Month: September 2024

Climate protesters say pace of change isn’t fast enough

Posted on by SeeEU

NEW YORK — Six years after a teenage Greta Thunberg walked out of school in a solitary climate protest outside of the Swedish parliament, people around a warming globe marched in youth-led protest, saying their voices are being heard but not sufficiently acted upon.

Emissions of heat-trapping gases and temperatures have been rising and oil and gas drilling has continued, even as the protests that kicked off major weeklong climate events in New York City have become annual events. This year, they come days before the United Nations convenes two special summits, one concentrating on sea level rise and the other on the future.

The young people who organized these marches with Fridays for Future said there is frustration with inaction but also hope. People marched in Berlin, Rio de Janeiro, New Delhi and elsewhere, but the focus often is in New York City because of Climate Week NYC. Diplomats, business leaders and activists are concentrating their discussions on the money end of fighting climate change — something not lost on protesters.

“We hope that the government and the financial sector make polluters pay for the damage that they have imposed on our environment,” said Uganda Fridays for Future founder Hilda Flavia Nakabuye, who was among a few hundred marching in New York Friday, a far cry from the tens of thousands that protested in a multigroup mega-rally in 2023.

The New York protest wants to take aim at “the pillars of fossil fuels” — companies that pollute, banks that fund them and leaders who are failing on climate, said Helen Mancini, an organizer and a senior at the city’s Stuyvesant High School.

“A lot of older people want to make sure the economy is intact, and that’s their main concern,” said Julia Demairo, a sophomore at Pace University. “I think worrying about the future and the environment is worrying about the economy.”

On a day that was at least 8 degrees warmer than average, protest signs included “This is not what we mean by Hot Girl Summer,” while others focused on the theme of fighting the coal, oil and gas industries: “Youth Didn’t Vote for Fossil Fuels,” “Don’t Be a Fossil Fool” and “Climate Crisis = Extermination By Capitalism.”

Nakabuye said she was in New York to represent Uganda “that is bearing the brunt of the climate crisis.”

“We feel like we are creating an impact in the community. However, we are not listened to enough; there is more that needs to be done, especially right now when the climate catastrophes are intensifying,” said Nakabuye. “We need to even raise our voices more to demand change and to demand that fuels should end.”

In the six years since Thunberg founded what became Fridays for Future, global carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels have increased by about 2.15%, according to Global Carbon Project, a group of scientists who monitor carbon pollution.

The growth of emissions has slowed compared with previous decades and experts anticipate peaking soon, but that’s a far cry from the 43% reduction that a U.N. report said is needed to keep temperature increases to an agreed-upon limit.

Since 2019, carbon dioxide emissions from coal have increased by nearly 900 million metric tons, while natural gas emissions have increased slightly and oil pollution has dropped a tiny amount, according to the International Energy Agency, or IEA. That growth has been driven by China, India and developing nations.

But emissions from advanced or industrialized economies have been falling and in 2023 were the lowest in more than 50 years, according to the IEA. Coal emissions in rich countries are down to levels seen around the year 1900, and the United Kingdom next month is set to shutter its last coal plant.

In the past five years, clean energy sources have grown twice as fast as fossil fuels, with solar and wind individually growing faster than fossil fuel-based electricity, according to the IEA. Developing countries — where more than 80% of the world population lives — say that they need financial help to curb their increasing use of fossil fuels.

Since 2018, the globe has warmed more than 0.29 degrees Celsius, with last year setting a record for the hottest year and this year poised to break that mark, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the European climate agency Copernicus.

“We’re making progress, even if it’s slow progress,” said 17-year-old Ashen Harper of Connecticut, a veteran protester turned organizer. “Our job right now is to accelerate that progress.”

In Berlin, hundreds of people took to the streets, although in fewer numbers than in previous years. Activists held up signs saying, “Save the Climate” and “Coal is Over!” as they watched a gig put on outside the German Chancellor’s Office. Protesters in London held up letters spelling out “Pay Up,” calling for the country to pay more to adapt to climate change and transition away from fossil fuels.
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Czechs vote in Senate, regional elections in aftermath of flooding

Posted on by SeeEU

PRAGUE — Czechs went to the polls on Friday in a two-day vote for a third of the seats in Parliament’s upper house, which is the Senate, and to select their representatives in regional elections.

The elections took place as the Czech Republic was recovering from massive floods that hit Central Europe in recent days. The floods claimed at least 24 lives in the region, five of them in the Czech Republic.

State officials helped dozens of the hardest-hit towns organize the ballot in the northeast of the country, where schools and various other buildings that serve as polling stations were submerged and damaged.

Interior Ministry officials took over the organization of the vote in five towns where local authorities were preoccupied with cleanup and recovery efforts.

In some places, voting took place in tents, shipping containers or outside.

The current ruling five-party coalition led by Prime Minister Petr Fiala has a clear majority in the 81-seat Senate, where 27 seats are up for grabs in the two-round election. The runoffs take place next week.

Parliament’s lower house dominates the legislative process, but the Senate plays an important role in passing constitutional amendments and approving Constitutional Court judges.

In separate regional elections, a political movement led by former populist Prime Minister Andrej Babis is the favorite to win for the third straight time.

Babis’ ANO (YES), which is currently in opposition, is also favored to win the next general election, scheduled for next year.

The results of the elections will be known late Saturday.
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Nigeria’s inflation rate dips, but Nigerians still feel the pinch

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ABUJA, NIGERIA — The high inflation rate in Nigeria dropped slightly in August, but a decline in the value of the nairia and a continued increase in fuel prices are eroding the slight gains and threatening to reignite the inflationary trend.

Michael Anthony, an engineer and father of four, still faces high costs despite the small drop in inflation, which fell from 33.40% in July to 32.15% in August. His household expenses remain steep, with no real relief in sight.

“In the month of July, I bought a bag of rice at the rate of 65,000 naira, but … three days ago, I bought a bag of rice for 95,000 naira,” he said. “If you want to buy anything, price has risen because of the price of fuel. I’m worried that inflation rate might rise again.”

At a market in a suburb of Abuja, food trader Blessing Ochuba is also struggling. With customers unable to buy in bulk, she’s cutting back her stock and adjusting prices to stay in business.

Ochuba said patronage has been slow despite the reported dip in inflation rate.

“People that normally buy in bags, they now buy like half or quarter … because they can no longer afford to buy for now,” she said. “I used to buy like 10 bags of rice, but now I cannot afford to buy five. Honestly, I did not see the coming down, everything is going higher.

“It’s on the high side, and it is really affecting us.”

Despite lower inflation, Nigeria’s currency has weakened from 1,200 to 1,600 to the dollar, and gasoline prices have soared from 620 to nearly 1,000 naira per liter over the past three months.

Development economist Hauwa Mustapha credited a government policy in which food imports were not subject to excise duty for 90 days for the slight inflation drop.

