Month: August 2023

Kremlin Falsely Accuses West of Censoring Media Over War

Posted on by SeeEU

At a youth forum near the Moscow region last week , Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov claimed that Western media take orders and “professionally prepared falsehoods” from intelligence services.

Aside from the remarks being false, Peskov’s comments are an example of what is known as an “accusation in a mirror” where an aggressor accuses others of taking the actions it instead is taking.

In his remarks, Peskov said that the West has “a lot of talented journalists,” but “since they unleashed this war against us, they absolutely live in a state of military censorship.”

Yet media analysts have documented how it is Russia, not Western governments, that has imposed laws and restrictions, along with a widespread disinformation campaign, as part of its war effort.

And unlike the West — where media are independent and have structures and policies in place to prevent undue political or business influence — independent journalism in Russia has been largely stamped out, data from media watchdogs show.

The country currently ranks 164 out of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index, where 1 shows the best environment for media.

Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, which compiles the index, says that since the war “almost all independent media [in Russia] have been banned, blocked and/or declared ‘foreign agents’ or ‘undesirable organizations.’ All others are subject to military censorship.”

Ukraine, meanwhile, ranks at 79 out of 180 countries on the index, with RSF saying that Russia’s war there “threatens the survival of the Ukrainian media” and that the country is “at the frontline of resistance against the expansion of the Kremlin’s propaganda system.”

Years of attacks

Even before the war, independent media in Russia faced harassment, attacks and legal challenges from the state.

Dozens of media outlets and journalists in recent years have been forced to register as “foreign agents,” a designation that forces them to mark all content and social media posts — even personal ones — with a lengthy disclaimer.

Daniel Salaru, a contributor to the Vienna-based International Press Institute, described the foreign agent law as a “key tool for repressing independent media.”

And the European Court of Human Rights in 2022 ruled that the legislation had violated the rights of the groups designated as such.

Investigative journalists in Russia who took on sensitive issues or looked into official corruption have long been targeted with threats, attacks or even killings.

War heightened acrimony

The hostile environment only ramped up when Russian invaded Ukraine. Now, reporting on anything that the Kremlin deems to be false information about the war or the armed forces can be punished by up to 15 years in prison.

Russia’s media regulator has ordered news outlets to use only “information and data” from “official Russian sources.” And access to dozens of websites, including VOA, and social media platforms Facebook and Twitter, have been blocked.

The rash of new laws had an immediate effect, with several prominent independent media outlets shuttering or moving their operations into exile.

Estimates from the legal aid group Setevye Svobody, or Net Freedoms Project, earlier this year estimated that in the first year after the invasion at least 1,000 journalists left Russia “because of the threat of criminal prosecution and a ban on the profession.”

Harassment from afar

But exile is not always a barrier to harassment, as Dozhd TV, which relocated to the Netherlands, has found.

In July, authorities designated the station an “undesirable” organization, meaning that anyone deemed a member of it risks imprisonment.

Already, journalists, social media users and others who are refusing to toe the Kremlin line have faced prosecution.

In April, two Russian journalists from republics in Siberia were arrested on charges of “knowingly publishing false information” about the armed forces. Both could face up to 10 years in prison.

A court in February handed down a six-year sentence to Maria Ponomarenko, another journalist from the Siberian region, over a social media post about Russia’s deadly airstrike on a theater in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol in which civilians were sheltering.

She and four others have been recognized with the Boris Nemtsov Award for their “brave defense of democratic rights and freedoms” by speaking out against the war.

The award is named for Boris Nemtsov, an opposition leader assassinated near the Kremlin in Moscow in February 2015. Nemtsov was working on a report, published posthumously, about Russian soldiers secretly fighting in Ukraine at that time.

Others have faced more hefty sentences. A court in April sentenced Vladimir Kara-Murza, an opposition politician and columnist, to 25 years in prison, in part for spreading what authorities called “false” information” about the army.

Amnesty International said the charges against Kara-Murza stemmed “solely from his right to freedom of expression.”

And on August 2, a 67-year-old named Takhir Arslanov was sentenced to three years in prison for saying that “Kremlin fascists” were waging a war of aggression in Ukraine, and for calling for the burning of draft offices.

This article originated in VOA’s fact-checking initiative, Polygraph.info.
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Authenticity, Charisma Count for US Presidential Candidates

Posted on by SeeUS

In the early days of the United States, a candidate’s charisma did not matter as much in a presidential election. But in the era of electronic and social media, whether a candidate can connect individually with voters can determine whether he or she sits in the Oval Office.

The video generation began with a photogenic Democrat, John F. Kennedy, beating an unglamorous Republican, Richard Nixon, in the 1960 election. Nixon, however, was elected eight years later, defeating the Democratic Party’s nominee, the humdrum Hubert Humphrey.

Political novice Donald Trump’s upset victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016 is attributed to some degree by political analysts to the Democrat’s failure — despite her experience as first lady, U.S. senator and secretary of state — to connect with voters.

“That was my problem with many voters: I skipped the venting and went straight to the solving,” Clinton acknowledged in her book, “What Happened.”

A U.S. presidential candidate’s charisma and the country’s economic performance interact in predicting whether a leader is selected, according to a 2015 academic paper.

The respective approaches of President Joe Biden and his predecessor, Trump, to retail politicking helped each win the U.S. presidency and could give one of them the top job a second time in next year’s election.

After speeches, Biden sometimes works the crowd, posing for selfies and giving hugs.

Then there is Trump’s signature exit with his “thumbs up” gesture, the fist pumps and dance moves to the 1978 disco hit “YMCA.” Trump boasts about his deep connection with his supporters.

“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters,” Trump said at a January 2016 campaign rally in the state of Iowa.

Trump has not shot anyone but is facing dozens of felony charges for crimes allegedly committed before, during and after his term in office, a career-killer for any conventional politician on the national stage. Polls, however, show him far ahead of the more than a dozen Republicans challenging him for the 2024 presidential nomination.

For those who study leadership, charisma is more than just being telegenic. Successful politicians excel at messaging.

“You feel like you’re one of them, and they are one of you, right? And so, kind of creating that collective identity, propelling values — all of those things can be done by framing the message, providing the substance and articulating in a way that’s engaging and present,” said Ulrich Jensen of Arizona State University’s School of Public Affairs.

Jensen’s recent research demonstrates a connection between the charisma of U.S. governors and constituents following their pleas to mitigate behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic.

By shaking hands, gesturing and repeating signature lines, presidential candidates amplify their messages to the wider world, according to Stephen Farnsworth, director of the Center for Leadership and Media Studies at the University of Mary Washington.

“The vast majority of people who are looking at these presidential candidates will never meet any of them,” said Farnsworth, a political science professor. “They will simply decide based on what they see on the media, whether this candidate or that candidate appeals to them more.”

Trump and Biden, the Democratic Party’s incumbent president, provide lessons in communication for those seeking to challenge them.

“You have to be genuine,” said Farnsworth. “I think that what you see with both of these men is exactly who they are.”

Perceptions of inauthenticity bedevil the campaign of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who had been considered the most likely Republican candidate to dethrone Trump.

