With five months until the November election and no diplomatic solution in sight for wars in Ukraine and Gaza, President Joe Biden, who in 2020 ran on a campaign to end “forever wars,” is shifting voters’ attention away from American entanglements abroad by focusing on domestic priorities. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has the story.
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Month: May 2024
North Korea sends poop-filled balloons into South, media report
Seoul, South Korea — North Korea appears to have made good on its threat to float feces-carrying balloons into South Korea, according to local media reports.
The Yonhap news agency reported that South Korea’s military early Wednesday detected about 90 balloons, some of which carried apparent propaganda leaflets and other items that were scattered in two South Korean border provinces.
“It was reported that some of the balloons that fell had sewage hanging in bags, which although difficult to confirm, was presumed to be feces due to its dark color and odor,” Yonhap reported.
Earlier this week, North Korea vowed “tit for tat action” after a prominent human rights activist launched balloons carrying anti-North Korea pamphlets and USB flash drives filled with South Korean pop culture content into the North.
“Mounds of wastepaper and filth will soon be scattered over the border areas and the interior of the ROK, and it will directly experience how much effort is required to remove them,” said Kim Kang Il, North Korea’s vice minister of national defense, in comments published in state media on Sunday.
Early Wednesday, text message alerts warned some South Korean residents in border provinces to refrain from outdoor activities because of unknown objects presumedly from North Korea. The notification, which did not mention feces, advised residents to contact their local government if they find any of the objects.
It is not the first time North Korea has sent balloons carrying feces into the South. In 2016, South Korean residents near the border reported finding balloons containing cigarette butts, compact discs, and used toilet paper, among other things.
North Korea’s totalitarian government has for years complained about South Korean activists who float anti-Pyongyang materials and other items into the North. The leaflets often criticize North Korea’s human rights record or mock North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and are sometimes packaged with items of value, such as dollar bills or USB flash drives.
Earlier this month, Park Sang-hak, a North Korean defector and outspoken human rights activist, sent about 20 large balloons into the North. It was Park’s first launch since South Korea’s Constitutional Court struck down a law banning such launches.
South Korean officials have cited national security considerations to prohibit or outlaw the launches. In 2014, North Korean border guards tried to shoot down some of the balloons, resulting in an exchange of gunfire with the South.
your ad hereRights groups hold national mourning for victims of mass atrocities
Abuja, Nigeria — Representatives from more than 80 civil society and rights organizations in Nigeria held a moment of silence May 28 to remember some 9,000 people who have died in the last year due to various forms of violence.
The annual National Day of Mourning initiative was launched seven years ago to pay tribute to victims of attacks and demand the government restore security in the country.
“These incidents of violence have reduced citizens’ rights to life and dignity,” said Lois Auta of the nonprofit Cedar Seed Foundation, one of the event’s organizers. “The frequency of these atrocities have kept Nigerians in a state of perpetual fear and uncertainty, and is impacting social cohesion, the economy and education across the country. All Nigerians suffer the manifested consequences of food insecurity and economic hardships resulting from hindrances imposed by perennial insecurity.”
Nigeria is struggling to reduce multiple forms of widespread insecurity, including kidnappings, communal clashes, terrorism, extrajudicial killings and secessionist violence.
The coalition said more than 30,000 people have died in the last six years as a result.
This year’s commemoration coincides with the one-year anniversary of President Bola Tinubu taking office.
Tinubu pledged to improve security and boost the economy if elected president. But one year later, critics such as Frank Tietie, founder of Citizens Advocacy for Social and Economic Rights, say Tinubu has not only failed on his promises, but the situation has gotten worse.
“His primary responsibility is to protect the Nigerian people. If nobody has told President Tinubu that he’s failing at this point, at the celebration of his one-year anniversary in government, we are telling him that he has not only failed [but] he has exhibited gross irresponsibility,” Tietie said. “Nigerians are suffering, there’s hardly any family that has not been touched by this level of insecurity.”
According to a security tracker by Nigerian-based Beacon Security and Consulting Limited, incidents of attacks increased from 5,500 between 2022 and 2023 to 7,800 between 2023 and 2024.
The number of fatalities and abductions were also higher during the same period.
Security analyst Kabiru Adamu said despite the government making an effort, poor accountability and unwise appointments in the security sector pose major hurdles.
“It’s very obvious that the government is committed to addressing the security challenges as indicated in policy imperatives and those policy imperatives are very clear. As an expert, if they’re implemented, I believe they’ll reduce or even eliminate the security challenge,” Adamu said. “But the major challenge has been one of implementation, especially due to the absence of capability by some of the security sector leadership.”
