Ours is a world of older adults, living longer and doing more in their advanced years. Many politicians are staying in office well past typical retirement ages. With the United States facing two of the country’s oldest front-runners for president, VOA’s Senior Washington Correspondent Carolyn Presutti explores the ages of current world leaders.
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Month: August 2023
Norway Rebuilding Reindeer Fence Along Russian Border to Stop Costly Hooves’ Crossings
Norway is rebuilding a dilapidated reindeer fence along its border with Russia in the Artic to stop the animals from wandering into the neighboring country — costly strolls for which Oslo has to compensate Moscow over loss of grassland.
Norwegian officials said Thursday that so far this year, 42 reindeer have crossed into Russia seeking better pastures and grazing land.
The reindeer barrier along the Norway-Russia border spans 150 kilometers (93 miles) and dates back to 1954. The Norwegian Agriculture Agency said a stretch of about 7 kilometers (4 miles) between the Norwegian towns of Hamborgvatnet and Storskog would be replaced.
The construction, with a price tag of 3.7 million kroner ($348,000), is to be completed by Oct. 1, the agency said.
The work is a challenge, however, as the workers have to stay on the Norwegian side of the border “at all times” during construction, “which makes the work extra demanding,” said Magnar Evertsen of the agency. If a worker crossed into Russian territory, without a Russian visa, that would amount to illegal entry.
The reindeer crossings bring on a lot of additional bureaucracy. Russia has sent two compensation claims, the agency said.
One claims is for nearly 50,000 kroner ($4,700) per reindeer that crossed into Russia to graze in the sprawling Pasvik Zapovednik natural reserve in the Russian Murmansk region. The other claim is asking for a lump sum of nearly 47 million kroner ($4.4 million) in total for the days the animals grazed in the park, which consists mostly of lakes, rivers, forests and marshland.
The agency said that of the 42 animals that entered Russia this year, 40 have been brought back to Norway and the remaining two are expected to come back soon.
The returned animals have since been slaughtered out of fear that they may wander back to Russia, Evertsen said. The Norwegian Food Safety Authority may demand the carcasses be destroyed for safety reasons, the government body said in a statement.
The reindeer are herded by the Indigenous Sami people in central and Arctic Norway. Formerly known as the Lapps, the Sami are believed to have originated in Central Asia and settled with their reindeer herds in Arctic Europe around 9,000 years ago.
They traditionally live in Lapland, which stretches from northern parts of Norway through Sweden and Finland to Russia. Across the Arctic region, the majority live on the Norwegian side of the border.
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Power Outages Across Kenya Near 12-Hour Mark With Rare Apology
Much of Kenya awoke Saturday morning to find it was still without electricity after an unexplained power outage Friday night shut down the country’s main international airport and led to a rare public apology by a government minister. Major hospitals and even the president’s office compound were affected.
“I am really sorry for what has happened,” transport minister Kipchumba Murkomen said in a statement close to midnight. “There is no excuse worth reporting and there is no reason why our airport is in darkness.”
This latest outage affecting much of the country comes just weeks before Kenya’s government hosts the first Africa Climate Summit, where energy will be key on the agenda. Kenya gets almost all its energy from renewable sources, but infrastructure and alleged mismanagement remain an issue in the country of more than 50 million people.
The majority government-owned Kenya Power announced in a brief statement a “system disturbance leading to loss of bulk power supply” to parts of the country just before 10 p.m. Friday. Shortly after midnight, it reported that power had been restored to the Mt. Kenya region, a longtime political stronghold, and added that initial reports indicated a fault in a generation plant.
Around 3 a.m., Kenya Power said power had been restored to the international airport in the capital, Nairobi, and other “critical areas” in the capital region.
However, three of Nairobi’s largest hospitals — and its State House, the site of President William Ruto’s office — told The Associated Press they were still using generators hours after Kenya Power’s assertion.
The power outage approached the 12-hour mark Saturday. Calls to Kenya Power’s communications department did not go through.
Tourism is an important part of Kenya’s economy, and stranded travelers quickly posted images on social media of the darkened airport. The Kenya Airports Authority said a generator serving the main terminal had failed to start after the national power outage.
Meanwhile, Kenyans already coping with rising costs of living woke up to find food spoiling and some backup power options running out.
The most recent national power outage was in May.
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Russia Hopes to Raise Fish, Seafood Exports to China After Japan Ban
Russia hopes to increase its marine product exports to China in the wake of China’s ban on Japanese seafood imports after the release of treated radioactive water from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea.
Russia is one of the biggest marine product suppliers to China, with 894 Russian companies allowed to export seafood, Rosselkhoznadzor, the Russian food safety watchdog, said in July.
In a statement late Friday, Rosselkhoznadzor said it was seeking to increase the number of exporters.
“The Chinese market in general is promising for Russian fish products. We hope to increase the number of certified Russian companies and ships, the volume of products and its range,” the Rosselkhoznadzor statement said.
To aid that effort, Rosselkhoznadzor plans to continue dialog with China on seafood safety issues and finish negotiations with China on regulations for Russian marine products supply to the country, the statement said.
China has already banned some food imports from Japan but Thursday’s total ban was prompted by concerns about the “risk of radioactive contamination” after it started releasing the treated water.
China was the destination for over a half of Russian aquatic products exports between January and August, the statement said without providing figures, dominated by pollock, herring, flounder, sardine, cod and crab.
Russia exported 2.3 million metric tons of marine products last year worth about $6.1 billion, around half of its overall catch, with China, South Korea and Japan being biggest importers, according to Russia’s fisheries agency.
Japan said criticism from Russia and China was unsupported by scientific evidence and pollution levels in the water will be below those considered safe for drinking under World Health Organization standards.
Still, Rosselkhoznadzor said it has tightened the screening of Japan seafood imports though the volumes are insignificant.
The regulator also said the direction of currents in the Russian Far East, where about 70% of Russia’s seafood is caught, “would prevent contamination” of marine products caught by Russian ships.
It has also tightened the radiological control of seafood caught in Russian waters which are relatively close to Fukushima and would test selected samples for radiation levels, Interfax reported on Thursday, citing Rosselkhoznadzor’s Pacific office.
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Niger Junta Orders French Ambassador to Leave
Niger’s junta, which seized power in a coup on July 26, said on Friday it had ordered French Ambassador Sylvain Itte to leave the country within 48 hours, as relations between the West African country and its former colonial ruler deteriorated further.
Like recent coups in neighboring Burkina Faso and Mali, the military takeover in Niger came amid a growing wave of anti-French sentiment, with some locals accusing the European country of interfering in their affairs.
