Russia is facing the biggest demographic crisis in its recent history, a drastic drop in births that reflects the fear that many Russians have about starting a family in an uncertain economic and political landscape. Jonathan Spier narrates this report from the VOA Moscow Bureau.
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Month: January 2024
US Delivers 66 Schools for Students in Rural Malawi
Blantyre, Malawi — The U.S. government handed over 66 secondary schools that it built for students in rural Malawi under the USAID-funded Secondary School Expansion for Development project, or SEED.
The project is a partnership of the U.S. government through the United States Agency for International Development and the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.
Amy Diaz, deputy ambassador at the U.S. Embassy in Malawi, said the $90 million project started in 2019 with an initial plan to build 200 schools across Malawi. That number was reduced to 89 because of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which created many challenges, including a rise in the cost of building materials.
“When the costs increased, we worked with the ministry of education to narrow down the new school construction sites to the areas of greatest need in each district. With a handover of 66 schools today, we are on track to complete construction of 89 new rural schools by the end of this year,” Diaz said.
About 27,000 students will now have access to secondary school education. The new schools have reduced the distance many learners have to walk to get to classes, with some living 10 kilometers away.
President Lazarus Chakwera presided over the televised handoff ceremony Monday in the Salima district of central Malawi. He called the event a milestone in Malawi’s partnership with the U.S.
“A partnership that produces 66 brand new secondary schools, serving communities across 20 districts, is no ordinary partnership. A partnership that expands access to secondary education for tens of thousands of our youths is no ordinary partnership,” Chakwera said.
Education analysts say it is Malawi’s government that needs to improve the quality of education and stop vandalism of public schools. Several government secondary schools were closed recently due to vandalism by angry students.
“We have a scenario here where the government is unable to renovate the vandalized infrastructure, thereby keeping the students out of learning,” said Benedicto Kondowe, an education expert and executive director for the Civil Society Education Coalition in Malawi. “Therefore, the extent of school vandalism that we have had presented a very dangerous course in this country. Once we do not take care of the infrastructure that we have, chances are high most people will be kept out of the education system.”
Kondowe said he also hopes construction of the new schools will help reduce unemployment among teachers, who have long held protests pushing the government to hire them.
Chakwera said his administration will recruit 5,000 secondary school teachers following the construction of the U.S.-funded schools.
“This is why my administration has invested heavily by expanding the teacher base by increasing the teaching staff by 50%, adding 13,000 teachers to the staff roll,” he said. “Apart from increasing the quantity, we also want to increase the quality of teaching. And that includes improving the condition of service for teachers and school administrators.”
Willie Malimba, president of the Teachers Union of Malawi, said 5,000 teachers are just the tip of the iceberg in a country with a massive shortage of professional educators, and that existing schools may remain understaffed.
“If those 5,000 teachers are adding up to already existing secondary schools, we could say at least it’s a little bit better,” Malimba said. “But now, we are going to have 66 additional secondary schools. This means these 5,000 will be directly absorbed by the 66 additional secondary schools. Which means shortfalls that are already there in some secondary schools, they are still there.”
The education ministry has announced plans to add more structures to the newly constructed secondary schools, including a laboratory block, a library, eight teachers’ houses and an administration section.
It says this is in line with the newly introduced minimum package required for the country’s secondary school infrastructure.
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France’s Macron Gets Ceremonial Welcome as He Starts 2-Day State Visit to Sweden
Stockholm — French President Emmanuel Macron was welcomed Tuesday with pomp and ceremony at the start of a two-day state visit to Sweden during which he will meet Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and the Scandinavian country’s monarch, King Carl XVI Gustaf.
Macron and his wife, Brigitte, were greeted by the king in the inner courtyard of the downtown Stockholm royal castle that is the official residence of the Swedish royals. There, Macron and Carl Gustaf reviewed members of the Grenadier Guards that had lined up.
Macron noted that it had been too long since a French president visited Sweden — the last time was in 2000, when Jacques Chirac traveled to the Scandinavian country.
“My visit is therefore first and foremost to renew our friendship, our partnership in the European Union, and as Sweden prepares to join NATO, our alliance,” Macron said.