“I think that helped a lot, and that also helped for them to boost the supply of food. … It does not indicate a long-term recovery,” she said, adding that a lasting recovery will depend on government measures.

“What the government can do to manage inflationary pressure for both short term and long term, I think for now, is to concentrate policy action in the area of food supply,” Mustapha said.

“Thankfully, we are approaching the harvest season. Typically, in Nigeria, we also know that we experience a lot of post-harvest loss. This is … the time for the country to manage the harvest, particularly control [and] minimize post-harvest losses, so that we can keep the food supply steady.”

Experts say the government’s next steps will determine whether this inflation dip signals a recovery or just temporary relief.
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Rights group says Myanmar military to execute activists

Posted on by SeeEA

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA/BANGKOK — A prominent Southeast Asian rights group said Friday that Myanmar’s ruling State Administration Council reportedly intends to execute five democracy activists Tuesday following their May 2023 conviction and sentencing for alleged involvement in a deadly 2021 shooting on a train in Yangon.

The ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights said it was deeply troubled after receiving a report from what it called a reliable source about the pending executions, which were ordered when a civilian court delivered a verdict in a closed-door hearing held in Insein Prison.

It said Zaryaw Phyo, 32; San Min Aung, 24; Kyaw Win Soe 33; Kaung Pyae Sone Oo, 27; and Myat Phyo Pwint, age unknown, were charged with murder and illegal weapons possession under several statutes, including the 1949 Arms Act and a 2014 counterterrorism law.

“The use of capital punishment as a tool to suppress dissent is unacceptable and must be condemned in the strongest terms,” Wong Chen, a Malaysian member of the parliamentarians group’s board, said in the group’s statement.

The organization demanded the State Administration Council halt the executions and immediately release the five activists. The SAC is the official name of the military government formed in February 2021 when the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi was ousted by a coup d’etat, tipping the country into civil war.

It said such actions represented a grievous infringement of human rights and a blatant disregard for international legal standards.

“We call upon the SAC to immediately release them and ensure that, pending their release, the detention conditions comply with international standards, including access to legal representation, medical care and contact with their family,” said Mercy Chriesty Barends, the chairperson of the parliamentarians group.

Lawyers, families of the condemned and prison authorities contacted by VOA could not confirm whether the executions were scheduled to proceed Tuesday; however, one prison authority noted their bodies and necks had been measured regularly.

Myanmar’s ruling military hanged four democracy activists in July 2022 after the SAC accused them of carrying out “terror acts.” They were the first people to be executed in Myanmar in more than 40 years, leading to widespread international condemnation.

Shortly after the executions, the G7 leading economies called on the ruling military to “refrain from further arbitrary executions” and to free all political prisoners, warning the absence of fair trials showed the junta’s contempt for the democratic aspirations of the people of Myanmar.

The parliamentarians group said it was “particularly disconcerting” that the five executions would be carried out under the first death sentences ordered by a civilian judiciary — rather than a military tribunal — since the coup, signaling a disturbing shift in judicial proceedings in Myanmar.

Jason Tower, country director for the Burma Program at the United States Institute of Peace, said the death sentences marked a hardening of attitudes by the junta, which has suffered a litany of losses on the battlefield since anti-regime forces launched an offensive last October.

“This is very concerning, and there’s not enough action on this internationally. The junta is out of control — atrocities are everywhere,” he told VOA, adding the broader international community had not done enough to counter an “illegitimate regime that is perpetrating horrific violence.”

He also said a recent shift in China’s posture toward Myanmar’s military regime had sent a signal that the junta can get away with mass atrocities and executing human rights defenders and political opponents without consequences.

“China has blatantly ignored a dramatic increase in junta airstrikes targeting civilians, IDP camps, schools and hospitals, moving forward with inviting senior junta officials to Chinese-led multilateral platforms,” he said.

Those platforms include the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Xiangshan Forum and the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation.

“Participants in these platforms have failed to push back, and there are worrying signs the Association of Southeast Asian Nations could be tilting toward closer relations with the military regime despite the dramatic increase in atrocities and war crimes,” Tower said.
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Thailand grants few asylum claims in first year of program

Posted on by SeeEA

BANGKOK — Amid a reported surge in cross-border repression across Southeast Asia, rights advocates say Thailand is making promising but very slow progress rolling out an asylum program meant to protect the most vulnerable refugees.

They say many who might be eligible for the program are reluctant to apply for fear of exposing themselves to the police and that coming forward could backfire.

Thailand does not officially recognize refugees and deems anyone in the country without a valid visa or passport an illegal migrant. Last September, though, the government introduced a National Screening Mechanism to give “protected persons status” to those from other countries who can prove they are “unable or unwilling” to return home “due to a well-founded fear of persecution.”

Neither the Royal Thai Police – whose Immigration Bureau is leading the program  – nor the National Security Council or Foreign Affairs Ministry, which both participate, replied to VOA’s repeated requests for comment on the NSM, which took effect September 22 of last year.

At a meeting with aid groups last week, though, immigration officials said fewer than 10 people, including adults and their children, have been fully vetted and granted asylum under the program to date, participants from the aid groups told VOA.

They say officials said one applicant had been rejected and that about 200 were still having their claims assessed.

“In terms of implementation, it’s not proportionate yet with the overall population of asylum seekers and refugees in Thailand,” said Krittaporn Semsantad, program director for Thailand’s Peace Rights Foundation, after attending last week’s meeting.

“I’d say they’re … trying to do their best,” she said of the government. “However, there’s a lot of limitation.”

The United Nations estimates some 5,000 asylum seekers are living in Thailand, though rights groups say the true number is likely higher.

Human Rights Watch reported in May that Thailand had made itself increasingly dangerous for asylum seekers over the past decade through what rights groups claim is an arrangement with its neighbors to forcibly return each other’s dissidents, regardless of potential persecution, including arrest, torture and death.

In recent years, Thailand has arrested and forced dozens of dissidents and members of persecuted ethnic minorities back to their home countries, including China. A rights activist from Vietnam, Y Quynh Bdap, was arrested in Bangkok in June and is now on trial for possible extradition back to Vietnam, where he is wanted for fomenting a deadly riot he says he had nothing to do with.

Once accepted into Thailand’s new asylum program, refugees should be safe from a forced return home, but rights advocates say the NSM is moving far too slowly to cope with the need.

They say the screening commission is struggling to verify the biographies of applicants, has too few interpreters to bridge language barriers, and that many potential applicants still don’t know the program even exists. Those who do, they add, can be put off by having to be formally charged with an immigration offense to go through the process.

They say many also don’t trust the government to vet them fairly and fear that if their applications are rejected they could end up back in the countries they fled.

