May 2024 - Page 23 of 32

Africa seeks health workers from the diaspora

Posted on 05/09/2024 by SeeAF

Windhoek, Namibia — The World Health Organization (WHO) says Africa has a shortage of health care workers. The issue was addressed in Namibia this week at a forum in Windhoek.

Speaking at the first WHO Africa Health Workforce Forum held in the capital, Namibia’s minister of health and social services, Kalumbi Shangula, warned that Africa’s shortage of health workers will impede the continent from achieving universal health coverage by 2030.

In order to reach universal health coverage by 2030 as envisaged in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals report, Africa needs to invest in training programs, offer incentives for health practitioners to remain in their home countries, and create initiatives to attract health professionals in the diaspora back to the continent.

Shangula spoke at the Africa Health Workforce Investment Charter event this week.

“The number of Africans who have left the continent in search of greener pastures in other parts of the world are staggering,” Shangula said. “It is a matter that needs to be addressed as a top priority for African governments and indeed all those who wish to see a shift in the historical as well as current trends.”

Africa has a ratio of 1.55 health workers per 1,000 people. That is below the recommended WHO threshold of 4.55 health workers per 1,000 people.

Africa’s Center for Disease Control Director-General Jean Kesaya says achieving universal health coverage by 2030 will require an additional 1.8 million health workers on the continent.

He says the critical shortage is projected to reach about 6.1 million by 2030 and is made worse by recurrent public health emergencies faced by countries on a daily basis.

“In 2023 alone, Africa recorded 166 disease outbreaks and the trend I see in 2024 is not good,” Kesaya said. “AU member states are far from realizing the 2017 AU Assembly decisions that called for rapid recruitment, training and deployment of 2 million institutionalized community health workers by 2030.”

Global Health Director for the Africa Diaspora Development Institute (ADDI) Lee Whitaker says the institution has opened doors for diasporan healthcare workers to return to Africa and reverse the brain drain. He says the organization has “access to over forty-five-thousand black African physicians in America and only needs an invitation from the heart of any African state to come abroad.”

Dr. Arikana Chihombori is the president of the ADDI, an organization that is mobilizing the African diaspora to return and invest in the continent.

“Let the diaspora come in and invest in for-profit-clinics in Africa as well as for volunteer work in Africa,” Chihombori said. “It has to be balanced! Because if they are going to leave their work where they are in Europe, in America, they can be here a little bit longer if they are going to make money and also donate some of their time. So a program that allows them to make money while they are stopping Africans from going to India and at the same time also giving to those who are less fortunate is actually a program that can be sustained but to completely hundred percent volunteer is not going to work, it’s not sustainable”.

The forum, which was attended by health dignitaries from all over the world, concluded Wednesday with the launch of the Africa Health Workforce Investment Charter that aims to mobilize and sustain development, performance and retention of the health workforce in African Union countries.
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Porn actress Stormy Daniels faces more questions at Trump trial

Posted on 05/09/2024 by SeeUS

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Poland bolstering its border with Belarus to deter illegal migration

Posted on 05/09/2024 by SeeEU

Warsaw, Poland — Poland’s defense minister said Thursday his country is strengthening the metal barrier along its border with Belarus to deter illegal migration.

“We are mending the barrier on the Polish-Belarusian border, we are strengthening this barrier,” Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said on private Radio Zet. “The spending on these purposes is the highest in [Poland’s] history.”

Kosiniak-Kamysz said the increased presence of Polish and allied military forces in regions close to the border is also helping to tighten the eastern frontier of NATO and the European Union. That presence has been increased since Russia’s aggression in Ukraine in 2022.

He spoke in favor of Poland building a line of defensive bunkers, trenches and ditches along that border and the one with Russia’s exclave of Kaliningrad, steps that the Baltic states have already taken.

Poland says a massive wave of illegal migration from Belarus, especially in 2022, was orchestrated by that country and by Russia to destabilize Poland, a Ukrainian ally, and the European Union. The influx was largely curbed by the metal barrier that Poland completed last year, but some illegal crossings continue.

The minister’s comments also suggested that the barrier is seen as a wider defense measure during Russia’s war with Ukraine, which borders Poland.
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TikTok to start labeling AI-generated content as technology becomes more universal

Posted on 05/09/2024 by SeeUS

New York — TikTok will begin labeling content created using artificial intelligence when it’s uploaded from certain platforms.

