With violent gangs controlling most of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, calls for a formal U.N. peacekeeping mission are growing. The country’s prime minister says the current international effort lacks resources, manpower and the capability to face the gangs. Celia Mendoza reports.
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Month: September 2024
Groups call to protect women, children working in Africa’s mines
nairobi, kenya — As the global race to acquire economically vital minerals unfolds, those working in Africa’s mining sector are calling for the protection of women and children laborers who keep it running.
Women in Mining Africa, an advocacy group that aims to mitigate harsh working conditions in rural communities, organized a virtual meeting this week with organizations and experts. They are working to promote gender equity and social justice in the mining sector as demand for African resources continues.
“We seek to empower women in mining by advocating for equal access to resources, opportunities, and leadership roles across the continent,” said Comfort Asokoro Ogaji founded Women in Mining Africa, which works in 36 African countries.
“We also work to promote responsible mining and advocate for sustainable, ethical, and socially inclusive mining practices,” Ogaji said. “Child protection in mining communities is at the core of our mission and also capacity building and collaboration across the continent.”
Challenges women face in industry
The World Bank says women represent 30% of the industry known as Artisanal and Small-scale Mining, or ASM. However, women are often barred from entering the mines and relegated to lower-paying jobs.
According to the International Institute for Sustainable Development, women’s contributions are overshadowed by the historically dominant role of men, hindering women’s meaningful participation and resulting in unequal pay.
Women, unlike their male counterparts, also face gender inequality, violence and harassment.
Jose Diemel works as a senior adviser at Levin Sources, a consulting firm that drives the transition to just and sustainable minerals value chains. Diemal has worked with artisanal and small-scale miners in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She said the management of mining fields has improved over the years.
“I’ve seen the mentality change towards artisanal mining, and we slowly started to talk about artisanal management plans around the possibility of peaceful coexistence,” said Diemel. “And now we’re working at 11 sources, we very regularly receive a request from large-scale mining companies, industrial mining companies, to help them set up ASM management plans that range from peaceful coexistence to collaboration.”
Mining experts say miners are being empowered, receiving different ways to sustain their livelihood and undergoing safety training.
The small-scale miners also have been able to obtain loans to purchase equipment that ease their work, increase their product, and their income.
Call to get more women into sector
Thokozile Budaza advocates for women’s rights in South Africa, the largest platinum and manganese producer in the world. She said the voices of the resource owners and those working on them must be included in decision-making.
“African leaders can better anticipate the ripple effects of their policies and decisions and the lack of decisions ensuring that the benefits of mining are equitably distributed and the voices of the stakeholders, especially those marginalized, are heard and respected while dealing with investors coming into Africa to source critical materials for development,” said Budaza.
A World Bank report released at the 2024 Mining Indaba Conference urges implementation of gender-focused legislation to improve mining rules and regulations and promote greater participation of women in the sector.
The report also calls for changing property laws and land tenure agreements that restrict women’s ability to own land and access mineral resources.
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US Congress passes security pact with Pacific Island allies
Washington — Buried in the hundreds of pages of the continuing resolution passed Wednesday by U.S. lawmakers to prevent a government shutdown are Washington’s final steps to implement a 20-year security pact with Pacific Island allies, cementing a U.S. commitment to the region in the face of an increasingly assertive China.
The Compacts of Free Association, or COFA, provide economic support for Palau, the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia. In exchange, the nations will allow the U.S. military exclusive access to their land, water and airspace and the right to deny Beijing access to their ports and expansive territorial waters.
But six months after the compacts were passed, extending $7 billion in economic aid over 20 years to the three Pacific Island nations, key provisions still languished. Palau’s access to postal service, aviation security, national weather service and federal banking insurance was set to run out on September 30. The temporary spending package finalized Wednesday contained an extension of those services, Representative Ed Case, a Democrat, said in a statement to VOA.
In doing so, said Case, “The U.S. restates its commitment to the people of Palau as a full partner in a shared future and to assisting Palau in resisting the dependence upon and coercion by the PRC that has marked the PRC’s efforts to dominate the countries of the Pacific.” PRC is an abbreviation for the People’s Republic of China.
“Reassuring the people of Palau that they [the services] will continue is an important message from the people of the United States to the people of Palau,” Palauan President Surangel Whipps Jr. said in an interview with VOA on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.
