Month: January 2025

‘Mufasa’ and ‘Sonic 3’ rule first box office weekend of 2025

Posted on by SeeUS

The Walt Disney Co.’s “Mufasa” claimed the No. 1 spot on the North American box office charts over the first weekend of 2025.

The photorealistic “Lion King” prequel earned $23.8 million in its third weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday. Paramount’s “Sonic the Hedgehog 3,” which has dominated the past two weekends, wasn’t far behind.

“Sonic 3” stayed close with a 3-day estimate of $21.2 million, bringing its total domestic earnings to $187.5 million and helping the overall franchise cross $1 billion worldwide. “Mufasa’s” running total is slightly less, with $169.2 million.

In third place, Focus Features’ “Nosferatu” remake defied the fate of so many of its genre predecessors and fell only 39% in its second weekend. Horror films typically fall sharply after the first weekend and anything less than a 50% decline is notable.

“Nosferatu,” which added 140 screens, claimed $13.2 million in ticket sales, bringing its running total to $69.4 million since its Christmas debut. The film, directed by Robert Eggers, already surpassed its reported production budget of $50 million, though that figure does not account for marketing and promotion expenses.

No new wide releases opened this weekend, leaving the box office top 10 once again to holdovers from previous weeks. Several have been in theaters since Thanksgiving. One of those, “Moana 2,” claimed the No. 4 spot for Disney in its sixth weekend in theaters. The animated sequel earned another $12.4 million, bumping its global total to $960.5 million.

The Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown,” dipped only slightly in its second weekend, bringing in $8.1 million. With $41.7 million total, it’s Searchlight’s highest grossing film since Disney acquired the company in 2019.

A24’s erotic drama “Babygirl,” which added 49 locations, held steady at $4.5 million.

Another Thanksgiving leftover, “Wicked,” rounded out the top five. Universal’s movie musical was made available to purchase on VOD on Jan. 31, but still earned another $10.2 million from theaters. The movie is up for several awards at Sunday’s Golden Globes, including nominations for Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, best motion picture musical or comedy and “cinematic and box office achievement,” which last year went to “Barbie.”

Also in theaters this weekend was the IMAX re-release of David Fincher’s 4K restoration of “Seven,” which earned just over $1 million from 200 locations.

The 2025 box office year is already off to a better start than 2024, up around 20% from the same weekend last year.

Final domestic figures will be released Monday. Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore:

  1. “Mufasa: The Lion King,” $23.8 million.

  2. “Sonic the Hedgehog 3,” $21.2 million.

  3. “Nosferatu,” $13.2 million.

  4. “Moana 2,” $12.4 million.

  5. “Wicked,” $10.2 million.

  6. “A Complete Unknown,” $8.1 million.

  7. “Babygirl,” $4.5 million.

  8. “Gladiator II,” $2.7 million.

  9. “Homestead,” $2.1 million.

  10. “The Fire Inside,” $1.2 million.
    …

your ad here

Albanian Orthodox archbishop in critical condition

Posted on by SeeEU

Athens, Greece — The head of the Albanian Orthodox Church, who was airlifted to a hospital in Athens due to complications from a virus, is in a critical condition, the Evangelismos hospital said Sunday.

Archbishop Anastasios, 95, was taken to the Greek capital Friday evening, four days after being admitted to hospital in Tirana with what Church officials called a “seasonal virus.”

“His Beatitude’s condition is assessed as critical by the attending physicians,” the medical report from the hospital stated.

On Saturday, his condition was assessed as “stable despite his already complicated medical history.”

Anastasios is credited with having revived the Orthodox Church in Muslim-majority Albania. He led the Church there for three decades.

He was airlifted to Athens on a C-27 Greek air force plane following a request from Greek emergency services, the defense ministry said.

Greek public television ERT reported that he was also suffering from gastric bleeding.

In November 2020, he was hospitalized in Athens for 12 days with COVID-19.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis visited Sunday afternoon the hospital where Archbishop Anastasios of Albania is being treated and was informed for the ailing archbishop’s health condition.
…

your ad here

Blinken wades into political crisis with stop in South Korea

Posted on by SeeEA

Seoul — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday opened a visit to crisis-riven South Korea where he will seek delicately to encourage continuity with the policies, but not tactics, of the impeached president.

Blinken arrived in the snow-covered capital on what will likely be his final trip as the top U.S. diplomat before President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.

He will meet his counterpart Cho Tae-yul on Monday, the same day a warrant expires to arrest suspended President Yoon Suk Yeol who unsuccessfully tried to impose martial law on December 3.

Blinken is highlighting President Joe Biden’s efforts to build alliances and will head afterwards to Tokyo, making it crucial in the eyes of his advisors not to snub South Korea, which has a fraught and often competitive relationship with Japan, also home to thousands of American troops.

Yoon had once been a darling of the Biden administration with his bold moves to turn the page on friction with Japan and his eye on a greater role for South Korea on global issues.

Yoon joined Biden for a landmark three-way summit with Japan’s prime minister and — months before declaring martial law — was picked to lead a global democracy summit, a signature initiative for the outgoing U.S. administration.

Yoon also memorably charmed his hosts on a state visit by belting out “American Pie” at a White House dinner.

Blinken may face some criticism from the South Korean left for the visit but should be able to navigate the political crisis, said Sydney Seiler, a former US intelligence officer focused on Korea now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Blinken has a high enough profile to be above the fray, and can keep the focus on challenges such as China and North Korea, he said.

“Blinken can dodge a lot of these domestic South Korean landmines relatively easily and contextualize it not as trying to help the ruling party or artificially create a sense of normalcy where it otherwise isn’t,” Seiler said.

In a statement, the State Department did not directly mention the political crisis but said Blinken would seek to preserve trilateral cooperation with Japan, which has included enhanced intelligence sharing on North Korea.

Blinken’s visit comes at a time of change for both countries, with Trump returning to the White House on January 20.

Paradoxically, while Biden worked closely with the conservative Yoon, Trump in his first term enjoyed a warm relationship with then progressive president Moon Jae-in, who encouraged the U.S. president’s groundbreaking personal diplomacy with North Korea.

The Biden administration has stressed since the crisis that it is reaching out to South Korean politicians across the divide, amid the uncertainties on who will lead Asia’s fourth-largest economy.

Progressive opposition leader Lee Jae-myung — who himself faces election disqualification in a court case — supports diplomacy with North Korea.

But the former labor activist has also taken stances that differ from those of both Biden and Trump.

Lee has criticized deployment of U.S.-made THAAD missile defenses, which Washington says are meant to protect against North Korea but which China sees as a provocation. 

South Korea’s left has long championed a harder stance on Japan over its brutal 1910-1945 occupation of the Korean peninsula.

U.S. officials said they had no warning of Yoon’s imposition of martial law, which brought masses of protesters to the streets.

Blinken, addressing reporters last month, said the crisis showed the strength of South Korea’s institutions built in the three decades since it embraced democracy. 

“I think Korea is one of the most powerful stories in the world about the emergence of democracy and democratic resilience, and we’ll continue to look to Korea to set that example,” Blinken said.
…

your ad here

Russia: Ukraine launches new Kursk region offensive

Posted on by SeeEU

Russia said Sunday that Ukraine has launched a new counterattack in the western Kursk region aimed at repelling Russian and North Korean troops trying to retake territory that Kyiv’s forces captured last August. 

The Russian defense ministry said Kyiv deployed “an assault group consisting of two tanks, a mine clearing vehicle, and twelve armored combat vehicles with paratroops towards Berdin village.” 

Moscow said its “artillery and aviation of the North group of (Russian) forces defeated the assault group of the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” although news accounts said the outcome of the fighting was uncertain.  

“Russia is getting what it deserves,” Ukrainian presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak said commenting on the recent reports. 

The head of Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation, Andriy Kovalenko, said on Telegram that “defense forces are working” in the area. 

“In the Kursk region, the Russians are very worried because they were attacked from several directions, and it was a surprise for them,” he said. 

Ukrainian and Western accounts say that Russia has deployed about 11,000 North Korean troops in the Kursk region, although Moscow has neither confirmed nor denied their presence. 

Ukraine took the land August 6 and has held on since then even as Russia has gained territory in Ukraine’s eastern region and currently holds about a fifth of the country as the war nears the three-year mark next month. If Ukraine can hold on to the Kursk territory, it could give Kyiv a bargaining chip in any eventual peace talks with Russia. 

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has said he would resolve the Russia-Ukraine conflict before he is inaugurated on January 20, but he has not said how and there is no indication of any settlement in the coming days. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday that Russian and North Korean forces had suffered heavy losses in the Kursk fighting. 

“In battles yesterday and today near just one village, Makhnovka, in Kursk region, the Russian army lost up to a battalion of North Korean infantry soldiers and Russian paratroops,” Zelenskyy said. “This is significant.” 