TikTok says its efforts are an attempt to combat misinformation from being spread on its social media platform.

The announcement came on ABCs “Good Morning America” on Thursday.

“Our users and our creators are so excited about AI and what it can do for their creativity and their ability to connect with audiences.” Adam Presser, TikTok’s Head of Operations & Trust and Safety told ABC News. “And at the same time, we want to make sure that people have that ability to understand what fact is and what is fiction.”

TikTok’s policy in the past has been to encourage users to label content that has been generated or significantly edited by AI. It also requires users to label all AI-generated content where it contains realistic images, audio, and video.
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Guam undergoes military buildup without additional border resources

Posted on 05/09/2024 by SeeEA

Last year, Congress called for an investigation into 100 reported incidents of Chinese nationals attempting to enter U.S. military bases and other sensitive sites around the world. Officials on the island of Guam – which hosts some of the most strategically important U.S. bases in the Pacific – says they too are at risk and are asking for help in protecting their shores.  VOA’s Jessica Stone reports.
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Europe to fund Ukraine weapons with profits from frozen Russian assets

Posted on 05/09/2024 by SeeEU

The European Union has agreed in principle to a deal that would use the proceeds from frozen Russian assets to supply weapons for Ukraine. As Henry Ridgwell reports, allies in Washington want the EU to go much further
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Boeing 737 skids off runway in Senegal airport, injuring 10 people

Posted on 05/09/2024 by SeeAF

DAKAR — A Boeing 737 plane carrying 85 people skidded off a runway at the airport in Dakar, Senegal’s capital, injuring 10 people, the transport minister said Thursday.

Transport Minister El Malick Ndiaye said the Air Sénégal flight operated by TransAir was headed to Bamako late Wednesday with 79 passengers, two pilots and four cabin crew.

The injured were being treated at a hospital, while the others were taken to a hotel to rest.

No other details were immediately available.

The Aviation Safety Network, which tracks airline accidents, published photos of the damaged plane in a grassy field surrounded by fire suppressant foam on X, formerly known as Twitter. One engine appeared to have broken apart and a wing was also damaged, according to the photos.

ASN is part of the Flight Safety Foundation, a nonprofit group that aims to promote safe air travel and tracks accidents.
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Chinese cities lift curbs on buying homes as property crisis bites

Posted on 05/09/2024 by SeeEA

Beijing — Two of China’s wealthiest cities said Thursday they would lift all restrictions on buying homes, joining a growing list of urban areas rolling back curbs as they look to prop up the faltering property market.

Many Chinese cities imposed restrictions and tough credit requirements on home purchases well over a decade ago in an effort to tamp down soaring prices and rampant speculation.

But they are now reversing those policies in a bid to stem an economic slump characterized by a debt crisis among developers, low demand and falling prices.

The eastern city of Hangzhou — home to 12.5 million people — said Thursday it had ditched all purchase restrictions “to promote the [market’s] stable and healthy development”.

“From the date of issuance… those who buy lodgings within the bounds of this city will no longer have their purchasing qualifications reviewed,” it said.

Hangzhou, a major innovation hub home to tech giants such as Alibaba, is one of the most desirable and expensive places to buy property in China.

In a separate announcement, the northwestern city of Xi’an, which has a population of 13 million, said it had also cancelled all such restrictions.

The announcements quickly racked up more than 230 million views on social media site Weibo, where many users were doubtful the policy would make any difference.

“With Hangzhou’s house prices, what’s the point of cancelling buying restrictions? I still can’t afford it,” wrote one commenter.

Bill Bishop, publisher of the influential Sinocism newsletter, called the move “a sign of desperation.”

“If this does not goose sales there will be more trouble as prices will have to adjust downward a lot,” he wrote on social media site X.

More than 20 cities have abolished home purchase restrictions since the beginning of last year, according to an AFP tally.

Chengdu in southwestern China said last month it would no longer look at prospective buyers’ household registration documents, social security and other conditions before greenlighting purchases.

Several of the biggest cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, have partly lifted curbs but have resisted dumping them entirely.

Property and construction account for more than a quarter of China’s gross domestic product, but the sector has been under unprecedented strain since 2020.

That year, authorities tightened developers’ access to credit in a bid to reduce mounting debt.

Since then, major companies including Evergrande and Country Garden have teetered on bankruptcy, while falling prices have dissuaded consumers from investing in property.

