Month: April 2024

Biden hosts Japanese, Philippine leaders to discuss China’s aggression

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Washington — U.S. President Joe Biden is hosting Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. at the White House Thursday, aiming to send China a clear message to halt its aggressive behavior against its neighbors in the South China Sea.

The trilateral summit comes amid increased tension between Manila and Beijing. In recent weeks, Chinese Coast Guard ships have taken provocative actions to block resupply missions for Philippine soldiers stationed on the Second Thomas Shoal, who guard Manila’s sovereignty claims over the Spratly Islands.

These so-called gray zone tactics of intimidation fall dangerously close to triggering a mutual defense treaty between Washington and Manila and will be a focus in Thursday’s summit.

Key to the discussions is working toward a shared understanding on what constitutes gray zone attacks and the treaty’s enforcement threshold.

“We continue to coordinate very closely the question of China’s so-called gray zone tactics, its coercive tactics, and what the implications of those might be,” a senior administration official said in response to VOA’s question during a briefing Wednesday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity.

The U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty extends to “armed attacks on Philippines Armed Forces, public vessels, or aircraft,” the official underscored. “That includes its Coast Guard, and that includes anywhere in the South China Sea.”

Biden and Kishida will show Marcos a “clear demonstration of support and resolve,” the official said. Leaders will convey that they “stand shoulder to shoulder with Marcos, ready to support and work with the Philippines at every turn.”

Gray zone tactics

China’s gray zone tactics have blurred the lines of what is traditionally seen as armed attacks by using force that may not be intentionally lethal, such as military-grade lasers, acoustic devices, high-pressure water cannon, or simply ramming into ships, said Gregory Poling, director of the Southeast Asia Program and Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“The problem is that these things are only non-lethal in a statistical sense,” Poling told VOA. “But if you do it enough, you will kill somebody.”

Manila and Washington would then need to determine whether to invoke mutual defense under the treaty, he added.

Both sides are realizing that “China has blurred the lines so much with its Coast Guard and militias,” he added, saying, “We can’t treat China the way we treat normal armed actors, that China intentionally hides its military force behind civilians, and that we need to be more flexible in our responses.”

Discussions are ongoing under the Maritime Security Framework signed by the U.S. and the Philippines in 2022. Known also as “Bantay Dagat,” or “Guardian of the Sea” in Tagalog, the agreement aims to improve regional maritime domain awareness and confront maritime challenges together.

Last year, the U.S. and Philippine secretaries of defense established guidelines reaffirming that “an armed attack in the Pacific, including anywhere in the South China Sea, on either of their public vessels, aircraft, or armed forces — which includes their Coast Guards — would invoke mutual defense commitments under Articles IV and V of the 1951 U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty.”

“Recognizing that threats may arise in several domains — including land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace — and take the form of asymmetric, hybrid, and irregular warfare and gray-zone tactics, the guidelines chart a way forward to build interoperability in both conventional and non-conventional domains,” the Biden administration said in a statement.

Dialogue with Beijing

Ahead of their trilateral summit with Marcos, Biden and Kishida insist on fostering dialogue with Beijing, even as the U.S. and Japan ramp up defense ties.

In their latest phone conversation in April, Biden said he discussed with Chinese President Xi Jinping the “best way to reduce the chances of miscalculation and misunderstanding.”

“Our alliance we have with Japan — is purely defensive in nature,” he said during a joint press conference Wednesday with Kishida. “It’s not aimed at any one nation or a threat to the region. And it — it doesn’t have anything to do with conflict. And so, this is about restoring stability in the region. And I think we have a chance of doing that.”

Speaking through an interpreter Wednesday, Kishida said he and Biden “agreed that our two countries will continue to respond to challenges concerning China through close coordination.”

“At the same time, we confirmed the importance of continuing our dialogue with China and cooperating with China on common challenges,” he added.

Biden and Kishida announced initiatives to enhance bilateral defense ties and maritime cooperation in the South China Sea, as well as air defense.

“For the first time, Japan and the United States and Australia will create a network system of air missile and defense architecture,” Biden said.

Similar announcements with the Philippines are expected Thursday.

Beijing said it opposes “cobbling together exclusive groupings and stoking bloc confrontation in the region.”

“Such practices: patching up small blocs, stirring up confrontation under the excuse of cooperation, upholding peace and order in name but flexing military muscle and stoking chaos in nature, do not meet the trend for peace and development and run counter to the regional countries’ shared aspiration for stability and development,” Liu Pengyu, a Chinese Embassy spokesperson in the U.S., said in a statement to VOA.

The U.S.-Japan-Philippines trilateral is the first gathering of its kind, part of Biden’s strategy to stitch together existing bilateral alliances into these so-called “minilaterals” to amplify U.S. influence in Asia. Last year, he hosted a similar meeting with Japan and South Korea to deal with the threat from North Korea.
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Kyiv asks allies for help against alleged Russian abuse of Ukrainian POWs

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Washington — While the debates around the U.S. aid to Ukraine focus on military assistance, Kyiv is asking Washington for support in another crucial area — locating POWs and civilian hostages held in Russia and their rehabilitation after they return home. 

Ukraine has also called on the United States to introduce sanctions against those who abuse Ukrainian captives in Russian prisons.

Tеtiana, who asked her surname be kept confidential for her family’s safety, said her father, a civilian pensioner, was taken during the Russian occupation of his small Ukrainian village in April 2022.

She found out about his fate only after Ukrainian forces liberated the village. Later, she learned more from Ukrainian POWs who had shared jail cells with him before being released in prisoner swaps.

“They are given just enough food to keep them alive. … They are not allowed to sit. They constantly stand,” she told VOA. 

Tetiana said other treatment amounts to psychological torture.

“They may be told that they’re being taken for a [prisoner] exchange and then returned on the same day and told, ‘We wanted to exchange you, but Ukraine doesn’t want you back,’” she said.

Tetіana talked to VOA in March during visits to the U.S. Senate and State Department with other relatives of prisoners and representatives of the Ukrainian Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War (KSHPPV).  

Olha Pylypey, a member of the small delegation of relatives, told VOA about her brother, Yuliy Pylypey, a marine who fought in Mariupol. On April 12, 2022, he, along with other Ukrainian marines, was captured by the Russian forces at the Ilyich Iron and Steel Works plant. 

