ time because the prices at the moment are unsustainable,” she said.

The mayor of Florence is stopping new short-term apartment rentals from proliferating in the historic center, which is protected as a UNESCO heritage site, as mayors of Italy’s other art cities call for a nationwide law to manage the sector.

Elsewhere, the anti-mass tourism movements that were active before the pandemic have not reappeared, but the battle lines are still being drawn: graffiti misdirected tourists in Barcelona away from — instead of toward — the Gaudi-designed Park Guell.

Despite predictable pockets of overtourism, travel to and within Europe overall is still down 10% from 2019, according to the World Tourism Organization. That is partly due to fewer people visiting countries close to the war in Ukraine, including Lithuania, Finland, Moldova and Poland.

In addition, Chinese visitors have not fully returned, with flights from China and other Asia-Pacific countries down 45% from 2019, according to travel data company ForwardKeys.

Tourism-dependent Greece expects 30 million visitors this year, still shy of 2019’s 34 million record. Still, the number of flights are up so far, and tourist hotspots are taking the brunt.

The Culture Ministry will introduce a new ticketing system for the Acropolis this month, providing hourly slots for visitors to even out crowds. But no remedy is being discussed for the parking line of cruise ships on the islands of Mykonos and Santorini on busy mornings.

Spain’s tourism minister, Hector Gomez, called it “a historic summer for tourism,” with 8.2 million tourists arriving in May alone, breaking records for a second straight month. Still, some hotel groups say reservations slowed in the first weeks of summer, owing to the steep rise in prices for flights and rooms.

Costs are growing as flights from the U.S. to Europe are up 2% from 2019 levels, according to ForwardKeys.

 

“The rising appetite for long-haul travel from America is the continued result of the ‘revenge travel’ boom caused by the pandemic lockdowns,” said Tim Hentschel, CEO of HotelPlanner, a booking site. “Big cities within these popular European countries are certainly going to be busy during the summer.”

Americans have pushed arrivals in Italian bucket-list destinations like Rome, Florence, Venice and Capri above pre-pandemic levels, according to Italy’s hotel association, Federalberghi.

They bring a lot of pent-up buying power: U.S. tourists in Italy spent 74% more in tax-free indulgences in the first three months of the year, compared with same period of 2019.

“Then there is the rest of Italy that lives from Italian and European tourism, and at the moment, it is still under 2019 levels,” Federalberghi president Bernabo Bocca said.

He expects it will take another year for an across-the-board recovery. An economic slowdown discouraged German arrivals, while Italians “are less prone to spending this year,” he said.

And wallets will be stretched. Lodging costs in Florence rose 53% over last year, while Venice saw a 25% increase and Rome a 21% hike, according to the Italian consumer group Codacons.

Even gelato will cost a premium 21% over last year, due to higher sugar and milk prices.

Perhaps nothing has encouraged the rise in tourism in key spots more than a surge in short-term apartment rentals. With hotel room numbers constant, Bocca of Federalberghi blames the surge for the huge crowds in Rome, inflating taxi lines and crowding crosswalks so that city buses cannot continue their routes.

In Rome and Florence, “walking down the street, out of every building door, emerges a tourist with a suitcase,” he said.

While Florence’s mayor is limiting the number of short-term rentals in the historic center to 8,000, no action has been taken in Venice. The canal-lined city counts 49,432 residents in its historic center and 49,272 tourist beds, nearly half of those being apartments available for short-term rental.

Inconveniences are “daily,” said Giacomo Salerno, a researcher at Venice’s Ca’ Foscari University focusing on tourism.

It difficult to walk down streets clogged with visitors or take public water buses “saturated with tourists with their suitcases,” he said.

Students cannot find affordable housing because owners prefer to cash in with vacation rentals. The dwindling number of residents means a dearth of services, including a lack of family doctors largely due to the high cost of living, driven up by tourist demand.

Venice has delayed plans to charge day-trippers a tax to enter the city, meant to curb arrivals. But activists like Salerno say that will do little to resolve the issue of a declining population and encroaching tourists, instead cementing Venice’s fate as “an amusement park.”

“It would be like saying the only use for the city is touristic,” Salerno said.
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What Will Biden’s New Plan Mean for Borrowers Set to Begin Paying Back Their Student Loans?

Posted on by SeeUS

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to effectively kill Biden’s earlier student debt forgiveness proposal, the White House is trying again to ease the burden on those carrying student loans using a different legal approach.

Biden’s original plan would have canceled up to $20,000 in federal student loans for 43 million people. Of those, 20 million would have had their remaining student debt erased completely.

With repayments set to begin in October, many borrowers are wondering if they still have to pay. Here’s what to know about where the new Biden plan stands.

What is the new plan and how is it different?

Under the proposed approach, the White House is now planning to use the Higher Education Act of 1965 — a sweeping federal law that governs the student loan program — to bring about relief for student borrowers.

Biden said the authority of the act will provide “the best path that remains to provide as many borrowers as possible with debt relief.”

The law includes a provision giving the education secretary authority to “compromise, waive or release” student loans.

In its previous attempt to forgive student loans, Biden’s White House appealed to a bipartisan 2003 law dealing with national emergencies, known as the HEROES Act, for the authority to cancel the debt. The court’s 6-3 decision, with conservative justices in the majority, said the administration needed Congress’ endorsement before undertaking so costly a program. 

Who will be eligible and how much debt will be canceled?

So far, it remains unclear which loan holders will qualify and how much of their debt will be forgiven. To figure it out, the Education Department will go through a process known as negotiated rulemaking. 

Should borrowers still make loan payments?

Hours after the Supreme Court decision, President Joe Biden announced a 12-month grace period to help borrowers who struggle after payments restart. Biden said borrowers can and should make payments during the first 12 months after payments resume, but, if they don’t, they won’t be at risk of default and it won’t hurt their credit scores. Interest will resume in September, however, and it will accrue whether borrowers make payments or not. Biden reiterated that it is not the same as the student loan pause, adding that “if you can pay your monthly bills, you should.”

Experts at the Student Borrower Protection Center and Institute of Student Loan Advisors encourage borrowers not to begin to make payments again until the fall, when interest starts up again and the pause lifts, since there is no penalty for not doing so during the freeze. Instead, any savings that would have gone to payments can earn interest in those remaining few months.

Finally, after the year-long grace period, if you’re in a short-term financial bind, you may qualify for deferment or forbearance — allowing you to temporarily suspend payment.

To determine whether deferment or forbearance are good options for you, contact your loan servicer. One thing to note: Interest still accrues during deferment or forbearance. Both can also affect future loan forgiveness options. Depending on the conditions of your deferment or forbearance, it may make sense to continue paying the interest during the payment suspension. 

Following the year-long on-ramp offered by the Biden administration, if you don’t make student loan payments, you’ll risk delinquency and default, which will harm your credit score and potentially lock you out of other aid and benefits down the line. 

What about declaring bankruptcy?

The Biden administration is also working to make a clearer path for borrowers considering bankruptcy.

In November, the Justice Department announced a process with new guidelines for students with federal loans who are unable to pay. Under the new guidance, debtors will fill out an “attestation form,” which the government will use to determine whether or not to recommend a discharge of debt. If borrowers’ expenses exceed their income and other criteria are met, the government will be more likely to recommend a full or partial discharge of loans. 

How soon could the new plan happen?

Get ready to wait.

The overall idea is to create a new federal rule by gathering together lots of people with different views and hashing out the details. The goal is to reach a consensus, but the Education Department doesn’t need it to move forward.

It’s possible the Biden administration will go through the process, fail to reach a consensus but still proceed with whatever it decides is the best cancellation plan.

Still, this could take a long time. The absolute minimum for something like this would be about a year, according to Michael Brickman, who was part of multiple rounds of negotiated rulemaking as an education official for the Trump administration. There’s bureaucratic red tape to navigate, and the process is designed to slow things down and force a deliberate negotiation.

The process of negotiated rulemaking requires a period for written feedback from the public, a public hearing (a virtual hearing is scheduled for July 18) and negotiating sessions.

Given that the administration is just starting the process, Brickman said it’s possible it could take up to two years.

Asked why the Education Department didn’t try this route from the start, Secretary Miguel Cardona acknowledged Friday that it “does take longer.” 

Is this plan on firmer legal ground?

That’s up for debate.

In a 2021 memo, the former top education lawyer for the Obama administration cast doubt on the president’s authority to enact mass student loan cancellation. The memo, from Charlie Rose, first reported by The Wall Street Journal and obtained by the AP, warned that “the more persuasive analyses tend to support the conclusion that the Executive Branch likely does not have the unilateral authority to engage in mass student debt cancellation.” Instead, it found that the education secretary’s authority is “limited to case-by-case review and, in some cases, only to nonperforming loans.”

Some advocates had been urging Biden go this route all along, and the White House says it’s confident the plan will work. But it’s almost certain to face legal challenges. The Education Department has used the Higher Education Act to cancel student loans before, but never at the scale being discussed now. Backers including Sen. Elizabeth Warren have said the legal authority is clear, but lawyers for the Trump administration concluded in 2021 that mass student loan forgiveness was illegal. It could wind up being a gray area that courts need to sort out.

