Chinatowns are recognizable all over the world, either by their big red gates or streets lined with Chinese restaurants and stores. In Nairobi, Kenya, there are several Chinatowns of different sizes scattered around the city. VOA Nairobi bureau chief, Mariama Diallo took a stroll in one of them and has this story. Camera and edit: Amos Wangwa
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Month: June 2024
Children honor parents’ legacies as victims of 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown
Taipei, Taiwan — Thirty-five years after the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre captured the attention of a shocked world, the children of two victims of China’s 1989 violent crackdown against democracy honor their parents’ legacies.
Zhang Hongyuan, 25, is currently in the Netherlands seeking political asylum. He fled there in April 2023, after authorities in Wuhan of China’s Hubei province, threatened to arrest him for his public-interest activism. His advocacy followed the footsteps of his father, Zhang Yi, who was arrested 35 years ago when Chinese authorities put an end to public democratic rallies in Tiananmen Square and in many cities on June 4, 1989. He was then jailed for two years.
Zhang Hongyuan had started a career as a field engineer at the Dapu Power Plant in Meizhou city in Guangdong province. But he found himself on a different path in 2020, when he helped his father spread the word in Wuhan about the outbreak of COVID-19.
Later that year, he worked as a translator for a documentary by dissident visual artist Ai Weiwei. In 2022, Zhang Hongyuan recorded video footage in China of public protests against strict pandemic-related mass civilian lockdowns. His involvement in the White Paper Movement, as the citizens’ public expressions against the lockdowns became known, and another dissident, Yang Min’s, act of seeking asylum abroad prompted him to flee China on short notice 15 months ago.
Grace Fang, now 23, immigrated to the U.S. at age eight. She did not learn until she turned 11 or 12 that her father, Zheng Fang, had his legs crushed by a Chinese military tank during the Tiananmen Square violence.
Grace Fang graduated in 2023 from Wellesley College in Massachusetts. Last June, she helped host a San Francisco Bay area event remembering the crackdown.
The Chinese government refers to the events at Tiananmen Square in June 1989 as a “counterrevolutionary riot” and downplays its severity. In China, discussion of the event in media or textbooks of the event is largely forbidden. The authorities regularly harass those at home or overseas who seek to keep the memory of the events alive.
Zhang Hongyuan told VOA he was raised in China by his father and forced to mature early, especially after Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping came to power in 2012. Zhang Hongyuan said authorities began to tighten control over the dissidents of the “1989 generation,” which included his father, Zhang Yi.
Frequent police surveillance, house searches and detention had an effect on Zhang Yi, which in turn had an effect on his son.
“When I was a minor, other people’s fathers went to the police station to pick up their sons, but I was a son who went to pick up my father. I did this a lot,” Zhang Hongyuan said.
“It was precisely these things that prompted me to realize the inhuman side of totalitarian rule at a young age,” he said, adding that it gave him the courage to echo the boy on bike during the Tiananmen movement, whose words became famous, and say, “It’s my duty and I have to do something.”
Zhang Yi was in Wuhan in 1989 and was attending public rallies in support of students nationwide when he was arrested on June 4. Zhang Yi spent two years in prison, convicted of assembling a crowd to disrupt traffic during that mid-1989 period of democratic expression.
“There was a big black spot on my father’s back,’’ Zhang Hongyuan said. “He showed it to me when I was in junior high school and said it was caused by the beating by the guards, as well as the humid environment in the detention center. From that time on, I really began to understand June 4.”
About 15 years ago, Zheng Fang and his daughter, Grace Fang immigrated to the U.S. He is now the president of the China Democracy Education Foundation in San Francisco.
Zheng Fang said he is proud that all his three daughters, including Grace who studied American environmental politics and earned a college degree, have a clear understanding of the Chinese Communist government. He told VOA that while Grace Fang has grown up to be an American, she understands the June 4 massacre first-hand and how China’s repression had impacted the Chinese people including her family.
Grace Fang told VOA that she admires her father, who is a ‘’hero’’ for standing publicly with the democratic movement in China in June 1989. But as someone who has fewer ties with China now, she can only help translate for her father during talks and presentations at which he shares his experience in China opposing state intimidation.
She said that while she is angered by what happened to her father, she has hope for the Chinese to have a better future.
“Although this historical event [June 4] was very cruel and the government was wrong in many ways, and the human rights situation [in China] was definitely not good, I no longer have hatred, and I just feel sad [about the truth] because I still hope that the Chinese people can have a better future,” Grace Fang told VOA.
She said it is important that young Chinese are aware of recent history in China, especially about the Tiananmen Square period, because they have the right to know the truth about their country and government.
With hope, she said, that young Chinese in the future should have the opportunity to participate in their country’s social and political affairs and promote a more open and free China.
