Month: May 2024

Diddy admits beating ex-girlfriend Cassie, says he’s sorry, calls his actions ‘inexcusable’  

Posted on by SeeUS

Los Angeles — Sean “Diddy” Combs admitted that he beat his ex-girlfriend Cassie in a hotel hallway in 2016 after CNN released video of the attack, saying in a video apology he was “truly sorry” and his actions were “inexcusable.” 

“I take full responsibility for my actions in that video. I was disgusted then when I did it. I’m disgusted now,” the music mogul said in a video statement posted Sunday to Instagram and Facebook. 

The video aired by CNN Friday shows Combs, wearing only a white towel, punching and kicking Cassie, an R&B singer who was his protege and longtime girlfriend at the time. The footage also shows Combs shoving and dragging Cassie, and throwing a vase in her direction. 

Cassie, whose legal name is Cassandra Ventura, sued Combs in November over what she said was years of sexual, physical and emotional abuse. The suit was settled the next day, but spurred intense scrutiny of Combs, with several more lawsuits filed in the following months, along with a federal criminal sex-trafficking investigation that led authorities to raid Combs’ mansions in Los Angeles and Miami. 

He denied the allegations in the lawsuits, but neither he nor his representatives had responded to the newly emerged video until Sunday. 

“It’s so difficult to reflect on the darkest times in your life, but sometimes you got to do that,” Diddy says on the video. He adds, “I was disgusted then when I did it. I’m disgusted now. I went and I sought out professional help. I got into going to therapy, going to rehab. I had to ask God for his mercy and grace. I’m so sorry. But I’m committed to be a better man each and every day. I’m not asking for forgiveness. I’m truly sorry.” 

Combs is looking somber and wearing a T-shirt in the selfie-style apology video, and appears to be on a patio. 

The security camera video, dated March 5, 2016, closely resembles the description of an incident at an InterContinental Hotel in the Century City area of Los Angeles described in Ventura’ lawsuit. 

The suit alleges that Combs paid the hotel $50,000 for the security video immediately after the incident. Neither he or his representatives have addressed that specific allegation. CNN did not say how it obtained the footage. 
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US to complete withdrawal from Niger by Sept. 15 

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NIAMEY — Niger and the United States have reached an agreement on the withdrawal of American troops from the West African country, a process that has already begun and will be finished by Sept. 15, they said in a joint statement. 

Niger’s ruling junta last month told the U.S. to withdraw its nearly 1,000 military personnel from the country. Until a coup last year Niger had been a key partner in Washington’s fight against insurgents in the Sahel region of Africa, who have killed thousands of people and displaced millions more. 

The agreement between Niger’s defense ministry and the U.S. Department of Defense, reached after a five-day commission, guarantees the protection of U.S. troops until their withdrawal and establishes procedures to ease the entry and exit of American personnel during the withdrawal process.  

“The Ministry of Defense of Niger and the U.S. Department of Defense recall the common sacrifices of the Nigerien and American forces in the fight against terrorism and welcome the mutual efforts made in building up the Nigerien armed forces,” they said in a joint statement.  

“The withdrawal of American forces from Niger in no way affects the pursuit of relations between the United States and Niger in the area of development. Also, Niger and the United States are committed to an ongoing diplomatic dialogue to define the future of their bilateral relations.” 

Niger’s decision to ask for the removal of U.S. troops came after a meeting in Niamey in mid-March, when senior U.S. officials raised concerns about issues such as the expected arrival of Russian forces and reports of Iran seeking raw materials in the country, including uranium. 

Russian military personnel have since entered an air base in Niger that is hosting U.S. troops. 

 
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Slovak PM’s life no longer in danger after shooting 

Posted on by SeeEU

Bratislava — Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico’s life is no longer in danger following an assassination attempt, Deputy Prime Minister Robert Kalinak said on Sunday.

A lone gunman, who appeared in court Saturday, shot Fico four times and he was at one stage said to be fighting for his life.

“He has emerged from the immediate threat to his life, but his condition remains serious and he requires intensive care,” Kalinak, Fico’s closest political ally, told reporters.

The Slovak premier was shot as he was greeting supporters after a government meeting in the central town of Handlova. He underwent a five-hour operation on Wednesday and another on Friday at a hospital in the central city of Banska Bystrica.

“We can consider his condition stable with a positive prognosis,” Kalinak said outside the hospital, adding, “We all feel a bit more relaxed now.”

Kalinak added that Fico would stay at Banska Bystrica for the moment.

The suspected gunman, identified by Slovak media as 71-year-old poet Juraj Cintula, has been charged with premeditated attempted murder and was ordered held in custody at a hearing on Saturday.

Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok said that if one of the shots “went just a few centimeters higher, it would have hit the prime minister’s liver”.

The attempted assassination has highlighted acute political divisions in the country where 59-year-old Fico took office in October after his centrist populist Smer party won a general election.

He is serving his fourth term as prime minister after campaigning on proposals for peace between Russia and Slovakia’s neighbor Ukraine, and to halt military aid to Kyiv, which his government has done.

Fico leads a coalition comprising his Smer party, the centrist HLAS and the small nationalist SNS party.

Kalinak said the government would carry on without Fico “according to the program he has outlined”.

Slovakia was already sharply divided over politics since the 2018 murder of journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee.

Kuciak pointed at links between Italian mafia and Fico’s then government, and his murder sparked nationwide protests that resulted in Fico’s resignation in 2018.

The divisions deepened further with the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

Following the attack on Fico, outgoing President Zuzana Caputova and her successor Peter Pellegrini, a Fico ally who takes over in June, tried to quell the tensions.

Following a proposal by Caputova and Pellegrini, several parties have suspended campaigning for European Parliament elections scheduled for June.

But some politicians have been quick to blame the Fico attack on their opponents or media.

SNS chairman Andrej Danko blamed the media just after the shooting, and Kalinak took on the opposition and media in an emotional speech on the Smer website on Friday.

Pellegrini said Sunday that a meeting of parliamentary party leaders he was planning to host on Tuesday to help ease tensions would probably not happen.

“The past few days and some press conferences have shown us that some politicians are simply not capable of fundamental self-reflection even after such a huge tragedy,” said Pellegrini.

“It has turned out that the time is not ripe for a round table with the representatives of all parliamentary parties yet,” he added.

In a debate on the TA3 news channel, Danko said it was “false to say that a meeting on Tuesday would reconcile society”.

Police have meanwhile charged several people who had approved of the attack on Fico on social media.
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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange facing pivotal moment in long fight to stay out of US court 

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London — The host of a news conference about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s extradition fight wryly welcomed journalists last week to the “millionth” press briefing on his court case.

Deborah Bonetti, director of the Foreign Press Association, was only half joking. Assange’s legal saga has dragged on for well over a decade but it could come to an end in the U.K. as soon as Monday. 

Assange faces a hearing in London’s High Court that could end with him being sent to the U.S. to face espionage charges, or provide him another chance to appeal his extradition.

The outcome will depend on how much weight judges give to reassurances U.S. officials have provided that Assange’s rights won’t be trampled if he goes on trial.

Here’s a look at the case:

What Assange is charged with

Assange, 52, an Australian computer expert, has been indicted in the U.S. on 18 charges over Wikileaks’ publication of hundreds of thousands of classified documents in 2010.

Prosecutors say he conspired with U.S. army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to hack into a Pentagon computer and release secret diplomatic cables and military files on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He faces 17 counts of espionage and one charge of computer misuse. If convicted, his lawyers say he could receive a prison term of up to 175 years, though American authorities have said any sentence is likely to be much lower.

Assange and his supporters argue he acted as a journalist to expose U.S. military wrongdoing and is protected under press freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Among the files published by WikiLeaks was video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack by American forces in Baghdad that killed 11 people, including two Reuters journalists.

“Julian has been indicted for receiving, possessing and communicating information to the public of evidence of war crimes committed by the U.S. government,” his wife, Stella Assange, said. “Reporting a crime is never a crime.”

U.S. lawyers say Assange is guilty of trying to hack the Pentagon computer and that WikiLeaks’ publications created a “grave and imminent risk” to U.S. intelligence sources in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

Why the case has dragged on so long

While the U.S. criminal case against Assange was only unsealed in 2019, his freedom has been restricted for a dozen years.

Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in 2012 and was granted political asylum after courts in England ruled he should be extradited to Sweden as part of a rape investigation in the Scandinavian country.

He was arrested by British police after Ecuador’s government withdrew his asylum status in 2019 and then jailed for skipping bail when he first took shelter inside the embassy.

Although Sweden eventually dropped its sex crimes investigation because so much time had elapsed, Assange has remained in London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison while the extradition battle with the U.S. continues.

His wife said his mental and physical health have deteriorated behind bars.

“He’s fighting to survive and that’s a daily battle,” she said.

A judge in London initially blocked Assange’s transfer to the U.S. in 2021 on the grounds he was likely to kill himself if held in harsh American prison conditions.

But subsequent courts cleared the way for the move after U.S. authorities provided assurances he wouldn’t experience the severe treatment that his lawyers said would put his physical and mental health at risk.

The British government authorized Assange’s extradition in 2022.

What the latest hearing is about

Assange’s lawyers raised nine grounds for appeal at a hearing in February, including the allegation that his prosecution is political.  

The court accepted three of his arguments, issuing a provisional ruling in March that said Assange could take his case to the Court of Appeal unless the U.S. guaranteed he would not face the death penalty if extradited and would have the same free speech protections as a U.S. citizen.

The U.S. provided those reassurances three weeks later, though his supporters are skeptical.

Stella Assange said the “so-called assurances” were made up of “weasel words.”

WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson said the judges had asked if Assange could rely on First Amendment protections.

“It should be an easy yes or no question,” Hrafnsson said. “The answer was, ‘He can seek to rely on First Amendment protections.’ That is a ‘no.’ So the only rational decision on Monday is for the judges to come out and say, ‘This is not good enough.’ Anything else is a judicial scandal.”

The possible outcome

If Assange prevails, it would set the stage for an appeal process likely to further drag out the case.

If an appeal is rejected, his legal team plans to ask the European Court of Human Rights to intervene. But his supporters fear Assange could possibly be transferred before the court in Strasbourg, France, could halt his removal.

“Julian is just one decision away from being extradited,” his wife said.

Assange, who hopes to be in court Monday, has been encouraged by the work others have done in the political fight to free him, his wife said.

If he loses in court, he still may have another shot at freedom.

President Joe Biden said last month that he was considering a request from Australia to drop the case and let Assange return to his home country.

Officials have no other details but Stella Assange said it was “a good sign” and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the comment was encouraging.
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Congolese army says shootout in the capital is failed coup, perpetrators arrested 

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KINSHASA — Congo’s army says it has “foiled a coup” early Sunday morning and arrested the perpetrators, including several foreigners, following a shootout between armed men in military uniform and a top politician’s guards that left three people dead in the capital, Kinshasa.  

The attempted coup d’état was “nipped in the bud by Congolese defense and security forces [and] the situation is under control,” Congolese army spokesperson Brigadier General Sylvain Ekenge said at a media briefing. He did not give further details.   

Clashes were reported between men in military uniform and guards of a local politician at the politician’s house on Tshatshi Boulevard, about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from the presidential palace and where some embassies are also located.   

This came amid a crisis gripping President Felix Tshisekedi’s ruling party over an election for the parliament’s leadership which was supposed to be held Saturday but was postponed.   

The armed men attacked the Kinshasa residence of Vital Kamerhe, a federal legislator and a candidate for speaker of the National Assembly of Congo, but were stopped by his guards, Michel Moto Muhima, his spokesperson said on the X social media platform.   

“The Honorable Vital Kamerhe and his family are safe and sound. Their security has been reinforced,” he wrote.   

Local media identified the men as Congolese soldiers. It wasn’t clear if the men in military uniform were trying to arrest the politician.   

Two police officers and one of the attackers were killed in the shootout that started around 4:30 a.m. at the house on Tshatshi Boulevard, according to Muhima.   

Footage, seemingly from the area, showed military trucks and heavily armed men parading deserted streets in the neighborhood.   

On Friday, President Felix Tshisekedi met with parliamentarians and leaders of the Sacred Union of the Nation ruling coalition in an attempt to resolve the crisis amid his party which dominates the national assembly.   

He said he would not “hesitate to dissolve the National Assembly and send everyone to new elections if these bad practices persist.”   

Tshisekedi was reelected as president in December in a chaotic vote amid calls for a revote from the opposition over what they said was a lack of transparency, following past trends of disputed elections in the central African country.   

The United States Embassy in Congo issued a security alert, urging caution after “reports of gunfire.” 
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Botanists scour US-Mexico border to document forgotten ecosystem split by giant wall

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JACUMÉ, Mexico — Near the towering border wall flanked by a U.S. Border Patrol vehicle, botanist Sula Vanderplank heard a quail in the scrub yelp “chi-ca-go,” a sound the birds use to signal they are separated from a mate or group.

Then silence.

A quail on the Mexican side called back, triggering a back-and-forth soundtrack that was both fitting and heartbreaking in an ecosystem split by an artificial barrier.

Vanderplank was among several botanists and citizen scientists participating in the Border Bioblitz near the Mexican community of Jacumé, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) east of Tijuana.

Roughly 1,000 volunteers armed with the iNaturalist app on their smartphones are documenting as many species as possible along the U.S.-Mexico border in May. Uploading photos to the app helps identify plants and animals, and records the coordinates of the location. 

The hope is the information could lead to more protections for the region’s natural richness, which is overshadowed by news of drug trafficking and migrant smuggling.

On a recent day, Bioblitz volunteers scrutinized a bright yellow blooming carpet of common Goldfields, a sharp contrast to the imposing steel bollards of the border wall topped with rolls of razor wire. Some navigated their way around piles of empty water jugs, a gray hoodie and empty cans of tuna fish left under the branches of native flora like the Tecate Cypress.

“There’s a fabulous amount of biodiversity here that’s traditionally been overlooked,” Vanderplank, of the binational program Baja Rare, said.

The efforts started in response to former President Donald Trump adding hundreds of miles of border walls that toppled untold numbers of saguaro cactuses in Arizona and passed through the biodiversity hotspot of Baja California.

“When the border wall construction began, we realized how little hard data we had, especially when it came to plants and small organisms,” Vanderplank said. “We don’t know what all we could lose.”

Since then, there has been a groundswell of initiatives to document the borderland’s flora and fauna as climate change coupled with habitat loss, pollution and development have hammered the world’s biodiversity. One estimate in 2019 warns that a million plant and animal species face extinction within decades, a rate of loss 1,000 times greater than expected.

The United Nations is expected hold a high-level meeting in Colombia of signatories to the Convention on Biological Diversity in October aiming to protect 30% of land, freshwater and oceans considered important for biodiversity by 2030, known as 30 by 30. Representatives from nearly 200 countries are expected to present plans on how they will meet conservation targets agreed upon in 2022.

Currently, 17% of terrestrial and 10% of marine areas are protected. 

Baja California peninsula, which borders California and is home to Tijuana with one of Mexico’s highest homicide rates, has more than 4,000 species of plants. A quarter of them are endemic and at least 400 plants are considered rare with little to no protection.

Flora and fauna that have gone extinct or are in danger of disappearing in the U.S., like the California red-legged frog, are thriving south of the border, producing specimens that are being used to bring back populations.

But the region’s crime deters many U.S. scientists from crossing the border. Mexico also is restricting permits for botanists and not allowing seeds to be collected, further curtailing the work, scientists say.

Bioblitz organizers work with local communities and say they take people only to areas deemed safe.

“You have to be really careful because of the violence,” said Jon Rebman, a curator of botany at the San Diego Natural History Museum, who has named 33 new plants for science from the southern California and Baja California region.

“It’s scary from that standpoint, yet those are the areas where we really need more information because there’s hardly any protected area on the south side,” he said.

Using the museum’s collection, Rebman made a list of 15 plant species endemic to Baja California and not seen since being collected nearly a century ago. He created a binational team to find them. So far, they have located 11.

Rebman also discovered two new plants to science in 2021 in a canyon off a Tijuana highway: the new species, Astragalus tijuanensis, and a new variety of the Astragalus brauntonii named lativexillum.

“I was worried they would go extinct before we even got them named,” Rebman said. “That tells you what type of area we’re working in.”

Tijuana-based botanist Mariana Fernandez of Expediciones Botánicas periodically checks on the plants. Working with Rebman, she is pushing Baja California to adopt more protections for its native plants. Currently only a fraction are on Mexico’s federal protection list. 