“They’re afraid that if they apply for NSM, they reveal themselves to the government, and if they [do] not meet the criteria of the NSM they will need to [be] deport[ed] back to their … home country,” said Tanyakorn Thippayapokin, policy advocacy coordinator for Asylum Access Thailand, who also attended last week’s meeting.

Advocates say as well that the eligibility rules are too narrow by barring legal migrant workers — who may also be asylum seekers who need protection — from applying, and that the power the rules give the government to reject applicants over unspecified national security risks are too broad.

By not having to explain the security risks, some worry, the government may turn worthy applicants down to either build or maintain good relations with neighboring countries.

Opposition lawmaker Kannavee Suebsang, who chairs the House of Representatives subcommittee on sustainable solutions for migrants in the country illegally, cited the case of the four dozen ethnic Uyghurs from China who Thailand has been holding in detention without charges since arresting them for illegal entry over a decade ago.

“When they [use] the justification of the national security concern, it can [mean] everything in this world,” said Kannavee, who worked for the United Nations refugee agency for over a dozen years.

“For example, the Uyghurs. If they said it is a national security concern, we cannot put the 48 cases of the Uyghur refugees who’ve been put in the immigration detention center [through] the NSM, it can be like that,” he said.

Krittaporn said she was told by immigration officials that the detained Uyghurs were eligible for the NSM, but she added that nongovernment groups have not been able to meet with them to check whether they have been given the chance to apply.

Advocates suggest the government do more to inform asylum seekers and refugees about the program, hire more interpreters, and scale back the share of security agency officials on the screening commission. Some suggest it also scrap the need for applicants to be formally charged.

As it is now, the program seems designed more for finding reasons to turn down applicants than to approve them, said Pornsuk Koetsawang, founder of Friends Without Borders, another local refugee aid group.

“The security agencies work for Thailand’s national security, not for protection of refugees, and they [refugees] worry that Thai security agencies … think that refugees are a threat,” she said. “That’s the thing that has been happening for the past few decades.”

Kannavee said transferring primary responsibility for the program from the police to the Interior Ministry would help give it a more humanitarian focus.  He says the program may yet collapse from all its faults, though, and has been working on legislation that would give Thailand an entirely new refugee program.

On the whole, though, most advocates say the NSM is at least a modest step in the right direction for Thailand and may still be able to spare some refugees from arrest and a forced return to the countries they have fled.

Once vetted and approved, said Tanyakorn, “they’re here legally at least and with the protection of the government authorities.” 
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Ukraine says Russian missile strike kills 3

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Kyiv, Ukraine — An overnight Russian missile strike on the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih killed a 12-year-old boy and two elderly women, regional governor Serhiy Lysak said Saturday.

“Again, a terrifying enemy attack on Kryvyi Rih. In the middle of the night, when the city slept,” Lysak wrote on Telegram.

He said three more people were injured and were taken to a hospital with injuries of medium severity.

The two women killed by the attack were 75 and 79 years old. Lysak also said two buildings were destroyed and 20 more damaged.

Kryvyi Rih, a major steel-producing city, is near Russian-occupied territory. It is regularly hit by air strikes.
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Russian arms depot burns, explodes after Ukrainian drone attack

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KYIV, Ukraine — A blaze tore through a Russian arms depot inside the country, triggering explosions and the closure of a major highway, after Ukraine launched over 100 drones at Russia and occupied Crimea overnight, Russian news reports and the Defense Ministry said.

The depot appeared to be just kilometers from another that was struck by Ukrainian drones early Wednesday, injuring 13 people and also causing a huge fire.

Russian authorities on Saturday closed a 100-kilometer stretch of a highway and evacuated passengers from a nearby rail station after the fire caused a series of explosions.

Posts on the messaging app Telegram said a missile depot was struck near the town of Toropets, in Russia’s Tver region, about 380 kilometers northwest of Moscow and about 500 kilometers from the Ukrainian border.

Unverified images circulating on Telegram showed a large ball of flame rising into the night sky and dozens of smoke trails from detonations.

An ammunition depot and missile arsenal in southwestern Russia also caught fire in a separate attack Saturday in the Krasnodar region, triggering evacuations after the blaze caused a series of blasts. Videos on social media showed bright orange clouds rising over the horizon, as dull thuds of detonations sounded almost continuously.

Russia’s Defense Ministry early on Saturday claimed that its forces overnight shot down 101 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory and occupied Crimea. There were no immediate reports of casualties in either Russian region.
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Volunteer network of interpreters hopes to make refugees’ languages more accessible via AI

Posted on by SeeUS

NEW YORK — They may be Tigrinya speakers fleeing the authoritarian Eritrean government’s indefinite military service policy. Or Rohingya people escaping ethnic violence in Myanmar. But refugees navigating resettlement often face a shared hurdle: poor machine translations and a short supply of interpreters knowledgeable in their less-serviced languages.

Tarjimly, a Google-backed nonprofit described as “Uber for translators,” aims to help asylum seekers clear that hurdle. Through a new artificial intelligence partnership, Tarjimly trains outside large language models while allowing its volunteers to respond more urgently to needs for translators. It’s a feedback loop where humans teach the nuances of each language to the machines by sharing data from one-on-one calls and correcting automated translations.

And it’s this uniquely human realm of language that Tarjimly co-founder Atif Javed believes exemplifies the ever-tricky balance between individuals’ ingenuity and technological advancement. He says it’s the needed personal touch that shows why AI’s rapid development shouldn’t generally stoke widespread fears.

Languages popular in the Global South — such as the Dari and Pashto commonly spoken in Afghanistan, home to one of the world’s largest protracted refugee crises — have the worst quality coverage, according to Javed. He feels well positioned to supplement the internet’s English-dominated information troves that train services like Google Translate with his mobile app’s more diverse data sets.

Tarjimly connects refugees with on-demand interpreters, who can communicate during meetings with social workers, immigration officials and doctors, and records the encounters for AI training. To comply with patient privacy protections, Tarjimly anonymizes the conversations on its app. Javed said the nonprofit also has on option for “no record” sessions where none of the data is stored for alternative uses.

Many of its 60,000 volunteers are multilingual refugees themselves who more intimately understand not only their counterpart’s native tongue but also the crisis that brought them there, according to Javed.

Among them is Roza Tesfazion, a 26-year-old Eritrean refugee who works professionally as an interpreter for the United Kingdom’s government. Fluent in Amharic and Tigrinya, she studied English and Swahili to help her immigrant family overcome language barriers when they first moved to Kenya.

Tesfazion said she translates at no cost because she knows “how emotional it is” for the people on the other side of her sessions.

“You have to have that touch of human emotions to it,” she said.

Tarjimly’s founders say their mission’s sensitive nature lends itself to nonprofit status more than a corporate structure. Users arrive in very vulnerable positions, and the nonprofit works with established humanitarian groups including Catholic Charities, the International Rescue Committee and the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration.