Zelenskyy provided no specific details. A battalion can vary in size but is generally made up of several hundred troops. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin, in response to a question at his marathon annual phone-in last month, said that Russia would force Ukrainian forces out of Kursk but declined to set a date for when this would happen. 

On the battlefront Sunday, Ukraine’s air force said it shot down 61 out of 103 drones launched by Russia in an overnight attack, the other 42 were reported lost — likely due to electronic jamming. Russia said it had destroyed five Ukrainian drones over Russian territory.  

Some material in this report came from Reuters and Agence France-Presse. 
…

your ad here

Nagasaki atomic bomb survivor, who devoted his life for peace, dies at 93 

Posted on by SeeEA

TOKYO — Shigemi Fukahori, a survivor of the 1945 Nagasaki atomic bombing, who devoted his life to advocating for peace has died. He was 93. 

Fukahori died at a hospital in Nagasaki, southwestern Japan, on January 3, the Urakami Catholic Church, where he prayed almost daily until last year, said on Sunday. Local media reported he died of old age. 

The church, located about 500 meters from ground zero and near the Nagasaki Peace Park, is widely seen as a symbol of hope and peace, as its bell tower and some statues and survived the nuclear bombing. 

Fukahori was only 14 when the U.S. dropped the bomb on Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945, killing tens of thousands of people, including his family. That came three days after the nuclear attack on Hiroshima, which killed 140,000 people. Japan surrendered days later, ending World War II and the country’s nearly half-century of aggression across Asia. 

Fukahori, who worked at a shipyard about 3 kilometers from where the bomb dropped, couldn’t talk about what happened for years, not only because of the painful memories but also how powerless he felt then. 

About 15 years ago, he became more outspoken after encountering, during a visit to Spain, a man who experienced the bombing of Guernica in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War when he was also 14 years old. The shared experience helped Fukahori open up. 

“On the day the bomb dropped, I heard a voice asking for help. When I walked over and held out my hand, the person’s skin melted. I still remember how that felt,” Fukahori told Japan’s national broadcaster, NHK, in 2019. 

He often addressed students, hoping they take on what he called “the baton of peace,” in reference to his advocacy. 

When Pope Francis visited Nagasaki in 2019, Fukahori was the one who handed him a wreath of white flowers. The following year, Fukahori represented the bomb victims at a ceremony, making his “pledge for peace,” saying: “I am determined to send our message to make Nagasaki the final place where an atomic bomb is ever dropped.” 

A wake is scheduled for Sunday, and funeral services on Monday at Urakami Church, where his daughter will represent the family. 

 
…

your ad here

Costas Simitis, former Greek prime minister and socialist leader, dies at 88

Posted on by SeeEU

ATHENS, GREECE — Costas Simitis, former prime minister of Greece and the architect of the country’s joining the common European currency, the euro, has died at age 88, state TV ERT reported.

Simitis was taken to a hospital in the city of Corinth early Sunday morning from his holiday home west of Athens, unconscious and without a pulse, the hospital’s director was quoted as saying by Greek media. An autopsy will be performed to determine the cause of death.

The government decreed a four-day period of official mourning. Simitis will receive a state funeral.

Warm tributes appeared, and not just from political allies.

“I bid farewell to Costas Simitis with sadness and respect. A worthy and noble political opponent,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in a Facebook post, also saluting the “good professor and moderate parliamentarian.”

Another conservative politician, former European Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos, recalled how he, as mayor of Athens, had cooperated “seamlessly and warmly” with Simitis in organizing the Olympic Games.

“He served the country with devotion and a sense of duty. … He was steadfast in facing difficult challenges and promoted policies that changed the lives of [many] citizens,” Avramopoulos added.

Simitis, a co-founder of the Socialist PASOK party in 1974, eventually became the successor to the party’s founding leader, Andreas Papandreou, with whom he had an often-contentious relationship that shaped the party’s nature. Simitis was a low-key pragmatist whereas Papandreou was a charismatic, fiery populist. He was also a committed pro-European, while Papandreou banked on strong opposition to Greece’s joining what was then the European Economic Community in the 1970s, before changing tack once he became prime minister.

When the profligate first four years of socialist rule, from 1981 to 1985, resulted in a rapidly deteriorating economy, Papandreou elevated Simitis to be finance minister and oversee a tight austerity program. Finances improved, inflation was partly tamed, but Simitis was pushed to resign in 1987 when Papandreou, eyeing an upcoming election, announced a generous wages policy, undermining the goals of the austerity program.

The socialists returned to power with Papandreou still at the helm in 1993, but he was ailing and finally resigned the premiership in January 1996. A tight two rounds of voting among the socialist lawmakers unexpectedly elevated Simitis to the post of prime minister, a post he held until 2004.

Simitis considered Greece’s entry into the eurozone, in January 2001, as the signature achievement of his premiership. But he also helped secure the 2004 Olympic Games for Athens and presided over a vast program of infrastructure building, including a brand-new airport and two subway lines, to help host the games. He also helped Cyprus join the European Union in 2004.

His critics on the right and left did their best to denigrate his legacy, highlighting a dubious debt swap concluded after the country had joined the eurozone as an attempt to massage the debt numbers.

In the end, it was determined opposition from his own party, including trade union leaders, to pension reform in 2001 that fatally weakened Simitis’ administration. He decided to resign his party post and not contest the 2004 election, five months before the Olympics, rather than face certain defeat to the conservatives.

George Papandreou, son of the socialist party’s founder, succeeded him as party leader, and in 2008 expelled Simitis from the PASOK parliamentary group after the two men clashed over policies, including Papandreou’s proposal to hold a referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon. Simitis left parliament in 2009, but not before issuing a prescient warning that financial mismanagement would bring the country under the tutelage of the International Monetary Fund, which would impose harsh austerity. In the end, it was the IMF, jointly with the EU, that imposed a harsh regime on a bankrupt country in 2010.

Costas Simitis was born on June 23, 1936, the younger son of two politically active parents. His lawyer father, Georgios, was a member of the left-leaning resistance “government” during the German occupation and his mother, Fani, was an active feminist.

Simitis studied law at the University of Marburg, in Germany, in the 1950s, and economics and politics at the London School of Economics in the early 1960s. He later taught law at the University of Athens. His elder brother, Spiros, who died in 2023, was a noted legal scholar in Germany, specializing in data protection.

Simitis is survived by his wife of 60 years, Daphne, two daughters and a granddaughter.
…

your ad here

New Orleans attack, Vegas explosion highlight extremist violence by active military and veterans

Posted on by SeeUS

While much remains unknown about the man who carried out an attack in New Orleans on New Year’s and another who died in an explosion in Las Vegas the same day, the violence highlights the increased role of people with military experience in ideologically driven attacks, especially those that seek mass casualties.

In New Orleans, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a veteran of the U.S. Army, was killed by police after a deadly rampage in a pickup truck that left 14 others dead and injured dozens more. It’s being investigated as an act of terrorism inspired by the Islamic State group.

In Las Vegas, officials say Matthew Livelsberger, an active duty member of the U.S. Army Special Forces, shot himself in the head in a Tesla Cybertruck packed with firework mortars and camp fuel canisters, shortly before it exploded outside the entrance of the Trump International Hotel, injuring seven people. On Friday, investigators said Livelsberger wrote that the explosion was meant to serve as a “wakeup call” and that the country was “terminally ill and headed toward collapse.”

Service members and veterans who radicalize make up a tiny fraction of a percentage point of the millions who have honorably served their country. But an Associated Press investigation published last year found that radicalization among both veterans and active duty service members was on the rise and that hundreds of people with military backgrounds had been arrested for extremist crimes since 2017. The AP found that extremist plots they were involved in during that period had killed or injured nearly 100 people.

The AP also found multiple issues with the Pentagon’s efforts to address extremism in the ranks, including that there is still no force-wide system to track it, and that a cornerstone report on the issue contained old data, misleading analyses and ignored evidence of the problem.

Since 2017, both veterans and active duty service members radicalized at a faster rate than people without military backgrounds, according to data from terrorism researchers at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, or START, at the University of Maryland. Less than 1% of the adult population is currently serving in the U.S. military, but active duty military members make up a disproportionate 3.2% of the extremist cases START researchers found between 2017 and 2022.

While the number of people with military backgrounds involved in violent extremist plots remains small, the participation of active military and veterans gave extremist plots more potential for mass injury or death, according to data collected and analyzed by the AP and START.

More than 480 people with a military background were accused of ideologically driven extremist crimes from 2017 through 2023, including the more than 230 arrested in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection — 18% of those arrested for the attack as of late last year, according to START. The data tracked individuals with military backgrounds, most of whom were veterans, involved in plans to kill, injure or inflict damage for political, social, economic or religious goals.