Later Tuesday, Macron is to discuss the future of European security at a military academy in Stockholm, together with Kristersson and the king. Russia’s war on Ukraine and Sweden’s NATO application are likely to be on the table.
After more than a year of delays, Turkey earlier this month completed its ratification of Sweden’s bid to join NATO, meaning Hungary is now the last member of the military alliance not to have given its approval. All NATO countries must agree before a new member can join the alliance.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Sweden and neighboring Finland abandoned their traditional positions of military nonalignment to seek protection under NATO’s security umbrella. Finland joined the alliance last year.
On Wednesday, Macron and his wife are to travel to Malmo, the third-largest city, in southern Sweden, where they will visit a European multidisciplinary research facility under construction and visit a company to discuss green technologies.
At home, Macron’s government faces angry farmers who have camped out around Paris. They demand better pay, fewer constraints and lower costs. On Monday, they encircled Paris with traffic-snarling barricades, using hundreds of tractors and hay bales to block highways leading to the capital.
The French president initially was to travel to Sweden in late October, but the visit was postponed due to the Gaza war that began with Hamas’ attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7.
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Millions Urgently Need Food in Ethiopia’s Tigray Region Despite Resumption of Aid Deliveries
KAMPALA, Uganda — Only a small fraction of millions of needy people in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region are receiving food aid, according to an aid memo seen by The Associated Press, more than one month after aid agencies resumed deliveries of grain following a lengthy pause over massive theft.
Just 14% of 3.2 million people targeted for food aid by humanitarian agencies in the region this month had received it by Jan. 21, according to the memo by the Tigray Food Cluster, a group of aid agencies co-chaired by the U.N.’s World Food Program and Ethiopian officials.
The memo urges humanitarian groups to “immediately scale up” their operations, warning that “failure to take swift action now will result in severe food insecurity and malnutrition during the lean season, with possible loss of the most vulnerable children and women in the region.”
The U.N. and the U.S. paused food aid to Tigray in March last year after discovering a “large-scale” scheme to steal humanitarian grain. The suspension was rolled out to the rest of Ethiopia in June.
U.S. officials believe the theft may be the biggest diversion of grain ever. Humanitarian donors have blamed Ethiopian government officials and the country’s military for the fraud. Ethiopia’s government dismissed that suggestion as harmful “propaganda.”
The U.N. and the U.S. lifted the pause in December after introducing reforms to curb theft, but Tigray authorities say food is not reaching those who need it.
Two aid workers told the AP that the new system — which includes fitting GPS trackers to food trucks and ration cards with QR codes — has been hampered by technical issues, causing delays. Aid agencies are also struggling with a lack of funds.
A third aid worker said the food aid pause and the slow resumption meant some people in Tigray have not received food aid for over a year. “They went through multiple rounds of registration and verification, but no actual distributions yet,” the aid worker said.
The aid workers spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.
Tigray, home to 5.5 million people, was the center of a devastating two-year civil war that killed hundreds of thousands and spilled into the neighboring regions. A U.N. panel accused Ethiopia’s government of using “starvation as a method of warfare” by restricting food aid to Tigray during the conflict, which ended in November 2022 with a peace deal.
Around 20.1 million people across Ethiopia need humanitarian food due to drought, conflict and a tanking economy. The aid pause pushed up hunger levels even further.
The U.S.-funded Famine Early Warning System has warned that crisis levels of hunger or worse “are expected in northern, southern and southeastern Ethiopia throughout at least early 2024.” A former head of the WFP has described these levels of hunger as “marching towards starvation.”
In the Amhara region neighboring Tigray, a rebellion that erupted in August is impeding humanitarians’ movements and making distributions difficult, while several regions of Ethiopia have been devastated by a multi-year drought.
Malnutrition rates among children in parts of Ethiopia’s Afar, Amhara and Oromia regions range between 15.9% and 47%, according to a presentation by the Ethiopia Nutrition Cluster and reviewed by the AP. Among displaced children in Tigray, the rate is 26.5%. The Ethiopia Nutrition Cluster is co-chaired by the U.N. Children’s Fund and the federal government.
Persistent insecurity in Tigray meant only 49% of its farmland was planted during the main planting season last year, according to an assessment by U.N. agencies, NGOs and the regional authorities, and seen by the AP.