Cleo Paskal, a nonresident senior fellow for the Indo-Pacific at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, argues that the extension of these services also sends a message to Beijing. Palau is just one of three remaining Pacific Island nations who still recognize Taiwan diplomatically over Beijing.
Paskal said that a gap in these basic services could have left Whipps — who is running for reelection in November — vulnerable to “those wanting to undermine the relationship with the U.S., possibly feeding into the narrative that the U.S. isn’t helping” its Pacific partners.
But U.S. lawmakers of both parties coalesced around closing the loophole for Palau, said Whipps.
The agreement for Palau “represents a significant milestone in the process of affirming our countries’ partnership for another 20 years,” U.S. Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, a Democrat, said in a statement to VOA. “This relationship is vital to the security and stability” of the U.S. “as we work to promote democracy and our shared values throughout the Pacific.”
U.S. Representative Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen, a Republican who represents the U.S. territory of American Samoa, led a hearing earlier this month that exposed gaps in COFA implementation, including the Palau federal services expiration.
“It’s extremely important to the entirety of the Pacific region for our allies, and any nation at all, to see the U.S. following through with its commitments to our closest friends in the region,” Coleman Radewagen said in a statement to VOA.
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Hong Kong court jails former editor, releases another on health grounds
HONG KONG — A Hong Kong court on Thursday night sentenced a former editor to jail for 21 months and immediately released another after both had earlier been found guilty of conspiring to publish seditious articles.
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 journalists have been found guilty of sedition since the handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China in 1997.
Chung was sentenced to 21 months while Lam was given a sentence that allowed him to be released immediately on health grounds.
District Court Judge Kwok Wai-kin noted evidence from Lam’s lawyer on Thursday that he had serious autoimmune and advanced kidney disease and that prison could further endanger him.
Chung smiled as the judge said his colleague Lam would be released, and Lam’s wife wept.
Chung would have to serve around 10 months in jail given earlier remand custody.
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 the colonial-era sedition law, the maximum sentencing is two years imprisonment and a fine of HKD5,000 ($642).
Western diplomats that included representatives from the United States, the European Union, France, Britain, Canada and Ireland witnessed the sentencing.
Liz Throssell, a spokesperson for the United Nations Human Rights Office, said earlier that 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 was needed to maintain stability after the pro-democracy protests.
Judge Kwok wrote in a verdict in August that “the political ideology of Stand News was localism” and “the line it took was to support and promote Hong Kong local autonomy.”
Hong Kong’s mostly youthful localist movement emerged in the 2010s amid political tensions with Beijing, emphasizing local identity and culture, as well as greater autonomy. Some supporters called for Hong Kong independence.
“I believe that during the offense period, the … defendants did not carry out real media work but participated in the so-called struggle at that time,” the judge said on Thursday.
In August, Chung wrote in a mitigation 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.”
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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Push for renewable energy sparks new environmental worries
According to the International Energy Agency, the world now invests almost twice as much in clean energy as it does in fossil fuels. But with that shift comes environmental risks related to the mining of critical minerals. VOA’s Jessica Stone looks at how nations are navigating the environmental challenges of creating a renewable future.
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US, Vietnamese leaders meet, seek deeper ties
Washington — U.S. President Joe Biden says Washington is committed to a strong, prosperous, resilient, and independent Vietnam and discussed a broad range of ways the two countries can cooperate during a meeting with this Vietnamese counterpart, To Lam.
Since coming to office in May, Vietnam’s new president has been actively reaching out, meeting with the leaders of China and Russia. Washington is seeking to counter those advances and strengthen ties with Hanoi as well.
Lam, who is also head of the ruling Communist Party, met with Biden on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York Wednesday. According to a White House statement, the two talked about “building secure and resilient semiconductor supply chains” and strengthening their tech relationship as well as progress in cybersecurity cooperation and Vietnam’s efforts to increase its digital connectivity.
Vietnam is looking to the United States and China to triple its number of subsea cables by 2030. Biden and Lam also focused on ways the two could deepen a comprehensive strategic partnership they entered last year.
Biden said Washington wants to cooperate with Vietnam to uphold a free and open Indo-Pacific and discussed the importance of maintaining peace and stability — especially in the South China Sea, according to the White House statement.
