Month: August 2023

US Airstrike Kills 13 Al-Shabab Militants

Posted on by SeeAF

The U.S. military in Africa (AFRICOM) reported a “collective self-defense” airstrike against al-Shabab militants — killing 13 fighters in Somalia.

The airstrike took place in the vicinity of Seiera, approximately 45 kilometers northwest of Kismayo.

AFRICOM said Saturday’s airstrike was conducted in support of Somali forces who were engaged by al-Shabab fighters.

“Working with the Somali National Army, U.S. Africa Command’s initial assessment is that the airstrike killed 13 al Shabab fighters and that no civilians were injured or killed,” AFRICOM said in a statement.   “The command will continue to assess the results of this operation and will provide additional information as appropriate. Specific details about the units involved and assets used will not be released in order to ensure operations security.”

The U.S. considers al-Shabab the largest and most kinetically active al-Qaida network in the world. Al-Shabab merged with al-Qaida in February 2012.

“[Al-Shabab] has proved both its will and capability to attack partner and U.S. forces and threaten security interests in the region,” AFRICOM said. 

Meanwhile, al-Shabab militants raided the recently liberated village of Cowsweyne in the central Galmudug state, killing government soldiers early Saturday, security sources told VOA.

According to two security officials who asked not to be identified because they are not allowed to comment on sensitive military operations, the militants attacked the village using explosions from vehicle-borne explosive devices (VBIED) or car bombs, followed by armed militants who engaged in heavy gun battles with government forces.

The state-run Somali National News Agency (SONNA) said government forces repelled the attack and destroyed the VBIEDs.

However, extremist group al-Shabab issued a press release claiming to have “overrun” the base and killing 178 soldiers and capturing prisoners. That claim has not been independently verified.

The situation in Cowsweyne, 60 kilometers northwest of Ceel Dheer town, is still murky more than 24 hours after the attack. A local official described the attack in Cowsweyne as “painful.”

Somali government soldiers liberated Cowsweyne on August 22 as the government resumed military operations against al-Shabab to remove the group from central Somalia and push the militants to the south.

Military officials said they are targeting two main towns in the state, Elbur and Galhareri. Elbur was captured without a fight Friday by a large column of Somali forces. Al-Shabab militants have been withdrawing from towns and villages and retreating into the bush with the intention of a prolonged guerrilla war.  
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Spain’s Soccer Federation to Hold Urgent Meeting Over Rubiales Kiss Scandal 

Posted on by SeeEU

Spain’s soccer federation will meet urgently on Monday as its president, Luis Rubiales, faces a FIFA suspension and a storm of criticism over allegations he gave a player an unwanted kiss on the lips following Spain’s victory in the Women’s World Cup.

Rubiales has steadfastly refused to resign over the incident with player Jenni Hermoso last Sunday in Sydney, saying the kiss was consensual. Players and a string of coaches on the women’s squad are demanding he go, and the government also wants him out.

The Royal Football Federation (RFEF) has called regional federations to an “extraordinary and urgent” meeting on Monday “to evaluate the situation in which the federation finds itself” following Rubiales’ suspension, an RFEF spokesperson said on Sunday.

FIFA, soccer’s world governing body, opened disciplinary proceedings against Rubiales on Thursday and announced on Saturday that Rubiales was suspended for three months from national and international soccer pending an investigation.

Rubiales, 46, said he would use the FIFA probe to show his innocence.

Hermoso, who has said she did not consent to the kiss and felt “vulnerable and the victim of an aggression,” has been warmly supported not just by players but by many in wider society.

She appeared among spectators at the Women’s Cup final between Atletico Madrid and Milan on Saturday evening, applauded by the crowd. Players at the match held a banner reading: “With you Jennifer Hermoso.”

The uproar over the kiss has come in a country where tens of thousands of women have taken part in street marches in recent years protesting against sexual abuse and violence.

Feminist groups have called a demonstration on Monday in Madrid entitled “With You Jenni” in support of the player.

Similar demonstrations were staged by feminist groups in Madrid, Santander and Logrono on Saturday calling for Rubiales’ resignation.

All 23 of Spain’s cup-winning squad including Hermoso, as well as dozens of other squad members, said on Friday they would not play internationals while Rubiales remained head of the federation.

On Saturday, 11 members of the national women’s team’s coaching staff offered their resignations to the RFEF in a statement supporting Hermoso and condemning Rubiales.

The Spanish government cannot fire Rubiales but has strongly denounced his actions and said on Friday it was seeking to get him suspended using a legal procedure before a sports tribunal.

Victor Francos, head of the state-run National Sports Council, has called the incident a MeToo moment for Spain. However, he said on Saturday that the scandal would not damage Spain’s bid to stage the 2030 World Cup along with Portugal and Morocco.
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More Than 600 Firefighters, Water-Dropping Aircraft Struggle to Control Wildfires in Greece 

Posted on by SeeEU

More than 600 firefighters, including reinforcements from several European countries, backed by a fleet of water-dropping planes and helicopters were battling three persistent major wildfires in Greece Sunday, two of which have been raging for days.

A massive blaze in the country’s northeastern regions of Evros and Alexandroupolis, believed to have caused the deaths of 20 people, was burning for a ninth day.

The blaze, one of the largest single wildfires ever to have struck a European Union country, has decimated vast tracts of forest and burnt homes in the outlying areas of the city of Alexandroupolis. On Sunday, 295 firefighters, seven planes and five helicopters were tackling it, the fire department said.

The wildfire has scorched 77,000 hectares (770 square kilometers) of land and had 120 active hotspots, the European Union’s Copernicus Emergency Management Service said Sunday.

Copernicus is the EU space program’s Earth observation component and uses satellite imagery to provide mapping data.

On the northwestern fringes of the Greek capital, another major wildfire has been blazing for days, scorching homes and burning into the national park on Mount Parnitha, one of the last green areas near Athens. The fire department said 260 firefighters, one plane and three helicopters were trying to tame the flames.

A third major wildfire started on Saturday on the Cycladic island of Andros and was still burning out of control Sunday, with 73 firefighters, two planes and two helicopters dousing the blaze. Lightning strikes are suspected of having sparked that wildfire.

 

Greece has been plagued by daily outbreaks of dozens of fires over the past week as gale-force winds and hot, dry summer conditions combined to whip up flames and hamper firefighting efforts. On Saturday, firefighters tackled 122 blazes, including 75 that broke out in the 24 hours between Friday evening and Saturday evening, the fire department said.

With firefighting forces stretched to the limit, Greece has called for help from other European countries. Germany, Sweden, Croatia and Cyprus have sent aircraft, while dozens of Romanian, French, Czech, Bulgarian, Albanian, Slovak and Serb firefighters are helping on the ground.

With their hot, dry summers, southern European countries are particularly prone to wildfires. European Union officials have blamed climate change for the increasing frequency and intensity of wildfires in Europe, noting that 2022 was the second-worst year for wildfire damage on record after 2017.

The causes of Greece’s two largest fires have not yet been determined. For some of the smaller blazes, officials have said arson or negligence is suspected, and several people have been arrested.

On Saturday, fire department officials arrested two men, one on the island of Evia and one in the central Greek region of Larissa, for allegedly deliberately setting fire to dried grass and vegetation to spark wildfires.

Greece imposes wildfire prevention regulations, typically from the start of May to the end of October, to limit activities such as the burning of dried vegetation and the use of outdoor barbecues.

By Friday, fire department officials had arrested 163 people on fire-related charges since the start of the fire prevention season, government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis said, including 118 for negligence and 24 for deliberate arson. The police had made a further 18 arrests, he said.
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Indian PM Modi Calls for African Union to Join G20 

Posted on by SeeAF

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called Sunday for the African Union to be made a G20 member, while also pitching his country as the solution to supply chain woes ahead of the bloc’s summit in New Delhi next month.

The Group of 20 major economies consists of 19 countries and the European Union (EU), making up about 85 percent of global GDP and two-thirds of the world’s population — but South Africa is the only member from the continent.

In December, US President Joe Biden said he wanted the African Union “to join the G20 as a permanent member,” adding that it had “been a long time in coming, but it’s going to come.”

On Sunday, current G20 host Modi also called for including the pan-African bloc, which collectively had a $3 trillion GDP last year.

“We have invited the African Union with a vision to give permanent membership,” Modi said at B20, a business forum and prelude to the September 9-10 G20 summit.

Headquartered in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa, the AU at full strength has 55 members, but five junta-ruled nations are currently suspended.

Modi also said India was the “solution” to creating an “efficient and trusted global supply chain” following disruptions during the coronavirus pandemic, with New Delhi working to bolster manufacturing to compete with China.

“The world before COVID-19 and after Covid-19 has changed a lot — the world cannot view the global supply chain as before,” Modi said.

“That is why today when the world is grappling with this question, I want to assure that the solution to this problem is India.”

Relations between the world’s two most populous nations nosedived after a deadly Himalayan border clash that killed 20 Indian soldiers and at least four Chinese troops in 2020.

Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping held a rare face-to-face meeting on the sidelines of a summit on Thursday, with Beijing saying they held “candid and in-depth” talks to ease tensions along their disputed frontier.
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White Shooter Kills 3 Black People in Florida Hate Crime as Washington Celebrates King’s Dream

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A masked white man carrying at least one weapon bearing a swastika fatally shot three Black people inside a Florida store Saturday in an attack with a clear motive of racial hatred, officials said. 

The shooting in a Dollar General store in a predominately African-American neighborhood left two men and one woman dead and was “racially motivated,” Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters said. 

In addition to carrying a firearm with a painted symbol of the genocidal Nazi regime of Germany of the 1930s and 1940s, the shooter issued racist statements before the shooting. He killed himself at the scene. 

“He hated Black people,” the sheriff said. 

The shooting came on the same day thousands visited Washington, D.C., to attend the Rev. Al Sharpton’s 60th anniversary commemoration of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have A Dream” speech. 

Rudolph McKissick, a national board member of Sharpton’s National Action Network, was not in Washington, D.C., on Saturday. Yet his thoughts on the shooting touched on issues raised by the civil rights leader. 

“The irony is on the day we celebrate the 60th commemoration of the March on Washington, where Dr. Martin Luther King stood up and talked about a dream for racial equality and for love, we still yet live in a country where that dream is not a reality,” McKissick said. “That dream has now been replaced by bigotry.” 

The gunman, who was in his 20s, wore a bullet-resistant vest and used a Glock handgun and an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. He acted alone and there was no evidence he was part of a group, Waters said. 

The shooter sent written statements to federal law enforcement and at least one media outlet shortly before the attack with evidence suggesting the attack was intended to mark the fifth anniversary of the murder of two people during a video game tournament in Jacksonville by a shooter who also killed himself. 

Officials did not immediately release the names of the victims or the gunman on Saturday. Local media identified a man believed to be the shooter but his identity was not independently confirmed by The Associated Press by early Sunday. 

The shooting happened just before 2 p.m. within a mile of Edward Waters University, a small, historically Black university.

The university said in a statement that a security officer had seen the man near the school’s library and asked for identification. When he refused, he was asked to leave and returned to his car. He was spotted putting on the bullet-resistant vest and a mask before leaving the grounds, although it was not known whether he had planned an attack at the university, Waters said. 

“I can’t tell you what his mindset was while he was there, but he did go there,” the sheriff said. 

Shortly before the attack, the gunman sent his father a text message telling him to check his computer, where he found his writings. The family notified 911, but the shooting had already begun, Waters said. 

“This is a dark day in Jacksonville’s history. There is no place for hate in this community,” said Waters, who noted the FBI was assisting with the ongoing inquiry and had opened a hate crime investigation. “I am sickened by this cowardly shooter’s personal ideology.” 

Mayor Donna Deegan said she was heartbroken. “This is a community that has suffered again and again. So many times this is where we end up,” Deegan said. “This is something that should not and must not continue to happen in our community.”

McKissick said the shooting took place in the historic New Town neighborhood, which now needs love and affirmation. 

“It’s a Black neighborhood, and what we don’t want is for it to be painted in some kind of light that it is filled with plight, violence and decadence,” McKissick said. 

“As it began to unfold, and I began to see the truth of it, my heart ached on several levels,” he said, noting the shooting appears to be an extension of a racial divide in the state highlighted by political turmoil, which he said has been fuelled in part by Gov. Ron DeSantis. 

“This divide exists because of the ongoing disenfranchisement of Black people and a governor, who is really propelling himself forward through bigoted, racially motivated, misogynistic, xenophobic actions to throw red meat to a Republican base,” McKissick said in reference to DeSantis. 

“Nobody is having honest, candid conversations about the presence of racism,” said McKissick, a Baptist bishop and senior pastor of the Bethel Church in Jacksonville. 

DeSantis, who spoke with the sheriff by phone from Iowa while campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination, denounced the shooter’s racist motivation, calling him a “scumbag.” 

“This guy killed himself rather than face the music and accept responsibility for his actions. He took the coward’s way out,” DeSantis said. 

McKinnis said the location of the shooting was chosen because of its proximity to Edward Waters University, where students remained locked down in their dorms for several hours. No students or faculty were believed to have been involved, the university said. 

The attack at a store in a predominantly Black neighborhood recalls past shootings targeting Black Americans, including at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket in 2022 and a historic African Methodist Episcopal church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015. 

The Buffalo shooting, which killed 10 people, stands apart as one of the deadliest targeted attacks on Black people by a lone white gunman in U.S. history. The shooter was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. 

The Jacksonville shooting came a day before the 63rd anniversary of the city’s notorious “Ax Handle Saturday,” when 200 Ku Klux Klan members attacked Black protesters conducting a peaceful sit-in against Jim Crow laws banning them from white-owned stores and restaurants. 

The police stood by until a Black street gang arrived to fight the Klansmen, who were armed with bats and ax handles. Only Black people were arrested. 

Jacksonville native Marsha Dean Phelts was in Washington with others at the King commemoration and said learning of the shooting was “a death blow.” 

Phelps, who is Black, said her acute awareness of Florida’s history of racial tensions was amplified by the deadly shooting. The 79-year-old is a resident of Amelia Island, an African-American beach community in Nassau County established in 1935 as a result of segregation. 

“We could not go to public parks and public beaches, unless you owned your own,” she recalled of the state’s past institutional discrimination. “You did not have access to things that your taxes pay for.” 

LaTonya Thomas, 52, another Jacksonville resident riding a charter bus home after the Washington commemoration, said she wouldn’t allow the shooting to draw down her spirits after the “wonderful experience,” but she was saddened by the violence. 

“We took this long journey from Jacksonville, Florida, to be a part of history,” she said. “When I was told that there was a white shooter in a predominantly Black area, I felt like that was a targeted situation.” 

Thomas said she was able to reach a close family friend employed at the store to confirm the person was not working during the shooting. 

“It made the march even more important because, of course, gun violence and things of that nature seem so casual now,” she said. “Now you have employees, customers that will never go home.”
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US Transgender Adults Worried About Finding Welcoming Spaces to Live in Later Years

Posted on by SeeUS

Rajee Narinesingh faced struggles throughout her life as a transgender woman, from workplace discrimination to the lasting effects of black market injections that scarred her face and caused chronic infections.

In spite of the roadblocks, the 56-year-old Florida actress and activist has seen growing acceptance since she first came out decades ago.

“If you see older transgender people, it shows the younger community that it’s possible I can have a life. I can live to an older age,” she said. “So I think that’s a very important thing.”

Now, as a wave of state laws enacted this year limit transgender people’s rights, Narinesingh has new uncertainty about her own future as she ages.

“Every now and then I have this thought, like, oh my God, if I end up in a nursing home, how are they going to treat me?” Narinesingh said.

Most of the new state laws have focused attention on trans youth, with at least 22 states banning or restricting gender-affirming care for minors.

For many transgender seniors, it’s brought new fears to their plans for retirement and old age. They already face gaps in health care and nursing home facilities properly trained to meet their needs. That’s likely to be compounded by restrictions to transgender health care that have already blocked some adults’ access to treatments in Florida and sparked concerns the laws will expand to other states.

Transgender adults say they’re worried about finding welcoming spaces to live in their later years.

“I have friends that have retired and they’ve decided to move to retirement communities. And then, little by little, they’ve found that they’re not welcome there,” said Morgan Mayfaire, a transgender man and the executive director of TransSOCIAL, a Florida support and advocacy group.

Discrimination can range from being denied housing to being misgendered and struggling to get nursing homes to acknowledge their visitation rights.

“In order to be welcome there, they have to go into the closet and deny who they are,” Mayfaire said.

About 171,000 of the more than 1.3 million transgender adults in the United States are aged 65 and older, according to numbers compiled by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

The growing population has brought more services such as nursing homes and assisted living centers that are geared toward serving the LGBTQ community, although such facilities remain uncommon. They include Stonewall Gardens, a 24-apartment assisted living center that opened in Palm Springs, California, in 2015.

The center’s staff are required to go through sensitivity training to help make the center a more welcoming environment for residents, said interim executive director Lauren Kabakoff Vincent. The training is key for making a more accepting environment for transgender residents and making them feel more at home.

“Do you really want to be moving into a place where you have to explain yourself and have to go through it over and over?” Vincent said. “It’s exhausting, and so I think being able to be in a comfortable environment is important.”

SAGE, which advocates on behalf of LGBTQ seniors, offers training to nursing homes and other elder care providers. The group trained more than 46,000 staff at 576 organizations around the country in the most recent fiscal year. But the group said that represents just a fraction of the elder care facilities around the country.

“We have a long way to go in terms of getting to the point where nursing homes, assisted living and other long-term care providers are prepared for and ready to provide appropriate and welcoming care to trans elders,” said Michael Adams, SAGE’s CEO.

The gap concerns Tiffany Arieagus, 71, an acclaimed drag performer in south Florida who also works in social services for SunServe, an LGBTQ nonprofit.

“I just am going on my 71 years on this earth and walking in the civil rights march with my mother at age 6 and then marching for gay rights,” Arieagus said. “I’ve been blessed enough to see so many changes being made in the world. And then now I’m having to see these wonderful progressions going backwards.”