In a statement, the junta-appointed foreign ministry said the decision to expel the ambassador was a response to actions taken by the French government that were “contrary to the interests of Niger.”
It said these included the envoy’s refusal to respond to an invitation to meet Niger’s new foreign minister.
The French foreign ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Official-seeming statements were shared widely online on Friday that appeared to show Niger ordering the U.S. ambassador and German ambassador to leave the country in similar terms to the statement about the French envoy.
The U.S. State Department on Friday said Niger had informed it that this had not been issued by its foreign ministry. “No such request has been made to the U.S. government,” it said.
A source in the junta and a Nigerien security source said only the French ambassador had been asked to leave.
The coup has pushed Niger’s long-standing relationship with France to the breaking point, and this latest move raised further doubts about the future of joint military efforts to fight an Islamist insurgency in the conflict-torn Sahel region.
France has called for President Mohamed Bazoum to be returned to office following his ouster and has said it would support efforts by West African regional bloc ECOWAS to overturn the coup.
It has also not officially recognized a decision by the junta in early August to revoke a raft of military agreements with France, saying these had been signed with Niger’s “legitimate authorities.”
The deterioration in Niger-France relations echoes post-coup developments in Mali and Burkina Faso, which have booted out French forces and severed long-standing ties.
Niger has strategic significance as one of the world’s biggest producers of uranium and as a base for French, U.S. and other foreign troops that are helping to fight Islamist militant groups in the region.
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Trump, 18 Co-Defendants in Georgia Election Case Meet Deadline for Police Booking
All 19 defendants in an election-fraud case in the Southeastern U.S. state of Georgia — including former President Donald Trump — reported to an Atlanta jail to be booked by police before a noon deadline on Friday.
After Trump’s appearance at the Fulton County Jail on Thursday evening — in which he posed for the first-ever mug shot of a former president — seven other defendants surrendered to police on Friday. Trump’s other co-defendants reported to the jail earlier in the week.
Court records show that all of the 19 defendants except one posted bond, agreed to the bail conditions set by court officials, and were allowed to leave the jail after being booked.
Harrison William Prescott Floyd, who is accused of harassing a Fulton County election worker, remained in jail after turning himself in on Thursday.
It was not clear whether Floyd was denied bail or was not able to come up with the money to secure his release.
Federal court records said Floyd, who is active with the group Black Voices for Trump, was also arrested three months ago on charges of aggressively confronting FBI agents who had served him with a grand jury subpoena.
Trump paid a $200,000 bond his lawyers negotiated earlier this week with Fulton County prosecutor Fani Willis.
The former president spent about 20 minutes in the Atlanta jail Thursday evening to be booked on felony charges of racketeering and conspiracy linked to his alleged efforts to overturn his 2020 reelection loss in Georgia.
It was the fourth time that Trump had been arrested and booked in the past five months.
Before boarding his plane at Atlanta’s airport, Trump spoke briefly to reporters about his arrest.
“What has taken place here is a travesty of justice. We did nothing wrong. I did nothing wrong, and everybody knows that,” Trump said. “What they’re doing is election interference.”
Trump is facing 91 charges across the four indictments for his alleged actions before, during and after his single-term presidency ended in early 2021.
He faces 13 charges in Georgia, where Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee is expected to set arraignments for each of the defendants in the coming weeks. During an arraignment, the defendants typically appear in court for the first time and enter a plea of guilty or not guilty.
At least five of Trump’s co-defendants are trying to move their cases to federal court, instead of being tried in Georgia.
Of those wanting to keep their trials in Georgia, at least two defendants are requesting speedy trials.
Trump’s legal team has asked that Trump’s case be separated from any co-defendant who seeks a speedy trial. Trump’s lawyers have not yet proposed a date for the trial.
Regardless of when the trial in Atlanta starts, Trump is already facing weeks of criminal trials he would be obligated to appear at in the first half of 2024.
Trump has denied all wrongdoing and has said that the allegations leveled against him are a political witch hunt aimed at thwarting his 2024 campaign to reclaim the presidency.
Even with the array of charges he is facing, Trump is the leading contender for the Republican nomination to run for the presidency against the presumptive Democratic nominee, President Joe Biden.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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Biden Plans to Request Funds to Develop New Coronavirus Vaccine
U.S. President Joe Biden said Friday that he is planning to request more money from Congress to develop another new coronavirus vaccine, as scientists track new waves and hospitalizations rise, though not like before.
Officials are already expecting updated COVID-19 vaccines that contain one version of the omicron strain, called XBB.1.5. It’s an important change from today’s combination shots, which mix the original coronavirus strain with last year’s most common omicron variants. But there will always be a need for updated vaccines as the virus continues to mutate.
People should be able to start rolling up their sleeves next month for what officials hope is an annual fall COVID-19 shot. Pfizer, Moderna and smaller manufacturer Novavax all are brewing doses of the XBB update but the Food and Drug Administration will have to sign off on each, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must then issue recommendations for their use.
“I signed off this morning on a proposal we have to present to the Congress, a request for additional funding for a new vaccine that is necessary, that works,” Biden, who is vacationing in the Lake Tahoe area, told reporters on Friday.
He added that it’s “tentatively” recommended “that everybody get it,” once the shots are ready.
The White House’s $40 billion funding request to Congress on August 11 did not mention COVID-19. It included funding requests for Ukraine, to replenish U.S. federal disaster funds at home after a deadly climate season of heat and storms, and funds to bolster the enforcement at the Southern border with Mexico, including money to curb the flow of deadly fentanyl. Last fall, the administration asked for $9.25 billion in funding to combat the virus, but Congress refused the request.
For the week ending July 29, COVID-19 hospital admissions were at 9,056. That’s an increase of about 12% from the previous week. But it’s a far cry from past peaks, like the 44,000 weekly hospital admissions in early January, the nearly 45,000 in late July 2022, or the 150,000 admissions during the omicron surge of January 2022.
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US Accuses Russia, China of Covering for North Korea at UN
The United States on Friday accused China and Russia of blocking a unified U.N. Security Council response to North Korea’s missile launches, including Thursday’s attempt by Pyongyang to put a spy satellite in space.
During an emergency Security Council meeting, 13 of the 15 members — all but Moscow and Beijing — condemned Pyongyang’s second spy satellite test in three months, which used ballistic missile technology.
“This should be an issue that unifies us. … But since the beginning of 2022, this council has failed to live up to its commitments because of China’s and Russia’s obstructionism,” said U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield.