The AP’s analysis found that plots involving people with military backgrounds were more likely to involve mass casualties, weapons training or firearms than plots that didn’t include someone with a military background. This held true whether or not the plots were carried out.

The jihadist ideology of the Islamic State group apparently connected to the New Orleans attack would make it an outlier in the motivations of previous attacks involving people with military backgrounds. Only around 9% of such extremists with military backgrounds subscribed to jihadist ideologies, START researchers found. More than 80% identified with far-right, anti-government or white supremacist ideologies, with the rest split among far-left or other motivations.

Still, there have been a number of significant attacks motivated by the Islamic State and jihadist ideology in which the attackers had U.S. military backgrounds. In 2017, a U.S. Army National Guard veteran who’d served in Iraq killed five people in a mass shooting at the Fort Lauderdale airport in Florida after radicalizing via jihadist message boards and vowing support for the Islamic State. In 2009, an Army psychiatrist and officer opened fire at Fort Hood, Texas, and killed 13 people, wounding dozens more. The shooter had been in contact with a known al-Qaida operative prior to the shooting.

In the shadow of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — led in part by veterans — law enforcement officials said the threat from domestic violent extremists was one of the most persistent and pressing terror threats to the United States. The Pentagon has said it is “committed to understanding the root causes of extremism and ensuring such behavior is promptly and appropriately addressed and reported to the proper authorities.”

Kristofer Goldsmith, an Army veteran and CEO of Task Force Butler Institute, which trains veterans to research and counter extremism, said the problem of violent extremism in the military cuts across ideological lines. Still, he said, while the Biden administration tried to put in place efforts to address it, Republicans in Congress opposed them for political reasons.

“They threw, you know, every roadblock that they could in saying that all veterans are being called extremists by the Biden administration,” Goldsmith said. “And now we’re in a situation where we’re four years behind where we could have been.”

During their long military careers, both Jabbar and Livelsberger served time at the U.S. Army base formerly known as Fort Bragg in North Carolina, one of the nation’s largest military bases. One of the officials who spoke to the AP said there is no overlap in their assignments at the base, now called Fort Liberty.

Goldsmith said he is concerned that the incoming Trump administration will focus on the New Orleans attack and ISIS and ignore that most deadly attacks in the United States in recent history have come from the far right, particularly if Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, is confirmed.

Hegseth has justified the medieval Crusades that pitted Christians against Muslims, criticized the Pentagon’s efforts to address extremism in the ranks and ahead of Joe Biden’s inauguration in the weeks after the Jan. 6 attack was himself flagged by a fellow National Guard member as a possible “insider threat.”
…

your ad here

Fraud allegations rock South Korean adoptees and families

Posted on by SeeEA

Her greatest fear, dormant for decades, came rushing back in an instant: had she adopted and raised a kidnapped child?

Peg Reif’s daughter, adopted from South Korea in the 1980s, had sent her a link to a documentary detailing how the system that made their family was rife with fraud: documents falsified, babies switched, children snatched off the street and sent abroad.

Reif wept.

She was among more than 120 who contacted The Associated Press this fall, after a series of stories and a documentary made with Frontline exposed how Korea created a baby pipeline, designed to ship children abroad as quickly as possible to meet Western demand. The reporting shook adoption communities around the world with details about how agencies competed for babies — pressuring mothers, bribing hospitals, fabricating documents. Most who wrote were adoptees, but some were adoptive parents like Reif, horrified to learn they had supported this system.

“I can’t stand the thought that somebody lost their child,” Reif said. “I can’t stop thinking about it. I don’t know how to make it right. I don’t know if I can.”

Forty years ago, she was struggling with infertility. She and her husband pinned their dreams for a family on adopting a baby from Mexico, paid an agency thousands of dollars and waited for months. Then the agency’s directors were arrested, and they learned that those Mexican babies had been taken from their families against their will. Reif was heartbroken but recalls even now looking at her husband and saying, “Thank God we don’t have a child who was stolen.”

But now she isn’t sure of that. Because then they adopted two Korean children, and brought them to their home in rural Wisconsin, first a son and then a daughter. The two were not biological siblings, but both arrived with strangely similar stories in their files: their young unmarried mothers worked in factories with fathers who disappeared after they got pregnant.

Back then, Reif still believed the common narrative about foreign adoption: it saved children who might otherwise live the rest of their lives in an orphanage, die or be damned to poverty.

“I don’t believe that anymore,” Reif said. “I don’t know what to believe.”

Cameron Lee Small, a therapist in Minneapolis whose practice caters to adoptees and their families, said many are feeling an intense sense of betrayal. Individual adoptees had long shared stories of falsified identities. But the revelations this year pointed to systemwide practices that routinely changed babies’ origin stories to process adoptions quickly, including listing them as “abandoned” even when they had known parents.

Small, who was also adopted from Korea in the 1980s, summarized what he’s been hearing from adoptees: “I’m kind of back to nothing. What do I believe now? Who can I believe?”

Reif’s daughter, Jenn Hamilton, spent her life thinking she was unwanted, often quipping, “That’s what happens when you’re found in a dumpster as a baby.”

It has taken a toll on her all her life: She’s been happily married for nine years, she said, but she has this insatiable insecurity: “I constantly find myself asking my husband, ‘Are you mad at me? Did I do something wrong?’ Do you want to leave me?'”

She has no idea anymore if abandonment was ever really her story, with revelations of abuses so systemic that even the Korean government likened it to “trafficking.”

“You can’t make that many mistakes. It has to be intentional. It was this huge tree of deception,” she said. “I feel disgusted.”

Holt International, the U.S.-based agency that pioneered adoptions from Korea, did not respond to repeated requests for comment for this story.

Reform is sweeping across Europe — countries have launched investigations, halted foreign adoptions and apologized to adoptees for failing to protect them. But the United States, which has taken in the most adopted children by far, has not done a review of its own history or culpability.

The U.S. State Department told AP this summer that it would work with its historian to piece together its history, and detailed initial findings that some documents might have been falsified. But it said there was no evidence that U.S. officials were aware of it. The State Department has since said that it has “been unable to identify any records that could provide insight into the U.S. government role in adoptions from South Korea in the 1970s and 1980s.”

Korea’s National Police Agency confirmed an increase in adoptees registering their DNA for family searches — both at domestic police stations and diplomatic offices across North America and Europe — in the weeks following the release of the AP stories and documentary in September. More than 120 adoptees registered their DNA in October and November, compared to an average of fewer than 30 a month from January to August.

Korea’s government has maintained that adoptions were a necessary tool to care for needy children, including babies of unwed mothers or other children deemed as abandoned. However, Korea’s Ministry of Health and Welfare acknowledged to AP that the adoption boom in the 1970s and 80s was possibly fueled by a desire to reduce welfare costs.

Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission has been investigating government accountability over foreign adoption problems since 2022, prompted by complaints filed by hundreds of adoptees, and is expected to release an interim report in February. The Commission has posted the AP stories on its website.

A law passed in 2023 mandates that all adoption records be transferred from private agencies to a government department called the National Center for the Rights of the Child by July, to centralize the handling of family search requests. The center has confirmed that private agencies hold about 170,000 adoption files, but director Chung Ick-Joong doubts it will acquire a space to store and manage all these records in time, due to financial constraints and other challenges. The agency expects family search requests to increase dramatically – “possibly by tenfold,” according to Chung — yet has funding to add only five staff members to its team of six searchers.

Chung acknowledged that flaws in adoption laws had persisted for decades, and Korea only required adoptions to go through courts and birth records to be preserved after 2012.

“It’s difficult to determine who was responsible for the inaccuracies in records before then,” he said. “The adoption agency might have been at fault, the biological parents may have lied, or something might have gone wrong at the orphanage … no one truly knows what the truth is.”

Korean adoption agencies have mostly declined AP’s requests for comment in recent months, often citing privacy concerns.

Advocates insist that most adoptive families thrive, with both the parents and children happily living their lives without questioning the industry as Reif and Hamilton have.

Hamilton grew up in a rural, almost exclusively white community in Wisconsin, and back then all she wanted was to be accepted. But having children of her own changed that. When her first child was born, she looked at him, and it took her breath away.

“It can’t explain it, like this is the first person I know in my life that I’m biologically related to,” she said.

She wanted to learn her own history, so her children could know theirs. She wrote a letter to her adoption agency, which within weeks connected her with a woman they said was her mother. It was emotional, shocking.

But soon she felt like she had more questions than answers. The woman’s name didn’t match the one listed on paperwork, and the name she gave for the father was also different. Birthdates didn’t match, the birthplace didn’t either. They had not met in a factory, she said, they had been pen pals.

