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Month: September 2024
AFRICOM, African militaries unite to combat gender-based violence
Gaborone, Botswana — U.S. Africa Command, or AFRICOM, is working with southern African countries to combat gender-based violence in the military. This week, AFRICOM and regional military officials are holding a series of workshops in Zambia to strengthen regional collaboration in the fight against workplace harassment.
AFRICOM and its component, the U.S. Air Forces in Europe and Air Forces Africa, or USAFE-AFAFRICA, have united with the Zambia Defense Force to foster strategies to tackle gender-based violence in the region.
Botswana and Zambia are participating in efforts to strengthen regional initiatives against sexual assault.
Lieutenant Colonel Linda Jones, USAFE-AFAFRICA chief for African health engagements, said it is imperative to come up with strategies to fight gender-based violence in the armed forces.
“It is the responsibility of leaders that all of us set the tone, including an environment where everyone is valued and empowered to speak up against misconduct,” she said. “This involves not only enforcing policies but also modeling respect for behavior and actively supporting those who report incidents.”
In 2021, U.S. Defense Department officials reported sexual violence had reached the highest level ever reported, with 8.4% of women assaulted on duty.
U.S. Air Force Tech Sergeant Samara Brown said if left unchecked, gender-based violence can affect execution of military tasks.
“Gender-based violence undermines the core values of any military organization,” Brown said. “It erodes trust, disrupts unity, cohesion and ultimately compromises mission readiness. We must take a firm stand against it, not just as a matter of policy but a commitment to uphold the principles of honor, integrity and respect that define our service.”
Retired U.S. Air Force official and workplace development consultant Keith Castille facilitated the Lusaka workshop. He said such collaborations with the Zambia Defense Force can ensure gender-based violence is addressed within regional militaries.
“No military can tackle this issue alone,” he said. “By sharing knowledge and collaborating across branches and communities, we can develop more effective strategies to combat gender-based violence. Engaging in open dialogue, facilitating workshops and creating joint initiatives will enable us to learn from one another and strengthen our collective efforts.”
Attending the workshop in Lusaka, Zambian Defense Force Major Stephen Muleya said the military workplace must be free of gender-based harassment.
“When individuals know that they can perform their duties without the threat of harassment or violence, they are more likely to focus fully on their missions,” he said. “We must actively cultivate an atmosphere where everyone can thrive free from fear and intimidation.”
Zambian officials said they’re planning to open a regional office for innovative gender-based violence solutions.
Zambian air force legal adviser Major Glory Musonda said collaboration with U.S. partners should result in solutions to gender-based violence within the force.
“We all have a responsibility to build military environments where respect and dignity are upheld,” Musonda said. “It’s not enough to simply acknowledge the issue, we must actively work toward solutions that ensure the safety and well-being of every service member.”
Meanwhile, officials representing the U.S. Army War College are in Lusaka for discussions on women, peace and security, which aligns with efforts to address gender-based violence in the region.
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South Korea publishes compensation plan for dog meat farmers ahead of 2027 ban
SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea announced plans Thursday to compensate famers and others in the country’s dwindling dog meat industry before a formal ban goes effect in 2027, a move that is drawing opposition from both farmers and animal rights activists.
South Korea’s parliament passed a landmark bill in January that will ban slaughtering, breeding or selling dog meat for human consumption after a three-year grace period. It will be punishable by 2-3 years in prison.
The Agriculture Ministry said that farmers would receive compensation starting from 225,000 won ($170), and rising up to 600,000 won ($450) per dog if they agree to shut down their business early.
It’s likely that farmers won’t accept the offer, as they earlier called for 2 million won ($1,505) per dog. They’ve said the ban infringes on their freedom and will aggravate their economic difficulties. In a statement Tuesday, an association of dog farmers called for the law to be amended to extend the grace period and add appropriate compensation plans.
Sangkyung Lee, a campaign manager at the Korean office of the anti-animal cruelty group Humane Society International, called the South Korean announcement “an important milestone in this historic ban that will see the ban through to completion and end our country’s dog meat era for good.”
But Lee said his office is “disappointed” at the South Korean plan because it would pay farmers based on the number of dogs they have, “potentially increasing dog breeding to get more money from the scheme and more puppies being born into suffering.”
Dog meat consumption is a centuries-old practice on the Korean Peninsula. Dog meat is eaten in China, Vietnam, Indonesia and some African countries. But South Korea’s dog meat industry has drawn more attention because of the country’s reputation as a cultural and economic powerhouse. It’s also the only nation with industrial-scale dog farms.
South Korea’s anti-dog meat campaign received a big boost from the country’s first lady, Kim Keon Hee, who repeatedly expressed her support for a prohibition. She was subjected to withering criticism and crude insults during demonstrations by farmers.
Surveys have found that that around one in three South Koreans opposes the ban, though most people now don’t eat dog meat and favor a ban.
Vice Agriculture Minster Park Beomsu told reporters that government studies found that about 466,000 dogs are currently being raised for food across South Korea. He said officials will try to convince farmers to voluntarily phase out dog breeding ahead of the ban.
After the ban comes into force, Park said, the government plans to facilitate adoptions for the remaining dogs or move them to care facilities rather than euthanize them.
The agriculture ministry said butchers will also be compensated, while local authorities will be responsible for dismantling dog farms and slaughterhouses. Former farmers and butchers will also get low-interest loans if they pivot to other agricultural businesses.
The ministry said authorities will also offer financial assistance to traders and restaurant owners to shut down their businesses and find new jobs.
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Pope Francis heads for Luxembourg and Belgium on a trip to a dwindling flock
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis is traveling to once-strong bastions of Christianity in the heart of Europe to try to reinvigorate a Catholic flock that is dwindling in the face of secular trends and abuse scandals that have largely emptied the continent’s magnificent cathedrals and village churches.
Francis stops first Thursday in Luxembourg, the European Union’s second-smallest country, with a population of some 650,000 people, and its richest per capita. Torrential downpours are expected, days after the 87-year-old pope canceled his audiences because of a slight flu.
He seemed in fine form at the Vatican on Wednesday, during his general audience on the eve of the trip, but his respiratory health is a constant concern and his medical team will be on hand.
After meeting with Luxembourg’s political leaders, Francis will speak to the country’s Catholic priests and nuns. The venue is the late-Gothic Cathedral of Notre Dame, which was built in the early 1600s by Francis’ own Jesuit order and stands as a monument to Christianity’s long and central place in European history.
