In the Western U.S. state of Colorado, the National Western Stock Show draws thousands of visitors, exhibitors and competitors, a mix of entertainment and education about livestock and agriculture. VOA’s Scott Stearns tells us what some young people are up to at the show. (Camera: Scott Stearns)
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Month: January 2024
Israel Ranks Among World’s Worst Jailers of Journalists, Report Finds
Washington — Israel’s ongoing response to last year’s Hamas attack has included a spike in arrests of Palestinian journalists in the occupied West Bank, a report released Thursday found.
The country in 2023 ranked as the sixth-worst jailer of journalists globally, with 17 behind bars, all of them jailed after the October 7 terror attack, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ.
The annual report, which captures a snapshot of journalists jailed for their work as of December 1, found 320 journalists behind bars overall. Among those held are contributors to VOA and its sister networks Radio Free Asia and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
China topped the 2023 census, followed closely by Myanmar, Belarus, Russia and Vietnam. Iran tied with Israel for sixth place, each with 17 journalists jailed.
“The message is clear. Journalists hold the powerful to account,” said CPJ’s CEO Jodie Ginsberg. “And those in power often find that incredibly threatening.”
Ginsberg said the data shows how authoritarian regimes abuse laws to “detain and silence journalists.”
“And that’s exactly what it’s intended to do. It’s intended to silence critical voices,” she said.
CPJ has documented more arrests of Palestinian journalists since conducting its December 1, 2023, census. In total, Israel detained 25 since October 7, and as of Wednesday, 19 remained behind bars, CPJ found.
“These high number of arrests are simply a reflection of the broader crackdown that we’re seeing on journalists,” Ginsberg said.
The conflict has already proved to be the deadliest on record for journalists, with at least 83 journalists killed, including 76 Palestinians, four Israelis and three Lebanese.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry did not reply to VOA’s email requesting comment. It has previously denied targeting journalists.
Media-related detentions are common in the West Bank, according to Palestinian political analyst Nour Odeh. But Odeh, a former Al Jazeera reporter, said she has never witnessed anything like the recent wave of arrests.
“The scale is really astounding,” Odeh told VOA from Ramallah, adding that she thinks the goal behind the crackdown is “showing who’s boss.”
Most of those detained are held in administrative detention, CPJ found. That means Israeli authorities can hold the journalist without charge, on the grounds that they believe the journalist is planning to commit a crime in the future, CPJ said.
“You don’t really have to do anything to get arrested. There is no protection,” Odeh said. “There’s nothing that will shield you.”
Another trend in this year’s prison census is the use of non-journalism charges to target reporters, Ginsberg said. Those charges range from money laundering to tax evasion to terrorism.
“In that way, those in power can paint journalists as criminals, as the enemy,” Ginsberg said.
The Chinese government is among the countries that regularly use national security charges to target reporters.
China has long ranked among the world’s worst jailers of journalists, and this year the country ranked in the top spot, with 44 journalists imprisoned.
Nearly half of those — 19 — are Uyghurs, marking a grim intersection between Beijing’s poor press freedom record and its human rights abuses against the majority-Muslim ethnic group.
The United Nations has warned that China’s abuses against Uyghurs in Xinjiang may amount to crimes against humanity. Several governments, including the United States, have said the abuses amount to genocide. Beijing denies any wrongdoing.
For Zubayra Shamseden, who works at the Uyghur Human Rights Project in Washington, the disproportionate jailing of Uyghur reporters is no coincidence.
“For the Chinese government, Uyghur journalists are a dangerous group of people,” Shamseden told VOA. “They try to crack down on Uyghur journalists particularly because they want to shut the Uyghur voice off.”
CPJ’s Ginsberg said journalists who cover minority groups or are from minority groups themselves are among the most persecuted.
In response to VOA’s email requesting comment, a spokesperson at China’s Washington embassy rejected reports that Beijing does not respect media freedom.
“The Chinese government protects press freedom in accordance with law, and gives full play to the role of media and citizens in supervising public opinion,” the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said that some in the U.S. “smear and attack China,” which, they said, “in itself is spreading disinformation.”
Ginsberg pointed to Hong Kong — where media freedom has sharply declined since China enacted the National Security Law in 2020 — as just one piece of evidence to the contrary.
The pro-democracy publisher Jimmy Lai is currently on trial under the law and, if convicted, he could face life in prison.
Most journalists are jailed in their home countries. But of the 320 reporters held globally, CPJ documented 17 detained in foreign countries — most in Russia.
Of the 22 journalists imprisoned in Russia, 12 are foreign nationals, including two Americans and 10 Ukrainians.
“That tells you not just how Russia wants to control the narrative inside the country, but also how it’s looking to control the narrative outside the country,” Ginsberg said.
Russia’s Washington embassy did not reply to VOA’s email requesting comment.
The Americans are The Wall Street Journal’s Evan Gershkovich and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Alsu Kurmasheva. International press freedom groups say the charges against both of them are groundless and politically motivated.
Gershkovich, who denies the espionage charges against him, has been detained for nearly 10 months. And Kurmasheva, who was detained in October, has rejected accusations she violated Russia’s foreign agent law.
Paul Beckett, a Washington-based assistant editor at the Journal who is leading the newspaper’s campaign to secure Gershkovich’s release, said the impending one-year anniversary of his colleague’s arrest should reinvigorate efforts to free the reporter.
“This should give everyone a renewed sense of urgency that this has gone on too long and needs to be remedied as quickly as possible,” Beckett told VOA.