Hamilton asked the woman to take a DNA test, but she said she didn’t know how to access one. Hamilton came to believe this woman was not her birth mother.

The AP’s reporting found numerous cases where agencies connected adoptees with supposed birth families, only for them to later discover after emotional meetings that they weren’t related at all.

Hamilton has been trying to untangle the DNA results on her father’s side, contacting people distantly related, cousins once removed, half great aunts.

“It becomes an obsession,” Hamilton said. “It’s like a puzzle that you start, and you have to find the missing pieces.”

Lynelle Long, the founder of InterCountry Adoptee Voices, the largest organization of adoptees in the world, said governments at the very least need to legally mandate that agencies provide adoptees with their full and redacted documents, without the payment now often required.

Long said parents like Reif have an important role, because in Western countries, laws always favored the desires of adoptive parents — designed to make adoptions quicker and easier. Many clung to the narrative that they saved needy orphans who should be grateful, she said, especially in the U.S., where the reckoning rocking Europe has not taken hold.

“We really need adoptive parents in the United States, if they have any inkling of guilt or shame or loss, to step up, take responsibility and demand that legislation be put in place to criminalize these practices and prevent it from ever happening again,” Long said.

Hamilton is close to her parents; she just renovated the basement to accommodate their visits. She’s sad for herself, she said, but she’s sadder for her mother, who is desperate to learn if her children actually had parents somewhere, searching for them.

“And I’m like, ‘Why, so you can send us back?” Hamilton said. “I don’t want to be a victim.”

She said she’s glad she was adopted, and does not long for that different, alternative life in Korea.

Reif loves her children profoundly, she said. But she doesn’t think she would adopt from abroad again, if she’d known then what she knows now.

“I’d rather be childless than think I have somebody else’s child that didn’t want to give them up,” she said. “I think of somebody taking my child. Those poor families, I just can’t imagine it.”
…

your ad here

‘Our county ignored Africa,’ Jimmy Carter said. He didn’t

Posted on by SeeAF

NAIROBI, KENYA — Jimmy Carter was the first U.S. president to make a state visit to sub-Saharan Africa. He once called helping with Zimbabwe’s transition from white rule to independence “our greatest single success.” And when he died at 100, his foundation’s work in rural Africa had nearly fulfilled his quest to eliminate a disease that afflicted millions, for the first time since the eradication of smallpox.

The African continent, a booming region with a population rivaling China’s that is set to double by 2050, is where Carter’s legacy remains most evident. Until his presidency, U.S. leaders had shown little interest in Africa, even as independence movements swept the region in the 1960s and ’70s.

“I think the day of the so-called ugly American is over,” Carter said during his warm 1978 reception in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country. He said the official state visit swept aside “past aloofness by the United States,” and he joked that he and Nigerian President Olesegun Obasanjo would go into peanut farming together.

Cold War tensions drew Carter’s attention to the continent as the U.S. and Soviet Union competed for influence. But Carter also drew on the missionary traditions of his Baptist faith and the racial injustice he witnessed in his homeland in the U.S. South.

“For too long our country ignored Africa,” Carter told the Democratic National Committee in his first year as president.

African leaders soon received invitations to the White House, intrigued by the abrupt interest from the world’s most powerful nation and what it could mean for them.

“There is an air of freshness which is invigorating,” visiting Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda said.

Carter observed after his first Africa trip, “There is a common theme that runs through the advice to me of leaders of African nations: ‘We want to manage our own affairs. We want to be friends with both of the great superpowers and also with the nations of Europe. We don’t want to choose up sides.'”

The theme echoes today as China also jostles with Russia and the U.S. for influence, and access to Africa’s raw materials. But neither superpower has had an emissary like Carter, who made human rights central to U.S. foreign policy and made 43 more trips to the continent after his presidency, promoting Carter Center projects that sought to empower Africans to determine their own futures.

As president, Carter focused on civil and political rights. He later broadened his efforts to include social and economic rights as the key to public health.

“They are the rights of the human by virtue of their humanity. And Carter is the single person in the world that has done the most for advancing this idea,” said Abdullahi Ahmed An-Naim, a Sudanese legal scholar.

Even as a candidate, Carter mused about what he might accomplish, telling Playboy magazine, “it might be that now I should drop my campaign for president and start a crusade for black-majority rule in South Africa or Rhodesia [now Zimbabwe]. It might be that later on, we’ll discover there were opportunities in our lives to do wonderful things and we didn’t take advantage of them.”

Carter welcomed Zimbabwe’s independence just four years later, hosting new Prime Minister Robert Mugabe at the White House and quoting the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

“Carter told me that he spent more time on Rhodesia than he did on the entire Middle East. And when you go into the archives and look at the administration, there is indeed more on southern Africa than the Middle East,” historian and author Nancy Mitchell said.

Relations with Mugabe’s government soon soured amid deadly repression and by 1986 Carter led a walkout of diplomats in the capital. In 2008, Carter was barred from Zimbabwe, a first in his travels. He called the country “a basket case, an embarrassment to the region.”

“Whatever the Zimbabwean leadership may think of him now, Zimbabweans, at least those who were around in the 1970s and ’80s, will always regard him as an icon and a tenacious promoter of democracy,” said Eldred Masunungure, a Harare-based political analyst.

Carter also criticized South Africa’s government for its treatment of Black citizens under apartheid, at a time when South Africa was “trying to ingratiate itself with influential economies around the world,” current President Cyril Ramaphosa said on X after Carter’s death.

The think tank Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter founded in 1982 played a key role in monitoring African elections and brokering cease-fires between warring forces, but fighting disease was the third pillar of The Carter Center’s work.

“The first time I came here to Cape Town, I almost got in a fight with the president of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, because he was refusing to let AIDS be treated,” Carter told a local newspaper. “That’s the closest I’ve come to getting into a fist fight with a head of state.”

Carter often said he was determined to outlive the last guinea worm infecting the human race. Once affecting millions of people, the parasitic disease has nearly been eliminated, with just 14 cases documented in 2023 in a handful of African countries.

Carter’s quest included arranging a four-month “guinea worm cease-fire” in Sudan in 1995 so that The Carter Center could reach almost 2,000 endemic villages.

“He taught us a lot about having faith,” said Makoy Samuel Yibi, who leads the guinea worm eradication program for South Sudan’s health ministry and grew up with people who believed the disease was simply their fate. “Even the poor people call these people poor, you see. To have the leader of the free world pay attention and try to uplift them is a touching virtue.”

Such dedication impressed health officials in Africa over the years.

“President Carter worked for all humankind irrespective of race, religion, or status,” Ethiopia’s former health minister, Lia Tadesse, said in a statement shared with the AP. Ethiopia, the continent’s second most populous country with over 110 million people, had zero guinea worm cases in 2023.
…

your ad here

Italian Prime Minister Meloni meets with Trump at his Florida resort

Posted on by SeeEU

WEST PALM BEACH, FLORIDA — Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni flew to Florida to meet with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday, as the key European leader sought to buttress ties with Trump before his inauguration on Jan. 20.

Members of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort welcomed Meloni with applause after an introduction by the president-elect, according to videos shared on social media by reporters and others.

Her trip comes days before she is to meet U.S. President Joe Biden during a visit to Rome from Thursday to Jan. 12. Trump defeated Biden in the November election and is preparing his return to the White House.

While no details of their meeting have been disclosed, Meloni had planned to talk with Trump about Russia’s war in Ukraine, trade issues, the Middle East and the plight of an Italian journalist detained in Tehran, according to Italian media reports.

Meloni’s office declined to comment on the reports.

She is seen as a potentially strong partner for Trump given her conservative credentials and the stability of the right-wing coalition she heads in Italy. She has also forged a close relationship with billionaire tech CEO Elon Musk, a close Trump ally who spent more than a quarter-billion dollars to help him win the election.

“This is very exciting. I’m here with a fantastic woman, the prime minister of Italy,” Trump told the Mar-a-Lago crowd, according to a media pool report. “She’s really taken Europe by storm.”

Trump and Meloni then sat down for a screening of a documentary questioning the criminal investigations and legal scrutiny faced by John Eastman, a former Trump lawyer who was central to Trump’s unsuccessful efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.

One of the biggest challenges facing Meloni is the arrest of Italian journalist Cecilia Sala in Iran on Dec. 19.

Sala was detained three days after Mohammad Abedini, an Iranian businessman, was arrested at Milan’s Malpensa airport on a U.S. warrant for allegedly supplying drone parts that Washington says were used in a 2023 attack that killed three U.S. service members in Jordan. Iran has denied involvement in the attack.

On Friday, Iran’s foreign ministry summoned Italy’s ambassador over Abedini’s detention, Iranian state media reported.