Adrianna Zhang from VOA’s Mandarin Service contributed to this story.
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Muslim drift to Republican Party stalls amid Gaza conflict
WASHINGTON — The war in Gaza is shaking Muslim Americans’ political loyalties ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November.
Disenchanted by President Joe Biden’s embrace of Israel, many Democratic-leaning Muslims who once backed him are now vowing to withdraw their endorsement.
But it’s not just Muslim Democrats abandoning their once-preferred candidate. Some Muslim Republicans are also wavering amidst their own party’s support of Israel.
Mo Nehad, a Pakistani American Republican activist in Fort Bend County, Texas, has seen up close the political effects of the Gaza conflict on Muslim American voting.
In late 2020, Nehad, who is a small-business owner, police officer and military warrant officer, helped found a grassroots group in a bid to engage the local Muslim community with the Republican Party.
Initially focused on opposition to COVID-19 vaccine mandates and mask mandates, the group, called Muslim Americans of Texas, soon found a new cause: a conservative backlash to sex and gender education policies in local schools.
“We were essentially trying to tell the Muslim community, regardless of what has happened in the past overseas, let’s focus on national topics and events,” Nehad said in an interview. “And when you compare what traditionally a Democratic-elected president has done and a Republican-elected president has done [on national issues], a Republican-elected president is much better for the Muslims.”
The advocacy paid off, he said. While the Fort Bend County Muslim community remained solidly Democratic, a small number started crossing party lines, mirroring a pattern seen across the country.
“These are people who go to the same masjid as I do, people who are in the same home-school groups,” he said.
Then the war in Gaza broke out after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, testing the political allegiance of Muslim Democrats and Republicans alike, with both viewing their parties as equally pro-Israel.
Many Muslim Americans who had overwhelmingly voted for Biden in 2020 fumed over the president’s support for an Israeli military campaign that has killed more than 30,000 Palestinians.
Earlier this year, a group of progressive Muslim activists launched a campaign they labeled #AbandonBiden, inducing hundreds of thousands of voters to vote “uncommitted” in key Democratic primaries in Michigan and elsewhere. Members were also threatening not to vote for Biden in November.
Republican-leaning Muslims, fewer in number, have not been as vocal. While many are backing their party, its equally staunch support of Israel has alienated some, according to Muslim activists and experts.
Nehad said that while he intends to vote for former President Donald Trump in November, some Republican Muslims are reconsidering their stance and even “going back” to the Democratic Party, drawn by that party’s stronger criticism of Israeli actions.
“They don’t want to vote for Republican candidates because the Republican candidates do not want to go ahead and openly denounce what Israel is doing,” Nehad said.
Drift to GOP stalls
Youssef Chouhoud, a political science professor at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia, said the war in Gaza appears to have paused if not blunted the recent Muslim drift to the GOP.
Had the war not occurred, he said that as many as 40% of Muslim Americans would have voted for the Republican presidential nominee in November.
“I was fully expecting that,” Chouhoud, who studies Muslim American voting behavior, said.
Now, he said he is not so sure.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if upwards of 40% are voting third party or otherwise testing some vote that is not a two-party vote,” he said.
A recent poll by the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee and The Truth Project showed that only 7% of Arab American voters plan to vote for Biden and 2% for Trump, with Green Party candidate Jill Stein receiving 25%.
How the Muslim vote will influence the outcome of the presidential contest between Biden and Trump remains uncertain.
Numbering about 3.5 million, Muslims make up just 1% of the U.S. population. In tight races in swing states with large Muslim populations, though, their vote could potentially sway the outcome of the election.
But American Muslims are a diverse lot, with interests and priorities often as varied as the general electorate. While anger over the Gaza conflict may have unified the community, it is not the only issue driving their voting decision, said Saher Selod, director of research for the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, a Muslim American research group in Dearborn, Michigan.
“We need to know if [some Muslim voters] are centering this issue as a major driving force in terms of how they’re going to vote,” Selod said in an interview. “Other groups, while they might support a cease-fire, have other issues that that they’re going to vote on.”
VOA asked both the Biden and Trump campaigns about their outreach to Muslim Americans and any steps to assuage their concerns over the Gaza war.
In a statement, a Biden campaign spokesperson said, “The President shares the goal of a just and lasting peace in the region. He’s working tirelessly to that end.”
In a separate statement, the campaign’s Michigan director said the Biden team is in contact with Arab American and Muslim groups in Detroit and Dearborn. Both cities have large Muslim populations.
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment. The campaign has not publicly reached out to the Muslim community on the war in Gaza, but Trump’s son-in-law, Michael Boulos, and a former Trump administration official recently met with a group of Arab Americans and Middle Eastern leaders in Michigan.
