Month: September 2023

Airstrike Aimed at Al-Shabab Extremists in Somalia Kills Civilians

Posted on by SeeAF

An airstrike in a town in Somalia caused several casualties, including children, said residents and authorities, while three members of an al-Qaida-linked extremist group were killed.

The U.S. military in a statement Friday said, “Unfortunately, civilians were injured and killed” in the vicinity of a military operation by Somali forces in El-Lahelay village Wednesday.

The U.S. said that it evacuated injured civilians at the Somali government’s request, but that American forces had not conducted airstrikes or been at the scene of the operation.

The U.S. Africa Command did not respond to questions that included the number of civilians killed and injured. The United States for years has conducted airstrikes in support of Somali forces combating the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab group.

“The claim being spread by al-Shabab that U.S. forces caused the unfortunate harm to civilians is false,” the statement said. The U.S. in the past has acknowledged killing civilians with airstrikes.

Accounts by witnesses and local authorities of Wednesday’s events varied.

Amal Ali, a relative, told The Associated Press that an airstrike targeted a vehicle belonging to al-Shabab when it was passing near the family home in El-Garas town in Galmudug state. A grandmother and five of her grandchildren were killed, she said.

The children’s father, Dahir Ahmed, in a brief phone call confirmed the incident but said he could not immediately give details.

“It was an American airstrike,” Abdifatah Ali Halane, secretary-general of the El-Garas administration, told the AP. “They’ve been providing crucial aerial support throughout our operations against extremists in Galmudug state.”

He said the airstrike killed three people, including two suspected members of al-Shabab, and injured five people, including four children.

Halane said Somali forces quickly came for the wounded, who were evacuated to the capital, Mogadishu, for medical treatment.

Somalia’s deputy information minister, Abdirahman Adala, told journalists that three al-Shabab members were killed in the operation by Somali forces. But he said extremists had placed explosive materials in a nearby home that killed civilians.

Somalia’s government last year launched what the president called “total war” on al-Shabab, which controls parts of rural central and southern Somalia and makes millions of dollars through “taxation” of residents and extortion of businesses.
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Poland’s Political Parties Reveal Campaign Programs

Posted on by SeeEU

Poland’s conservative governing party and the opposition showered potential voters with promises Saturday as the country’s political parties revealed their campaign programs before the October 15 parliamentary election.

The nationalist ruling Law and Justice party, which took power in 2015, wants to win an unprecedented third term. The government’s tenure, however, has been marred with bitter clashes with the European Union over the government’s rule of law record and democratic backsliding.

At a party convention, leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who is Poland’s most powerful politician, made promises of new spending on social and military causes for the nation living in the shadow of Russia’s full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine.

The government has already largely increased the state budget deficit with spending on benefits for large families and retirees, as well as on purchasing armament.

The main opposition Civic Coalition also laid out its program tenets, vowing to reverse the negative trends in foreign and home policy, mend fences with Brussels and secure funds frozen now by the EU amid the rule of law dispute.

Party leader Donald Tusk, who is a former prime minister and former top EU figure, also promised to free state media and cultural activities from their current restrictions and “censorship.”

With five weeks to go to the election that will shape Poland for the next four years, opinion polls suggest that Law and Justice may garner the most electoral votes but not enough to continue its current narrow control of the parliament, and may need to seek an uncomfortable coalition in which the most probable partner would be the far-right Confederation.
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AI Technology Behind ChatGPT Built in Iowa Using Lots of Water

Posted on by SeeUS

The cost of building an artificial intelligence product like ChatGPT can be hard to measure.

But one thing Microsoft-backed OpenAI needed for its technology was plenty of water, pulled from the watershed of the Raccoon and Des Moines rivers in central Iowa to cool a powerful supercomputer as it helped teach its AI systems how to mimic human writing.

As they race to capitalize on a craze for generative AI, leading tech developers, including Microsoft, OpenAI and Google, have acknowledged that growing demand for their AI tools carries hefty costs, from expensive semiconductors to an increase in water consumption.

But they’re often secretive about the specifics. Few people in Iowa knew about its status as a birthplace of OpenAI’s most advanced large language model, GPT-4, before a top Microsoft executive said in a speech it “was literally made next to cornfields west of Des Moines.”

Building a large language model requires analyzing patterns across a huge trove of human-written text. All that computing takes a lot of electricity and generates a lot of heat. To keep it cool on hot days, data centers need to pump in water — often to a cooling tower outside its warehouse-sized buildings.

In its latest environmental report, Microsoft disclosed that its global water consumption spiked 34% from 2021 to 2022 (to nearly 1.7 billion gallons, or more than 2,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools), a sharp increase compared to previous years that outside researchers tie to its AI research.

“It’s fair to say the majority of the growth is due to AI,” including “its heavy investment in generative AI and partnership with OpenAI,” said Shaolei Ren, a researcher at the University of California, Riverside, who has been trying to calculate the environmental impact of generative AI products such as ChatGPT.

In a paper due to be published later this year, Ren’s team estimates ChatGPT gulps up 500 milliliters of water (close to what’s in a 16-ounce water bottle) every time you ask it a series of between 5 to 50 prompts or questions. The range varies depending on where its servers are located and the season. The estimate includes indirect water usage that the companies don’t measure — such as to cool power plants that supply the data centers with electricity.

“Most people are not aware of the resource usage underlying ChatGPT,” Ren said. “If you’re not aware of the resource usage, then there’s no way that we can help conserve the resources.”

Google reported a 20% growth in water use in the same period, which Ren also largely attributes to its AI work. Google’s spike wasn’t uniform — it was steady in Oregon, where its water use has attracted public attention, while doubling outside Las Vegas. It was also thirsty in Iowa, drawing more potable water to its Council Bluffs data centers than anywhere else.

In response to questions from The Associated Press, Microsoft said in a statement this week that it is investing in research to measure AI’s energy and carbon footprint “while working on ways to make large systems more efficient, in both training and application.”

“We will continue to monitor our emissions, accelerate progress while increasing our use of clean energy to power data centers, purchasing renewable energy, and other efforts to meet our sustainability goals of being carbon negative, water positive and zero waste by 2030,” the company’s statement said.

OpenAI echoed those comments in its own statement Friday, saying it’s giving “considerable thought” to the best use of computing power.

“We recognize training large models can be energy and water-intensive” and work to improve efficiencies, it said.

Microsoft made its first $1 billion investment in San Francisco-based OpenAI in 2019, more than two years before the startup introduced ChatGPT and sparked worldwide fascination with AI advancements. As part of the deal, the software giant would supply computing power needed to train the AI models.

To do at least some of that work, the two companies looked to West Des Moines, Iowa, a city of 68,000 people where Microsoft has been amassing data centers to power its cloud computing services for more than a decade. Its fourth and fifth data centers are due to open there later this year.

“They’re building them as fast as they can,” said Steve Gaer, who was the city’s mayor when Microsoft came to town. Gaer said the company was attracted to the city’s commitment to building public infrastructure and contributed a “staggering” sum of money through tax payments that support that investment.

“But, you know, they were pretty secretive on what they’re doing out there,” he said.

Microsoft first said it was developing one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers for OpenAI in 2020, declining to reveal its location to the AP at the time but describing it as a “single system” with more than 285,000 cores of conventional semiconductors and 10,000 graphics processors — a kind of chip that’s become crucial to AI workloads.