Meloni became the latest in the handful of foreign leaders who have visited Trump in Florida since the Nov. 5 election. He has met with Argentinian President Javier Milei, Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. 
…

your ad here

Jimmy Carter’s state funeral has started. Here’s what to know

Posted on by SeeUS

ATLANTA, GEORGIA — Six days of funeral observances for former President Jimmy Carter began Saturday in Georgia, where he died on Dec. 29 at the age of 100.

The first events reflected Carter’s climb up the political ladder, from the tiny town of Plains, Georgia, to decades on the global stage as a humanitarian and advocate for democracy.

Here is what to know about the initial ceremonies and what happens next:

The start honors Carter’s deep roots in rural south Georgia

The proceedings began at 10:15 a.m. local time Saturday with the Carter family arriving at Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus.

Former Secret Service agents who protected Carter served as pallbearers, walking alongside the hearse as it exited the campus on its way to Plains.

James Earl Carter Jr. lived more than 80 of his 100 years in and around the town, which still has fewer than 700 people, not much more than when he was born on Oct. 1, 1924. Some other modern presidents — Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton — also grew up in small-town settings but Carter stands out for returning and remaining in his birthplace for his long post-presidency.

The motorcade moved through downtown Plains, which spans just a few blocks, passing near the girlhood home of former first lady Rosalynn Smith Carter, who died in November 2023 at the age of 96, and near where the couple operated the family peanut warehouses. The route also included the old train depot that served as Jimmy Carter’s 1976 presidential campaign headquarters and the gas station once run by Carter’s younger brother, Billy.

The motorcade passed by the Methodist church where the Carters married in 1946, and the home where they lived and died. The former president will be buried there alongside Rosalynn.

The Carters built the one-story house, now surrounded by Secret Service fencing, before his first state Senate campaign in 1962 and lived out their lives there with the exception of four years in the Governor’s Mansion and four more in the White House.

A stop at Carter’s boyhood home — a blend of privilege, hard work

After going through Plains, the procession stopped in front of Carter’s family farm and boyhood home in Archery, just outside the town, after passing the cemetery where the former president’s parents, James Earl Carter Sr. and Lillian Carter, are buried.

The farm now is part of the Jimmy Carter National Historical Park. The National Park Service rang the old farm bell 39 times to honor the 39th president.

Carter was the first president born in a hospital. But the home had no electricity or running water when he was born, and he worked his father’s land during the Great Depression. Still, the Carters had relative privilege and status. Earl employed Black tenant farming families. The elder Carter also owned a store in Plains and was a local civic and political leader. Lillian was a nurse and she delivered Rosalynn. The property still includes a tennis court Earl had built for the family.

It was Earl’s death in 1953 that set Jimmy on course toward the Oval Office. The younger Carters had left Plains after he graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy. But Jimmy abandoned a promising career as a submarine officer and early participant in the Pentagon’s nuclear program to take over the family’s peanut business after his father’s death. Within a decade, he was elected to the Georgia state Senate.

Lying in repose in Atlanta, where Carter was a politician and global figure

From Archery, the motorcade headed north to Atlanta. The military-run motorcade stopped outside the Georgia Capitol, where Carter served as a state senator from 1963-67 and governor from 1971-75. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens led a moment of silence. While former governors are honored with state-run funerals, presidents — even if they served as governors — are memorialized with national rites run by the federal government.

The motorcade then proceeded to the Carter Presidential Center, which includes Carter’s presidential library and The Carter Center, established by the former president and first lady in 1982. Carter’s son, James Earl “Chip” Carter III, and his grandson, Jason Carter, spoke to an assembly that included many Carter Center employees whose work concentrating on international diplomacy and mediation, election monitoring, and fighting disease in the developing world continues to set a standard for what former presidents can accomplish.

Jimmy Carter, who delivered the center’s annual reports until 2019, won the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize in part for this post-presidential work.

Carter was scheduled to lie in repose from 7 p.m. Saturday to 6 a.m. Tuesday, with the public able to pay respects around the clock.

What’s next: A return to Washington

Carter’s remains will travel next to Washington, where he will lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda until his funeral at 10 a.m. Thursday at the Washington National Cathedral. All the living presidents have been invited, and Joe Biden, a Carter ally, will deliver a eulogy. Biden also signed a bill to name a U.S. Postal Service facility in Plains after Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter.

The Carter family then will return to bury its patriarch in Plains after a private hometown funeral at 3:45 p.m. at Maranatha Baptist Church, where Carter, a devout evangelical, taught Sunday School for decades.

Carter will be buried afterward in a private graveside service, in a plot visible from the front porch of his home.
…

your ad here

Blinken heads to South Korea, Japan, France

Posted on by SeeEU

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Antony Blinken will embark on what is expected to be his final overseas trip in office this weekend, traveling to South Korea, Japan and France. 

The State Department announced Friday that Blinken would visit Seoul, South Korean, Tokyo and Paris beginning Sunday. 

In South Korea, which is in the midst of political turmoil following the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol, and Japan, Blinken intends to highlight the expansion of U.S. cooperation with both nations as part of the Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy. 

That strategy is primarily intended to blunt Chinese ambitions in the region but also to deter the nuclear threat from North Korea. Political developments in South Korea, however, after Yoon declared martial law and was later impeached, have raised questions about the stability of Washington-Seoul relations. 

The U.S. has taken a cautious approach to the uncertainty, insisting that the U.S.-South Korea alliance remains intact and iron-clad. Blinken will speak with South Korean officials about how “to build on our critical cooperation on challenges around the world based on our shared values,” the State Department said in a statement. 

In Tokyo, Blinken will “review the tremendous progress the U.S.-Japan alliance has made over the past few years,” the statement said. That includes a major arms sales approval announced on Friday under which the U.S. will deliver some $3.64 billion in medium-range missiles, related equipment and training to Japan. 

China has repeatedly complained about the potential sale, saying it will affect stability and security in the region, allegations that both Japan and the U.S. reject. 

Blinken will wrap up his trip in Paris in meetings with French officials to discuss developments in the Middle East and European security, particularly in Ukraine. 
…

your ad here

Biden honors Clinton, Bono, Goodall, others for contributions

Posted on by SeeUS

WASHINGTON — In the East Room of the White House on a particularly frigid Saturday afternoon, President Joe Biden bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 19 of the most famous names in politics, sports, entertainment, civil rights, LGBTQ+ advocacy and science. 

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton aroused a standing ovation from the crowd as she received her medal. Clinton was accompanied to the event by her husband former President Bill Clinton, daughter Chelsea Clinton and grandchildren. Democratic philanthropist George Soros and actor-director Denzel Washington were also awarded the nation’s highest civilian honor in a White House ceremony. 

“For the final time as president I have the honor [of] bestowing the Medal of Freedom, our nation’s highest civilian honor, on a group of extraordinary, truly extraordinary people, who gave their sacred effort, their sacred effort, to shape the culture and the cause of America,” Biden said in his opening remarks. 

“Let me just say to each of you, thank you, thank you, thank you for all you’ve done to help this country,” Biden said Saturday. 

4 medals awarded posthumously

Four medals were awarded posthumously. They went to George W. Romney, who served as both a Michigan governor and secretary of housing and urban development; former Attorney General and Senator Robert F. Kennedy; Ash Carter, a former secretary of defense; and Fannie Lou Hamer, who founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and laid the groundwork for the 1965 Voting Rights Act. 

Kennedy is father to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for health and human services secretary. Biden said, “Bobby is one of my true political heroes. I love and I miss him dearly.” 

Romney is the father of former Utah Republican Senator Mitt Romney, one of Trump’s strongest conservative critics. 

Recipients made ‘exemplary contributions’

Biden has days left in the presidential office and has spent the last few days issuing awards and medals to valiant military veterans, courageous law enforcement officials and exceptional Americans. 

The White House said the Medal of Freedom recipients have made “exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors.” 

Major philanthropists receiving the award include Spanish American chef Jose Andres, whose World Central Kitchen charity has become one of the world’s most recognized food relief organizations, and Bono, the front man for rock band U2 and a social justice activist. 

Soros’ son Alex Soros accepted the medal on his father’s behalf. In an emailed statement, Soros said: “As an immigrant who found freedom and prosperity in America, I am deeply moved by this honor.” 

Sports and entertainment stars recognized include professional soccer player Lionel Messi, who did not attend the event; retired Los Angeles Lakers basketball legend and businessman Earvin “Magic” Johnson; actor Michael J. Fox, who is an outspoken advocate for Parkinson’s disease research and development; and William Sanford Nye, known to generations of students as “Bill Nye the Science Guy.” 

Other awardees include conservationist Jane Goodall; longtime Vogue magazine editor-in-chief Anna Wintour; American fashion designer Ralph Lauren; American Film Institute founder George Stevens Jr.; entrepreneur and LGBTQ+ activist Tim Gill; and David Rubenstein, co-founder of The Carlyle Group global investment firm. 