Released prisoners told her that her brother is jailed in Kursk, Russia. They also told Yuliy’s family that the administrators and guards of Russian prisons treat Ukrainian captives much worse than regular Russian inmates. 

“They line up [Ukrainian prisoners] and release aggressive dogs on them and don’t allow them to defend themselves,” Pylypey said. She is afraid Yuliy may have also been raped.

Officials at the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, or HRMMU, interviewed and documented 60 Ukrainian servicemen recently released from captivity and found that most of them had experienced sexual violence.

“Almost every single one of the Ukrainian POWs we interviewed described how Russian servicepersons or officials tortured them during their captivity, using repeated beatings, electric shocks, threats of execution, prolonged stress positions and mock execution. Over half of them were subjected to sexual violence,” said Danielle Bell, who heads HRMMU.   

Russian officials deny accusations of mistreatment of Ukrainian prisoners. On November 30, 2023, Russian Commissioner for Human Rights Tatiana Moskalkova said she visited 119 Ukrainian POWs in Russian prisons and found the prisons adhered to international standards.

Andriy Kryvtsov, head of the Military Medics of Ukraine nongovernmental organization, helped find his sister-in-law, military medic Olena Kryvtsova, who was part of a prisoner swap after six months in Russian captivity.  

“They were tortured, beaten and used as punching bags,” Kryvtsov said. “Russian special forces trained on them. They beat them like meat. She lost a lot of weight. When she came home, she weighed 77 pounds.”

Along with other relatives of prisoners, Kryvtsov asked the U.S. and its partners for sanctions not only against the leadership of Russia but also against prison personnel.

“Putin is not personally torturing these people,” he said. 

Andriy Yusov, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s military intelligence and a member of the KSHPPV, told VOA that Ukrainian officials understand that the U.S. can’t force Russia to comply with the Geneva Convention treaties, which establish standards of humane treatment for people affected by armed conflicts, including POWs. 

But he said the U.S. can help by locating the whereabouts of Ukrainians in Russian prisons so they can be included on the prisoner exchange lists.

The Red Cross has confirmed the identities of 5,000 Ukrainians in Russian captivity. But tens of thousands of people, both civilians and prisoners of war, remain missing, Ukrainian officials say. 

Yusov also emphasized the importance of rehabilitating released prisoners and assisting their families. 

“Thousands of family members of our defenders who ended up in captivity, as well as thousands of Ukrainians who’ve returned from Russian captivity, need social, psychological and medical support, and all this is a subject for our cooperation with partners,” he told VOA.   

Russia does not differentiate between civilians and military captives, considering both to have been “detained for counteracting the SVO,” a Russian abbreviation for special military operation – Moscow’s official designation of its invasion of Ukraine – Ukrainian human rights lawyers told the BBC. 

Lawyers at the Center for Civil Liberties, the Ukrainian organization that received the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, told the BBC that they believe there are about 2,000 Ukrainian civilian prisoners in Russia and the occupied territories.

According to a report by the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine published in March, at least 32 Ukrainian servicemen were executed in Russian captivity between December 1, 2023, and February 29, 2024.
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‘Robust’ US has helped improve global economic outlook, IMF chief says

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Washington — Strong growth in the United States has helped to lift the outlook for the world economy, but more needs to be done to stem a slide in productivity, the head of the IMF said Thursday. 

“Global growth is marginally stronger on account of robust activity in the United States and in many emerging markets economies,” International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva told reporters in prepared remarks. 

The U.S. economy grew by 2.5 percent last year, according to the U.S. Commerce Department, far outstripping most other advanced economies. 

“Robust household consumption and business investment, and an easing of supply chain problems helped,” Georgieva added. “And inflation is going down, somewhat faster than previously expected.” 

She spoke just a few days before the IMF-World Bank spring meetings of world financial leaders in Washington, one of two such gatherings hosted each year by the international financial institutions. 

Her remarks suggest the IMF now expects the world economy to grow faster than it predicted in January, when it forecast global growth to rise by 3.1 percent in 2024, and 3.2 percent in 2025. 

“It is tempting to breathe a sigh of relief. We have avoided a global recession and a period of stagflation — as some had predicted,” Georgieva said. “But there are still plenty of things to worry about.” 

Among the challenges, Georgieva mentioned rising geopolitical tension, which, she said, is increasing the risks of fragmentation of the global economy. 

She also highlighted the challenges of growing public debt and a “broad-based slowdown in productivity.” 

Because of this, the IMF expects growth to remain at just above 3 percent over the medium term — below its historical average. 

To help the global economy to heal and fix the productivity challenge, Georgieva laid out a series of steps to bring global inflation and public debt back down to sustainable levels, and also called for steps to eliminate “constraints to economic activity” and boost productivity. 

“In short, if there is a market failure that is being addressed — such as accelerating innovation to address the existential threat of climate change — there is a case for government intervention, including through industrial policy,” she said. 

“If there is no market failure, there is a need for caution,” she added. 
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‘Grandfather’ and ‘Mix’: Two Ukrainian mortarmen share their stories

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A volunteer fighter from western Ukraine who goes by call sign Grandfather, and his commander from Crimea, known as Mix, are fighting shoulder to shoulder in Donbas. Anna Kosstutschenko met with the two men on the front lines of the war with Russia. Camera and video editing by Pavel Suhodolskiy.
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China sanctions 2 US defense companies and says they support arms sales to Taiwan

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Beijing — China on Thursday announced rare sanctions against two U.S. defense companies over what it said is their support for arms sales to Taiwan, the self-governing island democracy Beijing claims as its own territory to be recovered by force if necessary.

The announcement freezes the assets of General Atomics Aeronautical Systems and General Dynamics Land Systems held within China. It also bars the companies’ management from entering the country. 

Filings show General Dynamics operates a half-dozen Gulfstream and jet aviation services operations in China, which remains heavily reliant on foreign aerospace technology even as it attempts to build its own presence in the field. 

The company helps make the Abrams tank being purchased by Taiwan to replace outdated armor intended to deter or resist an invasion from China. 

General Atomics produces the Predator and Reaper drones used by the U.S. military. Chinese authorities did not go into details on the company’s alleged involvement with supplying arms to Taiwan. 

Beijing has long threatened such sanctions, but has rarely issued them as its economy reels from the COVID-19 pandemic, high unemployment and a sharp decline in foreign investment. 