“The DPRK’s nuclear threat is growing, and Russia and China are not living up to their responsibility to maintain international peace and security,” she added, using the initials for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the North’s official name.
Thomas-Greenfield also denounced the presence last month of Russian and Chinese officials at a North Korean military parade that showed off new drones and nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles.
“They are celebrating — celebrating — violations of Security Council resolutions and continuing to block council action,” Thomas-Greenfield said of Moscow and Beijing.
In May 2022, China and Russia vetoed a resolution imposing new sanctions on Pyongyang, and no resolution or declaration by the Security Council on North Korea has been adopted since.
The last unified Security Council action on North Korea took place in 2017.
Chinese and Russian representatives said Washington was to blame for North Korea’s aggressive stance, pointing to ongoing U.S. military drills with South Korea.
North Korea has long maintained its nuclear program is pursued in self-defense and said the same applies to its satellite program.
“Our launch of the reconnaissance satellite is an exercise of the legitimate right to self-defense to deter ever-increasing hostile military acts of the United States,” said North Korean Ambassador Kim Song, adding that his country has never recognized U.N. Security Council resolutions on North Korea anyway.
Thomas-Greenfield rejected that position.
“We all know the truth: The DPRK puts its paranoia and selfish interests over the dire needs of the North Korean people,” she said.
“The DPRK’s war machine is fueled by repression and cruelty,” Thomas-Greenfield added. “It’s shameful, and it’s a grave threat to global peace.”
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Mozambique’s President Reports Killing of Militant Leader
Mozambican President Filipande Jacinto Nyusi on Friday reported the killing of reputed terrorist leader Bonomade Machude Omar, known as Ibn Omar, in troubled Cabo Delgado province.
Speaking live on state Radio Mozambique from his seaside palace, Nyusi said the terrorist leader was fatally shot Tuesday during a gunbattle against Mozambique’s defense forces that was supported by the Rwandan military and troops from the Southern African Development Community.
Nyusi made the announcement after a meeting with visiting Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, who is on a two-day visit to the country.
There has been no independent confirmation of the deaths.
Nyusi emphasized that the fight against terrorists would continue, even when they operate in small groups.
Ibn Omar, considered the leader of the radical Islamic State group in Mozambique, was targeted by the second phase of the “Coup Duro II” operation in Cabo Delgado.
On the ground in Cabo Delgado, the Mozambican defense forces have been fighting terrorism since July 2021, with support from Rwandan troops and the SADC contingent.
The chief of staff of the Mozambican defense forces, General Joaquim Rivas Mangrasse, said the killing of the terrorist leader did not mean the end of the insurgency in Mozambique. He noted that continual combing through forests was needed to flush out the militants.
Rivas Mangrasse said that with Ibn Omar, two more of his direct followers — still unidentified — were also killed.
Little is known about the history and lifestyle of Bonomade Machude Omar, but it is believed that he is one of the few Mozambican terrorists who spent his childhood in Mocimboa da Praia, a district inside Cabo Delgado province with about 65,000 inhabitants.
He has often been described as the brains behind jihadist attacks over the past five years, claimed by a group known as Ahlu Sunnah wa Jama.
The United Nations says violence in the region has forced more than 1 million people to flee their homes.
Oil giants Exxon Mobil and Total are among big international energy companies developing offshore natural gas projects near northern Mozambique, and one huge project has been put on hold because of the violence.
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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.
Earlier in the day, the NGO said that Thursday it had “rescued 272 people” of 23 different nationalities from three boats in the central Mediterranean, the most perilous maritime crossing in the world for the migrants.
Those rescued included “32 unaccompanied minors, nine babies and five people with disabilities,” said the organization, which is based in Marseille, on the French Mediterranean.
Later Friday, it said it had rescued another 136 people when it “went to the aid of a number of boats in distress.”
Those onboard were evacuated “in coordination with the Italian coast guards in the search and rescue area between Tunisia and Lampedusa.”
The tiny Italian island of Lampedusa, located around 145 kilometers from Tunisia, is the first port of call for many migrants seeking to make the treacherous sea journey to Europe from North Africa.
In total, “438 rescued people are currently on board,” SOS Mediterranee said.
The Ocean Viking was “heading toward Genoa” in northern Italy because the Italian authorities had ordered them to go to the distant port to disembark the migrants, the group added.
At least 2,013 people have died or gone missing so far this year attempting to cross the central Mediterranean, according to the United Nations migration agency, the International Organization for Migration.
That is significantly higher than its figure for the whole of 2022, which was 1,417.
In June, one sinking alone in the western Mediterranean cost the lives of at least 82 people, one of the deadliest incidents involving migrants in the area.
In July, the Italian authorities detained the Ocean Viking for 10 days at Civitavecchia, after questioning the vessel’s safety standards, before finally releasing it.
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Fed’s Powell: Higher Rates May Be Needed, Will Move ‘Carefully’
The Federal Reserve may need to raise interest rates further to cool still-too-high inflation, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said on Friday, promising to move with care at upcoming meetings as he noted progress made on easing price pressures as well as risks from the surprising strength of the U.S. economy.
While not as hawkish a message as he delivered this time a year ago at the annual Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium, Powell’s remarks still delivered a punch, with investors now seeing one more rate hike by year-end more likely than not.
“We will proceed carefully as we decide whether to tighten further or, instead, to hold the policy rate constant and await further data,” Powell said in a keynote address. “It is the Fed’s job to bring inflation down to our 2% goal, and we will do so.”
The Fed has raised rates by 5.25 percentage points since March 2022, and inflation by the Fed’s preferred gauge has moved down to 3.3% from its peak of 7% last summer. Although the decline was a “welcome development,” Powell said, inflation “remains too high.”
“We are prepared to raise rates further if appropriate and intend to hold policy at a restrictive level until we are confident that inflation is moving sustainably down toward our objective,” he said.
But with “signs that the economy may not be cooling as expected,” including “especially robust” consumer spending and a “possibly rebounding” housing sector, Powell said that above-trend growth “could put further progress on inflation at risk and could warrant further tightening of monetary policy.”
His remarks showed the Fed wrestling with conflicting signals from an economy where inflation has by some readings slowed a lot without much cost to the economy — a good outcome, but one that has raised the possibility that Fed policy is not restrictive enough to complete the job.
‘Finger on the trigger’
At day’s end, futures contracts tied to the Fed policy rate were pricing in just less than a 20% chance of a rate hike in September, but a better-than-50% chance of the policy rate ending the year in a 5.5%-5.75% range, a quarter-point higher than the current range. Fed policymakers will also meet in November and December.