Francis is likely to dwell on Europe’s role past, present and future — particularly as war rages on European soil — during his visits to Luxembourg and Belgium, where he arrives later Thursday and stays through the weekend.
The trip is a much-truncated version of the 10-day, 1985 tour St. John Paul II made through Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands, during which the Polish pope delivered 59 speeches or homilies and was greeted by hundreds of thousands of adoring faithful.
In Luxembourg alone, John Paul drew a crowd of some 45,000 people to his Mass, or some 10% of the then-population, and officials had predicted a million people would welcome him in Belgium, according to news reports at the time.
But then as now, the head of the Catholic Church faced indifference and even hostility to core Vatican teachings on contraception and sexual morals, opposition that has only increased in the ensuing generation. Those secular trends and the crisis over clergy abuse have helped lead to the decline of the church in the region, with monthly Mass attendance in the single digits and plummeting ordinations of new priests.
Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said that by traveling to the two countries, Francis will likely want to offer “a word to the heart of Europe, of its history, the role it wants to play in the world in the future.”
Immigration, climate change and peace are likely to be themes during the four-day visit, which was organized primarily to mark the 600th anniversary of the founding of Belgium’s two main Catholic universities.
In Luxembourg, Francis has a top ally and friend in the lone cardinal from the country, Jean-Claude Hollerich, a Jesuit like the Argentine pope.
Hollerich, whom Francis made a cardinal in 2019, has taken on a leading role in the pope’s multi-year church reform effort as the “general rapporteur” of his big synod, or meeting, on the future of the Catholic Church.
In that capacity, Hollerich has helped oversee local, national and continental-wide consultations of rank-and-file Catholics and synthesized their views into working papers for bishops and other delegates to discuss at their Vatican meetings, the second session of which opens next week.
Last year, in another sign of his esteem for the progressive cardinal, Francis appointed Hollerich to serve on his kitchen cabinet, known as the Council of Cardinals. The group of nine prelates from around the globe meet several times a year at the Vatican to help Francis govern.
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Japanese court acquits former boxer in a 1966 murder retrial
TOKYO — A Japanese court ruled Thursday that an 88-year-old former boxer was not guilty in a retrial for a 1966 quadruple murder, reversing an earlier wrongful conviction after decades on death row.
Iwao Hakamada’s acquittal by the Shizuoka District Court makes him the fifth death-row convict to be found not guilty in a retrial in postwar Japanese criminal justice. The case could rekindle a debate around abolishing the death penalty in Japan.
The court’s presiding judge, Koshi Kunii, said the court acknowledged multiple fabrications of evidence and that Hakamada was not the culprit, NHK said.
Hakamada was convicted of murder in the 1966 killing of a company manager and three of his family members and setting a fire to their central Japan home. He was sentenced to death in 1968 but was not executed due to lengthy appeals and the retrial process.
He spent 48 years behind bars — most of them on death row — making him the world’s longest-serving death row inmate.
It took 27 years for the top court to deny his first appeal for retrial. His second appeal for a retrial was filed in 2008 by his sister Hideko Hakamada, now 91, and the court finally ruled in his favor in 2023, paving the way for the latest retrial that began in October.
Hakamada was released from prison in 2014 when a court ordered a retrial based on new evidence suggesting his conviction may have been based on fabricated accusations by investigators but was not cleared of the conviction. After his release, Hakamada served his sentence at home because his frail health and age made him a low risk for escape.
At a final hearing at the Shizuoka court in May before Thursday’s decision, prosecutors again demanded the death penalty, triggering criticism from rights groups that prosecutors were trying to prolong the trial.
The extremely high hurdles for retrials have also prompted legal experts to call for a revision to the system.
During the investigation that followed his arrest, Hakamada initially denied the accusations, then confessed. He later said he was forced to confess under violent interrogation by police.
A major point of contention was five pieces of blood-stained clothing that investigators claimed Hakamada wore during the crime and hid in a tank of fermented soybean paste, or miso. The clothes were found more than a year after his arrest.
A Tokyo High Court ruling in 2023 acknowledged scientific experiments that clothing soaked in miso for more than a year turns too dark for bloodstains to be spotted, noting a possible fabrication by investigators.
Defense lawyers and earlier retrial decisions said the blood samples did not match Hakamada’s DNA, and trousers that prosecutors submitted as evidence were too small for Hakamada and did not fit when he tried them on.
Japan and the United States are the only two countries in the Group of Seven advanced nations that retain capital punishment. A survey by the Japanese government showed an overwhelming majority of the public support executions.
Executions are carried out in secrecy in Japan and prisoners are not informed of their fate until the morning they are hanged. In 2007, Japan began disclosing the names of those executed and some details of their crimes, but disclosures are still limited.
Supporters say Hakamada’s nearly half-century detention has taken a toll on his mental health. Most of his time behind bars was spent in solitary confinement, in fear of execution. He spent a total of 48 years in prison, more than 45 of them on death row.
His sister Hideko Hakamada has devoted around half of her life to win his innocence. Before Thursday’s ruling, she said she was in a never-ending battle.
“It is so difficult to get a retrial started,” she told reporters in Tokyo. “Not just Iwao, but I’m sure there are other people who have been wrongly accused and crying. … I want the criminal law revised so that retrials are more easily available.”
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UK foreign secretary: ‘We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Ukrainians’
NEW YORK — Among the issues on the agenda for world leaders who gathered this week for the United Nations General Assembly is Russia’s war against Ukraine. In an interview in New York with VOA’s Ukrainian Service, U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy said his nation stands “shoulder-to-shoulder with the Ukrainians” and will provide Ukraine with military aid for “as long as it takes” to help it “stand off this aggression.” He also cited intelligence findings that Russian President Vladimir Putin is facing mounting problems, with a deteriorating economy and mounting battlefield losses.
The following has been edited for length and clarity.
VOA: Have you had the chance to discuss with your counterparts in other countries, including U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the issue of lifting restrictions on Ukraine using long-range Western missiles against targets inside Russia?
U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy: It was very important for me to be with Secretary Blinken in Ukraine just two weeks ago to see for ourselves, to discuss with [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy … also to discuss Ukraine’s needs as they head out of the autumn into the winter, and that we continue as allies to put Ukraine in the strongest possible position to stand off this aggression that we’re seeing from Vladimir Putin.
