In conservation-conscious South Africa, some lions bred to be shot

Posted on by SeeAF

PAARL, South Africa — Freya, a 6-month-old lion cub rescued from the wildlife trade in Lebanon, poked a curious nose out of her transport crate and sniffed the air. Satisfied, she took her first cautious steps in her new forever home in a sanctuary in South Africa.

Freya’s relocation to the Drakenstein Lion Park is only a partial success story.

She will never live as a lion should in the wild. She has been given lifetime sanctuary at Drakenstein, which has taken in other lions from zoos and circuses in France, Chile, Romania and elsewhere. Some have terrible backstories of abuse, noted on placards at the sanctuary: Ares was blind and neglected when he was rescued. Brutus had been beaten hard enough to break his jaw.

But as Freya settles in at Drakenstein, animal welfare groups have again drawn attention to South Africa’s contradictory position when it comes to the species that often symbolizes African wildlife.

South Africa, with an admirable reputation for conservation and ethical sanctuaries like Drakenstein, also has a thriving captive lion business where the big cats are bred for petting and other encounters but also for killing in “canned hunting” experiences or for the lion bone trade.

South Africa has special permission through the endangered plant and animal trade treaty CITES to export lion bones and skeletons, mostly to Southeast Asia to be used in traditional medicines. Canned hunting, where lions are chased down and shot in enclosures with no chance of a fair chase or escape, is also legal.

Animal welfare groups have pushed for the business of breeding lions in captivity to end. The South African government announced recently it plans to close down the industry and it’s expected to take two to three years if there are no legal challenges.

It has been a stain on South Africa’s conservation brand, said Audrey Delsink, the Africa wildlife director for Humane Society International, which was involved in Freya’s relocation. She said it was important for people to realize that the cute cubs used for petting encounters at some South African parks — but not at Drakenstein — end up being big lions shipped off to be killed.

“They’ve been pulled from their mothers, they’ve been hand-raised for you to take selfies with and enjoy them, and then eventually the same lions are going to be shot for trophies in a camp from which they cannot escape, and then end up as a bag of bones,” Delsink said.

There are more than 300 captive lion facilities in South Africa, with more than 7,000 lions. That is double the number of lions in the South African wild. Campaigners against the business say it should be made more clear to visitors that the vast majority of South Africa’s lions live in cages in the world’s largest captive lion industry.

“We cannot pull the wool over tourists’ eyes anymore,” Delsink said.

As for Freya, her rescuers hope that she will eventually bond and live in the same enclosure as young male cub Pi, who they believe is her brother and was brought from Lebanon in April.

Pi was illegally trafficked and owned by a man who used him to promote his TikTok account, said Jason Mier, director of Animals Lebanon, which rescued Pi and Freya. Pi often had his mouth taped shut when used for videos or selfies and was locked in a small cage at night. He was kept as a status symbol for his owner “to be able to show off I’m powerful, I have money, look at me,” Mier said.

Freya and Pi are the latest of nearly two dozen big cats rescued from various situations by Animals Lebanon. Some have come to Drakenstein, which doesn’t allow cub petting or any close encounters, but does welcome visitors to see the lions and learn about them.

Freya and Pi wouldn’t survive if released in the wild, so the sanctuary is the best option for them. Those involved in Pi’s rescue said they remember watching the cub experience grass under his paws for the first time at Drakenstein, even if it was in the enclosure he and Freya will likely inhabit for the rest of their lives.
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Turkey supporters make controversial hand gesture en route Euro 2024 stadium

Posted on by SeeEU

berlin — Turkish supporters making their way to the European Championship quarterfinal against the Netherlands made the same nationalistic hand gesture that got a Turkey player banned from the match.

More did the gesture again in the stadium during Turkey’s national anthem before Saturday’s game.

Berlin police said on X on that the gesture was “massively shown” by the fans on their way to the Olympiastadion and they had therefore stopped their march and asked them to stop making it. Fans were asked to make their own way as individuals to the game – as long as they had a ticket for it.

“When a lot of people are doing this gesture, it becomes a political demonstration and a football march is not political demonstration,” police spokesperson Valeska Jakubowski told The Associated Press.

The fans were making a gesture that is used by Turkish nationalists and associated with the Turkish ultra-nationalist organization Ulku Ocaklari, which is more widely known as the Gray Wolves.

Jakubowski acknowledged that showing the gesture is not banned in Germany. She said some arrests were made, “very few,” but they were likely for other reasons.

Turkey defender Merih Demiral was banned for two games by UEFA on Friday for making the gesture after scoring in Turkey’s round-of-16 win over Austria in Leipzig on Tuesday, an incident that led to a diplomatic row between Turkey and Euro 2024 host nation Germany.

The ban rules Demiral out of Saturday’s quarterfinal, and the semifinal should Turkey progress.

The Turkish Football Federation joined Turkish government officials in denouncing the suspension.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan changed plans to visit Azerbaijan to attend Saturday’s match. He had defended Demiral, saying on Friday the defender merely expressed his “excitement” after scoring.

Demiral and Turkish authorities have defended the sign as an expression of Turkish pride. Critics say it glorifies a right-wing group known for racism and violence against minorities.

The Gray Wolves group was founded as the youth wing of Turkey’s far-right Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP, which is currently in an alliance with Erdogan’s ruling party, the Justice and Development Party.

In the decades following its founding in the 1960s, the group was accused of involvement in politically motivated violence, mostly against leftist groups.

German authorities believe the group has around 12,100 in the country. It is monitored by Germany’s federal domestic agency.