During the meeting, which lasted a little more than an hour, Lam assured Biden that the United States is “a partner of strategic importance,” while Biden told Lam that Vietnam is “a top partner of the U.S. in the region,” Vietnam News Agency reported.
Analysts say that while the meeting did not take place in the White House, it did highlight the high level of trust between Hanoi and Washington and the growing importance of bilateral ties.
Nguyen Hong Hai, a lecturer of international relations at Hanoi-based VinUni, told VOA in an email that the way Washington and Hanoi are talking about one another and the high importance they attach to bilateral relations is significant. It is also a sign of deepening trust, Hai added.
“Vietnam falls short of a U.S. ally. But as a partner, it is a top of its kind,” Hai said.
Hai said that Hanoi fits perfectly into Washington’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy since it supports the rules-based order and is playing an increasingly bigger role in the U.S.-led global supply chain. On the other hand, Hanoi needs Washington as a regional security guarantor while its goal of becoming a developed economy with high income by 2045 is contingent on access to the U.S. market as well as its capital and technology.
Ha Hoang Hop, chair of the Hanoi-based Think Tank Viet Know, said it was significant that both leaders reaffirmed the importance of their comprehensive strategic partnership. So, too, was Biden’s commitment to support Vietnam’s tech-driven growth and encouragement for Hanoi to play an active role in regional security.
“The momentum of U.S.-Vietnam comprehensive strategic partnership will be maintained far beyond Biden’s and To Lam’s presidencies no matter who will succeed Biden next year or who will take the helm of the Vietnamese Communist Party in 2026,” Hop told VOA in an email.
The two countries recently marked the first anniversary of the comprehensive strategic partnership Biden signed with Nguyen Phu Trong, Lam’s predecessor, during a visit to Hanoi last year.
At that time, Lam was the country’s security czar. He became president following the forced resignation of President Vo Van Thuong in March and replaced Nguyen Phu Trong as party chief after Trong unexpectedly died in late July.
Lam’s first foreign trip after becoming Vietnam’s top leader took him to Beijing in August, when he and Chinese President Xi Jinping reaffirmed their commitment to bilateral ties. He also hosted Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Hanoi in late June.
Although readouts of Wednesday’s meeting gave no indication that China was discussed, Beijing was watching the meeting closely, Hai said.
China became Vietnam’s first comprehensive strategic partner in 2008, and the two countries agreed late last year to build what they call a “community of shared future” following the upgrade in U.S.-Vietnam ties.
“Any progress in U.S.-Vietnam ties is unwelcome in Beijing. However, Bejing should understand that Hanoi’s deepening ties with the U.S. is not targeted at any country but just serves its own security,” Hai said.
Think Tank Viet Know’s Ha Hoang Hop said that Beijing is “fully aware of Hanoi’s strategic position in the Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy” and is trying to capitalize on this to serve its interests.
“For its part, Hanoi is proactively navigating between the two superpowers,” he said.
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Cryptocurrency exchange network accused of helping Russia hit with sanctions
WASHINGTON — A network of people and virtual currency exchanges associated with harboring Russian cybercrime were hit with sanctions on Thursday, in a government-wide crackdown on cybercrime that could assist Russia ahead of President Joe Biden’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
U.S. Treasury sanctioned alleged Russian hacker Sergey Ivanov and Cryptex — a St. Vincent and Grenadines registered virtual currency exchange operating in Russia. Virtual currency exchanges allow people and businesses to trade cryptocurrencies for other assets, such as conventional dollars or other digital currencies.
Treasury alleges that Ivanov has laundered hundreds of millions of dollars worth of virtual currency for cyber criminals and darknet marketplace vendors for the last 20 years, including for Timur Shakhmametov, who allegedly created an online marketplace for stolen credit card data and compromised IDs called Joker’s Stash. Ivanov laundered the proceeds from Joker’s Stash, Treasury says.
The State Department is offering a $10 million reward for information that would lead to the arrest and possible conviction of the two men, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Virginia has unsealed an indictment against them.
Biden said in a statement announcing the sanctions Thursday that the U.S. “will continue to raise the costs on Russia for its war in Ukraine and to deprive the Russian defense industrial base of resources.”
He meets with Zelenskyy Thursday to announce a surge in security assistance for Ukraine and other actions meant to assist the war-torn country as Russia continues to invade.