She hopes the state will step in, while she also tries to build support by taking Tijuana residents and Baja officials on hikes.

“People are amazed that these things exist in Tijuana, and I hope to show more and more people so they can see the beauty, because we need that,” Fernandez said. “It’s important to not be impeded by the barriers that humans create.”

As border security increases with the number of people being displaced by natural disasters, violence and wars at record levels worldwide, more migrants are traipsing out to areas like the stretch near Jacumé. The tiny community of about 100 families includes members of the Kumeyaay tribe and sits across the border from an equally sparsely populated desert near the California town of Jacumba Hot Springs. Population: about 1,000.

The area has seen thousands of asylum seekers who wait for an opportunity to cross, usually in the cloak of darkness, and then camp again on the U.S. side after turning themselves in to U.S. Border Patrol agents.

Fernandez was among the botanists helping Bioblitz volunteers on the Mexican side near a crumbling crossing station from the 1920s.

“I never would have thought that there would be so much biodiversity on the border,” said Jocelyn Reyes, a student of Fernandez at La Universidad Autónoma de Baja California who stopped every few feet to hover over a plant and photograph its details. “It’s so interesting and makes you realize there’s so much worth saving.” 
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Musk, Indonesian health minister, launch Starlink for health sector 

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DENPASAR, BALI, INDONESIA — Elon Musk and Indonesian Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin launched SpaceX’s satellite internet service for the nation’s health sector on Sunday, aiming to improve access in remote parts of the sprawling archipelago.   

Musk, the billionaire head of SpaceX and Tesla TSLA.O, arrived on the Indonesian resort island of Bali by private jet before attending the launch ceremony at a community health centre in the provincial capital, Denpasar.   

Musk, wearing a green batik shirt, said the availability of the Starlink service in Indonesia would help millions in far-flung parts of the country to access the internet. The country is home to more than 270 million people and three different time zones.

“I’m very excited to bring connectivity to places that have low connectivity,” Musk said, “If you have access to the internet you can learn anything.”   

Starlink was launched at three Indonesian health centers on Sunday, including two in Bali and one on the remote island of Aru in Maluku.   

A video presentation screened at the launch showed how high internet speeds enabled the real-time input of data to better tackle health challenges such as stunting and malnutrition.   

Asked about whether he planned to also invest in Indonesia’s electric vehicle industry, Musk said he was focused on Starlink first.   

“We are focusing this event on Starlink and the benefits that connectivity brings to remote islands,” he said, “I think it’s really to emphasize the importance of internet connectivity, how much of that can be a lifesaver.”   

Indonesia’s government has been trying for years to lure Musk’s auto firm Tesla to build manufacturing plants related to electric vehicles as the government wants to develop its EV sector using the country’s rich nickel resources.   

The tech tycoon is scheduled to meet Indonesian President Joko Widodo on Monday, where he will also address the World Water Forum taking place on the island.   

Communications Minister Budi Arie Setiadi, who also attended the Bali launch, said Starlink was now available commercially, but the government would focus its services first for outer and underdeveloped regions.   

Prior to Sunday’s launch, Starlink obtained a permit to operate as an internet service provider for retail consumers and had been given the go-ahead to provide networks, having received a very small aperture terminal (VSAT) permit, Budi Setiadi told Reuters.   

SpaceX’s Starlink, which owns around 60% of the roughly 7,500 satellites orbiting earth, is dominant in the satellite internet sphere.   

Indonesia is the third country in Southeast Asia where Starlink will operate. Malaysia issued the firm a license to provide internet services last year and a Philippine-based firm signed a deal with SpaceX in 2022.   

Starlink is also used extensively in Ukraine, where it is employed by the military, hospitals, businesses and aid organizations. 
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Wild bears attack several people in northeast Japan

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TOKYO — Japanese authorities have warned residents Saturday to be aware of wild bears in the country’s northeast after several people were attacked, including police officers.

The bears, measuring about 50 centimeters in height, were seen in the area, including Akita and Fukushima Prefectures.

Two police officers were attacked Saturday in the city of Kazuno in Akita while recovering the body of a missing man, according to Japanese media reports. The man had gone hunting for bamboo shoots in the mountains a few days earlier where he was found dead in the area with gash wounds. It remains unclear if he died due to a bear attack.

The officers are in serious condition, though not life-threatening, reports said.

In response, some wooded areas have been closed off in Kazuno “for an indefinite time,” officials said in a statement.

News footage showed police officers putting up signs warning people to stay out of mountainous areas where the bears were sighted.

Over the weekend, patrol cars were dispatched together with a helicopter search to locate the bears.

Akita Prefectural Police have urged people to keep bells and other noise-producing devices on hand to scare the bears away in case of an encounter, and not to go out at night.

Thousands of Asiatic black bears live in the wild throughout Japan. Attacks have risen as the borders blur between the bears’ habitats and people’s dwellings. The scarcity of acorns, berries and other food, possibly connected to climate change, is also blamed for the surge in bear encounters.
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Biden risks Gaza protests at Martin Luther King Jr.’s college

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ATLANTA — U.S. President Joe Biden speaks Sunday at the former university of civil rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr, in a bid to woo Black voters that risks being overshadowed by protests against Israel’s war in Gaza.

Biden’s graduation speech at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, will be his most direct engagement with students since demonstrations over the conflict roiled campuses across the United States.

Students at Morehouse, a historically Black college, have called on the school’s administration to cancel the speech over Biden’s support for Israel, which has caused strong opposition in a U.S. presidential election year.

“I think it will be a moving commencement address. I think it will meet the moment,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters at a briefing Friday.

Asked about reports that the college principal would shut down the ceremony if there was major disruption, Jean-Pierre said: “He will respect the peaceful protesters. It is up to Morehouse on how to manage that and move forward.”

A senior White House official recently met students and faculty members at Morehouse to discuss objections to Biden delivering the address, NBC News reported.

While Biden’s choice of Martin Luther King Jr’s alma mater emphasizes the heroism of the civil rights hero, protesters have pointed out that King was also an anti-war activist who opposed the Vietnam War in the 1960s.

Biden initially stayed silent on the Gaza protests but later said that “order must prevail” after police broke up several university protest encampments around the U.S.

Biden poll worries

Biden’s problems with voters over Gaza mirrors wider issues he has with Black and younger voters, two groups that helped him beat Republican Donald Trump in the 2020 election.

He will need to keep those strands in his coalition to have a hope of preventing Trump from making a sensational comeback to the White House despite a chaotic first term and multiple criminal indictments.

The Morehouse College visit caps days of events in which Biden is reaching out to Black voters, all staged around the 70th anniversary of a 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision that ended racial school segregation.

A New York Times/Siena poll last week showed that in addition to trailing Trump in several key battleground states, Biden is also losing ground with African Americans.

Trump is winning more than 20% of Black voters in the poll — which would be the highest level of Black support for a Republican presidential candidate since the Civil Rights Act was enacted in 1964, The New York Times said.

Several other polls have also shown Biden’s support lagging among Black voters.

Biden accused Trump and his “extreme” supporters of “going after diversity, equity and inclusion all across America” in a speech Friday at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington on Friday.

On Thursday in the Oval Office, Biden welcomed key figures and relatives of plaintiffs in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case that proved a milestone for the U.S. civil rights movement.

Later Sunday, Biden will then travel to Detroit where he will address the NAACP, the nation’s top civil rights group.
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Russia says it shot down 60 Ukrainian drones

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MOSCOW — Russian officials said on Sunday that Ukraine fired nine U.S. ATACMS at Crimea and attacked Russian regions with at least 60 drones in a major attack which forced one oil refinery in southern Russia to halt operations.

Russian air defenses shot down nine U.S. ATACMS missiles over Crimea along with 57 drones over Russia’s Krasnodar region and three drones over Belgorod region, the Russian defense ministry said.

Local officials said six drones crashed onto the territory of an oil refinery in Slavyansk in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region. Interfax news agency said the refinery halted work after the attack.

Slavyansk refinery is a private plant with a capacity of 4 million metric tons of oil per year, about 1 million bpd.

There was no immediate comment from Kyiv.

Russia has reported an uptick in Ukrainian attacks on its territory since opening a new front in the Kharkiv region of northeastern Ukraine earlier this month.