Brickman, who is now an adjunct fellow at AEI, a conservative think tank, predicts a similar fate to Biden’s previous plan. “The Supreme Court has told them no, and yet they’re undeterred,” he said. “I’m sure there’s a population out there that really admires that. But at some point the Constitution is the Constitution, and you have to just kind of accept that.” 
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British Defense Ministry: Russian Security Experienced ‘Period of Confusion and Negotiations’ After Wagner Mutiny

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Ukrainians have quickly learned how to counter Russian information attacks since Russia’s invasion in the country, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar wrote on her official Telegram channel Saturday.
Since last July, the U.K. has trained 18,000 Ukrainian volunteer infantrymen under the Operation Interflex training program, the Defense Ministry said Saturday. Ukrainian soldiers have been trained to “survive and be lethal in their fight against the illegal invasion of their homeland” it said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin could be arrested if he attends the BRICS summit scheduled in South Africa because of an arrest warrant issued against him last March by the International Criminal Court, which accused him of the war crime of deporting Ukrainian children to Russia.

 

Russia’s security apparatus experienced “a period of confusion and negotiations,” following the Wagner Group’s mutiny last month, the British Defense Ministry said Sunday in its daily intelligence update about Russian’s invasion of Ukraine. Now, however, an interim arrangement for the mercenary group’s future is shaping up, according to the report posted on Twitter.

Meanwhile, some social media groups associated with Wagner restarted their postings, focusing on Wagner’s activities in Africa. The ministry said recent announcements from Russian officials indicate that Russia is “likely prepared” to accept “Wagner’s aspirations to maintain its extensive presence on the continent.”

Both Ukraine and Poland Saturday confirmed the arrival of Wagner forces in Belarus, one day after Minsk said the mercenaries were training its troops.

“There may be several hundred of them at the moment,” Stanislaw Zaryn, Poland’s deputy minister coordinator of special services, said on Twitter.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner chief, has not been spotted in Belarus – he has not been seen in public since June 24.

Black Sea Grain Initiative

Russian President Vladimir Putin is remaining silent about a possible extension of the Black Sea Grain Initiative that is set to expire Monday.

In a phone call Saturday with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Putin discussed “the need for a permanent and sustainable solution to the movement of grain from Russia and Ukraine to the international markets,” according to the South African president’s office. No further details were provided.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has asked Putin to extend the Black Sea deal in return for connecting a subsidiary of Russia’s Agricultural Bank, Rosselkhozbank, to the SWIFT international payment system, but he has not received a reply, according to a U.N. spokesperson Friday.

“Discussions are being had, WhatsApp messages are being sent, Signal messages are being sent and exchanged. We’re also waiting for a response to the letter,” U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters when asked about the negotiations.

Russia has said it would agree to extend the deal only if its conditions are met regarding implementation.

Ukraine-South Korea

In a display of support for Ukraine, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol made a surprise visit to Saturday to Kyiv, announcing that Seoul will increase aid to Ukraine to $150 million this year, following an $100 million aid package last year. Yoon also said that Seoul will cooperate with Kyiv on infrastructure projects in Ukraine.

In a press conference Saturday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Yoon said South Korea aims to provide “a larger scale of military supplies” to Ukraine this year, after last year supplying nonlethal military inventory, such as body armor and helmets. He did not provide details. Zelenskyy thanked the South Korean president for his country’s support.

Earlier this month, Yoon told The Associated Press that supplies of de-mining equipment, ambulances, and other nonmilitary materials “are in the works” after a request from Ukraine, adding that South Korea already provided support to rebuild the Kakhovka Dam, destroyed last month.

South Korea, a key U.S. ally in Asia, has joined in the international sanctions against Russia and has provided Ukraine with humanitarian and financial support. So far, it has not provided weapons, in line with its long-standing policy of not supplying arms to countries actively engaged in conflict.

Yoon’s visit to Ukraine, his first, comes on the heels of NATO’s two-day summit in Lithuania this week.

Yoon and his wife toured Bucha and Irpin, two small cities near Kyiv where mass graves were discovered after Russian troops retreated last year. He laid flowers at a monument to the country’s war dead.

In his address Saturday, Zelenskyy called Yoon’s visit to Ukraine very important and “a very important direction of our international work.” He also thanked several countries, leaders and organizations for supporting Ukraine against Russian aggression.

Zaporizhzhia shelling

Russia and Ukraine traded blame Saturday for shelling that injured three civilians in a village the Zaporizhzhia region. The region is one of four Moscow said it annexed last year, but it does not control it.

Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential administration, said Russian forces shelled the village of Stepnohirske, where the three people were injured. The city of Zaporizhzhia was also targeted and 16 buildings were damaged, said Anatoliy Kurtiev, secretary of the city council. Both men spoke via the Telegram messaging app.

Meanwhile, the Moscow-installed official who oversees the parts of Zaporizhzhia Russia controls said Ukrainian forces destroyed a school in the village of Stulneve, while air defense intercepted a drone over the city of Tokmak.

Reuters could not independently verify either report.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Thousands March at Budapest Pride as LGBTQ+ Community Voices Anxiety Over Hungary’s Restrictive Laws

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Thousands of participants of the Budapest Pride march wound through the streets of the Hungarian capital on Saturday with marchers voicing their anxiety over the increasing pressure on the LGBTQ+ community from the country’s right-wing government.

The 28th annual event comes as the country’s laws, which ban the depiction of homosexuality or gender transition, to minors under 18 have begun to be applied with increasing regularity, resulting in fines and other penalties for those who disseminate LGBTQ+ content.

Before the march, which began in Budapest’s city park, Pride organizer Jojo Majercsik said that while the laws, passed in 2021, didn’t have immediate practical effects, they are now increasingly being used to crack down on LGBTQ+ visibility.

“You can now see how the propaganda law passed two years ago is being applied in practice and how the public discourse has become more angry,” Majercsik said, referring to the 2021 law. “It is now apparent how they are trying to limit the rights of LGBTQ people in the media world, in the world of movies, films and books.”

Majercsik pointed to a number of recent instances of media content that depicted LGBTQ+ people being restricted. This week, a national bookseller was fined around $36,000 for placing a popular LGBTQ+ graphic novel in its youth literature section, and for failing to place it in closed packaging as required by law.

Additionally, a 30-second animated campaign video produced by Budapest Pride — in which two female characters meet and touch foreheads — was ruled unsuitable for audiences under 18 by Hungary’s media authority, and may therefore only be broadcast between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m.

Such policies, enacted by the governing party of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, have led rights groups to warn that the rights of sexual minorities are being rapidly drawn back in the Central European country.

Orban’s government portrays itself as a champion of traditional family values, and a defender of Christian civilization from what it calls “gender madness.” It has repeatedly said its laws were designed to protect children from “sexual propaganda.”

But some Hungarians see the policies as deliberate attempts to stigmatize the LGBTQ+ community for political gain.

David Vig, director at Amnesty International Hungary, said that in contrast to some countries in Western Europe and North America where Pride events are celebrations of LGBTQ+ history and culture, Budapest Pride is a way of protesting increasing crackdowns on the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

“Unlike Pride marches in more happy countries of the world, this is really a human rights demonstration,” Vig told The Associated Press. “This is for social acceptance and this is for equal rights, because in Hungary, these are not secured. We are second-class citizens in many spheres of public life.”

Vig recounted a conflict that ensued this week after Amnesty International Hungary painted a city bench in rainbow colors to celebrate Pride month. The bench was defaced several times throughout the week by a white supremacist group of soccer fans, and anti-LGBTQ+ slogans were spraypainted in the vicinity.

“It is really a clear political message of stopping the LGBTQI community of the country from coming into public spaces, to showing who we are,” Vig said.

On Saturday, a distributed denial-of-service, or DDoS, attack struck Budapest Pride’s official webpage shortly before noon. It was unavailable throughout the day. Several small groups of counterprotesters lined the streets on the Pride march route, waving banners with anti-LGBTQ+ slogans.

But despite such opposition, Kristof Steiner, an emcee at Budapest Pride, said there were signs that younger generations of Hungarians are increasingly tolerant of the LGBTQ+ community.

“There are new laws that are making it nearly impossible for an LGBTQ person to live normally. We are being very much marginalized,” he said. “But at the same time, there is a very positive change. I see that the new generation is completely different.”

Nimrod Dagan, a Pride march participant, said he thinks LGBTQ+ rights in Hungary and in his home country of Israel are being “taken away,” and that he feels a responsibility to stand up for his community by taking part in the march.

“I don’t think it’s a celebration. It’s clear for everybody here that, unlike in other countries … of the world, there is a bigger meaning to this,” Dagan said. “I would say that it’s a happy protest.”
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US, South Korea, Japan Conduct Missile Defense Drill

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The U.S., South Korea and Japan held a joint naval missile defense exercise on Sunday to counter North Korea’s evolving nuclear and missile threats, the South’s navy said, days after the North launched an intercontinental ballistic missile.

North Korea fired its latest Hwasong-18 missile, which Pyongyang describes as the core of its nuclear strike force, off the east coast on Wednesday in what it said was a “strong practical warning” to the adversaries.

Sunday’s trilateral drill was conducted in international waters between South Korea and Japan, bringing together destroyers equipped with Aegis radar systems from the three countries, the navy said.

Washington and its Asian allies have been working to improve their information-sharing system on North Korea’s missiles. South Korea and Japan are independently linked to U.S. radar systems but not to each other’s.

The exercise aimed at mastering the allies’ response to a North Korean ballistic missile launch with a scenario featuring a virtual target, the military said.

“We will effectively respond to North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats with our military’s strong response system and the trilateral cooperation,” a South Korean Navy officer said.  