Crop production in these areas was only 37% of the expected total because of drought. In some areas the proportion was as low as 2%.
The poor harvest prompted Tigray’s authorities to warn of an “unfolding famine” that could match the disaster of 1984-5, which killed hundreds of thousands of people across northern Ethiopia, unless the aid response is immediately scaled up.
However, Ethiopia’s federal government denies there is a large hunger crisis. When Tigray’s leader, Getachew Reda, raised the alarm over looming mass starvation deaths last month, a federal government spokesperson dismissed the reports as “inaccurate” and accused him of “politicizing the crisis.”
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African Small Businesses Turn to AI to Improve E-commerce
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development ranks Africa as the region with the lowest amount of e-commerce investment. UNCTAD says e-commerce is currently accessible to very few urban areas. An AI solution, however, aims to solve the problem. Senanu Tord reports from Accra, Ghana.
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EU Slowly Moves Toward Using Profits From Frozen Russian Assets to Help Ukraine
Brussels — European Union nations have decided to approve an outline deal that would keep in reserve the profits from hundreds of billions of dollars in Russian central bank assets that have been frozen in retaliation for Moscow’s war in Ukraine, an EU official said.
The tentative agreement, reached late Monday, still needs formal approval but is seen as a first step toward using some of the 200 billion euros ($216 billion) in Russian central bank assets in the EU to help Ukraine rebuild from Russian destruction.
The official, who asked not to be identified since the agreement was not yet legally ratified, said the bloc “would allow to start collecting the extraordinary revenues generated from the frozen assets … to support the reconstruction of Ukraine.”
How the proceeds will be used will be decided later, as the issue remains mired in legal and practical considerations.
There is urgency since Ukraine is struggling to make ends meet, and aid plans in the EU and the United States are being held back over political considerations including whether allies will continue helping Ukraine at the same pace as they did in the first two years of the war.
EU leaders will meet on Thursday hoping to approve a 50 billion euro ($54 billion) support package for Ukraine over the solitary opposition of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Even if using the unfrozen assets, which now go untapped, seems like a practical step to take, many fear that financial weaponization could harm the standing of the EU in global financial markets.
Early this month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for a “strong” decision this year for the frozen assets in Western banks to “be directed towards defense against the Russian war and for reconstruction” of Ukraine.
The EU step late Monday paves the way if EU nations ever want to impose such measures. Group of Seven allies of Ukraine are still looking for an adequate legal framework to pursue the plan.
The U.S. announced at the start of Russia’s invasion that America and its allies had blocked access to more than $600 billion that Russia held outside its borders — including roughly $300 billion in funds belonging to Russia’s central bank. Since then, the U.S and its allies have continued to impose rounds of targeted sanctions against companies and wealthy elites with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The World Bank’s latest damage assessment of Ukraine, released in March 2023, estimates that costs for the nation’s reconstruction and recovery will be $411 billion over the next 10 years, which includes needs for public and private funds.
Belgium, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union for the next six months, is now leading the talks on whether to seize Russia’s assets. Belgium is also the country where most frozen Russian assets under sanctions are being held.
The country is collecting taxes on the assets. Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said in October that 1.7 billion euros ($1.8 billion) in tax collections were already available and that the money would be used to pay for military equipment, humanitarian aid and helping rebuild the war-torn country.
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US, China Launch Fentanyl Talks in Sign of Cooperation Amid Differences
BEIJING — American and Chinese officials met Tuesday to discuss joint efforts to stem the flow of fentanyl into the U.S., a sign of cooperation as the two global powers try to manage their contentious ties.
The two-day meeting was the first for a new counternarcotics working group. One focus of the talks was fentanyl, the synthetic opioid that is ravaging America, and in particular ingredients for the drug that are made in China.
Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to restart cooperation in a handful of areas, including drug trafficking, when he and U.S. President Joe Biden met outside San Francisco in November. The agreements were a small step forward in a relationship strained by major differences on issues ranging from trade and technology to Taiwan and human rights.
The U.S. wants China to do more to curb the export of chemicals that it says are processed into fentanyl, largely in Mexico, before the final product is smuggled into the United States.