A handful of states, including Massachusetts and California, have in recent years enacted laws to ensure that LGBTQ seniors have equal access to programs for aging populations and requiring training on how to serve that community.

The push for restrictions on access to health care has brought uncertainty in other states. Florida’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors also includes restrictions that make it difficult, if not impossible, for many adults to get treatment.

SAGE has seen a spike in the number of calls to its hotline following the wave of anti-transgender laws, and Adams said about 40% of them have come from trans seniors primarily in conservative parts of the country worried about the new restrictions.

The limits have prompted some trans adults to leave the state for care, with some turning to crowdfunding appeals for help. But for many trans seniors, such a move isn’t as easy.

“You have the general fear, fear that is leading clinicians being concerned and perhaps stepping away from offering care, fear of trans elders of who is a safe clinician to go to,” said Dan Stewart, associate director of the Human Rights Campaign’s Aging Equality Project.

Florida’s law has already created obstacles for Andrea Montanez, LGBTQ immigration organizer at Hope CommUnity Center near Orlando, Florida. Montanez, 57, said her prescription for hormone therapy was initially denied after the restrictions were signed. Montanez, who has been speaking out at Florida Medical Board meetings about the impact of the new state law, said she’s worried about what it will be mean as she approaches retirement.

“I hope I have a happy retirement, but health care is a big problem,” said Montanez, who was eventually able to get her prescription filled.

For Tatiana Williams, 51, the restrictions are stirring painful memories of a time when she and other transgender people had to rely on dangerous and illegal sources for gender-affirming medical care. Now the executive director of the Transinclusive Group in Wilton Manors, Florida, Williams remembers being hospitalized for a collapsed lung after receiving black market silicone injections for her breasts.

“What we don’t want is the community resorting to going back to that,” Williams said.

Still, older transgender adults say they see hope in how their generation is working with younger trans people to speak out against the wave of the restrictions.

“The community’s going to take care of itself. It’s as simple as that. We’re going to find ways to take care of ourselves and we’re going to survive this,” Mayfaire of TransSOCIAL said. “And as far as trans youth panicking over this, look to your elders.”
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Italian Leader Tones Down Divisive Rhetoric But Carries on With Far-Right Agenda

Posted on by SeeEU

When Giorgia Meloni was running to become Italy’s first far-right head of government of the post-war era, she steeped her winning campaign in the sharply ideological rhetoric of national sovereignty, “traditional families” and fear of migrants.

Since taking office in September, Premier Meloni has toned down the bombast reflected in the slogans she shouted last year at a rally in Spain for a far-right ally — ” Yes to natural families! No to LGBT lobbies!” But her government and her party’s lawmakers are still pursuing multiple far-right policies, including refusing to allow the names of some same-sex parents’ to be on their children’s birth records, broadening restrictions on surrogate pregnancies and even seeking to ban foreign words from government documents.

Her administration’s fervor now finds expression in policies promoted by ministries and in legislation pushed by lawmakers from her Brothers of Italy party, the political group with neo-fascist roots that she co-founded a decade ago.

Meanwhile, Meloni has largely stayed above the ideological fray, as she did earlier this month during a bitter flap over the role of neo-fascist militants in Italy’s deadliest-ever terror attack — the 1980 bombing of Bologna’s train station.

The names of the 85 dead are enshrined on a plaque in the station that calls them victims of “fascist terrorism.” In a commemorative speech, Italian President Sergio Mattarella noted that the attack’s “neo-fascist matrix” has been established by trial convictions.

But to the anger of Italy’s left, Meloni’s anniversary statement omitted any mention of the neo-fascist origins behind the bombing. Opposition leaders pointed out that while she was still a lawmaker, Meloni pushed for efforts to determine the masterminds of the attack, seemingly raising questions about the judicial verdicts.

Then a few days after the anniversary, the communications director for the Rome area’s right-wing governor, who won election with Meloni’s support, cast more doubt on whether the bombing was the work of convicted neo-fascist terrorists.

Lazio Gov. Francesco Rocca told reporters that Meloni “wasn’t happy” about the revisionist comments by his communications aide, who has a record of showing sympathy for far-right extremists. But the premier herself avoided making any public comment, and the aide kept his job.

During the campaign, Meloni kept her distance from Benito Mussolini’s dictatorship, declaring that ” the Italian right has handed fascism over to history for decades now.”

But she proudly defends a potent party symbol — a flame in the red, white and green colors of the Italian flag. The flame has its roots in the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement, which was founded by Mussolini nostalgists right after World War II. Brothers of Italy embedded the symbol into its own emblem.

Amid the bombing anniversary furor, a front-page cartoon in the Corriere della Sera newspaper depicted an alarmed-looking Meloni as the tricolor flame threatened to scorch her.

In real life, the premier appears politically unscathed by ideological squabbles. Opinion surveys indicate that Brothers of Italy is the most popular party among eligible voters, with polls showing it has close to 30% support. That’s 4 percentage points higher than what the group got in the 2022 election.

Staying above the fray is part of Meloni’s strategy and style, said Columbia University political theory professor Nadia Urbinati.

In contrast to her right-wing coalition partner, League party leader Matteo Salvini, who daily churns out photos of himself on social media, Meloni “is not everywhere. She doesn’t want to have this kind of populist aura,” Urbinati said in a telephone interview. “But she wants to shape the state according to her ideology.”

Urbinati noted that one of the first moves by Meloni’s government was a crackdown on rave parties and similar gatherings, “based on what they define as anarchy.”

Building on Meloni’s campaign pledge to defend what she called traditional families, the premier’s administration moved to limit recognition of parental rights to only the biological parent in families with same-sex parents.

Local offices of the Interior Ministry ordered city halls to stop automatically recording both parents when same-sex couples have children. That left non-biological parents unable to carry out everyday family tasks such as picking up children from school or dealing with pediatricians without written permission from their partners.

Last month, Parliament’s lower chamber also approved widening restrictions on surrogate pregnancy. The bill essentially reintroduced legislation that Meloni, in the previous legislature, had unsuccessfully proposed while an opposition lawmaker.

Under the bill now working its way through Parliament, it would be a crime for any Italian — in same-sex or heterosexual relationships — to use surrogate maternity abroad. For years, it has been a crime only in Italy, and so far never prosecuted.

Raising Italy’s birthrate, one of the world’s lowest, is a key Meloni political plan. Her minister of agriculture, Francesco Lollobrigida, who is also her brother-in-law, inflamed political debate last spring when he warned in a speech against “ethnic substitution” by migrants.

“Italians are having fewer children — and the reasoning goes — let’s substitute them with someone else,” Lollobrigida said, dismissing any idea that immigrants would be a way to boost the population.

The government plans to spend millions of euros in European Union money to build more day care centers to ease burdens on working parents, but that goal has fallen behind schedule.

Also awaiting action in Parliament is proposed legislation to ban the use of foreign words in government documents and forbid state universities from offering English-only courses. If the bill in “defense of identity” passes, violators would risk fines as high as 100,000 euros.

It is an idea reminiscent of Mussolini, whose first moves in power included purging Italian language of foreign words, even on restaurant menus, and establishing stiff fines for violations.

Critics of the proposed ban quickly pointed out that passage would erase part of a title held by a Brothers of Italy senator. Sen. Adolfo Urso, who serves in Meloni’s Cabinet, is minister of enterprises and made in Italy. The last three words of the official title are in English.
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Australia PM Vows Support After ‘Tragic’ US Military Aircraft Incident

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A “tragic” incident involving a U.S. military aircraft occurred in northern Australia during military exercises Sunday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said, adding that his government was focused on providing support.

Sky News Australia reported a v-22 Osprey helicopter with about 20 U.S. Marines on board had crashed off the coast of Darwin. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) said one person was in critical condition, two were stable and there were no reports of fatalities.

Albanese, speaking at a previously scheduled press conference, declined to provide details about the crash or rescue efforts, which he said took place on Melville Island north of Darwin during Exercise Predator’s Run 2023.

“Our focus as a government and as a department of defense is very much on incident response and on making sure that every support and assistance is given at this difficult time,” he said.

Australian personnel were not involved, Albanese said.

Northern Territory Police were responding to reports of an aircraft crash on Melville Island, the fire and emergency services said in an emailed statement.

The U.S. Defense Department was aware of media reports about the crash “but we do not have anything we can provide at this time,” a duty officer said in an emailed statement.

The U.S. and Australia, a key ally in the Pacific, have been stepping up military cooperation in recent years in the face of an increasingly assertive China.

Four Australian soldiers were killed last month during large bilateral exercises when their helicopter crashed into the ocean off the coast of Queensland.
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Cause of Kenya’s Longest Power Outage In Memory Remains Unclear

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The longest nationwide power outage in Kenyans’ memory remained a mystery Sunday as the government-owned power company blamed a failure at Africa’s largest wind farm, which laid the responsibility on the power grid instead.