The North’s ICBM launch was denounced by the U.S., South Korea and Japan, though Pyongyang has rejected the condemnation, saying it was an exercise of its right to self-defense.  

The latest launch followed heated complaints from North Korea in recent days, accusing American spy planes of flying over its exclusive economic zone waters, condemning a recent visit to South Korea by an U.S. nuclear-powered cruise missile submarine and vowing to take steps in reaction. 
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5 Killed in Suspected Jihadi Attack in Niger

Posted on by SeeAF

A police officer and four civilians were killed in a suspected terrorist attack in southwestern Niger, the army said Saturday, in an area where thousands fled their homes this month to escape jihadi violence.

An army statement said the attack took place on Friday afternoon, targeting “a group of paramilitary police escorting a convoy” along a road near the border with Burkina Faso.

The statement said five people had been killed and 19 injured, including seven officers, five soldiers, and seven civilians, who were all taken to the capital, Niamey.

“On the side of the enemy, two terrorists were killed,” the statement said.

The attack took place in the southwestern Tillaberi region, in the border area where Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali meet — a hotbed of activity for insurgents linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group.

The vast arid area, roughly the size of South Korea, has about 150,000 internally displaced people, according to the United Nations.

On Wednesday, the U.N. and local authorities said nearly 11,000 had fled their homes this month alone.

One of the poorest countries in the world, Niger is also struggling with jihadi violence that has spilled into its southeast from northeastern Nigeria.
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Record Heat Waves Sweep World, From US to Europe to Asia

Posted on by SeeEU

Tens of millions were battling dangerously high temperatures in the United States on Saturday as record heat forecasts hung over Europe and Japan, in the latest example of the threat from climate change.

A powerful heat wave stretching from California to Texas was expected to peak as the National Weather Service warned of an “extremely hot and dangerous weekend.”

Daytime highs were forecast to range between 10- and 20-degrees Fahrenheit above normal in the U.S. Southwest.

In Arizona, one of the hardest-hit states, residents face a daily endurance marathon against the sun.

The state capital, Phoenix, recorded 16 straight days above 43 degrees Celsius (109F), with temperatures hitting 44C (111F) on Saturday en route to an expected 46C (115F).

California’s Death Valley, one of the hottest places on Earth, is also likely to register new peaks on Sunday, with the mercury possibly rising to 54C (130F).

Temperatures reached 48C (118F) by midday on Saturday and even overnight lows could exceed 38C (100F).

Authorities have been sounding the alarm, advising people to avoid outdoor activities in the daytime and to be wary of dehydration.

At a construction site outside Houston, Texas, a 28-year-old worker who gave his name only as Juan helped complete a wall in the blazing heat.

“Just when I take a drink of water, I get dizzy, I want to vomit because of the heat,” he told AFP.  

The Las Vegas weather service warned that assuming high temperatures naturally come with the area’s desert climate was “a DANGEROUS mindset! This heat wave is NOT typical desert heat.”

Southern California is fighting numerous wildfires, including one in Riverside County that has burned more than 1,214 hectares (3,000 acres) and prompted evacuation orders.

Further north, the Canadian government reported that wildfires had burned a record-breaking 10 million hectares (25 million acres) this year, with more damage expected as the summer drags on.  

Historic highs forecast

In Europe, Italy faces weekend predictions of historic highs, and the health ministry issued a red alert for 16 cities including Rome, Bologna and Florence.

The weather center warned Italians to prepare for “the most intense heat wave of the summer and also one of the most intense of all time.”

The thermometer is likely to hit 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in Rome by Monday and even 43C (109F) on Tuesday, smashing the record of 40.5C set in August 2007.

The islands of Sicily and Sardinia could wilt under temperatures as high as 48C (118F), the European Space Agency warned — “potentially the hottest temperatures ever recorded in Europe.”

The Acropolis in Athens, one of Greece’s top tourist attractions, will close during the hottest hours on Sunday, the third day running.

In France, high temperatures and resulting drought are posing a threat to the farming industry, earning Agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau criticism from climatologists on Saturday for having brushed aside conditions as “normal enough for summer.”  

This June was the second hottest on record in France, according to the national weather agency, and several areas of the country have been under a heat wave alert since Tuesday.  

There is little reprieve ahead for Spain, as its meteorological agency warned Saturday that a new heat wave Monday through Wednesday will bring temperatures above 40C (104F) to the Canary Islands and the southern Andalusia region.  

Killer rains

Parts of eastern Japan are also expected to reach 38 (100F) to 39C (102F) on Sunday and Monday, with the meteorological agency warning temperatures could hit previous records.

Relentless monsoon rains have reportedly killed at least 90 people in northern India, after burning heat.

The Yamuna River running through the capital, New Delhi, has reached a record high, threatening low-lying neighborhoods in the megacity of more than 20 million people.

Major flooding and landslides are common during India’s monsoons, but experts say climate change is increasing their frequency and severity.

Morocco was slated for above-average temperatures this weekend with highs of 47C in some provinces — more typical of August than July — sparking concerns for water shortages, the meteorological service said.  

River Tigris shrinking

Water-scarce Jordan was forced to dump 214 metric tons of water on a wildfire that broke out in the Ajloun forest in the north amid a heat wave, the army said.  

In Iraq, where scorching summers are common, Wissam Abed usually cools off from Baghdad’s brutal summer by swimming in the Tigris River.

But as rivers dry up, so does the age-old pastime.  

With temperatures near 50C (122F) and wind whipping through the city like a hairdryer, Abed stood in the middle of the river, but the water only came up to his waist.

“Year after year, the water situation gets worse,” the 37-year-old told AFP.

While it can be difficult to attribute a particular weather event to climate change, scientists insist global warming, linked to dependence on fossil fuels, is behind the multiplication and intensification of heat waves.

The EU’s climate monitoring service said the world saw its hottest June on record last month.
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Vondrousova Writes Own Happy Ending at Wimbledon to Leave Jabeur in Tears

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When Marketa Vondrousova punched away a volley and fell to the ground after completing one of the most unexpected runs to the Wimbledon title, a jumble of thoughts must have been running through her head.

After all, Saturday was meant to be the day when Tunisian sixth seed Ons Jabeur would finally become the first Arab and first African woman to win a Grand Slam title.

Instead, a distraught Jabeur was left with tears streaming down her face as her Wimbledon dream was wrecked in the final for the second year running with a 6-4 6-4 drubbing.

In stark contrast, Vondrousova knelt down on the grass in her moment of triumph — staring at the turf that until this fortnight had not brought her much joy.

The Czech left-hander had won only one match at the All England Club before this year and 12 months ago she had come to London as a tennis tourist with her arm and elbow in a plaster cast as she recovered from a second bout of wrist surgery.

Her time out from the sport meant that she fell so far off the tennis radar that she no longer even had a clothing sponsor.

But the 42nd-ranked Czech put those problems behind her to become the first unseeded woman to lift the Venus Rosewater Dish as she completed her own phenomenal comeback story.

“I don’t know what’s happening right now,” Vondrousova said during the presentation ceremony as she was given a standing ovation by a 15,000-strong capacity Centre Court crowd that included tennis greats Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova.

“Ons, you are such an inspiration for all of us and I hope you will win this one day; you are an amazing person.

“This time last year I had a cast on so it’s amazing that I can now stand here and hold this [trophy], it’s crazy,” added the Czech, whose husband Stepan Simek had flown in from Prague especially for the final after being relieved of his cat-sitting duties at home.

“It’s amazing as tomorrow is the first anniversary of our wedding. I am exhausted but I am so proud. I am going to have a beer as it’s been an exhausting two weeks,” said Vondrousova.

While the clearly elated Czech began her victory lap to show off the Rosewater Dish to all corners of Centre Court, Britain’s Princess of Wales was left to console a sobbing Jabeur who could not fathom how she had messed up her chance of holding aloft the most famous trophy in women’s tennis.

The truth of the matter was that she was the architect of her own downfall, with the 31 unforced errors she produced telling their own story.

“This is very, very, tough. I am going to look ugly for those photos,” the 28-year-old Jabeur told the crowd.

After the hollering fans gave the crowd favorite a prolonged ovation, she added: “This is the most painful loss of my career.

“Today is going to be a tough day for me but I’m not going to give up and I am going to come back stronger. It’s been a tough journey, but I promise I will come back and one day win this tournament.”

Only time will tell if she can fulfill that promise but on Saturday, she was ruing all the chances she had missed during the opening exchanges of a contest that was effectively being played in an indoor arena after the roof was closed to block out the howling winds blowing through the grounds.

Jabeur knows she could have won the first set 6-0, having had game points in each of the opening six games. But the variety, imagination and mental fortitude she had shown to knock out four Grand Slam champions en route to the final simply deserted her on Saturday.

She let a 2-0 opening-set lead slip through her fingers, with Vondrousova breaking back and then saving four break points in the fourth game.

It still seemed like Jabeur had the match on her racket when she leapt to a 4-2 lead by breaking her 24-year-old opponent to love.

But then inexplicably the wheels fell off Jabeur’s game as she lost 16 of the next 18 points, with a sloppy service return handing Vondrousova the set.

While the Czech was on a roll, winning five games on the trot, the crowd did their best to wake up Jabeur who appeared to be trapped in her own personal nightmare, albeit in front of a global audience.

