According to the International Labor Organization, small- and medium-sized businesses account for the majority of enterprises and employment in Nigeria. But about 80% of these businesses fail within the first five years. In this report from Abuja, Gibson Emeka explores why these businesses fail and what the Nigerian government is doing to help them achieve long-term success. Amy Katz narrates.
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Month: August 2023
Authorities Investigate Threats to Grand Jurors on Georgia Trump Case
Law enforcement officials were investigating threats related to former President Donald Trump’s election interference probe in Georgia, after the names and addresses of grand jury members were shared online, the local sheriff’s office said.
“Our investigators are working closely with local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies to track down the origin of threats in Fulton County and other jurisdictions,” the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement on Thursday.
Fulton County contains Atlanta, Georgia’s largest city and the state capital.
‘I’m coming after you!’
Trump was hit with a sweeping fourth set of criminal charges on Monday when the Georgia grand jury issued an indictment accusing him and others of efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
Earlier this month, following an indictment by U.S. special counsel Jack Smith on his efforts to overturn his election defeat, Trump lashed out on his Truth Social media site, saying, “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”
The 98-page Georgia indictment listed 19 defendants and 41 criminal counts in all. Echoing his criticism of the other investigations he faces, Trump has called the indictment a political “witch hunt.”
NBC News and CNN reported that names, photographs, social media profiles and the home addresses purportedly belonging to members of the Fulton County grand jury were shared online, and threats were made against the jurors following Trump’s indictment.
“We take this matter very seriously and are coordinating with our law enforcement partners to respond quickly to any credible threat and to ensure the safety of those individuals who carried out their civic duty,” the local sheriff’s office said.
Public record identifies jurors
An indictment in Georgia that is available as a public record includes the names of grand jurors but not their addresses or any other personally identifiable information.
A woman from Texas was charged earlier this month with threatening the federal judge overseeing Trump’s separate criminal case in Washington, in which he is accused of attempting to overturn the 2020 election results.
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Mental Health Experts Try to Help Maui Fire Survivors Cope
The evacuation center at the South Maui Community Park & Gymnasium is now Anne Landon’s safe space. She has a cot and access to food, water, showers, books and even puzzles that bring people together to pass the evening hours.
But all it took was a strong wind gust for her to be immediately transported back to the terrifying moment a deadly fire overtook her senior apartment complex in Lahaina last week.
“It’s a trigger,” she said. “The wind was so horrible during that fire.”
Helping survivors cope
Mental health experts are working in Maui to help people who survived the deadliest fire in the United States in more than a century make sense of what they endured. While many are still in a state of shock, others are starting to feel overcome with anxiety and post-traumatic stress that experts say could be long-lasting.
Landon, 70, has twice sought help in recent days to help her cope with anxiety. One psychologist she spoke with at an evacuation shelter taught her special breathing techniques to bring her heart rate down. On another occasion, a nurse providing 24/7 crisis support at her current shelter was there to comfort her while she cried.
“I personally could hardly talk to people,” Landon said. “Even when I got internet connection and people reached out, I had trouble calling them back.”
The person sleeping on the cot next to her, 65-year-old Candee Olafson, said a nurse helped her while she was having a nervous breakdown. Like Landon, Olafson fled for her life from Lahaina as the wind-whipped flames bore down on the historic town and smoke choked the streets. The trauma of the escape, on top of previous experience with depression, became too much to bear.
“Everything culminated — I finally just lost it,” she said.
Olafson said a nurse came over and told her, “Just look at me,” until she calmed down. Looking into the nurse’s eyes, she came back down to earth.
“These people pulled me out faster than I’ve ever been pulled out from the abyss,” she said.
What they witnessed as they fled will remain with them a long time — trauma that comes with no easy fix, something impossible to simply get over.
“I know some of the people died in the water when I was in the water,” said John Vea, who fled into the ocean to avoid the flames. “I have never seen anything like this before. I’m never going to forget it.”
Counselor offers compassion
Dana Lucio, a licensed mental health counselor with the Oahu-based group Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies coalition, is among the experts working on Maui to help support survivors. She’s been going to different donation hubs around Lahaina on the western side of the island, and sometimes even door to door, to be present for people and give them a shoulder to cry on.
Lucio, who used to be in the Marine Corps and was deployed twice to Iraq and once to Afghanistan, said she’s able to understand some of their emotions because she has experienced post-traumatic stress herself.
“I can connect with them in a way that most people can’t,” she said of those affected by the fire. “The trauma therapy that I do, I’ve learned within myself.”
Global medical aid organization Direct Relief has been working with groups like Lucio’s to distribute medication to people who fled without their antidepressants and antipsychotic prescriptions, said Alycia Clark, the organization’s director of pharmacy and clinical affairs.
People often leave their medication behind during sudden evacuations due to natural disasters. Downed cellphone towers and power outages can prevent them from contacting their doctors, and damage to health care clinics and a lack of transportation can all combine to complicate medical access, she said.
It can take weeks to find the right dose for a mental health patient, and stopping medication suddenly can cause withdrawal symptoms, Clark said. For this reason, she said, Direct Relief includes mental health medication in most of its emergency and disaster response kits for those who are missing their prescriptions.
Lucio, the mental health counselor, said she hopes people think about treatment as something that’s long term, as the initial shock wears off and the awful reality sets in.
“This is not something their brains were prepared to understand,” she said. “There is going to be a need for ongoing therapy.”
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Iranian Reporter Defiant After Latest Jail Release
An Iranian journalist said Thursday she had no regrets over posting on social media a picture of herself without a headscarf in defiance of Iran’s dress laws, sharing a similar image following her latest release from jail.
Nazila Maroufian last year interviewed the father of the young Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, whose death in police custody sparked months of protests.