Measures introduced by the central government to support the sector have so far had little effect.

And President Xi Jinping has largely stuck to his often-touted maxim that “houses are for living in, not for speculation.”

Posted on 05/08/2024 by SeeUS

washington — Hard-line Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene stunned colleagues Wednesday by calling for a vote to oust Speaker Mike Johnson. Lawmakers quickly rejected it.

Greene pressed ahead with her long-shot effort despite pushback from Republicans at the highest levels tired of the political chaos.

One of Donald Trump’s biggest supporters in Congress, Greene stood on the House floor and read a long list of what she called transgressions that Johnson had committed as speaker. Colleagues booed in protest.

It was the second time in a matter of months that Republicans have tried to oust their own speaker, an unheard-of level of party turmoil with a move rarely seen in U.S. history.

Greene of Georgia criticized Johnson’s leadership as “pathetic, weak and unacceptable.”

Republican lawmakers filtered toward Johnson, giving him pats on the back and grasping his shoulder to assure him of their support.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise quickly moved to table the effort — essentially stopping it from going forward. The motion to table was swiftly approved.

The Georgia Republican had vowed she would force a vote on the motion to vacate the Republican speaker if he dared to advance a foreign aid package with funds for Ukraine, which was overwhelmingly approved late last month and signed into law.

Johnson of Louisiana said he had been willing to take the risk, believing it was important for the U.S. to back Ukraine against Russia’s invasion and explaining he wanted to be on the “right side of history.”

“I just have to do my job every day,” Johnson said Monday.

In a highly unusual move, the speaker received a boost from Democrats led by Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, whose leadership team had said it was time to “turn the page” on the Republican turmoil and vote to table Greene’s resolution — almost ensuring Johnson’s job is saved, for now.

Trump also weighed in after Johnson trekked to Mar-a-Lago for a visit, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee giving the speaker his nod of approval. And Trump’s hand-picked leader at the Republican National Committee urged House Republicans off the move.
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Turkey takes aim at Israel’s economy, raising concerns of wider impact

Posted on 05/08/2024 by SeeEU

Turkey’s decision last week to stop all trade with Israel until Israeli leaders reach a permanent cease-fire in Gaza is likely to hit Israel’s economy hard. Adding to those concerns are signs Turkey is encouraging other nations in the Islamic world to do the same. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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Olympic swimmer Florent Manaudou becomes first torch carrier in France as relay heads to Paris

Posted on 05/08/2024 by SeeEU

MARSEILLE, France — French Olympic swimmer Florent Manaudou became the first Olympic torch carrier in France after the Olympic flame arrived in Marseille’s Old Port Wednesday on a majestic three-mast ship from Greece for the welcoming ceremony at sunset in the city’s Old Port.

The ship sailed into Marseille’s old port with the French national anthem, La Marseillaise, echoing from the embankment and a French Air force flyover with planes first drawing the five Olympic rings and then the red-blue-white colors of the nation’s flag.

The ship docked on the pontoon that reflects an athletics track and Manaudou carried the torch to mainland France as tens of thousands cheered and thousands of others waved from balconies and windows overlooking the festivities.

“We can be proud,” said President Emmanuel Macron, who attended the ceremony to welcome the torch.

“The flame is on French soil,” Macron said. “The games are coming to France and are entering the lives of the French people.”

The torch was lit in Greece last month before it was officially handed to France. It left Athens aboard a ship named Belem, which was first used in 1896, and spent twelve days at sea.

Paris 2024 Olympics Organizing Committee President Tony Estanguet said the return of the Olympic Games to France was cause for a “fantastic celebration.”

“As a former athlete, I know how important the start of a competition is. That is why we chose Marseille, because it’s definitely one of the cities most in love with sports,” added Estanguet, a former Olympic canoeing star with gold medals from the 2000, 2004 and 2012 Games.

Safety of visitors and residents has been a top priority for authorities in Marseille, France’s second largest city with nearly a million inhabitants. About 8,000 police officers have been deployed around the harbor.

Thousands of firefighters and bomb disposal squads have been positioned around the city along with maritime police and anti-drone teams patrolling the city’s waters and its airspace.

“It’s a monumental day and we have been working hard for visitors and residents of Marseille to enjoy this historical moment,” said Yannick Ohanessian, the city’s deputy mayor.

The torch relay will start on Thursday in Marseille, before heading to Paris through iconic places across the country, from the world-famous Mont Saint-Michel to D-Day landing beaches in Normandy and the Versailles Palace.