State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller said, “We will continue to use all our tools and authorities to deter and expose these money laundering networks and impose cost on the cyber criminals and support networks. We reiterate our call that Russia must take concrete steps to prevent cyber criminals from freely operating in its jurisdiction.”
U.S officials have taken several actions against Russian cybercriminals since the start of the invasion in February 2022.
Earlier this year, Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned 13 firms — five of which are owned by an already sanctioned person — and two people who have all either helped build or operate blockchain-based services for, or enabled virtual currency payments in, the Russian financial sector, “thus enabling potential sanctions evasion,” according to U.S. Treasury.
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US gun owners’ views unchanged by Trump assassination attempts
U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump has been the target of two assassination attempts during this campaign. VOA spoke with some gun owners, who say the shootings have not changed their views on gun laws. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias has our story. Some VOA footage by Genia Dulot.
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Hearing on Trump assassination attempts suggests failure was with Secret Service, not local police
WASHINGTON — Members of a bipartisan House panel investigating the Trump assassination attempts suggested during its first hearing Thursday that the failures that led to a gunman being able to open fire on former President Donald Trump were with the U.S. Secret Service, not local police.
In his opening statement, the Republican co-chair of the committee, Rep. Mike Kelly from Pennsylvania, blamed a cascade of failures by the Secret Service that allowed the gunman, Thomas Michael Crooks, to gain access to the roof of a nearby building and open fire on Trump. Trump was wounded and a man attending the rally with his family was killed.
“In the days leading up to the rally, it was not a single mistake that allowed Crooks to outmaneuver one of our country’s most elite group of security professionals. There were security failures on multiple fronts,” said Kelly.
The panel — composed of seven Republicans and six Democrats — has spent the last two months analyzing the security failures that allowed a gunman to scale a roof and open fire at the former president during a July 13 campaign rally in Pennsylvania. Now they are also investigating this month’s Secret Service arrest of a man with a rifle on Trump’s Florida golf course who sought to assassinate the Republican presidential nominee.
The suspect in the second assassination attempt, Ryan Wesley Routh, was allegedly aiming a rifle through the shrubbery surrounding Trump’s West Palm Beach golf course when he was detected by a Secret Service agent. The agent opened fire and Routh fled before being apprehended by local authorities.
The hearing Thursday is the first time the task force presents its findings to the public after spending weeks conducting nearly two dozen interviews with law enforcement and receiving more than 2,800 pages of documents from the Secret Service. It focuses on the use of local law enforcement by the Secret Service, featuring testimony from Pennsylvania and Butler County police officials.
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Oxfam: ‘Oligarchy’ of super-rich undermining cooperation to tackle poverty, climate change
London — As world leaders gather for the annual United Nations General Assembly in New York this week, the charity Oxfam says they are being undermined by what it calls a “global oligarchy” of the super-rich who exert considerable control over the global economy – and who it blames for exacerbating problems like extreme inequality and climate change.
“Today, the world’s richest 1% own more wealth than 95% of humanity. The immense concentration of wealth, driven significantly by increased monopolistic corporate power, has allowed large corporations and the ultrarich who exercise control over them to use their vast resources to shape global rules in their favor, often at the expense of everyone else,” the Oxfam report says.
The charity says international cooperation on issues like climate change and poverty is failing due to extreme economic inequality.
“The wealth of the world’s five richest men has doubled since the start of this decade. And nearly five billion people have got poorer,” said Nabil Ahmed, the director of economic and racial justice at Oxfam America, in an interview with VOA.
Fair taxes
The report urges fairer taxation of large corporations and the ultra-wealthy.
“We live in a world in which mega-corporations… are paying next to or little to no tax basically. Not like the small businesses, not like the rest of us,” Ahmed said.
“It’s such a phenomenal lost opportunity because we know governments, rich and poor, across the world need to claw back these revenues to be able to invest in their people, to be able to meet their rights,” he added.
Oxfam praises a campaign led by Brazil, which currently holds the presidency of the G20, to impose a 2% minimum tax on the world’s richest billionaires. Brazil’s government claims it would raise up to $250 billion from about 3,000 individuals, to pay for healthcare, education and tackling climate change.
A report by the French economist Gabriel Zucman, commissioned by Brazil, suggests billionaires currently pay the equivalent of 0.3% of their wealth in taxes.