The group has been banned in France, while Austria has banned the use of the Gray Wolf salute. 
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North Dakota tribe goes back to its roots with a massive greenhouse operation

Posted on by SeeUS

BISMARCK, North Dakota — A Native American tribe in North Dakota will soon grow lettuce in a giant greenhouse complex that when fully completed will be among the country’s largest, enabling the tribe to grow much of its own food decades after a federal dam flooded the land where they had cultivated corn, beans and other crops for millennia.

Work is ongoing on the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation’s 1.3-hectare greenhouse that will make up most of the Native Green Grow operation’s initial phase. However, enough of the structure will be completed this summer to start growing leafy greens and other crops such as tomatoes and strawberries.

“We’re the first farmers of this land,” Tribal Chairman Mark Fox said. “We once were part of an Aboriginal trade center for thousands and thousands of years because we grew crops — corn, beans, squash, watermelons — all these things at massive levels, so all the tribes depended on us greatly as part of the Aboriginal trade system.”

The tribe will spend roughly $76 million on the initial phase, which also will include a warehouse and other facilities near the tiny town of Parshall. It plans to add to the growing space in the coming years, eventually totaling about 5.9 hectares, which officials say would make it one of the world’s largest facilities of its type.

The tribe’s fertile land along the Missouri River was inundated in the mid-1950s when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built the Garrison Dam, which created Lake Sakakawea.

Getting fresh produce has long been a challenge in the area of western North Dakota where the tribe is based, on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. The rolling, rugged landscape — split by Lake Sakakawea — is a long drive from the state’s biggest cities, Bismarck and Fargo.

That isolation makes the greenhouses all the more important, as they will enable the tribe to provide food to the roughly 8,300 people on the Fort Berthold reservation and to reservations elsewhere. The tribe also hopes to stock food banks that serve isolated and impoverished areas in the region, and plans to export its produce.

Initially, the MHA Nation expects to grow nearly 907,000 kilograms of food a year and for that to eventually increase to 5.4 million to 6.4 million kilograms annually. Fox said the operation’s first phase will create 30 to 35 jobs.

The effort coincides with a national move to increase food sovereignty among tribes.

Supply chain disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic led tribes nationwide to use federal coronavirus aid to invest in food systems, including underground greenhouses in South Dakota to feed the local community, said Heather Dawn Thompson, director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of Tribal Relations. In Oklahoma, multiple tribes are running or building their own meat processing plant, she said.

The USDA promotes its Indigenous Food Sovereignty Initiative, which “really challenges us to think about food and the way we do business at USDA from an Indigenous, tribal lens,” Thompson said. Examples include Indigenous seed hubs, foraging videos and guides, cooking videos and a meat processing program for Indigenous animals.

“We have always been a very independent, sovereign people that have been able to hunt, gather, grow and feed ourselves, and forces have intervened over the last century that have disrupted those independent food resources, and it made it very challenging. But the desire and goal has always been there,” said Thompson, whose tribal affiliation is Cheyenne River Sioux.

The MHA Nation’s greenhouse plans are possible in large part because of access to potable water and natural gas resources.

The natural gas released in North Dakota’s Bakken oil field has long been seen by critics as a waste and environmental concern, but Fox said the tribal nation intends to capture and compress that gas to heat and power the greenhouse and process into fertilizer.

Flaring, in which natural gas is burned off from pipes that emerge from the ground, has been a longtime issue in the No. 3 oil-producing state.

North Dakota Pipeline Authority Director Justin Kringstad said that key to capturing the gas is building needed infrastructure, as the MHA Nation intends to do.

“With those operators that are trying to get to that level of zero, it’s certainly going to take more infrastructure, more buildout of pipes, processing plants, all of the above to stay on top of this issue,” he said.

The Fort Berthold Reservation had nearly 3,000 active wells in April, when oil production totaled 203,000 barrels a day on the reservation. Oil production has helped the MHA Nation build schools, roads, housing and medical facilities, Fox said.
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‘Ready to come out?’ Scientists emerge after year ‘on Mars’

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washington — The NASA astronaut knocks loudly three times on what appears to be a nondescript door and calls cheerfully: “You ready to come out?” 

The reply is inaudible, but beneath his mask he appears to be grinning as he yanks the door open, and four scientists who have spent a year away from all other human contact, simulating a mission to Mars, spill out to cheers and applause. 

Anca Selariu, Ross Brockwell, Nathan Jones and team leader Kelly Haston have spent the past 378 days sealed inside the “Martian” habitat in Houston, Texas, part of NASA’s research into what it will take to put humans on the Red Planet.  

They have been growing vegetables, conducting “Marswalks,” and operating under what NASA terms “additional stressors,” such as communication delays with “Earth,” including their families; isolation and confinement.  

It’s the kind of experience that would make anyone who lived through pandemic lockdowns shudder, but all four were beaming as they reemerged Saturday, their hair slightly more unruly and their emotion apparent.  

“Hello. It’s actually so wonderful just to be able to say hello to you,” Haston, a biologist, said with a laugh. 

“I really hope I don’t cry standing up here in front of all of you,” Jones, an emergency room doctor, said as he took to the microphone, and nearly doing just that several moments later as he spotted his wife in the crowd.  

The habitat, dubbed Mars Dune Alpha, is a 3D-printed, 160-square-meter facility, complete with bedrooms, a gym, common areas, and a vertical farm for growing food. 

An outdoor area, separated by an airlock, is filled with red sand and is where the team donned suits to conduct their “Marswalks,” though it is still covered rather than being open air. 