Some of Kenya’s more than 50 million people, including in the capital, Nairobi, saw power return almost 24 hours after the massive outage occurred late Friday. It was an embarrassment to the East African economic hub that has sought to promote itself as a tech center on the continent but remains challenged by alleged mismanagement and poor infrastructure.

Hundreds of people were stranded in darkness for hours at Kenya’s main international airport in Nairobi, leading to a rare public apology from a government minister in a country where tourism is a key part of the economy. “This situation WILL NOT happen again,” transport minister, Kipchumba Murkomen, said.

The head of the Kenya Airports Authority was fired after a generator serving the main international terminal had failed to start.

Shortly before midnight Saturday, Kenya Power offered the first detailed explanation of the outage, blaming it on a loss of power generation from the Lake Turkana Wind Power plant, Africa’s largest wind farm, causing an imbalance that “tripped all other main generation units and stations, leading to a total outage on the grid.”

But Lake Turkana Wind Power in a statement denied it was to blame. Instead, it said it had been forced to go offline by an “overvoltage situation in the national grid system which, to avoid extreme damage, causes the wind power plant to automatically switch off.” The plant had been producing nearly 15% of the national output at the time.

Such an interruption should be immediately compensated by other power generators in the system, the company said, but the continuing outages in the national grid were preventing the wind plant from being brought back online.

Kenya Power said it couldn’t even turn to importing power from neighboring Uganda, a relatively fast option that for some reason had been unavailable.

“We are jointly working on having the Uganda interconnector restored so as to enhance our grid recovery efforts,” it said.

President William Ruto, whose own office told The Associated Press on Saturday it was still running on generator power hours after Kenya Power announced it had restored electricity to “critical areas” of the capital, did not comment publicly on the crisis. Instead, he again criticized opposition calls for anti-government protests over the rising cost of living, calling them a threat to investors.

“Shame of a nation,” was the main headline of one of Kenya’s leading newspapers, the Sunday Nation. It said the outage was costing businesses millions of dollars and leaving some major hospitals to run on generators.

Kenya gets almost all its electricity from renewable sources, a fact that the government will promote as it hosts the first Africa Climate Summit early next month.
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Russian Ships Return From Joint Pacific Patrol With Chinese Ships

Posted on by SeeEU

A detachment of Russia’s navy warships returned from more than three weeks of joint patrolling of the Pacific Ocean with Chinese navy ships, the Russian Interfax news agency reported Sunday.

Warships of Russia’s Pacific Fleet, together with a detachment of Chinese navy ships traveled more than 7,000 nautical miles through the Sea of Japan, the Sea of Okhotsk, the Bering Sea and the Pacific Ocean, Interfax reported, citing the Fleet’s press service.

During the patrol, the Russian-Chinese detachment passed along the Kuril ridge, the agency reported.

The islands, off the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, are known in Russia as the Kurils and in Japan as the Northern Territories and have been at the core of decades of tension between the neighbors.

The Russian-Chinese warships also circled part of the Aleutian Islands archipelago. Most of the Aleutian Islands belong to the U.S. state of Alaska, but the Commander Islands near the Kamchatka Peninsula are part of Russia.

The Wall Street Journal reported in early August that 11 Russian and Chinese ships steamed close to the Aleutian Islands, in what appeared to be appeared to be the largest such flotilla to approach American shores.

The ships never entered U.S. territorial waters, the newspaper reported, citing U.S. officials.

Interfax on Sunday reported that some of the Pacific Fleet’s largest warships participated in the patrol.

“During the patrol, joint anti-submarine and anti-aircraft exercises were carried out, a search was made for submarines of a mock enemy using helicopters and aircraft of naval aviation from both sides, mock missile firing was carried out at a detachment of mock enemy ships,” the agency reported. 
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Presidents Tinubu, Biden to Meet at UN, Likely Discuss Niger

Posted on by SeeAF

Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu will meet with U.S. President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York next month, his spokesperson said Saturday.

The two leaders will likely discuss the situation in Niger after a military coup overthrew the country’s democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum on July 26.

Tinubu, who chairs the Economic Community of West African States regional bloc, is working with other heads of government in West Africa to address the political crisis in Niger after the military junta seized power there.

He has called for more U.S. investment in his country and greater cooperation for the defense of democracy in West Africa, after a series of military coups in the impoverished Sahel region.

The junta in Niger has put the country’s armed forces on the highest alert, citing what is said was an increased threat of attack by ECOWAS, which is urging the reinstatement of Bazoum.

“Threats of aggression to the national territory are increasingly being felt,” said Niger’s defense chief in an internal document issued Friday.

ECOWAS, the main West African bloc, has been trying to negotiate with the military leaders of the July 26 coup, but it has said, if diplomacy fails, it is ready to deploy troops to restore constitutional order. It has rejected a proposal by Niger’s mutinous soldiers for a three-year transition to democratic rule.

“For the avoidance of doubt, let me state unequivocally that ECOWAS has neither declared war on the people of Niger, nor is there a plan, as it is being purported, to invade the country, ECOWAS Commission President Omar Alieu Touray told reporters.

The bloc’s decision earlier in August to activate a so-called standby force for a possible intervention has raised fears of an escalation that could further destabilize the insurgency-torn Sahel region.

Niger’s junta asked troops from neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso to come to its defense in the event of an armed conflict.

Tens of thousands of people marched on Saturday in Niamey, showing support for Niger’s military coup.

On Friday, Niger’s military rulers asked the French ambassador to Niger, Sylvain Itte, to leave the country within 48 hours, citing “actions of the French government contrary to the interests of Niger.”

France has consistently acknowledged only the authority of Niger’s elected president, Bazoum. He is still detained by the junta. Paris reiterated Friday night that “only legitimate elected Nigerien authorities” have a say about the fate of its ambassador.

The invitation of troops from Mali and Burkina Faso as well as the dismissal of the French ambassador to Niger show “a very strong alignment” between the regimes of the two countries and that of Niger “in terms of having a very strong anti-Western and pro-authoritarian orientation,” said Nate Allen, an associate professor at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies.

Before last month’s ouster of Bazoum, Niger, a former French colony, was seen as the West’s last major partner against jihadi violence in the Sahel region below the Sahara Desert, which is rife with anti-French sentiment.

The United States warned Friday that the string of military takeovers in Africa’s Sahel region will hinder the fight against terrorism.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told a U.N. Security Council meeting that the United States is focused on the increasing terrorism threat across Africa and continues providing its African partners with “critical assistance in disrupting and degrading” IS and al-Qaida affiliates.

Some information in this report came from Reuters, The Associated Press, and Agence France-Presse.
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VOA Immigration Weekly Recap, Aug. 20–26

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

Sanctuary Cities Welcome Asylum-Seekers, Deal with Budget Shortfalls

In the ongoing political battle between the Biden administration and the Republican governor of Texas over border enforcement, a few sanctuary cities are caught in the middle: They welcome recently arrived asylum-seekers but often lack the money to assist their resettlement. Immigration reporter Aline Barros has the story.

Trial to Begin Over Biden Policy Letting Migrants From 4 Countries Into the US

A key portion of President Joe Biden’s immigration policy that grants parole to thousands of people from Central America and the Caribbean was set to be debated in a Texas federal courtroom beginning Thursday. Under the humanitarian parole program, up to 30,000 people are being allowed each month to enter the United States from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Reported by The Associated Press. 

US Sues SpaceX, Claiming Discrimination Against Refugees, Asylum Recipients

The U.S. Justice Department is suing Elon Musk’s SpaceX, claiming it refused to hire refugees and asylum recipients at the rocket company. In a lawsuit filed Thursday, the Justice Department said SpaceX routinely discriminated against those job applicants between 2018 and 2022, in violation of U.S. immigration laws. Reported by VOA’s Justice Department correspondent Masood Farivar.

VOA Day in Photos

Migrants who crossed the Rio Grande from Mexico into the U.S. climb a fence with barbed wire and concertina wire, Aug. 21, 2023, in Eagle Pass, Texas.

Immigration around the world

Sudan Conflict Fueling Humanitarian Emergency of Epic Proportions

Hunger, disease and displacement threaten to destroy Sudan as war spreads throughout the country, fueling “a humanitarian emergency of epic proportions,” according to Martin Griffiths, U.N. emergency relief coordinator. “The longer this fighting continues, the more devastating its impact is going to be,” Griffiths warned in a statement issued Friday. Lisa Schlein reports for VOA from Geneva.

Analysts: Situation Worsening in Niger as Food Prices Rise, Security Deteriorates

Conditions for people in Niger are getting worse, as security appears to be deteriorating, according to regional experts who spoke with VOA. Prices of staple foods such as rice and cooking oil have increased, while the country has endured more violence in the past three weeks than it had since the beginning of the year. Reported by Mariama Diallo covering national and world affairs for Voice of America.

Town in Chad Helps 200,000 Sudanese Refugees; ‘We Care About Them’

More than 200,000 refugees fleeing Sudan’s civil war have arrived in the town of Adre, Chad, since the middle of June. Before the crisis, the town had a recorded population of 40,000. In this report, Henry Wilkins asks Adre residents and newly arrived refugees what they are doing to help the influx of new residents.  