Lauren is the first fashion designer to receive the honor. 

Last year, Biden bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom on 19 people, including the late Medgar Evers, House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina and actor Michelle Yeoh. 

The Presidential Medal of Freedom was awarded 654 times between 1963 and 2024, according to the Congressional Research Service. Notable Medal of Freedom recipients from the past include Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Maya Angelou and Mother Teresa. 
…

your ad here

Russia-appointed officials in Crimea declare emergency; oil spill reaches Sevastopol

Posted on by SeeEU

Russia-appointed officials in Moscow-occupied Crimea announced a regional emergency Saturday, as oil was detected on the shores of Sevastopol, the peninsula’s largest city.

Fuel oil spilled out of two storm-stricken tankers nearly three weeks ago in the Kerch Strait, close to eastern Crimea — about 250 kilometers from Sevastopol, which lies on the southwest of the peninsula.

“Today a regional emergency regime has been declared in Sevastopol,” regional Governor Mikhail Razvozhaev wrote on Telegram.

Oil was found on four beaches in the region and was “promptly eliminated” by local authorities working together with volunteers, Razvozhaev said.

“Let me emphasize: there is no mass pollution of the coastline in Sevastopol,” he wrote.

Razvozhaev’s announcement came after authorities in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region announced a region-wide emergency last week, as the fuel oil continued washing up on the coastline 10 days after one tanker ran aground and the other was left damaged and adrift on December 15.

Krasnodar regional Governor Veniamin Kondratyev said that almost 7,000 people were still working Saturday to clean up the spill.

More than 96,000 tons of contaminated sand and soil have been removed along the region’s shoreline since the original spill, he wrote on Telegram.

On December 23, the ministry estimated that up to 200,000 tons in total may have been contaminated with mazut, a heavy, low-quality oil product.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has called the oil spill an “ecological disaster.”

The Kerch Strait, which separates the Russia-occupied Crimean Peninsula from the Krasnodar region, is an important global shipping route, providing passage from the inland Sea of Azov to the Black Sea.

It has also been a key point of conflict between Russia and Ukraine after Moscow annexed the peninsula in 2014. In 2016, Ukraine took Moscow to the Permanent Court of Arbitration, where it accused Russia of trying to seize control of the area illegally. In 2021, Russia closed the strait for several months.

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, described the oil spill last month as a “large-scale environmental disaster” and called for additional sanctions on Russian tankers.
…

your ad here

Taiwan: China ups efforts to undermine democracy with disinformation

Posted on by SeeEA

TAIPEI, TAIWAN — Taiwan’s government says China is redoubling efforts to undermine confidence in the self-governing island’s democracy and close ties with the United States through the spread of disinformation, especially online.

The National Security Bureau said the number of pieces of false or biased information distributed by China increased 60% last year, to 2.16 million from 1.33 million in 2023.

The brief report issued Friday tallied “pieces of controversial information,” but did not further define the term. Facebook and X, formerly known as Twitter, were the main conduits for disinformation, along with platforms that explicitly target young people such as TikTok, the report said.

China created “inauthentic accounts” to distribute its propaganda on YouTube, used technology such as AI to create fake videos and flooded comments sections with pro-China statements, the report said. China has for years used global social media platforms to spread official messages and misinformation even while banning them inside the country.

Beijing already has considerable influence with Taiwanese newspapers and other traditional media through their owners’ business interests in mainland China.

China claims Taiwan as its own territory to be brought under its control by force, if necessary, with Chinese leader Xi Jinping renewing a declaration in his New Year’s address that unification with Taiwan was inevitable and could not be blocked by outside forces, a likely reference to the U.S., Taiwan’s most important ally.

China regularly sends warplanes, ships and balloons into areas controlled by Taiwan and holds military drills to simulate a blockade or invasion of the island. Beijing has also been building up its navy and missile forces to hit key targets and fend off American military support.

Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te said in his own New Year’s address that the island would continue to strengthen its defenses in the face of escalating Chinese threats. Taiwan, he said, was a crucial part of the global “line of defense of democracy” against authoritarian states such as China, Russia, North Korea and Iran.
…

your ad here

Prince William saddened by death of former nanny’s stepson in New Orleans attack

Posted on by SeeUS

LONDON — Prince William expressed his shock and sadness Saturday at the news of the death of his former nanny’s stepson in the New Year’s truck attack in New Orleans that killed 14 people.

London’s Metropolitan Police confirmed Saturday that they are supporting the family of 31-year-old Edward Pettifer, including helping them through the process of returning his body to the United Kingdom. Pettifer, who is from west London, is the final victim to be identified.

In a statement on social media, the Prince of Wales said he and his wife, Catherine, were “shocked and saddened by the tragic death of Ed Pettifer. Our thoughts and prayers remain with the Pettifer family and all those innocent people who have been tragically impacted by this horrific attack.”

Pettifer was the stepson of Tiggy Legge-Bourke, who was the nanny for William and his brother, Prince Harry, between 1993 and 1999, which included the time after the death of their mother, Princess Diana, in 1997. Legge-Bourke, who is also known as Alexandra Pettifer, was regularly photographed with Diana.

British media also reported that King Charles III is said to be deeply saddened by the news and that he has sent his condolences to Pettifer’s family.

In a statement, Pettifer’s family said they were “devastated at the tragic news of Ed’s death” and described him as “a wonderful son, brother, grandson, nephew and a friend to so many.”

“We will all miss him terribly. Our thoughts are with the other families who have lost their family members due to this terrible attack,” the family added.

Authorities say 14 people were killed and about 30 were injured in the attack early Wednesday by Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a former U.S. Army soldier who posted several videos on his Facebook account hours before the attack previewing the violence he would unleash and proclaiming his support for the Islamic State militant group. The coroner’s office listed the cause of death for all 14 victims as “blunt force injuries.”

Jabbar, 42, was fatally shot in a firefight with police at the scene of the deadly crash on Bourbon Street, famous worldwide for its festive vibes in New Orleans’ historic French Quarter.
…

your ad here

Ethiopia evacuates 80,000 after earthquakes, fears of volcanic eruption

Posted on by SeeAF

Ethiopia’s government said it is evacuating approximately 80,000 people following a series of small-scale earthquakes in the Afar, Oromia and Amhara regions.

At least 10 earthquakes were reported in Ethiopia since Friday, and there are signs of possible volcanic activity.

The latest earthquakes shook the Awash Fentale district, which stretches between the Afar and Oromia regions, at 3:52 a.m. Saturday.

The United States Geological Survey recorded an earthquake measuring a magnitude of 5.8 about 56 kilometers (35 miles) southeast of Ambosa, in the Oromia region, in the early hours of Saturday.

Atalay Ayele, head of the Seismology Department and a professor of seismic science at Addis Ababa University, says the epicenter was in the middle of Dofen Mountain, Awash Fentale district, in the Afar region.

Just hours later a second tremor, measured at 4.7, was reported about 10 kilometers (6 miles) east of Awash in the Afar region.

“The events are increasing in size and frequency from time to time. In particular, this week, data shows that an earthquake measuring up to 5.8 on the Richter scale,” according to a statement issued by the federal government Saturday.

The earthquake was felt in the capital, Addis Ababa, and cities such as Adama and Metehara. Residents living in condos and high-rise buildings felt it, too, reports say.

As many as two dozen quakes and aftershocks were reported in Awash Fentale district since September, according to residents and officials.

In the Afar region, frequent quakes created a natural hot spring water crater that is reportedly widening.

No casualties were reported, but the quakes damaged dozens of homes in Afar.

Fears of volcanic eruptions

Friday’s tremor in Afar resulted in fears of volcanic eruptions after smoke came from vents in the Dofen volcano, signaling potential volcanic activity.

“The government is closely monitoring the events with experts in the field. In addition, it has identified the epicenter of the earthquake and deployed emergency workers from various fields in 12 kebeles [districts] to assess the extent of the damage,” the statement from Ethiopia’s government said.

“It is making great efforts to identify the most vulnerable among the 80,000 citizens living in those kebeles and to evacuate them from the area. It is also monitoring the possible impact of the earthquake on social service institutions, economic institutions, and infrastructure.”

The Ethiopian Disaster Risk Management Commission announced in a statement issued on Saturday that over 51,000 residents in the Afar and Oromia regions are at risk due to recurring earthquakes in the past two months. To mitigate the risk, more than 13,000 people have already been relocated to safer areas, the commission said.

In the Fentale district of the Oromia region, over 16,000 residents face similar risks, with more than 7,000 of them relocated to secure locations, the statement added.

Some residents in the affected towns said they left their homes after the quake.

Zumara Mamo is a resident of Abomsa, where the quake was felt. She says the earthquake happened while she was asleep.