“They have spent more than a year in this habitat conducting crucial science, most of it nutrition-based and how that impacts their performance … as we prepare to send people on to the Red Planet,” Steve Koerner told the crowd. Koerner is the deputy director at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. 

“I’m very appreciative,” he added. 

This mission is the first of a series of three planned by NASA, grouped under the title CHAPEA — Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog. 

A yearlong mission simulating life on Mars took place in 2015-2016 in a habitat in Hawaii, and although NASA participated in it, it was not at the helm. 

Under its Artemis program, America plans to send humans back to the Moon to learn how to live there long-term to help prepare a trip to Mars, sometime towards the end of the 2030s. 
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Sudanese political factions meet in Cairo with little prospect of peace

Posted on by SeeAF

cairo — Rival Sudanese political factions formally attended reconciliation talks in Cairo on Saturday — the first since a conflict in the country began almost 15 months ago — but admitted there was little prospect of quickly ending the war. 

During the conference, the Democratic Bloc, which is aligned with the army, refused to hold joint sessions with the Taqaddum faction, which it accuses of sympathizing with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Neither the army nor the RSF attended. 

The war in Sudan erupted in April 2023 and has forced almost 10 million people from their homes, sparked warnings of famine and waves of ethnically driven violence blamed largely on the RSF. 

The force this week swept through the state of Sennar, causing new displacement. In response, army head General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan said the army would not negotiate with the RSF or its supporters. 

“The stark deterioration in the humanitarian situation and the catastrophic consequences of this crisis call on all of us to work to immediately and sustainably to stop military operations,” said newly-appointed Egyptian foreign minister Badr Abdelatty. 

Talks in Jeddah between the army and RSF that were sponsored by the United States and Saudi Arabia broke down at the end of last year. 

Taqaddum is a coalition of pro-democracy parties, armed groups, and civil society that has called for an end to the war. The army-aligned Democratic Bloc includes several armed group leaders participating in the fighting. 

While Egypt was able to wield its influence to assemble the group, the main attendees were seated at opposite sides of the hall at the conference’s opening. The two political factions agreed only to form a small subcommittee to come up with a final communique expected late Saturday. 

“We told them not to have high ambitions from this meeting,” said finance minister and Democratic Bloc leader Jibril Ibrahim to Reuters. 

“Given the situation on the ground, if we sit and eat and drink and laugh — with the people who are allied and partners in the crimes that are happening — we would be sending the wrong message to our citizens and to our soldiers on the field,” he said. 

He added that an end to the war was not realistic without the withdrawal of the RSF from civilian areas, in line with an agreement signed in Jeddah last year, and the end of material support to the RSF by the United Arab Emirates. U.N. experts have said that accusations of such support are credible though the UAE has denied them. 

Former Prime Minister and Taqaddum head Abdalla Hamdok rejected accusations that the coalition was linked to the RSF, saying he awaited the army’s agreement to meet. 

“A crisis this complicated and deep is not expected to end in one meeting… The lesson is for us to be patient and to build on anything positive that comes out of it,” he told Reuters, echoing sentiments from diplomats at the meeting. 

U.S. Special Envoy Tom Perriello said he hoped momentum from Saturday’s talks would carry on to another meeting called by the African Union next week, another of several initiatives. 
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French voters head to polls Sunday

Posted on by SeeEU

PARIS — French voters face a decisive choice Sunday in the runoff of snap parliamentary elections that could produce the country’s first far-right government since the World War II Nazi occupation — or no majority emerging at all. 

Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration, nationalist party National Rally stands a chance of winning a legislative majority for the first time, but the outcome remains uncertain because of a complex voting system and tactical maneuvers by political parties. 

What’s happening Sunday? 

Voters across France and overseas territories can cast ballots for 501 of the 577 seats in the National Assembly, the lower and most important of France’s two houses of parliament. The other 76 races were won outright in the first round of voting. 

The National Rally and its allies arrived ahead in Round 1 with around one-third of the votes. A coalition of center-left, hard-left and greens parties called the New Popular Front came in second position, well ahead of President Emmanuel Macron’s struggling centrist alliance. 

In the frantic week between the two rounds, more than 200 centrist and left-wing candidates pulled out of races to boost the chances of their moderate rivals and try to keep National Rally candidates from winning. 

Final preelection polls suggest the tactic may have diminished the far right’s chances of an absolute majority. But Le Pen’s party has wider and deeper support than ever before, and it’s up to voters to decide. 

What are the possible outcomes? 

Polling projections suggest the National Rally is likely to have the most seats in the next National Assembly, which would be a first. 

If it wins an absolute majority of 289 seats, Macron would be expected to appoint National Rally President Jordan Bardella as France’s new prime minister. Bardella could then form a government, and he and Macron would share power in a system called cohabitation. 

If the party doesn’t win a majority but still has a large number of seats, Macron could name Bardella anyway, though the National Rally might refuse out of fears that its government could be ejected in a no-confidence vote. 

Or Macron could seek to build a coalition with moderates and possibly choose a prime minister from the center-left. 

If there’s no party with a clear mandate to govern, Macron could name a government of experts unaffiliated with political parties. Such a government would likely deal mostly with day-to-day affairs of keeping France running. 

Complicating matters: Any of those options would require parliamentary approval. 

If political talks take too long amid summer holidays and the July 26-Aug. 11 Olympics in Paris, Macron’s centrist government could keep a transitional government pending further decisions. 

How does cohabitation work? 

If an opposition force wins a majority, Macron would be forced to appoint a prime minister belonging to that new majority. In this cohabitation, the government would implement policies that diverge from the president’s plan. 