Awkward politicians cannot learn to be authentic, but they can be coached on what to emphasize, Trump’s first White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, told VOA.

“One of the things that sometimes politicians do is, if they get nervous about certain qualities, and so they’re afraid of leaning into them,” said Spicer. “And I think what Trump did was, he just went with his gut a lot more about what he thought and what he believed.”

“I completely agree [authenticity cannot be faked],” said Jensen. “An intuitive premise of charisma is [that] charisma isn’t much without authenticity. So, you can fool people using these tactics. But you can only do it for so long.”

Biden bets on his audiences believing his promises that he is authentic.

“I never, ever tell you anything I don’t mean. I never tell you anything I don’t believe, even when I know it’s not popular,” said Biden as a presidential candidate at Wofford College in South Carolina on Feb. 28, 2020.

“Creating that identification through showing people that you care and you’re willing to listen to their stories is one of the things Biden is known for,” said Jensen. “And what he does well is then reuse and repurpose those stories for the storytelling aspect and his own rhetoric. It’s an incredibly powerful way to help create that identification [with voters].”

Even Spicer is willing to acknowledge “Biden is very good one-on-one with folks,” but he contends Trump “is a little more genuine.”

“For the candidates who aren’t named Donald Trump or Joe Biden, I think the main lesson here is to be who you really are,” said Farnsworth, author of the book, “Presidential Communication and Character.” “If you try to present yourself as something less than fully genuine, the modern media environment detects that, and people see it.”
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Former Niger Rebel Leader Launches Group to Oppose Junta

Posted on by SeeAF

A former rebel leader and politician in Niger has launched a movement opposing the military junta that seized power two weeks ago — the first sign of organized resistance to army rule in the West African country.

In a statement released Wednesday, Rhissa Ag Boula said his group, the Council of the Resistance for the Republic (CRR), will aim to reinstate ousted President Mohamed Bazoum, who has been in detention at his residence since members of the presidential guard took power on July 26.

Boula is a former minister of tourism and a leader in two Tuareg ethnic insurgencies in Niger, one in the 1990s, the other from 2007 to 2009.

Meanwhile, Bazoum’s party said Wednesday that the president and his family are running out of food and have been living without electricity and running water for a week. An adviser told the Associated Press that the family has only rice and canned goods left to eat.

Leaders of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) are scheduled to hold a summit Thursday in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, to discuss the Niger crisis.

On Tuesday, Niger’s military junta rejected a proposed diplomatic mission from West African states, the African Union and the United Nations. The junta leaders said a “climate of threatened aggression” made it impossible to hold talks on ending the constitutional crisis in Niger.

Late on Tuesday, ECOWAS said in a statement that it would “continue to deploy all measures in order to restore constitutional order in Niger.” The 15-member bloc, along with Western allies of Niger, have placed a series of financial sanctions against the country since the coup. The financial sanctions could lead to a default on Niger’s debt repayments, Reuters reported.

ECOWAS has threatened to use force to reinstate Bazoum but a deadline on Sunday for Niger’s military to stand down passed without any military intervention.

The U.S. embassy, meanwhile, has warned Americans to avoid the presidential palace and downtown parts of the capital, Niamey, warning of an increased security presence to monitor demonstrations.

The embassy said Wednesday it is aware of reports that cash and some goods are becoming scarce.

A U.S. State Department spokesperson on Tuesday said the United States still has hope for reversing Niger’s coup but was “realistic.”

“We do still have hope, but we are also very realistic,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters. “We do have hope that the situation will be reversed, but at the same time, we are making clear, including in direct conversations with junta leaders themselves, what the consequences are for failing to return to constitutional order.”

Late Tuesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that he had spoken to Bazoum “to express our continued efforts to find a peaceful resolution to the current constitutional crisis.”

“The United States reiterates our call for the immediate release of him and his family,” Blinken wrote on his official page.

On Monday, neighboring Mali said it and Burkina Faso would send a delegation of officials to Niger to show support for the military rulers.

Both countries — which have fallen to military coups in recent years — have said military intervention in Niger would be tantamount to a declaration of war.

Meanwhile, Blinken warned against Russia’s Wagner mercenaries taking advantage of instability in Niger, whose neighbor Mali has become a partner of Moscow.

Blinken said in an interview with the BBC released Tuesday that he doubted the Wagner Group plotted the Nigerien military’s July 26 ouster of Bazoum, a Western ally.

“I think what happened and what continues to happen in Niger was not instigated by Russia or by Wagner,” Blinken said, according to a transcript released by the State Department.

“But to the extent that they try to take advantage of it — and we see a repeat of what’s happened in other countries, where they’ve brought nothing but bad things in their wake — that wouldn’t be good,” he said. “Every single place that this group, Wagner Group, has gone, death, destruction and exploitation have followed.”

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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US issues new sanctions against top Russian ally Belarus

Posted on by SeeEU

The United States issued new sanctions against Belarus on Wednesday, the Treasury Department said, adding it was designating eight individuals and five entities to a list for allegedly funding the Belarusian government.  

“This action targets several entities involved in the Belarusian regime’s continued civil society repression, complicity in the Russian Federation’s unjustified war in Ukraine, and enrichment of repressive Belarusian regime leader” Alexander Lukashenko, the Treasury Department said in a statement.

Lukashenko has repeatedly accused the West of trying to topple him after mass protests against his rule erupted in 2020 in the wake of a presidential election the opposition said he had fraudulently won. Lukashenko said he had won fairly, while conducting a sweeping crackdown on his opponents.  

Western sanctions have been imposed on Belarus over the years in relation to that alleged crackdown and election fraud. Minsk also allowed Moscow to use Belarusian territory to send troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24 last year.  

The individuals and entities targeted in the sanctions include three state-owned enterprises and the director and a subsidiary of one of those enterprises, the Treasury Department said.  

It added the sanctions also targeted four employees of a Belarus government agency, three individuals facilitating sanctions evasion in support of Lukashenko’s government, and one aircraft identified as blocked property.

Among the companies targeted was the state-owned Belavia Belarusian Airlines and Byelorussian Steel Works Management Company, which produces steel products and was previously sanctioned by the European Union as well.  

A Florida-based joint venture with Byelorussian Steel Works named BEL-KAP-STEEL LLC was also sanctioned by the Treasury Department, the department said.

Belarus, led by Lukashenko since 1994, is Russia’s staunchest ally among ex-Soviet states. In May, Russia moved ahead with a decision to deploy tactical nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory.

The Treasury Department on Wednesday also issued two general licenses related to Belarus.
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Roadside Explosion Kills at Least Six in Somalia   

Posted on by SeeAF

At least six people were killed and 12 others were injured when a roadside explosion hit a minibus in southern Somalia on Wednesday morning, the local governor says.

Mohamed Ibrahim Barre, the governor of the Lower Shabelle region, told VOA Somali that the minibus was travelling between Marka and Qoryoley towns. All the victims were civilians, including women and children, Barre said.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack but Barre blamed the al-Shabab militant group.

Al-Shabab frequently carries out attacks against Somali government and African Union forces in the region. Roadside explosions are some of al-Shabab’s deadliest weapons in the country.