She walked out of Tehran’s Evin prison on Sunday after more than a month behind bars, posting on social media a picture of herself without a headscarf and the slogan “Don’t accept slavery, you deserve the best!”
She was promptly detained again and moved outside of Tehran to Qarchak women’s prison, where conditions have been criticized repeatedly by human rights groups.
But Maroufian, whose age is given by Persian media outside Iran as 23, was then released from Qarchak on Wednesday, she posted on social media.
“Do you regret the photo you posted when you were released? Do you admit you made a mistake?” she asked herself in a rhetorical question in the post.
“No; I didn’t do anything wrong,” she added in reply, posting a similar image of herself bareheaded in a white shirt with her right arm stretched up in a ‘V’ for victory sign.
Arrested after publishing interview
Last October, Maroufian published an interview on the Mostaghel Online news site with Amjad Amini, the father of Mahsa Amini whose death in custody last September after she allegedly violated the dress rules sparked months of protests.
In the interview, Amjad Amini accused authorities of lying about the circumstances of his daughter’s death.
Iranian authorities have indicated she died because of a health problem, but the family and activists have said she suffered a blow to the head while in custody.
Maroufian, a Tehran-based journalist from Amini’s hometown of Saqez in Kurdistan province, was first arrested in November.
She was later released but in January said she had been sentenced to two years in jail, suspended for five years, on charges of propaganda against the system and spreading false news.
Actions reminiscent of Gholian
Maroufian’s rapid return to prison after posting defiant images upon her release recalled the case of labor activist Sepideh Gholian.
In March, Gholian was rearrested hours after she walked free from jail bare-headed and chanting slogans against Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Gholian, one of the most prominent female activists detained in Iran, remains in prison.
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Hawaii Vows to Protect Landowners on Maui From Being Pressured to Sell After Wildfires
Hawaii’s governor vowed to protect local landowners from being “victimized” by opportunistic buyers when Maui rebuilds from deadly wildfires that incinerated a historic island community and killed more than 100 people.
Gov. Josh Green said Wednesday that he instructed the state attorney general to work toward a moratorium on land transactions in Lahaina, even as he acknowledged the move would likely face legal challenges.
“My intention from start to finish is to make sure that no one is victimized from a land grab,” Green said at a news conference. “People are right now traumatized. Please do not approach them with an offer to buy their land. Do not approach their families saying they’ll be much better off if they make a deal. Because we’re not going to allow it.”
Since flames consumed much of Lahaina just over a week ago, locals have feared that a rebuilt town could become even more oriented toward wealthy visitors, according to Lahaina native Richy Palalay.
Hotels and condos “that we can’t afford to live in — that’s what we’re afraid of,” he said Saturday at a shelter for evacuees.
As the death toll rose to 111 on Wednesday, the head of the Maui Emergency Management Agency defended not sounding sirens during the fire. Hawaii has what it touts as the largest system of outdoor alert sirens in the world.
“We were afraid that people would have gone mauka,” said agency administrator Herman Andaya, using a navigational term that can mean toward the mountains or inland in Hawaiian. “If that was the case, then they would have gone into the fire.”
The system was created after a 1946 tsunami killed more than 150 on the Big Island, and its website says the sirens may be used to alert for fires.
Avery Dagupion, whose family’s home was destroyed, said he’s angry that residents weren’t given earlier warning to get out.
He pointed to an announcement by Maui Mayor Richard Bissen on Aug. 8 saying the fire had been contained. That lulled people into a sense of safety and left him distrusting officials, he said.
At the news conference, Green and Bissen bristled when asked about such criticism.
“I can’t answer why people don’t trust people,” Bissen said. “The people who were trying to put out these fires lived in those homes — 25 of our firefighters lost their homes. You think they were doing a halfway job?”
The cause of the wildfires, the deadliest in the United States in more than a century, is under investigation. Hawaii is increasingly at risk from disasters, with wildfire rising fastest, according to an Associated Press analysis of FEMA records.
As the island begins to think about rebuilding, Green vowed to prevent land grabs. He said he would announce details of the moratorium by Friday, adding that he also wants to see a long-term moratorium on sales of land that won’t “benefit local people.”
Many in Lahaina struggled to afford life in Hawaii before the fire. Statewide, a typical starter home costs over $1 million, while the average renter pays 42% of their income for housing, according to a Forbes Housing analysis. That’s the highest ratio in the country by a wide margin.
The 2020 census found more native Hawaiians living on the mainland than the islands for the first time in history, driven in part by a search for cheaper housing.
Green made affordable housing a priority when he entered office in January, appointing a czar for the issue and seeking $1 billion for housing programs. Since the fires, he’s also suggested acquiring land in Lahaina for the state to build workforce housing, as well as a memorial.
Meanwhile, signs of recovery emerged as public schools across Maui reopened, welcoming displaced students from Lahaina, and traffic resumed on a major road.
Sacred Hearts School in Lahaina was destroyed, and Principal Tonata Lolesio said lessons would resume in the coming weeks at another Catholic school. She said it was important for students to be with their friends and teachers and not constantly thinking about the tragedy.
“I’m hoping to at least try to get some normalcy or get them in a room where they can continue to learn or just be in another environment where they can take their minds off of that,” she said.
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Ukraine Claims New Battlefield Advance
Ukraine claimed Thursday that its counteroffensive had retaken parts of Russian-controlled land in the southeastern part of the country in a push beyond the newly liberated village of Urozhaine.
The advance is an attempted drive toward the Sea of Azov, an effort to split Russia’s occupying forces in half.
“In the direction south of Urozhaine, [Ukrainian troops] had success,” military spokesman Andriy Kovaliov said on national television. He gave no more details.
Urozhaine, in the eastern Donetsk region, was the first village Kyiv said it had retaken since July 27 in what has proved to be difficult, grinding warfare in heavily mined Russian-controlled territory.