The work requires a level of trust that would have been difficult to earn in a “for-profit, competitive world,” according to Javed. “The underlying engine of our success is the community we’ve built.”

That community, however, also has room for artificial intelligence. A $1.3 million grant from Google.org has enabled a “First Pass” tool that gives an instantly generated translation for human volunteers to revise. A new information hub will open up its language data for partners, including Google, in early 2025.

But refining a more diverse library of languages will require conversational data at a scale much broader than Tarjimly can likely provide on its own, according to Data & Society researcher Ranjit Singh.

Singh, who studies the social implications of automation and inclusive digital solutions, said translation services will always need a “real person in the middle.”

“There is one part of it which is translation and another part of it which is just trying to understand somebody’s life situation,” he said. “Technologies help us do some of this work. But at the same time, it’s also fairly social.”

Tarjimly was inspired by Javed’s time volunteering with Arabic speakers at refugee camps in Greece and Turkey after graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and working in Silicon Valley. A Muslim American whose family immigrated to the United States in 2001, Javed said he was reminded of his own childhood translating for his refugee grandmother.

His lived experience is one reason why Elevate Prize Foundation CEO Carolina Garcìa Jayaram said her organization awarded $300,000 last year to Tarjimly. That “proximate leadership” helps nonprofits better understand developments like artificial intelligence that “can be both cause for excitement and trepidation,” Jayaram said. The risk-averse philanthropic sector may be slow to catch up with disruptive new technologies, she noted, but shouldn’t ignore their positive applications.

“It’s a great example of how not to get stuck in that bogeyman complex about AI,” she said. “To go to leaders who are closest to those issues and say, ‘How would AI unlock the possibilities and opportunities for your organization?'” 
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Congo struggles to contain mpox; here’s why

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KAVUMU, Congo — Health authorities have struggled to contain outbreaks of mpox in Congo, a huge central African country where a myriad of existing problems makes stemming the spread particularly hard.

Last month, the World Health Organization declared the outbreaks in Congo and about a dozen other African countries a global health emergency. And in Congo, scientists have identified a new strain of mpox that may spread more easily. It has reached areas where conflict and the displacement of a large number of people have already put health services under pressure.

Overall, Congo has more than 21,000 of the 25,093 confirmed and suspected mpox cases in Africa this year, according to WHO’s most recent count.

Has Congo seen cases of mpox before?

Yes, Congo is one of the African countries where mpox has been endemic for decades.

Mpox, once known as monkeypox, comes from the same family of viruses as smallpox but causes milder symptoms such as fever. People with more serious cases can develop skin lesions. More than 720 people in Africa have died in the latest outbreaks, mostly in Congo.

Mpox is a zoonotic disease, meaning it can spread to humans from infected animals. In the global mpox outbreak of 2022, the virus spread between people primarily through sex and close physical contact.

What changed in Congo?

In September 2023, mpox spread to Congo’s eastern province of South Kivu; it had previously been seen in the center and far west. Scientists then identified a new form of mpox in South Kivu that may be more infectious.

The WHO said that from the outbreak in South Kivu, the virus spread among people elsewhere in the country, arriving in neighboring province North Kivu. Those two provinces — some 2,000 kilometers from the capital, Kinshasa — face escalating violence, a humanitarian crisis and other issues.

What are the problems in eastern Congo?

More than 120 armed groups have been fighting each other and the Congolese army for years in the eastern part of the country over the control of minerals. That has forced millions of people fleeing violence into refugee camps or nearby towns.

That means mpox is hitting already-stretched health facilities. Dr. Musole Mulambamunva Robert, medical director of the Kavumu hospital in eastern Congo, said it is “truly a challenge” — sometimes treating as many as four times the facility’s capacity for patients.

With more than 6 million displaced people in the east, authorities and aid agencies were already struggling to provide food and healthcare, while fighting other diseases such as cholera. Many people have no access to soap, clean water or other basics.

Some eastern Congo communities are out of reach of health clinics — roads are unreliable, and hourslong risky boat trips are sometimes the only means of transport, said Mercy Muthee Lake of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent.

People can be more susceptible to severe mpox cases because of malnutrition and undiagnosed HIV, she said.

She also said health workers in eastern Congo have requested more mpox training as medications to treat fever and ease pain run out.

Health authorities “are up against it because it’s such a complex area,” said Chris Beyrer, of Duke University’s Global Health Institute.

What about vaccines?

Africa has no capacity to produce mpox vaccines. Around 250,000 doses have arrived in Congo from the European Union and the United States, and more are expected. Congolese authorities say they need around 3 million vaccines. It will likely be weeks before any vaccines reach people in eastern Congo.

For now, the vaccine is approved only for adults. There’s limited evidence of how it works in children.

Vaccines are desperately needed, but they’re just “an additional tool,” said Emmanuel Lampaert, the Congo representative for Doctors Without Borders. The key, Lampaert said, is still identifying cases, isolating patients, and executing grassroots health and education campaigns.

Local conditions make that trying — Lampaert noted it’s almost impossible to isolate cases among poor, displaced people.

“Families with six to eight children are living in a hut, which is maybe the space of the bed we are sleeping in,” he said. “So, this is the reality.”

Why are critics blasting the mpox response?

Unlike the millions of dollars that poured into Congo for Ebola and COVID aid, the response to mpox has been sluggish, many critics say.

Health experts say the sharp contrast is due to a lack of both funds and international interest.

“Ebola is the most dangerous virus in the world, and COVID wiped out the world economy,” said professor Ali Bulabula, who works on infectious diseases in the medical department at Congo’s University of Kindu. “While mpox is a public health emergency of international concern, there is a lack of in-depth research and interest in the virus, as it’s still seen as a tropical disease, localized to Africa with no major impact on Western economies.” 
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New Zealand pilot Phillip Mehrtens freed from captivity in Indonesia’s Papua

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JAKARTA, Indonesia — New Zealand pilot Phillip Mehrtens has been freed more than 19 months after being kidnapped by armed separatists in Indonesia’s Papua, authorities said on Saturday.

Mehrtens was freed and picked up by a joint team in the Nduga area and was undergoing health check-ups and a psychological examination in Timika regency, the Indonesian police said in a statement.

A faction of the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB), led by Egianus Kogoya, kidnapped Mehrtens on February 7, 2023, after he landed a small commercial plane in the remote, mountainous area of Nduga.

“We are pleased and relieved to confirm that Phillip Mehrtens is safe and well and has been able to talk with his family. This news must be an enormous relief for his friends and loved ones,” said New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters.

A range of New Zealand government agencies had been working with Indonesian authorities and others toward securing Mehrtens’ release, Peters said in a statement.