Deputy Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Somalia Kiki Gbeho told the U.N. Security Council earlier this year that al-Shabaab continues to pose a serious threat to peace and security in Somalia.

“The year 2022 was the deadliest for civilians since 2017, with 60 percent increase in civilian casualties as compared to 2021,” she said in her statement during a briefing about Somalia.

Between January 2020 to 31 December 2021, the U.N. recorded 109 improvised explosive device attacks by al-Shabab that resulted in 865 civilian casualties (309 killed and 556 injured) according to the report.

The IED attacks include using vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIED), suicide attacks using both vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (SVBIED) and person-borne improvised explosive devices (PBIED), and victim-operated improvised explosive devices (VOIED), the report said.

Mukhtar Mohamed Atosh contributed to this report.

 
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Two US Navy Sailors, Alleged Spies, Ruled Flight Risks in Pretrial Hearing

Posted on by SeeUS

Two Navy sailors who allegedly spied for China appeared in separate federal courts in California on Tuesday for pretrial detention hearings, days after being arrested and accused of providing sensitive government information to intelligence officials from the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

In separate cases announced together on August 3, the Department of Justice said Petty Officer 2nd class Jinchao “Patrick” Wei, 22, was charged with espionage and Petty Officer Wenheng “Thomas” Zhao, 26, was charged with transmitting information to a PRC intelligence officer. It remains unclear whether they were in touch with the same Chinese intelligence officer.

The suspects, who were born in China, are naturalized U.S. citizens. According to court papers, the sailors allegedly received cash in return for providing China with information about the technologies they used at work and about upcoming Navy operations, including international military exercises and radar placements.

According to ABC News, Zhao was denied bail during his detention hearing Tuesday morning in Los Angeles. The judge said he considered Zhao a flight risk and danger to the community while ordering him detained. Zhao’s attorney, Richard Goldman, told the court there are indications that Zhao believed he was dealing with an investment operative, not an agent of China.

Hours later in San Diego, Wei was also denied bail after the judge ruled he was a flight risk and danger to the community, according to ABC News. Wei’s defense attorney, Jason Conforti, had argued that Wei is not a danger to the community and “doesn’t have the access to information anymore.”

Both men had initial appearances on Aug. 3, during which they both pleaded not guilty to their charges, according to ABC News. Wei is next due in court on Aug. 21, while Zhao’s next court date has been scheduled for Sept. 26.

Liu Pengyu, the spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in the U.S., told VOA Mandarin in an emailed statement, “I am not aware of the details of the case. In recent years, the US government and media have frequently hyped up cases of ‘espionage’ related to China. China firmly opposes groundless slander and smear of China by the US side.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney General Matthew Olsen of the National Security Division of the Justice Department said in an August 3 release that the two sailors “stand accused of violating the commitments they made to protect the United States and betraying the public trust, to the benefit of the PRC government.”

In the same release, FBI Assistant Director Suzanne Turner said, “The PRC compromised enlisted personnel to secure sensitive military information that could seriously jeopardize U.S. national security.”

Wei was arrested on August 2 on espionage charges as he arrived for work at Naval Base San Diego, homeport to the Pacific Fleet Surface Navy, with 56 U.S. Navy ships and two auxiliary vessels. He was indicted for conspiracy to send national defense information to a PRC intelligence officer.

The indictment alleges that Wei was a machinist’s mate on the U.S.S. Essex stationed at Naval Base San Diego and held a U.S. security clearance with access to sensitive national defense information about the ship’s weapons, propulsion and desalination systems.

According to the indictment, Wei was approached by a PRC intelligence officer in February 2022 when he was in the process of getting his U.S. citizenship. During the course of the conspiracy, he allegedly sold information about the U.S.S. Essex and other Navy ships, especially photos, videos and documents concerning U.S. Navy ships and their systems to a PRC handler. His handler allegedly congratulated him once he obtained citizenship.

Wei is alleged to have provided the handler with technical and mechanical manuals for the Essex and similar ships.

If convicted, Wei could be sentenced to life in federal prison.

He graduated from Delavan-Darien High School in Delavan, Wisconsin, in 2019, receiving a student achiever award during his senior year, according to an online yearbook photo found by local news. No one answered calls to the school.

Zhao worked at Naval Base Ventura County in Port Hueneme, California, and held a U.S. security clearance. The base is home to the Pacific Seabees, the West Coast E-2/D Hawkeyes, the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division and other divisions, according to its website.

According to a 13-page grand jury indictment  filed in U.S. District Court in the Central District of California, Zhao allegedly transmitted to a PRC officer sensitive, nonpublic U.S. military information, photographs and videos, including operational plans for a large-scale U.S. military exercise in the Indo-Pacific Region and electrical diagrams and blueprints for a radar system stationed on a U.S. military base in Okinawa, Japan. In exchange, he allegedly received $14,866 from his handler from August 2021 through at least May 2023.

According to Zhao’s LinkedIn profile, his mother tongue is Chinese, and his work experience in the U.S. began in January 2016 as a travel agent. He joined the U.S. Navy in April 2017 and started school at American Military University in 2020. He later became an instructor in the U.S. Naval Architecture Division in 2023. VOA reached out to the American Military University but did not receive a reply by the time of publication.

Zhao’s family lives in in Monterey Park, California. The property is divided with a front house and a rear house. A “BEWARE OF DOG” sign hung on the fence when a VOA Mandarin reporter visited on Aug. 3, and trees covered the surrounding walls.

When the VOA reporter arrived at the door, a woman came outside and told the reporter not to take photos.

“I won’t answer any of your questions. Please leave immediately,” she said.  

Several neighbors told VOA Mandarin they rarely saw the family coming and going.

Rocky Zhang, a Monterey Park resident, told VOA that the allegations show how China spies on U.S. military intelligence.

“America is a free country, people from all over the world can come here, and some people will abuse the freedom to steal intelligence,” he said. “I came from mainland China, and now I am a citizen of the United States. This is my country.”

Zhang added he didn’t want the U.S. to face political or military threats from China.

He also said incidents like the spying allegations against Zhao and Wei significantly affect people of Chinese descent in the U.S. Over time, other people would think that all Chinese are like the two alleged spies, he said, so they treat Chinese and even other Asians differently from any other American.

“In fact, most Chinese are good people with a clear mind and would not do such a thing,” he said. 
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Health Conditions Deteriorate as More People Flee Sudan  

Posted on by SeeAF

U.N. agencies warn health conditions are deteriorating in Sudan and neighboring countries as growing numbers of people flee escalating fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

Before the conflict erupted on April 15, 4.5 million Sudanese already were displaced — more than 3.7 million inside Sudan and another 800,000 as refugees in Chad, South Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia.

Since the rival generals went to war, the U.N. refugee agency says nearly an equal number — more than four million people — have become newly displaced.

“The situation inside Sudan, where UNHCR teams are present, is untenable as needs far outweigh what is humanly possible to deliver with available resources,” said William Spindler, UNHCR spokesman.

He said a lack of medicine and a shortage of staff to care for the sick and wounded in White Nile State severely hampered health and nutrition services in all 10 refugee camps, “where over 144,000 newly displaced refugees from Khartoum have arrived since the conflict started.”