President Vladimir Putin says Russia is carving out a buffer zone there to protect Russia from such attacks, which Russia says risk triggering a broader war between Russia and the West if Ukraine uses Western weapons.

Russia said on Saturday Russian forces captured the village of Starytsia in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region and that Russian forces had defeated Ukrainian units along the front, including in the Sumy region.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s forces have destroyed all of 37 attack drones launched by Russia overnight, Ukraine’s air force chief said Sunday.

“As a result of the anti-aircraft battle, all 37 ‘Shaheds’ were shot down in Kyiv, Odesa, Mykolaiv, Sumy, Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Cherkasy and Kherson regions,” the commander said.

Odesa governor Oleh Kiper said on the telegram messaging app that 20 drones were destroyed in the Odesa region.

“An administrative building in Odesa district was damaged by falling debris. In Odesa, the debris fell into the yard of a residential area. Fortunately, there were no injuries,” Kiper said.

No destruction or casualties were reported by military and civilian authorities in other regions.

Reuters could not independently verify the reports. 
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US official, Saudi crown prince meet to discuss ‘semifinal’ security deal

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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — U.S. President Joe Biden’s national security adviser met early Sunday with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to discuss what the kingdom described as the “semifinal” version of a wide-ranging security agreement between the countries.

The announcement by the state-run Saudi Press Agency comes as the strategic deal had been upended after Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw 250 others taken hostage back to the Gaza Strip.

In the time since, a punishing Israeli airstrike campaign and ground offensive there has killed over 35,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry. The war has endangered the security deal that had included Saudi Arabia diplomatically recognizing Israel for the first time since its founding in 1948.

Saudi state media released no images of Jake Sullivan and Prince Mohammed meeting in Dhahran, a city in the kingdom’s far east that’s home to its state-run oil giant, the Saudi Arabian Oil Co. known as Saudi Aramco.

“The semifinal version of the draft strategic agreements between the kingdom and the United States of America, which are almost being finalized — and what is being worked on between the two sides in the Palestinian issue to find a credible path — were discussed,” the statement released after the talks said.

That included “a two-state solution that meets the aspirations and legitimate rights of the Palestinian people” and “the situation in Gaza and the need to stop the war there and facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid,” the statement added.

Saudi Arabia has long called for an independent Palestinian state to be created along Israel’s 1967 borders, with east Jerusalem as its capital. However, that likely may be untenable for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government hinges on support from hardliners who oppose a two-state solution and support Israeli settlements on lands Palestinians want for that state.

The White House had acknowledged Sullivan’s trip and that he would later head on to Israel, where he’s scheduled meet Netanyahu on Sunday. However, there was no immediate statement from the U.S. on the discussions, other than to say they would be “including the war in Gaza and ongoing efforts to achieve a lasting peace and security in the region.”

Saudi Arabia has long relied — like other Gulf Arab nations — on the U.S. to be the security guarantor for the wider Middle East as tensions over Iran’s nuclear program in recent years have spilled over into a series of attacks. The proposal now being discussed likely would deepen that, and also reportedly includes access to advanced weapons and possibly trade deals as well.

Saudi Arabia has also pushed for nuclear cooperation in the deal that includes America allowing it to enrich uranium in the kingdom — something that worries nonproliferation experts, as spinning centrifuges opens the door to a possible weapons program. Prince Mohammed has said the kingdom would pursue a nuclear weapon if Iran had one. Iran in recent weeks has increasingly threatened it could do so.

Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York meanwhile confirmed that Tehran held indirect talks with U.S. officials in Oman last week. Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency quoted the mission as describing the talks as “an ongoing process.”

“The negotiations have not been the first and will not be the last of their kind,” the mission said, according to IRNA.

Oman, a sultanate on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, has been the site of U.S.-Iran talks in the past, including under Biden despite the tensions between the two nations.
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As countries tighten anti-gay laws, more LGBTQ+ seek safety and asylum in Europe

Posted on by SeeEU

RIETI, Italy — Ella Anthony knew it was time to leave her native Nigeria when she escaped an abusive, forced marriage only to face angry relatives who threatened to turn her in to police because she was gay.  

Since Nigeria criminalizes same-sex relationships, Anthony fled a possible prison term and headed with her partner to Libya in 2014 and then Italy, where they both won asylum. Their claim? That they had a well-founded fear of anti-LGBTQ+ persecution back home.

While many of the hundreds of thousands of migrants who arrive in Italy from Africa and the Mideast are escaping war, conflict and poverty, an increasing number are fleeing possible prison terms and death sentences in their home countries because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, advocates say.

And despite huge obstacles to win asylum on LGBTQ+ grounds, Anthony and her partner, Doris Ezuruike Chinonso are proof that it can be done, even if the challenges remain significant for so-called “rainbow refugees” like them.

“Certainly life here in Italy isn’t 100% what we want. But let’s say it’s 80% better than in my country,” Chinonso, 34, said with Anthony by her side at their home in Rieti, north of Rome. In Nigeria, “if you’re lucky you end up prison. If you’re not lucky, they kill you,” she said. 

“Here you can live as you like,” she said.

Most European countries don’t keep statistics on the number of migrants who claim anti-LGBTQ+ persecution as a reason for seeking refugee protection under international law. But non-governmental organizations that track the phenomenon say the numbers are rising as countries pass or toughen anti-homosexuality laws — a trend being highlighted on Friday’s observance of the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia.

To date, more than 60 countries have anti-LGBTQ+ laws on the books, most of them in Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia.

“The ultimate result is people trying to flee these countries to find safe haven elsewhere,” said Kimahli Powell, chief executive of Rainbow Railroad, which provides financial, legal and logistical support to LGBTQ+ people needing asylum assistance.

In an interview, Powell said his organization had received about 15,000 requests for assistance last year, up from some 9,500 the year before. One-tenth of those 2023 requests, or about 1,500, came from Uganda, which passed an anti-homosexuality law that year that allows the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality,” and up to 14 years in prison for “attempted aggravated homosexuality.”

Nigeria also criminalizes consensual same-sex relations between adults and the public display of affection between same-sex couples, as well as restricting the work of groups that advocate for gay people and their rights, according to Human Rights Watch. In regions of Nigeria where Sharia law is in force, LGBTQ+ people can face up to 14 years in prison or the death penalty.

Anthony, 37, said it was precisely the threat of prison that compelled her to leave. She said her family had sold her into marriage, but that she left the relationship because her husband repeatedly abused her. When she returned home, her brother and uncles threatened to turn her into police because she was gay. The fear and alienation drove her first to attempt suicide, and then take up a trafficker’s offer to pay for passage to Europe.

“At a certain point, I couldn’t take all these sufferings,” Anthony said through tears. “When this man told me that I should abandon the village, I immediately accepted.”

After arriving in Libya, Anthony and Chinonso paid traffickers for the risky boat trip across the Mediterranean Sea to Italy, where they both claimed asylum as a member of a group – LGBTQ+ people – who faced persecution in Nigeria. According to refugee norms, applicants for asylum can be granted international protection based on being a “member of a particular social group.”

But the process is by no means easy, straightforward or guaranteed. Privacy concerns limit the types of questions about sexual orientation that migrants can be asked during the asylum interview process. Social taboos and a reluctance to openly identify as gay or transgender mean some migrants might not volunteer the information immediately. Ignorance on the part of asylum interviewers about anti-gay laws in countries of origin can result in unsuccessful claims, according to the EU Agency for Asylum, which helps EU countries implement asylum norms.  

As a result, no comprehensive data exists about how many migrants seek or win asylum in the EU on LGBTQ+ grounds. Based on estimates reported by NGOs working with would-be refugees, the numbers in individual EU countries ranged from two to three in Poland in 2016 to 500 in Finland from 2015-2017 and 80 in Italy from 2012-2017, according to a 2017 report by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights.

An EU directive grants special protection for people made vulnerable due to sexual discrimination, prescribing “special procedural guarantees” in countries that receive them. However, it doesn’t specify what those guarantees involve and implementation is uneven. As a result, LGBTQ+ asylum seekers don’t always find protected environments once in the EU.

“We’re talking about people who are unfortunately victims of a double stigma: being a migrant, and being members of the LGBTQIA+ community,” said lawyer Marina De Stradis.