“I was sleeping on the floor with my child. Suddenly I felt the Earth beneath me shaking. The shock displaced the glass on my door,” she told VOA’s Horn of Africa Service.

According to Zumara, the shock lasted nearly a minute and was greater than the previous shock reported in the area in October.

Fentale district in the Oromia region lies less than 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the epicenter of the Saturday morning earthquake near Abomsa town.

Abayneh Urgo, who lives in Fentale district, said a strong earthquake shock was felt in his town and now residents are sleeping outside.

Efrem Wakjira, who lives near German Square in Addis Ababa, said earthquakes have been frequent this week.

“The shock of the earthquake has been common during the past five days, but Saturday morning was quite strong. It happened at around 4 a.m. local time, and I was awakened from sleeping by the shock.”

The government said the earthquake has not yet had a significant impact on major towns and has urged citizens to “follow and strictly implement the precautionary messages issued by experts.”

Ethiopian cities are vulnerable to quakes

Ethiopian experts have warned that many buildings in the country, particularly in Addis Ababa, are highly vulnerable to earthquakes.

Esayas Gebreyohannes, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Addis Ababa University’s Institute of Technology, said Ethiopia introduced building code standards in 1983 that need updating every 10 to 20 years, with the next update scheduled this year.

“Despite these updates, significant gaps persist in adherence to the standards during building design and construction,” he said.

“Many buildings evaluated at Addis Ababa University reveal design faults due to noncompliance with the standards. Additionally, construction materials and workmanship often fall short of required quality levels. Most buildings in Addis Ababa exhibit these deficiencies, compromising their safety and quality,” Esayas said.

“The recent frequent earthquake[s] is a sign that we are living in an active volcanic area,” professor Ayele told VOA by phone.

“The state should be careful while building infrastructures at those places. The relief agencies should stand by, and the public must also get awareness regarding the shocks,” he said.

Government engineers say plans are underway to reinforce major public buildings to withstand high-magnitude earthquakes.

Engineer Mesfin Negewo, director general of the Ethiopian Construction Authority, acknowledged growing concerns over the increasing frequency of earthquakes.

“We have observed frequent seismic activity over the past two months, and we are actively assessing the situation,” he said by phone to VOA.

He said to address the emerging risks — the government has established task forces to study the situation and monitor incidents closely.

“These teams will present a comprehensive report to authorities,” he said.

VOA’s Kennedy Abate and Mesfin Aragie contributed to this report.
…

your ad here

Market fire in northern China kills at least 8, injures 15

Posted on by SeeEA

BEIJING — A fire at a food market Saturday in northern China killed at least eight people and injured 15 others, state media said.

The fire at the Liguang market in the city of Zhangjiakou, northwest of Beijing, broke out midday Saturday and was mostly extinguished by 2 p.m., Xinhua News Agency reported, citing a government official in the Qiaoxi District, where the market is located.

“The injured have been sent to hospital for treatment and are currently not in life-threatening danger,” the government official said. The cause of the fire is under investigation.

Such traditional markets are often tightly packed with shoppers seeking prices lower than at supermarket chains.

Fire sources can range from gas bottles to charcoal used to roast meat and discarded cigarettes while aging infrastructure, such as underground gas lines, has also been blamed for fires and explosions.

Footage shared online and geolocated by Agence France-Presse showed people outside the market fleeing the blaze while thick smoke billowed skyward.

Other videos showed firefighters battling the flames and carrying victims away from the scene.

Deadly fires are relatively common in China due to lax building codes and an often-slipshod approach to workplace safety.

A blaze in the major city of Chengdu in October left 24 people hospitalized with breathing difficulties, state media reported.

In July, a fire at a shopping center in the southwestern city of Zigong killed 16 people.

Zhangjiakou, located in Hebei province bordering Beijing, hosted events during the 2022 Winter Olympic Games.

Some information in this report is from Agence France-Presse.
…

your ad here

Cameroon says Nigerian militant attack killed government troops

Posted on by SeeAF

YAOUNDE, CAMEROON — Villagers in southern Cameroon say armed men crossed the border from Nigeria and killed at least seven government troops and displaced civilians from about 15 villages. Civilians say they believe the attackers are members of a militant group.

Villagers in the Akwaya district on Cameroon’s border with Nigeria’s Taraba state say several hundred armed men crossed the Moon River two times this week and launched deadly attacks on their villages.

The Moon River lies to the south on Cameroon’s border with Nigeria. Villagers say the water level has dropped significantly this dry season, making it easy to cross by foot.

The villagers say the first attack was on Thursday, when armed men suspected to be ethnic Fulani from Nigeria entered their villages and started shooting indiscriminately in the air, torching houses and threatening to kill civilians.

Cameroon’s military says that it fought back and that the attackers retreated after several fighters were killed.

Agwa Linus Tarnonge, traditional ruler of Bakinjaw village in Akwaya district, said villagers were surprised that the men returned on Friday, more heavily armed than they were on Thursday.

“In the cause of gun fire exchanges, some of those armed Fulani suffered casualties, and then the remaining ones retreated and came back with an overwhelming population [number of fighters], and with more sophisticated rifles,” Tarnonge told VOA by phone from Akwaya. “They attacked our [Cameroon] military contingent that is lodged at the chief’s palace in Bakinjaw, and killed five military and two gendarmes.”

The Cameroon military said it lost five troops during the confrontation. Villagers say two government troops sustained injuries and died while being rushed to a hospital for treatment.

Many civilians were injured, and it is too early to determine if some villagers died because of the difficult access to Akwaya, the Cameroon military says.

Aka Martin Tyoga, a lawmaker and member of Cameroon’s National Assembly from Akwaya, said this week’s attacks are the latest in a series of what he called attempts by Nigerian militant groups to seize that area of Cameroon.

“We have asked the people to move away from the border area to the center, where we have the military that has been there since,” Tyoga said. “We are pleading that the government should send more forces [military] because these people [armed men] come en masse; they came in 300. Their mode of operating is like Boko Haram. They enter the community and just start killing people, burning down houses.”

No group has claimed responsibility, but Cameroonian government officials and Akwaya residents believe a Nigerian militant group wants to occupy the area. Cameroonian officials said troops have been deployed to the border with Nigeria around Akwaya for a search-and-rescue operation, but they have not said how many have been deployed.

The Cameroonian government says it is working in collaboration with Nigerian authorities to stop the border attacks but gave no details. VOA could not independently verify if Cameroon has contacted Nigerian authorities to either investigate the origin of the armed group or collaborate with forces of the neighboring state to fight the suspected militants.

Nigeria has been attempting to stop the proliferation of militant groups in its territory since 2009, when fighting between Nigerian government troops and Boko Haram militants degenerated into an armed conflict and spread to Cameroon, Niger and Chad.

Several bombings and deadly attacks have taken place in Nigeria’s Taraba state since 2022 that were claimed by Islamic State West Africa Province or ISWAP. In 2021, Cameroon, Nigeria, Chad and Niger said ISWAP was emerging as the terrorist group taking over from Boko Haram, which was weakened by the death of its leader, Aboubakar Shekau, in May of that year.
…

your ad here

Jimmy Carter’s state funeral starts Saturday. Here is what to know

Posted on by SeeUS

ATLANTA, GEORGIA — Six days of funeral observances for former President Jimmy Carter begin Saturday in Georgia, where he died on Dec. 29 at the age of 100.

The first events reflect Carter’s climb up the political ladder, from the tiny town of Plains, Georgia, to decades on the global stage as a humanitarian and advocate for democracy.

Here is what to know about the initial ceremonies and what happens next:

Start honors Carter’s roots in rural Georgia

The proceedings are scheduled to begin at 10:15 a.m. Saturday with the Carter family arriving at Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus.

Former Secret Service agents who protected Carter will serve as pallbearers, walking alongside the hearse as it exits the campus on its way to Plains.

James Earl Carter Jr. lived more than 80 of his 100 years in and around the town, which still has fewer than 700 people, not much more than when he was born on October 1, 1924. Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton also grew up in rural settings, but Carter stands out for returning and remaining in his birthplace for his long post-presidency.

The motorcade will move through downtown Plains, which spans just a few blocks, passing near the girlhood home of first lady Rosalynn Smith Carter, who died in November 2023 at the age of 96, and near where the couple operated the family peanut warehouses. The route also includes the old train depot that served as Jimmy Carter’s 1976 presidential campaign headquarters and the gas station once run by Carter’s younger brother Billy.

The motorcade will then pass by the Methodist church where the Carters married in 1946, and the home where they lived and died. The former president will be buried there alongside Rosalynn.

The Carters built the one-story house, now surrounded by Secret Service fencing, before his first state Senate campaign in 1962 and lived out their lives there with the exception of four years in the Governor’s Mansion and four more in the White House.