He said many families that have been on the move for weeks, with very little food and medicine, were arriving at border entry points and transit centers in neighboring countries in desperate condition.

As a result, he said malnutrition rates have been rising, as have disease outbreaks and related deaths.

“Between 15 May and 17 July, over 300 deaths, mainly among children under five years, were reported due to measles and malnutrition,” he said.

“In addition, severe cholera and malaria cases are expected in the coming months due to flooding from the continuing rains and inadequate sanitation facilities.”

Now in its fourth month of conflict, the World Health Organization says insecurity, as well as limited access to medicine, medical supplies, electricity and water pose a challenge to the delivery of health care.

WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said attacks on health facilities were increasing, preventing the sick and wounded from accessing medical treatment. He said the WHO has verified 53 attacks on health care, causing 11 deaths and 38 injuries, between April 15 and July 31.

“Attacks on health care are a gross violation of international humanitarian law and the right to health. They must stop. Humanitarian workers need assurances of safety and security in order to continue delivering critical humanitarian and health response,” he said.

Meanwhile, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization warns Sudan is facing a deepening food crisis, noting that “20.3 million individuals in Sudan face severe hunger, a figure that has nearly doubled since last year.”

Maximo Torero, FAO chief economist, said a recent U.N. food assessment shows “the level of acute food insecurity in Sudan has increased substantially to more than 11 million people because of the conflict. So, the situation is deteriorating.”

Meanwhile, in a bit of welcome news, the U.N. Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, confirmed Tuesday that the first humanitarian convoy since the start of the conflict had arrived in the East Darfur state after nine days on the road and that “those supplies have been distributed to more than 15,000 people in remote villages in the state.”

Additionally, OCHA said that the FAO had provided 430 tons of agricultural seeds “to be distributed to farmers across the state by the Ministry of Agriculture.”

U.N. agencies agree that the competing generals’ power grab has deepened Sudan’s humanitarian crisis. They warn the lives of many people are hanging by a thread, lives that will be lost without more donor support.

The Federal Ministry of Health says 12,200 people have been injured and 1,205 killed since April 15, figures U.N. agencies believe are greatly underestimated.
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Eleven People Missing After Fire at Vacation Lodge in Eastern France   

Posted on by SeeEU

Eleven people are missing and feared dead after a fire broke out early Wednesday morning at a vacation cottage in the eastern French town of Wintzenheim.

Authorities say the cottage was rented by an association that assists disabled people. The missing residents, including 10 adults with learning disabilities and a staff member, were from the nearby eastern city of Nancy.

Christopher Marot, the secretary-general of the Haut-Rhin district, told reporters it is likely the 11 missing people were unable to escape the blaze.

The BBC says the bodies of three people have been recovered from the rubble.

The fire was quickly brought under control, but Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that “several casualties are reported” from the scene and that rescue operations were still ongoing.

Seventeen others were evacuated from the blaze, with one person transported to a nearby hospital.

French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said on X that she was heading to the site of the fire. “My first thoughts are with the victims and their loved ones,” she wrote.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse.
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ANSA: 41 Dead in Migrant Shipwreck in Central Mediterranean

Posted on by SeeEU

Forty-one migrants died in a shipwreck last week in the central Mediterranean, the Ansa news agency reported on Wednesday, citing accounts from survivors who have just reached the Italian island of Lampedusa. 

Ansa said four people who survived the shipwreck told rescuers that they were on a boat carrying 45 people, including three children.

The boat set off on Thursday morning from Tunisia’s Sfax, a hot spot in the migration crisis, but capsized and sank after a few hours, the survivors were quoted as saying.

The survivors – three men and a woman from Ivory Coast and Guinea – said they were rescued by a cargo ship and then transferred onto an Italian coast guard vessel.

The coast guard did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It was unclear if the news given by Ansa was linked to the two shipwrecks that the coast guard had reported on Sunday, saying around 30 people were missing from them.

The coast guard had also said they had recovered 57 survivors and two bodies, amid media reports that at least one of the sunken boats had set off from Sfax on Thursday.

Separately, Tunisian authorities said on Monday that they had recovered 11 bodies from a shipwreck near Sfax on Sunday, with 44 migrants still missing from that sinking.

Italy has seen around 93,700 migrant arrivals by sea so far this year, according to interior ministry data last updated on Monday, compared to 44,700 in the same period of 2022.
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Preserving Pioneering Work of Black Modernist Architects

Posted on by SeeUS

Modernist structures designed by African Americans targeted for preservation
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Biden Creates New National Monument Near Grand Canyon

Posted on by SeeUS

U.S. President Joe Biden was in Arizona Tuesday to mark the creation of a new national monument near the Grand Canyon to protect more than 4,000 square kilometers of land sacred to Native Americans. Matt Dibble has the story.
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Medical Students from War-Torn Sudan Find Hope in Rwanda

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At least 160 medical students who fled their homes and abandoned their studies due to the war in Sudan have found hope and a second chance to complete their education in Rwanda.

With the help of the Rwandan government, the students from the University of Medical Sciences and Technology in Khartoum will complete their studies at the University of Rwanda.

They said their campus in Khartoum has been overrun and turned into a military barracks.

“After the war, we thought about relocating students to different places where they can continue their education and finish their degrees. Fortunately enough, Rwanda was very receptive for the idea of relocating these students,” Dr. Suzan Homeida, a university deputy chairperson told VOA Central Africa Service’s reporters in Kigali.

“We are very thankful and grateful for the government of Rwanda, who opened the door for us and accepted our medical students,” she said.

The 27-year-old university had around 7,000 students across all faculties — 3,000 of them were medical students — before the war broke out in April. One hundred and sixty of the medical students relocated to Rwanda. Homeida said she’s thankful to those who made the relocation to Rwanda possible.

“During war, people flee looking for food and water. But Rwanda has provided a lot more, which is education,” said Homeida. “After the war is over, we’ll expect people to rebuild the country, and I think these medical students will be graduated, and they will go back to Sudan, and they will shoulder the responsibility of building Sudan and building the nation.”

Homeida said students have shown remarkable resilience and determination to overcome the obstacles they have faced. But she also expects a lot from them while in Rwanda.

“My message to the students is that this is a golden opportunity. They must work hard. They must learn the local culture. They must eat the local food. They must speak the language. They must be part of the community to get the most out of that experience,” she said.

Power of education

Despite the challenges, the Sudanese medical students have not lost sight of their goal. They say they are grateful for the opportunity to continue their studies and are working hard to become doctors. Some of them hope to return to Sudan to help rebuild their country’s health care system.

Yaseen Khalfalla is a fourth-year medical student. He said he is grateful for the opportunity to continue pursuing his medical degree, but still devastated by events taking place at home.

“I’d like to take a moment and say rest in peace to those who have lost their lives in our war. And hopefully, God willing, our country has peace again,” Khalfalla told VOA, adding that the relocation is something historic that the Sudanese medical community will never forget.

“It has a greater good message that Africa is one and will always be one.”

But Khalfalla also said the opportunity to relocate carries a unique weight for the small number of students selected to continue their studies abroad, as they’ll be expected to build the future of medicine in Sudan.