The yield on the two-year Treasury note ended the day at 5.08%, its highest close since June 2007.
“My main takeaway is that when it comes to another rate hike, the chair still very much has his finger on the trigger, even if it’s a bit less itchy than it was last year,” said Inflation Insights’ Omair Sharif.
It is difficult, Powell said, to know with precision how high above the “neutral” rate of interest the current benchmark rate stands, and therefore hard to assess just how much restraint the Fed is imposing on growth and inflation.
Powell repeated what has become a standard Fed diagnosis of inflation progress — with a pandemic-era jump in goods inflation easing and a decline in housing inflation “in the pipeline,” but concern that continued consumer spending on a broad array of services and a tight labor market may make a return to 2% difficult.
Recent declines in measures of underlying inflation, stripped of food and energy prices, “were welcome, but two months of good data are only the beginning of what it will take to build confidence that inflation is moving down sustainably,” Powell said.
Powell ended his speech on Friday with nearly the same line he finished with last year at Jackson Hole: “We will keep at it until the job is done.”
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UAW Votes Overwhelmingly to Authorize Strike at Detroit Automakers
The United Auto Workers (UAW) union said Friday members voted overwhelmingly in favor of authorizing a strike at three Detroit automakers if agreement is not reached before the current four-year contract expires on September 14.
The authorization was approved by 97% of voting members at General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis, said UAW President Shawn Fain, who leads the union that represents about 150,000 workers.
Fain reiterated that the union did not plan to extend the deadline to get a new labor contract.
“The deadline is Sept. 14,” he said. “We have a lot of options that we are looking at but extension on the contract is not one of them.”
Separately, President Joe Biden, who met with Fain last month, told reporters in Nevada he is concerned about a potential UAW strike.
“I think that there should be a circumstance where jobs that are being displaced are replaced with new jobs” for UAW members “and the salaries should be commensurate.”
Some senators want national UAW agreements to cover jobs at battery joint ventures that currently pay less.
Fain said workers had made numerous concessions over the last two decades including giving up wage hikes, defined benefit pensions and post-retirement health care benefits.
“We’re fed up,” Fain said, listing a series of demands. “We’ve sat back for decades while these companies continue to just take and take and take from us.”
Fain has outlined an ambitious set of demands, including wage hikes of 46%, an end to the tiered wage system that pays new hires less than veterans, reinstating cost-of-living adjustments and restoring defined-benefit pension plans for new hires that the automakers ended in 2007. At Stellantis, just 30% of hourly U.S. workers are eligible for defined benefit pensions.
Fain said he expected the “Detroit Three,” as this cluster of automakers are known, to come to the bargaining table next week with counterproposals to the UAW demands. He said talks were “still going slow” after opening in July. Analysts estimate a more than 50% chance of a strike.
It was not clear how long it would take a strike to significantly reduce the Detroit Three’s inventories. Through July, Stellantis U.S. Ram, Jeep, Chrysler and Dodge each had more than 100 days of inventory but many specific popular models have less.
The vote does not guarantee a strike will be called, only that the union has the right to call a strike if there’s no agreement by September 14.
GM, Ford and Stellantis have said they want to reach a deal that is fair to workers but also gives the companies flexibility, as the industry shifts to electric models that have fewer parts and require less labor.
Ford shares were up 1%, while General Motors were unchanged in afternoon trade.
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ECOWAS Concerned Message on Niger Being Misinterpreted
The West African regional bloc ECOWAS held a news conference Friday in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, hours after coup leaders in Niger announced an alliance with neighboring Burkina Faso and Mali. ECOWAS said it was worried about reports that made it sound as if the bloc is beating the drums of war toward Niger.
ECOWAS President Omar Touray told journalists that Friday’s press conference was convened to set the record straight.
Touray said ECOWAS was worried that its announcement earlier this month that it might use military action to restore constitutional order in Niger was being misinterpreted in media reports.
He said, “ECOWAS has neither declared war on the people of Niger nor is there a plan, as has been purported, to invade the country.”
Touray said the ECOWAS heads of state and government only activated a full-scale application of sanctions against Niger’s military rulers, including the possible use of force.
He said that authorities would resort to this measure only after deciding that dialogue alone is not deterring coups in the region.
“The current development in the Republic of Niger adds to the list of attempted coups d’etat in the region,” Touray said. “So, you can understand why the heads of state and government have decided that this is one coup too many and resolved that it was time to end the contagion. The situation in the Republic of Niger is particularly unfortunate, as it comes at a time the country is comparatively well in terms of security and economic growth.”
Military takeovers are increasing in West Africa, with seven coups since 2020.
The ECOWAS president said the bloc was concerned about the welfare of the people of Niger and that it had noted reports of increased insecurity and human rights violations since the military took over in late July.
Touray said military administrations in the region have not demonstrated capacity to deal with complex political, social and security challenges.
On July 26, soldiers of the presidential guard overthrew Niger’s democratically elected leader, President Mohamed Bazoum, and have since held him hostage, ignoring calls for his release.
ECOWAS on August 10 said it had activated a standby force to restore constitutional order in Niger.
Touray spoke to journalists Friday.
“In the interim, the region is employing other elements of its instruments and engaging with the military authorities, as can be attested to by the several missions that have been fielded to the country,” he said. “Nonetheless, preparations continue towards making the force ready for deployment.”
Last week, Niger’s junta announced a three-year transition plan and, on Thursday, authorized Mali and Burkina Faso’s forces to intervene in the country in the event of any military invasion by ECOWAS.
Both countries had warned that invasion of Niger by ECOWAS would mean a declaration of war.
Security analyst Chidi Omeje says there’s too much at stake to risk military action.
“I expect them not to put the issue of military intervention on the table at all,” Omeje said. “It shouldn’t be discussed because you have to look at the consequences of a military intervention in Niger Republic. In that region, how are you going to mitigate the influx of refugees in Nigeria?”
ECOWAS is hoping that diplomatic efforts will pay off and make it unnecessary to deploy forces. But so far, the junta has resisted pressure to relinquish power.
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Seven Children Among 13 Killed in Madagascar Stadium Stampede
At least 13 people, including seven children, were killed Friday in a crowd stampede at a stadium in the Madagascar capital of Antananarivo, according to the Red Cross and a local member of parliament.
“So far 13 people have been killed and 107 injured,” said opposition MP Hanitra Razafimanantsoa on a local radio station.
The Red Cross, who were on the scene, added: “We don’t yet have the final list. Seven minors died.”
The prime minister of the Indian Ocean nation Christian Ntsay had initially put the toll at “12 dead and some 80 injured.”