Historical patterns
Historically, Muslim American voters have oscillated between the two major political parties. Socially conservative, most voted Republican in the 1980s and 1990s, leading some party activists to hail them as “natural” allies. In 2000, a majority backed Republican George W. Bush.
That changed after the attacks of Sept. 11, as the Bush administration’s increased scrutiny of the community amid its “war on terror” sent Muslims flocking to the Democratic Party. In every presidential election since 2004, Muslims have favored the Democratic nominee.
But with memories of 9/11 fading in recent years, some Muslims began to shift back to the Republican Party, driven by shared conservative values such as opposition to abortion, gay marriage and LGBTQ-inclusive policies in schools.
“This is the social conservatism within this community kind of creeping up to the surface and guiding political decisions in light of a lot of marquee policy debates,” Chouhoud said.
Some polls confirm this recent voting trend.
In October 2020, an Institute for Social Policy and Understanding poll found 30% of Muslims approved of Trump’s job performance, up from 13% in 2018.
In November 2020, an Associated Press exit poll found that 64% supported Biden and 35% backed Trump.
Other polls showed a more modest increase in Muslim support for Trump.
Muslim support for Republican candidates continued into 2022. During that year’s midterm elections, 28% of Muslims voted Republican, up from 17% during the 2018 midterms, while 70% voted Democratic, down from 81%.
Today, the Muslim voter base is firmly rooted in the Democratic Party, though a significant slice leans Republican.
A recent Pew Research poll found that 66% of Muslim voters are Democrats or lean Democratic, while 32% are Republicans or lean Republican.
Three previous polls conducted by Pew had all shown lower-level numbers of Republican or Republican-leaning Muslim voters, according to Besheer Mohamed, a senior Pew researcher.
“There are certain issues where Muslims tend to align more with the Republican Party, Mohamed said, noting positive views of religion and skepticisms toward LGBTQ issues. “Then there are other issues where that’s not the case.”
Nehad, once an independent voter, is now a Republican. His political pivot came after he ran unsuccessfully as a Democratic candidate for constable where he said he felt pressured to champion policies that clashed with his religious convictions.
This year, he stood as a Republican candidate for Fort Bend County sheriff.
“Everything the Republican Party stands for, 70% of it aligns with my beliefs and values,” Nehad said, in a drawl honed over more than 25 years of living in the Lone Star state. “But when I compare the same with the Democratic Party, it’s only maybe 20 or 40%, if that.”
Zahoor Gire, another co-founder of the Muslim Americans of Texas, said Muslim Americans “share conservative Republican values” such as strong families, traditional marriage, traditional gender roles and opposition to abortion.
“I had family members of my own that had voted Democratic before and are now voting Republican,” Gire said.
Underscoring the renewed Muslim embrace of the Republican Party, he said a record eight Republican Muslim candidates have run for office in Texas this year.
“So that shows you the willingness of people to embrace this party and then run for office through this party’s platform,” Gire said.
To many Muslim Republicans, Trump is not the anti-Muslim politician as he is seen by others. They’ve defended his so-called “Muslim ban” as a necessary national security measure rather than a religiously motivated injunction.
But the Gaza war has become “the main issue” for Muslims in America, Gire said. And with Trump urging Israel earlier this year to “finish what they started,” his perceived support of Israel at the expense of Palestinians is giving some Muslim Republicans pause.
Asked if he will support Trump in November, Gire said, “We need to see very specifically what his foreign policies will be, what his stance towards Muslim Americans will be.”
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Diaspora community holds Tiananmen commemorations despite crackdowns in Hong Kong, China
Taipei, Taiwan — Authorities in China and Hong Kong are tightening control over civil society as people in more than a dozen cities around the world commemorate the 35th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre on Tuesday.
Ahead of the anniversary, Hong Kong authorities arrested eight people over social media posts commemorating June Fourth, which the police claim were aimed at using “an upcoming sensitive date” to incite hatred against the Hong Kong government and contained seditious intentions.
Most prominent among those arrested is human rights lawyer Chow Hang-tung, who has been detained since 2021 for organizing an annual Tiananmen Vigil in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park, which has been banned since Beijing imposed the controversial National Security Law on the former British colony in 2020.
Other individuals arrested by Hong Kong police include Chow’s mother and uncle and former members of the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance, which used to organize the annual vigil and in which Chow served as vice chairwoman before its dissolution.
In addition to the eight people arrested for social media posts commemorating June Fourth, Hong Kong police detained performance artist Sanmu Chen Monday in the busy shopping district Causeway Bay, which was near Victoria Park.
Local media reports said Chen pretended to drink in front of a police van and write or draw in the air. This is the second year that Chen was detained by police on the eve of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Instead of the now-prohibited Tiananmen vigil, several pro-Beijing community organizations are holding a “food carnival” from June 1 to June 5 at Victoria Park, a move that some activists characterized as ironic.