That was why I also went to the White House with [U.K.] Prime Minister [Keir] Starmer. We remain in the U.K. absolutely clear that we stand shoulder to shoulder with the Ukrainians. It’s important that Ukraine has the finances and the money, the military aid, as well as the political, diplomatic and humanitarian aid, to get through 2025. And of course, here at the U.N. General Assembly, I will meet with Zelenskyy once again today.
But, also, it’s hugely important that we rally the Global South to ensure that they’re not falling into the trap of Russian propaganda … and efforts to destabilize [and distract] the international community … when in fact what they are doing is taking ballistic missiles from Iran to use against [Ukrainian] men, women and children.
VOA: You’ve already mentioned this meeting between Prime Minister Keir Starmer and U.S. President Joe Biden in Washington. Can you share the details of the conversation?
Lammy: I do think it is very important for us in the U.K. and Europe, and of course in the United States, to understand more the details of President Zelenskyy’s “victory plan.” And over the coming days, he will present that in detail to close allies. And of course, I’m not going to speculate what’s in the papers … because I don’t want to give any advantage to Vladimir Putin.
But I am really clear that this is a time for Western allies to show nerve and guts, because Vladimir Putin thinks that we’ll get distracted. He thinks that we haven’t got the attention span to stand with our Ukrainian friends. That’s why we in the U.K. have found 3 billion pounds for Ukraine to buy and have the military equipment it needs, not just this year, [but] for every year as long as it takes. And that’s what I said to my G7 allies last night when I met with them. That’s the position we’ve got to ensure Ukraine is in.
VOA: When do you think this crucial decision could be made?
Lammy: We meet here in the U.N. General Assembly. I know that President Zelenskyy is meeting with President Biden a little bit later in the week also in Washington. We will head on to the G20 [summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, November 18-19, 2024] as well. So, over the coming days and weeks, I expect us to be in a very strong position to ensure that Ukraine is in the best position it can be as we head into that tough winter in 2025.
And let’s just be clear about what I mean by that. All of our intelligence actually suggests things are going to get a lot tougher for Vladimir Putin as he comes out of next year. His economy is in trouble. He’s going to find it very problematic with the amount of losses and casualties that he’s taking. And actually, when you look at what Ukraine is doing — their ability to take back half the ground that’s been lost, their ability to repel him from the Black Sea, their ability to advance in Kursk and hopefully keep the ground — this is a time for Western countries to show their nerve and to be absolutely committed as we head out of the autumn into the winter period.
VOA: What do you say to people, including leaders, who warn that allowing Ukraine to use long-range weapons to strike inside Russia could lead to a third world war?
Lammy: Well, we’re really clear that under the U.N. Charter and under Article 51, Ukraine has the right to defend itself, to defend itself against the horrendous attacks that are coming from Russia, and we will do all we can within international law and the rules of engagement to support Ukraine to defend itself.
VOA: You said that the war between Russia and Ukraine is likely to continue for at least another two years. Will Ukraine and the West will have enough to stand so long?
Lammy: Let’s be clear: The war could end tomorrow if Putin left. That’s how it ends: Leave Ukraine. But in the absence of Putin showing any desire to negotiate, we have to continue to stand with Ukraine, because the cost of not standing with Ukraine would actually be financially far greater.
You know, defense spending would rise substantially across all Western allies, and indeed, there will be a very vulnerable Baltic frontier in relation to Putin’s threats. So, that is why we stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes. And I’m quite sure that … this war will only be settled in the end politically, of course. That also gets into the security guarantees that Ukraine needs. And we’ve always believed in the U.K. that that path to Ukraine joining NATO is a very important dimension of that security guarantee.
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Harris promises tax breaks, investments for US manufacturers
PITTSBURGH — U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said on Wednesday she would offer tax credits to domestic manufacturers and invest in sectors that will “define the next century,” as she detailed her economic plan to boost the U.S. middle class.
Speaking at the Economic Club of Pittsburgh in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, the Democratic candidate in the November 5 presidential election said she would give tax credits to U.S. manufacturers for retooling or rebuilding existing factories and expanding “good union jobs,” and double the number of registered apprenticeships during her first term.
Harris also promised new investments in industries like bio-manufacturing, aerospace, artificial intelligence and clean energy.
Harris’ speech, which lasted just under 40 minutes, did not detail how these policies would work. She highlighted her upbringing by a single mother, in contrast with former President Donald Trump, the wealthy son of a New York real estate developer.
“I have pledged that building a strong middle class will be the defining goal of my presidency,” Harris said, adding that she sees the election as a moment of choice between two “fundamentally different” visions of the U.S. economy held by her and her Republican opponent, Trump.
The vice president and Trump are focusing their campaign messaging on the economy, which Reuters/Ipsos polling shows is voters’ top concern, as the election approaches.
The divide between rich and poor has grown in recent decades. The share of American households in the middle class, defined as those with two-thirds to double that of median household income, has dropped from around 62% in 1970 to 51% in 2023, Pew Research shows. These households’ income has also not grown as fast as those in the top tier.
Harris said she was committed to working with the private sector and entrepreneurs to help grow the middle class. She told the audience that she is “a capitalist” who believes in “free and fair markets,” and described her policies as pragmatic rather than rooted in ideology.
Harris in recent months has blunted Trump’s advantage on the economy, with a Reuters/Ipsos poll published on Tuesday showing the Republican candidate with a marginal advantage of 2 percentage points on “the economy, unemployment and jobs,” down from an 11-point lead in late July.
Trump discussed his economic plan in North Carolina on Wednesday and said Harris’ role as vice president gave her the chance now to improve the economic record of the Biden administration.
“Families are suffering now. So if she has a plan, she should stop grandstanding and do it,” he said. While Trump has proposed across-the-board tariffs on foreign-made goods — a proposal backed by a slim majority of voters — Harris is focusing on providing incentives for businesses to keep their operations in the U.S.
Boosting American manufacturing in industries such as semiconductors and bringing back jobs that have moved overseas in recent decades have also been major goals for Biden. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act — all passed in 2021 and 2022 — fund a range of subsidies and tax incentives that encourage companies to place projects in disadvantaged regions.
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Hurricane Helene is expected to hit Florida as a major storm, strike far inland
TALLAHASSEE, Florida — An enormous Hurricane Helene swamped parts of Mexico on Wednesday as it churned on a path forecasters said would take it to Florida as a potentially catastrophic storm with a surge that could swallow entire homes, a chilling warning that sent residents scrambling for higher ground, closed schools, and led to states of emergency throughout the Southeast.