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American Red Cross Concerned About US Blood Shortage
The American Red Cross has declared a critical blood shortage, with supplies running the lowest in 20 years. The number of donors in the country has declined by 40%, for reasons that include COVID, seasonal infections, and bad weather. Angelina Bagdasaryan visited a blood donation station in Los Angeles and talked with some of the donors. Anna Rice narrates her story.
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Analysts: Pyongyang Tries To Create Seoul-Tokyo Friction to Harm US Relations
washington — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is trying to create friction between Tokyo and Seoul, South Korea, and undermine their trilateral relations with the United States as security cooperation among them deepens, analysts said.
Washington, Seoul and Tokyo conducted trilateral naval drills in the international waters south of Jeju Island from Monday to Wednesday, said South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).
The exercises involving nine ships, including the USS Carl Vinson, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, were aimed at enhancing deterrence against North Korean nuclear, missile and underwater threats, the JCS said.
North Korea is taking an increasingly hostile stance toward South Korea. Calling for the amendment of its constitution to refer to South Korea as its “principal enemy,” Kim said Pyongyang should plan for occupying South Korea if war breaks out.
He made the remarks in a speech on Monday to the Supreme Assembly, the country’s rubber-stamp parliament, said state media KCNA.
A day earlier, North Korea test-fired what it said was a solid fuel intermediate range ballistic missile with a hypersonic warhead.
Pyongyang also fired more than 200 rounds of artillery shells near Yeonpyeong Island on a disputed maritime border with South Korea on January 5 and more than 60 rounds near the same island on January 7. Yeonpyeong Island is about 120 kilometers west of Seoul.
While escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula, Kim sent a message to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on January 5 conveying sympathy over a powerful earthquake that shook Ishikawa prefecture, leaving at least 200 people dead and more than 200 missing as the new year began.
In the message, Kim expressed “his deep sympathy and condolences” to Kishida for losses caused by the earthquake, KCNA reported on January 6.
Analysts said although North Korea has relayed condolence messages to Japan after disasters in the past, this is the first time Kim personally reached out to a Japanese prime minister.
“While Kim Jong Un may wish to drive a wedge between Japan and the ROK, the real intention, subtle but still real, is to drive a wedge between Japan and America, in spite of last year’s successes at Camp David in the trilateral summit,” said Kenneth Dekleva, a senior fellow at the George H.W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations.
At the Camp David summit, U.S. President Joe Biden, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, and Kishida agreed to cooperate on multiple measures to bolster deterrence against North Korea.
Dekleva, who served as a State Department psychiatrist analyzing foreign leaders including Kim from 2006 to 2016, continued, “Another intention of equal importance is to test the U.S.-ROK relationship, especially given the recent dangerous, bellicose threats of war made recently by Kim Jong Un.”
Kim ordered his military forces to prepare for war with the U.S. and “South Korean puppets and Japs,” according to KCNA, describing Kim’s speech made at a planning meeting of his ruling Workers’ Party on December 31.
Pyongyang has been critical of the trilateral ties forged after Seoul and Tokyo mended relations in March. Disputes rooted in Japan’s colonization of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945 had strained relations for decades.
Ken Gause, an expert on North Korea’s leadership and political system at the Center for Naval Analyses, said Kim’s message also signals Pyongyang could be “keeping its options open for engagement.”
“North Korea is trying to put Japan in a situation where it has to choose between its own self-interest and the self-interest of the alliance as a whole,” he said.
Kishida said in May that he is willing to meet Kim to discuss the return of Japanese who were abducted by North Korea in the 1960s and 1970s.
At North Korea’s summit with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in September 2002, Kim’s father, Kim Jong Il, admitted the country had abducted 12 Japanese nationals. North Korea returned five of them to Japan in October of that year.
Japan says North Korea abducted 17 Japanese citizens in the 1970s to 1980s.
Shihoko Goto, Asia program director at the Wilson Center, said, “The abduction issue remains a highly emotional agenda in Japan, and moving forward to seek a resolution is high on the agenda of Kishida’s government.”
She added that Kim’s message of condolence “was seen favorably in Tokyo and seen as an opportunity for greater dialogue, if not improved relations, between the two countries.”
However, she said, Tokyo will be “in lockstep” with Seoul and Washington in deterring North Korea, as Pyongyang also is “an existential threat” to Japan.
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Heavy Snowfall, Freezing Rain Disrupt Transport in Scandinavia, Germany
berlin — Heavy snow and freezing rain hit parts of northern and central Europe on Wednesday, bringing transport to a halt in some Scandinavian regions and causing major disruption at airports in Frankfurt and Oslo.
At Frankfurt Airport, Germany’s busiest, freezing rain forced a halt to takeoffs, German news agency dpa reported. The airport cited a danger of deiced aircraft icing up again as they taxied toward the runway. Some departures resumed in the afternoon as the rain subsided. Hundreds of flights already had been canceled.
The airport in the Norwegian capital, Oslo, was closed temporarily as heavy snow reduced visibility for pilots. Airport spokesperson Ylva Celius Trulsen said the huge amount of snow and wind hampering traffic was “very unusual” and the resulting closure was “extremely rare.” The airport reopened later Wednesday.
Heavy snowfall brought traffic to a standstill in large parts of Scandinavia, with roads and highways clogged with stranded motorists, public transportation delays, cancellations on some ferry routes and the closure of some bridges. Police in several parts of Denmark urged people to stay home. Southern Sweden also saw heavy snowfall.
The freezing rain across western and southern Germany led to many accidents on icy roads early Wednesday. As a precaution, many schools and kindergartens closed and some companies offered employees the option of working from home.
National train operator Deutsche Bahn canceled several long-distance trains and announced that the maximum speed of its ICE high-speed trains was limited to 200 kilometers per hour (124 mph) for the day as a precaution.