France’s modern Republic has experienced three cohabitations, the last one under conservative President Jacques Chirac, with Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, from 1997 to 2002. 

The prime minister is accountable to the parliament, leads the government and introduces bills. 

The president is weakened at home during cohabitation, but still holds some powers over foreign policy, European affairs and defense and is in charge of negotiating and ratifying international treaties. The president is also the commander-in-chief of the country’s armed forces and holds the nuclear codes. 

What about a hung parliament? 

While not uncommon in other European countries, modern France has never experienced a parliament with no dominant party. 

Such a situation requires lawmakers to build consensus across parties to agree on government positions and legislation. France’s fractious politics and deep divisions over taxes, immigration and Mideast policy make that especially challenging. 

That would likely derail Macron’s promises to overhaul unemployment benefits or legalize life-ending procedures for the terminally ill, among other reforms. It could also make passing a budget more difficult. 

Why is the far right rising? 

While France has one of the world’s biggest economies and is an important diplomatic and military power, many French voters are struggling with inflation and low incomes and a sense that they are being left behind by globalization. 

Le Pen’s party, which blames immigration for many of France’s problems, has tapped into that voter frustration and built wide online support and a grassroots network, notably in small towns and farming communities that see the Paris political class as out of touch. 

Why does it matter? 

The National Assembly is the more powerful of France’s two houses of parliament. It has the final say in the law-making process over the Senate, dominated by conservatives. 

Macron has a presidential mandate until 2027 and said he would not step down before the end of his term. But a weakened French president could complicate many issues on the world stage. 

During previous cohabitations, defense and foreign policies were considered the informal domain of the president, who was usually able to find compromises with the prime minister to allow France to speak with one voice abroad. 

But both the far-right and the leftist coalition’s views in these areas differ radically from Macron’s approach and would likely be a subject of tension during a potential cohabitation. 

Bardella said that as a prime minister, he would oppose sending French troops to Ukraine — a possibility Macron has not ruled out. Bardella also said he would refuse French deliveries of long-range missiles and other weaponry capable of striking targets within Russia itself. 
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Japan, Cambodia share demining knowledge with Ukraine, other countries

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PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Japan’s foreign minister on Saturday announced a joint project with Cambodia to share knowledge and technology on land mine removal with countries around the world, including Ukraine. 

Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa made her comments during a visit to the Cambodian Mine Action Center, which was formed in the 1990s at the end of the Southeast Asian nation’s decades of civil war. It seeks to deal with an estimated 4 million to 6 million land mines and other unexploded munitions left strewn around the countryside.  

“Cambodia, which has steadily advanced mine removal within its own country, is now a leader in mine action around the world,” she noted, adding that Japan has consistently cooperated in Cambodia’s mine removal since the civil war. 

Cambodian deminers are among the world’s most experienced, and several thousand have been sent in the past decade under U.N. auspices to work in Africa and the Middle East. Cambodia in 2022 began training deminers from Ukraine, which also suffers from a high density of land mines and other unexploded munitions as the two-year Russian invasion drags on. 

“As a concrete cooperation under the Japan Cambodia Landmine Initiative, Japan will provide full-scale assistance to humanitarian mine action in Ukraine,” she said. “Next week, we will provide Ukraine with a large demining machine, and next month, here in Cambodia, we will train Ukrainian personnel on how to operate the machine.” 

The NGO Landmine Monitor in its 2022 report listed both Cambodia and Ukraine among nine countries with massive mine contamination, meaning they had more than 100 square kilometers of uncleared fields. 

Since the end of the fighting in Cambodia, nearly 20,000 people have been killed and about 45,000 have been injured by leftover war explosives, although the average annual death toll has dropped from several thousand to less than 100. 

Despite a very active demining program, many dangerous munitions remain in place, posing a hazard to villagers. 

Cambodia’s training of Ukrainian deminers, in Poland as well as Cambodia, came after former Prime Minister Hun Sen — in an unusual move for a nation that usually aligns itself with Russia and China — condemned Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, saying “Cambodia is always against any country that invades another country.” 

Cambodia was one of nearly 100 U.N. member countries that co-sponsored a resolution condemning Russia’s invasion. 

Several other countries, including the United States and Germany, have already provided Ukraine with demining assistance. 

Kamikawa also held talks with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet and Hun Sen, his father who stepped down last year after ruling for 38 years. 

She and her Cambodian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sok Chenda Sophea, signed agreements for a concessional loan from Tokyo of up to $51.6 million for upgrading the highway between the capital, Phnom Penh, to the border with Thailand, and grant aid up to $2.4 million to support junior administrative officials to study in Japan, a Japanese Embassy statement said. 

Kamikawa next goes to the Philippines, where she and Japanese Defense Minister Minoru Kihara will hold talks on Monday with their Philippine counterparts. They are set to discuss signing a mutual defense pact that would allow each country to deploy troops on the other’s territory. 
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Nigeria says extremists ‘greatly degraded;’ suicide bombings suggest otherwise

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MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — For the first time since 2020, three female suicide bombers attacked the Nigerian border town of Gwoza, where Boko Haram extremists declared a short-lived caliphate 10 years ago, signaling that the world’s longest war on militancy is still ongoing. 

This came two days after officials touted success in their war against extremists, with Nigerian military spokesperson Major General Edward Buba telling reporters the often-used phrase: “We have greatly degraded the terrorists.” 

The first of the three coordinated suicide bombings on June 30 targeted a well-attended wedding, the second was detonated at the victims’ funeral, and the third at a hospital attending to the injured. 