In China, authorities sentenced former Tiananmen Student leader Xu Guang to four years in jail on April 3 for demanding that the Chinese government acknowledge the massacre and for holding a sign calling for government compensation in front of a local police station in May 2022.
Apart from Xu’s jail sentences, some family members of Tiananmen victims or former Tiananmen student leaders have also been put under strict police surveillance ahead of Tuesday’s anniversary, according to Human Rights Watch.
Chinese authorities have also censored a wide range of words, phrases, and even emojis due to their connection to the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
Chinese activist Li Ying, who became a prominent source of news during China’s “white paper movement” in 2022, disclosed that Chinese authorities have banned the use of the candle emoji in China, which was commonly used for posts related to the Tiananmen Massacre.
Some analysts say the increased crackdown on civil society initiated by Hong Kong and Chinese authorities ahead of the Tiananmen anniversary reflects their attempt to remove memories related to the tragic event.
“The Hong Kong government is sending a message that June Fourth is a clear national security red line for Hong Kong and they want to make sure there is no commemoration or no memory of June Fourth in public,” Maya Wang, the interim China director at Human Rights Watch, told VOA by phone.
While the two national security laws that the Hong Kong government has implemented since 2020 have essentially outlawed public commemoration of June Fourth, Wang said some people in the city are still using veiled references to commemorate the event.
“June Fourth continues to be a collective memory among people in Hong Kong and you do see some of them make veiled references to the date by wearing black or through other gestures,” she said, adding that the effect of the authorities’ attempts to remove memories associated with June Fourth remains unclear.
A Christian newspaper in Hong Kong that used to release information about the Tiananmen vigils published an almost blank front page on Sunday as their response to the upcoming anniversary. Hong Kong’s Roman Catholic Cardinal Stephen Chow called for forgiveness and vaguely referenced the Tiananmen anniversary in an article he published.
Despite the lack of public commemoration in China and Hong Kong, several cities around the world, including Tokyo, Paris, London, New York, Boston, and Taipei, have each organized events to commemorate the event, which occurred when government troops fired on student-led pro-democracy protestors on June 4, causing what are thought to be thousands of deaths.
Zhou Fengsuo, a former Tiananmen student leader, told VOA that the dozens of commemorative events abroad play an important role in pushing back against the Chinese government’s efforts to erase memories related to the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
“When the Chinese government tries to intensify crackdowns on the commemoration of June Fourth, more people in the diaspora community feel compelled to help organize or participate in commemorations of the tragic event around the world,” he said in a phone interview.
Zhou has attended more than 20 Tiananmen commemorative events around the world this year and he said many events are organized or attended by young people or new immigrants from China.
“I met a lot of Chinese people at the June Fourth Memorial Museum in New York, and they are all actively participating in this year’s commemorative events,” he said.
As people around the world take part in commemorations of the Tiananmen Massacre, some activists say they remain hopeful that this decades-long tradition will be passed down to the next generation.
“I was encouraged to see a lot of young people, including Japanese people, take part in the June Fourth commemoration in Tokyo,” said Patrick Poon, a visiting researcher at the University of Tokyo, adding that young people’s involvement in the event made him believe the tradition will be continued.
Through the efforts to organize commemorations of the Tiananmen Square Massacre around the world, Wang at Human Rights Watch said the Tiananmen anniversary is helping to strengthen linkages among different groups in the diaspora community that focus on pushing back against the Chinese government’s crackdown on civil society.
“Through these linkages, there is a growing solidarity of resistance on the state,” she told VOA.
your ad hereThe cost of US elections explained
Elections in the United States are some of the most expensive in the world, with campaign spending far outpacing that in most countries. The 2020 U.S. presidential and congressional races cost $16.4 billion and experts say the cost of the 2024 races are likely to be much higher.
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Nigerian workers’ unions strike over minimum wage review
Abuja, Nigeria — Nigerian workers’ unions launched a nationwide strike protesting the failure to implement a new minimum wage to help workers cope with the high cost of living amid economic reforms.
The strike began Monday morning following a notice by the Nigerian Labor Congress and the Trade Union Congress — the NLC and TUC respectively — on Friday.
There was widespread compliance as workers across various sectors abstained from duty.
Union representatives said the strike was triggered after weeks of failed negotiations to implement a new minimum wage.
The unions had proposed $370 as the new monthly minimum wage, citing soaring costs of living caused by government policies.
NLC spokesperson Benson Upah said unions have been patient with authorities.
“As far as we know, no government has been this lucky,” Upah said. “And for our uncommon understanding and patience with this administration, we have been called names. Yet this government does not want to wake up.”
Nigeria’s government is proposing about $49 dollars as the new minimum wage up from about $24.