The Tunisian, who also lost the 2022 U.S. Open final to Iga Swiatek, finally responded to take a 3-1 lead in the second set but that respite proved to be a false dawn.

The racket she had used as a wand to bamboozle six other rivals during these championships had lost its magical powers and she conceded five of the next six games in a hail of unforced errors, leaving Vondrousova to bask in the glory of following in the footsteps of fellow Czech-born Wimbledon champions Navratilova, Jana Novotna and Petra Kvitova.
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Sudan Government Representatives Arrive in Jeddah to Resume Talks With RSF

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Sudanese representatives have arrived in Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah to resume talks with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Sudanese government sources told Reuters Saturday, after three months of fighting between the army and RSF.

Previous talks in Jeddah facilitated by Saudi Arabia and the United States were suspended by both countries in early June after numerous cease-fire violations. Saudi Arabia and the U.S. have yet to confirm the resumption of talks between Sudan’s warring factions.

Separately, a mediation attempt launched by Egypt began Thursday, an effort welcomed both by the Sudanese army, which has close ties to Egypt, and the RSF.

A series of cease-fires have failed to halt the fighting which broke out on April 15 as the army and RSF vied for power.

The conflict has seen more than 3 million people uprooted, including more than 700,000 who have fled to neighboring countries.

On Saturday, at least four civilians were killed and four injured in a drone attack that targeted a hospital in the city of Omdurman, Sudan’s health ministry said, accusing the RSF of carrying out the attack.
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Analysts: Germany’s New China Strategy Prudent, Highlights Indo-Pacific

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Germany released its first China strategy this week, which calls Beijing a “systemic rival” and stresses the need for Europe’s largest economy to reduce economic dependence on its largest trading partner. 

 

Analysts tell VOA the policy shift outlined in the 64-page report that notes “China has changed” highlights Germany’s attempt to be more “prudent” in its economic relations with Beijing. They also assert that the plan’s focus on the Indo-Pacific and the need to step up military cooperation shows Germany’s recognition of the link between security in Asia and Berlin’s interests.  

 

Ian Chong, a political scientist at the National University of Singapore, said the strategy is “a reflection of some of Germany’s thinking following the war in Ukraine,” and he said it shows Berlin has learned economic interests can’t necessarily help to maintain peaceful relations with certain countries.   

Geopolitical risks 

In the Strategy on China, which was released Thursday, Berlin calls on German businesses to include geopolitical risks in their decision-making process and warns that companies that are particularly reliant on the Chinese market will have to “carry the financial risk more heavily themselves” in the future.  

Berlin says it wants to ensure its economic relationship with Beijing becomes “fairer, more sustainable and more reciprocal.” Germany is also looking to adjust export control lists to safeguard new key technologies.  

Speaking at a news conference Thursday, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock emphasized that while Germany needs to pursue economic diversification, it doesn’t plan to hamper China’s economic development or its own.  

China’s Foreign Ministry Friday said Berlin’s call for reducing dependency on China is a form of protectionism and the two countries are “partners rather than rivals.”  

“We believe that to engage in competition and protectionism in the name of de-risking and reducing dependency, and to overstretch the concept of security and politicize normal cooperation will only be counterproductive and create artificial risks,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin during the daily press conference.  

From Trans-Atlantic to Indo-Pacific 

Aside from economic ties with China, the strategy also highlights the impact Beijing’s relationship with Moscow has had on Berlin’s position, especially since the war in Ukraine.  

In its report, Germany notes that “China’s decision to further its relations with Russia has direct security implications for Germany.” 

One place that will have implications is the Indo-Pacific. 

The report says Germany will expand its “security policy and military cooperation with close partners in the Indo-Pacific,” adding that the move underscores its commitment to preserving the rules-based international order.  

“It is in Germany’s interest to protect global public goods in the Indo-Pacific in the long term,” the strategy states. 

In recent years, Germany already has begun to boost its security commitments to the Indo-Pacific. In 2021, Germany deployed its first warship to the South China Sea in almost 20 years, and in 2022, it sent 13 military aircraft to join military exercises held in Australia.  

According to Reuters report earlier this week, Germany will send troops to participate in a joint military exercise in Australia for the first time.  

“It is a region of extremely high importance for us in Germany as well as for the European Union due to the economic interdependencies,” Germany’s Army Chief Alfons Mais told Reuters in an interview published on July 10. The interview was released just before troops were to leave for Australia. 

National University of Singapore’s Chong said the commitments Germany has made in its strategy reflect its understanding of the link between security in Asia and Germany’s interests. “As part of this recognition, Germany has been trying to demonstrate that it’s an active and interested partner that provides security benefits,” he said.  

Taiwan Strait’s importance  

One key issue in the Indo-Pacific region referenced in the strategy is maintaining the status quo in the Taiwan Strait, one of the region’s biggest flashpoints. In its report, Germany emphasized it is working for de-escalation around Taiwan because security in the Taiwan Strait is “of crucial importance for peace and stability in the region and far beyond.”  

“The status quo in the Taiwan Strait may only be changed by peaceful means and mutual consent,” the Strategy on China said, adding that military escalation also would affect German and European interests.  

China claims democratically ruled Taiwan is part of its territory and has dramatically increased the frequency of fighter jet sorties and military exercises around the island over the past year.   

Since July 9, China has sent 131 military aircraft and 52 naval vessels to areas around Taiwan, and some came so close to the island’s shore that Taiwanese defense officials characterized the moves as “harassment.”  

Sari Arho Havren, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, told VOA that with Germany’s deep dependence on Chinese trade and supply chains, military escalation in the Indo-Pacific — specifically in the Taiwan Strait — would be a serious risk.  

“The status quo of supporting allies in the region is in Germany’s interests,” she said. 

NATO expansion?  

And while Germany doubles down on its commitment to the Indo-Pacific region, NATO has also been debating the prospect of increasing its presence in the region. This topic was front and center during the NATO Summit this week in Lithuania.   

The security alliance has floated the idea in recent months of opening a liaison office in Japan, and leaders from Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand were all invited to attend the summit, the second time that leaders from four Indo-Pacific states took part in the event. Their presence and criticism of China that came up during the summit triggered an angry response from Beijing.   

Earlier this week, the Chinese mission to the European Union voiced Beijing’s opposition to what it called NATO’s expansion into “the Asia-Pacific region.” In response, the U.S. Ambassador to NATO Juliane Smith said, “We’re not adding members from the Indo-Pacific.”  

What NATO is doing, she said, is “breaking down barriers between America’s Atlantic allies and America’s Pacific allies to look at common challenges.” 

Some analysts told VOA there is a clear determination among NATO member states to strengthen cooperation and coordination with the four Indo-Pacific states that have become regular participants in NATO summits. 

“NATO members don’t shy away from strengthening cooperation with countries in the Indo-Pacific, and this is how the alliance contributes to maintaining peace and stability in the region,” said Zsuzsa Anna Ferenczy, an assistant professor at the National Dong Hwa University in Taiwan.  

Political Scientist Chong pointed out that Indo-Pacific countries can benefit from the increased presence of Germany and other NATO member states in the region because their engagement on security issues can provide regional states with more options as they try to navigate the intensifying U.S.-China competition. Additionally, Chong said NATO’s coordination with Japan and South Korea can help deter more risky actions by China. 
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UN: Sudan Health Care Near Collapse Due to Conflict

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United Nations agencies said Friday that millions of Sudanese cannot obtain treatment for emergency and chronic health conditions because fighting has brought the country’s fragile health system to near total collapse.   

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement violence and “shortages of supplies, damage or occupation of facilities and assaults on medical staff” are having a devastating impact on people’s lives and on their ability to access health care. 

The World Health Organization has said that some 50 attacks on health care facilities have caused 10 deaths and 21 injuries since fighting began between the Sudanese armed forces and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces three months ago. 

“Ongoing violence, rampant insecurity, repeated attacks on health, and limited access to essential health supplies, are putting the people of Sudan in a life-or-death situation, with no immediate political solution in sight,” Rick Brennan, emergency director for the WHO’s regional office for the Eastern Mediterranean said.  

Speaking from Cairo, Brennan said the violence has had a huge impact on access to the most basic health care, including treatment of such common infections as pneumonia and diarrhea, trauma treatment, and obstetric care.   

He said the conflict is preventing people with chronic conditions, such as diabetes and hypertension from getting treatment.   

“Patients who have been receiving dialysis for kidney failure and treatment for cancer are facing a sudden cessation of their treatment, with life-threatening consequences,” he said. 

He said disrupted access to those services is risking the lives of 8,000 people, including 240 children who need regular dialysis sessions.  He said many of an estimated 49,000 Sudanese cancer patients could die “without restoration of access to their cancer care.” 

He said lack of access to health care is raising the risk of malaria, measles, dengue, and cholera outbreaks.  The dangers, he said, are particularly acute with the onset of the rainy season. 

“The delivery of health care across the entire country is limited by shortage of supplies, lack of health workers and functioning health facilities, and logistic constraints due to insecurity and roadblocks by militias,” he said. 

The World Health Organization estimates 11 million people in Sudan need urgent health assistance, but few health facilities still are functioning.   Brennan said that between two-thirds and 80% of hospitals are not functioning and “in West Darfur, only one hospital is operational, but only partially.” 

Despite the ongoing insecurity and bureaucratic impediments, he said the WHO was working with local health authorities and U.N. agencies, including UNICEF and the U.N. Population Fund, to provide health care. 