At least 32 people were killed in the attacks, including nine family members and friends of Mohammed Kehaya, a resident who is now worried about his safety in the state of Borno, a hotbed of Islamic militancy, where extremists once kidnapped hundreds of schoolgirls in 2014. 

No group has claimed responsibility for the bombings, but blame quickly fell on Boko Haram, which since 2009 has launched an insurgency to establish its radical interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia, in northeastern Nigeria. They have since splintered into different factions, together accounting for the direct deaths of at least 35,000 people and the displacement of more than 2 million amid a humanitarian crisis with people in dire need of foreign aid since 2009. 

Nigerian authorities maintained that the attacks were not a setback. 

Nigerian Defense Chief General Chris Musa said the bombings were rather “a sign of desperation” and described them as a one-off by the militants. 

“Some individuals would do everything possible for us not to succeed,” he said. 

However, several security analysts and locals interviewed about the bombings echoed concerns that the attacks must have taken a lot of planning and coordination and portend danger in Borno, where some villages lack a security presence. 

One of the extremists’ goals could be to distort the narrative that the security situation in the region has normalized, said Vincent Foucher, consulting senior analyst for West Africa at the International Crisis Group. 

“It’s a way to show the war goes on,” Foucher said. 

In Borno, the three bombings sent shock waves across families and left many wondering whether they should pack what was left of their belongings and flee once again. 

“Parents have been calling in to ask if their kids would be safe going back to school,” said Yusuf Ibn Tom, a public school teacher in Maiduguri. “Everyone here is scared.” 

At the height of the insurgency in 2014, Boko Haram was considered the world’s deadliest terrorist group, killing at least 6,000 people that year alone, according to the Institute for Economics and Peace’s Global Terrorism Index. A lot has changed since then, making the extremists far less lethal. 

The military has pushed them further into the fringes of the Lake Chad axis, and the 2021 death of the group’s founding leader, Abubakar Shekau, demoralized some members and made suicide bombing less popular. Clashes between Shekau’s faction and the one linked to the Islamic State group have made the extremists turn against themselves, sometimes shifting the focus of attacks from the military and civilians and even contributing to the defection of thousands who are undergoing a reintegration program. 

But what has not changed over the years is the “operational prowess” of the extremists, said Cameron Hudson, an Africa expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 

Attacks like the latest one “are rarely one-off incidents and are often part of a wider series,” Hudson said. He did not rule out future attacks. “That will give a better indication of the relative strength of the insurgency today as well as the Nigerian military’s ability to respond,” he added. 
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German army to vacate Niger air base in August

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Berlin — The German army will end operations at its air base in Niger by August 31 following the breakdown of talks with the Sahel country’s ruling junta, Germany’s defense ministry said Saturday. 

All Bundeswehr soldiers stationed at the base will be withdrawn by August 31 and German military cooperation with Niger will end, the ministry added. 

The breakdown in negotiations marks Niger’s latest diplomatic shift away from the West since a coup d’etat in July 2023 ousted President Mohamed Bazoum and brought the current military leadership to power. 

Since then, Niger has turned toward Russia and Iran and away from the United States and former colonial ruler France. 

A similar shift has taken place in neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso, which are likewise ruled by military leaders and faced with violence from jihadi groups. 

At the end of May, Germany and Niger reached an interim agreement allowing the Bundeswehr to continue operating the air transport base in the capital, Niamey, until the end of August. 

But negotiations to extend that agreement broke down, notably because the base’s personnel would no longer benefit from immunity from prosecution. 

Only 38 Bundeswehr soldiers were stationed at the base in recent times, along with 33 staff from German and foreign companies. 

It was notably used for operations to evacuate German nationals in Africa. 
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In Cambodia, reporting on illegal scam centers brings threats

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 Bangkok, Thailand — Journalists reporting on illicit activity connected to the billion-dollar scam center industry in Cambodia say they are facing security risks. 

Physical and online harassment, surveillance and legal threats related to media coverage have all been reported by local and foreign journalists. 

Reporting on the centers, along with the associated allegations of fraud, human trafficking and other abuses is becoming a “risky endeavor,” said American freelancer Danielle Keeton-Olsen. 

Details of the scam centers operating throughout the Southeast Asia region, including Cambodia, are outlined in a May report by the United States Institute of Peace, or USIP. 

In Cambodia alone, the USIP report found 100,000 scammers generating an estimated $12.8 billion in 2023 — close to half the country’s formal GDP. Most compounds that house the scammers are operated by Chinese gangs, though some are allegedly linked to local elites, the report found. 

Those working in the centers are often lured into phony business ventures, becoming victims themselves. Reports have highlighted evidence of human trafficking. 

VOA contacted the Cambodian government by email and phone but didn’t receive a reply.   

But Chou Bun Eng, deputy chair of the government’s police-led National Committee for Counter Trafficking said earlier this year that 80% of cases alleging human trafficking are “false.”  

Journalists reporting on the centers say they’ve been harassed and, in one case, detained. 

Journalists risk physical harm 

Cambodian journalist Mech Dara says police detained him while he was investigating a scam center in the city of Sihanoukville. At the time, Dara worked for the now shuttered Voice of Democracy, or VOD.  

Keeton-Olsen also reported on the scam centers for VOD English.  

“We would go around in a site in Sihanoukville and try to figure out everything that we could, get some eyewitness testimonies, try to, like, assert who the ownership is and triangulate from there. That was a really risky endeavor,” she told VOA.