The small airport in Saarbruecken closed for the day, and there were delays and cancellations in Munich and elsewhere.
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Zambia Hopes to Reclaim Championship Title at Africa Cup of Nations
Having won the Africa Cup of Nations in 2012, Zambia is now hoping to reclaim the championship title. Mooka Sibbuku has more from Lusaka, Zambia.
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Frigid Weather Compounds Chicago’s Struggles to House Asylum-Seekers
chicago — As temperatures hover below freezing in Chicago, dozens of asylum-seekers are staying in the lower level of a library until the bitter cold gripping much of the country lifts.
But after that, Chicago’s plans for offering immediate shelter to the growing number of migrants arriving in the nation’s third-largest city remain murky.
For more than a year, Chicago has wrestled with how to house new arrivals until shelter space is free, utilizing measures that city leaders insist are a stopgap. Last week, it was parked city buses. Before that it was police station lobbies and airports. The makeshift approach has frazzled volunteers, nonprofit groups and migrants wary of the lack of a long-term plan, particularly during the city’s long winters.
“The city’s favorite word for everything is ‘temporary,'” said Vianney Marzullo, a volunteer who has helped migrants staying at O’Hare International Airport. “It’s their new choice of Band-Aid word. Everything is temporary, temporary, temporary.”
Chicago has struggled, like New York and Denver, to deal with the crisis that started in 2022 when migrants began arriving in Democratic-led cities, largely at the direction of Texas Governot Greg Abbott. The winter weather has further complicated efforts. Last week, New York, which has received more than 170,000 migrants, evacuated a massive tent camp ahead of a storm. Big-city mayors have asked repeatedly for more federal help.
Chicago’s response has stood out for its haphazard approach with a heavy reliance on volunteers who have spent more than a year providing medical care, food and donated items.
City leaders say the situation keeps changing and there have been snags along the way.
Mayor Brandon Johnson floated the idea of a heated tent encampment, but construction was scrapped over the risk of contaminants at the former industrial site.
The city had instituted a 60-day limit for shelter stays but pushed the first batch of notices off to next week because of the weather. Meanwhile, the city has been heavily criticized for conditions at its shelters and the death of a young boy whose family stayed at one.
The political fight has also heated up and spread to the suburbs.
Abbott’s busing operation has been dropping off migrants at all hours in different Chicago area cities without coordination. When the city began fining bus companies and filing lawsuits, Abbott fired back with chartered planes. Johnson had planned a summit for this week with suburban mayors to discuss the problem; it was canceled by the weather. His office didn’t return a request for comment Wednesday.
“This is an international crisis that requires federal intervention of which local government is subsidizing that work. Never designed to do it, but yet here we are still standing,” Johnson said last week ahead of the storm.
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker also wrote to Abbott last week asking to suspend buses until the temperatures rise and with many migrants arriving without winter coats or shoes. But Abbott rejected the notion, saying the federal government needs to step up.
More than 33,000 migrants, mostly from Venezuela, have arrived in Chicago since 2022. Currently, nearly 15,000 migrants are living in 28 shelters and the city is continually opening more. Many migrants have gone elsewhere or live with family and friends in the area. Chicago, like other cities, has offered bus tickets out of the city.
The city wound down its much-maligned use of police stations to house migrants, but O’Hare International Airport is still being used, with some asylum-seekers staying for weeks at a time as they await shelter. More than 200 were there Wednesday, according to the city.
Until the weather turned, the city was keeping migrants aboard eight city buses that were running continuously and parked near a downtown highway in an area designated “the landing zone.”
Six heated tents are under construction nearby, which the city says will be used for intake and services, such as medical care. It’s unclear if they will also be used for housing.
Marylin Gonzalez, 34, slept on the buses last week along with her husband and three children, ages 15, 16 and 18. The buses were crowded, with sicknesses spreading quickly.
Gonzalez described the atmosphere aboard as tense, with many worried about where they would go. She said it made her feel like a prisoner.
“The children are stressed. People get stressed, they argue, they are already desperate,” she said. “Sometimes we have to sleep sitting up because there is no space to lay down.”
Outside the buses, many would take up activities, like throwing around a football, to keep warm.
The landing zone was cleared of people and vehicles on Monday, but by Wednesday morning, the empty warming buses were parked there again, a signal that the city intends to return to using them. The city’s Office of Emergency Management didn’t respond to questions Wednesday about the city’s plans when the weather warms.
Roughly 50 migrants were staying in the lower level of the Harold Washington Library Center, the city’s flagship location downtown during the cold snap, according to people staying there. Migrants, including those who came in on their own to avoid the cold, were living with others facing homelessness. According to the city’s tally, 5 migrants at the library site were on lists for shelters. An Associated Press reporter was not allowed inside.
Angel Alberto Chourio, 30, slept there over the weekend, saying he was trying to figure out his next steps. He and a friend arrived from Venezuela last year. The promise of work out of state didn’t pan out, so they came back to Chicago recently. Without any place else to go, they came to the library.
He said Wednesday that he was nervous about the shelter stay limits and was not on a waiting list for one.
“We are not used to this. The cold is too much, since it is already below zero,” he said, looking for a silver lining. “At least they give one a chance to continue living.”
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Biden Convenes Top Congressional Leaders to Discuss Ukraine Aid, US Border Deal
WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden convened top congressional leaders at the White House to underscore Ukraine’s security needs, a meeting that comes at a pivotal time as senators narrow on a landmark immigration deal that could unlock $110 billion in stalled aid to Ukraine, Israel and other U.S. allies.
But Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republicans used the face-to-face moment with Biden to push him for tougher border security measures, with the speaker telling the president that Republican lawmakers were demanding “substantive policy change” and insisting that the White House’s executive actions on immigration had weakened the border.
“We understand that there’s concern about the safety, security and sovereignty of Ukraine,” Johnson told reporters after the meeting, which ran for more than an hour. “But the American people have those same concerns about our own domestic sovereignty and our safety and our security.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, also speaking to reporters after the meeting, stressed that Biden has repeatedly said he is willing to compromise on certain border measures and that any effort in a divided Congress must be bipartisan. House Republicans have insisted on passage of a hard-line border security measure that has no Democratic support on Capitol Hill.
“There was a large amount of agreement around the table that we must do Ukraine, and we must do border,” he said.
The White House called the meeting with lawmakers — including Johnson, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell — to brief them on Ukraine’s current need for weapons and other aid, which the White House described as “desperate” and “urgent.”
By populating the meeting with national security leaders, the meeting was expected to impress on the new speaker the importance of the aid package and the current U.S. approach to world affairs. The Republicans in the room, even Johnson, are largely supportive of aiding Ukraine but have stressed to the White House that it will need significant border-security measures in return to persuade the large swath of rank-and-file Republican lawmakers skeptical about sending more funds abroad.
“He’s willing to hear what these congressional members want to talk about, but the purpose of this meeting is to talk about Ukraine,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said ahead of the mid-afternoon gathering, which was held in the Cabinet Room.
Key time to convene
Biden is convening the lawmakers at the start of an election year when border security and the wars abroad are punctuating the race for the White House as he faces a potential rematch against Republican Donald Trump with control of the presidency and Congress all at stake.
It comes as Congress is about to quickly approve temporary funding to avoid a government shutdown — postponing the annual spending battles — but as the supplemental aid package sits undone during the immigration and border talks.
Biden, a longtime leader in U.S. foreign policy, finds himself confronting a new generation of Republican lawmakers who have little interest in engaging abroad or supporting vast American military aid or actions around the world.
Led by Trump, the former president who is the Republicans’ front-runner for the nomination, a growing number of the Republicans in Congress are particularly hostile to helping Ukraine fight Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who along with National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met this week with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy in Davos, Switzerland, said Washington is determined to keep supporting Ukraine, and “we’re working very closely with Congress in order to do that.”
Ahead of the meeting, McConnell announced the package could be ready for a vote as soon as next week, and Schumer sounded a similarly optimistic note — though negotiations continue.
Senators develop border proposal
Johnson, since taking the gavel in October, signaled he personally believes in supporting Ukraine as it works to expel Russia. He met privately with Zelenskyy during the Ukrainian president’s whirlwind tour of Washington last month seeking aid before the year-end holidays.
But the speaker leads an ambivalent House Republican majority that wants to extract its own priorities on the U.S.-Mexico border in exchange for any overseas support.
The speaker has insisted any border security deal must align with the House-passed strict border security bill. He told lawmakers in a private meeting over the weekend that they could probably get their priorities enacted with a Republican president, though the speaker did not mean that to preclude not taking action now, said a Republican leadership aide familiar with the call.
But senators, even fellow Republicans, said the House approach is a nonstarter that would never find the bipartisan backing in both chambers needed for approval.
Instead, a core group of senators led by Republican James Lankford has been meeting privately for weeks with Biden’s top advisers — including Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas — to develop a border security package that could actually be signed into law.
Lankford told reporters late Tuesday that he hopes to prepare bill text as negotiations try to wrap up soon.
McConnell told Republican senators privately last week they should take the deal Lankford is producing, according to a person granted anonymity to discuss the closed meeting.
“This is a unique moment in time,” said the Number 2 Republican John Thune.
“It’s an opportunity to get some really conservative border policy that we haven’t been able to get for 40 years,” he said. “And so we’ll see. I mean, it may or may not happen, but I think you got to take a run at it.”
Senator ‘hopeful’
The broader security package includes about $60 billion for Ukraine, which is mainly used to purchase U.S. weaponry to fight the war and to shore up its own government operations, along with some $14.5 billion for Israel, about $14 billion for border security, and additional funds for other security needs.
Biden opened the door to a broader U.S.-Mexico border security package late last year and the changes being discussed could be difficult for some Democrats who oppose strict restrictions on immigration.
Schumer said negotiations over the border security package have made progress in recent weeks and he was “hopeful that things are headed in the right direction.”
Schumer said he expects the meeting with Biden will reinforce that the national security package is urgent and “any agreement on an issue as complex and contentious as the border is going to have to have support from both sides of the aisle.”
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US Treasury Official Discusses Cholera Outbreak, Debt With Zambian Minister
washington — The U.S. Treasury Department’s top international official spoke with Zambia’s finance minister Wednesday and discussed Zambia’s debt restructuring and its response to a recent cholera outbreak, the U.S. Treasury Department said.
Zambia faces a major cholera outbreak that has killed at least 333 people since October, with over 8,000 cumulative cholera cases during this period, according to the website of the U.S. Embassy in Zambia.
Jay Shambaugh, treasury undersecretary for international affairs, reiterated the U.S. government’s “commitment to partner with Zambia” to end the outbreak when he spoke to Zambian Finance Minister Situmbeko Musokotwane, according to the Treasury Department.
Zambia, one of Africa’s largest copper producers, also defaulted on its debts three years ago during the COVID-19 pandemic, and its restructuring efforts have been beset by delays.
Shambaugh “welcomed Zambia’s performance to date under its Internation Monetary Fund program and encouraged continued progress on the remaining economic reforms,” the Treasury Department said.