For example, he said more than 170 tons of medical supplies have been delivered to hospitals and therapeutic treatments have been provided for more than 100,000 severely malnourished children. 

He said the WHO and and the U.N. Population Fund were working to provide women and girls access to sexual, reproductive, and maternal health care.   

He added that survivors of sexual and gender-based violence, which reportedly “is widespread in this conflict, as it is in so many conflicts,” were receiving medical and psychosocial support. 

“But the reality is that there are large proportions of the population to whom we do not have access, especially in Khartoum, Darfur and Kordofan,” he said. 

“Therefore, together with our U.N. partners, we are exploring all options to expand our operations, including through cross-border assistance.” 
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Canada’s Immigrant Recruitment Tops Week’s Immigration News

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Editor’s note: Here is a look at immigration-related news around the U.S. this week. Questions? Tips? Comments? Email the VOA immigration team: ImmigrationUnit@voanews.com. 

Canadian Immigration Initiative Allows US Work-Visa Holders to Go North  

Canada has unveiled an immigration initiative to attract highly skilled technology professionals from the United States with H-1B work visas. H-1B visas are for nonimmigrant foreign workers with specialized skills. Beginning July 16, up to 10,000 of these visa holders will be able to apply to work in Canada. The move is part of the country’s new Tech Talent Strategy. Immigration reporter Aline Barros has the story. 

Texas Set to Use Rio Grande Buoys in Bid to Curb Border Crossings  

Texas began Thursday to roll out what will become a floating barrier on the Rio Grande in the latest escalation of Governor Greg Abbott’s multibillion-dollar effort to secure the U.S. border with Mexico. The Associated Press reports.  

Supreme Court Allows Biden Policy to Take Effect Focusing Deportations on Public Safety Risks  

The Supreme Court said Friday it will no longer stand in the way of a long-blocked Biden administration policy to prioritize the deportation of immigrants who are deemed to pose the greatest public safety risk or were picked up at the border. The Associated Press reports.  

 

Immigration around the world 

VOA60 Africa: Sudan’s Six Neighbors in Cairo for Peace Talks, Refugees Share Harrowing Stories  

Thousands of refugees from neighboring Sudan pour into the small border town of Adré daily, often with harrowing stories of escaping the ongoing violence. 

300 Migrants Missing at Sea Near Spanish Canary Islands: Aid Group  

At least 300 people who were traveling on three migrant boats from Senegal to Spain’s Canary Islands have disappeared, migrant aid group Walking Borders said Sunday. Reuters reports.  

UNHCR Concerned About Forced Repatriation of Burkinabe Refugees From Ghana  

UNHCR, the U.N.’s refugee agency, has expressed concern about reports that Ghana’s armed forces this week deported hundreds of asylum-seekers who were fleeing an insurgency in neighboring Burkina Faso. Ghana’s military said it only expels illegal immigrants and suspected terrorists, but an activist who made a recording of the forced deportations says the move involved mostly women and children seeking refuge from the violence. Kent Mensah reports from Accra.  

Smuggler Sentenced for Deaths of 39 Migrants Who Suffocated in Truck  

A Romanian man who was part of an international human smuggling ring was sentenced Tuesday to more than 12 years in prison for the deaths of 39 migrants from Vietnam who suffocated in a truck trailer on their way to England in 2019. The Associated Press reports.  

Refugees Married to Kenyan Citizens Seek Citizenship Rights  

Rights groups in Kenya are campaigning for refugees married to Kenyans to obtain citizenship. The Kenyan Constitution allows foreign nationals married to Kenyans to register for citizenship after seven years of marriage. But they must have residency status to apply, and this policy locks out refugees. Juma Majanga reports from the Dadaab refugee camps. 

Aid Group: Afghan Children Die as Families Flee Taliban Demolition of Refugee Camp 

A global aid agency said Tuesday that Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities had evicted 280 internally displaced families, or about 1,700 people, from a makeshift settlement in Kabul and demolished it in a breach of international obligations. Ayaz Gul reports.  

WFP: Growing Number of Refugees from Sudan’s Darfur Region Crossing Into Chad  

The United Nations food agency says thousands of people are crossing the border into the central African nation of Chad from neighboring Sudan to escape the nearly three-month-old violence that the world body’s humanitarian chief has described as a civil war “of the most brutal kind.” A VOA News report.  

Spain Rescues 86 People Near Canary Islands, but Scores of Migrants From Senegal Remain Missing  

Spanish authorities rescued 86 people Monday from a boat near the Canary Islands that appeared to be from Senegal, after an aid group reported that three boats from the African country went missing with 300 people aboard. 

News Brief 

—The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced the implementation of new family reunification parole (FRP) processes for Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. 
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 Poll: Americans Say Democracy Is Not Working Well Right Now

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Americans are not happy with the way democracy is working right now. 

 

According to a poll from The Associated Press–NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, nearly half of Americans, 49%, say democracy is not working well in the U.S.   

 

Only 10% say democracy is working very or extremely well, while 40% say it’s working somewhat well. 

 

The two main U.S. political parties also received low ratings on how each is upholding democratic principles. 

 

Forty-seven percent said Democrats are doing a bad job with democratic principles, while 56% of those polled say Republicans could do a better job.   

 

The Associated Press says the poll shows there is “widespread political alienation as a polarized country limps out of the pandemic and into a recovery haunted by inflation and fears of a recession.” 

 

The poll was conducted June 22-26. 
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Hong Kong Activist Subject to Arrest Bounty Calls on Britain to Stand Up to China

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Even on the streets of London, Finn Lau does not feel safe from the reach of the Chinese Communist Party.

He is among the exiled pro-democracy activists facing arrest warrants issued by Hong Kong authorities last week, with a reward of 1 million Hong Kong dollars ($128,000) offered for information that helps lead to their detention.

Since then, Lau said he has seen several menacing online messages from pro-Chinese groups.

“I got some screenshots coming from some Telegram groups, saying that ‘perhaps we should lure them with some kind of tactics, such that we could catch them or kill them,” he said.

Lau helped to organize the 2019 pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. 

“I proposed different kinds of strategies, hosted different rallies and even did advocacy abroad,” Lau told VOA, “So that’s why they are accusing me of so-called collusion with foreign forces.”

Lau was arrested on January 1, 2020, but Hong Kong police failed to identify him as a ringleader, and he was released.

Soon after that he fled to Britain. China has since issued several arrest warrants for him but earlier this month was the first time Hong Kong authorities explicitly offered a bounty for his arrest.

“The head of the Hong Kong government, he said they will chase us until the end of the world,” Lau said. 

“To be honest I feel less safe in the U.K.. After all I faced different kinds of harassment, no matter whether it is virtual online harassment or physical harassment, for the last few years. I was attacked near my home in 2020.”  

That attack in London left Lau with severe injuries. He described the attackers as of East Asian origin and said he believes they were directed by the Chinese government, though Beijing denies involvement. British police have failed to identify the attackers.

Lau is demanding that British authorities take the latest threats more seriously.

“I request for assurance from the U.K. government that if there is anyone attempting to kidnap or to detain me under the so-called Hong Kong National Security Law, then they should be tried and charged under U.K. law for kidnapping.” 

“I have tried to contact the [British] Home Office as well as the police, several times. But there is no response at all,” he told VOA.

Lau said he believes Britain is reluctant to take a harder line as it does not want to jeopardize trade links with China.

“The U.K. government is one of the democratic countries that should hold China accountable, especially for what the Chinese Communist Party has been doing in Hong Kong. The U.K. government has signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration with the PRC back in 1984, which guaranteed – in theory – at least 50 years of autonomy, rule of law, civil liberties etc., to Hong Kongers after the 1997 Hong Kong handover,” Lau added.

The British government did not respond directly to VOA requests for comment. 

Foreign Office ministers have recently condemned the bounties offered for the arrest of the Hong Kong activists. They said it is a long-standing policy not to comment on operational matters regarding their protection in Britain.

Despite the reward for his arrest, Lau said he is not deterred.

“I should continue to fight on behalf of other Hong Kongers who cannot do so in Hong Kong. I’ve got friends sitting in the prison of Hong Kong. So that’s why I must continue to fight.”

Meanwhile, Hong Kong police this week called several family members of Nathan Law in for questioning. Law is another pro-democracy activist and former lawmaker living in London, also subject to an arrest warrant and bounty. They were released without charge.
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Pianist André Watts Dies at Age 77 of Prostate Cancer

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Pianist André Watts, whose televised debut with the New York Philharmonic as a 16-year-old in 1963 launched an international career of more than a half-century, has died. He was 77.

Watts died Wednesday at his home in Bloomington of prostate cancer, his manager, Linda Marder, said Friday. Watts joined the faculty of the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in 2004. He said in 2016 that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer.

Watts won a Philadelphia Orchestra student competition and debuted when he was 10 in a children’s concert on Jan. 12, 1957, performing the first movement of Haydn’s Concerto in D major.

He studied under Genia Robinor and made his New York Philharmonic debut in a Young People’s Concert led by music director Leonard Bernstein on Jan. 12, 1963, a program televised three days later on CBS.

“Now we come to a young man who is so remarkable that I am tempted to give him a tremendous buildup, but I’d almost rather not so that you might have the same unexpected shock of pleasure and wonderment that I had when I first him play,” Bernstein told the audience. “He was just another in a long procession of pianists who were auditioning for us one afternoon and out he came, a sensitive-faced 16-year-old boy from Philadelphia … who sat down at the piano and tore into the opening bars of a Liszt concerto in such a way that we simply flipped.”