Helene’s center was about 735 kilometers southwest of Tampa, Florida, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said, and the hurricane was expected to intensify and accelerate as it crosses the Gulf of Mexico toward the Big Bend area of Florida’s northwestern coast. Landfall was expected sometime Thursday evening, and the hurricane center said by then it could be a major Category 4 storm with winds above 208 kph.
Tropical storm conditions were expected in southern Florida on Wednesday night, spreading northward and encompassing the rest of Florida as well as Georgia and South Carolina through Thursday night. The storm was moving north at 19 kph with top sustained winds of 140 kph Wednesday evening.
Helene could create a life-threatening storm surge as high as 6.1 meters in parts of the Big Bend region, forecasters said. Its tropical storm-force winds extended as far as 555 kilometers from its center.
The fast-moving storm’s wind and rain also could penetrate far inland: The hurricane center posted hurricane warnings well into Georgia and tropical storm warnings as far north as North Carolina, and it warned that much of the Southeast could experience prolonged power outages, toppled trees and dangerous flooding.
“Just hope and pray that everybody’s safe,” said Connie Dillard, of Tallahassee, as she shopped at a grocery store with thinning shelves of water and bread before hitting the highway out of town. “That’s all you can do.”
One insurance firm, Gallagher Re, is expecting billions of dollars in damage in the U.S. Around 18,000 linemen from out of state staged in Florida, ready to help restore power. Airports in St. Petersburg, Tallahassee and Tampa were planning to close on Thursday, and 62 hospitals, nursing homes and assisted living facilities evacuated their residents Wednesday.
Georgia activated 250 National Guard soldiers for rapid deployment. State game wardens, foresters and Department of Correction teams will help provide swift-water rescues and other emergency responses.
State meteorologist Will Lanxton said tropical storm-force winds are expected throughout Georgia. Lanxton said metro Atlanta hasn’t seen sustained tropical storm winds since Hurricane Irma in 2017.
“I think we’re going to see some significant power outages, probably nothing like we’ve seen, because it’s 159 counties wide,” said James Stallings, director of the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency.
In Tallahassee, where stations started to run out of gas, 19-year-old Florida A&M student Kameron Benjamin filled sandbags with his roommate to protect their apartment before evacuating. Their school and Florida State shut down.
“This hurricane is heading straight to Tallahassee, so I really don’t know what to expect,” Benjamin said.
As Big Bend residents battened down their homes, many saw the ghost of 2018’s Hurricane Michael. That storm rapidly intensified and crashed ashore as a Category 5 that laid waste to Panama City and parts of the rural Panhandle.
On Wednesday, the National Weather Service posted an urgent warning for residents along Apalachee Bay: “There is a danger of catastrophic and unsurvivable storm surge for Apalachee Bay,” it said. “Storm surge may begin to arrive as early as late Wednesday night ahead of the winds. This forecast, if realized, is a nightmare surge scenario for Apalachee Bay. Please, please, please take any evacuation orders seriously!”
“People are taking heed and hightailing it out of there for higher ground,” said Kristin Korinko, a Tallahassee resident who serves as the commodore of the Shell Point Sailboard Club, on the Gulf Coast about 48 kilometers south of Tallahassee.
For toughened Floridians who are used to hurricanes, Robbie Berg, a national warning coordinator for the hurricane center, advised: “Please do not compare it to other storms you may have experienced over the past year or two.”
Helene is forecast to be one of the largest storms in breadth in years to hit the region, said Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach. He said since 1988, only three Gulf hurricanes were bigger than Helene’s predicted size: 2017’s Irma, 2005’s Wilma and 1995’s Opal.
Areas 160 kilometers north of the Georgia-Florida line can expect hurricane conditions. More than half of Georgia’s public school districts and several universities canceled classes.
And for Atlanta, which is under a tropical storm watch, Helene could be the worst strike on a major Southern inland city in 35 years, said University of Georgia meteorology professor Marshall Shepherd.
“It’s going to be a lot like Hugo in Charlotte,” Shepherd said of the 1989 storm that struck the North Carolina city, knocking out power to 85% of customers as winds gusted above hurricane force.
Landslides were possible in southern Appalachia, with catastrophic flooding predicted in the Carolinas and Georgia, where all three governors declared emergencies. Rainfall is possible as far away as Tennessee, Kentucky and Indiana.
Parts of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula were under hurricane warnings as Helene wound between it and the western tip of Cuba and into the Gulf of Mexico. The storm formed Tuesday in the Caribbean, and it flooded streets and toppled trees as it passed offshore and brushed the resort city of Cancun.
In Cuba, authorities moved cattle to higher ground and medical brigades went to communities often cut off by storms. The government preventively shut off power in some communities as waves as high as 5 meters slammed Cortes Bay. In the Cayman Islands, schools remained closed as residents pumped water from flooded homes.
In the U.S., federal authorities positioned generators, food and water, along with search-and-rescue and power restoration teams.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis warned that Helene could be as strong as a Category 4 hurricane when it makes landfall. The state was providing buses to evacuate people in the Big Bend region and taking them to shelters in Tallahassee.
But near Florida’s center, outside Orlando, Walt Disney World said its only closures Thursday would be the Typhoon Lagoon water park and its miniature golf courses.
Helene is the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted an above-average Atlantic hurricane season this year because of record-warm ocean temperatures.
In the Pacific, former Hurricane John reformed Wednesday as a tropical storm and was strengthening as it threatened areas of Mexico’s western coast. Officials posted hurricane warnings for southwestern Mexico.
John hit the country’s southern Pacific coast late Monday, killing at least two people, triggering mudslides, and damaging homes and trees. It grew into a Category 3 hurricane in a matter of hours and made landfall east of Acapulco. It reemerged over the ocean after weakening inland.
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Tunisia presidential candidate sentenced to six months in prison
tunis, tunisia — A Tunisian court sentenced presidential candidate Ayachi Zammel to six months in prison on Wednesday on charges of falsifying documents, his lawyer told Reuters, the second prison sentence against him in a week, days before the presidential election.
The verdict highlights rising tensions ahead of the election, amid opposition and civil society groups’ fears of a rigged election aimed at keeping President Kais Saied in power.
Zammel was sentenced to 20 months in prison last week on charges of falsifying popular endorsements.
“It is another unjust ruling and a farce that clearly aims to weaken him in the election race, but we will defend his right to the last minute,” Zammel attorney Abdessattar Massoudi told Reuters.
Zammel was among only three admitted candidates competing for the position of president alongside incumbent Saied and Zouhair Magzhaoui.