In a major setback for Zambia, its official creditors, which include China and members of the Paris Club of creditor nations, rejected a preliminary restructuring deal in November.
The IMF’s board in December approved an immediate $187 million loan payout to Zambia and said the country was revising a restructuring proposal for $3 billion of bonds that official creditors had rejected in November.
“They discussed Zambia’s ongoing debt restructuring under the Common Framework and efforts to finalize negotiations with all remaining creditors,” the Treasury Department said in a statement Wednesday.
Debtor countries are meant to agree to comparable restructuring deals with official and commercial creditors under the G20’s Common Framework process, which was established in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Zambia said earlier this month that it aimed to agree on key conditions for debt relief no later than the first quarter of 2024.
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In Slovenia, Broadcaster RTV Faces ‘Bumpy Road’ to Reform
LJUBLJANA, SLOVENIA — Attempts to depoliticize Slovenia’s public broadcaster RTV have led to accusations that new management is simply replacing one political agenda with another by purging the outlet of employees considered too sympathetic to the previous administration.
Earlier this month, managers at RTV notified 15 journalists who worked on the daily news show “Panorama” that their services were not required, and that they should stay at home, on reduced pay, until needed.
New leadership at the broadcaster said the show, which was established under RTV’s previous managers in 2022, was being taken off the air because of low viewership.
But the former editor of “Panorama,” Rajko Geric, said he believes the decision could be related to moves to clear RTV of anyone deemed supportive of former Prime Minister Janez Jansa, whose center-right government was defeated in elections in April 2022.
“Left-wing parties took over RTV” following the installation of a new administration led by Prime Minister Robert Golob, charged Geric, who has since been called back to work.
Other observers suggest the decision to cancel the show, which took an in-depth look at issues such as climate change and vaccination practices, had more to do with financial pressures on the broadcaster.
In 2022, Golob’s new government passed a law aimed at preventing political interference with Slovenia’s public broadcasters in what was seen as a response to complaints from many RTV journalists of political pressure from leaders appointed under the Jansa administration.
Under that law, a new council was formed to oversee RTV. The council, which has power to name the management and endorse business and financial plans, installed new leaders at RTV in August 2023.
With his government’s actions, Golob said, “Politics is withdrawing from managing RTV Slovenia and giving its employees the necessary autonomy.”
But in an October interview on the station’s TV Slovenia, Golob said that the ruling party has “obliged ourselves that we will clean RTV of ‘Jansism'” — a reference to those deemed to be supporters of former Prime Minister Jansa.
Following the interview, Geric filed a criminal complaint against Golob, accusing him of abusing power and publicly inciting hatred.
The journalist told local media it is against the law for anyone in a position of power to “announce the cleaning of the public institution according to the political views of employees.”
In a written statement, RTV told VOA, “There are no political pressures and we strongly reject insinuations of political cleansing.”
Despite Geric’s complaints, independent analysts say that media freedom in Slovenia has been on a “positive upsurge.”
The new government “reversed the negative trajectory under the previous administration, ended the practice of verbal attacks on journalists by the leading government figures, and enacted a principled attempt … to limit political meddling and appointments,” said Jamie Wiseman, the Europe advocacy officer at the Vienna-based International Press Institute or IPI.
Still, Wiseman told VOA, “The road to democratic reform at RTV will continue to be bumpy.”
Public broadcaster under pressure
Slovenia’s RTV has been under pressure from ruling parties ever since the country gained independence in 1991. Many academics and journalists say the level of pressure was never as bad as under Jansa’s populist government.
Marko Milosavljevic, a professor of journalism and head of the communication department at Ljubljana Faculty of Social Sciences, told VOA that more recently, conditions for media have improved.
RTV reporting proves that “journalists are now more independent and can be more critical towards the government and other holders of power than was the case before.”
In September, TV Slovenia’s investigative show “Tarca” reported on a case of alleged corruption involving Sanja Ajanovic Hovnik, who was a minister of public administration in Golob’s government.
Hovnik, who denied the allegations, resigned days after the show aired.
Milosavljevic said that under the previous management at RTV, a number of journalists were hired to work on programs including “Panorama” that would report “in favor of the (then center-right) government.”
“The question is what to do with people who were employed due to political interests,” he said, adding that the management should follow the law if it decides to end any contracts.
Slovenia’s Association of Journalists and Publicists said in a statement that the notices issued this month were “retaliation” against journalists hired or promoted by the broadcaster’s previous managers.
Milosavljevic believes public debate is needed to decide how to reorganize RTV and secure its financing.
RTV’s main source of income is via a subscription that most households pay. However, the fee has not increased since 2012, even as inflation has reached almost 30 percent from that year to 2023.
The government determines the fee, but since 2012 each ruling party has declined to increase the rate.
In December, RTV management board member Simon Kardum resigned, saying that a new strategy was needed to save the institution.
That same month, the government awarded RTV an extra $5.4 million for programming for minorities, to help ease its financial troubles.
TV Slovenia runs a 24-7 operation and is one of the most popular channels in the country. It has more than 2,000 employees and competes with several privately owned channels.
RTV’s current chief executive, Zvezdan Martic, told the daily newspaper Delo that at least 76 percent of people in Slovenia use at least one RTV service each week.
He added that the journalists who had received notice have not been terminated and noted that RTV had already called three of them back to work.
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Rights Groups Call for Review of Shell’s Operations in Nigeria Amid Exit Plans
Abuja, Nigeria — Human rights group Amnesty International and other advocacy groups raised concerns Tuesday over British oil giant Shell’s sale of its onshore businesses in Nigeria.