Experts have said it can make sense to “pretrain” an AI model at a single location because of the large amounts of data that need to be transferred between computing cores.

It wasn’t until late May that Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, disclosed that it had built its “advanced AI supercomputing data center” in Iowa, exclusively to enable OpenAI to train what has become its fourth-generation model, GPT-4. The model now powers premium versions of ChatGPT and some of Microsoft’s own products and has accelerated a debate about containing AI’s societal risks.

“It was made by these extraordinary engineers in California, but it was really made in Iowa,” Smith said.

In some ways, West Des Moines is a relatively efficient place to train a powerful AI system, especially compared to Microsoft’s data centers in Arizona, which consume far more water for the same computing demand.

“So if you are developing AI models within Microsoft, then you should schedule your training in Iowa instead of in Arizona,” Ren said. “In terms of training, there’s no difference. In terms of water consumption or energy consumption, there’s a big difference.”

For much of the year, Iowa’s weather is cool enough for Microsoft to use outside air to keep the supercomputer running properly and vent heat out of the building. Only when the temperature exceeds 29.3 degrees Celsius (about 85 degrees Fahrenheit) does it withdraw water, the company has said in a public disclosure.
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United Russia Headquarters Burned Out in Occupied Ukraine

Posted on by SeeEU

The United Russia political party headquarters in the Russian-occupied city of Polohy, Zaporizhzhia oblast, in Ukraine was destroyed Friday, The Kyiv Independent reported Saturday.

Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov announced the incident on Telegram. Federov said the Russians were “burned out” of the building. The incident coincided with the “hellish pseudo-elections” in Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine, he said.

Russia has claimed to annex Ukraine’s Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk oblasts.

Ukraine’s armed forces are making “gradual tactical advances” against Russia’s defensive line east of the town of Robotyne, the British Defense Ministry said Saturday in its daily intelligence update on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The update, posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, also indicated that it is “highly likely” Russia has taken forces from other areas of the front line “to replace degraded units” near Robotyne. The redeployments, the ministry said, are “likely limiting” Russia’s capacity for executing offensive operations in other frontline areas and are “highly likely” indicative of pressure on Russia’s defensive lines, especially around Robotyne.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in a letter last month that Russia would be eligible to apply for membership and access to the SWIFT banking system for food and fertilizer transactions.

The Russian Agricultural Bank subsidiary in Luxembourg could immediately apply to SWIFT to “effectively enable access” for the bank to the international payments system within 30 days, the United Nations told Russia in a letter, seen by Reuters on Friday.

In an effort to persuade Moscow to return to the U.N.-brokered Black Sea Grain Initiative that had allowed the safe export through the Black Sea of Ukrainian grain, Guterres outlined four measures the United Nations could facilitate to improve Russia’s grain and fertilizer exports.

Guteres told Lavrov the U.N. was immediately ready to move on all measures “based on the clear understanding that their application would lead to the Russian Federation’s return to the Black Sea Initiative and the full resumption of operations.”

A key Russian demand has been the reconnection of the Russian Agricultural Bank, Rosselkhozbank, to the SWIFT system. It was cut off by the European Union in June of last year after Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine.

The Russian Foreign Ministry expressed skepticism in a statement Wednesday at the U.N. chief’s proposals.

“Instead of actual exemptions from sanctions, all Russia got was a new dose of promises from the U.N. Secretariat,” it said. “These recent proposals do not contain any new elements and cannot serve as a foundation for making any tangible progress in terms of bringing our agricultural exports back to normal.”

Russia exited the deal in July, a year after it was brokered by the U.N. and Turkey to combat a global food crisis the U.N. said was worsened by Russia’s invasion. Ukraine and Russia are both leading grain exporters.

In other developments, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday that Russian leader Vladimir Putin masterminded the death of Wagner mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, who died in an unexplained plane crash with his top lieutenants last month.

Zelenskyy did not provide evidence to back up the claim he made in passing during a conference in Kyiv when he was asked a question about the Russian president.

“The fact that he killed Prigozhin — at least that’s the information we all have, not any other kind — that also speaks to his rationality, and about the fact that he is weak,” Zelenskyy said.

The Kremlin says all possible causes of the crash will be investigated, including the possibility of foul play. It has called the suggestion that Putin ordered the deaths of Prigozhin and his men an “absolute lie.”

Prigozhin led a short-lived mutiny in Russia in June that Putin characterized as treasonous and a “stab in the back.”
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US, India, Saudi, EU to Unveil Rail, Ports Deal on G20 Sidelines, Official Says

Posted on by SeeUS

A multinational rail and ports deal linking the Middle East and South Asia will be announced Saturday on the sidelines of the G20 summit in New Delhi, a White House official said.

The pact comes at a critical time as U.S. President Joe Biden seeks to counter China’s Belt and Road push on global infrastructure by pitching Washington as an alternative partner and investor for developing countries at the G20 grouping.

The deal will benefit low and middle-income countries in the region and enable a critical role for the Middle East in global commerce, Jon Finer, the U.S. deputy national security adviser, told reporters at the bloc’s annual summit in New Delhi.

It aims to link Middle East countries by railway and connect them to India by port, helping the flow of energy and trade from the Gulf to Europe, U.S. officials have said, by cutting shipping times, costs and fuel use.

A memorandum of understanding for the deal will be signed by the European Union, India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the United States and other G20 partners, Finer said.

“Linking these key regions, we think, is a huge opportunity,” said Finer. No immediate details of the value of the deal were available.

The move comes amid U.S. efforts for a broader diplomatic deal in the Middle East that would have Saudi Arabia recognize Israel.

From the U.S. viewpoint, Finer added, the deal helps “turn the temperature down across the region” and “address a conflict where we see it.”
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For US Government, Art in Federal Buildings Is a Must

Posted on by SeeUS

Budget for new public buildings includes allotment for original artworks
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As G20 Opens, India’s Modi says African Union to Join Group

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The African Union has been granted permanent member status in the Group of 20 top world economies, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Saturday, adding momentum to his drive to give a greater voice to the Global South as host of this year’s annual summit.

The announcement during Modi’s opening speech for the weekend summit of the G20 comes as growing global rifts and the absence of key players threatened to make reaching consensus on the thorniest issues elusive.

There was widespread support, however, for adding the AU to the G20, making it the second regional bloc to become a permanent member after the European Union.

Modi rapped his gavel three times before announcing the move to applause in the room.

He shook hands with the current AU chair, Comoros President Azali Assoumani, and embraced him warmly before inviting him to sit at the table.

“I invite the representative of the African Union to take his place as a permanent member of the G20,” Modi said.

Modi addressed the delegates from behind a nameplate that listed his country not as India but as “Bharat,” an ancient Sanskrit name championed by his Hindu nationalist supporters that his government has been pushing at the G20.

Modi has made giving voice to the Global South a centerpiece of this year’s summit, and adding the AU at the outset was a strong step in that direction.

He told leaders that they must find “concrete solutions” to the widespread challenges that he said stemmed from the “ups and downs in the global economy, the north and the south divide, the chasm between the east and the west,” and other issues like terrorism, cyber security, health and water security.

With much of the world’s focus on the Russian war against Ukraine, India has been working to try and direct more attention to addressing the needs of the developing world at the summit — though it is impossible to decouple many issues, such as food and energy security, from the European conflict.

Modi did make a presumed reference to the war in his opening remarks, though he avoided mentioning the names of any countries involved.