Last Friday, a local district head in Nigeria’s Niger state said gunmen made tea and cooked food as they terrorized villagers, killing 10 and abducting 160 others.
Adamu said one year is not enough time for the insecurity issues to be fully addressed by a new administration, but that authorities should be able during 12 months to show a positive trajectory towards addressing the problem.
But for now, rights groups and families of the victims will be reminding the president about the promise he made to keep their loved ones and the country safe.
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In US, arrests and harassment add to decline in press freedom
Harassment, arrests, declining trust and economic constraints make the work of journalists in the United States tough. The country’s media are mostly free from interference, but the U.S. still dropped 10 points on the World Press Freedom Index in 2024. VOA’s Cristina Caicedo Smit and Michael Lipin have the story, as narrated by Caicedo Smit. Videographer: Keith Lane
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Georgian parliament overrides veto of controversial foreign agent law
Tbilisi, Georgia — Georgia’s parliament on Tuesday overrode the president’s veto of a controversial foreign agent law, despite protests at home and criticism in Western capitals, including a U.S. threat to impose sanctions.
The new measure is officially called the “Law on Transparency of Foreign Influence.” However, opponents have dubbed it the “Russian law,” a reference to Russia’s foreign agent law, which requires anyone who receives support from outside Russia, or is seen as acting under “foreign influence,” to register as foreign agents.
The Georgian law requires civil society organizations, media and other entities receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as agents of foreign interests. The law primarily targets U.S. and European Union democracy assistance programs.
President Salome Zourabichvili vetoed the legislation on May 18, but it was widely expected that the ruling Georgian Dream party’s parliamentary majority would override the veto.
Georgian Dream reintroduced the law in April, a year after it abandoned in March 2023 after it sparked mass protests.
Protesters view the law as a move by the government to tilt the country toward Moscow, even though polls show more than 80% of Georgians support Georgia’s path toward EU membership and 73% endorse the country’s bid to join NATO.
General elections in October will determine whether the Georgian Dream party remains in power for a fourth term. Georgian nongovernmental organizations say the foreign agent law may hinder international organizations’ ability to observe the October vote. While the government claims the law promotes transparency, local NGOs and Georgia’s Western partners view it as targeting Western funding for Georgian civil society.
“Having no chances of victory in the upcoming general elections in October if they are conducted freely and fairly, [Bidzina] Ivanishvili” — Georgian Dream’s shadow leader — “is tightening his grip on power through harsh authoritarian measures and is openly driving the country into Russian influence,” former Georgian ambassador to the United States David Sikharulidze told VOA outside the parliament building in Tbilisi.
“It’s very much in line with Putin’s tactics,” he said.
“This law is a Russian law in essence and spirit, which contradicts our constitution and all European standards,” Zourabichvili said in her veto statement.
Zourabichvili, whose election as president in 2018 was supported by Georgian Dream, has increasingly found herself at odds with the party.
Apprehension over the domestic and foreign policy trajectory of Georgia’s government has grown since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Official Tbilisi refused to side with Ukraine publicly or to join sanctions against Moscow, while attacking Ukrainian officials publicly and echoing anti-Western rhetoric.
In addition, U.S. lawmakers have raised concerns about Georgia’s role in helping Russia evade Western sanctions.
For more than a month and a half, tens of thousands of Georgians have taken to the streets to protest the foreign agent law, the largest protests the country has seen since it gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
“Georgian people have erupted in protest. They deserve more than just statements from the Western partners,” Sikharulidze said.
Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced sanctions against those “responsible for undermining democracy in Georgia.”
“The Department of State is implementing a new visa restriction policy for Georgia that will apply to individuals who are responsible for or complicit in undermining democracy in Georgia, as well as their family members,” Blinken said in a statement. “This includes individuals responsible for suppressing civil society and freedom of peaceful assembly in Georgia through a campaign of violence or intimidation.”
Georgian Dream officials dismissed the visa restrictions as interference in Georgia’s internal affairs.
“The blackmail with visa restrictions are nothing but a crude attempt to limit the independence and sovereignty of Georgia,” the Georgian Dream party said in a statement, labeling the move “anti-Georgian.”
For their part, European Union officials have warned that adopting the foreign agent law would jeopardize Georgia’s bid for EU membership.
“The law of foreign influence is not in line with EU values. If the law is enacted, it will impact Georgia’s EU path,” said EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.
Georgian officials have dismissed the critical voices in Washington and Brussels as part of what they call the “Global War Party,” which one Georgian Dream MP described to a British podcaster as a “‘force akin to the Freemasons.”