“The continued U.S. arms sales to China’s Taiwan region seriously violate the one-China principle and the provisions of the three China-U.S. joint communiqués, interfere in China’s internal affairs, and undermine China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. It insists that the mainland and the island to which Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist forces fled amid civil war in 1949 remain part of a single Chinese nation. 

Sanctions were leveled under Beijing’s recently enacted Law of the People’s Republic of China on Countering Foreign Sanctions. 

General Dynamics fully owned entities are registered in Hong Kong, the southern Chinese semi-autonomous city over which Beijing has steadily been increasing its political and economic control to the point that it faces no vocal opposition and has seen its critics silenced, imprisoned or forced into exile. 

Despite their lack of formal diplomatic ties — a concession Washington made to Beijing when they established relations in 1979 — the U.S. remains Taiwan’s most important source of diplomatic support and supplier of military hardware from fighter jets to air defense systems. 

Taiwan has also been investing heavily in its own defense industry, producing sophisticated missiles and submarines. 

China had 14 warplanes and six navy ships operating around Taiwan on Wednesday and Thursday, with six of the aircraft crossing into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone — a tactic to test Taiwan’s defenses, wear down its capabilities and intimidate the population. 

So far, that has had little effect, with the vast majority of the island’s 23 million people opposing political unification with China.
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Nine people killed as boat capsizes in Mediterranean, Italy coast guard says 

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Rome — Nine people, including a baby, have died after their boat capsized while trying to cross the Mediterranean in stormy weather, and another 15 people are feared missing, Italy’s coast guard said on Thursday.

The Italian coast guard said it received a cooperation request from the Maltese search and rescue (SAR) authority after the boat capsized approximately 50 kilometers southeast of the island of Lampedusa on Wednesday.

The coast guard said it dispatched its own patrol boat to the scene, which “rescued 22 survivors and recovered 9 deceased individuals, including a baby.”

The rescue operations “were particularly challenging due to adverse weather and sea conditions in the area with waves up to 2.50 meters,” the coast guard said.

The nationality of the boat’s passengers was not known but Lampedusa, which sits in the Mediterranean between Tunisia, Malta and the larger Italian island of Sicily, is the first port of call for many migrants seeking to reach the European Union.

“New terrible shipwreck near Lampedusa during a rescue operation,” UNHCR Communication Officer Filippo Ungaro posted on X late on Wednesday. The survivors, taken to Lampedusa, were “in a state of hypothermia and shock,” he added.

An aircraft from the Italian coast guard was conducting aerial searches for the missing in the area of the shipwreck.

In a separate operation, the Italian coast guard said it rescued 37 migrants “who were at the mercy of the waves aboard a small wooden boat about 7 meters long” off the coast of Lampedusa on Wednesday. 
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Vietnam sentences real estate tycoon to death in $12B fraud case

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HANOI, Vietnam — Real estate tycoon Truong My Lan was sentenced Thursday to death by a court in Ho Chi Minh city in southern Vietnam in the country’s largest financial fraud case ever, state media Thanh Nien said.

The 67-year-old chair of the real estate company Van Thinh Phat was accused of fraud amounting to $12.5 billion — nearly 3% of the country’s 2022 GDP. She illegally controlled the Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank between 2012 and 2022 to siphon off these funds through thousands of ghost companies and by paying bribes to government officials.

Lan’s arrest in October 2022 was among the most high-profile in an ongoing anti-corruption drive in Vietnam that has intensified since 2022. The so-called Blazing Furnace campaign has touched the highest echelons of Vietnamese politics. Former President Vo Van Thuong resigned in March after being implicated in the campaign.

But it’s the scale of Lan’s trial has shocked the nation. VTP was among Vietnam’s richest real estate firms, with projects including luxury residential buildings, offices, hotels and shopping centers. Analysts said the scale of the scam raised questions about whether other banks or businesses had similarly erred, dampening Vietnam’s economic outlook and making foreign investors jittery at a time when Vietnam has been trying to position itself as the ideal home for businesses trying to pivot their supply chains away from China.

The real estate sector in Vietnam has been hit particularly hard: An estimated 1,300 property firms withdrew from the market in 2023, developers have been offering discounts and gold as gifts to attract buyers, and despite rent for shophouses falling by a third in Ho Chi Minh City, many in the city center are still empty, according to state media.

In November, Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, Vietnam’s top politician, said that the anti-corruption fight would “continue for the long term.”
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Experts say Turkey becoming a drug transit hub

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ISTANBUL — Turkish police have seized the third largest haul of cocaine in the country’s history, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced Thursday, as groups monitoring organized crime warned that the country was becoming an entry point for drugs reaching Europe.

Some 608 kilograms of cocaine, most of it in liquid form, were confiscated in an operation across three provinces, Yerlikaya posted on the social media platform X. Nearly 830 kilograms of precursor chemicals used to process the drug were also seized.

Yerlikaya said the police operation targeted an international gang allegedly led by a Lebanese-Venezuelan national, who was among four foreign members of the “organized crime group” detained, along with nine Turks.

“The amount of cocaine seized in the … operation was the third-largest amount of cocaine seized at one time in Turkey,” the minister added.

Groups monitoring organized crime say Turkey is growing as a transit hub for cocaine coming from South America to Europe as security at ports such as Rotterdam in the Netherlands becomes tighter.

In a report dated October last year, the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime said a 44% rise in cocaine seizures in Turkey between 2021 and 2022 was not reflected in data on domestic consumption, “suggesting that the country is likely to serve as a drug corridor.”

Officials made Turkey’s largest seizure — 1.1 tons of cocaine hidden in a consignment of bananas from Ecuador — at the Mediterranean port of Mersin in 2021.

Since coming to office in June last year, Yerlikaya has overseen a clampdown on organized crime in Turkey to counter claims the country has become a haven for foreign gangsters.

He regularly posts details of the latest police operation to target drug traffickers, fraudsters and other criminals.

Thursday’s social media post included a video, overlaid with dramatic music, showing apparent surveillance footage, large plastic containers and a pressing machine.

The operation was led by anti-narcotics officers based in Kocaeli, which lies southeast of Istanbul, but also included investigations in Tekirdag to Istanbul’s northwest and in the Mediterranean province of Antalya.