A stop at Carter’s boyhood home

The military-run schedule calls for a 10:50 a.m. stop in front of Carter’s family farm and boyhood home in Archery, outside Plains, after passing the cemetery where the former president’s parents, James Earl Carter Sr. and Lillian Carter, are buried.

The farm now is part of the Jimmy Carter National Historical Park. The National Park Service will ring the old farm bell 39 times to honor the 39th president.

Carter was the first president born in a hospital. But the home had no electricity or running water when he was born, and he worked his father’s land during the Great Depression.

Still, the Carters had relative privilege and status. Earl employed Black tenant farming families. The elder Carter also owned a store in Plains and was a local civic and political leader. Lillian was a nurse, and she delivered Rosalynn. The property still includes a tennis court Earl had built for the family.

It was Earl’s death in 1953 that set Jimmy on course toward the Oval Office. The younger Carters had left Plains after he graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy. But Jimmy abandoned a promising career as a submarine officer and early participant in the Pentagon’s nuclear program to take over the family’s peanut business after his father’s death. Within a decade, he was elected to the Georgia state Senate.

Lying in repose in Atlanta

From Archery, the motorcade will head north to Atlanta and will stop at 3 p.m. outside at the Georgia Capitol, where he served as a state senator from 1963 to 1967 and governor from 1971 to 1975. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens will lead a moment of silence.

While former governors are honored with state-run funerals, presidents — even if they served as governors — are memorialized with national rites run by the federal government.

The motorcade then is scheduled to arrive at the Carter Presidential Center at 3:45 p.m., with a private service at 4 p.m. The campus includes Carter’s presidential library and The Carter Center, established by the former president and first lady in 1982.

From 7 p.m. Saturday through 6 a.m. Monday, Carter will lie in repose for the public to pay respects around the clock.

The ceremony is expected to include some of The Carter Center’s global staff of 3,000, whose work concentrating on international diplomacy and mediation, election monitoring and fighting disease in the developing world continues to set a standard for what former presidents can accomplish.

Jimmy Carter, who delivered its annual reports until 2019, won the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize in part for this post-presidential work. His grandson Jason Carter now chairs the board.

A return to Washington

Carter’s remains will travel next to Washington, where he will lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda until his funeral at 10 a.m. Thursday at the Washington National Cathedral. All the living presidents have been invited, and Joe Biden, a Carter ally, will deliver a eulogy.

The Carter family then will return to bury its patriarch in Plains after a private hometown funeral at 3:45 p.m. at Maranatha Baptist Church, where Carter, a devout evangelical, taught Sunday School for decades.

Carter will be buried afterward in a private graveside service, in a plot visible from the front porch of his home.
…

your ad here

Russia shoots down 8 missiles, captures Ukraine settlement, says defense ministry

Posted on by SeeEU

Russia’s defense ministry said on Saturday that Russian forces had taken control of the village of Nadiya in Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region and had shot down eight U.S.-made ATACMS missiles.

Reuters could not immediately verify the battlefield reports.

The ministry said its air defense systems had shot down 10 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory on Saturday morning, including three over the northern Leningrad region.

St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo airport temporarily halted flight arrivals and departures on Saturday morning.
…

your ad here

South Korea says fatal crash cockpit transcript nearly complete

Posted on by SeeEA

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — South Korean investigators said Saturday they were close to finalizing the transcript of the cockpit voice recorder from a fatal plane crash that left 179 people dead last week.

The recording may hold clues to the final moments of Jeju Air flight 2216, which was carrying 181 passengers and crew from Thailand to South Korea on Sunday when it belly-landed before slamming into a concrete barrier at the end of an airport runway.

South Korean and U.S. investigators, including from the aircraft’s manufacturer Boeing, have been combing the crash site in southwestern Muan since the disaster to establish a cause.

“The transcript of the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) is expected to be completed today, and the flight data recorder (FDR) is in the process of being prepared for transport to the United States” for analysis, South Korea’s land ministry said in a statement.

Investigators also recovered the aircraft engine from the crash site this week, the ministry added.

The exact cause of the Boeing 737-800 crash is still unknown, but investigators have pointed to a bird strike, faulty landing gear and the runway barrier as possible issues.

Authorities this week carried out search and seizure operations at Muan airport where the flight crashed, a regional aviation office in the southwestern city, and Jeju Air’s office in the capital of Seoul, police said.

Jeju Air’s chief executive Kim E-bae has been banned from leaving the country as the investigation continues, police also said.

The pilot warned of a bird strike before pulling out of a first landing and then crashing on a second attempt when the landing gear did not emerge.

Dramatic video showed the plane colliding with the concrete barrier at the end of the runway before bursting into flames.

Authorities have started lifting the wreckage of the jet, and returning some of the identified victims’ bodies and personal belongings recovered from the crash site to grieving families.

The plane was largely carrying South Korean holidaymakers back from year-end trips to Bangkok, except for two Thai passengers.

Images from local media showed authorities handing over items including smartphones, and dried mango and coconut sourced from Thailand. 
…

your ad here

US state of Tennessee refuses to release its new execution manual

Posted on by SeeUS

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE — Just days after Tennessee announced it had a new manual for executing death row inmates, the state’s top prison officials said they aren’t going to release the document to the public.

The Tennessee Department of Correction had told The Associated Press to file a public records request to obtain a copy of the latest execution manual, known as a protocol. However, the agency this week denied the AP’s request, saying it needs to keep the entire document secret to protect the identities of the executioner and other people involved.

The decision to maintain secrecy differs from how the state has handled similar requests in the past, but mirrors efforts across the U.S. to suppress public access surrounding executions, especially after anti-death penalty activists used records to expose problems.

Here’s what to know:

What is an execution protocol?

The protocol is typically a detailed set of procedures describing how the state executes death row inmates. Tennessee had been operating under a 2018 protocol that included directions on selecting execution team staff and the training they should undergo. It explained how lethal injection drugs should be procured, stored and administered. It gave instructions on the inmate’s housing, diet and visitation in the days leading up to execution. It provided directions on how to choose media witnesses.

For lethal injection, the 2018 protocol required a series of three drugs administered in sequence.

The new version unveiled last week requires only a single dose of pentobarbital. But that is all that is known about the revised protocol.

What reason does Tennessee give for not releasing the new protocol?

In an email sent Monday, Tennessee correction spokesperson Kayla Hackney told the AP the “protocol is not a public record” and cited a Tennessee statute that makes the identities of the people carrying out executions confidential.

However, that same statute says the existence of confidential information in a record is not a reason to deny access to it, noting that the confidential information should be redacted.

What has Tennessee done in the past?

In 2018, Tennessee’s correction agency provided a redacted copy of the protocol to an AP reporter over email.

In 2007, a previous version of the protocol was treated as a public record and provided to the AP after former Gov. Phil Bredesen, a Democrat, announced a surprise halt to executions. A reporter’s review of that 100-page “Manual of Execution” found a jumble of conflicting instructions that mixed new lethal-injection instructions with those for electrocution.

Why did Tennessee update its protocol?

Executions have been on hold in Tennessee since 2022, when the state admitted it had not been following the 2018 protocol. Among other things, the Correction Department was not consistently testing the execution drugs for potency and purity.

An independent review of the state’s lethal injection practice later found that none of the drugs prepared for the seven inmates executed since 2018 had been fully tested. Later, the state Attorney General’s Office conceded in court that two of the people most responsible for overseeing Tennessee’s lethal injection drugs “incorrectly testified” under oath that officials were testing the chemicals as required.

So what’s with all the secrecy?

Executions in the U.S. have remained at historic lows for years, but the small group of states still carrying out the death penalty have only increased the secrecy surrounding the procedures, particularly over how and where the state secures the drugs used for lethal injections.

Many states argue that secrecy is critical to protect the safety of those involved in the execution process. Yet in a 2018 report, the Washington-D.C.-based nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center found that this argument often led to these states refusing to provide information about the qualifications of their execution teams and some courts have criticized such arguments for lack of evidence that more public disclosure would result in threats against prison officials.

Kelley Henry, chief of the federal public defender’s habeas unit that represents many of Tennessee’s death row inmates, described the state’s refusal to release the new protocol, given that background, as “mystifying.”

“The secrecy, which cloaked the former execution protocol, created a culture of incompetence and lack of accountability,” she said in an email.
…

your ad here

VOA Mandarin: Telecom scams in Myanmar persist despite China’s crackdown

Posted on by SeeEA

Prosecutors in China pressed charges this week against a Myanmar-based telecom scam ring, which was busted last year. The group is accused of using armed forces to abduct and force Chinese nationals to work for the fraudsters. Despite of China’s crackdown efforts, such fraud operations remain rampant.

Click here for the full story in Mandarin.
…

your ad here