Even within Italy, the options vary widely from region to region, with the better-funded north offering more services than the less-developed south. In the capital Rome, there are only 10 beds specifically designated for LGBTQ+ migrants, said Antonella Ugirashebuja, an activist with the Arcigay association.

She said the lack of special protections often impacts female migrants more negatively than male, and can be especially dangerous for lesbians.

“Lesbians leaving Africa often, or more frequently, end up in prostitution and sexual exploitation networks because they lack (economic) support from their families,” she said. “The family considers them people to be pushed away, to be rejected … Especially in countries where this is punishable by law.”

Anthony and Chinonso consider themselves lucky: They live in a neat flat in Rieti with their dog Paddy, and dream of starting a family even if Italy doesn’t allow gay marriage.

Chinonso, who was studying medicine in Nigeria, is now a social and health worker. Anthony works at the deli counter in a Carrefour supermarket in Rome. She would have liked to have been able to continue working as a film editor, but is happy.

“It gave me the opportunity to grow,” she said.
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South Africa facing milestone election; here are the main players

Posted on by SeeAF

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — After 30 years of dominating South African politics, the ruling African National Congress will face its toughest election this month as most opinion polls predict it will lose its parliamentary majority for the first time.

Once admired under the leadership of Nelson Mandela, and regarded as a beacon of hope by the Black majority following the fall of apartheid in 1994, the ANC’s reputation has been battered by record levels of unemployment, widespread poverty, the collapse of some government services and more than a decade of corruption scandals, leaving voters disillusioned.

President Cyril Ramaphosa hopes the May 29 ballot will lead to his reelection. But if the ANC does lose its majority, it will force it into a coalition to form a government — also a first for the country and something that may complicate policymaking in Africa’s most advanced economy.

South Africans don’t elect their president directly, but instead vote for parties that get assigned seats in Parliament according to their share of the ballot. Lawmakers then choose the head of state.

As South Africa braces itself for the possibility of its most important change since the end of apartheid, here are the main parties and players in the election:

A president under pressure

Ramaphosa was a senior figure in the ANC in the early 1990s and was once seen as a protege of Mandela. He left politics to become a successful businessman before returning as deputy president of South Africa in 2014. He became president in 2018 after Jacob Zuma resigned under a cloud of corruption allegations.

Ramaphosa has tried to rebuild the reputation of the ANC by cracking down on government graft. However, unemployment has risen to 32% during his presidency — the highest in the world — while he has struggled to curb poverty. An electricity crisis has led to power outages across the country of 62 million due to failures at the state-run electricity supplier. It badly damaged the economy and Ramaphosa’s reputation as someone who could fix South Africa’s problems, even if the blackouts are viewed as a result of mismanagement during the Zuma administration.

The ANC is still expected to win the largest share of votes, but if it receives less than 50% as predicted, it will need the help of coalition partners to reelect the 71-year-old Ramaphosa.

The main opposition leader

John Steenhuisen is the leader of the main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance. The centrist DA has promised to “rescue” South Africa from what it says is the corruption and mismanagement of the ANC but has never come close to winning a national election. The DA won 22% in the last general election in 2019 to the ANC’s 62%.

The DA entered a preelection agreement with smaller opposition parties, hoping their combined vote might clinch a majority and remove the ANC. But they would all have to increase their share significantly and it’s seen as unlikely.

Steenhuisen, 48, is the only white leader among South Africa’s main political parties. In a country where race is still at the forefront of the national consciousness, that has led to detractors saying the DA represents the interests of the white minority more than the 80% of South Africans who are Black.

A firebrand marxist

The Economic Freedom Fighters has risen rapidly to become South Africa’s third biggest party in Parliament since it was formed in 2013 by Julius Malema, a former ANC youth leader who was expelled from the ruling party. His fiery, far-left rhetoric has made the 43-year-old South Africa’s most contentious politician but his message that the ANC has failed poor, Black South Africans has gained traction, especially with unemployed and disaffected young people.

The EFF has called for the nationalization of mines and the redistribution of land to poor Blacks. The party, which follows a Marxist ideology, says an economic inequality based on race persists decades after apartheid, with whites generally rich and Blacks still poor.

Malema and other EFF lawmakers have regularly interrupted speeches by opponents in Parliament and been involved in scuffles with security guards in the chamber, bringing a militant brand of politics to the heart of South Africa’s democracy. The EFF is a possible coalition partner for the ANC, although neither party has said if there is any agreement.

Zuma returns

Former President Zuma added a new dimension when he announced in December that he was turning his back on the ANC he once led and returning to politics with a new party.

Zuma’s MK Party is not expected to challenge the top three, but it is expected to further erode the ANC’s vote just as the ruling party faces its sternest election test. The 81-year-old former leader still commands support, especially in his home KwaZulu-Natal province.

His reemergence also raised security concerns for the election after his conviction for contempt of court and prison sentence in 2021 sparked a week of rioting and looting that led to the deaths of more than 350 people in the worst violence in South Africa since the troublesome last days of apartheid.

Zuma is involved in a court battle over whether his criminal conviction prevents him from standing as a candidate for Parliament. There are concerns over unrest if he is disqualified. Even if he isn’t, his new reputation as an agitator is likely to increase tensions around a pivotal election.
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Patient with sickle cell disease offers hope to Ugandan community

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mbale, uganda — Barbara Nabulo was one of three girls in her family. But when a sister died, her mother wailed at the funeral that she was left with just one and a half daughters.

The half was the ailing Nabulo, who at age 12 understood her mother’s meaning.

“I hated myself so much,” Nabulo said recently, recalling the words that preceded a period of sickness that left her hospitalized and feeding through a tube.

The scene underscores the lifelong challenges for some people with sickle cell disease in rural Uganda, where it remains poorly understood. Despite Nabulo’s knowledge of how the disease weakens the body, she spoke repeatedly of “the germ I was born with.”

Infections, pain, organ damage

Sickle cell disease is a group of inherited disorders in which red blood cells — normally round — become hard, sticky and crescent shaped. The misshapen cells clog the flow of blood, which can lead to infections, excruciating pain, organ damage and other complications.

The disease, which can stunt physical growth, is more common in malaria-prone regions, notably Africa and India, because carrying the sickle cell trait helps protect against severe malaria. Global estimates of how many people have the disease vary, but some researchers put the number between 6 million and 8 million, with more than 5 million living in sub-Saharan Africa.

The only cure for the pain sickle cell disease can cause is a bone marrow transplant or gene therapies such as the one commercially approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in December. Last week, a 12-year-old boy last week became the first person to begin the therapy.

Those options are beyond the reach of most patients in this East African nation, where sickle cell disease is not a public health priority despite the burden it places on communities. There isn’t a national database of sickle cell patients. Funding for treatment often comes from donor organizations.

A patient, a caregiver

In a hilly part of eastern Uganda that’s a sickle cell hot spot, the main referral hospital looks after hundreds of patients arriving from nearby villages to collect medication. Many receive doses of hydroxyurea, a drug that can reduce periods of severe pain and other complications, and researchers there are studying its effectiveness in Ugandan children.

Nabulo, now 37, is one of the hospital’s patients. But she approaches others like her as a caregiver, too.

After dropping out in primary school, she has emerged in recent years as a counselor to fellow patients, speaking to them about her survival. Encouraged by hospital authorities, she makes weekly visits to the ward that has many children watched over by exhausted-looking parents.

Nabulo tells them she was diagnosed with sickle cell disease at 2 weeks old, but now she is the mother of three children, including twins.

Such a message gives hope to those who feel discouraged or worry that sickle cell disease is a death sentence, said Dr. Julian Abeso, head of pediatrics at Mbale Regional Referral Hospital.

Some men have been known to divorce their wives — or neglect them in search of new partners — when they learn that their children have sickle cell disease. Frequent community deaths from disease complications reinforce perceptions of it as a scourge.

Health workers encourage testing

Nabulo and health workers urge openness and the testing of children for sickle cell as early as possible.

Abeso and Nabulo grew close after Nabulo lost her first baby hours after childbirth in 2015. She cried in the doctor’s office as she spoke of her wish “to have a relative I can call mine, a descendant who can help me,” Abeso recalled.

“At that time, people here were so negative about patients with sickle cell disease having children because the complications would be so many,” the doctor said.