Urozhaine lies just over 90 kilometers north of the Sea of Azov and about 100 kilometers west of Russian-held Donetsk city.
Vladimir Rogov, a Russia-installed official in parts of Zaporizhzhia controlled by Moscow, said Urozhaine and the neighboring village of Staromaiorske were not under Ukrainian control.
Drone footage, however, of the intense fight for Urozhaine, has emerged in which dozens of Russian troops can be seen fleeing to the village’s south.
Russia controls nearly one-fifth of Ukraine, including the Crimean Peninsula it annexed in 2014, most of Luhansk region and large tracts of the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.
Kyiv says its counteroffensive is advancing more slowly than it had hoped for because of vast Russian minefields and heavily fortified Russian defensive lines.
Russian attacks on Ukrainian grain facilities
Ukrainian officials said Wednesday that Russia damaged grain infrastructure at a port in the Odesa region in southern Ukraine as part of an overnight drone attack.
Andriy Yermak, chief of staff for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said on Telegram that the attack targeted the port of Reni on the Danube River.
Odesa Governor Oleh Kiper said on Telegram that the attack damaged warehouses and grain storage facilities at the port.
Kiper said there were no reported casualties from the attack, and that Ukraine’s air force had downed 11 Russian drones over Odesa. The Ukrainian military said its air defenses destroyed 13 drones overnight and that Russia had used Iranian-made Shahed drones to target Odesa and Mykolaiv.
Black Sea shipping
The Hong-Kong-flagged container ship Joseph Schulte left Ukraine’s port of Odesa on Wednesday.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said the vessel was the first to set off down a temporary Black Sea corridor that Ukraine established for civilian ships following Russia’s withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative.
The Joseph Schulte was carrying 30,000 metric tons of cargo, Kubrakov said. The vessel had been stuck in Odesa since Russian launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Russia has not said whether it will respect Ukraine’s shipping corridor. On Sunday, a Russian patrol ship fired warning shots at a vessel after what Russia said was a failure by the captain to respond to a request for an inspection.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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UN Rights Chief: Many North Korean Rights Abuses Linked to Pursuit of Nukes, Missiles
The U.N. human rights chief said Thursday that many of the severe and widespread rights violations in North Korea are directly linked to the regime’s pursuit of nuclear and ballistic missile technology.
“Many of the violations I have referred to stem directly from, or support, the increasing militarization of the DPRK,” High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk told a special meeting of the Security Council on human rights in North Korea.
“For example, the widespread use of forced labor – including labor in political prison camps; forced use of schoolchildren to collect harvests; the requirement for families to undertake labor and provide a quota of goods to the government; and confiscation of wages from overseas workers – all support the military apparatus of the state and its ability to build weapons,” he said.
Türk noted the notoriously repressive nation has become even more so since the borders were shut early in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in Asia. The high commissioner said measures, including strict controls on travel within North Korea, the closure of markets and domestic forced labor, have all contributed to a worsening situation for economic and social rights in the country.
“Militarization also promotes the systematic exploitation of the population,” added Elizabeth Salmon, U.N. special rapporteur for the situation of human rights in North Korea. “The leadership in the DPRK continues to demand its citizens to tighten their belts so that the available resources could be used to fund the nuclear and missiles program.”
DPRK is the abbreviation for the North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
The United States holds the 15-nation Security Council’s rotating presidency this month and called for Thursday’s meeting along with Albania and Japan. It is the first time since 2017 that the council is holding a public session on the rights issue in North Korea and its link to international peace and security.
“Colleagues, we cannot have peace without human rights,” Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told council members. “And the DPRK is a case in point.”
Defector’s story
North Korean defector Ilhyeok Kim told council members he was forced to do unpaid farm labor from an early age instead of going to school. His family risked their lives and fled to South Korea in 2011 when he was a teenager.
“The North Korean government has no policy to help us; the government turns our blood and sweat into a luxurious life for the leadership and missiles that blast our hard work into the sky,” he said. “We used to think that the money spent on just one missile could feed us for three months, but the government doesn’t care, and is only concerned with maintaining their power, developing nuclear weapons and creating propaganda to justify their actions.”
China and Russia both regularly object to the discussion of North Korea’s human rights in the Security Council, saying there are other U.N. forums for such conversations. China’s envoy said the meeting was “irresponsible, unconstructive and an abuse of the council’s power,” while Moscow’s deputy ambassador said it was a “cynical and hypocritical” attempt by the U.S. and its allies to pressure Pyongyang.
North Korea’s ambassador did not attend the session, but its foreign ministry put out a statement two days ahead of the council meeting criticizing it.
“The DPRK resolutely denounces and rejects the despicable ‘human rights’ racket of the U.S. as a wanton infringement and a grave challenge to the dignity and sovereignty of the DPRK,” said the statement from Kim Son Gyong, vice minister for international organizations.
Following the meeting, the U.S. envoy was joined by delegates from more than 50 nations and the European Union in a joint statement calling on countries to hold Pyongyang accountable for its rights abuses and urging full implementation of existing council resolutions on North Korea’s illicit weapons programs.
Pyongyang has launched scores of ballistic missiles and several intercontinental ballistic missiles this year. It regularly blames the tense situation on the Korean Peninsula on joint military exercises that the United States and South Korea carry out and says its missile program is meant to deter and “strike fear” into its enemies.
In 2014, the U.N. Commission of Inquiry found that North Korea’s rights violations had risen to the level of crimes against humanity. The panel’s report found the regime had used “extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions and other sexual violence, persecution on political, religious, racial and gender grounds, the forcible transfer of populations, the enforced disappearance of persons and the inhumane act of knowingly causing prolonged starvation.”