“I feel very grateful, but I feel there’s a lot of pressure on my shoulders. There’s a lot of responsibility, because we are the only batch in our country that’s been given an opportunity to resume their studies.”

Khalfalla’s feelings are echoed by fellow fourth-year student Azan Abdel Rahman Giammaa, who has been in Rwanda for only three weeks and had mixed feelings about going.

“At the beginning, I was afraid because I’m coming to a whole new country, I don’t know much about this country,” she said, adding that she expects to adapt. “I do expect to increase my clinical skills … including communication, surgical skills, and hopefully to learn how to expand my knowledge here in this country,” she said.

With only a year of studies remaining, Giammaa had begun to visualize her life after graduation — until war broke out.

“My dreams crashed literally in two hours,” she said. “I was devastated because of the war, and I had to leave the country.”

She, too, is thankful for Rwanda opening its doors.

“I really want to expand my knowledge. I want to really help this country, and hopefully after the war, I can take my knowledge that I gained here and take it back to Sudan to help them too,” she said. “Rwanda could give me this hope.”

Officials said the 160 Sudanese students will be in Rwanda for eight months.

“They have four months to finish their fourth year, and then we will conduct the exam here and straight away they will start their final year,” Homeida said. “The final year is all about practicing in the hospitals, seeing patients and helping in the management of patients with the supervision.”

This story originated in VOA’s Central Africa Service.
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Ohio Voters Reject Proposal to Make it Harder to Amend State Constitution

Posted on by SeeUS

Ohio voters on Tuesday resoundingly rejected a Republican-backed measure that would have made it more difficult to change the state’s constitution, setting up a fall campaign that will become the nation’s latest referendum on abortion rights since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned nationwide protections last year. 

The defeat of Issue 1 keeps in place a simple majority threshold for passing future constitutional amendments. It would have raised that to a 60% supermajority, which supporters said would protect the state’s foundational document from outside interest groups. 

While abortion was not directly on the special election ballot, the result marks the latest setback for Republicans in a conservative-leaning state who favor imposing tough restrictions on the procedure. Ohio Republicans placed the question on the summer ballot in hopes of undercutting a citizen initiative that voters will decide in November that seeks to enshrine abortion rights in the state. 

Dennis Willard, a spokesperson for the opposition campaign One Person One Vote, called Issue 1 a “deceptive power grab” that was intended to diminish the power of the state’s voters. 

“Tonight is a major victory for democracy in Ohio,” Willard told a jubilant crowd at the opposition campaign’s watch party. “The majority still rules in Ohio.” 

A major national group that opposes abortion rights, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, called the result “a sad day for Ohio” while criticizing the outside money that helped the opposition. In fact, both sides relied on national groups and individuals in their campaigns. 

Other states where voters have considered abortion rights since last year’s Supreme Court ruling have protected them, including in red states such as Kansas and Kentucky. 

Interest in the special election was intense. Voters cast nearly 700,000 early in-person and mail ballots ahead of Tuesday’s final day of voting, more than twice the number of advance votes in a typical primary election. Early turnout was especially heavy in the Democratic-leaning counties surrounding Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati. 

 

One Person One Vote represented a broad, bipartisan coalition of voting rights, labor, faith and community groups. The group also had as allies four living ex-governors of the state and five former state attorneys general of both parties, who called the proposed change bad public policy. 

In place since 1912, the simple majority standard is a much more surmountable hurdle for Ohioans for Reproductive Rights, the group advancing November’s abortion rights amendment. It would establish “a fundamental right to reproductive freedom” with “reasonable limits.” 

Voters in several states have approved ballot questions protecting access to abortion since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, but typically have done so with less than 60% of the vote. AP VoteCast polling last year found that 59% of Ohio voters say abortion should generally be legal. 

The result came in the very type of August special election that Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a candidate for U.S. Senate, had previously testified against as undemocratic because of historically low turnout. Republican lawmakers just last year had voted to mostly eliminate such elections, a law they ignored for this year’s election. 

Voters’ rejection of the proposal marked a rare rebuke for Ohio Republicans, who have held power across every branch of state government for 12 years. 

Ohio Right to Life, the state’s oldest and largest anti-abortion group and a key force behind the special election measure, vowed to continue fighting into the fall. 
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What Sanctions Have Been Imposed on Niger Since the Coup?

Posted on by SeeAF

Niger’s regional and Western allies have announced a series of sanctions against the country, one of the poorest in the world, following the July 26 coup.
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US Move Gives Hope to Stateless People Living in America

Posted on by SeeUS

Geopolitical events such as war or the dissolution of a government, like the collapse of the Soviet Union, can leave people without a country. In the U.S. more than 200,000 people are living in a stateless status. VOA’s immigration reporter Aline Barros has more. Camera: Adam Greenbaum
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US Judge Sets Hearing on Evidence in Trump’s 2020 Election Case

Posted on by SeeUS

A federal judge presiding over former President Donald Trump’s trial on charges of trying to overturn the 2020 election has ordered his attorneys and federal prosecutors to appear in court on Friday for a hearing to help determine how evidence can be used and shared in the case. 

U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan set the hearing for Friday at 10 a.m. ET (1400 GMT), shortly after Trump’s attorneys and members of U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office had clashed over when to schedule the proceeding. 

Prosecutors had said they were available all week, while Trump’s lawyers had asked for a postponement until early next week. 

Prosecutors request protective order

Friday’s hearing comes after Trump’s defense team on Monday opposed a request from prosecutors for Chutkan to impose a protective order to ensure confidential evidence is not shared publicly by Trump, suggesting he could use the information to intimidate witnesses. Trump has pleaded not guilty and called the charges politically motivated. 

Trump’s attorneys said limits would infringe on his right to free speech, protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. 

Trump is not expected to be present in the courtroom on Friday, after Chutkan waived his appearance. 

Typically, defense lawyers do not oppose such protective orders because doing so can delay the government from producing the evidence it intends to use at trial in a process known as discovery.  

Defense tries to slow proceedings

The disagreement between the parties over the hearing date represented the latest effort by Trump’s team to delay or slow legal proceedings. 

It also underscored the logistical challenges that Trump’s team may have as it continues to represent him in two separate federal criminal cases brought by Smith’s office, one in Washington, and the other in Florida, where Trump is charged with retaining highly classified records after leaving the White House and obstructing the government’s efforts to have the records returned. Trump also pleaded not guilty in that case. 

One of Trump’s attorneys, Todd Blanche, will be in federal court in Florida on Thursday for an arraignment, after the government filed a superseding indictment that charged Trump with additional criminal counts and also charged another one of his employees in the case. 

In the joint Washington filing, Trump’s lawyers said Trump wished for both Blanche and his other lawyer John Lauro to be present for the hearing before Chutkan. 
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Russia Criticizes Western Pressure on Iran

Posted on by SeeEU

Russia on Tuesday aligned itself with its ally Iran in rejecting Western attempts to maintain curbs on Iran despite the collapse of a 2015 deal intended to restrain Tehran’s nuclear program in return for relief from sanctions. 