The plan is backed by other members including South Africa, Spain and France. However, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen spoke against the move at a G20 meeting in July.
“Tax policy is very difficult to coordinate globally and we don’t see a need or really think it’s desirable to try to negotiate a global agreement on that. We think that all countries should make sure that their taxation systems are fair and progressive,” Yellen told reporters.
Private debt
Oxfam says tax revenues in the global south meanwhile are increasingly spent on servicing debt to private creditors like banks and hedge funds.
“This shift has exacerbated the debt crisis, further entrenching “debtocracy.” Compared with official creditors, private entities issue debt with shorter maturities and higher, more volatile interest rates,” the Oxfam report says.
Vaccines
The charity also accuses large pharmaceutical companies of shaping rules over intellectual property rights to benefit their shareholders. Oxfam says that during the COVID-19 pandemic, this meant poorer nations struggled to access coronavirus vaccines, such as the mRNA vaccine made by Pfizer.
“Its negative impacts are most harshly felt by countries in the Global South, which bear the brunt of “artificial rationing,” where pharmaceutical corporations keep drug costs — and thus profits — high by limiting generic manufacturing, while simultaneously failing to invest in research and development for priority diseases in the Global South deemed less profitable,” Oxfam said.
Responding to VOA, Pfizer highlighted an open letter written by the company’s chairman Albert Bourla in 2021, in which he said the company had created a tiered pricing structure and had offered its mRNA coronavirus vaccine at cost price or for free to poorer nations. However, Bourla said that many richer countries moved faster to purchase the available doses.
“When we developed our tiered pricing policy, we reached out to all nations asking them to place orders so we could allocate doses for them. In reality, the high-income countries reserved most of the doses,” Bourla wrote.
Pfizer’s chairman also warned that losing intellectual property rights could “disincentivize” anyone else from taking a big financial risk in developing such vaccines, a view echoed by other large pharmaceutical giants.
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Zelenskyy meets with Biden, Harris amid Republican allegation of election interference
White House — U.S. President Joe Biden is hosting President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House Thursday, where the Ukrainian leader is set to discuss his plans for winning the war against Russia, as Republicans accuse him of “election interference.”
Zelenskyy is scheduled to meet separately with Democratic presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris following his meeting with Biden. However, no plans have been announced for a meeting with Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump, who has in recent days increased his criticism that the U.S. continues to “give billions of dollars to a man who refuses to make a deal” to end the war.
Meanwhile, Congressional Republicans are demanding that the Ukrainian leader fire his ambassador to the U.S., Oksana Markarova, for organizing Zelenskyy’s visit Monday to an ammunition factory in Pennsylvania, a hotly contested battleground state in the November presidential election.
In a letter to Zelenskyy, Republican House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson said the visit to the factory that made munitions for Ukraine was a “partisan campaign event designed to help Democrats” that amounts to “election interference.”
“Support for ending Russia’s war against Ukraine continues to be bipartisan, but our relationship is unnecessarily tested and needlessly tarnished when the candidates at the top of the Republican presidential ticket are targeted in the media by officials in your government,” Johnson said.
On Wednesday Trump suggested that Biden and Harris are at fault for prolonging the war that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
“Biden and Kamala allowed this to happen by feeding Zelenskyy money and munitions like no country has ever seen before,” Trump said. He argued that Kyiv should have made concessions to Moscow before Russian troops attacked, asserting that Ukraine is now “in rubble” and in no position to negotiate the war’s end.
“Any deal — the worst deal — would’ve been better than what we have now,” Trump said.
New aid announced
Ahead of Zelenskyy’s visit, the U.S. administration announced $8 billion in new aid for Ukraine. In a statement, Biden said the aid includes a Patriot missile battery and missiles, as well as air-to-ground munitions and a precision-guided glide bomb with a range of up to 130 kilometers.
The administration is also expanding training for Ukrainian F-16 pilots to include an additional 18 pilots next year.
“For nearly three years, the United States has rallied the world to stand with the people of Ukraine as they defend their freedom from Russian aggression, and it has been a top priority of my administration to provide Ukraine with the support it needs to prevail,” Biden said.
Zelenskyy thanked the U.S., saying the new aid included “the items that are most critical to protecting our people.”