Nabulo’s second attempt to have a child was difficult, with some time in intensive care. But her baby is now a 7-year-old boy who sometimes accompanies her to the hospital. The twin girls came last year.

Speaking outside the one-room home she shares with her husband and children, Nabulo said many people appreciate her work despite the countless indignities she faces, including unwanted stares from people in the streets who point to the woman with “a big head” — a manifestation of the disease in her. Her brothers often behave as if they are ashamed of her, she said.

Once, she heard of a girl in her neighborhood whose grandmother was making frequent trips to the clinic over an undiagnosed illness in the child. The grandmother was hesitant to have the girl tested for sickle cell when Nabulo first asked her. But tests later revealed the disease, and now the girl receives treatment.

“I go to Nabulo for help because I can’t manage the illness affecting my grandchild,” Kelemesiya Musuya said. “She can feel pain, and she starts crying, saying, ‘It is here and it is rising and it is paining here and here.'”

Musuya sometimes seeks reassurance. “She would be asking me, ‘Even you, when you are sick, does it hurt in the legs, in the chest, in the head?’ I tell her that, yes, it’s painful like that,” Nabulo said.

Nabulo said she was glad that the girl, who is 11, still goes to school.

The lack of formal education is hurtful for Nabulo, who struggles to write her name, and a source of shame for her parents, who repeatedly apologize for letting her drop out while her siblings studied. One brother is now a medical worker who operates a clinic in a town not far away from Nabulo’s home.

“I am very happy to see her,” said her mother, Agatha Nambuya.

She recalled Nabulo’s swelling head and limbs as a baby, and how “these children used to die so soon.”

But now she knows of others with sickle cell disease who grew to become doctors or whatever they wanted to be. She expressed pride in Nabulo’s work as a counselor and said her grandchildren make her feel happy.

“At that time,” she said, recalling Nabulo as a child, “we didn’t know.”
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Islamabad would like Beijing to talk to Kabul on terrorism, Pakistani minister says

Posted on by SeeEA

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan’s minister for planning and development, Ahsan Iqbal, says his country is not opposed to Afghanistan’s inclusion in a Chinese-funded mega-development project, but would like Beijing to persuade Kabul to crack down on terrorist groups operating on its soil against Islamabad.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s new government, which took office in March, is anxious to revive the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor or CPEC – a roughly $62 billion flagship project that is part of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative – which has suffered a slump in recent years due to political, economic, and security problems in Pakistan.

Iqbal recently met officials in China to prepare for Sharif’s upcoming visit aimed at quickening the pace and broadening the scope of CPEC.

Securing CPEC

Threats against Chinese nationals have emerged as a major impediment to CPEC’s progress in recent years. Since 2021, at least 17 Chinese nationals have died in targeted attacks in Pakistan.

In late March, five Chinese workers and their Pakistani driver were killed when a suicide bomber rammed an explosive-laden vehicle into their bus. Pakistani authorities identified the attacker as an Afghan national and claimed the attack was planned in Afghanistan.

“I think this is a cause for concern,” Iqbal said about the alleged use of Afghan territory for attacks on Chinese citizens in Pakistan.

Speaking exclusively to VOA, Iqbal said his government would like Beijing to use its influence to push Kabul to take action against cross-border terrorists.

“We also hope that China would also persuade Afghanistan because Afghanis [Afghans] also listen to the Chinese government in the region,” he said. 

The Afghan Taliban deny giving space to terrorists, but research suggests terrorist groups have a presence there.

When asked if Islamabad had formally requested Beijing to push the Afghan Taliban to curb anti-Pakistan terrorist groups, Iqbal referred VOA to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The minister rejected the idea that attacks on Chinese nationals were a failure on Pakistan’s part, where a special military unit as well as local law enforcement are tasked with ensuring their safety.

“When you’re fighting a war against terrorism, terrorists always find a way,” Iqbal said, adding that major powers like the United States and Russia were also victims.

Chinese officials are pressing Pakistan publicly to ensure better safety of their workers and to hold those responsible for the killings accountable.

Iqbal said Beijing was right to demand better security for its nationals and that it knows Pakistan is doing more.

“But the Chinese government has said it very clearly that such cowardly incidents will not deter them from pursuing CPEC,” he added.

Washington vs. Beijing

Chinese funding, while welcome, comes largely in the form of expensive loans. According to research by AidData, a research organization based at the College of William and Mary in the U.S. state of Virginia, between 2000 to 2021, Pakistan’s cumulative debt to China stood at $67.2 billion.

Iqbal dismissed Washington’s concerns about Pakistan’s mounting Chinese debt. The United States also accuses China of predatory lending practices, an allegation Beijing denies.

“I think China has shown [a] great amount of understanding,” he said. “I wish just as China understands Pakistan’s difficulties, [the] IMF [International Monetary Fund] and other friends also would give Pakistan that margin of understanding.”

When CPEC was starting in 2013, Iqbal said he told officials in Washington that “right now China is giving us $46 billion of hard investment in infrastructure and I doubt very much that you can even get $4 million approved from Congress for Pakistan.”

Despite being allies in the 20-year U.S.-led Afghan war, Washington and Islamabad share a long history of mistrust.

Walking a tightrope between Washington and Beijing while the two battle for geopolitical influence, Iqbal said Islamabad would like to harness the “soft power” of the U.S and send Pakistani scholars and researchers there to earn doctorate degrees.

“So, if China is helping us build our infrastructure or hardware, we look forward to the U.S., that it should help us build our software that will run that hardware,” Iqbal said. “I think that way Pakistan can really benefit from both its friends, United States and China.”

CPEC Phase-2

Launched in 2013, CPEC has given nearly 2,000 kilometers of roads to Pakistan, added 8,000 megawatts of electricity to the national grid, and created close to 200,000 jobs, according to Pakistani and Chinese officials.

In the much-delayed and much-talked-about Phase 2 of CPEC, Pakistan hopes some of the pending projects from the first phase will be completed. Moving away from government-to-government initiatives, Pakistan wants private Chinese businesses to collaborate with companies in Pakistan in the second phase. It is also eyeing jobs leaving China due to increasing labor costs to come to Pakistan, where manpower is abundant and cheap.

“China considers Pakistan as a strategic friend and has confidence in Pakistan,” Iqbal said, when pressed why more Chinese companies would come to Pakistan while their counterparts are struggling to get their dues.

Pakistan owes almost $2 million to Chinese power producers that set up shop under CPEC. It has an economy of roughly $350 billion but according to the State Bank of Pakistan, the country’s central bank, Pakistan’s total debt and liabilities are hovering near $290 billion.

After escaping default last year, Islamabad is seeking a new bailout from the IMF, which expects Pakistan’s economy to grow 2% in 2024.

Iqbal said China invested in Pakistan when the country was having difficult times.

“When China decided to invest $25 billion in Pakistan, this is [in] 2013, when we had 18 hours of power shortages” and frequent suicide bombings, he said. “At that time they decided to come to Pakistan and support Pakistan,” the minister said. “That shows they have trust and confidence in Pakistan.”

Iqbal said the recent bullish performance of the country’s stock exchange showed, ” … local investors have full confidence in the direction the government is following and I think it is the same sense of confidence that Chinese investors and Chinese government has in this government.”
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Islamabad would like Beijing to talk to Kabul on terrorism, Pakistani minister says

Posted on by SeeEA

Pakistan’s new government is trying to ramp up work on the multi-billion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. VOA Pakistan bureau chief Sarah Zaman speaks with Pakistan’s Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal about why Chinese companies should invest in Pakistan given the country’s poor economic and security conditions. Camera: Wajid Asad, Malik Waqar Ahmed
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In Spain, Argentine president snubs officials, courts far-right

Posted on by SeeEU

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Even before kicking off a three-day visit to Madrid on Friday, Argentina’s libertarian President Javier Milei stirred controversy, accusing the socialist government of bringing “poverty and death” to Spain and weighing in on corruption allegations against the prime minister’s wife.

In such circumstances, a typical visiting head of state may strive to mend fences with diplomacy.

Not Milei. The brash economist has no plans to meet Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez during his three days in the Spanish capital — nor the Spanish king, nor any other government official. Instead, he’ll attend a far-right summit Sunday hosted by Sánchez’s fiercest political opponent, the Vox party.