Political tensions in the North African country have risen ahead of the October 6 election since an electoral commission named by Saied disqualified three prominent candidates this month amid protests by opposition and civil society groups.
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Crises in Ukraine, Mideast and Sudan dominate UN General Assembly meetings
The war in Ukraine, Sudan’s humanitarian crisis, and an escalation between Israel and Hezbollah dominated the second day of the United Nations General Assembly meetings. VOA U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer reports.
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Hong Kong court to sentence 2 former editors found guilty of sedition in landmark case
HONG KONG — A Hong Kong court is due to sentence two former editors on Thursday who have been found guilty of sedition after publishing articles about the national security crackdown in the city under China — a ruling that has prompted an international outcry.
In a landmark case about media freedom, Chung Pui-kuen and Patrick Lam of the now-defunct Stand News media outlet were convicted last month — the first time that journalists have been found guilty of sedition since the handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China in 1997.
Chung, 55, and Lam, 36, had pleaded not guilty. Stand News, once Hong Kong’s leading online media outlet, was known for its hard-hitting reports about the city’s 2019 pro-democracy protests and later the national security crackdown.
Under Hong Kong law, they could be jailed for up to two years.
Liz Throssell, a spokesperson for the U.N. Human Rights Office, said the office was calling on Hong Kong authorities to review the court’s decision in line with obligations under international human rights law.
Twenty-three member states of the Media Freedom Coalition, including the U.S., U.K. and Canada, have similarly signed a statement, urging “Hong Kong and China authorities to abide by their international human rights commitments and legal obligations, and to respect freedom of the press and freedom of speech in Hong Kong.”
A spokesperson for Hong Kong’s government said in a statement that the government “strongly disapproved of and rejected the fact-twisting remarks and baseless smears” by the coalition. Hong Kong and Chinese officials have said the security clampdown —which has included tighter laws — has been needed to maintain stability after the pro-democracy protests.
During the 57-day trial, the prosecution argued that Stand News had acted as a political platform to promote “illegal” ideologies and incited readers’ hatred against the Chinese and Hong Kong governments.
Chung wrote in a letter to the court that some Hong Kongers “care about the freedom and dignity of everyone in the community and are willing to pay the price of losing their own freedom.”
“Recording and reporting their stories and thoughts truthfully is an unavoidable responsibility for journalists,” Chung wrote.
Lam wrote that “the only way for journalists to defend press freedom is to report.”
Stand News was raided by police in December 2021 and its assets were frozen, leading to its closure.
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Biden reaches out to Africa at UN General Assembly
new york — President Joe Biden is turning to Africa in the sunset of his presidency. In the space of one day, in front of world leaders, he elevated Sudan’s conflict to a priority, announced he would travel to Angola and endorsed adding two seats for African countries to the U.N. Security Council.
In his valedictory speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, Biden made several brief overtures to the African continent — reminding world leaders of the evils of South Africa’s apartheid regime, calling for an end to Sudan’s grueling conflict and citing urgency in combating an mpox outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
But these two short lines may have the most weight:
“The U.N. needs to adapt to bring in new voices and new perspectives,” he said. “That’s why we support reforming and expanding the membership of the U.N. Security Council.”
For years, African leaders have called for a seat at this table. But critics point out that Washington does not support a critical privilege enjoyed by the current permanent members of the Security Council: veto power.
Cameron Hudson, a senior fellow in the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says African nations are puzzled by Biden’s position.
“This is really, I think, an unfinished project of his, probably more words than reality,” he told VOA. The fact that Biden supported council membership for them but not veto power “has left Africans scratching their heads.”
John Fortier, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said it mattered that Biden used this platform to call for an end to Sudan’s raging 17-month conflict, but he doubted whether that call would provoke action.
Trying to elevate issue
“This is one of the conflicts that is serious but has not been getting world attention, and I think his pointing to it is really to elevate it in world consciousness but not yet to really know how we’re going to see an end to this,” Fortier said.
This conflict has displaced millions of people and sparked a near-famine. And so, analysts say, it matters that the American president is putting pressure on the warring parties.
“I think Biden genuinely wants to alleviate the humanitarian crisis and resolve the conflict in Sudan,” said Daniel Volman, director of the African Security Research Project, in an email to VOA. “But I think he is reluctant to press countries like Egypt and the [United Arab] Emirates that are arming the generals, because they are key allies during the Gaza war.
“Also, Biden is being driven by pressure from some members of Congress to take stronger and more effective action. I think he will take some limited action, like the new funds for humanitarian aid just announced, but I don’t think this will yield significant results.”
And finally, Biden’s off-camera announcement that he will visit Angola next month allows him to keep his promise to visit the continent. But again, Hudson wondered how this long-delayed visit would land.
“Coming, as it does, at the very tail end of his administration, without much to, I think, really celebrate in terms of his involvement in Africa, I think the visit will ring rather hollow,” Hudson said.
Biden has four months left in his presidency.
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A decade after Uyghur scholar’s life sentencing, calls for action grow
washington — This week marks 10 years since Ilham Tohti, a 54-year-old Uyghur economist and human rights advocate, was sentenced to life in prison by Chinese authorities.
For some, like Enver Can, a 75-year-old German-based Uyghur rights activist who leads an organization advocating for Tohti’s release, the fight for his release continues to this day.
“South Africa had Nelson Mandela, India had Mahatma Gandhi, and we Uyghurs have Ilham Tohti,” Can tells VOA.
Tohti, a former professor at Minzu University in Beijing, was sentenced to life imprisonment in September 2014 on charges of separatism. He is widely recognized for promoting dialogue between Uyghurs and Han Chinese. In 2019, he was awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought by the European Parliament.
Like Tohti, Can was born in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region where the Uyghur remains imprisoned. At the age of 12, Can fled Xinjiang with his family. In the 1970s, he moved to Germany and worked as a journalist for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty until the early 1990s.
In 2016, two years after Tohti’s life sentence, Can founded the “Ilham Tohti Initiative” to campaign for his release. Earlier this month, Can was particularly busy meeting European parliamentarians and other groups to push for Tohti’s release from Chinese detention.
“To my knowledge, Ilham Tohti is one of the very few Uyghurs who dared to speak up for Uyghur rights while living under the Chinese regime. He articulated his demands eloquently and clearly, framing them within both international norms and Chinese law,” Can told VOA in a phone interview.