Shell announced Tuesday it had concluded plans to sell the assets for $2.4 billion, but Amnesty said authorities should ensure the company addresses decades’ worth of oil spills before closing the deal.
In a post on the social media site X, Amnesty said, “Shell should not be allowed to wash its hands of the problems and leave.”
The international rights group called on Nigerian authorities to request a full assessment of existing pollution from Shell and the state of its infrastructure before allowing them to transfer ownership.
After nearly a century in Nigeria, Shell said it plans to sell its assets to a consortium of mainly local companies. The sales require the approval of Nigerian authorities.
Aminu Hayatu, a conflict researcher at Amnesty International, said the organization has been concerned about environmental degradation in the Niger Delta area.
“Activities of multinational organizations have for quite some time deteriorated that environment, Hayatu said. “Amnesty International is set to really observe the emergence of the new company as well as the leaving of the old ones and the exchanges between government and those companies in terms of their operations in those areas.”
Shell said that it will continue to operate less-challenging offshore businesses and that the new owner, Renaissance, will assume responsibility for the onshore assets.
For decades Shell has struggled with oil spills, vandalism, theft and sabotage in the troubled Niger Delta region, leading to lawsuits against the company.
Faith Nwadishi, founder of the Center for Transparency Advocacy, said, “One of the reasons why Shell is running away is because communities are becoming wiser, more knowledgeable, going to sue Shell in their home country and getting favorable judgment for the community. They’re just leaving their liabilities and responsibilities behind for the people who are going to take it up.”
Shell’s exit from onshore business in Nigeria follows other Western energy companies seeking more viable and profitable operations.
The company said its staff will be retained by the new leadership.
But Nwadishi says concerns remain.
“Anybody that is taking over … now should know that they’re taking over their liabilities,” she said. “These negotiations, did they take into consideration all of those liabilities for cleanup? Did it take into consideration loss and damages to the community? The terms of the negotiation or agreement should actually be made public.”
It’s not clear how Nigerian authorities will respond.
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Maine Court Puts Trump Ballot Decision on Hold Until After US Supreme Court Acts
Washington — A Maine court on Wednesday ordered the state’s top election official to reevaluate a decision to bar former President Donald Trump from the Republican primary ballot after the U.S. Supreme Court rules on a related case from Colorado.
State Superior Court Judge Michaela Murphy found that the Supreme Court’s decision to take the Colorado case “changes everything about the order in which these issues should be decided and by which court.”
The judge ordered Maine Secretary of State Shanna Bellows, a Democrat, to reassess her decision to bar Trump from the ballot within 30 days after the Supreme Court rules.
In December, Bellows determined that Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, was ineligible to hold office again under a provision in the U.S. Constitution that bars people who have engaged in insurrection or rebellion from holding office.
Depending on the sweep of its ruling in the Colorado case, the U.S. Supreme Court could resolve the issue nationwide in the coming weeks, with oral arguments scheduled for February 8.
Maine and Colorado are so far the only two states to disqualify Trump under the constitutional provision, known as Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Both states have put their decisions on hold while Trump appeals.
Courts and election officials in several other states have rejected similar ballot challenges to Trump’s candidacy.
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Sweden Summons Iranian Charge D’Affaires Over Detained Swedes
copenhagen — Sweden has summoned the Iranian charge d’affaires to demand the immediate release of Swedish citizens being held in custody in Iran, the Swedish foreign ministry said on Wednesday.
“The Government is working intensively and tirelessly to secure the release without delay of Swedish citizens detained in Iran for no apparent reason,” the ministry said in a statement.
“In late 2023, a man with Swedish and Iranian citizenship was detained for no apparent reason,” the statement said.
A Swedish man in his 20s also was arrested in Iran earlier in January, the ministry said this week.
Those events have added to tense relations between the two countries since 2019, when Sweden arrested a former Iranian official for his part in the mass execution and torture of political prisoners in the 1980s.
Last month, Iran began the trial against a Swedish national, Johan Floderus, a European Union employee who has been imprisoned since April 2022. He was charged with spying for Israel and “corruption on earth,” a crime that carries the death penalty.
The Swedish Foreign Ministry has advised Swedes against traveling to Iran.
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Music Festival in New York City Gives Voice to Ukrainian Resistance
At an international music festival in New York City, a Ukrainian-Canadian band sings songs about strength and resisting the Russian invasion. The band, Balaklava Blues, is one of 10 groups from all over the world performing at Globalfest. Joti Rekhi reports from New York City. Videographer: Nick Jastrzebski
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US Lawmakers Push for Limits on American Investment in China Tech
Capitol Hill — U.S. lawmakers renewed calls Wednesday to pass bipartisan legislation that would restrict American investment in Chinese technology.
“It should come as no surprise that China’s military and surveillance state are exploiting loopholes in U.S. policy to access billions of U.S. investment dollars and expertise. We know that U.S. investment has not democratized China and countries which are controlled by the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] have no power over the applications of their technology. The CCP can direct it to us for military or surveillance purposes,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul said at a hearing on the legislation Wednesday.
The bill – which has support from both conservative organizations and the Biden administration – was not included in the National Defense Authorization Act or NDAA passed late last year. Republican Senator John Cornyn has sponsored companion legislation in the U.S. Senate that passed with more than ninety votes.
Lawmakers hope it can still be passed individually and signed into law.
If passed, McCaul said the measure, H.R. 6349, would target “specific technology sectors, like AI [artificial intelligence] and quantum computing, that are empowering China’s military development and surveillance.”
Rep. Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said an executive order issued by the Biden administration last August “that calls for provisions and notification requirements of specific types of American investments in China, or in certain companies that develop or produce semiconductors, quantum computers, and artificial intelligence applications” is an important first step.