“There were some close calls, you could get scolded by a security guard or just in general the hair standing up on the back,” she said. 

While journalists often face difficulties accessing information in Cambodia, they risk the possibility of physical harm reporting on scam centers. 

“It’s a dangerous industry, and there’s evidence that there are gangs involved,” she said. “There’s evidence of violence happening toward workers or people associated with it. In terms of threats to safety [for journalists], they definitely exist.” 

With one story, said Keeton-Olsen, a company threatened them with legal action.  

“We actually ended up writing about that for VOD because [the company] came in and they were saying ‘we might serve you with a legal letter,’ so my editor wrote a story about it,” she said. 

Nathan Paul Southern, a Scottish journalist based in Phnom Penh, said he also received threats. 

“We’ve been told by people who are connected to the government that we do need to watch our backs, that we are in danger,” he told VOA. “We have been followed quite a few time … [and] we’ve had a few physical altercations in and around the scam centers, where essentially various different gangsters have tried to grab us or stop us from leaving and get close to violent with us.” 

Thousands ‘held against their will’

While reporting on an online gambling site working out of a compound in the city of Bavet, Southern said he learned that “thousands of people were being held against their will.” 

The company denied the allegations, he said, then served him with a cease-and-desist letter. 

“It seemed it was to scare us financially,” he said. “Most of it, whether that’s from the criminal groups or the government, has been them letting us know that they’re watching us.” 

Risks associated with scam center reporting add to an already tough reporting environment, where government officials have cracked down on independent media. 

“Journalism continues to be a dangerous profession in Cambodia,” said Aleksandra Bielakowska, advocacy officer at Reporters Without Borders, also known as RSF. 

“Reporters can be arrested and sometimes spend months in prison on trumped-up charges of ‘terrorism,'” she told VOA. “At the same time, covering corruption cases that directly or indirectly implicate the government has become virtually impossible.” 

The country ranks 151 out of 180 on the RSF World Press Freedom Index, where 1 signals a good media environment. In the past year, three media outlets were stripped of their licenses, including VOD. 
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Sahel military chiefs form confederation, cement exit from West Africa bloc

Posted on by SeeAF

Niamey, Niger — The military regimes of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso marked their divorce from the rest of West Africa Saturday as they signed a treaty setting up a confederation between them. 

The first summit of the three countries, who all pulled out of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) this year, also saw calls for greater cooperation across a wide range of sectors. 

“Our people have irrevocably turned their backs on ECOWAS,” Niger’s ruling General Abdourahamane Tiani told his fellow Sahel strongmen at the gathering’s opening in the Nigerien capital, Niamey. 

The three leaders, who took power through coups in recent years, “decided to take a step further towards greater integration” and “adopted a treaty establishing a confederation,” they said in a statement issued at the end of the summit.  

The Confederation of Sahel States, which will use the acronym AES and be headed by Mali in its first year, totals about 72 million people.   

Shift away from France 

Their ECOWAS exits were fueled in part by accusations that Paris was manipulating the bloc and not providing enough support for anti-jihadist efforts.  

“The AES is the only effective sub-regional grouping in the fight against terrorism,” Tiani declared on Saturday, calling ECOWAS “conspicuous by its lack of involvement in this fight.” 

The exit came as the trio shifted away from former colonial ruler France, with Tiani calling for the new bloc to become a “community far removed from the stranglehold of foreign powers.” 

All three have expelled anti-jihadi French troops and turned instead toward what they call their “sincere partners” — Russia, Turkey and Iran. 

In early March, the AES announced joint anti-jihad efforts, though they did not specify details. 

Insurgents linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group have carried out attacks for years in the vast three borders region between Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso, despite the massive deployment of anti-jihad forces. 

ECOWAS is to hold a summit of its heads of state in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, on Sunday, where the issue of relations with the AES will be on the agenda. 

Relations between ECOWAS deteriorated following a July 2023 coup that brought Tiani to power. The bloc imposed sanctions and even threatened to intervene militarily to restore the ousted president, Mohamed Bazoum.  

The sanctions were lifted in February but relations between the two sides remain frosty.  

United front 

After several bilateral meetings, this is the first meeting of all three Sahelian strongmen since coming to power through coups between 2020 and 2023. 

Niger’s Tiani first welcomed his Burkinabe counterpart Ibrahim Traore in the capital on Friday, followed by Malian Colonel Assimi Goita who arrived Saturday. 

“The aim is to show that this is a serious project with three committed heads of state showing their solidarity,” said Gilles Yabi, founder of the West African think tank Wathi. 

The trio have made sovereignty a guiding principle of their governance and aim to create a common currency.  

ECOWAS summit 

Sunday’s summit comes as several West African presidents have called in recent weeks for a solution to resume dialogue between the two camps. 

Notably, Senegal’s new President Bassirou Diomaye Faye said in late May that reconciliation between ECOWAS and the three Sahel countries was possible. 

In June, his newly reelected Mauritanian counterpart, President Mohamed Ould Cheikh El Ghazouani, called on West African countries to unite again against the expansion of jihadism. 

But the successive summits on the same weekend raise fears of a stiffening of positions between the AES and ECOWAS. 

Beyond military cooperation, the leaders Saturday also talked about “mutualizing” their approach to strategic sectors such as agriculture, water, energy and transport. 

They also asked that indigenous languages be given greater prominence in local media.   