50,000 gather
The stampede occurred at the entrance to the Barea stadium, where a crowd of around 50,000 spectators had arrived to attend the opening ceremony of the Indian Ocean Island Games.
The cause of the tragedy was not immediately known but the Red Cross said the toll could climb.
“There were a lot of people at the entrance, which triggered a stampede,” Antsa Mirado, a communications manager with the Red Cross, told AFP.
Madagascar President Andry Rajoelina, who was present at the opening ceremony, called for a minute’s silence.
“A tragic event occurred because there was pushing. There were injuries and deaths at the entrance,” he said in a televised speech.
Images show people in shock
Images broadcast on television showed dazed and shocked people trying to locate their shoes piled amongst objects lost in the deadly crush.
Other images from inside the stadium, shared on social media, showed the stands packed with spectators.
The Indian Ocean Island Games are a multi-sport competition being held in Madagascar until September 3.
They have been staged every four years in different islands in the south-west Indian Ocean for around 40 years. The previous games took place in Mauritius.
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Kremlin Denies Claims It Masterminded Prigozhin’s Reported Death
The Kremlin labeled as “an absolute lie” on Friday the Western conjecture that Russian President Vladimir Putin masterminded Yevgeny Prigozhin’s reported death.
The chief of the mercenary Wagner Group reportedly was on the jet that crashed Wednesday evening just outside of Moscow.
Prigozhin’s name was on the passenger manifest, and he reportedly was among the 10 people aboard who died in the crash. Putin cited “preliminary information” saying that Prigozhin and his top associates in the Wagner mercenary group all had been killed.
Earlier on Friday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov scolded U.S. President Joe Biden for suggesting that the Russian president had orchestrated Prigozhin’s death.
“It is not for the U.S. president, in my opinion, to talk about certain tragic events of this nature,” Ryabkov said Friday.
Speaking with reporters Wednesday, Biden said he was not surprised by Prigozhin’s reported death. “There’s not much that happens in Russia that Putin’s not behind,” he said.
Asked by The Associated Press whether the Kremlin has received an official confirmation of Prigozhin’s death, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov referenced Putin’s remarks from a day earlier.
“He said that right now, all the necessary forensic analyses, including genetic testing, will be carried out. Once some kind of official conclusions are ready to be released, they will be released,” Peskov said.
According to a preliminary U.S. intelligence assessment, the plane was downed by an intentional explosion. One of the U.S. and Western officials who described the assessment said it determined that Prigozhin was “very likely” targeted and that the explosion falls in line with Putin’s “long history of trying to silence his critics.”
The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment, did not offer any details about what caused the explosion. It is believed to be in retaliation for the mutiny in June that posed the biggest challenge to Putin’s 23-year rule.
Ukrainian, Turkish leaders confer
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held talks Friday in Kyiv with Turkish Foreign Affairs Minister Hakan Fidan regarding the Black Sea grain deal and other related topics.
“Many important issues were discussed. [Ukraine’s] Peace Formula. Preparations for the Global Peace Summit. Risks posed by the Russian blockade of the Black Sea grain corridor,” Zelenskyy wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Turkey is trying to persuade Russia to return to the negotiating table regarding the U.N.-brokered Black Sea Grain Initiative that was guaranteeing the safety of cargo vessels passing through the Black Sea corridor.
Russia has threatened to treat all vessels as potential military targets after pulling out of a U.N.-backed safe passage deal.
According to U.S. officials, since Russia’s exit from the grain deal, Ukraine, a major grain exporter, has resorted to overland and Danube River routes as effective ways to transport its grain.
“I think we see there are viable routes through Ukraine’s territorial waters and overland, and we are aiming … over the next couple of months to return to exporting at kind of prewar averages from Ukraine,” James O’Brien, head of the U.S. State Department’s Office of Sanctions Coordination, told Reuters in an interview.
Ukraine has begun exporting through a “humanitarian corridor” along the sea’s western coastline near Romania and Bulgaria.
A Hong Kong-flagged container ship stuck in Odesa port since the invasion was the first vessel to travel that route last week without being fired upon by Russia.
US will train Ukrainians on F-16s
Russia has updated to 73 the number of Ukrainian drones it says it has downed over the past 24 hours.
Earlier, Russia’s Defense Ministry said that 42 drones were destroyed over Crimea – nine shot down by air defense forces and 33 by electronic warfare. Crimea was annexed by Russia in 2014.
There were no immediate reports of fatalities.
The U.S. Defense Department said Thursday it will train Ukrainians to fly and maintain F-16 fighter jets.
The Defense Department said in a statement the training will be held at Morris Air National Guard Base in Tucson, Arizona, and will be facilitated by the Air National Guard’s 162nd Wing.
The U.S. training is “in support of the international effort to develop and strengthen Ukraine’s long-term defenses,” Pentagon press secretary Air Force Brigadier General Pat Ryder said.
The training will begin in October, after the Ukrainians complete an English-language course set to begin in September.
Meanwhile, Norway is donating F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said Thursday on a visit to Kyiv.
The exact number of the donated jets was not immediately clear, but Gahr Stoere said it likely would be less than than 10.
Norway is the third European country, after the Netherlands and Denmark, to announce donations of fighter jets to Ukraine for use in Ukraine’s fight against Russia.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Electric Vehicle ‘Fast Chargers’ Seen as Game Changer
With White House funding to help get more electric cars on the road, some states are creating local rules to get top technologies into their charging stations. Deana Mitchell has the story.
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Ukrainian Soldier Spent Weeks in Wagner Group’s Captivity, Lost Both Arms
Ukrainian soldier Ilya Mikhalchuk was wounded near Bakhmut and captured by Wagner Group mercenaries in February. He had both arms amputated while in captivity and was released in April. Thanks to volunteers, he is now in the U.S. getting prostheses. Iryna Shynkarenko has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. VOA footage by Kostiantyn Golubchyk.
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One Image, One Face, One American Moment: the Donald Trump Mug Shot
A camera clicks. In a fraction of a second, the shutter opens and then closes, freezing forever the image in front of it.
When the camera shutter blinked inside an Atlanta jail on Thursday, it both created and documented a tiny inflection point in American life. Captured for posterity, there was a former president of the United States, for the first time in history, under arrest and captured in the sort of frame more commonly associated with drug dealers or drunken drivers. The trappings of power gone, for that split second.
Left behind: an enduring image that will appear in history books long after Donald Trump is gone.
“It will be forever part of the iconography of being alive in this time,” said Marty Kaplan, a professor at the University of Southern California Annenberg School of Communications.