The gang used vineyards in Tekirdag and Antalya to store chemicals and process the cocaine, which had been disguised in fertilizer, according to Yerlikaya. A shotgun was also recovered by police, he added.

“We will not tolerate poison traffickers, organized crime groups and gangs, whether national or international,” the minister wrote. 
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Scientists struggle to protect infant corals from hungry fish

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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — South Florida researchers trying to prevent predatory fish from devouring laboratory-grown coral are grasping at biodegradable straws in an effort to restore what some call the rainforest of the sea.

Scientists around the world have been working for years to address the decline of coral reef populations. Just last summer, reef rescue groups in South Florida and the Florida Keys were trying to save coral from rising ocean temperatures. Besides working to keep existing coral alive, researchers have also been growing new coral in labs and then placing them in the ocean.

But protecting the underwater ecosystem that maintains more than 25% of all marine species is not easy. Even more challenging is making sure that coral grown in a laboratory and placed into the ocean doesn’t become expensive fish food.

Marine researcher Kyle Pisano said one problem is that predators like parrot fish attempt to bite and destroy the newly transplanted coral in areas like South Florida, leaving them with less than a 40% survival rate. With projects calling for thousands of coral to be planted over the next year and tens of thousands of coral to be planted over the next decade, the losses add up when coral pieces can cost more than $100 each.

Pisano and his partner, Kirk Dotson, have developed the Coral Fort, claiming the small biodegradable cage that’s made in part with drinking straws boosts the survival rate of transplanted coral to over 90%.

“Parrot fish on the reef really, really enjoy biting a newly transplanted coral,” Pisano said. “They treat it kind of like popcorn.”

Fortunately the fish eventually lose interest in the coral as it matures, but scientists need to protect the coral in the meantime. Stainless steel and PVC pipe barriers have been set up around transplanted coral in the past, but those barriers needed to be cleaned of algae growth and eventually removed.

Pisano had the idea of creating a protective barrier that would eventually dissolve, eliminating the need to maintain or remove it. He began conducting offshore experiments with biodegradable coral cages as part of a master’s degree program at Nova Southeastern University. He used a substance called polyhydroxyalkanoate, a biopolymer derived from the fermentation of canola oil. PHA biodegrades in ocean, leaving only water and carbon dioxide. His findings were published last year.

The coral cage consists of a limestone disc surrounded by eight vertical phade brand drinking straws, made by Atlanta-based WinCup Inc. The device doesn’t have a top, Pisano said, because the juvenile coral needs sunlight and the parrot fish don’t generally want to position themselves facing downward to eat.

Dotson, a retired aerospace engineer, met Pisano through his professor at Nova Southeastern, and the two formed Reef Fortify Inc. to further develop and market the patent-pending Coral Fort. The first batch of cages were priced at $12 each, but Pisano and Dotson believe that could change as production scales up.

Early prototypes of the cage made from phade’s standard drinking straws were able to protect the coral for about two months before dissolving in the ocean, but that wasn’t quite long enough to outlast the interest of parrot fish. When Pisano and Dotson reached out to phade for help, the company assured them that it could make virtually any custom shape from its biodegradable PHA material.

“But it’s turning out that the boba straws, straight out of the box, work just fine,” Dotson said.

Boba straws are wider and thicker than normal drinking straws. They’re used for a tea-based drink that includes tapioca balls at the bottom of the cup. For Pisano and Dotson, that extra thickness means the straws last just long enough to protect the growing coral before harmlessly disappearing.

Reef Fortify is hoping to work with reef restoration projects all over the world. The Coral Forts already already being used by researchers at Nova Southeastern and the University of Miami, as well as Hawaii’s Division of Aquatic Resources.

Rich Karp, a coral researcher at the University of Miami, said they’ve been using the Coral Forts for about a month. He pointed out that doing any work underwater takes a great deal of time and effort, so having a protective cage that dissolves when it’s no longer needed basically cuts their work in half.

“Simply caging corals and then removing the cages later, that’s two times the amount of work, two times the amount of bottom time,” Karp said. “And it’s not really scalable.”

Experts say coral reefs are a significant part of the oceanic ecosystem. They occupy less than 1% of the ocean worldwide but provide food and shelter to nearly 25 percent of sea life. Coral reefs also help to protect humans and their homes along the coastline from storm surges during hurricanes.
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Cambodia’s relocation of people from UNESCO site raises concerns

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RUN TA EK, Cambodia — It’s been more than a year since Yem Srey Pin moved with her family from the village where she was born on Cambodia’s Angkor UNESCO World Heritage site to Run Ta Ek, a dusty new settlement about 25 kilometers away.

Hers is one of about 5,000 families relocated from the sprawling archaeological site, one of Southeast Asia’s top tourist draws, by Cambodian authorities in an ongoing program that Amnesty International has condemned as a “gross violation of international human rights law.” Another 5,000 families are still due to be moved.

The allegations have drawn strong expressions of concern from UNESCO and a spirited rebuttal from Cambodian authorities, who say they’re doing nothing more than protecting the heritage land from illegal squatters.

Yem Srey Pin’s single-room home is a far cry better than the makeshift tent she lived in with her husband and five children when they first arrived, which did little to protect from the monsoon rains and blew down in the winds.

And their 600-square-meter property is significantly bigger than the 90-square-meter plot they occupied illegally in the village of Khvean on the Angkor site.

But the 35-year-old is also in debt from building the new house. Her husband finds less construction work nearby and his wages are lower, and there are no wild fruits or vegetables she can forage, nor rice paddies where she can collect crabs to sell at her mother’s stand.

“After more than a year here I haven’t been able to save any money and I haven’t earned anything,” she said. 

The Angkor site is one of the largest archaeological sites in the world, spread across some 400 square kilometers in northwestern Cambodia. It contains the ruins of Khmer Empire capitals from the 9th to 15th centuries, including the temple of Angkor Wat.

When it was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1992, it was named a “living heritage site” whose local population observed ancestral traditions and cultural practices that have disappeared elsewhere.

Still, UNESCO at the time noted that Angkor was under “dual pressures” from some 100,000 inhabitants in 112 historic settlements who “constantly try to expand their dwelling areas,” and from encroachment from the nearby town of Siem Reap.

Cambodia’s answer was a plan to entice the 10,000 families illegally squatting in the area to resettle at Run Ta Ek and another site, as well as to encourage some from the 112 historic settlements to relocate as their families grow in size.