After a meeting between their respective deputy foreign ministers in Tehran, Russia’s foreign ministry said Moscow and Tehran were unanimous in believing that the failure to implement the deal stemmed from the “erroneous policy of ‘maximum pressure’ pursued by the United States and those who think similarly.” 

Then-U.S. President Donald Trump quit the deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018 while leaving economic sanctions in place. Iran’s relations with the West have been deteriorating ever since, as it has accelerated its nuclear program. 

But Russia, which signed the deal alongside the U.S., China, Britain, France, Germany and the European Union, has been deepening ties with Iran since its invasion of Ukraine. 

The war, which Russia calls a “special military operation,” has driven its own relations with the West to their lowest level in decades. 

Sources told Reuters in June that European diplomats had informed Iran that they planned to join the U.S. in retaining sanctions on Iran’s ballistic missile program that are set to expire in October under the nuclear deal. 

They gave three reasons: Russia’s use of Iranian drones against Ukraine; the possibility that Iran might transfer ballistic missiles to Russia; and depriving Iran of the benefits of the nuclear deal, which it violated after the U.S. withdrew. 

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov met his Iranian counterparts Ali Bagheri Kani and Reza Najafi. 

Russia’s foreign ministry said the meeting had emphasized “the unacceptability of any attempts on the part of the West to impose some new schemes and approaches to solving problems related to the JCPOA, which imply damage to legitimate and mutually beneficial Russian-Iranian cooperation in various fields.” 

It said there was still “no reasonable alternative” to implementing the JCPOA, as approved by the U.N. Security Council. 
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Deal Struck to Send Leopard 1 Tanks From Belgium to Ukraine

Posted on by SeeEU

Dozens of second-hand Leopard 1 tanks that once belonged to Belgium have been bought by another European country for Ukrainian forces fighting Russia’s invasion, the arms trader who did the deal said Tuesday. 

The German-made Leopards were at the center of a public spat earlier this year after Belgian Defense Minister Ludivine Dedonder said the government had explored buying back tanks to send to Ukraine but had been quoted unreasonable prices. 

The clash highlighted a predicament faced by Western governments trying to find weapons for Ukraine after more than a year of intense warfare — arms they discarded as obsolete are now in high demand, and often owned by private companies. 

‘More than happy to take them’

Freddy Versluys, CEO of defense company OIP Land Systems, bought the tanks from the Belgian government more than five years ago. 

He told Reuters he had now sold all 50 tanks to another European government, which he could not name due to a confidentiality clause. He said he also could not disclose the price. 

Germany’s Handelsblatt newspaper reported Tuesday that arms maker Rheinmetall had acquired the tanks and would prepare most of them for export to Ukraine. 

The company declined to comment. 

“The fact that they leave our company proves that we asked for a fair market price, and someone was more than happy to take them,” Versluys said in a post on LinkedIn, accompanied by a picture of tanks next to a bottle of Ukrainian vodka. 

 

Battlefield ready in months

He said the tanks were now being transported to a factory for a substantial overhaul. Some of the tanks would be used for spare parts, while others would be repaired, he said. He estimated it could be four to six months before they were on the battlefield in Ukraine. 

A defense source told Reuters that the German government was paying for 32 of the Leopard 1 tanks to be restored and sent to Ukraine and that this was part of a support package for Ukraine that Germany announced at the NATO summit July in Vilnius.  

The German Defense Ministry had no immediate comment. 

Several of Kyiv’s Western allies agreed earlier this year to send modern Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine and also to send older Leopard 1 models. 

The Leopard 1 was made by German firm Krauss-Maffei starting in the 1960s. It is lighter than the Leopard 2 and has a different type of main gun. The models sold by Versluys were last upgraded in the 1990s. 

A spokesperson for the Belgian Defense Ministry declined to comment on the sale of the tanks. 
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WFP Begins Test Distribution of Food Aid to Ethiopia’s Tigray

Posted on by SeeAF

The World Food Program has started distributing food aid in Ethiopia’s war-scarred Tigray region in a test of new monitoring measures, the United Nations agency said on Tuesday.

WFP and U.S. aid agency USAID halted food aid to Africa’s second-most populous country in June after discovering that supplies were not reaching those in need, raising fears that millions of Ethiopians would be left in desperate straits.

On Tuesday, the U.N. food agency said it had “started distributing 15-kilogram (33-pound) pre-packed bags of wheat to just over 100,000 people” as part of a pilot project with improved monitoring mechanisms.

“On July 31, the World Food Program started testing and verifying enhanced controls and measures for delivering food assistance in four districts of Tigray,” it said in a message to AFP.

The new measures include tracking supplies and the digital registration of recipients to prevent aid from falling into the wrong hands.

Millions of Ethiopians are facing severe food shortages following a brutal two-year war in Tigray as well as a punishing drought that has also struck Somalia and parts of Kenya.

A spokesperson for USAID, the U.S. government’s main international aid agency, told AFP that U.S. food assistance in Ethiopia remains paused.

“We are committed to resuming food assistance as quickly as possible once we can be confident our assistance is reaching the most vulnerable that it is intended for,” the spokesperson said.

The Amhara region, which neighbors Tigray, has also witnessed clashes between a local militia and the national army in recent weeks, affecting humanitarian operations there, according to the World Health Organization.

“WFP also plans to begin registering populations and rolling out the new enhanced control measures for targeted, vulnerable people in Amhara, Afar and Somali regions, as well as other parts of Tigray region, as soon as possible,” the agency said.

The escalation in violence in Amhara prompted Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government to declare a six-month state of emergency there last week.

On Tuesday, Ethiopian Airlines canceled flights to Bahir Dar, the capital of Amhara, because of the clashes. Last week, the airline canceled flights to three other airports in the northern region.

The fresh unrest comes nine months after the end of the war in Tigray, which drew in fighters from Amhara.

Tensions have been rising since April, when the federal government announced it was dismantling regional forces across Ethiopia.
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Paris Plans for Dramatic Facelift to Cope With Rising Temperatures

Posted on by SeeEU

Paris has recently been shivering under the kind of summer for which it was once infamous — before climate change entered mainstream lexicon and thinking. As temperatures soared in parts of southern Europe, rain has lashed the French capital, sending tourists and locals scrambling for umbrellas and thick sweaters. 

It’s certain to be a short-term reprieve. By 2050, one recent study finds Paris could have the highest number of heat wave-related deaths of any European capital, with temperatures possibly hitting a scorching 50 degrees Celsius. 

“We have to maintain the beauty of Paris, while also finding new tools, new materials to adapt Paris against the heat waves,” said Paris City Councilor Maude Lelievre, who authored a recently released report, Paris at 50C, that calls for dramatically adapting the metropolis to a future of sizzling summers.

“A catastrophic situation,” she added, “could be a city where only the poor and old people stay, without any solutions.” 

Paris is hardly alone. A series of alarming climate reports are sending municipal planners worldwide back to the drawing board. That is especially so in Europe, the world’s fastest-warming continent, which endured its hottest summer and second hottest year in 2022. 

Recent weeks alone saw near-record breaking temperatures in parts of Italy, Spain and Greece. Worldwide, last month was likely the hottest on record, according to the European Union-funded Copernicus Climate Change Service and the World Meteorological Organization. 