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Young Entrepreneurs in Nigeria Drive Green Innovation
Pollution from discarded plastic, metals and other items is a persistent problem in Nigeria. Some young people are doing what they can to clean up the trash and make strides toward sustainable development. Gibson Emeka has this story from Abuja, Nigeria, narrated by Salem Solomon.
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Northern South Sudan’s Economy ‘Decimated’ by Sudan Conflict
Sudan’s conflict has caused prices in the border region of neighboring South Sudan to rise sharply, according to local market traders. Meanwhile, the production and export of South Sudanese oil through Sudan, which the World Bank says makes up 90% of the country’s revenue, is being strangled by the conflict too. Henry Wilkins reports from Renk, South Sudan.
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Sweden Raises Terror Threat Level Following Quran Burnings
Sweden raised its terrorism alert level on Thursday one notch to the second highest, following a recent string of public desecrations of the Quran in the Scandinavian country by a handful of anti-Islam activists, sparking angry demonstrations across Muslim countries.
Sweden has in recent weeks asked citizens abroad and businesses linked to the country to “be attentive and aware of the information the authorities communicate,” following a string of public burnings of copies of the Quran by an Iraqi asylum-seeker.
The Scandinavian country’s domestic security service, SAPO, said the overall security situation has deteriorated, and the risk of terrorism in Sweden was now at Level 4, or “high” on its five-point scale, a first since 2016.
“We are in a deteriorating situation, and this threat will continue for a long time,” SAPO head Charlotte von Essen said, adding that “the threat of attacks from actors within violent Islamism has increased during the year.”
She said that Sweden is currently regarded as “a priority target” for such attacks.
While urging people in Sweden to continue to live “normally,” von Essen stressed that there wasn’t a single incident that led to the heightened alert.
Earlier this year, a far-right activist from Denmark burned a copy of Islam’s holy book outside the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm. Some 250 people retaliated and gathered outside the Swedish Consulate in Istanbul, where a photo of the Danish-Swedish anti-Islam activist Rasmus Paludan was set on fire.
Denmark’s national police said Wednesday that “on the recommendation” of the domestic intelligence service PET, it was “necessary to maintain the temporarily intensified efforts at the internal Danish borders.” Sweden has also stepped up border controls and identity checks at crossing points.
On Tuesday, PET and its foreign intelligence counterpart said in a joint statement that the recent Quran burnings “have resulted in considerable, negative attention from, among others, militant Islamists.” The terror alert level in Denmark is also at the second-highest level.
The recent burnings of the Quran have further complicated Sweden’s attempt to join NATO, a step that has gained urgency after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year. In July, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan signaled that the burning incidents would pose another obstacle to Sweden’s bid.
Like many Western countries, Sweden doesn’t have any blasphemy laws that prohibit the burning of religious texts, and Swedish police allowed the protests by a handful of demonstrators, citing freedom of speech.
United Nations human rights chief Volker Türk during a debate last month called for respect of “all others” including migrants, LGBTQ people, and women and girls who wear headscarves, while affirming the right to freedom of expression.
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Russia Fines Google $32,000 for Videos About Ukraine Conflict
A Russian court on Thursday imposed a $32,000 fine on Google for failing to delete allegedly false information about the conflict in Ukraine.
The move by a magistrate’s court follows similar actions in early August against Apple and the Wikimedia Foundation that hosts Wikipedia.
According to Russian news reports, the court found that the YouTube video service, which is owned by Google, was guilty of not deleting videos with incorrect information about the conflict — which Russia characterizes as a “special military operation.”
Google was also found guilty of not removing videos that suggested ways of gaining entry to facilities which are not open to minors, news agencies said, without specifying what kind of facilities were involved.
In Russia, a magistrate court typically handles administrative violations and low-level criminal cases.
Since sending troops into Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has enacted an array of measures to punish any criticism or questioning of the military campaign.
Some critics have received severe punishments. Opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza was sentenced this year to 25 years in prison for treason stemming from speeches he made against Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
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Kenya Non-Profit Offers Hunger Relief as Food Crisis Deepens
With the growing impact of droughts caused by climate change and high food prices exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, food banks are emerging as a growing solution to hunger and poverty in Africa. A non-profit group in Nairobi, Food Banking Kenya, distributed more than 500,000 kilograms of food last year to hungry families. Mohammed Yusuf reports from Nairobi.
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US Women’s Soccer Coach Resigns After Early World Cup Exit
U.S. women’s national team coach Vlatko Andonovski has resigned, a person familiar with the decision told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
The move comes less than two weeks after the Americans were knocked out of the Women’s World Cup earlier than ever before.
The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the move had not been officially announced. An announcement was expected Thursday.
The four-time champion struggled through the World Cup. A victory over Vietnam to kick off the group stage was followed by draws against Netherlands and Portugal — barely enough to get the team into the knockout stage.
The Americans played well in the round of 16 against Sweden but ultimately fell on penalties after a scoreless tie. The U.S. scored just four goals over the course of the tournament.
The United States had never finished worse than third at previous World Cups.
The 46-year-old Andonovski was named coach of the United States in October 2019, taking over for Jill Ellis, who led the United States to back-to-back World Cup titles. He finished 51-5-9 during his time with the team, and was 3-2-5 in major tournaments.
Following the match against Sweden, Andonovski said he wasn’t thinking about his future with the team — only his young players. Fourteen players on the roster were appearing in their first World Cup, and 12 of them had never played in a major tournament.
“We spent four years together. They got their first caps with me, they got their first national team call-ups with me,” Andonovski said. “We spent tough times, good times. I don’t want to see them like that. That’s all I think about.”
The United States also finished with a disappointing bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics. Afterward, Andonovski turned his attention on developing young players ahead of the World Cup. Some of the players who emerged were Sophia Smith, last year’s U.S. Soccer player of the year, and Trinity Rodman.