Bernstein conducted Watts and the orchestra in Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1.

“What Mr. Watts had that was exceptional was a delicacy of attack that allowed the piano to sing,” Raymond Ericson wrote in The New York Times.

Watts so impressed Bernstein that the conductor chose him to replace an indisposed Glenn Gould and play the Liszt concerto twice at Philharmonic Hall a few weeks later. Within months, he had earned a recording contract and became among the most prominent pianists.

“When I’m feeling unhappy, going to the piano and just playing gently and listening to sounds makes everything slowly seem all right,” he said on a 1987 episode of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.”

Born in Nuremberg, Germany, on June 20, 1946, to a Hungarian mother and a Black father who was in the U.S. Army, Watts moved with his family to Philadelphia.

“When I was young, I was in the peculiar position with my school chums of not being white and not being Black, either,” Watts told The Christian Science Monitor in 1982. “Somehow I didn’t fit in very well at all. My mom said two things, ‘If you really think that you have to play 125% to a white’s 100% for equal treatment, it’s too bad. But fighting will not alter it.’ And, ‘If someone is not nice to you, it doesn’t have to be automatically because of your color.’

“(That advice) taught me that when I’m in a complex personal situation, I don’t have to conclude it is a racial thing. Therefore, I think I have encountered fewer problems all along the way.”

Watts’ career was interrupted on Nov. 14, 2002, when he was stricken by a subdural hematoma before a scheduled performance with the Pacific Symphony at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa, California. He had surgery in Newport Beach.

Watts then had surgery in 2004 to repair a herniated disk that caused nerve damage in his left hand. He made the last of more than 40 Carnegie Hall appearances with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in 2017. He had been scheduled to appear at the New York Philharmonic this November to mark the centennial of “Young People’s Concerts.”

He was nominated for five Grammy Awards and won Most Promising New Classical Recording Artist in 1964 for the Liszt concerto with Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic. He was nominated for a 1995 Emmy Award for Outstanding Cultural Program and received a 2011 National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medal from then-President Barack Obama.

Watts is survived by his wife Joan Brand Watts, stepson William Dalton, stepdaughter Amanda Rees and seven step-grandchildren. There were no immediate funeral plans.
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Thousands of Ukraine Civilians Are Being Held in Russian Prisons

Posted on by SeeEU

The Ukrainian civilians woke long before dawn in the bitter cold, lined up for the single toilet and were loaded at gunpoint into the livestock trailer. They spent the next 12 hours or more digging trenches on the front lines for Russian soldiers.

Many were forced to wear overlarge Russian military uniforms that could make them a target, and a former city administrator trudged around in boots five sizes too big. By the end of the day, their hands curled into icy claws.

Nearby, in the occupied region of Zaporizhzhia, other Ukrainian civilians dug mass graves into the frozen ground for fellow prisoners who had not survived. One man who refused to dig was shot on the spot — yet another body for the grave.

Thousands of Ukrainian civilians are being detained across Russia and the Ukrainian territories it occupies, in centers ranging from brand-new wings in Russian prisons to clammy basements. Most have no status under Russian law.

And Russia is planning to hold possibly thousands more. A Russian government document obtained by The Associated Press dating to January outlined plans to create 25 new prison colonies and six other detention centers in occupied Ukraine by 2026.

In addition, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree in May allowing Russia to send people from territories with martial law, which includes all of occupied Ukraine, to those without, such as Russia. This makes it easier to deport Ukrainians who resist Russian occupation deep into Russia indefinitely, which has happened in multiple cases documented by the AP.

Many civilians are picked up for alleged transgressions as minor as speaking Ukrainian or simply being a young man in an occupied region, and are often held without charge. Others are charged as terrorists, combatants, or people who “resist the special military operation.” Hundreds are used for slave labor by Russia’s military, for digging trenches and other fortifications, as well as mass graves.

Torture is routine, including repeated electrical shocks, beatings that crack skulls and fracture ribs, and simulated suffocation. Many former prisoners told the AP they witnessed deaths. A United Nations report from late June documented 77 summary executions of civilian captives and the death of one man due to torture.

Russia does not acknowledge holding civilians at all, let alone its reasons for doing so. But the prisoners serve as future bargaining chips in exchanges for Russian soldiers, and the U.N. has said there is evidence of civilians being used as human shields near the front lines.

The AP spoke with dozens of people, including 20 former detainees, along with ex-prisoners of war, the families of more than a dozen civilians in detention, two Ukrainian intelligence officials and a government negotiator. Their accounts, as well as satellite imagery, social media, government documents and copies of letters delivered by the Red Cross, confirm a widescale Russian system of detention and abuse of civilians that stands in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions.

Some civilians were held for days or weeks, while others have vanished for well over a year. Nearly everyone freed said they experienced or witnessed torture, and most described being shifted from one place to another without explanation.

“It’s a business of human trafficking,” said Olena Yahupova, the city administrator who was forced to dig trenches for the Russians in Zaporizhzhia. “If we don’t talk about it and keep silent, then tomorrow anyone can be there — my neighbor, acquaintance, child.”

Invisible prisoners

The new building in the compound of Prison Colony No. 2 is at least two stories tall, separated from the main prison by a thick wall.

This facility in Russia’s eastern Rostov region has gone up since the war started in February 2022, according to satellite imagery analyzed by the AP. It could easily house the hundreds of Ukrainian civilians who are believed detained there, according to former captives, families of the missing, human rights activists and Russian lawyers. Two exiled Russian human rights advocates said it is heavily guarded by soldiers and armored vehicles.

The building in Rostov is one of at least 40 detention facilities in Russia and Belarus, and 63 makeshift and formal in occupied Ukrainian territory where Ukrainian civilians are held, according to an AP map built on data from former captives, the Ukrainian Media Initiative for Human Rights, and the Russian human rights group Gulagu.net. The recent U.N. report counted a total of 37 facilities in Russia and Belarus and 125 in occupied Ukraine.

Some also hold Russian prisoners accused or convicted of a variety of crimes. Other, more makeshift locations are near the front lines, and the AP documented two locations where former prisoners say Ukrainians were forced to dig trenches.

The shadowy nature of the system makes it difficult to know exactly how many civilians are being detained. Ukraine’s government has been able to confirm legal details of a little over 1,000 who are facing charges.

At least 4,000 civilians are held in Russia and at least as many scattered around the occupied territories, according to Vladimir Osechkin, an exiled Russian human rights activist who talks to informants within Russian prisons and founded Gulagu.net to document abuses. Osechkin showed AP a Russian prison document from 2022 saying that 119 people ”opposed to the special military operation” in Ukraine were moved by plane to the main prison colony in the Russian region of Voronezh. Many Ukrainians later freed by Russia also described unexplained plane transfers.

In all, Ukraine’s government believes around 10,000 civilians could be detained, according to Ukrainian negotiator Oleksandr Kononeko, based on reports from loved ones, as well as post-release interviews with some civilians and the hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers returned in prisoner exchanges. Ukraine said in June that about 150 civilians have been freed to Ukrainian-controlled territory, and the Russians deny holding others.

“They say, ‘We don’t have these people, it’s you who is lying,'” Kononeko said.

The detention of two men from the Kherson region in August 2022 offers a glimpse at how hard it is for families to track down loved ones in Russian custody.

Artem Baranov, a security guard, and Yevhen Pryshliak, who worked at a local asphalt plant with his father, had been friends for over a decade. Their relationship was cemented when both bought dogs during the coronavirus pandemic, according to Baranov’s common-law wife, Ilona Slyva. Their evening walks continued even after Russia seized their hometown of Nova Kakhovka — shy Baranov with a giant black Italian mastiff and Pryshliak with a toy poodle whose apricot fur matched his beard.

Their walk ran late the night of Aug. 15, and Pryshliak decided to stay at Baranov’s apartment rather than risk being caught breaking the Russian curfew. Neighbors later told the family that 15 armed Russian soldiers swooped in, ransacked the apartment and seized the men.

For a month, they were in the local jail, with conditions relaxed enough that Slyva was able to talk to Pryshliak through the fence. Baranov, he told her, couldn’t come out.

She sent in packages of food and clothes but did not know if they were reaching him. Finally, on Baranov’s birthday, she bought his favorite dessert of cream eclairs, smashed them up, and slipped in a scrap of paper with her new Russian phone number scrawled on it. She hoped the guards would have little interest in the sticky mess and just pass it along.

A month went by, and the families learned the men had been transferred to a new prison in Sevastopol, in Crimea. Then the trail went dark.

Four more months passed. Then a call came from the family of a man they had never met but would soon come to know well: Pavlo Zaporozhets.

Zaporozhets, a Ukrainian from the occupied Kherson region charged with international terrorism, was sharing a cell in Rostov with Baranov. Since he faced charges, he had a lawyer.

It was then that Slyva knew her gift of eclairs — and the phone number smuggled within them — had reached its destination. Baranov had memorized her number and passed it through a complex chain that finally got news of him to her on April 7.

Baranov wrote that he was accused of espionage — an accusation that Slyva scorned as falling apart even under Russia’s internal logic. He was detained in August, and Russia illegally annexed the regions only in October.

“When he was detained, he was on his own national territory,” she said. “They thought and thought and invented a criminal case against him for espionage.”