The question of creating a common currency to replace the CFA franc was not mentioned in the final communique. 
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For immigrants, Biden offers some protections; Trump, mass deportations

Posted on by SeeUS

U.S. presidential candidates Joe Biden and Donald Trump differ sharply on immigration. Both sparred over immigration at their first presidential debate. VOA’s immigration correspondent Aline Barros has the story.
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Taiwan probes senior official who deals with China over bribery suspicions

Posted on by SeeEA

TAIPEI — Taiwan prosecutors said on Saturday they were investigating a senior official and member of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party who deals with China on suspicion of bribery. He said he had done nothing wrong. 

Cheng Wen-tsan is head of the Straits Exchange Foundation under the China-policy making Mainland Affairs Council that deals with day-to-day issues like accidents involving Taiwanese in China. The foundation is technically private because the governments in Beijing and Taipei do not recognize each other or have any official relations. 

Prosecutors in the northern Taiwanese city of Taoyuan, where Cheng was mayor from 2014-2022, said he had been summoned for questioning on Friday on bribery suspicions and that they had applied to a court to detain him. 

It did not give details of the allegations against him. 

Cheng, in a statement issued via his lawyer and released by the foundation, denied wrongdoing. 

“I have not committed any illegal acts, and I will cooperate with the judicial investigation. I hope to clarify the truth and prove my innocence as soon as possible,” he said. 

Taiwan’s presidential office said it respects the judiciary and hopes investigators will clarify the matter as soon as possible.
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China anchors ‘monster ship’ in South China Sea, Philippine coast guard says

Posted on by SeeEA

MANILA — The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) said Saturday that China’s largest coastguard vessel has anchored in Manila’s exclusive economic zone, or EEZ, in the South China Sea, and it is meant to intimidate its smaller Asian neighbor. 

The China coastguard’s 165-meter “monster ship” entered Manila’s 200-nautical mile EEZ on July 2, spokesperson for the PCG Jay Tarriela told a news forum. 

The PCG warned the Chinese vessel it was in the Philippine’s EEZ and asked about their intentions, he said. 

“It’s an intimidation on the part of the China Coast Guard,” Tarriela said. “We’re not going to pull out and we’re not going to be intimidated.” 

China’s embassy in Manila and the Chinese foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. China’s coast guard has no publicly available contact information. 

The Chinese ship, which has also deployed a small boat, was anchored 731 meters away from the PCG’s vessel, Tarriela said. In May, the PCG deployed a ship to the Sabina shoal to deter small-scale reclamation by China, which denied the claim. 

China has carried out extensive land reclamation on some islands in the South China Sea, building air force and other military facilities, causing concern in Washington and around the region. 

China claims most of the South China Sea, a key conduit for $3 trillion of annual ship-borne trade, as its own territory. 

Beijing rejects the 2016 ruling by The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration which said its expansive maritime claims had no legal basis. 

Following a high-level dialog, the Philippines and China agreed on Tuesday for the need to “restore trust” and “rebuild confidence” to better manage maritime disputes. 

The Philippines has turned down offers from the United States, its treaty ally, to assist operations in the South China Sea, despite a flare-up with China over routing resupply missions to Filipino troops on a contested shoal. 
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Kylian Mbappé is enduring a tough Euro 2024

Posted on by SeeEU

HAMBURG, Germany — He has a broken nose that requires him to wear a vision-limiting face mask. He is managing fitness issues stemming from the end of the club season. He has scored only one goal — from the penalty spot. 

The European Championship is hardly going as planned for Kylian Mbappé, and he knows it. 

“These are the vagaries of the footballer,” the France captain said after his latest below-par par performance at Euro 2024. 

He doesn’t really care, though, as long as he is lifting the Henri Delaunay Cup in Berlin on July 14. 

Mbappé was so fatigued, so knocked out of his stride after a couple of bashes to his protective mask, that he asked to come off at halftime of extra time against Portugal in the quarterfinals in Hamburg on Friday. 

It meant giving up a likely penalty in the impending shootout — which France won 5-3 because of Joao Felix’s miss — but Mbappé simply couldn’t continue. 

France coach Didier Deschamps confirmed his captain asked to be replaced, for the good of the team. 

“He is always very honest with me and the team. When he feels he doesn’t have the capacity to accelerate then we can’t risk it, even a player like Kylian,” Deschamps said. 

“With all that has happened to him — the issues he has had, the trauma with his nose — he is hanging in there. He is not in his top form. He felt very tired indeed.” 

Mbappé accepted before the Portugal game that he wasn’t in prime shape and needed a “good pre-season to be at 100%.” That will come at Real Madrid, which he has joined after running down his contract at Paris Saint-Germain. 

Getting his nose broken in France’s opening group game at Euro 2024 threw him off kilter, too, restricting a part of his game because of his lack of peripheral vision. 

His best performances so far might have come in France’s news conferences, where he has been vocal in urging French people to vote in the snap elections while warning about the dangers of the far right getting into power. 

On the field, Mbappé is part of a France team that heads into a semifinal match against Spain on Tuesday having scored three goals this tournament — two own-goals and his penalty against Austria. No France player has scored a goal from open play yet. 

Like Greece in 2004, France is looking to reach the final pretty much entirely based on its mean defense and team structure. Except the talent in this France squad far outweighs what was at Greece’s disposal 20 years ago. 

“In the locker room, we weren’t thinking that we still hadn’t scored a goal in the game,” said Mbappé, who netted a hat trick in the 2022 World Cup final. “But yes, we will look into the question [of France’s lack of efficiency in attack] while maintaining this defensive solidity. 

“I’ve only scored one goal, but we’re in the semifinals and I’m very happy.” 

Mbappé didn’t much like watching the penalty shootout from afar, either. 