Thousands of Migrants Stranded in Niger Because of Border Closures

After three months of crossing the desert and then watching other migrants die at sea in his failed attempt to reach Europe, Sahr John Yambasu gave up on getting across the Mediterranean and decided to go back home. Reported by The Associated Press.

Malawi Moves to Forcibly Reopen Containers Confiscated from Refugees

The Malawi government says it will forcibly open 125 containers confiscated from refugees and asylum-seekers living outside a refugee camp. Police say the containers were confiscated on suspicion they contain, among other things, firearms and counterfeiting machines. Lameck Masina reports for VOA from Blantyre, Malawi. 

VOA60 Africa — More than 3 million people are internally displaced in Sudan, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said.

Rights Group: Saudi Guards Killed Ethiopians Seeking to Cross Border

Human Rights Watch alleges that Saudi border guards have killed at least hundreds of Ethiopian migrants and asylum-seekers trying to cross from Yemen into Saudi Arabia between March 2022 and June 2023, in a report released Monday. 

Rescue Ship Saves 438 Migrants in Mediterranean: NGO

The rescue ship Ocean Viking has saved 438 migrants in distress in the Mediterranean over the last two days, the organization that runs it, SOS Mediterranee, said Friday. The rescues took place in international waters off the coasts of Libya and Tunisia, the France-based NGO said. Reported by Agence France-Presse. 

Greece Cracks Down on Attacks on Migrants as Wildfires Rage

Greece’s Supreme Court has ordered an urgent investigation into racist attacks that followed the outbreak of ferocious wildfires in the country’s northeast. The court order came after search teams found the bodies of 18 migrants who had been burned beyond recognition in a wooded area that had gone up in flames in Alexandroupolis, bordering Turkey. Produced by Anthee Carassava.  

News brief

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced “more than $77 million in grants to support border and interior communities receiving migrants through the Shelter and Services Program (SSP). The funding will be available to 53 grant recipients for temporary shelter and other eligible costs associated with migrants awaiting the outcome of their immigration proceedings.”
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Exiled Russian Journalist Describes ‘Poisoning’ Ordeal on German Train

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Despite the killings of four of her colleagues for their reporting, Russian journalist Elena Kostyuchenko never considered that she had been poisoned when she fell ill on a train to Berlin.

“When you work as an investigative reporter in Russia you are always careful,” she told Reuters. “You have lots of protocols you’re following all the time. But when I found myself in Europe, I totally forgot all these security measures.”

German prosecutors are investigating whether Kostyuchenko, who is now living in hiding, was the victim of an attempted murder when she became ill last October.

Her symptoms started with disorientation and stomach pain on a train from Munich to Berlin and persisted for several weeks. By the time she realized she may have been poisoned, it was too late to identify any toxins.

“I had to take off my rings because my fingers looked like sausages,” she said, describing the swelling that was among her symptoms. Months later, she is still exhausted and only able to work three hours a day.

Enemies of Russian President Vladimir Putin living abroad have been poisoned in the past, including former secret agents Sergei Skripal, who survived, and Sergei Litvinenko, who did not. A former Chechen rebel died in Berlin in what a German court said was a Russian state assassination.

The Kremlin denies involvement with these killings.

“That fitted Putin’s narrative, that we can’t forgive traitors,” Kostyuchenko said. “But I was never working with secret services. … Somehow I was thinking that in Europe, I’m safe.”

At a time when European Union capitals are seen as potential havens by Russian activists and reporters who consider themselves at risk at home, the possibility that they might be targeted abroad amounts to a chilling step change.

“When I found myself in Europe, I totally forgot about security measures, like when I discussed my trip to Munich I used Facebook Messenger,” said Kostyuchenko, a foreign correspondent who exposed alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine.

Kostyuchenko said that in her 17 years at Novaya Gazeta, four of her newspaper colleagues were killed and their deaths unprosecuted.

When doctors told her she had likely been poisoned her initial reaction was to laugh.

She was one of three Russian independent woman journalists who were apparently poisoned while abroad in a similar period. All three suffered similar symptoms.

“We can confirm that an investigation into the attempted murder of Elena Kostyuchenko is pending,” a spokesperson for Berlin prosecutors said Friday. 
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Hawaii’s Notion of Family, the Ohana, Endures in Fire’s Aftermath 

Posted on by SeeUS

Families were torn asunder. A community is reeling with grief. More than 100 people have perished and hundreds more remain missing after flames and smoke barreled from the hills and annihilated the historic town of Lahaina.

But even in places overwhelmed by despair and devastation, the Hawaiian spirit known as ohana endures.

In the Hawaiian lexicon, ohana is a sensibility, a way of thinking that means family, belonging, community and so much more — solace in a time of calamity. It is a unifying principle in an increasingly fragmented world. And in recent weeks, amid misfortune, the word has taken on profound importance in a place appealing for help.

“In times like this, ohana gets stronger,” says Dustin Kaleiopu, whose Maui roots date back to when monarchs ruled the islands.

The kanaka of Hawaii, the Native Hawaiians who inhabit the islands, value ohana, which extends beyond the familial ties of blood. It is a life nourished by kinship.

“In a small town like Lahaina, we all know each other. We’ve all grown up together,” says Kaleiopu, whose ohana came to his aid after he and his grandfather escaped the flames that turned their home into a mound of ash and charred debris. “It’s such a tight-knit community.”

Testing the bonds of ohana

Finding grace and solace can be almost unimaginable when the very world around you is burning. This is what Lahaina faces today.

Thousands of homes are gone. At least 115 people are confirmed dead. And by some counts, nearly 400 of Lahaina’s residents remain unaccounted for: fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, young and old, friends and neighbors — all part of someone’s ohana.

“There’s plenty of families who’ve been displaced by the fire. So we’re going to take care of our community as much as possible. So in this sense, our community is the ohana,” says Kapali Keahi, whose family has lived on Maui for generations.

In the days, and now weeks, after the deadliest wildfire in the United States in more than a century, families who lost homes and possessions continue to depend on the generosity of relatives, friends and even strangers. Shipments of food, clothes and everyday necessities keep arriving from the state’s other islands, including Oahu, home to Honolulu.

Online fundraisers, many set up by displaced families, have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, much of it from distant places. One relief fund has well surpassed $1.2 million, its 6,400 donors hailing from every part of the globe.

So much of Lahaina has been lost. Left behind are people in deep despair, said Kekai Keahi, another Lahaina resident. One thing, though, remained strong: a connecting strand.

“Ohana was never lost. It never left,” he said. “We will always come to each other’s aid.”

Keahi spoke as Hawaiian flags fluttered near the ocean and a Native Hawaiian group calling itself Na ‘Ohana o Lele — the ohana of Lahaina — gathered at a beachside park to speak on behalf of their community.

The message from the group was clear: There will be talk of rebuilding, yes, but families need time to grieve and begin healing first.

 

Many people from many places, united

The community of 13,000 people included immigrants from many parts of the world. Here, they find common ground.

No matter where they came from, no matter when they arrived, transplants are soon charmed by Hawaii’s culture, a melange of imported customs and traditions melded together by ways in existence long before the British imperialist and explorer Capt. James Cook came across the Hawaiian archipelago nearly 250 years ago while crossing the Pacific.

As they assimilate, newcomers pick up the oft-spoken vocabulary intrinsic to island life. “Mahalo” conveys gratitude, admiration and respect. “Aloha” is for hello and goodbye, or for love and affection — a word with the warmth of a hug and the beauty of a lei.

Then there is ohana. As the movie “Lilo & Stitch” defined it, “ohana means family, and family means nobody is left behind or forgotten.”

With so many dead or missing, a sentiment like that is ripe to resonate across a community coping with loss.

“It’s all about family out here,” says Mike Tomas, whose immediate family lost their home in the fire and are sheltering in the homes of friends and relatives. He had planned to move with his girlfriend to Texas sometime in the fall, but they will now depart much sooner.

“Nothing’s left here,” he says. Not even the clothes and belongings they had begun packing. But he knows he’ll be back.

“This has always been home,” he says. “This is where family is.”

Amber Bobin moved from Chicago to Maui nearly four years ago. She says she was drawn, in part, by the culture and strong bonds of community.

Earlier this week, she joined a small group to hang 115 crosses on fences erected along the road that cuts through Lahaina. That’s a single cross for each of the souls whose remains have been found. Bobin expected to hang more crosses in the coming days. The fence also was festooned with a collection of ribbons, one for every person still missing.

And if ohana is a way of life in good times, those crosses and ribbons help reveal what it is in tough ones: a mindset that ensures those who have been part of you remain so, even after they were torn away by forces no one imagined would be visited upon home.

“To be able to experience what ohana means, especially in tragedy,” she says, “has been significantly impactful.”
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Bare Electrical Wire, Leaning Poles Possible Causes of Maui Fires

Posted on by SeeUS

In the first moments of the Maui fires, when high winds brought down power poles, slapping electrified wires to the dry grass below, there was a reason the flames erupted all at once in long, neat rows: Those wires were bare, uninsulated metal that could spark on contact. 