The United States was bitten by injuries in the run-up to the tournament, losing key players. Mallory Swanson injured her knee during a friendly in April, and captain Becky Sauerbrunn couldn’t recover from a foot injury in time.
Promising young forward Catarina Macario tore her ACL playing for her club team Lyon last year and also wasn’t ready to play in the World Cup.
The World Cup was challenging for many elite teams because of the ever-growing parity in the women’s game. Germany, Brazil and Canada, the winners in Tokyo, also got knocked out early. Sunday’s final between England and Spain in Sydney will give the tournament a first-time winner.
Andonovski was head coach of Seattle’s OL Reign in the National Women’s Soccer League when he was hired. During his seven years in the NWSL, he led the now-defunct FC Kansas City from the league’s inception in 2013 until the club folded in 2017, winning two league titles.
Andonovski, a native of Skopje, Macedonia, played for several teams in Europe before embarking on a professional indoor soccer career in the United States.
His predecessor on the U.S. team, Ellis, led the Americans to World Cup titles in 2015 and 2019. Over the course of her five-year tenure, they lost just seven matches.
“What I would hope in this (hiring) process (is) that it’s robust, it’s diverse. It has to be,” Ellis said Thursday in Sydney. “This is a critical hire. And I think it has be the right person.”
The timeline to find a replacement is relatively short. The United States has already qualified for the 2024 Olympics in France. Before that, the team has a pair of exhibition matches against South Africa on Sept. 21 in Cincinnati and Sept. 24 in Chicago.
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Analysts: Sudan Conflict at ‘Stalemate’
Analysts say Sudan’s conflict has reached a stalemate both militarily and diplomatically, with little hope of a swift end to the war. Meanwhile, those arriving in South Sudan having just fled from Khartoum describe a city on the verge of collapse. Henry Wilkins reports from Joda, South Sudan.
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England Beats Australia, to Play Spain in Women’s World Cup Final
England will play Spain in the final of the FIFA Women’s World Cup in Sydney on Sunday. Spain beat Sweden 2-1 in its semifinal while England defeated co-hosts Australia 3-1 to reach the final.
Thirty-two teams started the 2023 Women’s soccer World Cup co-hosted by New Zealand and Australia. Two remain.
On Tuesday, Spain defeated Sweden by two goals to one at Eden Park in Auckland to reach its first World Cup final.
Spain first qualified for the event in 2015 and will face England, the current European champion, in Sunday’s final at Sydney’s Olympic Stadium.
England defeated co-hosts Australia in front of more than 75,000 supporters in Sydney. It was arguably the biggest match on home soil in the host nation’s football history.
Australian player Mary Fowler told reporters after the game that it was an honor to play in a team that had inspired the nation.
“It was unreal tonight, just like it has been for all the games, actually,” she said. “It is really nice even when we are under the pump and we are down by some goals to hear the crowd get behind us and really try to cheer us on. Not many people get to experience that in their life being able to play at a home World Cup and really feel the support of the country behind them. So, [it is] something, you know, we are all very lucky to be part of.”
The Australians – known as the Matildas – had reached the World Cup semifinals for the first time. Co-host New Zealand failed to advance from the group stage of the competition, where four teams competed in eight sections. The top two countries progressed to the knockout round of 16.
Players – both past and present – as well as coaches and administrators hope that the co-hosts’ world cup journey will leave a legacy for female sport in Australia and New Zealand. It is hoped the performances of other nations, including Nigeria, Morocco and South Africa, will also promote the sport in other parts of the world.
Angela Iannotta, a former Matilda forward who scored Australia’s first World Cup goal in 1995, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that women’s football is changing dramatically.
“It is quite interesting,” she said, “because I remember when I am sitting at the airport with the Australian tracksuit and people would say, ‘Oh, what are you doing with Australian colors?’ and I said, ‘Oh, I am playing for the Australian women’s football team.’ ‘Oh, have we really got a national team?’ So, yeah, and the crowds were like, you know, 100 people, 200 people and things like that. So, just to see this change and this growth in women’s football in Australia is really unbelievable.”
Australia’s Matildas play Sweden in the World Cup third- and fourth-place playoff in Brisbane on Saturday.
The final takes place between Spain and England in Sydney on Sunday.
England striker Chloe Kelly told reporters after the semifinal victory against Australia that reaching the final was “what dreams are made of.”
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Taiwan’s Vice President Makes San Francisco Stop
Taiwanese Vice President William Lai said Wednesday that U.S.-Taiwan relations are “unprecedentedly good” as he stopped in San Francisco on the final leg of a trip condemned by China.
Lai told supporters at an event that he wants to make Taiwan into Asia’s Silicon Valley as he touted Taiwan’s role in the global technology supply chain.
Laura Rosenberger, chair of the American Institute in Taiwan, a U.S. government-run nonprofit that handles unofficial relations, highlighted the Biden administration’s support for boosting Taiwan’s engagement with like-minded allies.
“Taiwan is a crucial partner in U.S. efforts to maintain global peace and stability, including in the Taiwan Strait,” Rosenberger said.
Lai’s trip included a stopover in New York on his way to Paraguay before going to San Francisco on his return trip to Taiwan.
China, which claims Taiwan as its territory, objected to Lai’s U.S. stops, calling him a “troublemaker” and saying China would take “resolute and forceful measures to defend its national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
In San Francisco, supporters and protesters gathered outside of Lai’s hotel.
“I learned from [the] newspaper that some Chinese groups would come to protest, so I and other young Taiwanese come to protect our fellow compatriots,” Cooper Wang, a Taiwanese man working in the United States told VOA.
Among those protesting Lai’s stopover, a Chinese woman who only gave her last name, Ms. Liu, told VOA: “I come here to convey that Taiwan is part of China. For me, any idea of Taiwan independence is not advisable.”