Baranov wrote home that he was transported across prisons with his eyes closed in two planes, one of which had about 60 people. He and Pryshliak were separated at their third transfer in late winter. Pryshliak’s family has received a form letter from the Rostov prison denying he is an inmate there.

The number of civilian detainees has grown rapidly over the course of the war. In the first wave early on, Russian units moved in with lists of activists, pro-Ukrainian community leaders, and military veterans. Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov was taken when Russian forces seized control of his city but exchanged within a week for nine Russian soldiers, he said.

Then they focused on teachers and doctors who refused to work with the occupation authorities. But the reasons for apprehending people today are as mundane as tying a ribbon to a bicycle in the Ukrainian colors of blue and yellow.

“Now there is no logic,” Fedorov said.

He estimated that around 500 Ukrainian civilians are detained just in his city at any time — numbers echoed by multiple people interviewed by the AP.

A Ukrainian intelligence official said the Russian fear of dissidents had become “pathological” since last fall, as Russians brace for Ukraine’s counteroffensive. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the situation.

The AP saw multiple missing person notices posted on closed Ukrainian social media chats for young men seized off the streets. The messages, written in Ukrainian, describe detentions at gunpoint at home and on the street, with pleas to send information and emojis of hearts and praying hands.

The Geneva Conventions in general forbid the arbitrary detention or forced deportation of civilians, and state that detainees must be allowed to communicate with loved ones, obtain legal counsel and challenge allegations against them. But first they must be found.

After months writing letter after letter to locate Pryshliak, his sister-in-law Liubov thinks she knows why the prisoners are moved around: “So that the families cannot find them. Just to hide the traces of crimes.”

Slaves in the trenches

Hundreds of civilians end up in a place that is possibly even more dangerous than the prisons: the trenches of occupied Ukraine.

There, they are forced to build protection for Russian soldiers, according to multiple people who managed to leave Russian custody. Among them was Yahupova, the 50-year-old civil administrator detained in October 2022 in the Zaporizhzhia region, possibly because she is married to a Ukrainian soldier.

Under international humanitarian law, Yahupova is a civilian — defined as anyone who is not an active member of or volunteer for the armed forces. Documented breaches of the law constitute a war crime and, if widespread and systematic, “may also constitute a crime against humanity.”

But the distinctions between soldiers and civilians can be hard to prove in a war where Ukraine has urged all its citizens to help, for example by sending Russian troop locations via social media. In practice, the Russians are scooping up civilians along with soldiers, including those denounced by neighbors for whatever reason or seized seemingly at random.

They picked Yahupova up at her house in October. Then they demanded she reveal information about her husband, taping a plastic bag over her face, beating her on the head with a filled water bottle and tightening a cable around her neck.

They also dragged her out of the cell and drove her around town to identify pro-Ukrainian locals. She didn’t.

When they hauled her out a second time, she was exhausted. As a soldier placed her in front of a Russian news camera, she could still feel the dried blood on the back of her neck. She was going to give an interview, her captors told her.

Behind the camera, a gun was pointed at her head. The soldier holding it told her that if she gave the right answers to the Russian journalist interviewing her, she could go free.

But she didn’t know what the right answers were. She went back to the cell.

Three months later, without explanation, Yahupova was again pulled outside. This time, she was driven to a deserted checkpoint, where yet another Russian news crew awaited. She was ordered to hold hands with two men and walk about 5 meters (yards) toward Ukraine.

The three Ukrainians were ordered to do another take. And another, to show that Russia was freeing the Ukrainian civilians in its custody.

Except, at the end of the last take, Russian soldiers loaded them into a truck and drove them to a nearby crossroads. One put shovels into their hands.

“Now you will do something for the good of the Russian Federation,” he said.

And so Yahupova ended up digging trenches until mid-March with more than a dozen Ukrainian civilians, including business owners, a student, a teacher, and utility workers. She could see other crews in the distance, with armed guards standing over them. Most wore Russian military uniforms and boots, and lived in fear that Ukrainian artillery would mistake them for the enemy.

The AP confirmed through satellite imagery the new trenches dug in the area where Yahupova and a man on the Ukrainian crew with her said they were held. He requested anonymity because his relatives still live under occupation.

“Sometimes we even worked there 24 hours a day, when they had an inspection coming,” he said.

The man also spoke with other Ukrainian civilians digging mass graves nearby for at least 15 people. He said one civilian had been shot for refusing to dig. Satellite imagery shows a mound of freshly-dug earth in the spot the man described.

The man escaped during a Russian troop rotation, and Yahupova also made her way out. But both said hundreds of others are still in the occupied front lines, forced to work for Russia or die.

When Yahupova returned to her home after more than five months, everything had been stolen. Her beloved dog had been shot. Her head ached, her vision was blurred, and her children — long since out of the occupied territories — urged her to leave.

She traveled thousands of miles through Russia, north to the Baltics and back around to the front line in Ukraine, where she reunited with her husband serving with Ukrainian forces. Earlier married in a civil ceremony, the two got wed this time in church.

Now safe in Ukrainian territory, Yahupova wants to testify against Russia — for the months it stole from her, the concussion that troubles her, the home she has lost. She still reflexively touches the back of her head, where the bottle struck her over and over.

“They stole not only from me, they stole from half the country,” she said.

Torture as a policy

The abuse Yahupova described is common. Torture was a constant, whether or not there was information to extract, according to every former detainee interviewed by the AP. The U.N. report from June said 91% of prisoners “described torture and ill-treatment.”

In the occupied territories, all the freed civilians interviewed by the AP described crammed rooms and cells, tools of torture prepared in advance, tape placed carefully next to office chairs to bind arms and legs, and repeated questioning by Russian’s FSB intelligence agency. Nearly 100 evidence photos obtained by the AP from Ukrainian investigators also showed instruments of torture found in liberated areas of Kherson, Kyiv and Kharkiv, including the same tools repeatedly described by former civilian captives held in Russia and occupied regions.

Many former detainees spoke of wires linking prisoners’ bodies to electricity in field telephones or radios or batteries, in a procedure one man said the Russians dubbed “call your mother” or “call Biden.” U.N. human rights investigators said one victim described the same treatment given to Yahupova, a severe beating on the head with a filled water bottle.

Viktoriia Andrusha, an elementary school math teacher, was seized by Russian forces on March 25, 2022, after they ransacked her parents’ home in Chernihiv and found photos of Russian military vehicles on her phone. By March 28, she was in a prison in Russia. Her captors told her Ukraine had fallen and no one wanted any civilians back.

For her, like so many others, torture came in the form of fists, batons of metal, wood and rubber, plastic bags. Men in black, with special forces chevrons on their sleeves, pummeled her in the prison corridor and in a ceramic-tiled room seemingly designed for quick cleaning. Russian propaganda played on a television above her.

“There was a point when I was already sitting and saying: Honestly, do what you want with me. I just don’t care anymore,” Andrusha said.

Along with the physical torture came mental anguish. Andrusha was told repeatedly that she would die in prison in Russia, that they would slash her with knives until she was unrecognizable, that her government cared nothing about a captive schoolteacher, that her family had forgotten her, that her language was useless. They forced captives to memorize verse after verse of the Russian national anthem and other patriotic songs.

“Their job was to influence us psychologically, to show us that we are not human,” she said. “Our task was to make sure that everything they did to us did not affect us.”

Then one day, without explanation, it was over for her and another woman kept with her. Guards ordered them to pack up, cuffed them and put them in a bus. The weight Andrusha had lost in prison showed starkly in the cast-off jacket that hung from her shoulders.

They were soon joined by Ukrainian soldiers held captive elsewhere. On the other side, Andrusha saw three Russian soldiers. Although international law forbids the exchange of civilians as prisoners of war, the U.N. report on June 27 said this has happened in at least 53 cases, and Melitopol Mayor Fedorov confirmed it happened to him.

A man detained with Andrusha in March 2022 is in captivity still. She doesn’t know the fate of the others she met. But many former captives take it upon themselves to contact the loved ones of their former cellmates.

Andrusha recalled hours spent memorizing whispered phone numbers in a circle with other Ukrainians, on the chance one of them might get out. When she was freed, she passed them along to Ukrainian government officials.

Andrusha has since regained some of her weight. She talks about her six months in prison calmly but with anger.

“I was able to survive this,” she said, after a day back in the classroom with her students. “There are so many cases when people do not return.”

In the meantime, for loved ones, the wait is agony.

Anna Vuiko’s father was one of the earliest civilians detained, in March last year. A former glass factory worker on disability, Roman Vuiko had resisted when Russian soldiers tried to take over his home in suburban Kyiv, neighbors told his adult daughter. They drove a military truck into the yard, shattered the windows, cuffed the 50-year-old man and drove off.

By May 2022, Vuiko was in a prison in Kursk, Russia, hundreds of kilometers (miles) away. All his daughter has gotten from him since is a handwritten letter, which arrived six months after he was taken away and four months after he wrote it. The standard phrases told his daughter nothing except that he was alive, and she suspects he has not received any of her letters.

“I think about it every day,” she said. “It’s been a year, more than a year. … How much more time has to pass?”
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Vegas Could Break Heat Record as Tens of Millions Across US Endure Scorching Temperatures

Posted on by SeeUS

Visitors to Las Vegas on Friday stepped out momentarily to snap photos and were hit by blast-furnace air. But most will spend their vacations in a vastly different climate — at casinos where the chilly air conditioning might require a light sweater.