Authorities have condemned the nationwide strike calling it illegal and unnecessary.
On Sunday, a Nigerian senate committee met with the unions in a bid to settle the dispute. But after long negotiations, the NLC and TUC said they failed to reach an agreement.
After Sunday’s meeting with unions, Senate president Godswill Akpabio told journalists whatever agreement is reached “will be mutually beneficial to all, both the government and the workers.”
In May 2023, President Bola Tinubu introduced economic reforms including the scrapping of fuel subsidy and currency unification with the aim of boosting the economy.
But the policies have been blamed for raising the cost of living, sparking strikes by workers who want policies reversed or a higher minimum wage.
Upah said the government is implementing foreign policies without considering Nigeria’s needs.
“We do not know who the beneficiaries of these policies are, because we the workers are dying. Manufacturers are dying. Other entities are dying,” he said. “No reasonable government leaves their national currency to the stumps of the market. They do something behind the scenes quietly. But we took a dictation from the World Bank, IMF, hook, line and sinker.”
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What is an executive order?
U.S. citizens elect a president and a Congress to steer the country. But presidents have certain tools enabling them to alter policies on their own. One that’s gotten a lot of recent attention is the executive order.
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Fauci deflects partisan attacks in fiery House hearing over COVID
WASHINGTON — Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert until leaving the government in 2022, was back before Congress on Monday, calling Republican allegations that he’d tried to cover up origins of the COVID-19 pandemic “simply preposterous.”
A GOP-led subcommittee has spent over a year probing the nation’s response to the pandemic and whether U.S.-funded research in China may have played any role in how it started — yet found no evidence linking Fauci to wrongdoing.
He’d already been grilled behind closed doors, for 14 hours over two days in January. But Monday, Fauci testified voluntarily in public and on camera at a hearing that quickly deteriorated into partisan attacks.
Republicans repeated unproven accusations against the longtime National Institutes of Health scientist while Democrats apologized for Congress besmirching his name and bemoaned a missed opportunity to prepare for the next scary outbreak.
“He is not a comic book super villain,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, adding that the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic had failed to prove a list of damaging allegations.
Fauci was the public face of the government’s early COVID-19 response under then-President Donald Trump and later as an adviser to President Joe Biden. A trusted voice to millions, he also was the target of partisan anger and choked up Monday as he recalled death threats and other harassment of himself and his family, the threats he said continue. Police later escorted hecklers out of the hearing room.
The main issue: Many scientists believe the virus most likely emerged in nature and jumped from animals to people, probably at a wildlife market in Wuhan, the city in China where the outbreak began. There’s no new scientific information supporting that the virus might instead have leaked from a laboratory. A U.S. intelligence analysis says there’s insufficient evidence to prove either way — and a recent Associated Press investigation found the Chinese government froze critical efforts to trace the source of the virus in the first weeks of the outbreak.
Fauci has long said publicly that he was open to both theories but that there’s more evidence supporting COVID-19’s natural origins, the way other deadly viruses including coronavirus cousins SARS and MERS jumped into people. It was a position he repeated Monday as Republican lawmakers questioned if he worked behind-the-scenes to squelch the lab-leak theory or even tried to influence intelligence agencies.
“I have repeatedly stated that I have a completely open mind to either possibility and that if definitive evidence becomes available to validate or refute either theory, I will readily accept it,” Fauci said. He later invoked a fictional secret agent, decrying a conspiracy theory that “I was parachuting into the CIA like Jason Bourne and told the CIA that they should really not be talking about a lab leak.”
Republicans also have accused Fauci of lying to Congress in denying that his agency funded “gain of function” research — the practice of enhancing a virus in a lab to study its potential real-world impact — at a lab in Wuhan.
NIH for years gave grants to a New York nonprofit called EcoHealth Alliance that used some of the funds to work with a Chinese lab studying coronaviruses commonly carried by bats. Last month, the government suspended EcoHealth’s federal funding, citing its failure to properly monitor some of those experiments.
The definition of “gain of function” covers both general research and especially risky experiments to “enhance” the ability of potentially pandemic pathogens to spread or cause severe disease in humans. Fauci stressed he was using the risky experiment definition, saying “it would be molecularly impossible” for the bat viruses studied with EcoHealth’s funds to be turned into the virus that caused the pandemic.
In an exchange with Rep. H. Morgan Griffith, a Republican from Virginia, Fauci acknowledged that the lab leak is still an open question since it’s impossible to know if some other lab, not funded by NIH money, was doing risky research with coronaviruses.
Fauci did face a new set of questions about the credibility of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which he led for 38 years. Last month, the House panel revealed emails from an NIAID colleague about ways to evade public records laws, including by not discussing controversial pandemic issues in government email.