EU pressure continues
In a statement released on Monday, the European Union reiterated its call for the “immediate and unconditional release” of Ilham Tohti and other human rights defenders, lawyers, and intellectuals “arbitrarily detained” in China.
“The imprisonment of Ilham Tohti is representative of the deeply worrying human rights situation in Xinjiang,” the EU said, citing reports from U.N. bodies and the 2022 assessment by the U.N. Human Rights Office.
Since Tohti’s arrest in 2014, concerns about human rights abuses in Xinjiang have worsened with significant attention drawn to the issue around the beginning of 2017, when reports of mass detentions of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in the region started to emerge.
Advocacy organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have been vocal about the situation in Xinjiang, with notable reports and statements escalating around 2018.
In particular, the U.N. Human Rights Office has issued assessments and reports highlighting the situation, including a U.N. rights report released in August 2022 that detailed human rights violations in Xinjiang. China’s response has consistently been to deny these allegations, labeling them as part of a Western agenda to undermine its sovereignty and stability in the region.
Can told VOA that the time for mere statements is over.
“Just calling for Ilham Tohti’s release is not enough,” he said. “There have been countless petitions and open letters over the past decade. We need concrete actions.”
Can urged tougher measures against China, including sanctions on officials, visa restrictions, and re-negotiating trade terms.
China’s defense
In an email to VOA, Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, defended the sentencing of Ilham Tohti, asserting that he is guilty of “splitting the country” and that the evidence against him is “conclusive.”
“As a teacher, Ilham Tohti once publicly called terrorist extremists ‘heroes’, incited, lured and coerced some people to go abroad to participate in the activities of the ‘East Turkestan’ separatist forces, and planned, organized and carried out a series of criminal activities to split the country,” Liu said.
He insisted that China’s judicial system acted strictly in accordance with Chinese law and that “China’s internal affairs and judicial sovereignty must not be interfered with.”
Jewher Ilham, the daughter of Ilham Tohti and a human rights activist in the U.S., disputed the Chinese government’s portrayal of her father’s case, asserting that his imprisonment resulted from his peaceful advocacy for marginalized Uyghurs rather than any legal violations.
“A normal and healthy society allows for more than one voice or opinion,” Ilham told VOA. “The Chinese government did not tolerate different opinions 10 years ago, and it is clear they still do not.”
Family’s heartbreak
Jewher Ilham last saw her father on February 2, 2013, in a Beijing airport interrogation room, where they shared their final goodbye. During that encounter, Ilham urged her to leave China for the U.S., despite the presence of Chinese authorities.
“Look at them, look at how they treat you and me. Do you still want to stay in this country? I would rather you sweep the streets in America than be treated like this here,” Ilham recalled her father’s words.
At the time, Ilham Tohti was prevented from departing for a year-long visiting scholar position at Indiana University, and those parting words continue to resonate with his daughter to this day.
After 11 months of house arrest, Chinese authorities arrested Tohti on January 15, 2014, while Jewher was in the United States.
“On January 15, 2014, over 20 police officers came to arrest my father. My youngest brother was three-and-a-half years old, and the oldest was seven. They were napping when the police broke in and aggressively took him away,” Ilham told VOA in a phone interview. She kept in touch with her family and friends until early 2017, and that’s how she learned what had happened.
“My stepmother wasn’t home because she was working away. My grandmother found out about my father’s arrest later, and she became very sick. I recently heard that my grandmother passed away two years ago,” she said.
Eight months later, on September 23, 2014, Chinese authorities sentenced Tohti to life imprisonment on alleged charges of “splitting the country.”
“September 23 is a devastating date for my family. My father Ilham Tohti was sentenced to life on this date 10 years ago,” Jewher told VOA. “Just like my father never stopped advocating for the voiceless, I will not stop, no matter what.”
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Mice killing off rare seabirds on remote South African island
johannesburg — South Africa is planning a massive mouse eradication project on a sub-Antarctic island to try to stop the invasive species from wiping out the precious seabirds that nest there.
Marion Island, in the southern Indian Ocean almost 2,000 kilometers from Cape Town, is a remote and windswept South African territory that’s home to extensive bird life, including the wandering albatross.
But those birds face an unusual threat: predatory mice that have been feasting on their chicks. The mice are an accident of history, but their population has been increased by climate change.
“The mice were introduced accidentally in the early 1800s,” said Anton Wolfaardt, a conservationist who is leading the program to eradicate the mice. “They came ashore – they were essentially stowaways on the vessels of the early seal hunters that visited the island.”
Huge jump in population
As the island has grown warmer and drier because of climate change, it has also grown more favorable for the mice. Now, by the end of the summer, the mouse population will have increased by 500 percent, he said.
It was only fairly recently that researchers on Marion observed the mice preying on chicks, but the phenomenon has increased.
The rodents are such a threat now, Wolfaardt said, “that experts predict that 19 of the 29 bird species on Marion Island face local extinction in the presence of mice.”
Elsa van Ginkel, a researcher who was employed by the University of Pretoria to collect data on the island last year, said the island region was “truly out of this world. Walking among wandering albatross chicks every day and watching them grow into fledglings – wow, just wow, it’s an absolute privilege.”
But they are slowly being wiped out.
“These fledglings have no means of defending themselves from a mouse that actually starts eating it alive,” van Ginkel said. “It’s quite horrific.”
So Birdlife South Africa, a nongovernmental organization, and South Africa’s forest, fisheries and environment department are planning a major intervention to try to save the seabirds and restore the island to its natural state.
Wolfaardt is heading the initiative, which is still seeking funding and is scheduled to take place in a few years.
“Very simply, the operation involves broadcasting a specialized rodenticide bait, from bait spreader buckets that are slung beneath helicopters that are guided by GPS technology,” he said.
The pellets of rodent poison won’t negatively affect the rest of the flora and fauna on the island, experts say.
A similar project has been undertaken before. In the 1940s, feral cats were introduced to Marion Island to try to control the mice, but then the felines started preying on the seabirds.
The cats were successfully eradicated in the early 1990s, although that, of course, left the mice to flourish.
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Norway arrests Cameroonian ‘separatist leader’ for crimes against humanity
Oslo, Norway — Norwegian police on Wednesday said they had arrested a man on suspicion of incitement to commit crimes against humanity in Cameroon, where a radio station identified him as “separatist leader” Lucas Cho Ayaba.
The Kripos police unit that deals with war crimes and crimes against humanity said in a statement that it had arrested “a man in his 50s” on Tuesday, but did not name him.