Meanwhile, emergency room doctors were witnessing another world, as dehydrated construction workers, passed-out elderly residents and others suffered in an intense heat wave threatening to break the city’s all-time record high of 47.2 degrees Celsius this weekend.

Few places in the scorching Southwest demonstrate the surreal contrast between indoor and outdoor life like Las Vegas, a neon-lit city rich with resorts, casinos, swimming pools, indoor nightclubs and shopping. Tens of millions of others across California and the Southwest, were also scrambling for ways to stay cool and safe from the dangers of extreme heat.

“We’ve been talking about this building heat wave for a week now, and now the most intense period is beginning,” the National Weather Service wrote Friday.

Nearly a third of Americans were under extreme heat advisories, watches and warnings. The blistering heat wave was forecast to get worse this weekend for Nevada, Arizona and California, where desert temperatures were predicted to soar in parts past 48.8 degrees Celsius during the day and remain above 32.2 C overnight.

Sergio Cajamarca, his family and their dog, Max, were among those who lined up to pose for photos in front of the city’s iconic “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign. The temperature before noon already topped 37.8 C.

“I like the city, especially at night. It’s just the heat,” said Cajamarca, 46, an electrician from Brooklyn Park, Minnesota.

His daughter, Kathy Zhagui, 20, offered her recipe for relief: “Probably just water, ice cream, staying inside.”

Meteorologists in Las Vegas warned people not to underestimate the danger. “This heatwave is NOT typical desert heat due to its long duration, extreme daytime temperatures, & warm nights. Everyone needs to take this heat seriously, including those who live in the desert,” the National Weather Service in Las Vegas said in a tweet.

Phoenix marked the city’s 15th consecutive day of 43.3 degrees Celsius or higher temperatures on Friday, hitting 46.6 degrees Celsius by late afternoon, and putting it on track to beat the longest measured stretch of such heat. The record is 18 days, recorded in 1974.

“This weekend there will be some of the most serious and hot conditions we’ve ever seen,” said David Hondula the city’s chief heat officer. “I think that it’s a time for maximum community vigilance.”

The heat was expected to continue well into next week as a high pressure dome moves west from Texas.

“We’re getting a lot of heat-related illness now, a lot of dehydration, heat exhaustion,” said Dr. Ashkan Morim, who works in the ER at Dignity Health Siena Hospital in suburban Henderson.

Morim said he has treated tourists this week who spent too long drinking by pools and became severely dehydrated; a stranded hiker who needed liters of fluids to regain his strength; and a man in his 70s who fell and was stuck for seven hours in his home until help arrived. The man kept his home thermostat at 26.7 C, concerned about his electric bill with air conditioning operating constantly to combat high nighttime temperatures.

Regional health officials in Las Vegas launched a new database Thursday to report “heat-caused” and “heat-related” deaths in the city and surrounding Clark County from April to October.

The Southern Nevada Health District said seven people have died since April 11, and a total of 152 deaths last year were determined to be heat-related.

Besides casinos, air-conditioned public libraries, police station lobbies and other places from Texas to California planned to be open to the public to offer relief at least for part of the day. In New Mexico’s largest city of Albuquerque, splash pads will be open for extended hours and many public pools were offering free admission. In Boise, Idaho, churches and other nonprofit groups were offering water, sunscreen and shelter.

Temperatures closer to the Pacific coast were less severe, but still made for a sweaty day on picket lines in the Los Angeles area where actors joined screenwriters in strikes against producers.

In Sacramento, the California State Fair kicked off with organizers canceling planned horseracing events due to concerns for animal safety.

Employers were reminded that outdoor workers must receive water, shade and regular breaks to cool off.

Pet owners were urged to keep their animals mostly inside. “Dogs are more susceptible to heat stroke and can literally die within minutes. Please leave them at home in the air conditioning,” David Szymanski, park superintendent for Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the wildfire season was ramping up amid the hot, dry conditions with a series of blazes erupting across California this week, Wade Crowfoot, secretary of the Natural Resources Agency, said at a media briefing.

Global climate change is “supercharging” heat waves, Crowfoot added.

Firefighters in Riverside County, southeast of Los Angeles, were battling multiple brush fires that started Friday afternoon.

Stefan Gligorevic, a software engineer from Lancaster, Pennsylvania visiting Las Vegas for the first time said he planned to stay hydrated and not let it ruin his vacation.

“Cold beer and probably a walk through the resorts. You take advantage of the shade when you can,” Gligorevic said. “Yeah, definitely.”
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Sources: US Chip CEOs Plan Washington Trip to Talk China Policy

Posted on by SeeUS

The chief executives of Intel Corp and Qualcomm Inc are planning to visit Washington next week to discuss China policy, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

The executives plan to hold meetings with U.S. officials to talk about market conditions, export controls and other matters affecting their businesses, one of the sources said. It was not immediately clear whom the executives would meet.

Intel and Qualcomm declined to comment, and officials at the White House did not immediately return a request for comment.

The sources said other semiconductor CEOs may also be in Washington next week. The sources declined to be named because they were not authorized to speak to the media.  

U.S. officials are considering tightening export rules affecting high-performance computing chips and shipments to Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, sources told Reuters in June. The rules would respectively affect Intel, which is preparing a new artificial intelligence chip that could be shipped to China, and Qualcomm, which has a license to sell chips to Huawei.

The Biden administration last October issued a sweeping set of rules designed to freeze China’s semiconductor industry in place while the U.S. pours billions of dollars in subsidies into its own chip industry.

The possible rule tightening would hit Nvidia particularly hard. The company’s strong position in the AI chip market helped boost its worth to $1 trillion earlier this year.

The chip industry has been warmly received in Washington in recent years as lawmakers and the White House work to shift more production to the U.S. and its allies, and away from China. Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger and Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon have met often with government officials.

Next week’s meetings, which one of the sources said could include joint sessions between executives and U.S. officials, come as Nvidia Corp NVDA.O and other chip companies fear a permanent loss of sales for an industry with large amounts of business in China while tensions escalate between Washington and Beijing.

One of the sources familiar with the matter said the executives’ goals for the meetings would be to ensure that government officials understand the possible impact of any further tightening of rules around what chips can be sold to China.

Many U.S. chip firms get more than one-fifth of their revenue from China, and industry executives have argued that reducing those sales would cut into profits that they reinvest into research and development.
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US Sending F-16 Fighter Jets To Protect Ships From Iranian Seizures in Gulf Region

Posted on by SeeUS

Move comes after Iran tried to seize two oil tankers last week, opening fire on one of them
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Sudan Warring Factions Clash in City of Bahri as Army Tries to Make Gains

Posted on by SeeAF

Sudan’s warring factions fought heavy clashes in parts of the city of Bahri on Friday, residents said, a day after both sides welcomed a new mediation effort that seeks to end the three-month conflict.

The fighting that broke out on April 15 has driven civilians out of the wider capital region — consisting of the cities of Khartoum, Bahri and Omdurman — and triggered ethnically motivated attacks in the Darfur region.

Regional and international mediation efforts have so far failed to end the fighting, and U.N. officials have said Sudan could slide into civil war.

The latest mediation attempt was launched Thursday in Egypt. Both the army, which has close ties to Egypt, and the RSF paramilitary group welcomed the effort.

But four residents of northern Bahri told Reuters they awoke to heavy early morning clashes between the two sides, apparently centered near the Halfaya bridge.

While the RSF quickly fanned out across the capital in the early days of the conflict, the army has focused on air and artillery strikes that have done little to change the scene.

The army has conducted more ground operations in recent weeks, particularly in Omdurman.

The Bahri residents said they heard air strikes, artillery fire and gunshots, continuing into the afternoon.

An army source said the army had succeeded in pushing the RSF out of neighborhoods in the far north of the city in the morning, but the RSF said in a statement they were able to defeat the forces and claimed to kill hundreds.

the Sudanese army said in a statement that it had launched ground operations in all three cities of the capital and that it had been successful, acknowledging some losses in Bahri but calling the RSF number inflated.

Residents of the wider capital area reported a communications outage for several hours in the morning.

Other eyewitnesses reported clashes around an army base in southern Khartoum as well.

On Friday, Sudanese human rights organizations said they had evidence the RSF had detained more than 5,000 people in the capital and were keeping them in inhumane conditions.

When asked for comment, the RSF said the reports were incorrect, and that it only held prisoners of war who were well-treated.

“These organizations are ignoring violations by the army against civilians, including air and artillery strikes, detentions and arming of civilians,” a representative for the force said.

Among those detained in several locations across Khartoum were combatants, but also 3,500 civilians, including vulnerable women and foreign nationals, said the organizations, who asked to have their names withheld for fear of retribution.

They said they would present to the United Nations documentation of cases of death by torture, as well as “degrading, inhumane conditions of detention devoid of human dignity and the most basic necessities of life.”

The U.N. human rights office said on Thursday at least 87 people had been buried in a mass grave in the Darfur city of El Geneina, accusing the RSF and allied militias of the killings, which the paramilitary force denied.

Late on Thursday, the International Criminal Court said it would investigate killings across the region. The RSF did not respond to a request for comment on the investigation.
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Chad, Other African Countries Not Thriving, UN Index Shows

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Chad consistently ranks among the bottom five countries in the U.N.’s Human Development Index, with poor life expectancy, education and living standards. In this report from N’Djamena, Henry Wilkins speaks to residents who struggle to imagine a decent future for their families and to experts about what can be done to kick-start development. Camera: Henry Wilkins.
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