“Friends, after COVID-19, the world is facing problems of trust deficit,” he said. “The war has further deepened this trust deficit. If we can beat COVID, we can also triumph over the trust deficit caused by the war,” he said.

As the summit opened, at least a fifth of G20 heads were not in New Delhi. The leaders of Russia and China opted not to come, ensuring no tough face-to-face conversations with their American and European counterparts over multiple disputes, most acutely the war in Ukraine. Spain’s president couldn’t make it due to COVID-19, and Mexico’s president decided to miss it, too.

A series of preparatory meetings leading to this weekend’s meeting failed to produce agreements due to increasingly fractious rifts among the world’s global powers, largely due to differences over Ukraine. Ending the summit without such a statement would underscore how strained relations have become and tarnish the image Modi has tried to cultivate of India as a global problem solver.

Participants arriving in the Indian capital were greeted by streets cleared of traffic, and graced with fresh flowers and seemingly endless posters featuring slogans and Modi’s face. Security was intensely tight, with most journalists and the public kept far from the summit venue.

Along with the addition of the AU as a permanent member, other major topics on the agenda were issues critical to developing nations, including alternative fuels like hydrogen, resource efficiency, developing a common framework for digital public infrastructure and food security.

Countries were also expected to address reforming development banks like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to help make funds more accessible for lower- and middle-income countries as they seek solutions to combat climate change, among other things.

India’s lead G20 negotiator, Amitabh Kant, told reporters that boosting climate action and climate financing were key priorities, particularly for developing and emerging markets.

“It was critical that we focused on multilateral organizations and how to redefine and reform them,” he said. “Our view was that Global South, developing countries, emerging markets must be able to get long-term financing.”

With so many other issues on the table, Human Rights Watch urged the G20 leaders not to let international disunity distract them at the summit.

“Political differences should not deter agreements on critical issues impacting human rights such as the sovereign debt crises, social protection programs, food security, climate change, or internet freedom,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy director of the organization’s Asia division.

Ganguly added that members should not “shy away from openly discussing challenges like gender discrimination, racism and other entrenched barriers to equality, including with host India, where civil and political rights have sharply deteriorated under the Modi administration.”

The summit comes just days after Russian President Vladimir Putin said a landmark deal allowing Ukraine to export grain safely through the Black Sea will not be restored until Western nations meet his demands on Russia’s own agricultural exports.

The original deal had been brokered by the U.N. and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but Russia refused to extend it in July, complaining that a parallel agreement promising to remove obstacles to Russian exports of food and fertilizer hadn’t been honored.

Russia dispatched Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov as its top representative to the G20. Erdogan himself was on hand in the Indian capital and others said ahead of the summit that they hoped to be able to find solutions, even as Russia’s military keeps up its attacks on Ukraine’s ports.

European Council President Charles Michel told reporters in New Delhi on Friday it was “scandalous” that Russia was blocking and attacking Ukrainian ports after terminating the grain deal.

“The Kremlin’s war is also unraveling lives far beyond Ukraine, including right here in South Asia,” he said. “Over 250 million people face acute food insecurity worldwide and by deliberately attacking Ukraine’s ports, the Kremlin is depriving them of the food they desperately need.”

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he hoped to marshal international resources to counteract the impact of Russia’s moves on the global food supply. His government has announced London will host a global food security summit in November in response to Moscow’s actions.

Alternatives could include land routes or taking grain out of Ukraine by river barge.

Sunak’s government has also said Royal Air Force aircraft will fly over the Black Sea as part of efforts to deter Russia from striking cargo ships transporting grain from Ukraine to developing countries.

Hundreds of Tibetan exiles held a protest far from the summit venue to condemn Chinese participation in the event and urge leaders to discuss Sino-Tibetan relations.

Before the meeting got formally under way, Modi met with U.S. President Joe Biden shortly after his arrival Friday evening.

White House aide Kurt Campbell told reporters afterward that there was an “undeniable warmth and confidence between the two leaders.”

Leaders of the U.S., India, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were working to finalize a joint infrastructure deal involving ship and rail transit between India and the Middle East to Turkey and beyond, in hopes it could be announced in New Delhi during the summit.

Campbell called the emerging deal a potentially “earth-shattering” project and said that “the strongest supporter of this initiative is India.” In the past, Campbell said, India’s leaders have had “almost a knee jerk reaction” to resist such massive multilateral projects.

“It’s the last moment that’s when things come together or they don’t,” Campbell said. “With huge, enormous ambitious deals it always comes to this place.”

As Biden made his way to New Delhi, U.S. administration officials sought to play down that Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelenskyy wasn’t invited to address the G20.

The Ukrainian leader has made regular appearances, virtual and in-person, at such international forums since the start of the war more than 18 months ago to rally allies to remain committed to support Ukraine.
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Emotions Palpable at Pentagon Memorial 22 Years After 9/11 Attacks

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Sept. 11, 2001, seems like yesterday for the small group that gathered Friday at the Pentagon Courtyard to mark the 22nd annual memorial for those who perished in the attack.

Those in attendance knew the 184 people who were killed at the Pentagon more than two decades ago.

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, 19 al-Qaida terrorists launched the worst attack on American soil since Japan’s assault on Pearl Harbor in 1941. They hijacked four commercial airplanes and effectively turned the jetliners into explosive precision missiles for their suicide mission. The first plane crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. Sixteen minutes later, a second plane hit the South Tower. New Yorkers abandoned their cars in rush-hour traffic and watched as the towers collapsed.

Yet another plane smashed into the Pentagon, headquarters of the Department of Defense in Arlington, Virginia. The final hijacked plane was destined for the Capitol but went down in western Pennsylvania after passengers tried unsuccessfully to wrest control of the cockpit. Nearly 3,000 people from 93 countries died that day.

The Pentagon was ultimately repaired, and a new World Trade Center rose. But the attack’s scars, both literal and figurative, remain. Chaplain John Goodloe of the Armed Forces Retirement Home in Washington gave the invocation. “Our land needs healing, Oh God,” he prayed, stressing the importance of diversity and interfaith tolerance.

After remarks from Deputy Defense Director Sajeel Ahmed and Admiral Christopher Grady, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks delivered a keynote address.

“As someone who remembers vividly the course of my own steps right here at the Pentagon that day,” she said, “I can tell you: sharing these personal reflections remains hard.”

Hicks highlighted her colleagues’ heroism, echoing Ahmed’s remarks. All of the speakers shared a common message: resilience.

Hicks called on adults to continue an intergenerational dialogue. Young Americans, she said, must be taught to appreciate how the events of September 11 have changed the world around them, even if “[t]hey were too young [to remember] or hadn’t yet been born.”

“You are not alone,” she told an audience of surviving family members, first responders, and coworkers who were spared. “We have not forgotten about you or those we’ve lost. And we never will. Thank you.”

President Joe Biden plans to pay his respects at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, en route from India’s G20 summit and a diplomatic meeting in Hanoi.
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Powerful Earthquake Hits Morocco, Killing Hundreds

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A rare, powerful earthquake struck Morocco late Friday night, killing hundreds of people and damaging buildings from the historic city of Marrakech to villages in the Atlas Mountains.

Men, women and children stayed out in the streets, fearing aftershocks.