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Black voters in South Africa’s Western Cape keep quiet about support for opposition
Cape Town — The run-up to South Africa’s general elections Wednesday has been mostly peaceful but not without incident. In Western Cape province, the opposition Democratic Alliance, or DA, accused rival parties of trying to intimidate voters in February by chanting violent slogans and brandishing weapons at voter registration locations. For years, some black voters in the province have been scared of being attacked if they admit to supporting the white-led DA.
This supporter of the Democratic Alliance is a single mother who works in a restaurant.
“I don’t want to identify because most of the people in my area is a black people. I don’t know, maybe I can get hurt because they don’t like a DA member. They still vote for the ANC even (though) ANC doesn’t give them nothing. ANC’s too much corruption. That’s why we get fed up with that,” she said.
The woman says she believes that the track record of the DA, South Africa’s main opposition party, speaks for itself.
According to reports from South Africa’s Auditor-General, the Western Cape, which the DA party governs at the provincial level, is the best run province in the country.
Despite this achievement, the DA’s critics say it protects only white business interests.
The voter, whom VOA spoke with, disagrees.
“To me the DA’s for everyone. Even if you are black or white or colored, you are in a rainbow nation,” she said.
The woman’s mother, who is in her late eighties, does not agree and remains a staunch ANC supporter, ever grateful to that party and its former president, Nelson Mandela, for the state-sponsored house she received in 1996.
“When Mandela was coming outside then I was voting ANC because ANC then, they give me a house because I was stay(ing) in a shed,” she said.
However, both women are afraid they will be targeted if people know whom the daughter votes for in the general election.
Political analyst Cherrel Africa, associate professor at the University of the Western Cape’s Department of Political Science, believes that attitudes will change when political leaders stop harping on race to win votes.
“That can often lead to inflammatory rhetoric, particularly racially divisive rhetoric where there’s an attempt to play on the anxiety of particular voters,” said Africa.
While intimidation is a legitimate concern for voters, the Western Cape is not known for political killings. They are far more common in KwaZulu-Natal province, where according to the National Police Minister Bheki Cele, at least 155 officeholders and city councilors had been killed between 2011 and September last year.
And with former President Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto we Sizwe Party making its debut in this election, tensions in that province, Zuma’s home, are heightened.
For this election, police have put more boots on the ground countrywide and urged political parties to adhere to the Electoral Code of Conduct, which makes intimidating candidates or voters an offense.
Parties that break the code can be fined up to 200,000 rand (about $11,000) or sent to prison for up to 10 years.
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Analysts urge shift from military to economic solutions to terrorism in Sahel
Africa’s Sahel has become the epicenter of global terrorism, prompting nations to intensify efforts to counter the violence through military training such as the Flintlock 2024 drills in Ghana and the Ivory Coast. Analysts, however, say that addressing economic deficiencies in the region would be a more effective deterrent. Senanu Tord reports from Tamale, Ghana.
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Robot will try to remove nuclear debris from Japan’s destroyed reactor
TOKYO — The operator of Japan’s destroyed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant demonstrated Tuesday how a remote-controlled robot would retrieve tiny bits of melted fuel debris from one of three damaged reactors later this year for the first time since the 2011 meltdown.
Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings plans to deploy a “telesco-style” extendable pipe robot into Fukushima Daiichi No. 2 reactor to test the removal of debris from its primary containment vessel by October.
That work is more than two years behind schedule. The removal of melted fuel was supposed to begin in late 2021 but has been plagued with delays, underscoring the difficulty of recovering from the magnitude 9.0 quake and tsunami in 2011.
During the demonstration at the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ shipyard in Kobe, western Japan, where the robot has been developed, a device equipped with tongs slowly descended from the telescopic pipe to a heap of gravel and picked up a granule.
TEPCO plans to remove less than 3 grams (0.1 ounce) of debris in the test at the Fukushima plant.
“We believe the upcoming test removal of fuel debris from Unit 2 is an extremely important step to steadily carry out future decommissioning work,” said Yusuke Nakagawa, a TEPCO group manager for the fuel debris retrieval program. “It is important to proceed with the test removal safely and steadily.”
About 880 tons of highly radioactive melted nuclear fuel remain inside the three damaged reactors. Critics say the 30- to 40-year cleanup target set by the government and TEPCO for Fukushima Daiichi is overly optimistic. The damage in each reactor is different, and plans must accommodate their conditions.
Better understanding the melted fuel debris from inside the reactors is key to their decommissioning. TEPCO deployed four mini drones into the No. 1 reactor’s primary containment vessel earlier this year to capture images from the areas where robots had not reached.