A heavy police and military presence was seen patrolling Marseille’s city center Tuesday, as a military helicopter flew over the Old Port, where a range of barriers have been set up.

French Interior Ministry spokesperson Camille Chaize said officials were prepared for security threats including terrorism.

“We’re employing various measures, notably the elite National Gendarmerie Intervention Group unit, which will be present in the torch relay from beginning to end,” she said.

The Olympic cauldron will be lit after the Games’ opening ceremony that will take place on the River Seine on July 26.

The cauldron will be lit at a location in Paris that is being kept top-secret until the day itself. Among reported options are such iconic spots as the Eiffel Tower and the Tuileries Gardens outside the Louvre Museum.
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Another Conservative lawmaker defects to Labour in UK

Posted on 05/08/2024 by SeeEU

LONDON — British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was accused Wednesday of leading a “chaotic” government as another one of his Conservative lawmakers defected to the main opposition Labour Party ahead of a looming general election.

In a stunning move just ahead of the weekly prime minister’s questions, Natalie Elphicke crossed the floor of the House of Commons to join the ranks of Keir Starmer’s Labour Party, which appears headed for power after 14 years.

“We need to move on from the broken promises of Rishi Sunak’s tired and chaotic government,” said Elphicke, who represents the constituency of Dover in southern England, which is at the front line of migrant crossings from France. “Under Rishi Sunak, the Conservatives have become a byword for incompetence and division.”

Elphicke is the second Conservative lawmaker to defect to Labour in two weeks,; Dan Poulter quit in anger over the government’s handling of the National Health Service.

The defection of Elphicke is particularly surprising as she was widely considered to be on the right of the Conservative Party. She has been hugely critical of Labour in the past and Starmer himself but has recently been increasingly disapproving of the government’s approach to migrant crossings.

“From small boats to biosecurity, Rishi Sunak’s government is failing to keep our borders safe and secure,” she said.

Just under 30,000 people arrived in Britain in small boats in 2023, and Sunak has made reducing that number a key issue ahead of the election due this year, notably with his controversial plan to send some asylum-seekers to Rwanda. More than 8,000 have made the dangerous crossing already this year.

Elphicke was elected in 2019, taking over the Dover seat that had been held by her then-husband Charlie, who was found guilty in 2020 of sexually assaulting two women and sentenced to two years in prison, of which he served half.

Elphicke will not be standing in her Dover seat at the next election, although she said she will help the party with Labour’s housing policies.

Starmer welcomed Elphicke to the Labour benches as well as Chris Webb, the party’s new lawmaker in Blackpool South in northwest England following his big victory in a special election Thursday.

The Labour Party’s head reiterated his call for Sunak to immediately call for a general election, saying the Conservatives cannot carry on when even a lawmaker at the forefront of the small-boats crisis — meaning Elphicke — said Sunak “cannot be trusted with our borders.”

The date of the general election rests in the hands of the prime minister. It must take place by January, and Sunak has repeatedly said his “working assumption” was that it would take place in the second half of 2024.

Last week, the Conservatives suffered a historic drubbing in local elections, with nearly half of its candidates losing, while Labour made gains and won most of the key mayoral races it fought, including in London.

Particularly encouraging for Labour was winning in areas that voted for Britain’s departure from the European Union in 2016 and where it was crushed by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the general election in 2019.

Elphicke’s defection may help Labour deflect Conservative attacks during the election that the opposition party may seek to reverse Brexit. In her statement Wednesday, she said Labour “has accepted Brexit and its economic policies.”

Her defection has not only raised eyebrows within the Conservative Party.

The left-wing Labour grouping, Momentum, said that Elphicke has “consistently demonized refugees and aid groups” and that she “should have no place in a Labour Party committed to progressive values and working-class people.”
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Kenyan government doctors sign agreement to end strike

Posted on 05/08/2024 by SeeAF

NAIROBI — Kenyan public hospital doctors on Wednesday signed a return to work agreement with the government meant to end a strike that started in mid-March, union and government officials said.

The Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU), which represents more than 7,000 members, went on strike on March 15 to demand payment of their salary arrears and the immediate hiring of trainee doctors, among other grievances.

Television footage showed the union’s officials and senior government officials shaking hands after signing the documents.

“We have signed a return to work formula and the union has called off the strike,” said Susan Nakhumicha, the minister of health.