Indonesian Brigadier General Faizal Ramadhani, head of Cartenz 2024 Peace Operations, said, “We are prioritizing approach through religious leaders, church leaders, traditional leaders and Egianus Kogoya’s close family to minimize casualties and maintain the safety of the pilot.”

Indonesian police said they would hold a press conference later Saturday.
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Biden opens home to Quad leaders for farewell summit

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Wilmington, Delaware — President Joe Biden hosted Australia’s prime minister at his Delaware home Friday at the start of a weekend summit with the “Quad” group he has pushed as a counterweight to China. 

Biden chose Wilmington for a summit of leaders from Australia, India and Japan — the last of his presidency after he dropped out of the 2024 election against Donald Trump and handed the Democratic campaign reins to Vice President Kamala Harris. 

After a one-on-one meeting at his property with Australia’s Anthony Albanese on Friday night, he will welcome Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at his home on Saturday. 

Biden will then host an “intimate” dinner and full four-way summit that day at his former high school in the city. 

“This will be President Biden’s first time hosting foreign leaders in Wilmington as president — a reflection of his deep personal relationships with each of the Quad leaders,” said press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.  

Harris will not be attending, the White House said. 

The Quad grouping dates to 2007, but Biden has strongly pushed it as part of an emphasis on international alliances after the isolationist Trump years. 

China was expected to feature heavily in their discussions amid tensions with Beijing, particularly a series of recent confrontations between Chinese and Philippine vessels in the disputed South China Sea. 

“It will certainly be high on the agenda,” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said, adding that the four leaders had a “common understanding about the challenges that the PRC [People’s Republic of China] is posing.” 

The White House, however, faced criticism for giving only limited access to the press throughout the weekend, with reporters questioning whether it was at the request of the media-shy Modi. 

The prime minister was coaxed to take two questions during a state visit to the White House in 2023 but had not held an open press conference at home in his previous nine years in power. 

The White House insisted Biden would not shy away from addressing rights issues with Modi, who has faced accusations of growing authoritarianism. 

“There’s not a conversation that he has with foreign leaders where he doesn’t talk about the importance of respecting human and civil rights, and that includes with Prime Minister Modi,” Kirby said. 

India is to host the next Quad summit in 2025. 

Biden is famously proud of his home in Wilmington, about 176 kilometers from Washington, and he frequently spends weekends there away from the White House. 
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US soldier who entered North Korea pleads guilty to desertion

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Washington — A U.S. soldier who crossed into North Korea last year pleaded guilty to desertion on Friday as part of a plea agreement and was sentenced to 12 months of confinement, his lawyer said.

Because of good behavior and time served, the soldier was released, according to the lawyer.

Travis King was facing 14 charges related to him fleeing across the border from South Korea into the North in July 2023 while on a sightseeing tour of the Demilitarized Zone that divides the Korean Peninsula, and for prior incidents.

But he pleaded guilty to just five — desertion, assault on a noncommissioned officer, and three counts of disobeying an officer — as part of a deal that was accepted on Friday by a military judge.

“The judge, under the terms of the plea deal, sentenced Travis to one year of confinement, reduction in rank to private (E-1), forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and a dishonorable discharge,” a statement from King’s attorney Franklin Rosenblatt said.

“With time already served and credit for good behavior, Travis is now free and will return home,” the statement said.

“Travis King has faced significant challenges throughout his life, including a difficult upbringing, exposure to criminal environments, and struggles with mental health,” Rosenblatt said. “All these factors have compounded the hardships he faced in the military.”

In a statement, the U.S. Army’s Office of Special Trial Counsel confirmed King’s guilty plea as part of a deal and said that “pursuant to the terms of the plea agreement, all other charges and specifications were dismissed.”

“The outcome of today’s court martial is a fair and just result that reflects the seriousness of the offenses committed by Pvt. King,” prosecutor Major Allyson Montgomery said in the statement.

At the time of the incident, King had been stationed in South Korea, and after a drunken bar fight and a stay in South Korean jail, he was supposed to fly back to Texas to face disciplinary hearings.

Instead, he walked out of the Seoul-area airport, joined a DMZ sightseeing trip and slipped over the fortified border where he was detained by the communist North’s authorities.

Pyongyang had said that King had defected to North Korea to escape “mistreatment and racial discrimination in the U.S. Army.”

But after completing its investigation, North Korea “decided to expel” King in September for illegally intruding into its territory.
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War set to dominate agenda at UN General Assembly meeting

Posted on by SeeUS

UNITED NATIONS — World leaders are set to descend on the United Nations in the coming days to talk about a lengthy list of global challenges. But will they spur significant action on any of them?

“We see out-of-control geopolitical divisions and runaway conflicts — not least in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan and beyond,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters at a news conference ahead of the annual U.N. General Assembly meetings.

Those three wars are set to dominate the agenda — both in leaders’ speeches before the assembly and at numerous side meetings.

Gaza

Getting to a cease-fire in Gaza is even more urgent now that Israel has turned its attention to its northern border with Lebanon and looks determined to build on a significant blow to Hezbollah militants there.

“We are at the start of a new phase in the war — it requires courage, determination and perseverance on our part,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told soldiers at the northern Ramat David Airbase on Wednesday. “It is critical that we operate in close cooperation between the [security] organizations, at all levels.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas plan to address the General Assembly.

“President Abbas will focus on the plight of his people — he will focus on the genocide campaign that’s taking place, he will warn of the danger of this conflict exploding in the West Bank, and will warn also of the dangers of this conflict not reaching a cease-fire soon, in terms of its implications for the region and regional stability,” Randa Slim, senior fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, told VOA.

In March, a U.N. official said there were reasonable grounds to believe genocide had been committed in Gaza.

Slim continued, “On the other hand, you are going to see the Israeli prime minister reminding people of the terror of October 7, casting the light on the fact that they are in a war of defense, and he is going to reemphasize the priorities of the war … which is the eradication of Hamas.”

In March, Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, said there were “reasonable grounds” to think Israel has been committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

Ukraine

More than 2½ years after Russia invaded Ukraine, peace remains elusive.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be in New York calling for international support at a critical time in the war, and as the conflict, in many capitals, has been superseded by the situation in Gaza.

“I think Ukrainian diplomats themselves are a bit worried that their war is going down the agenda,” Richard Gowan, U.N. director at International Crisis Group, told VOA. “But the reality is that the battle between Israel and Hamas has torn the U.N. apart over the last year, and that is going to be the number one focus for a lot of presidents and prime ministers.”

On Tuesday, Zelenskyy will address a high-level U.N. Security Council meeting on Ukraine, and the following day he will speak at the General Assembly.

“I think he will emphasize the problem of Russian aggression, and that not only Europe, but the rest of the world, must remain on guard for Russia’s attempt to assert its imperial powers,” William Pomeranz, senior fellow at the Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute told VOA. “And that the support of Ukraine is a crucial part of global security at the present time.”