In the photo, Trump confronts the camera in front of a bland gray backdrop, his eyes meeting the lens in an intense glare. He’s wearing a blue suit, white shirt and red tie, his shoulders squared, his head tilted slightly toward the camera. The sheriff’s logo has been digitally added above his right shoulder.
Some of the 18 others charged with him in Georgia smiled in their booking photos like they were posing for a yearbook. Not Trump. His defiance is palpable, as if he’s staring down a nemesis through the lens.
“It is not a comfortable feeling — especially when you’ve done nothing wrong,” he later told Fox News Digital about the moment.
Not like any other photograph
Trump facing charges is by now a familiar sight of 2023 to Americans who watched him stand before a judge in a New York courtroom or saw watercolor sketches from the inside of federal courthouses in Miami and Washington, where cameras aren’t allowed.
This is different.
As Anderson Cooper put it on CNN: “The former president of the United States has an inmate number.” P01135809, to be exact. But until he surrendered to face charges of trying to steal the 2020 election in Georgia, his fourth indictment this year, he avoided having to pose for the iconic booking photo like millions accused of crimes before him.
Never mind that Trump, like all Americans, is innocent until proven guilty in court; the mug shot, and all it connotes, packs an extra emotional and cultural punch.
A mug shot is a visceral representation of the criminal justice system, a symbol of lost freedom. It permanently memorializes one of the worst days of a person’s life, a moment not meant for a scrapbook. It must be particularly foreign to a man born into privilege, who famously loves to be in control, who is highly attentive to his image and who rose to be the most powerful figure in the world.
“‘Indictment’ is a sort of bloodless word. And words are pale compared to images,” said Kaplan, a former speechwriter for Vice President Walter Mondale and a Hollywood screenwriter. “A mug shot is a genre. Its frame is, ‘This is a deer caught in the headlights. This is the crook being nailed.’ It’s the walk of shame moment.”
Already leveraging the moment
Trump is unlikely to treat the mug shot as a moment of shame as he seeks a second term in the White House while fighting criminal charges in four jurisdictions. His campaign has reported a spike in contributions each time he’s been indicted.
And the imagery itself? Trump hasn’t shied away from it. In fact, his campaign concocted one long before it became real.
Months before he was photographed in Georgia on Thursday evening, his campaign used the prospect of a mug shot as a fundraising opportunity. For $36, anyone can buy a T-shirt with a fake booking photo of Trump and the words “not guilty.” Dozens of similar designs are available to purchase online, including many that appeal to Trump’s critics.
Now they have a real one to work with. Within minutes of the mug shot’s release, Trump’s campaign used it in a fundraising appeal on its website. “BREAKING NEWS: THE MUGSHOT IS HERE,” reads the subject line of the campaign’s latest fundraising email, which advertises a new T-shirt with the image. And this quote: “This mugshot will forever go down in history as a symbol of America’s defiance of tyranny.”
In a show of solidarity, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene posted to X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, a photo of herself smiling broadly in front of a gray background, the sheriff’s logo in the top left corner to mimic the jail’s style — essentially her DIY mug. “I stand with President Trump against the commie DA Fani Willis,” she said, a swipe at the Fulton County, Georgia, district attorney who persuaded a grand jury to indict Trump.
Recent history is full of politicians seeking political dividends from their booking photos. They’ve offered large smiles or defiant smirks and tried to make the best of their predicament.
Yet this is one of just 45 presidents in all of U.S. history — not only someone who held the keys to the most powerful government in the world, but who held a position that for many these days, both at home and overseas, personifies the United States. To see that face looking at a camera whose lens he is not seeking out — that’s a potent moment.
“There’s a power to the still image, which is inarguable,” said Mitchell Stevens, a professor emeritus at New York University who has written a book about the place imagery holds in modern society and how it is supplanting the word.
“It kind of freezes a moment, and in this case it’s freezing an unhappy moment for Donald Trump,” Stevens said. “And it’s not something he can click away. It’s not something he can simply brush off. That moment is going to live on. And it’s entirely possible that it will end up as the image that history preserves of this man.”
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Zimbabweans Wait For Election Results
Zimbabweans waited anxiously for election results Friday as security forces sealed off roads leading to the national election center, the scene of protests and deadly violence after the last vote in 2018.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission said the ruling Zanu-PF party had won 38 parliamentary seats, while the main opposition Citizens Coalition for Change had won 32, according to Reuters.
The commission has yet to release results from the presidential election.
Voting wrapped up Thursday after delays in distributing ballots, mostly in urban areas, prompted officials to extend voting by one day.
The U.S. has accused Zimbabwe of intentionally undermining its election for the presidency, the legislature and municipal councils.
Police say they arrested 41 election monitors and seized their equipment in raids Wednesday. They said the monitors were using their computers and cell phones “to unlawfully tabulate election voting statistics and results from polling stations,” an activity the police characterized as “subversive and criminal.”
“The police raid on civil society conducting legitimate election observation demonstrates the government of Zimbabwe’s lack of respect for free and fair elections,” U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “Dismayed at the lengths they will go to undermine their own election’s credibility.”
In the presidential vote, 80-year-old incumbent Emmerson Mnangagwa is seeking a second term. Nelson Chamisa, 45, the leader of the CCC, is challenging the president for the country’s top spot.
Mnangagwa took power after staging a coup that ousted the late Robert Mugabe in 2017.
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UN Humanitarian Chief Warns Sudan Conflict Is Spreading
The U.N.’s humanitarian chief said Friday the conflict in Sudan and the humanitarian crisis it has spawned are threatening to consume the entire country.
In a statement issued Friday, U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs chief Martin Griffiths said the intense fighting between the Sudanese military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that has ravaged the capital city Juba, Khartoum and Darfur since mid-April has spread southeast to Kordofan state.
The top U.N. humanitarian official said that as a result of clashes and road blockages, food stocks have been fully depleted in South Kordofan’s capital, Kadugli, and aid workers have been prevented from reaching the hungry. In West Kordofan’s capital, El Fula, humanitarian offices have been ransacked and supplies have been looted.
The U.N. aid chief said he also is extremely worried about the safety of civilians in Al Jazira State, as the conflict moves closer to Sudan’s breadbasket region.
“The longer the fighting continues, the more devastating its impact,” said Griffiths. Some places have already run out of food. Hundreds of thousands of children are severely malnourished and at imminent risk of death if left untreated.”
He called on the international community to “respond with the urgency this crisis deserves.”
Griffiths’ warning comes as Sudan’s army chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, was seen Thursday outside the army command compound in Khartoum for the first time since fighting erupted more than four months ago.