Fauci denounced the actions of that colleague and insisted that “to the best of my knowledge I have never conducted official business via my personal email.”
The pandemic’s origins weren’t the only hot topic. The House panel also blasted some public health measures taken to slow spread of the virus before COVID-19 vaccines, spurred by NIAID research, helped allow a return to normalcy. Ordering people to stay 6 feet apart meant many businesses, schools and churches couldn’t stay open, and subcommittee chairman Rep. Brad Wenstrup, a Republican from Ohio, called it a “burdensome” and arbitrary rule, noting that in his prior closed-door testimony Fauci had acknowledged it wasn’t scientifically backed.
Fauci responded Monday that the 6-feet distancing wasn’t his guideline but one created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before scientists had learned that the new virus was airborne, not spread simply by droplets emitted a certain distance.
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US freedoms encourage immigrant comedians
Much of stand-up comedy in the United States is rooted in the country’s freedoms of speech. In Southern California, that attracts immigrant comedians eager to express their opinions and make people laugh. Genia Dulot reports.
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UN Security Council to discuss North Korea human rights
united nations — The U.N. Security Council will hold a public meeting in mid-June on human rights in North Korea while South Korea holds the council’s rotating presidency.
“Some countries have some reservations about human rights issues being discussed in the Security Council,” South Korean Ambassador Hwang Joon-kook said in announcing the session on Monday. “We know their logic.”
Countries including Russia and China oppose human rights issues being discussed in the 15-nation council, which is tasked with maintaining international peace and security. They, and other like-minded countries, argue that human rights issues should be handled in designated U.N. fora, such as the Geneva-based Human Rights Council or the General Assembly committee that deals with rights issues.
They could call for a procedural vote to try to block the meeting, in which case at least nine of the council’s 15 members would need to support the session.
Hwang told reporters at a news conference launching Seoul’s June presidency that unlike other countries, North Korea’s human rights situation is part of the council’s official agenda.
“This is unique to North Korea, and there are some good reasons for it,” he said. The “DPRK human rights and humanitarian situation is closely interlinked with North Korea’s aggressive weapons — their aggressive WMD [weapons of mass destruction] and nuclear development.”
DPRK is the abbreviation for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
The council was last publicly briefed on the issue on August 17, 2023, by U.N. Human Rights chief Volker Türk, who said that many of the severe and widespread rights violations in North Korea are directly linked to the regime’s pursuit of nuclear and ballistic missile technology.
In 2014, a U.N. Commission of Inquiry found that North Korea’s rights violations had risen to the level of crimes against humanity and included murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape and enforced disappearance, among other crimes.
Relations between Seoul and Pyongyang have deteriorated in recent months. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has said he has given up on reunification with the South and designated it a foreign enemy state. He has also enshrined the country’s illicit nuclear program into its constitution.
Washington says North Korea is advancing its prohibited weapons program “at an alarming rate” and has launched more than 100 ballistic missiles since the beginning of 2022.
And in one of its more bizarre actions, last week Pyongyang sent balloons filled with trash and feces into the skies over South Korea, dropping them on busy streets.
Fed up, South Korea said Monday it will fully suspend a 2018 military agreement with the North that is aimed at lowering tensions. Seoul partially suspended the agreement last November to protest the launch of a North Korean spy satellite.
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Zimbabwean authorities urge citizens to cycle to work
HARARE, ZIMBABWE — Faced with a broken public transit system, poor road conditions, fuel shortages and low salaries, Zimbabwean authorities are urging citizens to cycle to work, ostensibly for health reasons and to promote a clean environment, as bicycles do not use fossil fuels.
Jacob Mafume, the mayor of Harare, said if Zimbabweans in greater numbers chose to cycle to work, there would be less congestion and fewer road accidents, among other benefits.
“Most of the health problems that we have in society now is that we are sitting all the time. We sit at work. We sit in the car, as we [drive] there. So it does not help as a society to be built on unhealthy practices,” Mafume said. “But also, it is also cheaper on the budget: People can focus on other issues like housing, education and even investment, if they are on bicycles. And also, it is environmentally friendly. It is less impact on our environment. And people would thank us later for this, as they will live to ripe old age in fitness.”
Ngoni Nyamadzawo, a part-time gardener in Harare’s affluent suburbs, cycles daily as a way to reduce costs to save his average salary of $150 a month.
“I see cycling as a saving measure. If I did not cycle, I would use $30 a month for transport,” Nyamadzawo said.
Segio Tarwirei works for a local NGO, Tree Knowers and Growers, which advocates for more trees. He cycles daily and encourages Zimbabweans to join him.
“Cycling has so many physical benefits,” he said. “Driving is not good for the environment as cars release dirt into the atmosphere. As an organization — of Tree Knowers and Growers — we encourage people to cycle. If I was using public transport, I would be paying $4 daily, at the end of the month it would be a lot of money, so cycling is good for health and the pocket.”