“Norwegian police have arrested the separatist leader Lucas Cho Ayaba. He is implicated in atrocities committed in the northwest and southwest,” said CRTV radio station.
Two sources had earlier told AFP that Ayaba, 52, was the man arrested.
Cameroon has been gripped since 2016 by a bloody conflict in its two anglophone regions, in the northwest and southwest, between separatists and state forces.
The conflict was sparked by the brutal suppression of peaceful protests in the anglophone regions by long-time President Paul Biya.
“Kripos considers that the suspect is playing a central role in the ongoing armed conflict in Cameroon,” the Norwegian police statement said.
The anglophone community, which has long complained of marginalization and discrimination, makes up about 20% of the largely francophone central African country.
Ayaba is the leader of the Ambazonia Defense Forces, one of the main armed groups operating in the anglophone areas.
International NGOs accuse both the armed separatists and government forces of abuses.
More than 6,000 people have been killed and at least a million displaced during the conflict, the International Crisis Group has said.
A lawyer representing victims of the conflict filed a complaint in the United States against Ayaba and the Norwegian state.
In February, the lawyer, Emmanuel Nsahlai, also petitioned the International Criminal Court to launch an investigation.
Ayaba was a former student union activist in the 1990s and holds German nationality.
It was the first time that Norway had arrested someone on suspicion of inciting crimes against humanity.
If convicted, he could face 30 years in prison.
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Zoo in Finland with financial woes to return giant pandas to China
HELSINKI — A zoo in Finland has agreed with Chinese authorities to return two loaned giant pandas to China more than eight years ahead of schedule because they have become too expensive for the facility to maintain as the number of visitors has declined.
The private Ahtari Zoo in central Finland some 330 kilometers north of Helsinki said Wednesday on its Facebook page that the female panda Lumi, Finnish for “snow,” and the male panda Pyry, meaning “snowfall,” will return “prematurely” to China later this year.
The panda pair was China’s gift to mark the Nordic nation’s 100 years of independence in 2017, and they were supposed to be on loan until 2033.
But since then, the zoo has experienced several challenges, including a decline in visitors due to the 2020 coronavirus pandemic and Russia’s war against Ukraine, as well as an increase in inflation and interest rates, the facility said in a statement.
The panda deal between Helsinki and Beijing, a 15-year loan agreement, had been finalized in April 2017 when Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Finland for talks with then-Finnish President Sauli Niinisto. The pandas arrived in Finland in January 2018.
The Ahtari Zoo, which specializes in typical northern European animals such as bears, lynxes and wolverines, built a special annex at a cost of about $9 million in hopes of luring more tourists to the remote nature reserve.
The upkeep of Lumi and Pyry, including a preservation fee to China, cost the zoo $1.7 million annually. The bamboo that giant pandas eat was flown in from the Netherlands.
The Chinese Embassy in Helsinki noted to Finnish media that Beijing had tried to help Ahtari solve its financial difficulties by urging Chinese companies operating in Finland to make donations to the zoo and supporting its debt arrangements.
However, declining visitor numbers combined with drastic changes in the economic environment proved too high a burden for the smallish Finnish zoo. The panda pair will enter a monthlong quarantine in late October before being shipped back to China.
Finland, a country of 5.6 million people, was among the first Western nations to establish political ties with China, doing so in 1950. China has presented giant pandas to countries as a sign of goodwill and closer political ties, and Finland was the first Nordic nation to receive them.
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Pope expels bishop, 9 others from Peru movement over ‘sadistic’ abuses
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis took the unusual decision Wednesday to expel 10 people — a bishop, priests and laypeople — from a troubled Catholic movement in Peru after a Vatican investigation uncovered “sadistic” abuses of power, authority and spirituality.
The move against the leadership of the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, or Sodalitium of Christian Life, followed Francis’ decision last month to expel the group’s founder, Luis Figari, after he was found to have sodomized his recruits.
The decision was announced by the Peruvian Bishops Conference, which posted a statement from the Vatican embassy on its website.
The statement was astonishing because it listed the abuses uncovered by the Vatican investigation that have rarely been punished canonically with such measures, and the people responsible. According to the statement, the Vatican investigators uncovered physical abuses “including with sadism and violence,” sect-like abuses of conscience, spiritual abuse, abuses of authority, economic abuses in administering church money and the “abuse in the exercise of the apostolate of journalism.”
The latter was presumably aimed at a Sodalitium-linked journalist who has attacked critics of the movement on social media.
Figari founded the movement in 1971 as a lay community to recruit “soldiers for God,” one of several Catholic societies born as a conservative reaction to the left-leaning liberation theology movement that swept through Latin America, starting in the 1960s. At its height, the group counted about 20,000 members across South America and the United States. It was enormously influential in Peru.
Victims of Figari’s abuses complained to the Lima archdiocese in 2011, although other claims against him reportedly date to 2000. But neither the local church nor the Holy See took concrete action until one of the victims, Pedro Salinas, wrote a book along with journalist Paola Ugaz detailing the twisted practices of the Sodalitium in 2015, entitled “Half Monks, Half Soldiers.”
An outside investigation ordered by Sodalitium determined that Figari was “narcissistic, paranoid, demeaning, vulgar, vindictive, manipulative, racist, sexist, elitist and obsessed with sexual issues and the sexual orientation” of Sodalitium’s members.
The investigation, published in 2017, found that Figari sodomized his recruits and forced them to fondle him and one another. He liked to watch them “experience pain, discomfort and fear” and humiliated them in front of others to enhance his control over them, the report found.
Still, the Holy See declined to expel Figari from the movement in 2017 and merely ordered him to live apart from the Sodalitium community in Rome and cease all contact with it. The Vatican was seemingly tied in knots by canon law that did not foresee such punishments for founders of religious communities who weren’t priests.
But according to the findings of the latest Vatican investigation, the abuses went beyond Figari and included harassing and hacking the communications of their victims all the while covering up crimes committed as part of their official duties.
The highest-ranking person ordered expelled was Archbishop Jose Antonio Eguren, whom Francis already forced to resign as bishop of Piura in April over his record, after he sued Salinas and Ugaz for their reporting.
The Vatican, in the statement, said the Peruvian bishops join Pope Francis in “seeking the forgiveness of the victims” while calling on the troubled movement to initiate a journey of justice and reparation.
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Campaigns seek to mobilize voters in swing state of Georgia
Early voting for the U.S. presidential election in the state of Georgia begins October 15. Polls show a close contest there between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh has more from Atlanta, Georgia.