Morocco’s Interior Ministry said early Saturday that at least 296 people had died in the provinces near the quake. Additionally, 153 injured people were sent to hospitals for treatment. The ministry wrote that most damage occurred outside of cities and towns.

The head of the town of Talat N’Yaaqoub, Abderrahim Ait Daoud, told Moroccan news site 2M that several homes in towns in the Al Haouz region had partly or totally collapsed, and electricity and roads were cut off in some places.

He said authorities are working to clear roads in the province to allow passage for ambulances and aid to populations affected, but said large distances between mountain villages mean it will take time to learn the extent of the damage.

Moroccans posted videos showing buildings reduced to rubble and dust, and parts of the famous red walls that surround the old city in Marrakech, a UNESCO World Heritage site, damaged. Tourists and others posted videos of people screaming and evacuating restaurants in the city as throbbing club music played.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.8 when it hit at 11:11 p.m. (2211 GMT), with shaking that lasted several seconds. The U.S. agency reported a magnitude-4.9 aftershock hit 19 minutes later.

The USGS said the epicenter was 18 kilometers below the Earth’s surface, while Morocco’s seismic agency put it at 8 kilometers down. In either case, such shallow quakes are more dangerous.

The epicenter of Friday’s tremor was high in the Atlas Mountains, roughly 70 kilometers south of Marrakech. It was also near Toubkal, the highest peak in North Africa and Oukaimeden, a popular Moroccan ski resort.

Earthquakes are relatively rare in North Africa. Lahcen Mhanni, Head of the Seismic Monitoring and Warning Department at the National Institute of Geophysics, told 2M TV that the earthquake was “exceptional.”

“Mountainous regions in general do not produce earthquakes of this size,” he said. “It is the strongest earthquake recorded in the region.”

In 1960, a magnitude 5.8 tremor struck near the Moroccan city of Agadir and caused thousands of deaths.

The Agadir quake prompted changes in construction rules in Morocco, but many buildings, especially rural homes, are not built to withstand such tremors.

Friday’s quake was felt as far away as Portugal and Algeria, according to the Portuguese Institute for Sea and Atmosphere and Algeria’s Civil Defense agency, which oversees emergency response.
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New Chinese Immigrants Settle in US With Help From Chinese Community

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Since China reopened its borders in January, thousands of Chinese have traveled to the United States. Some have asked for asylum. Mike O’Sullivan reports from Los Angeles, where recent migrants are adapting to life in a new country.
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IRS Plans to Crack Down on 1,600 Millionaires for Back Taxes

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The IRS announced on Friday that it is launching an effort to aggressively pursue 1,600 millionaires and 75 large business partnerships that owe hundreds of millions of dollars in past due taxes.

IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel said that with a boost in federal funding and the help of artificial intelligence tools, the agency has new means of targeting wealthy people who have “cut corners” on their taxes.

“If you pay your taxes on time, it should be particularly frustrating when you see that wealthy filers are not,” Werfel told reporters in a call previewing the announcement. He said 1,600 millionaires who owe at least $250,000 each in back taxes and 75 large business partnerships that have assets of roughly $10 billion on average are targeted for the new “compliance efforts.”

Werfel said a massive hiring effort and AI research tools developed by IRS employees and contractors are playing a big role in identifying wealthy tax dodgers. The agency is trying to showcase positive results from its burst of new funding under President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration as Republicans in Congress look to claw back some of that money.

“New tools are helping us see patterns and trends that we could not see before, and as a result, we have higher confidence on where to look and find where large partnerships are shielding income,” he said.

In July, IRS leadership said it collected $38 million in delinquent taxes from more than 175 high-income taxpayers in the span of a few months. Now, the agency will scale up that effort, Werfel said.

“The IRS will have dozens of revenue officers focused on these high-end collection cases in fiscal year 2024,” he said.

A team of academic economists and IRS researchers in 2021 found that the top 1% of U.S. income earners fail to report more than 20% of their earnings to the IRS.

The newly announced tax collection effort will begin as soon as October. “We have more hiring to do,” Werfel said. “It’s going to be a very busy fall for us.”

Conservatives warn of more audits

Grover Norquist, who heads the conservative Americans for Tax Reform, said the IRS’s plan to pursue high-wealth individuals does not preclude the IRS from eventually pursuing middle-income Americans for audits down the road.

“This power and these resources allow them to go after anyone they want,” he said. “The next step is to go after anyone they wish to target for political purposes.”

Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, said the IRS’s new plan is a “big deal” that “represents a fresh approach to taking on sophisticated tax cheats.”

“This action goes to the heart of Democrats’ effort to ensure the wealthiest are paying their fair share,” he said in a statement.

David Williams, of the right-leaning nonprofit Taxpayers Protection Alliance, said that “every business and every person should pay their taxes — full stop.” However, “I just hope this isn’t used as a justification to hire thousands of new agents” who would audit Americans en masse, he said.

Inflation Reduction Act funds effort

The federal tax collector gained the enhanced ability to identify tax delinquents with resources provided by the Inflation Reduction Act, which Biden signed into law in August 2022. The agency was in line for an $80 billion infusion under the law, but that money is vulnerable to potential cutbacks by Congress.

House Republicans built a $1.4 billion reduction to the IRS into the debt ceiling and budget cuts package passed by Congress this summer. The White House said the debt deal also has a separate agreement to take $20 billion from the IRS over the next two years and divert that money to other nondefense programs.

With the threat of a government shutdown looming in a dispute over spending levels, there is the potential for additional cuts to the agency.
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Britain Marks Anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s Death

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Britain on Friday marked one year since the passing of Queen Elizabeth II. As Henry Ridgwell reports from London, polls show her successor, King Charles III, faces a challenge to keep the monarchy relevant and popular among younger generations. Camera: Henry Ridgwell.
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India Basks in Glow of International Attention at G20

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President Joe Biden received a warm welcome in India’s capital Friday upon his arrival for a summit of the leaders of the Group of 20 major and developing economies.

“I’m happy to be here,” he appeared to say as he stepped off Air Force One, while classical Indian dancers moved to a Hindi-laced hip hop track on the New Delhi tarmac.

Biden headed straight into a private one-on-one meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Press were given limited access to the meeting, where the two reaffirmed, in a lengthy statement, “the close and enduring partnership between India and the United States.”

In the statement, the two leaders “called on their governments to continue the work of transforming the India-U.S. Strategic Partnership across all dimensions of our multifaceted global agenda, based on trust and mutual understanding.”

They also “re-emphasized that the shared values of freedom, democracy, human rights, inclusion, pluralism, and equal opportunities for all citizens are critical to the success our countries enjoy and that these values strengthen our relationship.”

On Saturday, Biden and other heads of state take part in the G20 summit, where they are expected to cover issues ranging from the war in Ukraine to climate change.

When asked by VOA what Indians expected from the historic summit, many were quick to say: results.

“I really wish that we have a takeaway from the G20,” said Sabina Samad, 40, a lifelong Delhi resident, who cited climate change among her concerns. “Maybe something good for humanity.”

“Are you optimistic or pessimistic?” VOA asked.

“Both,” she said.

Inderjit Singh runs a small electronics shop founded by his father in 1961.

“The most important thing, what I feel is, trade,” he told VOA. “On the economic front we should have very, very good relations. The trade should increase so there should be economic prosperity between all the G20 nations. And ease of travel of the people – people to people contact, that is very important.”

Some Delhi residents remarked on the tight security and the capital’s unusually quiet streets.