Tarwirei said he would like the city of Harare to rehabilitate cycling tracks, which have been neglected for years.
Mayor Mafume said he is aware of the dilapidated state of cycling lanes in the capital city.
“We are going to revamp them,” he said. “One of the issues that we have to do is to put a cycle track running across Harare Drive. Once we have a cycle track circling the city, then all the other cycle tracks can fit into Harare Drive.”
Harare Drive is the city’s longest road and circles Harare.
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South Africa’s ANC to start closely watched coalition talks
Johannesburg — Talks to form South Africa’s first national coalition government are expected to begin this week after the governing ANC party lost its majority for the first time.
Despite the heavy blow his African National Congress party took at the polls, President Cyril Ramaphosa showed humor at a ceremony announcing the official South African election results Sunday night.
After an electoral commission official misspoke in welcoming the guests to the ceremony, Ramaphosa retorted that he was “distinguished” and not yet “extinguished,” drawing a laugh from the politicians and media gathered.
On a more serious note, the president pledged that the ANC — which got 40 percent of the vote — would work with other parties to find “common ground” as coalition talks get underway.
The ANC has had a majority for 30 years, since the end of apartheid, so governing in a coalition marks unchartered territory. Under the law, parties now have two weeks to form a government — with South Africans on edge about what form that could take.
There are several main options, Melanie Verwoerd, a former ANC member of parliament and diplomat who’s now a political analyst, told VOA.
“There are a number of coalition options. … The first one is obviously a coalition with, a formal coalition with, the Democratic Alliance and the IFP,” Verwoerd said.
The IFP is the Inkatha Freedom Party, a small opposition party popular with the Zulu people.
The Democratic Alliance is a centrist party and South Africa’s main opposition. It took 21 percent of the vote in the elections.
Big businesses and Western powers would favor a coalition with the DA, which observers say has a good track record in areas it’s been in charge of locally.
However, it is led by a white man, John Steenhuisen, which is a huge optics problem for many in South Africa because of the country’s history, noted David Everatt, a professor at Johannesburg’s Wits School of Governance.
“We have to understand that to go into a coalition with the Democratic Alliance, which is the official opposition, is seen by some as a betrayal of the revolution,” Everatt said.
Former MP Verwoerd said those in the ANC who balk at a coalition with the DA have another option, involving the radical left-wing Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) or former President Jacob Zuma’s new uMkhonto weSizwe party, or MK.
“Then, of course, there is the more troubling one, which is an ANC-EFF coalition or an ANC-MK coalition, neither of which the ANC favors as a first option because it would affect the markets quite negatively and also [ANC is] very concerned about the stability of such a coalition,” Verwoerd said.
The populist MK party got the third highest number of votes, and was a game-changer in this election, despite Zuma having to resign in disgrace from the presidency in 2018 amid numerous corruption scandals.
Zuma is a sworn enemy of Ramaphosa, and the MK party has said they will not go into a coalition with what they call “the ANC of Ramaphosa.”
The EFF, led by firebrand politician Julius Malema, came fourth at the polls and wants expropriation without compensation of land, as well as nationalization of the mines and banks.
Steenhuisen on Sunday called the possibility of an ANC-EFF agreement a “doomsday coalition” and promised the DA would engage in talks to try and prevent it from happening.
On Tuesday, the ANC’s top brass is set to discuss coalitions. The party has publicly stated that Ramaphosa staying on as president is non-negotiable.
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Algeria seeks to lure tourists to neglected cultural, scenic glories
ORAN, Algeria — Algeria wants to lure more visitors to the cultural and scenic treasures of Africa’s largest country, shedding its status as a tourism backwater and expanding a sector outshone by competitors in neighboring Morocco and Tunisia.
The giant north African country offers Roman and Islamic sites, beaches and mountains just an hour’s flight from Europe, and haunting Saharan landscapes, where visitors can sleep on dunes under the stars and ride camels with Tuareg nomads.
But while tourist-friendly Morocco welcomed 14.5 million visitors in 2023, bigger, richer Algeria hosted just 3.3 million foreign tourists, according the tourism ministry.
About 1.2 million of those holiday-makers were Algerians from the diaspora visiting families.
The lack of travelers is testimony to Algeria’s neglect of a sector that remains one of world tourism’s undiscovered gems.
As Algeria’s oil and gas revenues grew in the 1960s and 70s, successive governments lost interest in developing mass tourism. A descent into political strife in the 1990s pushed the country further off the beaten track.
But while security is now much improved, Algeria needs to tackle an inflexible visa system and poor transport links, as well as grant privileges to local and foreign private investors to enable tourism to flourish, analysts say.