On Thursday, Zelenskyy will head to Washington to meet with President Joe Biden at the White House.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will not be coming to New York, but veteran Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is scheduled to address the General Assembly on September 28.

Sudan

On the African continent, two rival generals in Sudan have been mired in a brutal 17-month struggle for power that has devastated the country. Violence, famine and disease are stalking the population, and 10 million people have fled their homes in search of safety.

The war’s current epicenter is the North Darfur capital of El Fasher, where the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have advanced on the city and the Sudanese Armed Forces inside El Fasher have been trying to repel them.

“The lives of hundreds of thousands of people, including more than 700,000 internally displaced persons in and around El Fasher, are at immediate threat,” acting U.N. humanitarian chief Joye Msuya told the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday.

The United States, Saudi Arabia, African Union and others have pursued a variety of peace initiatives for months. They have failed to silence the guns, but the U.S. has been successful in opening up some new routes for humanitarian relief into Sudan.

On September 25, ministers will meet to discuss the humanitarian response at a session organized by officials from the U.N., U.S, European Union, African Union, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

The head of the Sudanese Armed Forces and chairman of the Transitional Sovereignty Council, General Abdel Fattah Burhan, is coming to New York. U.N. chief Guterres said he would “express my enormous frustration” to him about the lack of a cease-fire and the start of a serious political process.

Haiti

While it may not grab as many global headlines as Ukraine and Gaza, there is a lot of international solidarity around helping Haiti recover from its latest cycle of insecurity.

The U.N. independent expert on the human rights situation in Haiti wrapped up a visit to the country on Friday and told a news conference that human rights violations are rampant.

“Sexual violence, used as a weapon by gangs to control the population, has drastically increased in recent months,” William O’Neill said. “Gangs have increasingly trafficked children, forcibly recruited them into gangs, and often used them to carry out attacks against public institutions and police operations.”

A multinational security support mission was approved nearly a year ago in the U.N. Security Council to assist Haitian National Police in subduing criminal gangs terrorizing the capital and other regions. After many delays, the first international police contingent from Kenya deployed in June.

There are now about 500 police in total on the ground — 400 from mission leader Kenya and the rest from Jamaica and Belize. Diplomats say they expect other countries will also be deploying.

Haitian Prime Minister Garry Conille and his Canadian counterpart, Justin Trudeau, are co-chairing a side meeting on Monday that will look at both the urgent humanitarian situation and longer-term development issues.

“I think we are all beginning to understand how drastic the damage in Haiti is and how devastating the current attacks by the gangs has proven to be,” Canadian Ambassador Bob Rae told VOA. “We are doing everything we can to mobilize international attention on what we can do to turn that around.”

Hello and goodbye

Several new leaders will make their debut at this year’s gathering, including British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

“I’m going to be looking for any signal he is going to give about restarting the nuclear negotiation,” MEI’s Slim said of the Iranian leader, noting that his administration has indicated an interest in restarting nuclear talks.

This will be Biden’s final time at the General Assembly podium.

“I think his appearance will create mixed emotions among other leaders,” said Crisis Group’s Gowan. “I think there is still some respect for his engagement with multilateralism, but there is also a lot of regret that he didn’t give the U.N. a greater role in dealing with the war in Gaza.”

Looking to the future

Two years ago, Biden announced that the United States supported expanding the number of permanent members on the 15-nation Security Council.

On September 12, his U.N. envoy, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, announced that the administration would support two permanent seats for Africa and one for Latin American and Caribbean countries, in addition to India, Japan and Germany — albeit, without veto power. She said Washington is ready to begin text-based negotiations on the expansion.

“It means we’re ready to work with other countries to negotiate language, prepare amendments, and ready this resolution for a vote in the General Assembly and, ultimately, amend the U.N. Charter,” Thomas-Greenfield told an audience last week at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

Security Council reform, as it is known, has for decades been a topic of much discussion but no action. U.N. chief Guterres also would like to see the council change. On Sunday, he opens his signature two-day “Summit of the Future,” in which institutional reform will be high on the agenda.

“And one of the questions that is important in relation to the future relates exactly to the role of the P5 [permanent five members] and to the need to have a certain redistribution of power to make things more fair and more effective,” Guterres told reporters.

In the seventh year of his 10-year tenure, Guterres wants to see better multilateral cooperation to resolve current conflicts, fight climate change, and ease global hunger and debt. He is also worried about emerging challenges, including the power of artificial intelligence.

He is hoping for a strong “Pact for the Future” to be adopted by consensus on Sunday. The document, a policy blueprint to address global challenges and drastic reforms to the U.N. and global financial institutions, has been mired in difficult negotiations.

Germany and Namibia have been facilitating the negotiations for months and their leaders will co-chair the summit. The president of the General Assembly, Philemon Yang, has now taken over negotiations to try to get it over the finish line.

Diplomats said 19 countries, including Russia, raised objections on Thursday night to some language in the latest draft, including around human rights, climate action and fossil fuels. With less than 48 hours to go until the summit opens, discussions are getting down to the wire.

“We very much hope that member states will agree in the coming hours on a way forward for the Summit of the Future, and show ambition and show courage and do whatever they can to get these documents over the finish line,” Guterres’ spokesperson said.
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Environmentalists, Taiwanese company clash over mining in Eswatini 

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MBABANE, ESWATINI   — Residents and environmentalists in Eswatini have arrayed against Taiwan’s Michael Lee Enterprises in a battle over mining in the country’s picturesque Malolotja Nature Reserve.

The company has been accused of exploiting the park for green chert, a rare mineral found in the area, putting the park’s wildlife and natural beauty at risk.

Some locals and environmentalists are calling for an unbiased investigation to determine what damage, if any, is being caused by the green chert mining by Michael Lee Enterprises in the Malalotja reserve.

Government spokesperson Alpheous Nxumalo has maintained that no violations by the mining company have been confirmed and has urged community members to report any potential breaches to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Energy.

“We have spoken to both the Ministry of Natural Resources and we have spoken to the company,” Nxumalo said. “The directors themselves, they are disputing what the community members have supposedly told you in respect to this company and its activities.

“However, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Energy has committed that they do investigations from time to time to ensure companies continue with compliance in terms of protecting environment and in terms of complying with the laws governing the mining industry in the kingdom of Eswatini.”

Taken to Maputo for export

Green chert is used to make jewelry and religious statues and for other religious purposes. After the chert is mined, it is trucked to Matsapha, the southern African kingdom’s main industrial town, then taken by railroad to Maputo in Mozambique for export.

In a statement to VOA, Michael Lee Enterprises said it was a “complying company that abides by the environmental regulations authority” in Eswatini.

The Makhonjwa Valley, a biodiversity hot spot within the Malolotja Nature Reserve, is a world-renowned ecological, archaeological and geological treasure trove. Decades of research have uncovered rare species of trees, cicadas, birds, amphibians and butterflies. It is also home to pristine waterways, forests and a wealth of untouched natural resources.