“The number of people were on the rise, including those coming illegally,” said Long Kosal, spokesperson for the Cambodian agency known as APSARA that’s responsible for managing the Angkor site. “What we did was that we provided an option.”

Cambodia began moving people to Run Ta Ek in 2022, giving those who volunteered to leave their homes in the Angkor area plots of land, a two-month supply of canned food and rice, a tarp and 30 sheets of corrugated metal to use to build a home. Benefits also included a Poor Card, essentially a state welfare program giving them around 310,000 riel (about $75) monthly for 10 years.

In a November report, Amnesty questioned how voluntary the relocations actually were, saying many people they interviewed were threatened or coerced into moving and that the relocations were more “forced evictions in disguise.”

The rights group cited a speech from former Prime Minister Hun Sen in which he said people “must either leave the Angkor site soon and receive some form of compensation or be evicted at a later time and receive nothing.”

Amnesty also noted Hun Sen’s track record, saying that under his long-time rule Cambodian authorities had been responsible for several forced evictions elsewhere that it alleged “constituted gross violations of human rights.” It said Run Ta Ek — with dirt roads, insufficient drainage, poor sanitation and other issues — did not fulfil international obligations under human rights treaties to provide people adequate housing.

That has now changed: Homes with outhouses have been built, roads paved, and sewers installed. Primitive hand pumps made of blue PVC piping provide water, and electricity has been run in.

There’s a school, a health center, a temple; bus routes were added, and a market area was built but is not yet operating, Long Kosal said.

But Amnesty maintains there are major concerns.

Among other things, families have had to take on heavy debt to build even basic houses, and there is little work to be found, said Montse Ferrer, the head of Amnesty’s research team investigating the Angkor Wat resettlements.

“They had a clear source of income at the time — tourism — but also other sources of income linked to the location at Angkor,” she said. “They are now at least 30 minutes away from the site and can no longer access these sources.”

Following Amnesty’s scathing report, UNESCO moved up the timeline for Cambodia’s submission of its own report on the state of conservation at the Angkor site, specifically asking for the allegations to be addressed.

In that report, submitted to UNESCO in March, Cambodia said it had not violated any international laws with the relocations, saying it was only moving people involved in the “illegal occupation of heritage land” and that in Run Ta Ek many were now property owners for the first time in their lives.

UNESCO said it would not comment on the situation until it has been able to analyze Cambodia’s response.

It referred The Associated Press to previous comments from Lazare Eloundou Assomo, director of the UNESCO World Heritage Center, who stressed the agency had “always categorically rejected the use of forced evictions as a tool for management of World Heritage listed sites.”

Yem Srey Pin said even though Run Ta Ek has slowly improved since she arrived in February 2023, and her new home will be paid off fairly soon, she’d rather return to her village if it were possible.

But with almost all of the village’s 400 families moving out, Yem Srey Pin says there’s nothing left for her there.

“I can’t live in my old village alone,” she said.
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South Korean opposition wins legislative election, deepens political deadlock

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Seoul, South Korea — South Korea’s left-leaning opposition won a decisive victory in Wednesday’s legislative election, as voters delivered a rebuke to the party of conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol.

The main opposition Democratic Party and smaller allied forces are projected to control about 184 seats in the 300-seat National Assembly, according to preliminary figures released early Thursday by the National Election Commission.

The opposition bloc is expected to fall short of a crucial two-thirds majority, however, which would have upended South Korean politics. With 200 seats, the opposition could have overridden Yoon’s legislative veto, proposed constitutional changes, and even impeached the president.

If confirmed, the results will preserve the same basic dynamic that existed before the election – meaning opposition forces can continue to obstruct the domestic agenda of Yoon, who is two years into a single, five-year presidential term.

Lee Sang-sin, who focuses on political science and public opinion at the Korea Institute for National Unification, said he expects “three years of deadlock” in Korean politics.

Since taking office, Yoon has faced significant political barriers, since opposition forces already controlled the 180 seats needed to block any attempts to delay legislative procedures.

But South Korea’s powerful presidency has given Yoon a relatively free hand in foreign policy. Yoon has used that power to move his country much closer to the United States, its longtime ally, as well as Japan, South Korea’s former colonial ruler.

Foreign policy was not a main issue in the election, which was instead dominated by allegations of corruption, intra-party divisions and fierce personal attacks.

Yoon’s overseas agenda may not be greatly affected by the election result, according to Benjamin A. Engel, research professor at the Institute of International Affairs at Seoul National University.

“The National Assembly is extremely weak when it comes to foreign policy. They can critique and complain, but Yoon doesn’t have to change unless he wants to for political reasons — which he never seems to do — for better or worse,” Engel said.

With a disappointing election result, Yoon may find more reason to prioritize foreign affairs, said Mason Richey, associate professor of international politics at Seoul’s Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.

“As a lame duck domestically, Yoon will likely focus as much or more than before on foreign policy, since that is where much of his formal power will be,” Richey said.

“The question is how much he will be able to do that, if the jockeying in his own party leads to instability in the presidential office or key ministries,” he added.

Some analysts suggest conservatives may distance themselves from Yoon, if they decide he has become a political liability closer to the next presidential election in 2027.

Yoon has seen consistently low approval ratings as he deals with issues such as rising food prices, excessive housing costs, labor disputes and a plummeting birth rate.

He has been embroiled in a series of scandals, including one involving hidden camera footage appearing to show his wife accepting a luxury Dior bag as a gift. He also has pursued criminal charges against critical journalists and media outlets at a record pace.

Final results are not expected until later Thursday. Voter turnout stood at 67%, the highest in more than three decades for a legislative election.

Lee Juhyun contributed to this report.

 
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Biden, Kishida bolster defense ties in Japanese PM’s official US visit

Posted on by SeeEA

The United States and Japan celebrated their decades-long alliance Wednesday night as President Joe Biden hosts Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at the White House for a state dinner. The Japanese leader’s visit marks a significant strengthening in defense and technology ties. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
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Once a swing state, Ohio now seems to lean more conservative

Posted on by SeeUS

For years, the U.S. state of Ohio was a solid indicator of American political opinion, choosing the winning presidential candidate in every election from 1964 to 2016. VOA Correspondent Scott Stearns reports that Ohio now appears more conservative, presenting a challenge for a Democratic Party trying to re-elect President Joe Biden and keep control of the U.S. Senate.
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House lawmakers reject renewal of key US intelligence program

Posted on by SeeUS

washington — U.S. House lawmakers rejected an attempt to reform a controversial foreign intelligence program Wednesday, the latest blow in Speaker Mike Johnson’s effort to lead a narrow Republican majority.