VOA Mandarin service reporters Yi-hua Lee, Ning Lu and Mo Yu in San Francisco contributed to this story. Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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ECOWAS Military Chiefs to Discuss Potential Intervention in Niger
Military chiefs from the Economic Community of West African States meet Thursday and Friday in Ghana to discuss a potential military intervention in response to last month’s coup in Niger.
ECOWAS said Wednesday it had “commenced the activation of the ECOWAS Standby Force for the restoration of constitutional order in the Republic of Niger.”
The regional bloc said the meetings in Accra would be to finalize plans for deploying the standby force.
The talks follow an insurgent attack in which Niger’s military junta said 17 of its soldiers were killed.
Junta leaders have said deposing President Mohamed Bazoum was necessary to respond to violence by Islamic extremists.
ECOWAS said in a statement following the attack that junta leaders should restore constitutional order in Niger “in order to focus on the security of the country that has become increasingly fragile” since the coup.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Dozens of Senegalese Migrants Dead or Missing From Fishing Boat
Dozens of migrants headed for Spain are believed missing and feared dead after coast guards off the Atlantic Island of Cabo Verde rescued 38 people on a boat that had left Senegal in West Africa over one month ago with more than 100 aboard, authorities and migrant advocates said.
Senegal’s foreign affairs ministry said the boat was rescued on Tuesday with 38 survivors and several dead on board by the coast guard in Cabo Verde, about 620 kilometers (385 miles) off the coast of West Africa. Authorities did not confirm how many migrants died, or what caused the trip to fail.
The Spanish migration advocacy group Walking Borders said the vessel was a large fishing boat, called a pirogue, which had left Senegal on July 10 with more than 100 migrants on board.
Families in Fass Boye, a seaside town 145 kilometers (90 miles) north of the capital Dakar, had reached out to Walking Borders on July 20 after 10 days without hearing from loved ones on the boat, group founder Helena Maleno Garzón said.
Cheikh Awa Boye, president of the local fishermen’s association, said he has two nephews among the missing. “They wanted to go to Spain,” Boye said.
The route from West Africa to Spain is one of the world’s most dangerous, yet the number of migrants leaving from Senegal on rickety wooden boats has surged over the past year.
Nearly 1,000 migrants died while trying to reach Spain by sea in the first six months of 2023, Walking Borders says. Factors such as youth unemployment, political unrest and the impact of climate change push migrants to risk their lives on overcrowded boats.
On Aug. 7, the Moroccan navy recovered the bodies of five Senegalese migrants and rescued 189 others after their boat capsized off the coast of Western Sahara.
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US Expected to Expand South Korea and Japan Security Links at Summit
The United States, South Korea and Japan are expected to establish an enduring tripartite security regime in defense of the Indo-Pacific region — a move China opposes as antagonistic — at their first trilateral summit, said experts.
The gathering of the three countries planned for Friday at Camp David, the U.S. presidential retreat in Maryland, will be an occasion for the U.S. to fuse its two treaty alliances into a tighter security network and expand their roles in the region, experts said.
At the end of the summit, U.S. President Joe Biden, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida are expected to announce plans to hold regular meetings and take measures to bolster security cooperation beyond deterring North Korean threats.
Evans Revere, who served as the acting assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific Affairs during the George W. Bush administration, said a joint statement by the three leaders is likely to reflect these plans.
“The statement will make clear that North Korea is not the only concern that has brought them together for this unprecedented trilateral gathering at Camp David,” Revere said.
“While Pyongyang may be the most urgent threat, the PRC is undoubtedly the biggest strategic challenge facing Washington, Tokyo, and Seoul over the long term,” he said.
China’s official name is the People’s Republic of China.
“The agreements reached at this historic summit will move the three countries closer to a permanent partnership that focuses on intelligence and information sharing, missile defense, joint military exercises, cybersecurity, early warning cooperation, and enhanced nuclear deterrence,” said Revere.
Building a partnership
Merging the efforts by South Korea and Japan into an ongoing partnership has long been a goal for the U.S. It is possible now because the leaders of the two countries mended frayed ties in March. Antagonisms rooted in the Japanese colonization of the Korean Peninsula from 1910-45 had hampered close cooperation between the two East Asian nations, especially on military matters.
The U.S., South Korea and Japan conducted joint ballistic missile drills in October, February, April and July in response to North Korea’s missile launches.
Traditionally, South Korea has focused on deterring North Korean threats while Japan has been involved in defending against China’s claim to the Japanese-administered Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, referred to as the Diaoyu in Chinese.
Now, Seoul and Tokyo are expected to consolidate their efforts against threats from their two autocratic neighbors.
Yoon emphasized in his National Liberation Day speech delivered on Tuesday that Japan’s role is critical in defending against a North Korean attack. He said seven rear Japanese bases will provide land, sea and air capabilities for the U.S.-led U.N. Command stationed in South Korea if fighting breaks out on the peninsula.
Yoon added that the summit will set “a new milestone in trilateral cooperation” and that boosting cooperation with NATO is also important as security in the Indo-Pacific is closely connected to the security of Europe.
Tightening trilateral ties
South Korea’s defense against North Korea has been supported by the U.S.-led U.N. Command, composed of multilateral forces stationed in the country. Japan’s defense against China has been propped up by its membership in the QUAD security dialogue, whose other members are the U.S., Australia and India.
“The three countries’ national security and defense strategies are already closely aligned,” said Daniel Russel, who served as the assistant U.S. secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific Affairs in the Obama administration. “All three leaders are deeply concerned by the risks posed by increasingly assertive Chinese military behavior and are sure to discuss practical ways to bolster deterrence and reduce the risk of an incident.”
At a press conference on Tuesday after a virtual meeting with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the trilateral collaboration will be expanded and “further institutionalized” through regular meetings at senior levels.