But experts in U.S.-China relations told a House panel more could be done.
“Congress has an opportunity to build on the initial steps taken by the Trump and Biden administrations to prevent U.S. capital from fueling China’s military and intelligence capabilities. First, Washington should take a sectoral rather than merely an entity-based approach. The Treasury Department has demonstrated since at least 2021 that it is disinterested in using even its existing narrow authorities to limit investment in Chinese military-linked companies. And in fairness to the Treasury Department tackling the problem on a company-by-company basis would be a resource-intensive and gargantuan task,” Matthew Pottinger, the deputy national security adviser during the Trump administration, said Wednesday.
“We still haven’t learned that they will do everything they can to take anything we sell, particularly in the area of electronics and really high tech, and use it for the military. They’ve been doing that for decades. We don’t learn. We think somehow if you trade more, they’ll matriculate from dictatorship to democracy,” Republican Rep. Chris Smith said Wednesday.
The bipartisan push in the U.S. House comes as Senate negotiators continue work on the White House’s $106 billion national security supplemental request that includes funding to combat Chinese influence in the Indo-Pacific. Citing a border security crisis, Senate Republicans have sought changes to U.S. immigration law in return for their votes to pass more than $50 billion in assistance to Ukraine that is also part of the Biden administration’s request.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell urged lawmakers Wednesday to reach an agreement soon.
“It’s become quite fashionable in Washington to talk about how we’re not taking competition with China seriously enough,” McConnell said. “Winning this competition means credibly deterring Beijing’s worst impulses, which, for us, means investing in American strength. Outcompeting the PRC [People’s Republic of China] will require greater investments in our military capabilities and in our industrial capacity to produce them. The West cannot be caught unprepared for this challenge. We cannot afford to neglect the lessons of history.”
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Comoros Islands Hope for a Fragrant Future
When enjoying a fine perfume, one might not be aware that one of its main ingredients comes from the remote Comoros Islands in the Indian Ocean. It is ylang-ylang oil, and the people who produce flower oil are asking for a larger share of the profits, as Ruud Elmendorp reports from the Comoros capital, Moroni.
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Kate, Princess of Wales, Hospitalized After Undergoing Abdominal Surgery
LONDON — The Princess of Wales has been hospitalized after undergoing planned abdominal surgery and will remain at The London Clinic for up to two weeks, Kensington Palace said Wednesday.
The former Kate Middleton is expected to return to public duties after Easter, the palace said. The 42-year-old future queen was admitted to the hospital on Tuesday.
“The Princess of Wales appreciates the interest this statement will generate,” the palace said. “She hopes that the public will understand her desire to maintain as much normality for her children as possible; and her wish that her personal medical information remains private.”
The palace said that Kate, the wife of Prince William, wished to apologize for postponing her upcoming engagements.
“She looks forward to reinstating as many as possible, as soon as possible,” the palace said.
After Prince Harry and Meghan’s stormy departure to California in 2020, the Prince and Princess of Wales have solidified their position as being among the most popular members of the royal family. Kate, in particular, has remained a reliable royal in the public eye — the smiling mother of three who can comfort grieving parents at a children’s hospice or wow the nation by playing piano during a televised Christmas concert.
She was among the royals who appeared at the annual Christmas Day service at Sandringham.
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UN Concerned by Spread of Cholera to 10 African Countries
Harare, Zimbabwe — The U.N.’s Children’s Fund expressed alarm this week about a cholera outbreak in Africa that has spread to at least 10 countries, with the situation in Zambia and Zimbabwe “very serious.”
Dr. Paul Ngwakum, the regional health adviser for UNICEF in East and Southern Africa, said about 200,000 cases have been reported and more than 3,000 lives taken by the disease.
Of the 10 countries he named as having an active outbreak, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Somalia, Zambia and Zimbabwe are in “acute cholera crisis.”
“The key drivers are long-term poor water sanitation and hygiene conditions, exacerbated by changing weather patterns, climate change leading to floods and droughts, end-of-year festivities, inadequate community sensitization [and] late care-seeking behavior for those that are affected,” Ngwakum said.
“Children, unfortunately, carry the lion’s share of the affected,” he said. “For example, over 52% of the cases in Zambia are children less than 15 years old.”
Ngwakum said Zambia and Zimbabwe are experiencing a rapid rise in the number of cases since the Christmas and New Year holidays, with 1,000 cholera cases reported a week in each of the neighboring countries.
“The situation in Zambia and Zimbabwe is very serious,” he said. “These two countries are the most affected in the region. In Zambia, nine out of 10 provinces are reporting cases.”
The disease’s fatality rate is alarmingly high, Ngwakum said, with 4% of the more than 9,000 cases ending in death.
“This is extremely high because the acceptable threshold is below 1%,” he said. “Since the beginning of 2024 alone, Zimbabwe has recorded over 17,000 cases, with about 384 deaths. … And these continue to spread geographically.”
In Zimbabwe, a shortage of purified water is forcing residents to depend on open sources. That, along with uncollected refuse and running sewage, are being blamed for the waterborne disease.
Douglas Mombeshora, Zimbabwe’s health minister, said the central government is doing all it can to contain the outbreak, starting in the capital, Harare.
“If you move around … Harare, people are just dumping garbage in undesignated areas, and this has not been collected,” Mombeshora said. “So government has mobilized resources so that we clean up Harare. And government is moving in to mobilize resources to procure water-treating chemicals. Supply of potable water has dropped from 350 megaliters to 200 megaliters per day.”