“I love the makeover that Delhi has got. I just wonder where the dogs and the beggars have gone, but I’m sure they’re in a great place,” said Ambika Anand, 42, a social-media influencer.

As for India being taken seriously on the world stage, some noted the need for greater alignment between Washington and New Delhi.

“I think U.S. is taking India very, very seriously,” said Singh, the shop owner. “Because at the moment, I think it is geopolitical also, they have not very good relations with China. … So the only option within South Asia is India. It’s a compulsion.”

Mohini Gujral is a retiree, born in 1949, the year India and Pakistan separated. She says she’s seen many changes in her lifetime.

“Now [the U.S. is] taking India seriously,” she said. “Before I don’t think we had so much of a say in the world. That’s what I feel.”

Top U.S. officials are also attending the G20, which they say is a key forum for developed and developing nations alike.

“I think it’s important to emphasize that the G20 is a prime contributor to the solution of global challenges,” said Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. “We see it as the premier organization that on a global basis is taking on critical challenges facing the global economy and particularly the ‘Global South.’”
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International Team Tries Rescue of US Explorer in Turkey

Posted on by SeeEU

An international team of at least 150 rescuers gathered at a Turkish cave Friday and prepared to try to bring out a U.S. explorer who fell ill nearly a week ago while exploring more than 1,000 meters underground.

Mark Dickey, 40, was exploring Morca Cave near Anamur, Turkey, in the Taurus Mountains with a team of about 12 others last Saturday when he fell ill with what was determined to be internal bleeding.

At a depth of 1,040 meters, Dickey was unable to climb out on his own. The Turkish Caving Federation said the team alerted the European Cave Rescue Association.

A Hungarian rescue team that includes a doctor reached Dickey this week, was able to get him medicine and blood infusions, and was monitoring him at a base camp.

Dickey appeared in a video message that the rescuers recorded and released Friday. He appeared to be in good spirits but said he “was not healed on the inside yet” and would need a lot of help climbing out of the cave.

The head of the Turkish search-and-rescue team, Recep Salci, told the Reuters news agency Friday that Dickey was stable enough to be moved but that the operation would likely take several days.

Salci said that getting to Dickey’s location involves many narrow passages and descents where a rope must be used. Some areas can be accessed only by crawling.

Salci said it takes a healthy caver 12 hours to get down to the location and 16 hours to climb up. He said some areas would require explosives to widen.

Salci said many of the operations were already being carried out.

In his video message, Dickey thanked the Turkish government and others who reached him initially with medical supplies, which he said saved his life. He also thanked the international community of cave explorers who have responded.

The European Cave Rescue Association said teams from Turkey, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Italy and Poland arrived at the scene over the course of the last week. How long the rescue mission will take depends on whether Dickey will require a stretcher on the way out, Werner Zegler, the association’s vice president, told VOA in an interview.

Zegler estimated that it would take three or four days if Dickey did not need a stretcher and up to two weeks if he did. According to Zegler, there were more than 100 rescuers on site. If initial extraction efforts fail, more might be necessary, he said.

Ivana Konstantinovic of VOA’s Serbian Service contributed to this report. Some information came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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Analysts: Regional Leaders Unlikely to Call for Bongo’s Reinstatement

Posted on by SeeAF

Experts say it is unlikely that regional leaders in Central Africa and the international community will be enthusiastic in calling for the  reinstatement of deposed Gabon leader Ali Bongo Ondimba.

Gabon’s military leaders announced Bongo’s release from house arrest Thursday, following an apparent coup on August 30. State-run media showed Bongo greeting officials as the military leaders announced that he was “free to travel” abroad.

On the same day, Gabon’s military leaders appointed Raymond Ndong Sima, an outspoken critic of the former president and a former opposition leader who ran against Bongo in this year’s elections, as interim prime minister. Sima, 68, is an economist who previously served as Bongo’s prime minister from 2012 to 2014.

Less than a week after the coup, the military leaders, calling themselves the Committee for the Transition and Restoration of Institutions, named General Brice Oligui Nguema, commander-in-chief of the Gabonese Republican Guard, as transitional head of state.

David Otto-Endeley, director of the Geneva Center for African Security and Strategic Studies, said that reactions to the leadership appointment from the regional bloc, the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), might go only as far as a condemnation.

ECCAS criticized the military’s move a day after the coup, saying in a statement that it planned an “imminent” meeting of heads of state to determine how to respond. The regional bloc did not give a date.

“I think there’s no general desire in a democratic era to see leaders who run in perpetuity in power. This is more or less a dynasty” within “some kind of democratic institution,” Otto-Endeley told VOA’s English to Africa Service. “The international community will be a lot more careful as compared to countries like Niger, where it was clearly a democratically elected president that was overthrown.

“Gabon has been seen as some kind of a handover — from father to son and son to father.”

He said a rule introduced in July, less than two months before Gabon’s national elections, put the main opposition candidates — the Alternance 2023 alliance — at a “disadvantage” because it had not fielded candidates for parliamentary elections.

Otto-Endeley also noted that Saturday’s internet shutdown and a curfew in the aftermath of the election gave troubling signals.

“I think the signs were clearly written on the wall,” he said. “We’re experiencing another coup pandemic. It’s a replica of what we’ve experienced lately in Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, Guinea and Sudan, but this time, the dynamics are quite different.”

End of dynastic rule

Otto-Endeley said he thought the Bongo dynasty, which has ruled the Central African state since 1967, coupled with the country’s lack of constitutional term limits, validated theories that Ali Bongo “had this coming.”

“The military has been used for regime protection in most of the dynasties that have stayed for long. And now, the military is seeing itself as the only hope that can liberate the country from this dynasty rule,” he said. “It seems the beast that the government has been using to attack the population is now eating its owners.”

Maja Bovcon, senior Africa analyst at the London-based risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft, agreed that there was no interest on the global community’s part in seeking a return of Bongo to power.

“The international community and regional bodies are unlikely to go beyond condemning the coup and demanding the restoration of civilian rule,” she told VOA. “They are aware of the lack of public support for President Ali Bongo and the contentious conditions in which the latest elections were conducted.”

Bovcon said that “the putsch in Gabon, along with the spate of coups across the region, will put long-serving autocratic leaders on alert.”

Cameroonian President Paul Biya and his Rwandan counterpart, Paul Kagame, have reportedly reshuffled their military’s leadership since Gabon’s coup. It is not clear whether the changes were connected to the developments in Gabon.

Andrea Ngombet, founder of the Paris-based Sassoufit Collective, an organization that promotes democracy, human rights and anti-corruption efforts across the continent, told VOA that at the heart of the military takeover in Gabon was the desire to quash the “dynastic reign of the Bongo family.”

He said the coup was a message to multinational companies and international partners who operate in the country that they “cannot continue to do business as usual,” adding that if global condemnation against the military takeover wasn’t measured, there would be a risk of driving the Gabonese people to foreign powers like Russia and China.

“If we condemn the coup — just because it is a coup — we will push [the Gabonese people] away to the likes of the Wagner mercenary group, Russia and China,” he told VOA, because the “fundamental needs” of the Gabonese are restoring democracy and sovereignty and securing social and economic justice.

This report originated in VOA’s English to Africa Service. English to Africa’s Hayde Adams contributed.
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Zimbabwe’s Mnangagwa Reappoints Controversial Vice President  

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Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa reappointed Kembo Mohadi on Friday as one of his two vice presidents. Mohadi had resigned from the same post two years ago, following media reports he had engaged in improper sexual relationships with married women, including one of his subordinates.