Chinese Public Security Minister Wang Xiaohong said the two sides had in-depth and pragmatic talks.
“We reached common understanding on the work plan for the working group,” he said at a ceremony marking the inauguration of the group.
The head of the U.S. team, Jen Daskal, a deputy homeland security advisor in the White House, said that Biden had sent a high-level delegation “to underscore the importance of this issue to the American people.”
China used to be a major supplier of fentanyl, and the U.S. has credited Beijing for a 2019 crackdown that led to “a drastic reduction in seizures of fentanyl shipments … from China.” Now it wants Beijing to stop the export of the ingredients known as “precursors.”
Synthetic opioids are the biggest killers in the deadliest drug crisis the U.S. has ever seen. More than 100,000 deaths were linked to drug overdoses in 2022, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than two-thirds involved fentanyl or similar synthetic drugs.
China had previously rebuffed U.S. appeals for help as relations between the two global powers deteriorated, often responding that the U.S. should look inward to solve its domestic problems and not blame them on China.
Talks were formally put on ice in 2022, when China suspended cooperation in several areas including narcotics to protest a visit to Taiwan by then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The ice began to thaw in the lead-up to the Biden-Xi meeting in November 2023. A U.S. Senate delegation pressed the fentanyl issue on a visit to Beijing in October and said that Chinese officials expressed sympathy for the victims of America’s opioid crisis.
But China refused to discuss cooperation unless the U.S. lifted sanctions on the Public Security Ministry’s Institute of Forensic Science. The Commerce Department had imposed the sanctions in 2020, accusing the institute complicity in human rights violations against Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups in China’s Xinjiang region.
The U.S. quietly agreed to lift the sanctions to get cooperation on fentanyl. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi acknowledged “the removal of the obstacle of unilateral sanctions” in a speech on China-U.S. relations earlier this month.
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller called it “an appropriate step to take” given what China was willing to do on the trafficking of fentanyl precursors.
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Northern Ireland’s DUP Strikes Deal for Power-Sharing Government
BALLYNAHINCH, Northern Ireland — The leader of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) said it had reached a deal with the British government on the operation of post-Brexit trade rules that would allow it to return to the region’s power-sharing government.
Northern Ireland has been without a devolved government for almost two years after the DUP walked out in protest over the trade rules, which it said created barriers with the rest of the United Kingdom and undermined Northern Ireland’s place in it.
A return to government by the region’s largest pro-British party offers a way out of a crisis that posed an existential threat to the political settlement underpinning Northern Ireland’s 1998 peace deal, and also puts an end to one of the most difficult aspects of Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union.
“I am pleased to report that the party executive has now endorsed the proposals that I have put to them,” Jeffrey Donaldson told a news conference in the early hours of Tuesday morning after an hours-long briefing to DUP lawmakers and party members.
“Subject to the binding commitments between the Democratic Unionist Party and the UK government being fully and faithfully delivered as agreed… the package of measures in totality does provide a basis for our party to nominate members to the Northern Ireland executive,” he added.
Any deal risked a split in the DUP while also providing ammunition to rivals including the much smaller Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) party, who oppose any compromise, ahead of a UK general election due by late January next year.
Earlier around 50 protesters, some holding Union Jack flags and signs saying “Stop DUP sellout,” gathered outside the hotel where Donaldson briefed party members after months of closely guarded talks.
The DUP leader said the party made a decisive decision and that the result of a vote was “very clear.”
Sinn Fein Leader
Donaldson said the measures, which will be underpinned by new UK laws, will remove checks for goods moving within the UK and remaining in Northern Ireland, guarantee unfettered access for Northern Ireland businesses to the UK market and safeguard the region’s place in the UK.
He said London would publish details “in due course” and could move quickly to enable the DUP to take its place back in Belfast’s Stormont Assembly.
Irish nationalists and pro-British unionist politicians are obliged to share power under the terms of the 1998 Good Friday peace accord that ended three decades of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland.
Britain’s Northern Ireland Minister, Chris Heaton-Harris, said on social media platform X that the parties entitled to form an executive would meet later Tuesday and that he hoped the assembly would return “as soon as possible.”
Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald, whose Irish nationalist party became the largest in the British-run region for the first time at elections shortly after the DUP walkout, said she was optimistic that the assembly would be restored by Feb. 8.
That will allow Sinn Fein to assume the role of Northern Ireland first minister, the latest political milestone for the former political wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) who want to leave the United Kingdom and form a united Ireland.
your ad hereGarland to Undergo Surgery, US Justice Department Says
WASHINGTON — Attorney General Merrick Garland will undergo back surgery this weekend and delegate his duties to the deputy attorney general during the procedure, the Justice Department said Monday.
The news comes as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin returns to work at the Pentagon following a hospitalization related to prostate cancer that was criticized for being kept secret for days.
Garland, 71, will be under general anesthesia during the back procedure on Saturday, which will last about 90 minutes and is “minimally invasive,” said Xochitl Hinojosa, director of public affairs at the Justice Department. He is expected to return home the same day, she said. Garland will delegate his duties to Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco shortly before, during and for a short time after the procedure as he recovers from the anesthesia, the statement said. He is expected to return to work the week of February 5.
Austin returned to the Pentagon on Monday after nearly a monthlong absence. He underwent a surgical procedure for the cancer on December 22 and was released but was then admitted to intensive care days later after experiencing extreme pain. He stayed there for two weeks but didn’t inform the White House or his deputy until days later that he had cancer, had surgery or returned to the hospital.
Austin’s lack of disclosure prompted two ongoing reviews, as well as changes in federal guidelines to ensure the White House will be informed any time Cabinet chiefs can’t carry out their jobs. The Justice Department notified the White House of the plans to delegate his duties under the new guidelines, White House spokeswoman Olivia Dalton confirmed.
When Garland went in for a routine medical procedure in 2022, his office also informed the public a week in advance and outlined how long he was expected to be out and when he would return to work.
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Ukraine Aid Funding Lapse Impacting Refugee Resettlement in US
The debate over funding Ukraine in its war with Russia has wide-reaching implications, even far away from the front lines. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh has more on the impact to refugee resettlement in Chicago, the second-largest home in the U.S. to Ukrainians who have fled the war.
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Malawi Launches New COVID-19 Vaccination Campaign Amid Rising Cases
Blantyre, Malawi — The Malawi government and the World Health Organization launched a new COVID-19 vaccination campaign on Monday in 10 of the country’s 29 districts. This is partly in response to new cases confirmed in the past three weeks in several districts across the country.
Nsanje District in southern Malawi currently leads in the number of COVID-19 cases recorded this year.
George Mbotwa, spokesperson for the district health office, said the district has registered 17 new cases in the past three weeks and some are health workers.
“Initially there were two, but we had up to eight cases that were health workers,” he said. “Some of them have now been confirmed as negative, and others are being followed up to ensure that they are fully recovered before they can resume work.”
By Monday, Malawi cumulatively recorded 89,202 confirmed COVID-19 cases, including 2,686 deaths, since the first cases were confirmed in the country in April 2020.
Malawi’s Ministry of Health says the new vaccination campaign will help boost the number of people getting the COVID-19 vaccine. Vaccination rates in some areas of Malawi are as low as 40%.
It also says the WHO-funded campaign would help avoid waste of the vaccine as was the case in 2020 when the government destroyed nearly 20,000 expired AstraZeneca doses.
Many of those doses expired due to vaccine hesitancy amid concerns of its safety and efficacy.
However, recent government public health campaigns on the importance of COVID-19 shots have helped defeat that hesitancy.
Mary Chawinga, a mother of two of Machinjiri Township in Blantyre, said she has had the vaccine and is awaiting a booster.
“And I am ready to take my children, because prevention is better than [a] cure they say,” Chawinga said. “You never know how the wave will be like this time around considering the way it was way back in 2020. We have had it in 2021, and now this is 2024.”
Another mother of two, Habeeba Nyasulu, said she received the COVID-19 doses during the first campaign and encourages others to get the shot.
“I know that we are not safe until everyone is safe,” she said. “So, let others also receive the vaccine. I know that the vaccine does not prevent us from getting infected, but it helps us when we contract it not to be critically ill.”