Saliha Nacerbay, General Director of the National Tourism Office, outlined plans to attract 12 million tourists by 2030 – an ambitious fourfold increase.
“To achieve this, we, as the tourism and traditional industry sector, are seeking to encourage investments, provide facilities to investors, build tourist and hotel facilities,” she said, speaking at the International Tourism and Travel Fair, hosted in Algiers from May 30 to June 2.
Algeria has plans to build hotels and restructure and modernize existing ones. The tourism ministry said that about 2,000 tourism projects have been approved so far, 800 of which are currently under construction.
The country is also restoring its historical sites, with 249 locations earmarked for tourism expansion. Approximately 70 sites have been prepared, and restoration plans are underway for 50 additional sites, officials said.
French tourist Patrick Lebeau emphasized the need to improve infrastructure to fully realize Algeria’s tourism prospects.
“Obviously, there is a lot of tourism potential, but much work still needs to be done to attract us,” Lebeau said.
Tourism and travel provided 543,500 jobs in Algeria in 2021, according to the Statista website. In contrast, tourism professionals in Morocco estimate the sector provides 700,000 direct jobs in the kingdom, and many more jobs indirectly.
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Chadian women contest underrepresentation, say it undermines national dialogue recommendation
YAOUNDE, CAMEROON — Chad’s female leaders and activists have strongly condemned what they say is their negligible representation in President Mahamat Idriss Deby’s first civilian government after a three-year transition from military rule. The women voiced their concerns during a meeting in Chad’s capital, N’djamena, on Monday.
Several dozen female activists and opposition members say they are upset with what they call Chadian President Mahamat Idriss Deby’s decision to exclude them from political issues in his first civilian government.
The women who met in N’djamena on Monday, said Deby should have rejected the government appointed by new Prime Minister Allamaye Halina last week.
Halina was appointed by Deby to replace Succes Masra, who resigned after his defeat in Chad’s May 6 presidential election. Masra was in office for four months.
Amina Tidjani Yaya is the coordinator of Voix De La Femme, or Women’s Voice, a nongovernmental organization that advocates for the respect of women’s rights and political participation.
She says female leaders and activists do not understand why Chad’s new prime minister, Allamaye Halina, decided to reduce the number of female ministers from 12 during Chad’s three-year transitional period to eight in the first civilian government he appointed May 27. Yaya says Chadian officials have not respected the resolution of the central African nations’ 2022 Inclusive and Sovereign National Dialogue, which states that more women should be appointed to government positions.
Chad’s new government has 35 ministers. Twenty-three served in the previous administration before Deby was declared the winner of Chad’s May 6 presidential election, ending three years of military transition, returning to constitutional order.
During his inauguration, Deby promised to involve opposition parties, youths and women in executing his immediate task, which he said is to reconcile differences among all Chadians and make the central African state a better place in which to live.
The female leaders and activists say increasing women’s political participation would have been synonymous with improving respect for human rights, justice, the rule of law, governance and democracy. They say women constitute the majority of Chad’s population and can have more influence than men in peacekeeping processes.
Female leaders say there have been tensions and conflicts involving armed groups who accused the new president of using the military to prolong his family’s rule. Deby’s family has had a firm grip on power since his father, Idriss Deby Ino, took over in a 1990 coup and died in April 2021 before the younger Deby took power.
The women say Deby should have involved more women in the current government because Chad is a signatory to the Maputo Protocol, a commitment by African nations through the African Union to ensure gender equality in political decision making.
Chad’s government has not responded to the women’s request for more representation in politics. But the central African state’s prime minister, after officially taking office on May 24, pleaded with all Chadians to resolve their differences and collaborate with the new government which he maintained will work for the well-being of all citizens.
Senoussi Hassana Abdoulaye, a jurist and lecturer at Chad’s university of Ndjamena, told state TV on Monday that Deby and his new civilian government cannot be officially held responsible for reducing the number of female ministers because no law in Chad imposes gender equity in political appointments.
He says all women in Chad should register and massively take part as candidates and voters in local council and parliamentary elections that President Mahamat Idriss Deby says will take place before December of this year. He says if women succeed in having a majority of seats in parliament, they can enact laws that compel government officials to respect political equality between men and women.
In February, female leaders and activists from Burkina Faso, Chad, Gabon, Guinea, Mali and Niger met in N’djamena and said they want to be involved in the highest decision-making circles of the African military governments involved with political transitions.
The meeting, which took place under the theme African Women in Transitional Governments, reiterated that women constitute a majority of civilians in the six states, bear the brunt of violence from military takeovers and are highly underrepresented in decision-making circles.
The women promised to make their participation in transitional governance a subject of discussion during important events like their countries’ national days and international events organized by the United Nations and African Union.
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