Environmentalist Dane Armstrong warns that mining in Malolotja is putting the site at severe risk.

“The company in question, the Michael Lee Enterprises, is already extracting vast quantities of rock at the head of the valley and has plans to mine an additional 400 hectares,” Armstrong said. “This is going to have irreversible damage to the ecological integrity” of the area.

“While economic growth and job creation is critical for Eswatini and mining definitely plays an important role in this, there has to be a balance between protecting the very limited, crucially important biodiversity hot spots in our country. Malolotja Nature Reserve is a globally recognized area of extreme importance and a protected area, and it should be treated as such.”

Economic growth, jobs

The president of a traditional healers group, Makhanya Makhanya, disagrees, and sees the potential for economic growth and job creation as a means to combat poverty in the country, provided that the opportunities are reserved for the people of the former Swaziland.

“As a traditional healer,” he said, “I support the government’s decision to mine the hidden wealth beneath the Earth’s surface if it can bring economic opportunities to the people of Swaziland. However, I caution against outsourcing these jobs to foreigners, and instead, local employment needs to be prioritized in order to truly reap the benefits of this resource.”

The government is allowing the mining project to proceed until definitive evidence of environmental risk is uncovered. It is encouraging community-company dialogues for a fair resolution.
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Probe finds ‘complacency,’ shortfalls contributed to Trump assassination attempt

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washington — The U.S. Secret Service says the ability of a lone gunman to fire eight shots at Donald Trump during a campaign rally in rural western Pennsylvania was partially the result of multiple failures by the agents charged with protecting the former president.

A report on the agency’s own investigation into the attempted assassination of the one-time U.S. leader and current Republican presidential candidate identified problems with communication and coordination ahead of the July 13 rally in Butler, as well as an over-reliance on state and local law enforcement partners.

“We cannot abdicate or defer our responsibilities to others,” acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe told reporters Friday in Washington.

“The Secret Service did not give clear guidance or direction to our local law enforcement partners,” he said. “While some members of the advance team were very diligent, there was complacency on the part of others that led to a breach of security protocols.”

The attempted assassination shook much of the U.S., and it prompted the then-director of the Secret Service to resign.

Law enforcement officials have said it was carried out by 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, who acted alone and saw Trump as a target of opportunity.

Despite the presence of Trump’s protective detail, advance teams and local law enforcement, Crooks was able to climb to the top of a building overlooking the rally and set up with an AR-style rifle before being detected.

The shots wounded Trump and two rally goers, while killing a third.

The Secret Service report released Friday focuses on what the agency is describing as “communication deficiencies” at the rally, blaming agents for failing to make sure the site and surrounding areas — including the roof of the nearby building — were properly secured.

Rowe said that while there were discussions with local law enforcement about the building in particular, there were no subsequent conversations to make sure adequate protection was in place.

“We should have been more direct,” he said. “There was an assumption that they had it covered, but there clearly was not that follow-up to make sure.”

Other problems included a failure by the Secret Service to make sure local law enforcement knew how to communicate with agents on the ground, which prevented Trump’s protective detail from learning about the search for a suspicious person.

Had the detail been aware, a decision could have been made to relocate the former president to a safer location.

Rowe told reporters that Secret Service personnel responsible for the deficiencies will be held accountable, but he denied reports that some had been asked to resign.

“This agency has among the most robust table of penalties in the entirety of the federal government, and these penalties will be administered according to our disciplinary process,” he said.

The release of the Secret Service report comes less than a week after what officials have described as a second apparent assassination attempt against former President Trump.

Sheriff’s deputies in Florida arrested 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh, stopping him on a major highway Sunday, about an hour after he fled from the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach.

Officials said data gathered from Routh’s cellphone showed he lay in wait for 12 hours, hiding in some bushes along a chain-link perimeter fence between the course’s fifth and seventh holes with an AK-47-style rifle.

Routh fled without firing a shot after a member of the Secret Service advance team spotted his rifle sticking out from behind the bushes and fired several shots.

The agent’s reaction “is exactly how we trained and exactly what we want our personnel to do,” Rowe said Friday. “He identified a threat, an individual with a long gun, and he made swift decisions and took a swift action to be able to mitigate that.”

Rowe also said that since the July 13 assassination attempt against Trump, the Secret Service has been providing Trump and Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris with the same level of protection as President Joe Biden.

He also said that since Trump left office, his security detail has been “more robust than prior former presidents.”

But the acting Secret Service director said the increased levels of security are coming at a cost, asking U.S. lawmakers for more funding and personnel.

“We have finite resources,” Rowe told reporters. “We are burning through a lot of assets and resources.

“We are stretching those resources to their maximum right now.”
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UN report: Debt crisis undermines AIDS eradication in Africa

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Harare, Zimbabwe — A new report released by the main United Nations agency for action on AIDS and HIV says growing public debt is choking sub-Saharan African countries, leaving them with little fiscal room to finance critical HIV services.

In the report, launched ahead of the 79th session of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Winnie Byanyima, the executive director of UNAIDS, asks the international community for more funding to ensure Africa eliminates AIDS by 2030.

She said Africa, which accounts for the largest number of people living with HIV — some 26 million out of 40 million globally — is overwhelmed by public debt.

Robert Shivambu, UNAIDS communication officer, told VOA: “The region’s success in having reduced new HIV infections by 56% since 2010 will not be sustained if fiscal space is constrained.”

Shivambu said the U.N. believes that when debt payments hinder countries’ ability to effectively look after health care needs of their people, global health security is put at risk.

Zimbabwe is one of the countries fighting to reduce the rate of HIV infection while dealing with high debt.

On Friday, parliament Speaker Jacob Mudenda told colleagues that the country had made strides in fighting HIV/AIDS, starting in 1999 as a pioneer of the AIDS levy — a 3% income tax for individuals and 3% tax on profits of employers.

He said that the budget of $387 million for HIV programs — largely foreign sponsored — was no longer enough and that there was need to expand the tax base.

“Let’s create wealth, when that wealth is created from our wealth, including mineral resources, we are going to be able to expand the tax base,” he said.

“From that expanded tax base we will be able as parliament to come with a very stout budget. These donations are going to dwindle, slowly but surely. This current funding level still falls far short of the estimated $500 million needed annually to achieve [the] ambitious goal of the Zimbabwe national AIDS strategic plan, especially with over 1 million people living with HIV now on anti-retroviral therapy.”

Mudenda declined to say if servicing Zimbabwe’s debt — which stands at $17.5 billion, according to the African Development Bank — was one reason funding for HIV programs is falling short.

Zimbabwe is battling to service its debt so that it can resume receiving loans from multilateral development banks such as the IMF and World Bank.