In video and pictures posted to social media, Burhan also can be seen speaking to soldiers in what is said to be the city of Omdurman, across the Nile River from Khartoum, with paramilitaries.
Agence France-Presse reports some of the video appears to have been filmed before dawn. One photo of Burhan has a caption indicating it was taken at the Wadi Seidna Air Base 22 kilometers (13.7 miles) north of Khartoum. None of the posts have been independently verified.
The army has been fighting the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, for control of the capital and several major cities since April 15. All attempts to mediate have failed, and diplomats say both sides are asserting they can win.
Neither side has gained an advantage during the fighting that has inflicted high civilian casualties, and the U.N. says it has displaced more than 4.5 million people.
In the video at the Wadi Seidna Air Base, Burhan greeted cheering soldiers. “The work you are doing should reassure people that the army has men, and that Sudan is being protected by the army,” he said.
Burhan’s video appearance comes on the heels of the RSF’s multiday attack on the Armored Corps base in southern Khartoum, which is the army’s single remaining stronghold in the capital outside its headquarters.
General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, head of the RSF, has frequently mocked Burhan for what he has called hiding in a bunker, although Dagalo has only been seen in video once since the war began, speaking to soldiers last month outside a house at an unidentified location.
The fighting already has generated a humanitarian crisis that has closed hospitals, and caused electricity and water outages, along with food shortages. Now, the rainy season is underway, threatening to make the situation worse, sparking disease outbreaks and hindering transport.
Some information for this report was provided by Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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Nerve Agents, Poison and Window Falls. Over the Years, Kremlin Foes Have Been Attacked or Killed
The attacks range from the exotic — poisoned by drinking polonium-laced tea or touching a deadly nerve agent — to the more mundane of getting shot at close range. Some take a fatal plunge from an open window.
Over the years, Kremlin political critics, turncoat spies and investigative journalists have been killed or assaulted in a variety of ways.
None, however, has been known to perish in an air accident. But on Wednesday, a private plane carrying a mercenary chief who staged a brief rebellion in Russia plummeted into a field from tens of thousands of feet after breaking apart.
Assassination attempts against foes of President Vladimir Putin have been common during his nearly quarter century in power. Those close to the victims and the few survivors have blamed Russian authorities, but the Kremlin has routinely denied involvement — as it did on Friday by saying it was “a complete lie” it had anything to do with the jet crash.
There also have been reports of prominent Russian executives dying under mysterious circumstances, including falling from windows, although whether they were deliberate killings or suicides is sometimes difficult to determine.
Some prominent cases of documented killings or attempted killings:
Political opponents
In August 2020, opposition leader Alexei Navalny fell ill on a flight from Siberia to Moscow. The plane landed in the city of Omsk, where Navalny was hospitalized in a coma. Two days later, he was airlifted to Berlin, where he recovered.
His allies almost immediately said he was poisoned, but Russian officials denied it. Labs in Germany, France and Sweden confirmed Navalny was poisoned by a Soviet-era nerve agent known as Novichok, which he reported had been applied to his underwear. Navalny returned to Russia and was convicted this month of extremism and sentenced to 19 years in prison, his third conviction with a prison sentence in two years on charges he says are politically motivated.
In 2018, Pyotr Verzilov, a founder of the protest group Pussy Riot, fell severely ill and also was flown to Berlin, where doctors said poisoning was “highly plausible.” He eventually recovered. Earlier that year, Verzilov embarrassed the Kremlin by running onto the field during soccer’s World Cup final in Moscow with three other activists to protest police brutality. His allies said he could have been targeted because of his activism.
Prominent opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza survived what he believes were attempts to poison him in 2015 and 2017. He nearly died from kidney failure in the first instance and suspects poisoning, but no cause was determined. He was hospitalized with a similar illness in 2017 and put into a medically induced coma. His wife said doctors confirmed he was poisoned. Kara-Murza survived, and his lawyer says police have refused to investigate. This year, he was convicted of treason and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
The highest-profile killing of a political opponent in recent years was that of Boris Nemtsov. Once deputy prime minister under Boris Yeltsin, Nemtsov was a popular politician and harsh critic of Putin. On a cold February night in 2015, he was gunned down by assailants on a bridge adjacent to the Kremlin as he walked with his girlfriend. His death shocked the country. Five men from the Russian region of Chechnya were convicted, with the gunman receiving up to 20 years, but Nemtsov’s allies said their involvement was an attempt to shift blame from the government.
Former intelligence operatives
In 2006, Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko, a former agent for the KGB and its post-Soviet successor agency, the FSB, felt violently ill in London after drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium-210, dying three weeks later. He had been investigating the shooting death of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya as well as the Russian intelligence service’s alleged links to organized crime. Before dying, Litvinenko told journalists the FSB was still operating a poisons laboratory dating from the Soviet era.
A British inquiry found that Russian agents had killed Litvinenko, probably with Putin’s approval, but the Kremlin denied any involvement.
Another former Russian intelligence officer, Sergei Skripal, was poisoned in Britain in 2018. He and his adult daughter Yulia fell ill in the city of Salisbury and spent weeks in critical condition. They survived, but the attack later claimed the life of a British woman and left a man and a police officer seriously ill.
Authorities said they both were poisoned with the military grade nerve agent Novichok. Britain blamed Russian intelligence, but Moscow denied any role. Putin called Skripal, a double agent for Britain during his espionage career, a “scumbag” of no interest to the Kremlin because he was tried in Russia and exchanged in a spy swap in 2010.
Journalists
Numerous journalists critical of authorities in Russia have been killed or suffered mysterious deaths, which their colleagues in some cases blamed on someone in the political hierarchy. In other cases, the reported reluctance by authorities to investigate raised suspicions.
Anna Politkovskaya, the journalist for the newspaper Novaya Gazeta whose death Litvinenko was investigating, was shot and killed in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building on Oct. 7, 2006 — Putin’s birthday. She had won international acclaim for her reporting on human rights abuses in Chechnya. The gunman, from Chechnya, was convicted of the killing and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Four other Chechens were given shorter prison terms for their involvement in the murder.
Yuri Shchekochikhin, another Novaya Gazeta reporter, died of a sudden and violent illness in 2003. Shchekochikhin was investigating corrupt business deals and the possible role of Russian security services in the 1999 apartment house bombings blamed on Chechen insurgents. His colleagues insisted that he was poisoned and accused the authorities of deliberately hindering the investigation.