The unorthodox visit was business as usual for Milei, a darling of the global far right who has bonded with tech billionaire Elon Musk and praised former U.S. President Donald Trump. Earlier this year on a trip to the United States, Milei steered clear of the White House and took the stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, where he railed against abortion and socialism and shared a bear hug with Trump.

Milei presented his 2022 book, The Way of the Libertarian, in Madrid on Friday at a literary event organized by La Razón, a conservative Spanish newspaper.

The book — withdrawn from circulation in Spain earlier this month because the back-flap biography erroneously said Milei had earned a doctorate — traces his meteoric rise in politics from eccentric TV personality to national lawmaker and outlines his radical free-market economic ideas.

To thunderous applause, Milei condemned socialism as “an intellectual fraud and a horror in human terms.”

“The good thing is that the spotlight is shining on us everywhere and we are making the reds (leftists) uncomfortable all over the world,” Milei said.

He took the opportunity to promote the results of his harsh austerity campaign in Argentina, celebrating a decline in monthly inflation in April though making no mention of the Buenos Aires subway fares that more than tripled overnight.

Repeating a campaign pledge to eliminate Argentina’s central bank — without giving further details — Milei promised to make Argentina “the country with the most economic freedom in the world.”

At the event Milei gave a huge hug to his ideological ally Santiago Abascal, the leader of the hard-right Vox party and the only politician with whom Milei has actual plans to meet in Madrid.

The Vox summit Sunday seeks to bring together far-right figures from across Europe in a bid to rally the party’s base ahead of European parliamentary elections in June. Milei described his attendance a “moral imperative.” He also has plans to meet Spanish business executives Saturday.

Tensions between Milei and Sánchez have simmered since the moment the Spanish prime minister declined to congratulate the libertarian economist on his shock election victory last November.

But hostility exploded earlier this month when one of Sánchez’s ministers suggested Milei had taken narcotics. The Argentine presidency responded with an unusually harsh official statement accusing Sánchez’s government of “endangering the middle class with its socialist policies that bring nothing but poverty and death.”

The lengthy government statement also accused Sánchez of having “more important problems to deal with, such as the corruption accusations against his wife.”

The allegations of influence peddling and corruption brought by a right-wing group against Sánchez’s wife, Begoña Gómez, had prompted Sánchez, one of Europe’s longest serving Socialist leaders, to consider stepping down.
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Pro-Palestinian protesters rally in Washington to mark painful past, present

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WASHINGTON — Hundreds of protesters rallied within sight of the U.S. Capitol, chanting pro-Palestinian slogans and voicing criticism of the Israeli and American governments as they marked a painful present — the war in Gaza — and past — the exodus of about 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were forced from what is now Israel when the state was created in 1948. 

About 400 demonstrators braved steady rains to rally on the National Mall on the 76th anniversary of what is called the Nakba, the Arabic word for catastrophe. In January, thousands of pro-Palestinian activists had gathered in the nation’s capital in one of the larger protests in recent memory. 

There were calls in support of Palestinian rights and an immediate end to Israeli military operations in Gaza. “No peace on stolen land” and “End the killings, stop the crime/Israel out of Palestine,” echoed through the crowd. 

Protesters also focused their anger on President Joe Biden, whom they accuse of feigning concern over the death toll in Gaza. 

“Biden Biden, you will see/genocide’s your legacy,” they said. The Democratic president was in Atlanta, Georgia, on Saturday. 

Reem Lababdi, a George Washington University sophomore who said she was pepper-sprayed by police last week when they broke up an on-campus protest encampment, acknowledged that the rain seemed to hold down the numbers. 

“I’m proud of every single person who turned out in this weather to speak their minds and send their message,” she said. 

This year’s commemoration was fueled by anger over the ongoing siege of Gaza. The latest Israel-Hamas war began when Hamas and other militants stormed into southern Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking an additional 250 hostage. Palestinian militants still hold about 100 captives, and Israel’s military has killed more than 35,000 people in Gaza, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. 

Speaker Osama Abuirshad, executive director of American Muslims for Palestine, gestured at the Capitol building dome behind him. 

“This Congress does not speak for us. This Congress does not represent the will of the people,” he said. “We’re paying for the bombs. We’re paying for the F-16s and F-35s. And then we do the poor Palestinians a favor and send some food.” 

Speakers also expressed anger over the violent crackdown on multiple pro-Palestinian protest camps at universities across the country. In recent weeks, long-term encampments have been broken up by police at more than 60 schools; just under 3,000 protesters have been arrested. 

The demonstrators marched for several blocks on Pennsylvania and Constitution avenues, with police cars closing the streets ahead of them. One lone counter-protester, waving an Israeli flag, attempted to march near the front of the procession. At one point, one of the demonstrators snatched his flag and ran away. 

With tensions rising, members of the protesters’ “safety team” formed a tight phalanx around the man, both to impede his progress and protect him from the crowd. The standoff was broken up when a police officer intervened, led the man away and told him to go home. 
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Armed ethnic group says it captured Myanmar town; Rohingyas flee

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BANGKOK — A powerful ethnic armed group fighting Myanmar’s military government in the country’s western state of Rakhine claimed Saturday to have seized a town near the border with Bangladesh, marking the latest in a series of victories for foes of the country’s military government.

Members of the state’s Muslim Rohingya ethnic minority, targets of deadly army-directed violence in 2017, appear to have been the main victims of fighting in the town of Buthidaung, where the Arakan Army claims to have chased out forces of the military government.

There are contradictory accounts of who is to blame for the reported burning of the town, compelling its Rohingya residents to flee.

The competing claims could not be verified independently, with access to the internet and mobile phone services in the area mostly cut off.

Khaing Thukha, a spokesperson for the Arakan Army, told The Associated Press by text message from an undisclosed location that his group had seized Buthidaung after capturing all the military’s outposts there.

The Arakan Army is the well-trained and well-armed military wing of the Rakhine ethnic minority movement, which seeks autonomy from Myanmar’s central government. It is also a member of an armed ethnic group alliance that recently gained strategic territory in the country’s northeast on the border with China.

The group said in a Saturday statement on the Telegram messaging platform that fighting was ongoing on the outskirts of Buthidaung as its fighters chased after the retreating army soldiers and local Muslims it said were fighting alongside them.

Khaing Thukha said the Arakan Army’s troops were caring for Muslim villagers fleeing the fighting.

He denied allegations by Rohingya activists on social media that the Arakan Army had set fire to the town, which is mostly populated by Rohingya.

Rohingya have lived in Myanmar for generations, but they are widely regarded by many in the country’s Buddhist majority, including members of the Rakhine minority, as having illegally migrated from Bangladesh. The Rohingya face a great amount of prejudice and are generally denied citizenship and other basic rights.

The Rohingya were the targets of a brutal counterinsurgency campaign incorporating rape and murder that saw an estimated 740,000 flee to neighboring Bangladesh as their villages were burned down by government troops in 2017.

Ethnic Rakhine nationalist supporters of the Arakan Army were also among the persecutors of the Rohingya minority. However, the 2021 military coup that ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi shifted political alignments, with a resistance movement against military rule, a position shared by the Arakan Army, counting the Rohingya population among its allies.

Lingering tensions between the ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and the more than 600,000 Rohingya who are still living in Rakhine flared when the government in February recruited Rohingya living in displacement camps to do military service. Both coercion and promises of citizenship were reportedly employed to get them to join.

Nay San Lwin, a co-founder of the Free Rohingya Coalition group based outside of Myanmar, said in a Friday email to the AP that the Arakan Army had warned Buthidaung’s Rohingya residents to evacuate the town by 10 a.m. Saturday, and that more than 200,000 Rohingya seeking refuge there in houses, government buildings, a hospital, and schools, were in an extremely dangerous situation.

He also alleged that the Arakan Army had fired on a school and a hospital where displaced Rohingya are sheltering, resulting in deaths and injuries.

Aung Kyaw Moe, a Rohingya who is deputy minister for human rights in the resistance movement’s shadow National Unity Government, wrote on his Facebook page on Saturday that Buthidaung had been burned to “a pile of ash” and that its residents had fled to rice fields outside of town.

He did not clearly lay blame for the arson, but said the situation was dire for those who fled.

“A comprehensive and impartial investigation needs to be carried out and those responsible must be held accountable,” he wrote. “Revolution against the military dictatorship is not a license to do anything you want. ‘War has rules.'”