The doctors’ arrears arose from a 2017 collective bargaining agreement (CBA), the union said. Doctors were also demanding the provision of adequate medical insurance coverage for themselves and their dependents.

“One thing we must assure everybody, every doctor, every person that the rights of workers as enshrined in the collective bargaining agreement that is signed is that it is sacrosanct, we will always endeavor to protect that,” said Dhavji Atellah, KMPDU’s secretary general.

He said the hiring of interns demand was still pending in court, but it was agreed they would be posted within 60 days.

The government had said it cannot afford to hire the trainee doctors due to financial pressure on the public purse.

The Kenyan health sector, which doctors say is underfunded and understaffed, is routinely beset by strikes.

A strike in 2017 lasted three months, and some doctors in individual hospitals downed their tools at various times during the COVID-19 pandemic to protest lack of personal protective equipment and other grievances.

The end of the strike will provide relief to those seeking services, especially following heavy rains and flooding that has killed 257 people since March, and displaced 293,661 people.

“We will wish they can go back in the next few minutes because we really want our health to be back on track,” said Muthomi Njuki, the governor of Tharaka Nithi County, citing cholera cases that have arisen in some parts of the country.

Another group of health workers, clinical officers, are still on strike.
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Police arrest 33 at George Washington University protest encampment

Posted on 05/08/2024 by SeeUS

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Russia intensifies crackdown on journalists, dissenting voices on Ukraine

Posted on 05/08/2024 by SeeEU

Geneva — United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk on Tuesday condemned Russia’s brutal crackdown on journalists, which he says has been increasing since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

“The continuous attacks on free speech and the criminalization of independent journalism in Russia are very troubling,” Türk said in a prepared statement that called for the release of journalists detained “solely for doing their jobs.”

The U.N. human rights office says the number of imprisoned journalists in Russia has reached an all-time high since Moscow began its war of aggression in Ukraine, noting that at least 30 journalists are currently detained on a variety of criminal charges.

The charges include terrorism, extremism, spying, treason, extortion, violating the provisions of the law on foreign agents, inciting mass disturbances, illegal possession of explosives and illegal possession of drugs.

Türk, who expressed concern about the frequent use “of the broad legislative framework to combat terrorism and extremism,” called on Russian authorities to amend the legislation in compliance “with international human rights law.”

U.N. officials report 12 of the 30 jailed reporters are serving sentences ranging from five-and-a-half to 22 years in prison.

“Since March, at least seven journalists have faced administrative or criminal charges,” Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the high commissioner, told journalists Tuesday in Geneva.

She observed that all seven are Russian journalists who have faced the charges “for criticism of Russia’s actions in Ukraine or for alleged links to the late opposition politician Alexey Navalny, and his Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK),” which Russia labeled extremist in 2021.

According to the 2024 World Press Freedom Index produced by Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, Russia ranked 162nd out of 180 countries. Commenting on the designation, authors of the annual report said that Russian President Vladimir Putin, who “was unsurprisingly reelected in 2024, continues to wage a war in Ukraine” that “has had a big impact on the media ecosystem and journalists’ safety.”

The latest report by the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists finds “Russia holds a disproportionate number of foreign reporters in its jails,” noting that 12 of the 17 foreign nationals currently detained worldwide “are held by Russia.”

Two are U.S. citizens. Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich has been held in pre-trial detention by Russia since March 2023 on charges of espionage, while Alsu Kurmasheva of VOA sister network Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has been detained since October 2023 for failing to register as a “foreign agent.” Both detainees and their employers vehemently reject the charges as bogus and politically motivated.

The 10 other foreign journalists imprisoned by Russia are from Ukraine, including five Crimean Tatars.

“Russia is a place where it is very risky to be a journalist these days if you are reporting on issues that are very sensitive to the authorities,” Shamdasani said. “What is worrying us is the lack of transparency.

“The fact that independent journalists are being cracked down on leads to a level of uncertainty and facilitates a climate of misinformation, disinformation, chaos and panic for people who do not know what their rights are in these circumstances,” she said.

U.N. human rights chief Türk is calling for an immediate end “to the intense crackdown on journalists’ independent work,” describing the right to inform as a critical “component of the right to freedom of expression [that] needs to be upheld.”

“Journalists should be able to work in a safe environment without fear of reprisals in line with Russia’s international human rights obligations,” he said.
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