Maziko Matemba is a community health care ambassador in Malawi, said the COVID-19 threat is still present in the country.
“Malawi didn’t vaccinate a required number of people against COVID-19, because the targeted population was about 11 million Malawians,” Matemba said. “But we were less than half about 2 or 3 million Malawians who were able to get vaccinated.”
Matemba said the country now needs to have the vaccine in the right places and encourage more people to get vaccinated.
The Ministry of Health says the new campaign targets 10 of the country’s 29 health districts that have recently recorded new cases. These include Machinga, Blantyre, Dowa, Mzimba and Nsanje districts.
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US Arms Exports Hit Record High in Fiscal 2023
Washington — Sales of U.S. military equipment to foreign governments in 2023 rose 16% to a record $238 billion, the U.S. State Department said on Monday, as countries sought to replenish stocks sent to Ukraine and prepare for major conflicts.
The figures underpin expectations of stronger sales for the likes of Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman, whose shares are forecast to rise amid growing global instability.
Arms sales and transfers are viewed as “important U.S. foreign policy tools with potential long-term implications for regional and global security,” the State Department said in a statement.
Sales approved in the year included $10 billion worth of High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) to Poland, $2.9 billion worth of AIM-120C-8 Advanced Medium-Range Air-To-Air Missiles (AMRAAM) to Germany, and National Advanced Surface to Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) to Ukraine.
Lockheed makes the HIMARS, and RTX, formerly Raytheon, makes AMRAAM. RTX and Norway’s Kongsberg produce NASAMS.
Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics expect existing orders for hundreds of thousands of artillery rounds, hundreds of Patriot missile interceptors, and a surge in orders for armored vehicles will underpin their results in coming quarters.
There are two major ways foreign governments purchase arms from U.S. companies: direct commercial sales negotiated with a company, or foreign military sales in which a government typically contacts a Defense Department official at the U.S. embassy in its capital. Both require U.S. government approval.
The direct military sales by U.S. companies rose to $157.5 billion in fiscal 2023 from $153.6 billion in fiscal 2022, while sales arranged through the U.S. government rose to $80.9 billion in 2023 from $51.9 billion the prior year.
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ICC Prosecutor: There Are Grounds to Believe Sudan’s Warring Sides Are Committing Crimes in Darfur
UNITED NATIONS — The International Criminal Court’s prosecutor told the U.N. Security Council on Monday his “clear finding” is that there are grounds to believe both Sudan’s armed forces and paramilitary rivals are committing crimes in the western Darfur region during the country’s current conflict.
Karim Khan, who recently visited neighboring Chad where tens of thousands of people from Darfur have fled, warned that those he met in refugee camps fear Darfur will become “the forgotten atrocity.” He urged Sudan’s government to provide his investigators with multiple-entry visas and respond to 35 requests for assistance.
Sudan plunged into chaos last April when long-simmering tensions between the military, led by General Abdel Fattah Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary commanded by Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, erupted into street battles in the capital, Khartoum, and other areas.
Darfur, which was wracked by bloodshed and atrocities in 2003, has been an epicenter of the current conflict, an arena of ethnic violence where paramilitary troops and allied Arab militias have been attacking African ethnic groups.
The fighting has displaced over 7 million people and killed 12,000, according to the United Nations. Local doctors’ groups and activists say the true death toll is far higher.
In 2005, the Security Council referred the situation in Darfur to the ICC, and Khan has said the court still has a mandate under that resolution to investigate crimes in the vast region.
He told the council, “Based on the work of my office, it’s my clear finding, my clear assessment, that there are grounds to believe that presently Rome Statute crimes are being committed in Darfur by both the Sudanese armed forces and the Rapid Support Forces and affiliated groups.”
The Rome Statute established the ICC in 2002 to investigate the world’s worst atrocities — war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide — and the crime of aggression.
In Darfur, Khan warned, the world is confronted with “an ugly and inescapable truth” relating back to the original conflict.
“The failure of the international community to execute the warrants that have been issued by independent judges of the ICC has invigorated the climate of impunity and the outbreak of violence that commenced in April that continues today,” he said.
“Without justice for past atrocities, the inescapable truth is that we condemn the current generation, and if we do nothing now, we condemn future generations to suffering the same fate,” Khan said.