Mohadi and Constantino Chiwenga took the oath of office at the State House to be Zimbabwe’s two vice presidents for the next five years.

After being sworn in, Mohadi said only, “I am here to serve the nation. I have been serving the nation since the coming in of the second republic and will continue to do so.”

Chiwenga said it was a great day for Zimbabweans as a new year is starting.

“We start now a new year for government,” he said, “which we are going to start with zeal, energy and strength to build the Zimbabwe that we want in support of our president and his vision, which he has pronounced to the people of Zimbabwe, to Africa and the world at large: that Zimbabwe will be an upper-middle-income society by 2030.”

Some Zimbabweans took to social media to condemn Mnangagwa for reappointing Mohadi, given his history, but no one was willing to talk with VOA about it.

Linda Masarira, founder of the opposition Labor, Economists and African Democrats, said she was concerned about the absence of a female vice president.

“Consideration should be done especially when appointing executives of this country, taking into consideration that 54 percent of the voting population are women,” she said. “But we continue to structurally undermine women’s rights and women’s participation. … We are just demanding for at least one female president, a gender-balanced cabinet. There is no democracy without women. We will not tire to demand what is rightfully ours and what belongs to the women’s movement in Zimbabwe.”

Harare-based independent political analyst Gibson Nyikadzino said Mnangagwa appointed the two men to ensure that his goals are fulfilled in his final term.

“This is to ensure that the two vice presidents are going to be delegated the agenda to spear[head] the policy and vision of the president so that they pull in one direction,” he said.

Mnangagwa, who defeated Nelson Chamisa of the Citizens Coalition for Change in the disputed August 23 general election, is now expected to appoint ministers to make his cabinet full and lead Zimbabwe in his second and final term.
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UN Chief: Global Family ‘Dysfunctional’

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U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Friday that global divisions are growing, risking catastrophic fragmentation and confrontation.

He told reporters at the G20 summit in New Delhi that the gathering’s theme – One Earth, One Family, One Future – resonates today not just as an ideal but as an indictment of the times.

“Because if we are indeed one global family – we today resemble a rather dysfunctional one,” he said. “Divisions are growing, tensions are flaring up and trust is eroding – which together raise the specter of fragmentation, and ultimately, confrontation.”

He said such divisions are very concerning in the best of times, but in the present, “it spells catastrophe.”

Guterres noted a list of challenges facing the international community, including accelerating climate change, a multiplicity of wars and conflicts, growing poverty and hunger, and the risks from new technologies. He emphasized that the outdated multilateral institutions of the post-World War II era need to evolve to meet 21st-century challenges.

“We need effective international institutions rooted in 21st-century realities and based on the U.N. Charter and international law,” he said. “That is why I have been advocating for bold steps to make those global institutions truly universal and representative of today’s realities, and more responsive to the needs of developing economies.”

Later this month, Guterres will convene summits on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly to address climate action, sustainable development, and pandemic prevention and preparedness.

He hopes to get leaders, particularly from G20 nations, which are responsible for 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions, to make bold commitments, including ending all licensing or funding of new fossil fuel projects and fulfilling financing pledges to help developing economies mitigate and adapt to climate change.

On the development front, the secretary-general is aiming for an ambitious stimulus of at least $500 billion a year toward the U.N.’s sustainable development goals. Many of the 17 goals that are focused on ending poverty are off-track to meet targets by 2030.

“All of this is within reach, but it will take all hands,” he said. “No nation, no region, no group – not even the G20 – can do it alone. We must act together as one family to save our one Earth and safeguard our one future.”
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British Police Confirm First Credible Sighting of Escaped Terror Suspect

Posted on by SeeEU

London’s Metropolitan Police on Friday reported the first confirmed sighting of a terror suspect who escaped Wednesday from a London medium-security prison and is now the subject of a nationwide manhunt. 

A former British soldier, 21-year-old Daniel Abed Khalife, is believed to have escaped from HMP Wandsworth by leaving the prison kitchen, where he was working, and fastening himself to the bottom of a food delivery van. 

In a release, the Metropolitan Police said they received information from a member of the public who said they saw a man fitting Khalife’s description walking away from a food delivery van that had stopped not far from the prison shortly after his escape. The man was then seen walking toward Wandsworth town center.

London police also confirmed Friday they were carrying out an extensive search of Richmond Park in London’s southwest. The search included 150 officers, The Independent newspaper reports, quoting Metropolitan Pollice Commissioner Mark Rowl.

Discharged from the British army in May, Khalife was awaiting trial on offenses related to terrorism and violations of the Official Secrets Act. He is accused of planting fake bombs at an army base in England and, the BBC reported, collecting sensitive personal information about soldiers from a British Defense Ministry database. 

He is also charged with obtaining information that might be “directly or indirectly useful to an enemy.” The BBC reported that enemy was Iran. Khalife has denied the charges.

British Justice Minister Alex Chalk briefed Parliament on the escape Thursday and promised an immediate investigation into the prison’s protocols and the decision about where Khalife was held. He said a second independent investigation will take place at a later date.

“No stone must be left unturned in getting to the bottom of what happened,” Chalk said.

Some information in this report was provided by Reuters and The Associated Press. 
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New White House Situation Room: Cutting-Edge Tech, Mahogany and That New Car Smell

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The White House Situation Room — a space of great mystique and even greater secrecy — just got a $50 million facelift. 

Actually, “room” is a misnomer. It’s a 5,500-square-foot (511-square-meter), highly secure complex of conference rooms and offices on the ground floor of the West Wing. 

These are rooms where history happens, where the president meets with national security officials to discuss secret operations and sensitive government matters, speaks with foreign leaders and works through major national security crises. 

Where President Barack Obama and his team watched the raid that took down al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in 2011. Where President Donald Trump monitored the 2019 operation that killed Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Where President Lyndon Johnson went over Vietnam War plans. 

 

The latest redo was no small update: The total gut renovation took a year to complete. 

The White House opened the classified space to a group of reporters this week for a rare visit to check out the new look. President Joe Biden got a tour on Tuesday and then received an intelligence briefing in the space, said Marc Gustafson, the Situation Room director. 

“He loved it, he thought the update was fantastic,” Gustafson said. 

“Folks, the newly renovated White House Situation Room is up and running,” Biden said in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “My thanks to everyone who worked on this incredible facility.”

The renovated space has a modern-but-vintage vibe. Old floors, furniture, computers and other tech were stripped out and replaced with pristine mahogany paneling from Maryland, stonework from a Virginia quarry, LED lights that can change colors and flat-screen panels. See-through glass offices fade to opaque with the press of a button. The whole space has that new car smell. 

But there are still plenty of landline phones: No cellphones are allowed in the secure space for security reasons. (There are cubbies to stow phones near a door leading outside, where a baggie with some cocaine was found earlier this year.) 

Access is tightly controlled and generally restricted to the president’s national security and military advisers. Anyone listening in on classified briefings needs clearance. Even the contractors working on the renovation had to get temporary security clearances. Illuminated signs flash green for declassified and red for classified. 

The hush-hush complex was created in 1961 by the Kennedy administration after the Bay of Pigs invasion. President John F. Kennedy believed there should be a dedicated crisis management center where officials could coordinate intelligence faster and better. 