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CrowdStrike executive apologizes to Congress for July global tech outage
WASHINGTON — An executive at cybersecurity company CrowdStrike apologized in testimony to Congress for sparking a global technology outage over the summer.
“We let our customers down,” said Adam Meyers, who leads CrowdStrike’s threat intelligence division, in a hearing before a U.S. House cybersecurity subcommittee Tuesday.
Austin, Texas-based CrowdStrike has blamed a bug in an update that allowed its cybersecurity systems to push bad data out to millions of customer computers, setting off a global tech outage in July that grounded flights, took TV broadcasts off air and disrupted banks, hospitals and retailers.
“Everywhere Americans turned, basic societal functions were unavailable,” House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green said. “We cannot allow a mistake of this magnitude to happen again.”
The Tennessee Republican likened the impact of the outage to an attack “we would expect to be carefully executed by a malicious and sophisticated nation-state actor.”
“We’re deeply sorry and we are determined to prevent this from ever happening again,” Meyers told lawmakers while laying out the technical missteps that led to the outage of about 8.5 million computers running Microsoft’s Windows operating system.
Meyers said he wanted to “underscore that this was not a cyberattack” but was, instead, caused by a faulty “rapid-response content update” focused on addressing new threats. The company has since bolstered its content update procedures, he said.
The company still faces a number of lawsuits from people and businesses that were caught up in July’s mass outage.
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Mpox cases continue to rise in Africa
Nairobi — As cases of mpox rise across the African continent, public health experts and world leaders are sounding the alarm, saying more needs to be done to contain the viral outbreak.
Fifteen countries in Africa are assessed as having active outbreaks, with Morocco being the latest to report a case.
Samuel Boland, mpox incident manager for the World Health Organization regional office for Africa, said that while the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi account for almost 90 percent of confirmed cases, more instances are popping up in other countries.
“DRC, Burundi [are] especially affected but also Cameroon, Central African Republic, Nigeria, Cote D’Ivoire, Republic of Congo, Liberia, Uganda, Kenya, Gabon, Rwanda, South Africa and Guinea,” he told VOA, speaking from Brazzaville in the Republic of Congo.
The WHO says two distinct clades, or strains, have been identified. Clade I was formerly known as the Congo Basin clade, and Clade II was formerly West African clade.
Previously known as monkeypox, the viral disease can spread through close contact between people, according to the World Health Organization, and occasionally via objects and areas touched by a person with mpox.
Signs and symptoms include fever, rash, and swollen lymph nodes.
Boland said there have been 6,580 confirmed cases so far this year, but there’s a bigger number of suspected cases. Suspected cases are clinically compatible with mpox but may not have been tested due to various limitations in several countries. That number has climbed to nearly 32,000.
“Now amongst that large number of suspected cases, 844 people have died. But when focusing on the confirmed cases this year as in from the first of January, 32 people have, unfortunately, passed away,” Boland said.
In a virtual briefing last week, Jean Kaseya, director-general of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said mpox is not under control in Africa. He said that while vaccine donations are trickling in, the amount is insufficient to contain the outbreak.
“Today, we have almost around 4 million commitments of doses, but we say we need more,” Kaseya said.
U.S. President Joe Biden, in an address to world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 24, 2024, highlighted the need to “move quickly” to confront the mpox outbreak in Africa.
“We’re prepared to commit $500 million to help African countries prevent and respond to mpox and to donate 1 million doses of mpox vaccine now,” he said.
No specific date was given as to when the vaccines will arrive in Africa, but Biden said the investments will be delivered bilaterally, through existing relationships with partner countries, as well as through multilateral institutions.
In addition to vaccines, Boland said this mpox outbreak requires interventions across the full spectrum of the public health sector. He said the world needs to scale up and make sure it can deliver in several areas.
“Things like surveillance, which will include case investigation and contact tracing — both going out into communities and looking for cases,” he said. “Also engaging and encouraging communities to report cases when people become unwell.”
He said this approach includes infection prevention and control, case management and vaccination.
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China ‘firmly opposes’ proposed ban on connected vehicles
Washington — On Wednesday, China’s commerce ministry said it “firmly opposes” the United States’ proposed ban on the sale of connected vehicles that use Chinese or Russian software and hardware technology.
Most new vehicles are considered to be “connected” because they can share data with other vehicles and infrastructure with the help of onboard software, hardware and internet access.
The U.S. warns that data collected by Chinese or Russian software in connected and autonomous vehicles could pose a threat to national security.
A spokesperson from China’s Ministry of Commerce said the proposed U.S. ban has no “factual basis, violates the principles of market economy and fair competition, and is a typical protectionist act.”
“China urges the United States to stop its wrong practice of generalizing national security, immediately revoke the relevant restrictions, and stop its unreasonable suppression of Chinese companies,” according to a ministry statement.
The proposed rule is the latest example of the deteriorating relationship between Washington and Beijing.
In February, the Biden Administration said it would probe Chinese cars that pose a risk to national security. The U.S. Department of Commerce said it opened the probe because vehicles “collect large amounts of sensitive data on their drivers and passengers (and) regularly use their cameras and sensors to record detailed information on U.S. infrastructure.”
The Biden Administration also implemented a 100% tariff on Chinese-made EVs earlier this month, citing unfair business practices and the potential for Chinese EVs to flood international markets.
The new proposed prohibition on connected vehicles applies both to the software and hardware that link vehicles to the outside world. It did not specify which manufacturers are likely to be impacted by the rule, which will be finalized after a 30-day period for public comment.
In a press release Tuesday, the Coalition for a Prosperous America, or CPA, voiced its support for the proposed ban.
“For years, the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] has aggressively pursued global dominance in the automotive industry building tremendous overcapacity to dominate their home market and to displace auto manufacturing worldwide,” said the CEO of CPA, Michael Stumo.
“The Commerce Department’s proposed ban on this technology is an important measure to protect our automotive sector and secure Americans’ sensitive information,” he added.
China’s commerce ministry also condemned the U.S. on Wednesday for its newly proposed ban and tariffs implemented earlier this month, saying Washington placed “high tariffs on Chinese cars, restricted participation in government procurement, and introduced discriminatory subsidy policies.”
“Now, on the grounds of so-called national security, it [Washington] has slandered Chinese connected car software, hardware and complete vehicles as ‘unsafe’ and restricted their use in the United States,” a ministry statement said.
Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse.
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