Yevgeny Prigozhin and his lieutenants
Wednesday’s plane crash that is presumed to have killed Yevgeny Prigozhin and top lieutenants of his Wagner Group private military company came two months to the day after he launched an armed rebellion that Putin labeled “a stab in the back” and “treason.” While not critical of Putin, Prigozhin slammed the Russian military leadership and questioned the motives for going to war in Ukraine.
On Thursday, a preliminary U.S. intelligence assessment found that the crash that killed all 10 people aboard was intentionally caused by an explosion, according to U.S. and Western officials. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment. One said the explosion fell in line with Putin’s “long history of trying to silence his critics.”
Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, rejected allegations the Kremlin was behind the crash. “Of course, in the West those speculations are put out under a certain angle, and all of it is a complete lie,” he told reporters Friday.
In his first public comments on the crash, Putin appeared to hint there was no bad blood between him and Prigozhin. But former Kremlin speechwriter turned political analyst Abbas Gallyamov said: “Putin has demonstrated that if you fail to obey him without question, he will dispose of you without mercy, like an enemy, even if you are formally a patriot.”
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Names Released of Hundreds Missing after Maui Wildfires
Police on the Hawaiian island of Maui have released the names of 388 people still unaccounted for following devastating wildfires earlier this month.
In a video statement released late Thursday, Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said he understood the release of the list could cause pain for those whose loved ones are still missing, but the police department felt it could help with the investigation.
The list contains the names and points of contact for each missing person reported. Pelletier asked anyone who finds their own name on the list or with information regarding a person on the list to contact Maui police or the FBI.
The Associated Press reports that following a 2018 wildfire in Paradise, California, officials were able to reduce a list of missing people from 1,300 to about a dozen within a month of releasing a list of those reported missing.
In an update Monday, Maui County officials said all single story, residential properties in the disaster area had been searched and teams were beginning to search multistory residential and commercial properties.
As of Tuesday, the police department said the August 8 fires killed at least 115 people and left an unknown number of others missing, making them the deadliest in the U.S. in more than a century.
Some information for this report was provided by the Associated Press and Reuters.
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Russia Claims to Have Shot Down 42 Ukrainian Drones
Russia said early Friday that it has downed dozens of drones launched from Ukraine.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said that 42 drones were destroyed over Crimea – nine shot down by air defense forces, 33 by electronic warfare. Crimea was annexed by Russia in 2014.
There were no immediate reports of fatalities.
The U.S. Defense Department said Thursday that it will train Ukrainians to fly and maintain F-16 fighter jets.
The Defense Department said in a statement that the training will be held at Morris Air National Guard Base in Tucson, Arizona, and will be facilitated by the Air National Guard’s 162nd Wing.
The U.S. training is “in support of the international effort to develop and strengthen Ukraine’s long-term defenses,” Pentagon press secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said.
The training will begin in October, after the Ukrainians complete an English-language course set to begin in September.
Meanwhile, Norway is donating F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said on a visit to Kyiv on Thursday.
The exact number of the donated jets was not immediately clear, but Gahr Stoere said that it would probably be fewer than 10.
Norway is the third European country, after the Netherlands and Denmark, to announce donations of fighter jets to Ukraine for use in Ukraine’s fight against Russia.
Also Thursday, the U.S. announced sanctions on 11 individuals and two entities involved with the deportation and indoctrination of Ukrainian children.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement that the sanctions were imposed “for their roles in the forcible transfer and deportation of Ukraine’s children to camps promoting indoctrination in Russia and Russia-occupied Crimea and who have imposed Russian indoctrination curriculums in those regions of Ukraine.”
Speaking at a U.N. Security Council meeting on Ukraine Thursday, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield said: “The United States will not stand by as Russia carries out these war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
Ukraine believes more than 19,500 children have been deported since Russia’s invasion.
Thursday also marked Ukraine’s Independence Day.
“Today we are all celebrating the 32nd anniversary of Ukraine’s independence. Thirty-two years of uninterrupted independence, which will endure. Which we will not allow to be torn apart. And which Ukrainians will not lose grip on,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an address.
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Spain Football Chief Will Resign for Kissing a Player, Reports Say
The president of the Spanish football federation faces an emergency meeting of its general assembly on Friday amid media reports that he will hand in his resignation following an uproar for kissing a Women’s World Cup champion.
Luis Rubiales is expected to stand before representatives of Spain’s regional federations, clubs, players, coaches and referees in Madrid at noon local time, and local media say he is stepping down.
The federation has refused to comment on repeated requests from The Associated Press for confirmation of Rubiales’ decision to go that was reported late Thursday.
Rubiales, 46, is under immense pressure to leave his post since he grabbed player Jenni Hermoso and kissed her on the lips without her consent during the awards ceremony following Spain’s 1-0 victory over England on Sunday in Sydney.
FIFA, football’s global governing body and organizer of the Women’s World Cup, opened a disciplinary case against him on Thursday. Its disciplinary committee was tasked with weighing whether Rubiales violated its code relating to “the basic rules of decent conduct” and “behaving in a way that brings the sport of football and/or FIFA into disrepute.”
That move by FIFA came after Spain’s acting Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said that Rubiales’ attempt to apologize, which came after he initially insulted his critics, was unconvincing and that “he must continue taking further steps” to be held accountable.
Spain’s Higher Council of Sports, the nation’s governing sports body, pledged it would act quickly to consider various formal complaints filed against Rubiales to see if he had broken Spain’s sports law or the federation’s own code of conduct that sanction sexist acts. If so, Rubiales would face being declared unfit to hold his office by Spain’s Administrative Court for Sports.
As if the forced kiss was not enough, Rubiales had shortly before grabbed his crotch in a lewd victory gesture from the section of dignitaries with Spain’s Queen Letizia and the 16-year-old Princess Infanta Sofía nearby.
The combination of the gesture and the unsolicited kiss has made Rubiales a national embarrassment after his conduct was broadcast to a global audience, marring the enormous accomplishment of the women who played for Spain.
Hermoso, a 33-year-old forward and key contributor to Spain’s title, said on a social media stream “I did not like it, but what could I do?” about the kiss during a locker-room celebration immediately after the incident.
The first attempt to respond to the scandal was a statement it released in the name of Hermoso in which she downplayed the incident. Later, a local media report by sports website Relevo.com said that the federation had coerced her into making the statement. The federation has denied this to The AP.
On Wednesday, Hermoso issued a statement through her players’ union saying it would speak on her behalf. The union said it would do all it could to ensure that the kiss does “not go unpunished.”
Rubiales has received no public support from any major sports figure and united political parties from both the left and right are calling for him to resign.
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