That was an upgrade, to be sure. But it wasn’t exactly comfortable: Nixon administration national security adviser and then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger described the space as “uncomfortable, unaesthetic and essentially oppressive.” 

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the White House did a significant Situation Room update, along with a broader upgrade to presidential communications on Air Force One and the presidential helicopter. Presidents used the complex for secure video conferences before such tech became more portable. The last renovation was in 2007. 

The complex is staffed around the clock by military and civilian personnel who monitor breaking developments worldwide. 

It has a reception area with a U.S. seal in stonework. Behind that is the main conference room, known as the “JFK room.” To the right are a smaller conference room and two soundproof “breakout rooms.” To the left is the “watch floor,” a 24-7 operations center. 

“It’s a marriage of the traditional and the modern,” Gustafson said of the new space. 

Workers dug five feet underground to make more room and install cutting-edge technology allowing White House officials to bring together intelligence from different agencies with the push of a few buttons. 

“Now we have all the capabilities,” Gustafson said. 

For those in the know, referring to the “sit room” is out. It’s the “whizzer,” stemming from the complex’s acronym: WHSR. (Washington does love a good acronym.) 

Gustafson said the goal is to never need a complete renovation again. The new space was designed so panels can be removed and updated and new technology swapped in, usually with less space needs. A room once taken up by computer servers has become a smaller conference room. 

The JFK room has a long wooden table with six leather chairs on each side and one at the head for the president. Leather armchairs line the walls. A giant, high-tech screen runs the length of the back wall. A 2-foot (0.6-meter) seal is positioned at the president’s end of the room, larger than the old seal. 

There aren’t many photos of the Situation Room, but one of the most famous is the image of Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Vice President Biden and others watching the bin Laden operation. 

That took place around the corner from the JFK room in a smaller conference room that no longer exists. It’s been cut out entirely from the space and sent off to Obama’s presidential library, Gustafson said. In its place are two smaller rooms. 

Another item preserved for history is an old phone booth that stood in the complex. It was sent to storage for Biden’s eventual presidential library. Gustafson didn’t know if anything had been sent to Trump. 

Gustafson said staff members have to be ready to prepare rooms for classified briefings on a moment’s notice, and Biden has been known to pop in to meetings unexpectedly, particularly as Russia was invading Ukraine. 

While the area was closed for renovation, White House officials used other secure spots on the campus. Gustafson said the renovated Situation Room is having a soft opening of sorts: About 60% of the staff are back in the space with more coming every day. 

 

Gustafson said visitors previously remarked that the room didn’t reflect Hollywood’s grand imagining of the space. 

He said they now declare: “This looks like the movies.” 
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Death Toll Rises as Greece Grapples With Storm Daniel

Posted on by SeeEU

Rescue crews have begun airlifting hundreds of people trapped in dozens of Greek hamlets after four days of cataclysmic rainfall left at least 7 people dead and an unknown number missing.

Rains from Daniel, the worst storm to hit Greece in 75 years, turned small streets in the country’s farming heartland of Thessaly into waterways that uprooted village huts. Rivers swelled, dams burst, and bridges broke.

Hardest hit has been the region of Karditsa, where six people, all elderly women and shepherds, were found under mounds of debris, washed away by floodwaters in their attempt to evacuate their homes. 

Officially, six people remain missing, but locals and crew contacted by VOA predict greater numbers. In the village of Palamas alone, on the outskirts of Karditsa, residents phoning into local TV stations spoke of more than 60 villagers missing on Friday.

Authorities liken the storm to what they call a “biblical catastrophe,” placing several parts of the Thessaly plain in a state of emergency, and allowing the country’s military to be called in to help on Thursday.

But by then, Daniel had wreaked unprecedented damage, and left the nation angry about the government’s delayed response. 

Emergency services on Friday were seen using divers, lifeboats and 80 all-weather military helicopters to reach stranded people across Thessaly, mainly in Karditsa.

Sofia, an elderly woman who managed to escape to a relative’s home, described the horror of her ordeal.

“I was left on the rooftop of my home for days before someone came with a plastic life raft and helped me down,” she said. “I would have drowned, because the water had reached 2 meters high.”

Like thousands of others in the region, Sofia said she received no notification to evacuate and seek safety on higher ground. 

“I am left with nothing. Zero,” she said. “The government now has to help us.”

Other farmers, including Christos Theodoropoulos, are mad.

“Nothing is left. Nothing,” he shouted. “No official has come to help us. I am embarrassed that this is 2023 and this has happened.”

In 2020, the region was hit by a ferocious cyclone. 

But since then, locals say authorities have failed to build necessary infrastructure to shield the region — leaving it, thousands of residents and livestock at the mercy of nature.  
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World Public Broadcasters Say Switch From Analog to Digital Radio, TV Remains Slow

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Members of the International Radio and Television Union from about 50 countries, meeting this week in the Cameroonian capital, Yaounde, say a lack of infrastructure and human and financial resources remains a major obstacle to the switch from analog to digital broadcasting in public media, especially in Africa.

They are asking governments and funding agencies to assist with digitalization, which they say is necessary in the changing media landscape. More than half of Africa’s media is yet to fully digitalize.

Increasing reports of cross-interference between broadcasting and telecom services is a direct consequence of switchover delays, they said.

Professor Amin Alhassan, director general of Ghana Broadcasting Corp., says most African broadcasters are not serving their audiences and staying as relevant as they should because of the slow pace of digital transformation.

“Public media stations across the world are very old,” Alhassan said. “They have heavy investments in analog media and also analog media expertise. Our staff are used to analog systems, and to translate it into digital ecosystems is a challenge.

“Our challenge is how do you transform our existing staff to have a mindset change to understand the operations of digital media,” he said.

The International Telecommunication Union, or ITU, says digital broadcasting allows stations to offer higher definition video and better sound quality than analog. Digital broadcasting also offers multiple channels of programming on the same frequency.

In 2006, the ITU set June 2015 as the deadline for all broadcast stations in the world transmitting on the UHF band used for television broadcasting to switch from analog to digital. A five-year extension, to June 2020, was given for VHF band stations, mostly used in FM broadcasting, to switch over.

But the International Radio and Television Union says most of Africa missed the deadline, did not turn off analog television signals and is missing the advantages of digital broadcasting.

Mauritius, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda are among the first African countries to complete the switch.

South Africa said in 2022 it would switch to digital TV on March 31, 2023. Jacqueline Hlongwane, programming manager of SABC, South Africa’s public broadcaster who attended the Yaounde meeting, said the switchover process is still ongoing after the deadline.

“Towards the end of last year, just before the soccer World Cup, we were able to launch our own OTT platform,” she said, referring to “over the top” technology that delivers streamed content over the internet.

“We are really, really excited about this because it’s been something that we’ve been working on for a very, very long time,” she said. “South African audiences for now can get access to content, which means that as a public broadcaster, we are also moving towards digitization of content.”

Public broadcasters say governments and funding agencies should help them with infrastructure and human and financial resources to increase digital penetration on the continent, which is estimated at between 30% and 43%, below the global average of about 70%.
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Hurricane Lee Reaches Category 5 in Atlantic

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The U.S. National Hurricane Center says Hurricane Lee has reached dangerous category 5 strength in the Atlantic, with maximum sustained winds near 270 kilometers per hour and is likely to continue strengthening in the next 24 hours.