Itai Rusike, executive director of the Community Working Group on Health in Zimbabwe, called on the government to declare a national disaster so that international aid agencies such as WHO, UNICEF and USAID can swiftly help to contain the cholera outbreak.
“All the measures to end cholera are in the purview of the government — central government or local government — by providing safe water, safe sanitation and also hygienic safe disposal,” Rusike said. “So the buck stops with the government in making sure that people are provided with uninterrupted potable water, refuse is collected on time, burst sewer pipes are fixed [promptly] and the general public are given information about cholera guidelines and protocols.”
UNICEF fears that if the outbreaks are not controlled, it will mean schools closing — as is already the case in Zambia.
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Winter Weather Snarls Air, Train Travel Across Europe
FRANKFURT/ OSLO — Freezing rain in central and southern Germany grounded hundreds of flights and restricted train traffic on Wednesday, while heavy snowfall in Norway’s capital led to the closure of its main airport.
Oslo airport said it would remain shut at least until 1330 GMT but the outage could also be extended, while Germany’s Frankfurt airport cancelled all its operations from midday as airplanes could no longer be de-iced, said a spokesperson.
Around 600 of the 1,047 scheduled Frankfurt arrivals and departures had been cancelled earlier in the day. At Munich airport 254 flights were scratched and a smaller airport in the southern city of Saarbruecken ceased operations completely.
“This is extremely rare… there is so much snow that the pilots can’t see the lights on the ground so we’ve halted all incoming and outgoing flights,” said a spokesperson for Norway’s national airport operator Avinor.
“I’ve had nothing but stress since yesterday,” said Klaus Ludwig Fess standing in Frankfurt airport’s departure lounge, adding both his initial flight and his rebooked one had been cancelled.
“Now I’m taking the train to Berlin,” he said.
German rail operator Deutsche Bahn, however, also warned of delays and cancellations because of winter weather, and said it was limiting the top speed for its high-speed ICE trains to 200 kph (124 mph) as a precautionary measure.
Its long distance services from Stuttgart and Frankfurt to Paris had been cancelled due to weather conditions in France, Deutsche Bahn said.
France’s weather service warned on its website of black ice in 25 regions and floods in three other areas this afternoon.
In Norway, trains stopped in some areas in the east of the country due to the weather conditions, train operator Bane Nor said in a statement on Wednesday.
In Germany, an extreme risk of black ice and heavy snowfall would remain through Thursday in the affected regions, its weather service said.
Numerous schools in Germany’s center and southern regions remained closed as on-site education was suspended for the day.
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Austrian Heiress Pays to Give Away $27 Million Fortune
Vienna, Austria — The rich and famous are paying top dollar for a place at this week’s Davos summit, but heiress Marlene Engelhorn is on the other side of the fence at the glitzy Swiss resort, demanding that they pay more in taxes.
The 31-year-old is also pursuing an ambitious plan to pay people to come up with ideas for her to give away the bulk of her $27.4 million wealth so she can escape what she calls a “dynastic rich swamp.”
“I’ve inherited a fortune and therefore power, without having done anything for it. And the state doesn’t even want taxes on it,” said the Austrian-German activist and founder of the Taxmenow initiative.
Engelhorn is joining several protests by a wealthy minority on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum calling for higher taxes on the rich.
The descendant of the founder of BASF chemical giant, Friedrich Engelhorn, is among an exclusive group of millionaires pushing for governments to tax them more to bridge the growing wealth gap.
The estimated 2,150 billionaires around the world are $3.3 trillion richer than they were in 2020, while nearly 5 billion people worldwide have grown poorer, the charity Oxfam said in a report on Monday, slamming “levels of obscene inequality.”
Engelhorn, who inherited millions when her grandmother died in 2022, announced this month that a citizens group of 50 Austrians will be set up and paid to devise ideas for the future of her fortune.
To make the process more democratic, 10,000 randomly selected Austrians are being invited to apply to join the group by filling out a questionnaire. Fifty will then be selected.
From March to June, the group will gather on several weekends in Salzburg to develop solutions “in the interests of society as a whole,” according to a statement.
Engelhorn was not immediately available to comment on the project.
If the group does not manage to suggest ideas with broad support, the inheritance will be returned to the heiress.
Engelhorn, who studied German at university, said she will get a regular job after “more than 90 percent” of her wealth has been redistributed.
“I’ll switch from the wealthiest 1% of society to the less wealthy 99%. … I think that’s an improvement. I’m moving up into a democratic society, out of this dynastic rich swamp,” she told the German daily Tagesspiegel.
Europe’s wealth inequality is particularly pronounced in Austria, economist Emanuel List of Vienna’s University of Economics and Business told AFP.
Quoting European Central Bank estimates, he said “the top 5% own about 54% of Austria’s net wealth, while the entire bottom half of households only owns 4%, so basically nothing.”
At least 15 billion euros are inherited or passed on in Austria every year, and whether one receives an inheritance or not “plays a very big role” in moving up the net worth ladder, he added.
In Austria, where conservatives have held the economy ministry for decades, inheritance tax was scrapped in 2008, one of few EU countries to do so.
Compared with campaigns such as U.S. billionaire Warren Buffett’s pledge to donate 99% of his fortune to philanthropic causes, List says Engelhorn’s scientifically supported initiative is “innovative.”
Amid a persistent cost-of-living-crisis, Austria’s opposition Social Democrats last year made a new call for an inheritance tax to be revived.
The ruling conservative People’s Party firmly rejected the proposal.
Austria’s far-right Freedom Party, which leads in polls ahead of a general election this year, called the Social Democrats’ tax plans “an attack on families, entrepreneurs and all top performers.”
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