Shivambu said, “Public debt needs to be urgently reduced and domestic resource mobilization strengthened to enable the fiscal space to fully fund the HIV response and end AIDS. World leaders cannot let a resource crunch derail global progress to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.”

That’s the message UNAIDS officials will take to the high-level summit of the U.N. General Assembly beginning next week.
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Mpox spreads at alarming rate among children in Burundi

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GENEVA — The United Nations Children’s Fund, or UNICEF, warned Friday that children in Burundi are bearing the brunt of the mpox outbreak, with cases of this deadly, infectious disease spreading at an alarming rate among a young population.

“Of the nearly 600 reported cases, two-thirds are in children under 19. The situation has escalated rapidly, with a more-than-40% increase in cases over the past three weeks,” Dr. Paul Ngwakum, UNICEF’s regional health adviser for Eastern and Southern Africa, told journalists in Geneva via video link Friday.

Ngwakum, who currently is on a visit to Burundi, said, “The fear expressed by the parents and the resilience of communities in the face of this public health crisis” and the rapid escalation of the disease “were striking.”

Speaking from the capital, Bujumbura, he said the rise of mpox among children under the age of 5 is of particular concern as they represent 30% of the reported cases. This, he said, underscores the urgent need for targeted interventions to protect children from becoming infected as schools have reopened this week.

“UNICEF is supporting the Ministry of Education to implement health measures in schools, train staff to recognize early symptoms of mpox and reinforce hand hygiene. We aim to ensure that all children can safely return to school and minimize educational disruptions,” he said, noting that this was “a rapidly evolving situation.”

Even amid the grim situation, he observed that Burundi has had no deaths from mpox, formerly known as monkeypox. He said this provides “an opportunity to end this outbreak in a very short time period.”

“The geographical area is still limited, and with concerted effort from all partners, we can limit the spread, contain the virus, and potentially end the outbreak with no lives lost,” said Ngwakum.

He added that “it was difficult to make firm statements regarding when the outbreak could be brought under control,” both in Burundi and the wider African region, a sentiment echoed by the World Health Organization.

WHO spokesperson Dr. Margaret Harris told journalists, “The response to the outbreak is made more difficult by the context, with insecurity in the affected areas, and concurrent outbreaks of other diseases including measles and chickenpox. WHO is on the ground, working to stop these outbreaks.”

So far this year, the WHO reports there have been more than 25,000 suspected mpox cases and 723 deaths among suspected cases in Africa. The most heavily infected country is the Democratic Republic of Congo, with 21,835 suspected cases and 717 deaths, followed by Burundi with 1,489 suspected cases and no deaths and Nigeria with 935 suspected cases and no deaths.

“Vaccination is going to be a very useful tool, particularly for trying to break the chains of transmission,” Harris said. “But the virus primarily spreads through close personal contact within families. And when people are living in difficult conditions, if they do not have access to the materials, to the soap, to the clean bedding, to the clean clothing, it is very, very difficult for them to not transmit.

“Many of the children who we have seen who have sadly died in the Democratic Republic of the Congo were severely malnourished, had suffered the effects of conflict, and perhaps also had other diseases at the same time. … It may indeed be that this population cannot respond immunologically to yet another threat,” she warned.

While affirming the importance of vaccines in the fight against mpox, UNICEF representative Ngwakum observed that “unfortunately,” the vaccines that are available now “cannot be used for children.”

“I do not want to bank all our interventions on vaccines,” he said. “Vaccines are only one tool that can be used to protect children and communities against mpox. And we are, in addition to vaccines, deploying other different tools” to keep children safe, he said.

UNICEF says it is possible to halt the rapid spread of mpox if agencies act swiftly and have the means in which to do it. The U.N. children’s agency is urgently appealing for $58.8 million to scale up its humanitarian response across six African countries, including Burundi.

“These funds are essential to stop the transmission of mpox, protect children and maintain critical services like education and health care,” said Ngwakum.
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Haitian migrants in Ohio feel threatened in US presidential campaign

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In the U.S. presidential election, Republican candidates have spread false claims that migrants in the Midwest state of Ohio are eating residents’ pet cats and dogs. That has led to security threats and more divisions in an election where immigration is a central campaign theme. VOA Correspondent Scott Stearns has our story. Videographer: Obed Lamy
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Kentucky sheriff charged in killing of judge at courthouse 

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FRANKFORT, Ky. — A judge in a rural Kentucky county was fatally shot in his courthouse chambers Thursday, and the local sheriff was charged with murder in the killing, police said.

The preliminary investigation indicates Letcher County Sheriff Shawn M. Stines shot District Judge Kevin Mullins multiple times following an argument inside the courthouse, according to Kentucky State Police. Mullins, who held the judgeship for 15 years, died at the scene, and Stines surrendered without incident.

The fatal shooting in Whitesburg sent shock waves through a tight-knit Appalachian town and county seat of government with about 1,700 residents located about 235 kilometers southeast of Lexington.

 

Lead county prosecutor Matt Butler described an outpouring of sympathy as he recused himself and his office from investigations in the shooting, citing social and family ties to Mullins.

“We all know each other here. … Anyone from Letcher County would tell you that Judge Mullins and I married sisters and that we have children who are first cousins but act like siblings,” Butler said in statement from his office. “For that reason, among others, I have already taken steps to recuse myself and my entire office.”

Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman said his office will collaborate with a commonwealth’s attorney in the region as special prosecutors in the criminal case.

“We will fully investigate and pursue justice,” Coleman said on social media.

Kentucky Supreme Court Chief Justice Laurance B. VanMeter said he was “shocked by this act of violence” and that the court system was “shaken by this news.”

Letcher County’s judge-executive signed an order closing on Friday the county courthouse where the shooting took place.

Mullins, 54, was hit multiple times in the shooting, Kentucky State Police said. Stines, 43, was charged with one count of first-degree murder. The investigation is continuing, police said.

It was unclear whether Stines had an attorney. Kentucky State Police referred inquiries about Stines’ legal representation Thursday to a spokesperson who did not immediately respond by email.

Responding to the shooting, Governor Andy Beshear said in a social media post: “There is far too much violence in this world, and I pray there is a path to a better tomorrow.”

Mullins served as a district judge in Letcher County since he was appointed by former Gov. Steve Beshear in 2009 and elected the following year.

Mullins was known for promoting substance abuse treatment for people involved in the justice system and helped hundreds of residents enter inpatient residential treatment, according to a program for a drug summit he spoke at in 2022. He also helped develop a program called Addiction Recovery Care to offer peer support services in the courthouse. The program was adopted in at least 50 counties in Kentucky.

Mullins also served as a founding member of the Responsive Effort to Support Treatment in Opioid Recovery Efforts Leadership Team.

After the shooting, several area schools were briefly placed on lockdown.
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