Terence Roehrig, a professor of national security and Korea expert at the U.S. Naval War College, said institutionalizing trilateral dialogue is an important goal of this summit so that the ties “can withstand any further turmoil in relations between Japan and South Korea.”
China considers summit antagonistic
State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said at a press briefing on Tuesday that the summit is not meant to be “provocative” or “to incite tensions” with China. Nevertheless, Beijing views it as antagonistic.
Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu told VOA’s Korean Service via email on Tuesday that “China has noticed that exclusionary groupings are being assembled for the so-called ‘regional security,’ only to intensify antagonism and undermine the strategic security of other countries.”
He continued, “China firmly opposes such practices.”
Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu agreed on closer military cooperation when they met at the Moscow Conference on International Security on Tuesday.
Li has been under U.S. sanctions since 2018.
Moscow has leaned on Pyongyang for arms support to fight in its war against Ukraine. The U.S. Treasury on Wednesday sanctioned entities involved in arms deals between Russia and North Korea.
Andrew Yeo, the SK-Korea Foundation chair in Korea Studies at the Brookings Institution, said the Washington-Seoul-Tokyo ties “along with other initiatives like the QUAD or AUKUS, should clearly signal” to the China-North Korea-Russian partnership “that their decision to undermine international norms and rules will only strengthen partnership among U.S. allies.”
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Trump Says Indictments Boost His Support, but Polls Show Vulnerabilities
Former President Donald Trump says his indictments only improve his standing among his backers as he seeks the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. But some polls suggest he would have vulnerabilities going into a general election. VOA Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports.
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Rainy Season Snarls Aid Delivery to Sudan War Refugees
The start of the rainy season in Sudan and neighboring Chad is making it difficult to deliver aid to refugees from Sudan’s war. From Adenour, Chad, Henry Wilkins looks at some of the logistical challenges faced by those trying to deliver aid. Camera: Henry Wilkins.
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Startup Incubator Launched for New Hong Kong Migrants to UK
A business organization founded by Hong Kongers in London is launching a startup program to help new Hong Kong migrants establish businesses in the United Kingdom.
Hong Kong Business Hub, the organizer, unveiled the program in London on August 8. Successful applicants will each receive a minimum of $64,000 in equity investment, while total investment for the program is slightly more than $635,000.
Puifung Leung, co-founder and director of the Hong Kong Business Hub, said that many Hong Kongers who move to the U.K. are interested in entrepreneurship but might not be familiar with the local business environment. Many of the hub’s members and potential program participants fled Hong Kong after 2019, when China began clamping down on the pro-democracy movement in the former British colony.
“They might have great ideas, but they might not have enough funds, experience, resources or knowledge to make it happen,” Leung said. “Hong Kong Business Hub hopes to help these friends through this startup training program. They can get funds and directly introduce their products and services to the investor to explain why they need this funding.”
‘Go on a date’
The hub did not reveal the identity of the investor who, Leung said, wants to support Hong Kong entrepreneurs from behind the scenes.
She said the group would ensure sufficient time for matching the parties.
“The investor and investees need to go on a date,” she said, explaining the process. “After they get to know each other, we play the role of a matchmaker. Once they get to know each other, then we will see if they can get married.”
The program is supported by the Federation of Small Businesses and the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, according to the Hong Kong Business Hub.
Founded in 2021, the hub aims to support, promote and connect Hong Kong entrepreneurs and companies developing in the U.K. and the U.S. Other co-founders include Simon Shen, an international relations scholar at Taiwan’s National Sun Yat-sen University, and Patrick Woo, former head of the Department of Microbiology of the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong.
Eric Yung, the program director, said that the investor would secure a board seat in the startup that it is funding and may provide access to networks and advice, but it would not be involved in day-to-day management.
The investor’s equity stake would be negotiated with the successful applicant, with the investor’s ownership share usually not exceeding 20%, Yung said.
Successful participants could attend training and networking events for free and meet the potential investor, Yung said.
Requirements
The program will be accepting applications through September 17. Applicants must have established their companies in 2020 or later, the founding team must hold at least half of the shares, and one of the founders must be a new migrant from Hong Kong who holds at least 30% of the company’s shares.
A judging committee will review business elements and consider four additional factors for bonus points, including whether the business benefits the Hong Kong community and aligns with Hong Kong Business Hub core values. Successful applicants will be required to pay 1% of the investment amount as a referral fee to the hub to support the program’s operation and development.
Yung estimated that dozens of companies would apply.
Forster Chiu, a new Hong Kong migrant who runs a cybersecurity company, Cybergroot, in the U.K., is among those interested in joining the incubation program. His company already participates in a mentorship program organized by the Hong Kong Business Hub for its members. He expects that other mentees will be interested as well.
“Companies who wish to develop and grow in the U.K. would gain funding and resources from an external investor, which will support our businesses in a good way,” he told VOA Cantonese.
Chiu said that while he was concerned about learning the identity of the investor, he would accept the initial mystery as long as he learned the name before any agreements were signed.
Another new migrant from Hong Kong, who did not want to reveal his identity, given his immigration status, is applying for asylum and has yet to start his business. He told VOA Cantonese that he believed the program would help those newly arrived Hong Kongers who want to embark on new path.
“It is a rare opportunity for us to work on our dreams after leaving Hong Kong, as we do not have enough funds, training and network,” he said. “The program is a good entry point for people like me, who wish to start their own businesses and had to leave Hong Kong in a hurry.”
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In Rural Michigan, Township Residents Divided Over Arrival of Chinese Company
Gotion, the U.S. subsidiary of a Chinese EV battery maker, planned to build a factory in Michigan, a state that has welcomed Chinese investment for decades. But that was before tensions between Washington and Beijing escalated and now the project’s local opponents say their fight to stop the enterprise is not over despite local and state go-aheads.