The 2003 Darfur conflict began when rebels from the territory’s ethnic sub-Saharan African community launched an insurgency accusing the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum of discrimination and neglect.
The government, under then-President Omar al-Bashir, responded with aerial bombings and unleashed local nomadic Arab militias known as the Janjaweed, who are accused of mass killings and rapes. Up to 300,000 people were killed and 2.7 million were driven from their homes.
Khan told the council Monday that some Darfuris he spoke to in Chad said what’s happening today is worse than 2003.
Last April, the first ICC trial to deal with atrocities by Sudanese government-backed forces in Darfur began in The Hague, Netherlands. The defendant, Janjaweed leader Ali Muhammad Ali Abd–Al-Rahman, also known as Ali Kushayb, pleaded innocent to all 31 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Khan urged the parties to the ongoing conflict to respond “meaningfully” to requests for assistance from Abd-Al-Rahman’s defense team.
The prosecutor said he was pleased to report to the council that there has been “progress” in the ICC cases against former president al-Bashir and two senior government security officials during the 2003 Darfur conflict, Abdel-Rahim Muhammad Hussein and Ahmed Haroun.
“We’ve received evidence that further strengthens those particular cases,” Khan said. The three have never been turned over to the ICC, and their whereabouts during the current conflict in Sudan remain unknown.
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Houthi Ship Attacks Disrupting Global Supply Chain
Hundreds of cargo ships traveling from Asia to Europe are now avoiding the Red Sea and the Suez Canal route due to persistent attacks and hijackings by Houthi militants responding to the Israel-Hamas war. The International Chamber of Shipping, a major trade group, says these incidents have caused significant disruptions in global trade, leading to increased costs and delays. Jonathan Spier narrates this report from Alfonso Beato in Barcelona, one of the main ports in Europe handling cargo from the Red Sea.
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Parents of Teen, Who Fatally Shot 10, on Trial in Serbia
BELGRADE, Serbia — A trial started Monday in Serbia for the parents of a teenager who is accused of killing 10 people and injuring six in a mass shooting at his school last May that left the Balkan nation in shock.
The suspected shooter, 13-year-old Kosta Kecmanovic, has been held in a mental institution since the attack and cannot be held criminally liable under Serbian law because of his age. His father and mother were charged with a “serious act against general safety” for failing to safeguard the weapon and ammunition used in the shooting.
The High Court in the capital, Belgrade, decided to keep the entire proceedings closed to the public despite calls by the defense lawyers that they be open. The couple reportedly embraced in the courtroom and wept together, according to local media reports.
The shooting at a school in Belgrade last May 4, which left nine schoolmates and a security guard dead, was followed by another mass slaying a day later in central Serbia that killed eight people and wounded 14. The two attacks triggered months of protests of Serbia’s populist President Aleksandar Vucic for allegedly creating a culture of violence in a country that went through a series of bloody wars in the 1990s.
Kecmanovic’s father faces additional charges, including an accusation of training the boy how to shoot without properly guarding the weapons at their home. The manager of a shooting range and an instructor also have been charged.
Serbia has one of the highest gun ownership rates in the world. The country is full of weapons left over from the conflicts of the 1990s.
Chief prosecutor Nenad Stefanovic told state RTS broadcaster that he expects “a free and fair trial.”
The defense lawyers said Monday they are against keeping the trial closed to the public.
“Today the court made a decision to exclude the public in the entire course of this procedure, stating that this is done to protect the interests of minors and some private interests of the participants in the procedure,” lawyer Irina Borovic said. “Our position is that the decision of the court was absolutely hasty.”
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Kenya Fails to Achieve 100% Transition From Primary to Secondary Education
Nairibi — The school year is well under way across Kenya, but education officials say that not every high school aged student has made it to class. The enrollment is at less than 100%.
Social media pages in Kenya are filled with primary school graduates, holding placards asking well-wishers to help them with school fees to continue their education.
Some have received help from ordinary citizens and businesses, and some politicians have come forward to help; however, more than two weeks after secondary school classes began, some 10% of an estimated 1.3 million students who passed last year’s high school entrance exams still haven’t made it into the classroom.