Videos and images analyzed by The Associated Press confirmed those wires were among miles of line that Hawaiian Electric Company left naked to the weather and often-thick foliage below, despite a recent push by utilities in other wildfire- and hurricane-prone areas to cover their lines or bury them. 

Compounding the problem is that many of the utility’s 60,000, mostly wooden power poles, which the utility’s own documents described as built to “an obsolete 1960s standard,” were leaning and near the end of their projected lifespan.  

They were nowhere close to meeting a 2002 national standard that key components of Hawaii’s electrical grid be able to withstand 105-mile-per-hour winds. A 2019 filing said it had fallen behind in replacing the old wooden poles because of other priorities and warned of a “serious public hazard” if they failed. 

Google street view images of poles taken before the fire show the bare wire. 

It’s “very unlikely” a fully insulated cable would have sparked and caused a fire in dry vegetation, said Michael Ahern, who retired this month as director of power systems at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts. 

Experts who watched videos showing downed power lines agreed wire that was insulated would not have arced and sparked, igniting a line of flame.  

Hawaiian Electric said in a statement that it has “long recognized the unique threats” from climate change and has spent millions of dollars in response but did not say whether specific power lines that collapsed in the early moments of the fire were bare. 

“We’ve been executing on a resilience strategy to meet these challenges, and since 2018, we have spent approximately $950 million to strengthen and harden our grid and approximately $110 million on vegetation management efforts,” the company. “This work included replacing more than 12,500 poles and structures since 2018 and trimming and removing trees along approximately 2,500 line-miles every year on average.” 

‘Skinny, bending, bowing’

But a former member of the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission confirmed many of Maui’s wooden power poles were also in poor condition. Jennifer Potter lives in Lahaina and until the end of last year was on the commission, which regulates Hawaiian Electric. 

“They’re leaning quite significantly because the winds over time literally just pushed them over,” she said. “That obviously is not going to withstand 60-, 70-mile-per-hour winds. So the infrastructure was just not strong enough for this kind of windstorm. … The infrastructure itself is just compromised.” 

 

John Morgan, a personal injury and trial attorney in Florida who lives part-time in Maui noticed the same thing. 

“I could look at the power poles. They were skinny, bending, bowing. The power went out all the time,” he said. 

Morgan’s firm is suing Hawaiian Electric on behalf of one person and talking to many more about their rights. The fire came within 500 yards of his house. 

Hawaiian Electric is facing several new lawsuits that seek to hold it responsible for the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century. The number of confirmed dead stands at 115, and the county expects that to rise. 

Lawyers plan to inspect some electrical equipment from a neighborhood where the fire is thought to have originated as soon as next week, per a court order, but they will be doing that in a warehouse. The utility took down the burned poles and removed fallen wires from the site. 

Criticized for not cutting power

Hawaiian Electric also faces criticism for not shutting off the power amid high wind warnings and keeping it on even as dozens of poles began to topple. Maui County sued Hawaiian Electric on Thursday over this issue. 

Michael Jacobs, a senior energy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said that with power lines causing so many fires in the United States: “We definitely have a new pattern, we just don’t have a new safety regime to go with it.” 

Insulating an electrical wire prevents arcing and sparking and dissipates heat. 

Other utilities have been addressing the issue of bare wire. Pacific Gas & Electric was found responsible for the 2018 Camp Fire in northern California that killed 85 people. The disaster was caused by downed power lines. 

Hawaiian Electric said in a filing last year that it had looked to the wildfire plans of utilities in California. 

Some don’t fault Hawaiian Electric for its comparative lack of action because it has not faced the threat of wildfires for as long. And the utility is not alone in continuing to use bare metal conductors high up on power poles. 

The same is true for public safety power shutoffs. It’s been only a few years that utilities have been willing to preemptively shut off people’s power to prevent fire, and the disruptive practice is not yet widespread. 

But Mark Toney called wildfires caused by utilities absolutely preventable. He is executive director of the ratepayer group The Utility Reform Network in California. It is pushing PG&E to insulate its lines in high-risk areas. 

“We have to stop utility-caused wildfires. We have to stop them and the quickest, cheapest way to do it is to insulate the overhead lines,” he said. 

The U.S. electrical grid was designed and built for last century’s climate, said Joshua Rhodes, an energy systems research scientist at the University of Texas at Austin. Utilities would be smart to better prepare for protracted droughts and high winds, he said. 

“It may look expensive if you’re doing work to stave off starting wildfires or the impact of wildfires,” he said Thursday, “but it’s much cheaper than actually starting one and burning down so many people’s homes and causing so many people’s deaths.” 
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American Journalist Appeals Extension of Pretrial Detention in Russia

Posted on by SeeEU

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich has appealed a Moscow court’s decision to extend his pretrial detention in Russia until the end of November, according to documents on the court’s website. 

The American journalist was arrested in March during a work trip to the city of Yekaterinburg, almost 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) east of Moscow. He is the first U.S. journalist since the Soviet era to be held on espionage charges in Russia. 

An order that authorized keeping Gershkovich in jail before trial was set to expire on August 30. The Moscow City Court extended the custody order on Thursday by three months, drawing objections from U.S. government officials and the Journal. 

The court’s website on Saturday showed that Gershkovich’s defense team had filed an appeal. The court in June rejected his appeal of the earlier ruling to keep him behind bars until the end of August. 

Press barred from proceedings

Journalists gathered outside the court Thursday were not allowed to witness the proceedings. Russian state agency Tass said the hearing was held behind closed doors because details of the criminal case are classified. 

Russia’s main internal security agency, the Federal Security Service, has alleged that Gershkovich, 31, “acting on the instructions of the American side, collected information constituting a state secret about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex.” 

Gershkovich and his employer deny the allegations, and the U.S. government in April declared him to be wrongfully detained. Russian authorities haven’t detailed what, if any, evidence they have gathered to support the espionage charges. 

The Wall Street Journal released a statement Thursday referencing Gershkovich’s “improper” detention “for doing his job as a journalist.” 

“The baseless accusations against him are categorically false, and we continue to push for his immediate release. Journalism is not a crime,” the statement said. 

Reporter appears in good health, says ambassador

Earlier this month, U.S. Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy made her third visit to the jailed Gershkovich and reported that he appeared to be in good health despite his challenging circumstances. He is being held at Moscow’s Lefortovo prison, notorious for its harsh conditions. 

Gershkovich is the first American reporter to face espionage charges in Russia since September 1986, when the KGB arrested Nicholas Daniloff, a Moscow correspondent for U.S. News and World Report. 

Analysts have pointed out that Moscow might be using jailed Americans as bargaining chips after U.S.-Russian tensions soared over the Kremlin’s military operation in Ukraine. At least two U.S. citizens arrested in Russia in recent years — including WNBA star Brittney Griner — were exchanged for Russians jailed in the U.S. 

The Russian Foreign Ministry has previously said it would consider a swap for Gershkovich only in the event of a verdict in his trial. In Russia, espionage trials can last for more than a year. 
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Russia’s Military Ties With Iran Will Withstand Geopolitical Pressure: RIA

Posted on by SeeEU

Russia’s military cooperation with Iran will not succumb to geopolitical pressure, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Saturday, following reports that Washington has asked Teheran to stop selling drones to Moscow.

“There are no changes, and cooperation with Iran will continue,” Ryabkov said, according to a report Saturday from Russian state news agency RIA. “We are independent states and do not succumb to the dictates of the United States and its satellites.”

The U.S. is pressing Iran to stop selling the armed drones, which Russia is using in the war in Ukraine, the Financial Times reported earlier this month, citing an Iranian official and another person familiar with the talks.

Russia began using the Iranian-made Shahed drones to attack deep inside Ukraine last year. The so-called kamikaze unmanned drones do not need a runway to launch and explode on impact.

Iran has acknowledged sending drones to Russia but said in the past they were sent before Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Moscow has denied its forces used Iranian drones in Ukraine.

A White House official said in June that Iran had transferred several hundred drones to Russia since August 2022.
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Tens of Thousands Expected for March on Washington’s 60th Anniversary Demonstration

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Martin Luther King III, along with his wife, Arndrea Waters King, and their 15-year-old daughter, Yolanda, have developed a set of traditions for this time of the year.

Each August, they rewatch the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s rapturous address to the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Even if the civil rights icon’s legacy is closer to the Kings than it is for most other families, they see march anniversaries as a teaching moment.

“We are like any other family, in the sense that we want to teach our daughter about this moment in history,” Arndrea said. “And then we also try to connect it with movements or people that are doing things in the present.”

This year, the Kings will join an expected crowd of tens of thousands of people gathering Saturday at the Lincoln Memorial in the U.S. capital to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the late reverend’s “I Have A Dream” speech.

The event is convened by the Kings’ Drum Major Institute and the National Action Network. A host of Black civil rights leaders and a multiracial, interfaith coalition of allies will rally attendees on the same spot where as many as 250,000 gathered in 1963 for what is still considered one of the greatest and most consequential racial justice and equality demonstrations in U.S. history.

On Friday, Martin Luther King III, who is the late civil rights icon’s eldest son, and his sister, Bernice King, visited their father’s monument in Washington.