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San Francisco’s Chinatown: Forged by discrimination, now a cultural treasure
America’s oldest Chinatown sustains traditions even as members of the Chinese diaspora continue to spread out and evolve. Matt Dibble has the story from San Francisco, California.
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Cameroon fights period stigma and poverty on World Menstrual Hygiene Day
Yaounde — Cameroon is observing World Menstrual Hygiene Day (May 28) with caravans visiting schools and public spaces to educate people about social taboos that women should not be seen in public during their menstrual periods. Organizations are also donating menstrual kits to girls displaced by terrorism and political tensions in the central African state.
Scores of youths, a majority of them girls, are told that menstruation is a natural part of the reproductive cycle.
Officials in Cameroon’s social affairs and health ministries say the monthly flows are not a curse and girls and women should never be isolated from markets, schools, churches and other public places because of their menstrual cycle.
The government of the central African state says it invited boys to menstrual health day activities because boys often mock girls in schools when they see blood dripping on their legs or skirts.
Tabe Edwan is the spokesperson of Haven of Rebirth Cameroon, an association that takes care of victims of sexual and gender-based violence. She says she participates in in activities to mark World Menstrual Health Day to battle taboos about menstruation that persist in Cameroon.
“We are looking at instances of stigmatization such as prohibition from cooking, prohibition from attending religious ceremonies or visiting such spaces,” she said. “Most often a young girl who is having her menstrual flow is considered to be unclean and so anything that she touches becomes unclean or it also becomes contaminated.”
Cameroon’s government says World Menstrual Day activities took place in many towns and villages, especially in the northwest and southwest regions, where a separatist conflict, now in its seventh year, has displaced about 750,000 people.
The country’s Social Affairs Ministry says displaced women and girls have lost nearly everything and lack even the $2 needed to buy sanitary pads each time they are on their monthly cycle.
Mirabelle Sonkey is founder of the Network for Solidarity Hope and Empowerment, a founding member of the International Menstrual Hygiene Coalition.
Sonkey says she is disheartened when women and girls use rags, papers and tree leaves or just anything unhealthy to stop blood flow because they cannot afford sanitary pads.
“We usually give about 1,000 dignity kits which include buckets, soap, pants and reusable, washable menstrual pads,” she said. “We are still advocating for pads to be free. Our mission is to have an environment where pads will be accessible, that is why we are opening pad banks now where vulnerable women and girls can go there and have pads.”
Sonkey pleaded with donors to provide sanitary pads to give to several thousand northern Cameroonian girls and women displaced by Boko Haram terrorism.
Cameroon’s government says 70% of menstruating women and girls lack access to regular basic sanitation products but it has not reacted to pleas from NGOs to distribute sanitary pads free of charge.
The central African state’s officials say families and communities should help put an end to stigmas by openly discussing menstrual flow and letting everyone know that menstruation is a normal and natural biological function.
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Poland’s president seeks release of Polish traveler sentenced to life in Congo
WARSAW, Poland — Polish President Andrzej Duda has spoken on the phone with Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi to try to obtain the release of a Polish traveler who was sentenced to life in prison in the Central African country on espionage charges, an aide said Monday.
Congolese forces detained Mariusz Majewski, 52, in February and he later faced a military court in the restive nation, accused of spying.
The allegations against him said that he had “approached the front line with Mobondo militiamen,” moved along the front line without authorization and “took photos of sensitive and strategic places and secretly observed military activities.”
The Mobondo have been involved in intercommunal violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s southwest since 2022.
Majewski was convicted last week and sentenced to life in prison. No details have been released as to where he is being held.
Duda’s aide, Wojciech Kolarski, did not say what the outcome of the conversation between the two presidents was but stressed that the state had the obligation to take care of its citizens who find themselves in such dramatic situations overseas.
Majewski’s family says he is in poor health and insists that he is just a traveler.
Last week, Polish Foreign Ministry spokesperson Pawel Wronski said without elaborating that Majewski “is not a spy, he is a member of a travelers club” and was just following his “passion in life.”
Wronski said a chain of coincidental circumstances and events led to Majewski’s presence in Congo and his “behavior was the result of a lack of knowledge of local customs.”
Polish authorities are aware of the “very difficult political situation in Congo” and a recent coup attempt there but expressed hope that Majewski would not be implicated in a situation he has no connection to.
Poland does not have a diplomatic mission in Congo.
Earlier this month, the Congolese army said it had foiled a coup attempt and arrested the perpetrators, including some foreigners. Several U.S. citizens were among those arrested.
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