A renewal of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, failed to advance, 228-193, following a warning from former President Donald Trump on TruthSocial.

Trump said that FISA “was illegally used against me, and many others. They spied on my campaign!!” he wrote, using all capital letters.

A Justice Department investigation found in 2019 that surveillance of Trump campaign aide Carter Page continued for months after it should have ended.

The law — also referred to as Section 702 — allows U.S. intelligence agencies to collect data on foreigners overseas without obtaining a warrant. But it has received the most criticism for so-called “backdoor searches” that allow collection of U.S. citizens’ data. An attempted reform would have required the FBI to secure a warrant before collecting data.

“We’re enacting sweeping changes — 50 reforms, 56 to be exact — to the program that are in the base text that will stop the abuse of politicized FBI queries and prevent another Russia hoax debacle, among many other important reforms,” Johnson told reporters Wednesday morning. “No more of the intelligence community relying on fake news reports to order a FISA order, no more collusion.”

But Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene — who has filed a procedural motion to remove Johnson from the speakership — said those reforms were not enough.

“It’s like asking the deep state to hold itself accountable,” Greene told reporters Wednesday. “The FBI is abusing American people’s trust. The [Justice Department] has abused the American people’s trust. So, this doesn’t give me confidence that it will stop it.”

Nineteen House Republicans voted against the bill. Democrats said Wednesday that the proposed FISA reforms had not secured their votes.

“Whatever the vote count is, or whatever happens to that, it’s because the speaker has chosen not to advance this issue in a single standalone process. If he chooses to go a different route, then we’ll reassess,” Representative Pete Aguilar, chair of the House Democratic Caucus, said Wednesday morning.

An attempt to pass surveillance laws failed in December when House leadership pulled a vote amid internal Republican divisions.

Johnson argued to colleagues in a letter on Friday that the law would “establish new procedures to rein in the FBI, increase accountability at the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, or FISC, impose penalties for wrongdoing, and institute unprecedented transparency across the FISA process so we no longer have to wait years to uncover potential abuses.”

Christopher Wray, the director of the FBI, warned against some of the proposed changes in a speech Tuesday to the American Bar Association.

“Bottom line, a warrant requirement would be the equivalent of rebuilding the pre-9/11 intelligence ‘wall,’ ” he said in his prepared remarks. “As the threats to our homeland continue to evolve, the agility and effectiveness of 702 will be essential to the FBI’s ability — and really our mandate from the American people — to keep them safe for years to come.”

Unless Congress acts, authorization for the program expires on April 19.

Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.
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Nigeria’s consumers upset at electricity rate hike

Posted on by SeeAF

Abuja, Nigeria — A sudden hike in electricity rates in Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria, has sparked a backlash.

Until now, Jude Okafor has spent an average $25 on electricity to run a frozen fish and meat business that he started in 2021. But since last week, when the government announced a rate hike of nearly 300 percent for electricity, Okafor says running his business has been tough. 

“There is no escape. Light has gone high, fuel has gone high. And for a businessman, there’s no way we can cope with that,” Okafor said. “If there’s no light or fuel to ice our fish, what are we going to do? Our business is running down. This is [a] first-class act of wickedness.” 

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) announced the price change last Wednesday and said only its bigger power consumers, about 15 percent overall, would be affected by the subsidy cut.  

Authorities said consumers in that category enjoy up to 20 hours of electricity a day and that the rate hike was only fair to customers who receive fewer hours of light. 

The decision to remove electricity subsidies is part of President Bola Tinubu’s reform drives to ease pressure on the economy.  

Authorities argue that state-controlled electricity rates are too low to attract new investors or allow distribution firms to recover their costs, leaving the sector with huge debts. 

Economic analyst Ogho Okiti says the government’s move is a good one.  

“The government is not able to pay those subsidies on time, and because they’re not able to [pay] them on time, gas companies are withdrawing their gas supplies,” Okiti said. “The timing is right. I think the government had waited till April to do this because they expect power supply to improve from now because of [the] rainy season.” 

But the decision is being criticized by many, including businesses, manufacturers and workers’ unions. 

This week, the Abuja chapter of the Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines, and Agriculture, or NACCIMA, said the decision would threaten the survival of many thousands of businesses already struggling to cope with soaring inflation.  

“First of all, the timing is wrong,” said Dele Oye, national president of the NACCIMA. “We all know that electricity is underpriced, but to some extent, there must be some level of subsidy. There’s nowhere in the world where there’s no subsidy. We cannot compete if we have to pay everything at market value when we don’t see market value service from the government. We do our roads. We do our security as investors.” 

Nigeria last revised electricity rates four years ago. Authorities say the country could save up to $2.6 billion from the subsidy removal. 

But a similar reform applied on petrol last year worsened a cost-of-living crisis for many Nigerians after the annual rate of inflation rose to more than 30 percent — its highest level in three decades. 

Critics will be watching to see how this newest subsidy removal unfolds.
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Think diplomacy is tough? Try a White House state dinner

Posted on by SeeUS

the white house — Preparations take months. No detail is overlooked, for this is perhaps the most evolved form of diplomacy: the state dinner.

As first lady Jill Biden prepares Wednesday to host her fifth state dinner, for Japan’s leader, she made it clear that every aesthetic detail — from the crystal on the tables, to the food on the White House china, the decor in the State Dining Room, the music and the fashion — drips with diplomatic significance. This dinner, she said in her preview of the event, makes frequent reference to Washington’s famous cherry trees, a gift from Japan more than a century ago.

“As guests sit among the field of flowers, glass and silk butterflies from both our countries will dance over the tables, their graceful flight a reminder that as our nations navigate the winds of change, we do so together as partners in peace and prosperity,” she said.

The White House Historical Association lays out the high stakes, saying a state dinner “showcases global power and influence and sets the tone for the continuation of dialogue between the president and the visiting head of state.”

Roxanne Roberts, a style writer for The Washington Post who has covered state dinners for more than 30 years, likens the dinner to “the frosting on an already-baked cake.”