The Kenyan government has been pushing for a 100% transition from primary to secondary school, but some learners are finding it difficult to continue their education for financial reasons.
Lucy Njau is a guardian to Wamboi, a teenager who scored 354 out of 500 required marks on the entrance exams. Njau says she is so poor she cannot afford the required fees, uniform and books — 50,000 shillings, $350USD — to send Wamboi to school.
Njau says, “If I want to take her to school, I will spend almost 50,000, including all the school requirements and even school uniforms that I cannot afford.”
Laikipia, Nyeri, and Samburu counties recorded a 99% transition rate, with the capital Nairobi, along with Nakuru and Wajir counties recording 98%. The high attendance rate in Wajir, a county in northern Kenya, comes even as schools and teachers there have faced attacks by the al-Shabab militant group.
Kajiado, Narok, Isiolo, and Kilifi counties have recorded lower enrollments ranging from 64-to-79%.
Meshack Oduke is the head teacher of Shilce Secondary School in Nairobi. He says most parents cannot pay the required fees to keep their children in class.
“The biggest factor is school fees,” he said. “Many parents are unable to raise the expected money. And if you look at the fees for extra county schools, it’s about 50,000. Now, if these parents are coming from a humble background, it’s not going to be easy for this parent to raise this money to pay. Another factor is that there are those parents who are not ready to allow their children to be moved from one area to another and that one is also affecting the 100% transition.”
The Kenyan government provides some financial assistance to students in need of aid, but the biggest chunk is left for parents to pay. Critics say the system is riddled with favoritism and corruption, locking out the neediest.
Oduke says the government should rethink the way it channels education money meant to help poor students.
“The government should come up with a program where all this money is going to be put in one basket. Then, this money can be sent to schools after identifying the needy students and those who are not needy because we end up sponsoring or giving this money to the students who are already able to pay for themselves. And those ones who are unable to pay, they remain at home,” he said.
Kenyan officials have warned schools against turning away students due to school fees, but many teachers complain of a lack of money to run the school as just a few students complete their payments on time.
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Ex-IRS Contractor Sentenced to 5 Years for Leaking Trump Tax Records
Washington — A former contractor for the U.S. Internal Revenue Service was sentenced by a judge on Monday to five years in prison on Monday for leaking the tax records of former President Donald Trump and thousands of other wealthy Americans to media organizations.
Charles Littlejohn, 38, in October had pleaded guilty to a charge of disclosing income tax return information without authorization.
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes decided on his sentence.
Federal prosecutors had sought a five-year sentence, the maximum allowed under U.S. law, arguing that Littlejohn was motivated by a political agenda and compromised the security of sensitive personal information. Littlejohn, according to prosecutors, sought a position at a consulting firm that works with the IRS in 2017 in hopes of accessing and disclosing records on Trump, who was president at the time.
Littlejohn’s lawyers said he was motivated by a “deep, moral belief” that the public had a right to know the information he shared, but now regrets his actions. Littlejohn’s legal team did not request a specific sentence, but sought a punishment comparable to prior government leakers.
Littlejohn secretly downloaded years of Trump’s tax records in 2018, later sharing them with reporters from the New York Times, according to court documents. The newspaper published a series of articles in 2020 revealing that Trump paid no income tax in 10 of the 15 years before he was elected president.
Trump became the first major U.S. presidential candidate in decades not to release his tax returns when he ran for the White House in 2016. A U.S. House of Representatives panel released six years of his tax records in 2022 after a court battle.
Littlejohn later leaked tax information on “ultra-high net worth taxpayers” to the investigative news outlet ProPublica. He was motivated by concerns about economic inequality and wanted to spur reforms to the U.S. tax system, his defense team wrote in court documents.
ProPublica published nearly 50 articles based on the information, revealing how the wealthy evade income taxes in the United States.
The nearly 6,000 pages of records released by the House panel in 2022 included more than 2,700 pages of personal returns from Trump and his wife Melania Trump, plus more than 3,000 pages of returns from his businesses. They showed that Trump’s income and tax liability fluctuated dramatically from 2015 through 2020 and that he and his wife claimed large deductions and losses, and paid little or no income tax in several of those years.
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