Even before this latest bout of hot weather, many EU cities had drafted action plans to adapt. More than 100 of them, including Paris, vow to become climate neutral by 2030. But turning plans into action is another matter. 

“We have approximately 80,000 cities and towns in Europe, and all of them are still lagging behind in regard of the necessity to adapt to a changing climate,” said Holger Robrecht, the Europe region’s deputy regional director of ECLEI, Local Governments for Sustainability, a global network of local and regional governments. 

“We don’t have any city in the European region that at this moment is 100% climate resilient,” he added.

Still Robrecht and other climate experts praise Paris, under leftist mayor Anne Hidalgo, for strides in greening the city. Recent changes include expanded tramway and metro lines, a raft of pedestrian-only zones and some 130 kilometers of bike lanes — with another 50 kilometers expected to be added by next July. 

Paris also plans to make next summer’s Olympic Games the most eco-friendly in history, with promises to slash carbon emissions by half compared to previous Games in London and Rio de Janeiro. 

A much more drastic overhaul is needed, experts say, to make the city livable in the years to come. Some draw parallels to the kind of urban revolution nearly two centuries ago under Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann, which demolished a tangle of medieval neighborhoods to build elegant avenues that crisscross much of the city today.

City of lights, and green

“In the next 20 years, we need to adapt all the streets around us with trees and with vegetation to create green corridors,” City Councilor Lelievre said, adding, “we could have a real green city like Singapore — and also a light city.” 

Today, however, the very architecture that makes Paris iconic also makes it a heat trap. The city is densely populated, short on large parks like London has, and despite Haussmann, still has many narrow streets with few if any trees. 

Despite Hidalgo’s drive to green the capital, some recent urban renewal plans, including those inherited from her predecessor, favor heat-absorbing concrete over grass and plants. The city’s famous zinc rooftops, candidates for UNESCO World Heritage status, could make top-floor apartments unbearably hot in future summers, if unaltered. 

“During a lot of years, we had no idea it was an obligation to adapt cities and especially Paris against heat waves,” Lelievre said, adding “We had emergency plans for the winter — but not for summer.” 

Adopted unanimously earlier this year, the City Council’s plan sees widening green oases of air corridors and plants now being built in front of schools to all city neighborhoods; reopening fountains and renewing thousands of apartments; and replacing zinc roofs and other surfaces with lighter-colored materials that are more suited for hotter climates.

Some proposals, like creating rooftop terraces with plants and water catchment systems, have already been proposed by Mayor Hidalgo. Key to the latest plan — which doesn’t include a price tag — is loosening up strict French building codes. Paris lawmakers hope parts of the plan will be integrated into upcoming urban renewal and biodiversity legislation.

2003 memories

Other European cities are also getting climate revamps. 

Copenhagen, vulnerable to sea-level rise, has rolled out an ambitious flood adaptation management plan after being hit by record-breaking rainfall in 2011. 

Barcelona’s climate plan aims to increase solar power and green spaces, sometimes by revamping whole neighborhoods. 

Many cities have not forgotten the punishing heat wave of 2003, when an estimated 70,000 people died in Europe, including 15,000 in France. But recent findings also show as many as 60,000 people died in Europe’s 2022 heat wave — suggesting much more needs to be done. 

“Cities want to get prepared” for climate change, said ECLEI’s Robrecht, “but it’s not always reflected in daily decision making — which may turn a green space into a parking lot, or fell a tree that’s 80 years old and gives shade to its citizens.” 

Still, he remains optimistic. “We are still in the early years of our response,” Robrecht said. 
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China’s July Exports Tumble, Adding to Pressure to Shore Up Economy

Posted on by SeeUS

China’s exports plunged by 14.5% in July compared with a year earlier, adding to pressure on the ruling Communist Party to reverse an economic slump.

Imports tumbled 12.4%, customs data showed Tuesday, in a blow to global exporters that look to China as one of the biggest markets for industrial materials, food and consumer goods.

Exports fell to $281.8 billion as the decline accelerated from June’s 12.4% fall. Imports sank to $201.2 billion, widening from the previous month’s 6.8% contraction.

The country’s global trade surplus narrowed by 20.4% from a record high a year ago to $80.6 billion.

Chinese leaders are trying to shore up business and consumer activity after a rebound following the end of virus controls in December fizzled out earlier than expected.

Economic growth sank to 0.8% in the three months ending in June compared with the previous quarter, down from the January-March period’s 2.2%. That is the equivalent of 3.2% annual growth, which would be among China’s weakest in three decades.

Demand for Chinese exports cooled after the U.S. Federal Reserve and central banks in Europe and Asia started raising interest rates last year to cool inflation that was at multidecade highs.

The export contraction was the biggest since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, according to Capital Economics. It said the decline was due mostly to lower prices, while volumes of goods were above pre-pandemic levels.

“We expect exports to decline further over the coming months before bottoming out toward the end of the year,” said Capital Economics in a report. “The near-term outlook for consumer spending in developed economies remains challenging.”

The ruling party has promised measures to support entrepreneurs and to encourage home purchases and consumer spending but hasn’t announced large-scale stimulus spending or tax cuts. Forecasters expect those steps to revive demand for imports but say that will be gradual.

“Domestic demand continues to deteriorate,” said David Chao of Invesco in a report. “Policymakers have pledged further policy support, which could buoy household spending and lead to an improvement in import growth for the coming few months.”

Exports to the United States fell 23% from a year earlier to $42.3 billion, while imports of American goods retreated 11.1% to $12 billion. China’s politically sensitive trade surplus with the United States narrowed by 27% to a still-robust $30.3 billion.

China’s imports from Russia, mostly oil and gas, narrowed by just under 0.1% from a year ago to $9.2 billion. Chinese purchases of Russian energy have swelled, helping to offset revenue lost to Western sanctions imposed to punish the Kremlin for its invasion of Ukraine.

China, which is friendly with Moscow but says it is neutral in the war, can buy Russian oil and gas without triggering Western sanctions. The United States and French officials cite evidence that China is delivering goods with possible military uses to Russia but haven’t said whether that might trigger penalties against Chinese companies.

Exports to the 27-nation European Union slumped 39.5% from a year earlier to $42.4 billion, while imports of European goods were off 44.1% at $23.3 billion. China’s trade surplus with the EU contracted by 32.7% to $19.1 billion.

For the first seven months of the year, Chinese exports were off 5% from the same period in 2022 at just over $1.9 trillion. Imports were down 7.6% at $1.4 trillion.
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Botswana Seeks Pharmacists From Abroad After Nurses Halt Dispensing Medications

Posted on by SeeAF

Botswana is aiming to recruit at least 1,000 pharmacists, some from abroad, after nurses said they would no longer dispense medications.

Nurses stopped filling prescriptions to patients last month, with the Botswana Nurse Union saying that doing so was outside their scope of work.

The situation has led to congestion at the country’s pharmacies and left some patients unable to get their medications at all.

Now the government is looking to bring in pharmacists from abroad to fill the void and avert a health crisis.