“The state dinner is the least important part of a state visit, but it’s the thing that gets the most attention,” she told VOA. “… And it sends a signal to not only the government of that country, but the people of that country that you’re important to us. We care about you.”

That’s reflected in the numbers. Records journalists requested from the State Department, which foots the bill, show that Obama-era dinners cost U.S. taxpayers more than $500,000 each. More recent dinner tabs have not been released.

The food!

Imagine, Roberts said, a lavish wedding.

“It’s as if,” she said, “There was a marriage between the two countries and this is the wedding reception.”

The most obvious manifestation of that is on the plate.

White House executive chef Cristeta Comerford said this menu took her “a couple of months” to design and field test. Over three courses, guests will take a tour through her Japan-influenced creations, starting with a nod to the beloved American twist on sushi, the California roll. Her version is rendered as a salad of house-cured salmon with avocado, grapefruit, watermelon radish, cucumber and shiso leaf fritters.

Beef has been a fixture of past Biden dinners – the exception, of course, being the menu for the 2023 state dinner for Indian leader Narendra Modi, a strict vegetarian. Guests at this dinner, accordingly, will move on to a dry-aged rib eye steak with blistered shishito pepper butter, a fricassee of fava beans, morels and cipollini mushrooms and a sesame oil sabayon.

And for dessert: a salted caramel pistachio cake with matcha tea ganache, cherry ice cream and a drizzle of raspberry coulis.

“We wanted to bring a little bit of the cherry blossoms that are here on the Tidal Basin right here to our dessert, in order for everyone to enjoy the cherry blossoms that we enjoy every year,” said White House executive pastry chef Susie Morrison.

The wines, as is now custom, will be American.

“The days when only French wines were served at state dinners are long gone,” Roberts said. “Primarily because there were a lot of American vineyards who basically said, ‘Whoa, what about us? We’re cool.'”

The fripperies!

A temporary water feature in the White House’s Cross Hall will feature live koi — “symbols of friendship, peace, luck and perseverance,” Biden said.

Paul Simon will perform for guests. And the first couples are exchanging gifts that include a three-legged black walnut table made by a Japanese-American-owned company, a set of records autographed by American singer Billy Joel, and, as a personal touch, “a framed painting of the Yoshino cherry tree that she planted with Mrs. Kishida on the South Lawn last spring.”

The fashion!

Japan’s first lady, Yuko Kishida, garnered rave reviews for her choice to don India’s most culturally and technically fraught of garments, the sari, by draping and meticulously pleating five meters of green Kanjeevaram silk around her body for a summit of global leaders last year in New Delhi.

As she landed in Washington for her first state visit on Tuesday — but her second trip to meet the Bidens — she greeted the couple in a flowing dress of autumn-toned watercolor florals. President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida wore suits, while the U.S. first lady donned a black dress with a deep keyhole neckline and razor-sharp tailoring.

These decisions, Roberts said, are “more than just going off to the store and going, ‘Oh, that’s pretty. I think I’ll wear that.'”

And the pressure, she said, falls disproportionately on the leaders’ spouses, who are traditionally women.

“They’re ambassadors for the clothing that they wear, the look that they have,” she said. “And so all of those, all of those elements play into all of these choices. You know, the guys have it easy – just throw on the tuxedo.”

… And finally, the faux pas!

What could possibly go wrong?

Surprisingly, not a lot, Roberts said, adding, “The truth of the matter is that these state dinners tend to go off without a hitch, because the planning is done so well.”

But, she said, mistakes sometimes happen.

She described a long-ago dinner for Mexico’s leader that featured “an elaborate desert that had a guy with a sombrero sleeping as a decorative piece.”

“It was meant to be charming and kind of fun, and it just hit wrong,” she said.

Another memorable slip, she said, was at a 2009 state dinner for India, where two uninvited reality stars crashed the event.

“The fact that two people were able to get in who were not supposed to be there was, in fact, a scandal,” she said.

The East Wing, in its preview, chose to focus instead on the positive, with White House social secretary Carlos Elizondo homing in on the theme while raising the stakes of this impossibly complex event.

“That’s what we hope to capture,” he said. “…the magic of spring in our lasting friendship, each detail chosen to create a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
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Top US general warns Ukraine on brink of being overrun by Russia

Posted on by SeeUS

WASHINGTON — The tenacity of Ukrainian troops will soon be no match for Russia’s manpower and missiles should U.S. lawmakers fail to approve additional security assistance for Ukraine, the top American general in Europe told lawmakers, part of a stark warning about the direction of the more than two-year-old conflict.

U.S. military officials have warned repeatedly in recent weeks that Russian forces have been able to make incremental gains in Ukraine and that without renewed U.S. backing, Ukraine’s forces will eventually falter.

Testifying before the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday, the commander of U.S. European Command described the battlefield in blunt terms.

“If we do not continue to support Ukraine, Ukraine will run out of artillery shells and will run out of air defense interceptors in fairly short order,” said General Christopher Cavoli, explaining that Kyiv is dependent on the United States for those key munitions.

“I can’t predict the future, but I can do simple math,” he said. “Based on my experience in 37-plus years in the U.S. military, if one side can shoot and the other side can’t shoot back, the side that can’t shoot back loses.”

Cavoli also said the failure of U.S. lawmakers to approve a $60 billion supplemental security package is already giving Russia a significant advantage.

“They [Ukraine] are now being outshot by the Russian side 5-to-1,” he told lawmakers. “That will immediately go to 10-to-1 in a matter of weeks.

“We are not talking about months. We are not talking hypothetically,” Cavoli said.

Multiple U.S. officials have warned that Ukraine’s military has been forced to ration artillery and air defense capabilities as Kyiv waits for U.S. lawmakers to approve the supplemental assistance.

“We are already seeing the effects of the failure to pass the supplemental,” Assistant Secretary of Defense Celeste Wallander told the panel, testifying alongside U.S. European Command’s Cavoli.

“We don’t need to imagine,” she said, blaming the lack of U.S. provided artillery for why “the Russian attacks are getting through.”

That supplemental defense package passed in the U.S. Senate back in February, but leadership in the House of Representatives has so far refused to bring the legislation to the floor for a vote.

During a press conference on Capitol Hill Wednesday, Republican House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson said lawmakers were continuing to “actively discuss our options on a path forward.”