The Arakan Army’s Khaing Thukha described the allegations his group was responsible were baseless, claiming the houses caught fire due to the airstrikes by the military government. He also said retreating army troops and what he called their allies in “terrorist organizations” — meaning Rohingya guerrilla groups — and local Muslims inducted into the military also set fire to houses as they retreated.

The military government has a well-established record of burning down villages as it battles pro-democracy and ethnic separatist groups opposed to military rule. 
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Tunisians protest as number of stranded migrants grows

Posted on by SeeAF

JEBENIANA, Tunisia — Hundreds of Tunisians marched through the streets of Jebeniana on Saturday to protest the presence of sub-Saharan migrants who have found themselves stranded as the country ramps up border patrol efforts.

Anti-migrant anger is mounting in impoverished towns like Jebeniana along the Tunisian coastline that have emerged as a launchpad for thousands of people hoping to reach Europe by boat.

Chanting slogans to oppose settling migrants in Tunisia, protesters demanded the government act to assist agricultural communities dealing with thousands of migrants living in tarpaulin encampments among their olive groves.

“You brought them here and it’s your responsibility to send them back to their home countries,” Moamen Salemi, a 63-year-old retiree from nearby El Amra, said at the protest. “There is a shortage of food throughout the city of El Amra, including sugar, flour, bread and many other items.”

A final stop for many before attempting to reach a better life in Europe, Jebeniana and El Amra reflect the compounding problems facing Tunisia, a key transit point for migrants from Syria, Bangladesh and a variety of sub-Saharan African nations.

Law enforcement has expanded its presence in the two agricultural towns, where roughly 83,000 Tunisians live among a growing number of migrants from around the world.

Protesters say they have borne the cost of Tunisia’s effort to prevent migrants from reaching the European Union less than a year after the country brokered an anti-migration pact with the 27-country bloc to better police its sea border and receive more than $1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) in aid.

The Tunisian Coast Guard has said it has prevented more than 21,000 migration attempts by land or sea this year. Fewer than 8,000 successfully traveled by boat from Tunisia to Italy in the first four months of 2024, a threefold decrease from 2023, according to the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR.

More Tunisians have traveled by makeshift boat to Italy this year than migrants from sub-Saharan African countries.

Anti-migrant protests erupted in the city of Sfax last year, months after Tunisian President Kais Saied called for measures to address violence and crime he said were caused by illegal immigration. But protests are a new development in Jebeniana and El Amra, where a similar one took place earlier this month.

Encampments sprung up and expanded on the outskirts of the two towns after local authorities started increasingly clearing them from Sfax last year.

The International Organization for Migration’s Tunisia office has said roughly 7,000 migrants are living near Jebeniana and El Amra, though residents estimate the number could be much higher.
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Mali rebels accuse army, Wagner of killing civilians

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Dakar, Senegal — An alliance of separatist rebel groups fighting Malian government forces on Saturday accused the army and Russian paramilitary group Wagner of killing 11 civilians earlier in the week.

The Malian authorities did not respond to a request for comment from AFP about the allegations posed in a statement from the Permanent Strategic Framework for the Defense of the People of Azawad (CSP-DPA), an alliance of predominantly Tuareg armed rebel groups.

The CSP-DPA said that Wednesday, the village of Tassik in the northern Kidal region “was targeted by a patrol of mercenaries from the Russian Wagner group and the Malian army, who committed serious violations against the population.”

The separatist alliance put the death toll at 11 civilians, whose bodies were discovered “burned,” with two more civilians reported missing.

It added that the patrol had ransacked several stores and vehicles.

“The CSP-DPA unreservedly condemns these terrorist operations programmed with the aim of carrying out a targeted ethnic cleansing and accelerated depopulation of the Azawad territory of its Indigenous people,” the statement said.

Azawad is the name of the territory claimed by separatists in northern Mali.

Fighting between the separatists and Mali government troops broke out last August after eight years of calm, as both sides scrambled to fill the vacuum left by the withdrawal of United Nations peacekeepers (MINUSMA), ordered to leave by the ruling junta in Bamako.

The offensive in northern Mali has been marked by numerous allegations of abuses against civilians by Malian forces and, since 2022, their Russian allies, which the Malian authorities systematically deny.

Since seizing power in 2020, Mali’s junta has broken ties with France and turned politically and militarily toward Russia. 
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Heat poses new risk for thousands without power after deadly Texas storm

Posted on by SeeUS

houston, texas — As the Houston, Texas, area works to clean up and restore power to hundreds of thousands after deadly storms left at least seven people dead, it will do so amid a smog warning and scorching temperatures that could pose health risks.

National Weather Service meteorologist Marc Chenard said Saturday that highs of around 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32.2 Celsius) were expected through the start of the coming week, with heat indexes likely approaching 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius) by midweek.

“We expect the impact of the heat to gradually increase … we will start to see that heat risk increase Tuesday into Wednesday through Friday,” Chenard said.

The heat index is what the temperature feels like to the human body when humidity is combined with the air temperature, according to the weather service.

“Don’t overdo yourself during the cleanup process,” the weather service’s Houston office said in a post on the social platform X.

In addition to the heat, the Houston area could face poor air quality during the weekend.

Heavy rainfall was possible in eastern Louisiana and central Alabama on Saturday, and parts of Louisiana were also at risk of flooding.

The Houston Health Department said it would distribute 400 free portable air conditioners to area seniors, people with disabilities, and caregivers of disabled children to contend with the heat.

Five cooling centers also were opened — four in Houston and one in Kingwood.

Hundreds of thousands without power

The widespread destruction of Thursday’s storms brought much of Houston to a standstill. Thunderstorms and hurricane-force winds tore through the city — decimating the facade of one brick building and leaving trees, debris and shattered glass on the streets. A tornado also touched down near the northwest Houston suburb of Cypress.

More than a half-million homes and businesses in Texas remained without electricity by midday Saturday, according to PowerOutage.us. Another 21,000 customers were also without power in Louisiana, where strong winds and a suspected tornado hit.

CenterPoint Energy, which has deployed 1,000 employees to the area and is requesting 5,000 more, said power restoration could take several days or longer in some areas, and that customers need to ensure their homes can safely be reconnected.

“In addition to damaging CenterPoint Energy’s electric infrastructure and equipment, severe weather may have caused damage to customer-owned equipment” such as the weatherhead, which is where power enters the home, the company said.

Customers must have repairs completed by a qualified electrician before service can be restored, CenterPoint added.

High-voltage transmission towers that were torn apart and downed power lines pose a twofold challenge for utility companies because the damage affected transmission and distribution systems, according to Alexandria von Meier, a power and energy expert who called that a rare thing. Damage to just the distribution system is more typical, von Meier said.

How quickly repairs are made will depend on a variety of factors, such as the time it takes to assess damages, replace equipment and dispatch workers.

Storm caught many off guard

Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez reported late Friday that three people died during the storm, including an 85-year-old woman whose home caught fire after being struck by lightning and a 60-year-old man who had tried to use his vehicle to power his oxygen tank.

Houston Mayor John Whitmire previously said at least four other people were killed in the city when the storms swept through Harris County, which includes Houston.

School districts in the Houston area canceled classes Friday for more than 400,000 students; government offices were closed.

Houston Independent School District Superintendent Mike Miles said Saturday that he hoped to reopen schools Monday, but that is dependent upon the restoration of electricity in school buildings.

“If a school doesn’t have power, it will remain closed,” Miles told reporters during a tour of the heavily damaged Sinclair Elementary School.

Whitmire warned that police were out in force, including state troopers sent to the area to prevent looting. He said the speed and intensity of the storm caught many off guard.

Noelle Delgado, executive director of Houston Pets Alive, said she pulled up at the animal rescue Thursday night and found the dogs and cats — more than 30 in all — uninjured, but the building’s awning had been ripped off, the sign was mangled, and water was leaking inside.

She hoped to find foster homes for the animals.

“I could definitely tell that this storm was a little different,” she said. “It felt terrifying.”

Recovery assistance on the way

Considering the storm damage, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo and Whitmire both signed disaster declarations, paving the way for state and federal storm recovery assistance.

A separate disaster declaration from President Joe Biden makes federal funding available to people in seven Texas counties — including Harris — that have been affected by severe storms, straight-line winds, tornadoes and flooding since April 26.
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