“I see a man still standing in authority and saying, ‘We’ve still got to get this this right,’ ” Bernice said as she looked up at the granite statue.

The original march, which featured their father as a centerpiece, helped till the ground for passage of federal civil rights and voting rights legislation in the 1960s.

Organizers of this year’s commemoration hope to recapture the energy of the original March on Washington — especially in the face of eroded voting rights nationwide, the recent striking down of affirmative action in college admissions and abortion rights by the Supreme Court, and amid growing threats of political violence and hatred against people of color, Jews and the LGBTQ community.

“What we know is when people stand up, the difference can be made,” Martin Luther King III told The Associated Press in an interview ahead of Saturday. “This is not a traditional commemoration. This really is a rededication.”

The event kicks off with pre-program speeches and performances at 8 a.m. The main program begins at 11 a.m., followed by a march procession that will begin through the streets of Washington toward the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial.

Featured speakers include Ambassador Andrew Young, the close King adviser who helped organize the original march and who went on to serve as a congressman, U.N. ambassador and mayor of Atlanta. Leaders from the NAACP and the National Urban League are also expected to give remarks.

Several leaders from groups organizing the march met Friday with Attorney General Merrick Garland and Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the civil rights division, to discuss a range of issues, including voting rights, policing and redlining.

The gathering Saturday is a precursor to the actual anniversary of the Aug. 28, 1963, March on Washington. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will observe the march anniversary on Monday by meeting with organizers of the 1963 gathering. All of King’s children have been invited to meet with Biden, White House officials said.

For the Rev. Al Sharpton, founder of the National Action Network, continuing to observe March on Washington anniversaries fulfills a promise he made to the late King family matriarch Coretta Scott King. Twenty-three years ago, she introduced Sharpton and Martin Luther King III at a 37th anniversary march and urged them to carry on the legacy.

“I never thought that 23 years later, Martin and I, with Arndrea, would be doing a march and we’d have less [civil rights protections] than we had in 2000,” Sharpton said.

“We’re fulfilling the assignment Mrs. King gave us,” he said. “We are having to march, saying we can’t go backwards, and we’ve got to go forward.”

Coming out of the march on Saturday, Sharpton said, he will lead a voting rights tour in the fall in states that are trying to erect barriers ahead of the 2024 presidential election. He also plans to meet with major Black entrepreneurs to create a fund to finance the fight against conservative attacks on diversity and inclusion initiatives.

Bernice King said she sympathized with those who have grown weary over the continued fight to preserve civil rights. But they need to remember her mother’s words, in addition to her father’s famous speech, she said.

“Mother said, struggle is a never-ending process,” said Bernice, who is CEO of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, which was founded by her mother after the civil rights icon’s assassination in 1968.

“Freedom is never really won — you earn it and win it in every generation. Vigilance is the answer,” she said. “We have to always remember, it’s difficult and dark right now, but a dawn is coming.”

Her father’s March on Washington remarks have resounded through decades of push and pull toward progress in civil and human rights. But dark moments followed his speech, too.

Two weeks later in 1963, four Black girls were killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, followed by the kidnapping and murder of three civil rights workers in Neshoba County, Mississippi, the following year. The tragedies spurred passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

And the voting rights marches from Montgomery to Selma, Alabama, in which marchers were brutally beaten while crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in what became known as “Bloody Sunday,” forced Congress to adopt the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
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2 Arrested for Arson as Multiple Wildfires Burn Across Greece

Posted on by SeeEU

Fire department officials in Greece arrested two men Saturday for allegedly starting wildfires on purpose, while hundreds of firefighters battled blazes that have killed at least 21 people in the past week.

One man was arrested on the Greek island of Evia for allegedly setting fire to dried grass in the Karystos area. The fire department said the man confessed to having set four other fires in the area in July and August.

A second man arrested in the Larissa area of central Greece also was accused of intentionally setting fire to dried vegetation.

Officials blamed arson for several fires in Greece over the past week, although it was unclear what sparked the country’s largest blazes, including one in the northeastern region of Evros, where nearly all the fire-attributed deaths occurred, and another on the fringes of Athens.

“Some … arsonists are setting fires, endangering forests, property and above all human lives,” Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Minister Vassilis Kikilias said Thursday. “What is happening is not just unacceptable, but despicable and criminal.”

The minister said nine fires were set in the space of four hours Thursday morning in the Avlona area in the northern foothills of Mount Parnitha, a mountain on the northwestern fringes of Athens that is one of the capital’s last green areas.

A major fire was already burning on the southern side of the mountain at the time, and it continued to burn Saturday.

“You are committing a crime against the country,” Kikilias said. “We will find you. You will be held accountable to justice.”

Later Thursday, police arrested a 45-year-old man on suspicion of arson for allegedly setting at least three fires in the Avlona area. A search of his home revealed kindling, a fire torch gun and pine needles, police said.

A daily outbreak of dozens of fires has plagued Greece over the past week as gale-force winds and hot, dry conditions combined to whip up flames and hamper firefighting efforts. Firefighters tackled 111 blazes Friday, including 59 that broke out in the 24 hours between Thursday and Friday evenings, the fire department said.

Although most new fires were controlled in their early stages, some grew to massive blazes that have consumed homes and vast tracts of forest.

Storms were forecast Saturday for some areas of Greece, and lightning strikes ignited several fires near the Greek capital. The fire department said 100 firefighters, including contingents from France and Cyprus, backed up by four helicopters, brought fires in four outlying areas near the Greek capital under partial control within hours.

The fire department called on the public “to be particularly careful” and to follow directions by authorities “given that intense thunderstorm activity is occurring in various parts of the country.”

The Evros fire, Greece’s largest current blaze, was burning for an eighth day Saturday near the city of Alexandroupolis after causing at least 20 deaths.

Firefighters found 18 bodies in a forest Tuesday, one Monday and another Thursday. With nobody reported missing in the area, authorities think the victims might have been migrants who recently crossed the border from Turkey.

Greece’s Disaster Victim Identification Team was activated to identify the remains, and a telephone hotline set up for potential relatives of the victims to call. A man reportedly trying to save his livestock from advancing flames in central Greece also died Monday.

More than 290 firefighters, backed by five planes and two helicopters, were battling the Evros blaze. Another 260 firefighters, four planes and three helicopters were tackling the Mount Parnitha fire.

With firefighting forces stretched to the limit, Greece called on other European countries for help. Germany, Sweden, Croatia and Cyprus sent aircraft, while dozens of Romanian, French, Czech, Bulgarian, Albanian and Slovak firefighters helped on the ground.

Greece imposes wildfire prevention regulations, typically from the start of May to the end of October, to limit activities such as the burning of dried vegetation and the use of outdoor barbecues.

Since the start of this year’s fire season, fire department officials have arrested 163 people on fire-related charges, government spokesperson Pavlos Marinakis said Friday, including 118 for negligence and 24 for deliberate arson. The police made a further 18 arrests, he said.
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New Crew for Space Station Launches With Astronauts From 4 Countries

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Four astronauts from four countries rocketed toward the International Space Station on Saturday.

They should reach the orbiting lab in their SpaceX capsule Sunday, replacing four astronauts who have been living up there since March.

A NASA astronaut was joined on the predawn liftoff from Kennedy Space Center by fliers from Denmark, Japan and Russia. They clasped one another’s gloved hands upon reaching orbit.

It was the first U.S. launch in which every spacecraft seat was occupied by a different country — until now, NASA had always included two or three of its own on its SpaceX taxi flights. A fluke in timing led to the assignments, officials said.

“We’re a united team with a common mission,” NASA’s Jasmin Moghbeli radioed from orbit. Added NASA’s Ken Bowersox, space operations mission chief: “Boy, what a beautiful launch … and with four international crew members, really an exciting thing to see.”

Moghbeli, a Marine pilot serving as commander, is joined on the six-month mission by the European Space Agency’s Andreas Mogensen, Japan’s Satoshi Furukawa and Russia’s Konstantin Borisov.

“To explore space, we need to do it together,” the European Space Agency’s director general, Josef Aschbacher, said minutes before liftoff. “Space is really global, and international cooperation is key.”

The astronauts’ paths to space couldn’t be more different.

Moghbeli’s parents fled Iran during the 1979 revolution. Born in Germany and raised on New York’s Long Island, she joined the Marines and flew attack helicopters in Afghanistan. The first-time space traveler hopes to show Iranian girls that they, too, can aim high. “Belief in yourself is something really powerful,” she said before the flight.

Mogensen worked on oil rigs off the West African coast after getting an engineering degree. He told people puzzled by his job choice that “in the future we would need drillers in space” like Bruce Willis’ character in the killer asteroid film “Armageddon.” He’s convinced the rig experience led to his selection as Denmark’s first astronaut.

Furukawa spent a decade as a surgeon before making Japan’s astronaut cut. Like Mogensen, he has visited the station before.

Borisov, a space rookie, turned to engineering after studying business. He runs a freediving school in Moscow and judges the sport, in which divers shun oxygen tanks and hold their breath underwater.