Speaking in parliament Monday, Botswana’s assistant health minister, Sethumo Lelatisitswe, said that despite recruiting about 100 pharmacists over the last month, the shortage is still severe.

“We only have a few pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in the market,” Lelatisitswe said. “In the coming weeks, we would have exhausted the Botswana market. However, we would still not have been able to replace all nurses and midwives that have been dispensing medications from as long ago as the birth of our health system. Our local tertiary institutions do not produce enough pharmacists and pharmacy technicians who can be engaged to serve our people.”

The Botswana Nurse Union vice president responsible for labor, Oreeditse Kelebakgosi, said that it was unlawful for nurses to be dispensing medication and that it is only proper for the government to recruit pharmacists.

Kelebakgosi applauded the government’s move to recruit from outside Botswana, saying the effort would bring relief to the nurses who have been dispensing medication outside their scope of work.

But assistant minister Lelatisitswe said it will not be an easy task to recruit the health-care professionals.

“We need close to a thousand pharmacists and pharmacy technicians to have all our clinics and health facilities adequately covered,” he said. “Given the shortage of these professionals in the market, including regionally … it may take up to five years to have these numbers.”

Lelatisitswe acknowledged that the nurses’ decision has led to a crisis.

HIV activist Bonosi Segadimo says the shortage of pharmacists will negatively impact the distribution of ARV drugs. Botswana has among the world’s highest HIV prevalence with nearly 21% of the adult population living with the virus.

“This issue of nurses stopping the dispensing of drugs is a very bad idea,” said Segadimo. “Most clients have to take public transport to go and get their medications from clinics, where there are no pharmacists.”

Botswana’s problem is not an isolated one in Southern Africa, where health-care delivery has been disrupted by professionals leaving for better pay in wealthier countries, particularly in the United Kingdom.
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US Supreme Court Reinstates Biden’s ‘Ghost Gun’ Restrictions – for Now

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The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday granted a request by President Joe Biden’s administration to reinstate – at least for now – a federal regulation aimed at reining in privately made firearms called “ghost guns” that are difficult for law enforcement to trace.

The justices put on hold a July 5 decision by U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth, Texas that had blocked the 2022 rule nationwide pending the administration’s appeal.  

The decision was 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts and fellow conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett joining the court’s three liberal justices to grant the administration’s request. Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh dissented from the decision.

O’Connor found that the administration exceeded its authority under a 1968 federal law called the Gun Control Act in implementing the rule relating to ghost guns, firearms that are privately assembled and lack the usual serial numbers required by the federal government.

The rule, issued by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to target the rapid proliferation of the homemade weapons, bans “buy build shoot” kits that individuals can get online or at a store without a background check. The kits can be quickly assembled into a working firearm.  

The rule clarified that ghost guns qualify as “firearms” under the Gun Control Act, expanding the definition of a firearm to include parts and kits that may be readily turned into a gun. It required serial numbers and that manufacturers and sellers be licensed. Sellers under the rule also must run background checks on purchasers prior to a sale.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Tuesday found that 70% of Americans support requirements that ghost guns have serial numbers and be produced only by licensed manufacturers. The idea had bipartisan support among respondents, with 80% of Democrats and 61% of Republicans in favor.

There were about 20,000 suspected ghost guns reported in 2021 to the ATF as having been recovered by law enforcement in criminal investigations – a tenfold increase from 2016, according to White House statistics.

Biden’s administration on July 27 asked the justices to halt O’Connor’s ruling that invalidated a Justice Department restriction on the sale of ghost gun kits while it appeals to the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Alito, who handles emergency matters arising from a group of states including Texas, the next day temporarily blocked O’Connor’s decision to give the justices time to decide how to proceed.  

The administration said that allowing the O’Connor’s ruling to stand would enable an “irreversible flow of large numbers of untraceable ghost guns into our nation’s communities.”

Plaintiffs including various gun owners, parts manufacturers and two gun rights groups – the Firearms Policy Coalition and Second Amendment Foundation – filed suit to block the rule in federal court in Texas. They claimed that the rule violated the Gun Control Act, portraying the policy as a threat to the long history of legal private gunsmithing in the United States.

O’Connor blocked the rule as an overreach, concluding that the congressional definition of a firearm “does not cover weapon parts, or aggregations of weapon parts, regardless of whether the parts may be readily assembled into something that may fire a projectile.” The judge also rejected the administration’s concern that such a ruling would allow felons, minors and others legally prohibited from owning a firearm to easily make one.  

“Even if it is true that such an interpretation creates loopholes that as a policy matter should be avoided,” O’Connor wrote, “it not the role of the judiciary to correct them.”

The United States, with the world’s highest gun ownership rate, remains a nation deeply divided over how to address firearms violence including frequent mass shootings.  

In three major rulings since 2008, the Supreme Court has widened gun rights, including a 2022 decision that declared for the first time that the U.S. Constitution protects an individual’s right to carry a handgun in public for self-defense.
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Rwanda Genocide Victims Slam Kabuga Release Ruling

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A group representing survivors of the Rwandan genocide Tuesday expressed anger and disappointment at a U.N. appeal court ruling that a suspect should be urgently considered for release after he was declared unfit for trial.

The Ibuka association representing survivors slammed the decision in the case of former business tycoon Felicien Kabuga, accused of setting up a hate broadcaster that fueled the 1994 slaughter of around 800,000 people.

“The ruling to potentially release Kabuga is a deliberate insult to the deep wounds that genocide survivors suffer,” Naphtali Ahishakiye, executive secretary of the group, told AFP.

The survivors are “extremely angry and disappointed,” said Ahishakiye, saying it set a “deplorable precedent.” 

In June, judges found Kabuga was not fit enough to go on trial but ruled he should still undergo a stripped down legal process without a verdict.

Appeals judges rejected that on Monday, saying the lower court made an “error of law” and ruling Kabuga, who is 88 according to officials but claims to be 90, should be urgently considered for release.

Captured in Paris 2020 after two decades on the run, wheelchair-bound Kabuga went on trial last September and pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors accuse Kabuga, once one of Rwanda’s richest men, of being the driving force behind Radio-Television Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM), which urged ethnic Hutus to kill Tutsis with machetes.

But judges said in June that medical experts had now found he has “severe dementia.”

The court first put the trial on hold in March over health concerns, having earlier dismissed bids by Kabuga’s defense lawyers to have him declared unfit to stand trial.

Ahishakiye slammed Monday’s outcome and said his group was now considering cutting ties with the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals.

“Aligning with a court that continuously shields genocide perpetrators at the expense of justice for survivors has lost its rationale,” hence “our continued cooperation with this court is untenable — it serves no purpose.”

Prosecutor Serge Brammertz said he had carefully reviewed the Appeal Chamber’s decision and “its decision must be respected, even if the outcome is dissatisfying.”

“My thoughts are with the victims and survivors of the Genocide,” said Brammertz, recognizing that “this outcome will be distressing and disheartening to them.”

He cited the recent arrest of former police inspector Fulgence Kayishema, accused of a massacre, as evidence the Kabuga ruling “is not the end of the [overall] justice process.”

Defense counsel Emmanuel Altit told AFP he welcomed the appeal judges’ ruling. 
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