“We will use this assistance in the most efficient and transparent manner to achieve our major common goal: victory for Ukraine, just and lasting peace, and transatlantic security,” Zelenskyy said on social media platform X.
The pair spoke briefly on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, during which Zelenskyy thanked Biden for U.S. support for Ukraine and gave an update on the situation on the front lines.
Among the expected topics to be discussed by the leaders Thursday include Ukraine’s request for weapons donors to allow Ukrainian forces to use the weapons to strike targets deeper inside Russia. Ukrainian leaders say such strikes are needed to degrade Russia’s ability to carry out its daily missile and drone attacks.
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What’s behind China’s launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile
TAIPEI, Taiwan — China test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile into the Pacific Ocean on Wednesday in a rare occurrence, adding to tensions in the region where multiple countries have overlapping territorial claims and both Beijing and Washington seek to project their influence.
The launch was part of routine training by the People’s Liberation Army’s Rocket Force, which is in charge of conventional and nuclear missile operations, and was not aimed at any country or target, the Defense Ministry said in a statement.
The ICBM, carrying a dummy warhead, landed in a designated area in the sea, the ministry said, without specifying where exactly.
China rarely tests ICBMs out in international waters, with some experts tracing the last such deployment back to May 1980, when Beijing launched a DF-5 missile into the South Pacific. Usually, the PLA test-fires ballistic missiles in China’s remote Xinjiang region or in the Bohai Sea.
Why the Pacific, why now?
China choosing the Pacific Ocean as the location for test-firing its missile comes across as both a display of its increased nuclear capabilities and as a warning to the United States and its allies in the region, experts say.
“There is no other potential audience, as China does not expect to have to confront the EU or the U.K. militarily,” said Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute in London.
The test also comes weeks ahead of an expected call between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden. It marks an increase in regional security tensions with U.S. allies Japan and the Philippines, and a continuation of frictions with the self-ruled island of Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own territory.
Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday it was monitoring the missile launch, along with other military exercises by China in the region.
The launch, coinciding with the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York, “is a pretty blunt signal” to the international order, said Drew Thompson, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore and a former U.S. defense official.
“China is signaling that its forbearance has limits, that it is prepared to use its most powerful weapons to deter adversaries or punish them if needed, if deterrence fails,” he said.
Wednesday’s launch also follows a series of corruption arrests this year that ensnared several leading officers in its rocket corps on allegations of misconduct. Its aim could be to both provide assurances at home and signal to the world that the issues have been resolved.
How strong is China’s military?
China boasts the world’s largest standing army and the biggest navy. Its military budget is the second highest in the world, after that of the U.S.
According to the U.S., China also has the largest air force in the Indo-Pacific, with more than half of its fighter planes consisting of fourth or fifth generation models. China also boasts a massive stockpile of missiles, along with stealth aircraft, bombers capable of delivering nuclear weapons, advanced surface ships and nuclear-powered submarines.
In his more than a decade in power, Xi, who is also chairman of the Central Military Commission, has spearheaded the armed forces’ modernization, with investments in high-tech military technologies from stealth fighters to aircraft carriers and a growing arsenal of nuclear weapons.
China’s defense budget has more than doubled since 2015, even as the country’s economic growth rate has slowed considerably. A U.S. Department of Defense report last year said China has continued to strengthen the PLA’s ability to “fight and win wars against a strong enemy.”
How do China’s missiles compare to those of others?
The U.S. report also estimated China had more than 500 operational nuclear warheads as of May 2023 and was on track to accumulate more than 1,000 operational nuclear warheads by 2030.
China has not revealed the size of its nuclear arsenal.
In comparison, Russia is believed to have a total inventory of more than 5,580 warheads — including 4,380 stockpiled warheads for operational forces, as well as an additional 1,200 retired warheads awaiting dismantlement — according to a report this year by the Federation of American Scientists.
The same report put the U.S. nuclear warheads at 5,044.
How common are missile tests in the region?
Few countries have ICBMs in their arsenal, and testing is usually restricted to their own territory. North Korea has carried out multiple ICBM tests since 2017, including firing a developmental solid-fueled missile in December that came down in the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.
The U.S. earlier this year fired two unarmed ICBMs equipped with reentry vehicles from California and brought them down on an American test site in the Marshall Islands.
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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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