One of the perks of an international crew, they noted, is the food. Among the delicacies soaring with them: Persian herbed stew, Danish chocolate and Japanese mackerel.

SpaceX’s first-stage booster returned to Cape Canaveral several minutes after liftoff, an extra treat for the thousands of spectators gathered in the early-morning darkness.

Liftoff was delayed a day for additional data reviews of valves in the capsule’s life-support system. The countdown almost was halted again Saturday after a tiny fuel leak cropped up in the capsule’s thruster system. SpaceX engineers managed to verify the leak would pose no threat with barely two minutes remaining on the clock, said Benji Reed, the company’s senior director for human spaceflight.

Another NASA astronaut will launch to the station from Kazakhstan in mid-September under a barter agreement, along with two Russians.

SpaceX has now launched eight crews for NASA. Boeing was hired at the same time nearly a decade ago but has yet to fly astronauts. Its crew capsule is grounded until 2024 by parachute and other issues.
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Niger Orders Troops to Go On ‘Maximum Alert’

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The junta in Niger has ordered its armed forces to go on highest alert, citing an increased threat of attack, according to an internal document issued Friday by its defense chief that a security source in the country confirmed was authentic.

The document, which was shared widely online Saturday, said the order to be on maximum alert would allow forces to respond adequately in case of any attack and “avoid a general surprise.”

“Threats of aggression to the national territory are increasingly being felt,” it said.

The main West African bloc ECOWAS has been trying to negotiate with the leaders of the July 26 coup, but it has said it is ready to deploy troops to restore constitutional order if diplomatic efforts fail.

On Friday, the bloc downplayed this threat and said it was “determined to bend backwards to accommodate diplomatic efforts,” although an intervention remained one of the options on the table.

“For the avoidance of doubt, let me state unequivocally that ECOWAS has neither declared war on the people of Niger, nor is there a plan, as it is being purported, to invade the country, ECOWAS Commission President Omar Alieu Touray told reporters.

The bloc’s decision earlier in August to activate a so-called standby force for a possible intervention raised fears of an escalation that could further destabilize the insurgency-torn Sahel region.
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US Embassy Joins Others Voicing Concern About Zimbabwe Election

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The U.S. Embassy in Harare joined other election observers Saturday in voicing deep concerns about Zimbabwe’s general election, saying it fell short of the requirements of the country’s constitution and regional guidelines.

Meanwhile, President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government and his ruling ZANU-PF party have blasted criticism of the controversy-marred general election.

Zimbabwe’s general election Wednesday did not meet many international standards, Rebecca Archer-Knepper, acting spokesperson at the U. S. Embassy in Harare, told VOA Saturday, but she said Washington hopes Zimbabweans will stay peaceful as the country’s election commission counts votes.

“While the election days were predominantly peaceful, the electoral process thus far did not meet many regional and international standards,” Archer-Knepper said.

“We share the deep concerns expressed by SADC and other international electoral observation missions,” she said, referring to the Southern African Development Community.

The SADC’s preliminary statement on Aug. 25 said the elections “fell short of the requirements of the Constitution of Zimbabwe, the Electoral Act, and the SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections.”

Archer-Knepper said, “These missions cited problems with the transparency, independence, fairness and credibility of electoral processes; undue restrictions on the rights to freedom of assembly and association and freedom of expression that are guaranteed by Zimbabwe’s constitution and reflected in regional guidelines; reports of voter intimidation; and the disenfranchisement of candidates, particularly women.

“We are also gravely concerned by the arrest of civil society members that we believe were conducting lawful, nonpartisan election observation work,” she said.

On Wednesday, police took 35 election monitors from the Zimbabwe Election Support Network and Election Resource Centre into custody and charged them with plotting to announce unofficial results. They were released on $200 bail each on Friday.

Election observers, including those from the SADC, condemned the arrests and the confiscation of observers’ computers and cell phones by police, as well as the way the general election was held.

Nevers Mumba, the head of the SADC observer mission to Zimbabwe’s polls, stopped short of calling the general election not credible when he presented the regional bloc’s preliminary report on Friday, but he did raise concerns.

The Zambian national said a $20,000 registration fee for presidential candidates was restrictive. He also noted the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission’s reluctance to release voter rolls to the opposition on time and criticized the disruption of opposition rallies by police.

Late Friday, Christopher Mutsvangwa, spokesman for the ruling ZANU-PF party, responded to the SADC observers’ criticisms of the elections.

“SADC principles … are not administered by a particular individual who may become a head of a delegation,” Mutsvangwa said. “It is not the duty of a particular individual to arrogate to himself the role of a constitutional review committee of the laws of Zimbabwe.

“So, Mr. Nevers Mumba from Zambia, we call you to order. Don’t delve into the laws of Zimbabwe,” he said.

Zimbabwe Justice Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi expressed support for Mutsvangwa’s statements.

“We waged a war for over 15 years, so that you and I, Zimbabweans here, would be able to hold a pen in our hands and put an ‘X,’ ” he said. “And the majority of those that are making noise never helped us. It’s the blood and sweat of sons and daughters of Zimbabwe.

“So, the basic principle is … we fought for this democracy,” he continued. “We will have elections when they are due. And we have religiously followed that to this day. So, we believe that some of those who want to teach us on democracy, they can actually get lessons from us.”

On Friday, Alexander Rusero, a politics professor at Africa University in Zimbabwe, welcomed the SADC report on the elections.

“Unfortunately, I do not think ZANU-PF is being advised appropriately,” Rusero said.

“There was no way this election was going to be 100% perfect given the irregularities,” he said. “What is important is to celebrate, to say, in spite of all those irregularities, there are still certain positives. … Unfortunately, government strategic department is doing a disservice to the republic of Zimbabwe.”

In the election, President Mnangagwa is seeking a second term, running against 10 candidates, including the main contender, Nelson Chamisa of the Citizens Coalition for Change.

Voting was extended to a second day Thursday after election day was marred by polling station delays and shortages of ballots in opposition strongholds Bulawayo and Harare.

There has been a heavy police presence in Harare since Friday night, ahead of the release of official presidential election results, expected by Monday.
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FIFA Suspends Spain Soccer Federation President

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FIFA suspended Spanish soccer federation president Luis Rubiales from office on Saturday while its disciplinary committee investigates his conduct at the Women’s World Cup final, which included kissing a player without her consent.

FIFA said Rubiales is removed from soccer duties for 90 days “pending the disciplinary proceedings opened” against him Thursday.

Rubiales refused to resign from his soccer presidency Friday at an emergency meeting of the Spanish soccer federation’s general assembly, when he had been expected to leave under intense pressure from the Spanish government, women players plus soccer clubs and officials.

FIFA gave no timetable for a ruling by its disciplinary panel. The body’s disciplinary judges can impose sanctions on individuals ranging from warnings and fines to suspensions from the sport.

FIFA’s move came after the Spanish federation had even threatened action against star player Jenni Hermoso for refusing to accept Rubiales’s version of the kiss that happened at the on-field medal and trophy presentation after Spain’s 1-0 win against England on Sunday in Sydney, Australia.

FIFA’s suspension should prevent Rubiales from working in soccer or having contact with other officials.

FIFA disciplinary judge Jorge Palacio also intervened Saturday to protect the “fundamental rights” of Hermoso and the integrity of the disciplinary case.

Palacio ordered Rubiales “to refrain, through himself or third parties, from contacting or attempting to contact the professional player of the Spanish national football team Ms. Jennifer Hermoso or her close environment,” FIFA said in a statement.

“Likewise, the RFEF [Spanish soccer federation] and its officials or employees, directly or through third parties, are ordered to refrain from contacting the professional player of the Spanish national team Ms. Jennifer Hermoso and her close environment,” FIFA said.

Palacio is a Colombian lawyer and former member of its constitutional court who has worked in women’s rights.

Rubiales is a vice president of UEFA, holding the No. 3-ranking elected position at the top of the European soccer body, which pays him $270,000 annually, plus expenses.

He was elected to the executive committee by UEFA member federations in 2019 and was within weeks promoted to the vice presidency by UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin.

Neither UEFA nor Ceferin have commented on the Rubiales scandal this week. FIFA has now intervened in the case twice.
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 Voters in Gabon Head to Polls in Presidential, Legislative, Local Elections

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Voters in Gabon began heading to the polls Saturday to elect a new president, lawmakers and local councils that opposition politicians hope will break the Bongo family’s grip on power for more than five decades.

Incumbent President Ali Bongo is seeking a third term. He has been the leader of the country since 2009. Before that, his father led the oil-rich Central African country.

“Gabon is not the property of the Bongos,” said Albert Ondo Ossa, one of Bongo’s main rivals in the 14-candidate presidential race.

Just last week, Ondo Ossa became the candidate for the main opposition grouping in the presidential race, Alternance 2023.

A recent change to this year’s voting has proved controversial, with critics saying the new measure gives an unfair advantage to the ruling Gabonese Democratic Party. With the change, a vote for a local deputy will automatically be a vote for the deputy’s presidential candidate. Critics say that change will lead to an “unfair vote” as Ossa is not backed by a single party.

Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse.
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