At stake are 2,350 jobs generated by a $2.34 billion investment that many see as a way to secure the economic future of Green Charter Township, a rural enclave just over a three-hour drive southeast from Detroit, the auto industry hub.
Fueling the local passions are objections to a U.S. company with Chinese affiliations setting up shop some 100 miles from a National Guard base, a distrust that mirrors the current state of U.S.-China relations, and suspicions that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will have an office in the plant, a rumor that a top Gotion executive denied at an April meeting at a local high school.
“Has the Communist Party penetrated this company? No,” said Chuck Thelen, Gotion’s vice president of North American operations, according to a report on the meeting from MLive, a local news outlet. “There is no [such] communist plot within Gotion.”
Thelen also attempted to ease environmental concerns over the 715,000 gallons of water a day the plant will use in manufacturing produce cathodes and anodes for EV batteries.
“The water that we use never even comes in contact with the materials we process. If you get these materials wet, you destroy the material,” Thelen said, according to the news report. “So, no, we will not be pumping materials, minerals or chemicals into the water.”
These concerns and others appear to be overshadowing Michigan and China’s three-decade auto-based relationship. An estimated $460 billion has flowed between them over those 30 years, according to the Rhodium Group’s China investment monitor, which gathers data by each state in the U.S. Between 1990 and 2020, China invested about $175 billion in Michigan.
When asked for comment by VOA Mandarin, Gotion, which has its U.S. headquarters in Silicon Valley, declined.
Lori Brock is one of the residents fighting Gotion, citing environmental concerns.
Recently, she and the others blocked the company’s purchase of agricultural land adjacent to its previously purchased holdings of 270 acres. She told “Fox & Friends First” on Monday, “We’re going to still continue to fight them every step of the way. We don’t want them here.”
In April, Michigan awarded the project a $715 million incentive package, including a 30-year tax break valued at $540 million and two grants totaling $175 million, according to MLive. Gotion’s tax breaks came from locating in a so-called Renaissance Zone, a state-designated area that is “virtually tax free for any business or resident presently in or moving to a zone.”
All this was to support a project billed as creating jobs with average wages of what local residents said recently would be $24.50 per hour. The Associated Press reported in April that Gotion planned to pay $29.42 per hour.
In June, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which reviews foreign investments for national security risks, concluded that Gotion’s purchase of land for an EV battery plant wasn’t a security issue.
On August 1, Gotion, the U.S. subsidiary of the Chinese battery company Gotion High Tech Co. Ltd., received authorization from Green Charter Township to set up a plant.
Leaders of Green Charter Township, which is a self-governing entity of 3,000 people within the Michigan city of Big Rapids, hope that Gotion’s investment will drive economic development. The median household income for the township is $53,882, according to 2020 U.S. Census data, which is lower than Michigan’s median income of $64,392 and the U.S. national median of $76,521.
Jim Chapman is the township’s supervisor, an office roughly equivalent to mayor. He’s optimistic about the local returns on Gotion’s investment but understands change, such as putting a factory among the fields, “is hard for a lot of people.”
The fifth-generation Green Charter Township resident told VOA Mandarin in a filmed interview that Gotion’s arrival will be “an opportunity of multiple generations.”
“I hope my grandchildren will have the opportunity to stay here, to spend more time with their children, to have supper with their family,” Chapman said.
He added, “The investment will have the multiplier effect. It’s good for local business. They will hire more people. Ferris State University will see more students.”
The Gotion site is adjacent to an airport in Big Rapids and about 100 miles south of Camp Grayling. According to a Wall Street Journal report citing unnamed sources, the U.S. National Guard base is used for training military personnel from Taiwan, a self-governing island China considers its own territory. Taiwan is a focal point of Beijing-Washington tensions.
After incidents such as the Chinese spy balloon that drifted across the continental U.S. for a week before being shot down on February 5, some residents told VOA Mandarin they are wary of China’s intentions given the nearby military base and the CCP’s threat to U.S. national security in general.
Corri Riebow owns a small business and lives in Green Charter Township. Prior to an August 9 evening meeting, she told VOA Mandarin: “I’m concerned about the Chinese ties, not because of the Chinese people, but because of the Chinese government, the things I researched about them.”
The meeting was a candidate forum attended by five people interested in running for office in the township. All oppose the Gotion plant.
Riebow also had another objection: “Even if they were an American company, I don’t want to live three miles away from a factory.”
Brock’s 150-acre farm in Green Charter Township is less than a mile from Gotion’s approved site. Her biggest concern is the plant’s possible environmental impact.
“Let them set up a plant in a heavy industrial area like Detroit,” she said. “This is rural America, it’s all farmland.”
Chapman said the Gotion investment is “money spent here. And [if] we turn it down, it’ll be another 20 years before we see anybody wanting to even think about coming to our community. Why would they? Why would they spend all that money, all that effort, all that time to come here, when the last people that went through that were turned down? They won’t. They’ll walk away.”
Chapman said the state will conduct an environmental safety review of Gotion in August and September. If the environmental review is approved, Gotion could begin construction of the plant next year and start production in two years, he said.
The problem, he believes, is that “they [the protesters] don’t know the procedure of doing things. You have to approve the plan first, then start the environmental investigation.”
Chapman said although Gotion’s Chinese background makes residents skeptical, the company “is registered in the U.S.A. It’s not led by the Chinese Communist Party. … I didn’t see anything about Gotion’s connection with the CCP that worries me.
“I’m not happy with the CCP either. What they do scares me,” he said. “But should we transfer what we feel about the CCP to the Gotion project? I don’t think so.”
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Biden to Host Japan, South Korea Leaders at Camp David
Amid rising concerns about China and North Korea, President Joe Biden will host the leaders of Japan and South Korea at Camp David on Friday. The summit is expected to result in joint initiatives on defense, technology and economic security. VOA White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara reports.
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