In its latest public advisory, the hurricane center said the storm was far out in the Atlantic – 1,015 kms east of the northern Leeward Caribbean Islands – which include the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, and others. 

Forecasters say Lee’s track is expected to be well to the north of those islands in the next several days, but the storm is expected to maintain its intensity. They warn it will likely create dangerous beach conditions and life-threatening currents for the islands and beaches along the U.S. East Coast early next week.

The hurricane center said it is too early to know what level of impacts – if any – the storm could have on the eastern United States or Bermuda by late next week. The storm is expected to slow down considerably as it moves to the north and west. 

But the forecasters say dangerous surf and rip currents generated by the storm are expected along most of the U.S. East Coast beginning Sunday. 

Meteorologists observing the storm say its development was dramatic. On his account on the social media platform X, Joint Typhoon Warning Center Senior Scientist Levi Cowan called Lee’s strengthening Thursday to Category 5 “one of the most impressive rapid intensification episodes” he has seen in the Atlantic.

The hurricane center is also watching Tropical Storm Margot further east in the Atlantic, which is expected to strengthen as it moves to the west and north over the next several days.
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Friday Marks First Anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s Death

Posted on by SeeEU

Friday marks the first anniversary of the death of England’s Queen Elizabeth.  She died a year ago at her beloved Balmoral Castle in Scotland at age 96.  

Upon her death, her son, Charles, immediately became king.  

Charles says he and his wife, Camilla, will spend the day quietly at the Scottish royal castle.  

“In marking the first anniversary of Her late Majesty’s death and my Accession, we recall with great affection her long life, devoted service and all she meant to so many of us,” King Charles posted in an online statement.  

On the anniversary of her death, the royal family shared a rarely-seen photograph of the queen taken in 1968 by famed photographer Cecil Beaton. The photo had previously appeared in an exhibition of Beaton’s photographs. 
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Russia Holds Elections in Occupied Ukrainian Regions in an Effort to Tighten Its Grip There

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Russian authorities are holding local elections this weekend in occupied parts of Ukraine in an effort to tighten their grip on territories Moscow illegally annexed a year ago and still does not fully control.

The voting for Russian-installed legislatures in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions has already begun and concludes Sunday. It has been denounced by Kyiv and the West.

“It constitutes a flagrant violation of international law, which Russia continues to disregard,” the Council of Europe, the continent’s foremost human rights body, said this week.

Kyiv echoed that sentiment, with the parliament saying in a statement that the balloting in areas where Russia “conducts active hostilities” poses a threat to Ukrainian lives. Lawmakers urged other countries not to recognize the results of the vote.

For Russia — which launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine 18 months ago — it is important to go on with the voting to maintain the illusion of normalcy, despite the fact that the Kremlin does not have full control over the annexed regions, political analyst Abbas Gallyamov said.

“The Russian authorities are trying hard to pretend that everything is going according to plan, everything is fine. And if everything is going according to plan, then the political process should go according to plan,” said Gallyamov, who worked as a speechwriter for Russian President Vladimir Putin when Putin served as prime minister.

Voters are supposed to elect regional legislatures, which in turn will appoint regional governors. In the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, thousands of candidates are also competing for seats on dozens of local councils.

The balloting is scheduled for the same weekend as other local elections in Russia. In the occupied regions, early voting kicked off last week as election officials went door to door or set up makeshift polling stations in public places to attract passersby.

The main contender in the election is United Russia, the Putin-loyal party that dominates Russian politics, although other parties, such as the Communist Party and the nationalist Liberal Democratic party, are also on the ballots.

For some residents of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, large swaths of which have been held by Russian-backed separatists since 2014, there is nothing unusual about the vote.

“For the last nine years, we’ve been striving to get closer with Russia, and Russian politicians are well-known to us,” Sergei, a 47-year-old resident of the occupied city of Luhansk, told The Associated Press, asking that his last name be withheld for security reasons. “We’re speaking Russian and have felt like part of Russia for a long time, and these elections only confirm that.”

Some voters in Donetsk shared Sergei’s sentiment, expressing love for Russia and saying they want to be part of it.

The picture appears bleaker in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Local residents and Ukrainian activists say poll workers make house calls accompanied by armed soldiers, and most voters know little about the candidates, up to half of whom reportedly arrived from Russia — including remote regions in Siberia and the far east.

“In most cases, we don’t know these Russian candidates, and we’re not even trying to figure it out,” said Konstantin, who currently lives in the Russian-held part of the Kherson region on the eastern bank of the Dnieper River.

Using only his first name for safety reasons, Konstantin said in a phone interview that billboards advertising Russian political parties have sprung up along the highways, and сampaign workers have been bused in ahead of the vote.

But “locals understand that these elections don’t influence anything” and “are held for Russian propaganda purposes,” Kostantin said, comparing this year’s vote to the referendums Moscow staged last year in the four partially occupied regions.

Those referendums were designed to put a veneer of democracy on the annexation. Ukraine and the West denounced them as a sham and decried the annexation as illegal.

Weeks after the referendums, Russian troops withdrew from the city of Kherson, the capital of the region of the same name, and areas around it, ceding them back to Ukraine. As a result, Moscow has maintained control of about 70% of the region.

Three other regions are also only partially occupied, and Kyiv’s forces have managed to regain more land — albeit slowly and in small chunks — during their summer counteroffensive.

In the occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region, where the counteroffensive efforts are focused, Moscow-installed authorities declared a holiday on Friday for the voting.

The Russian-appointed governor of the annexed region, Yevgeny Balitsky, noted in a recent statement that 13 front-line cities and villages in the region come under regular shelling, but he expressed hope that despite the difficulties, the United Russia party “will get the result it deserves.”

Ivan Fyodorov, Ukrainian mayor of Melitopol, a Russian-held city in the Zaporizhzhia region, told The Associated Press that local residents are effectively being forced to vote.

“When there’s an armed person standing in front of you, it’s hard to say no,” he said.

Early in the war, Fyodorov was kidnapped by Russian troops and held in captivity. He moved to Ukrainian-controlled territory upon release.

There are four different parties on the ballot, the mayor said, but billboards advertise only one — United Russia. “It looks like the Russian authorities know the result (of the election) already,” Fyodorov said.

The city’s population of 60,000 — down from 149,000 before the war — has been subject to enhanced security in the days leading up to the election, according to Fyodorov. Authorities stop people in the streets to check their identification documents and detain anyone who looks suspicious, he said.

“People are intimidated and scared, because everyone understands that an election in an occupied city is like voting in prison,” Fyodorov said.

Russian authorities aim to have up to 80% of the population take part in the early voting, according to the Eastern Human Rights Group, a Ukrainian rights group that monitors the vote in the occupied territories.

Poll workers go door to door — to markets, grocery stores and other public places — to get people to cast ballots. Both those who have gotten Russian citizenship and those still holding Ukrainian passports are allowed to vote.

Those who refuse to vote are being detained for three or four hours, the group’s coordinator, Pavlo Lysianskyi, said. The authorities make them “write an explanatory statement, which later becomes grounds for a criminal case against the person.”

Lysianskyi’s group has counted at least 104 cases of Ukrainians being detained in occupied regions for refusing to take part in the vote.

In the end, Gallyamov, the Russian analyst, said Russian authorities will not get “anything good in terms of boosting their legitimacy” in the occupied regions.
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