“It’s a very complicated matter at a very complicated time. The clock is ticking on it, and everyone here feels the urgency of that,” Johnson said. “But what’s required is that you reach consensus on it, and that’s what we’re working on.”

House Democrats, however, have voiced frustration with Johnson’s refusal to call a vote.

“The House has waited months now to approve the security package to help protect Ukraine,” said Representative Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. “Weeks ago, we were too late. And now every day is at an extreme cost to our ability to deter Russia.”

Another Democrat on the committee, Representative Elissa Slotkin, scolded Johnson, saying he needs to call a vote despite opposition from a small group of House Republicans.

“We do need to get it over the finish line,” she said. “I accept that he’s at risk of losing his job over that choice, but that’s what leadership is — it’s the big boy pants and making tough choices.”

Some Republicans, though, chastised Democratic lawmakers for what they described as misguided priorities.

“We’ve got hundreds of thousands of Americans who are dying, fentanyl overdoses, child and human sex trafficking, not to mention 178-plus countries that are crossing our border,” said Republican Representative Cory Mills.

“But, oh wait, that’s not the priority. Let’s secure Ukraine’s borders,” he said.

VOA’s Katherine Gypson contributed to this report.
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US restricts trade with companies tied to drones used by Russia, Houthis

Posted on by SeeEA

WASHINGTON — The United States restricted trade with five companies on Wednesday that it said help produce and procure drones for use by Russia in Ukraine and by Iran-backed Houthis in Red Sea shipping attacks. 

The companies from Russia and China were among 11 additions to the Commerce Department’s Entity List, which means suppliers need licenses before shipping goods and technology to them. 

Russia has intensified its drone and missile strikes against Ukrainian energy facilities in recent weeks, causing significant damage and threatening a repeat of the blackouts experienced in the first year after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. 

The Commerce Department added a Chinese entity, Jiangxi Xintuo Enterprise Company, for supporting Russia’s military through the procurement, development and proliferation of Russian drones, it said.

Shenzhen Jiasibo Technology Company of China was cited for being part of a network procuring aerospace components, including drone applications, for an aircraft company in Iran. Three Russian entities — Aerosila JSC SPE, Delta-Aero LLC, and JSC ODK-Star — were added for being part of the network. 

“These components are used to develop and produce Shahed-series UAVs which have been used by Iran to attack oil tankers in the Middle East and by Russia in Ukraine,” the Federal Register notice said, referring to unmanned aerial vehicles. 

Attacks on ships, including oil tankers, by Iranian-backed Houthis have disrupted global shipping through the Red Sea. Yemen’s Houthi militia say they are retaliating against Israel’s war against Palestinian Hamas militants in Gaza. 

Companies are added to the U.S. Entity List when Washington deems them a threat to U.S. national security or foreign policy. Suppliers must then be granted licenses, which are likely to be denied, before shipping goods to entities on the list. 

The two United Arab Emirates citations, Khalaj Trading LLC and Mahdi Khalaj Amirhosseini, were added for apparently violating Iran sanctions by exporting or trying to export items from the United States to Iran through UAE, according to the posting. 

Four Chinese entities were cited for acquiring U.S. items to support China’s military modernization efforts, it said. They are LINKZOL (Beijing) Technology Company, Xi’an Like Innovative Information Technology Company, Beijing Anwise Technology Company and Sitonholy (Tianjin) Company. 

U.S.-Chinese military contacts resumed late last year, but tensions continue due to fundamental differences over Taiwan and the South China Sea that remain dangerous potential flashpoints.  

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has pumped billions into buying and developing equipment as part of his modernizing efforts to build a “world-class” military by 2050, with Beijing’s outsized defense budget growing at a faster pace than the economy for some years. 
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In Gabon, Muslims invite Christians into mosques to pray for peace

Posted on by SeeAF

YAOUNDE, CAMEROON — In Gabon, Christians joined Muslims this week to pray for peace as the country holds a month-long “national dialogue” intended to pave the way for military leaders to transfer power to a civilian government.

Clerics say that among the approximately 700 civilians who attended this year’s Eid al-Fitr prayers Wednesday at the Central Mosque in Gabon’s capital, Libreville, were scores of Christians. The Eid al-Fitr prayers marked the end of the holy month of Ramadan. 

Tidjani Babagana, grand imam of Muslims in Gabon, told Gabon’s state TV that during prayers he launched an appeal for reconciliation, peace, temperance and internal harmony among citizens who are looking forward to changes at the helm of the government. He also reminded civilians who are waiting for the government to improve their living conditions that it is a prescription in the Holy Quran to respect state authority. 

Babagana said both Muslims and Christians should celebrate Eid al-Fitr as a sign of fraternity, interreligious tolerance and living together in peace, despite the challenges Gabon is facing. 

The faithful who gathered for prayers say the country has suffered a crime wave — including theft, assault and highway robbery — since transitional president General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema ordered the release of over 500 prisoners in late March.  

The general seized power from President Ali Bongo in a bloodless coup last August. Nguema said he took control to improve living conditions in the oil-producing nation because its citizens remained poor during the 56 years of leadership by Ali Bongo and his father, Omar Bongo. 

Gabon’s Civil Society Group says the central African state now faces the challenges of a transition to civilian rule. A transitional charter introduced by the general last November bars all members of the current government from becoming candidates in presidential elections, with the exception of Nguema. 

This month, Nguema launched what is billed as an Inclusive National Dialogue, which he said will prepare an economic blueprint and a calendar to organize elections that will hand power to civilians. 

Bruno Nguema Ela, the president of Gabon’s citizens in the diaspora, took part in Eid al-Fitr prayers. He said opposition and civil society want Nguema to reassure civilians that he will not hang on to power. 

Ela said Gabon’s diaspora is happy with efforts by Nguema to stop the Bongo dynasty from maintaining its grip on power, and added that the transitional government should make sure it hands power to civilians so Gabon does not sink into social unrest and political crisis. 

Firman Maurice Nguema, one of the spokespersons with the commission that will lead discussions in Gabon’s national dialogue, said General Nguema is committed to providing Gabon with functioning state institutions before handing power to constitutional order. He said Nguema wants Gabon to be a peaceful country where democratic choices and rights and liberties of civilians are respected. 

The transitional government says Christians joined Muslims in feasts across the central African state this week. Muslim clerics say that nationwide, prayers were for peace and a return to constitutional order without chaos. 
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