“It’s worse than shooting,” he said, laughing. 
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New UK PM says Rwanda deportation plan is ‘dead and buried’

Posted on by SeeEU

LONDON — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Saturday that he is scrapping a controversial Conservative policy to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda as he vowed to deliver on voters’ mandate for change, though he warned it will not happen quickly.

“The Rwanda scheme was dead and buried before it started,” Starmer said in his first news conference. “It’s never acted as a deterrent. Almost the opposite.”

Starmer told reporters in a wood-paneled room at 10 Downing St. that he was “restless for change,” but would not commit to how soon Britons would feel improvements in their standards of living or public services. His Labour Party delivered the biggest blow to the Conservatives in their two-century history Friday in a landslide victory on a platform of change.

The 30-minute question-and-answer session followed his first Cabinet meeting as his new government takes on the massive challenge of fixing a heap of domestic woes and winning over a public weary from years of austerity, political chaos and a battered economy.

“We have a huge amount of work to do, so now we get on with our work,” Starmer said as he welcomed the new ministers around the table at 10 Downing St. He said it had been the honor of his life to be asked by King Charles III to form a government in a ceremony that officially elevated him to prime minister.

Among a raft of problems they face are boosting a sluggish economy, fixing a broken health care system, and restoring trust in government.

“Just because Labour won a big landslide doesn’t mean all the problems that the Conservative government has faced has gone away,” said Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London.

In his first remarks as prime minister Friday after the “kissing of hands” ceremony with Charles at Buckingham Palace, Starmer said he would get to work immediately, though he cautioned it would take some time to show results.

“Changing a country is not like flicking a switch,” he said as enthusiastic supporters cheered him outside his new official residence at 10 Downing. “This will take a while. But have no doubt that the work of change begins — immediately.”

He will have a busy schedule following the six-week campaign, heading out Sunday to visit each of the four nations of the U.K. — England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — that he said had each voted in favor of Labour.

He will then travel to Washington for a NATO meeting Tuesday and will host the European Political Community summit July 18, the day after the state opening of Parliament and the King’s Speech, which sets out the new government’s agenda.

Starmer singled out several of the big items Friday, such as fixing the revered but hobbled National Health Service and securing its borders, a reference to a larger global problem of absorbing an influx of migrants fleeing war, poverty as well as drought, heat waves and floods attributed to climate change.

Conservatives struggled to stem the flow of migrants arriving across the English Channel, failing to live up to ex-Prime Minister’s Rishi Sunak’s pledge to “stop the boats” that led to the controversial Rwanda plan.

Starmer’s decision on what he called the Rwanda “gimmick” was widely expected because he had said he wouldn’t follow through with the plan that has cost hundreds of millions of dollars and never taken flight.

It’s unclear what Starmer will do differently to tackle the same crisis with a record number of people coming ashore in the first six months of this year.

“Labour is going to need to find a solution to the small boats coming across the channel,” Bale said. “It’s going to have to come up with other solutions to deal with that particular problem.”

Suella Braverman, a Conservative hard liner on immigration who is a possible contender to replace Sunak as party leader, criticized Starmer’s plan to end the Rwanda pact.

“Years of hard work, acts of Parliament, millions of pounds been spent on a scheme which had it been delivered properly would have worked,” she said Saturday. “There are big problems on the horizon which will be I’m afraid caused by Keir Starmer.”

Starmer’s Cabinet is also getting to work.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy was to begin his first international trip Saturday to meet counterparts in Germany, Poland and Sweden to reinforce the importance of their relationship.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting said he would open new negotiations next week with NHS doctors at the start of their career who have staged a series of multi-day strikes. The pay dispute has exacerbated the long wait for appointments that have become a hallmark of the NHS’s problems.
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Beryl heads for Texas after causing damage, no deaths in Mexico

Posted on by SeeUS

Tulum, Mexico — Beryl weakened to a tropical storm Friday after hitting Mexico as a Category 2 hurricane, with fierce winds causing material damage but no injuries along the touristic Yucatan Peninsula.

Now headed for the Gulf of Mexico, Beryl is expected to intensify as it moves toward northeastern Mexico and the U.S. state of Texas by the end of the weekend, according to the Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC).

After tearing through the Caribbean and coastal Venezuela leaving seven people dead, the storm hit southeast Mexico early Friday with winds of up to 175 kph.

It flattened trees and lampposts and ripped off roof tiles, according to Mexico’s civil protection authority.

Electricity was lost in at least three municipalities in the southeastern Quintana Roo state as Beryl moved deeper inland and weakened from a hurricane to a tropical storm.

“On the initial reports, there appears to be no loss of life, and that is what matters most to us,” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said in his daily press briefing.

Mexico’s emergency authorities later told reporters there were no injuries or deaths, nor damage to critical infrastructure such as roads and the water system.

Electricity had been 70% restored and would be fully recovered by Sunday, civil protection chief Laura Velazquez said.

About 2,200 people had sought cover at temporary shelters and more than 25,600 security force members and employees of the CFE electricity agency were deployed to help residents and repair damage.

As a precaution, 348 flights were canceled at Cancun airport, the largest terminal in the Mexican Caribbean.

By Friday afternoon, state governor Mara Lezama said the airport had resumed service.

Re-intensification

The NHC said Beryl weakened from a Category 2 hurricane to Category 1 by the time it hit Yucatan — milder than earlier in the week when it left a trail of destruction across the Caribbean and parts of Venezuela.

It added on Friday that a hurricane watch — signaling a forecast re-intensification from tropical storm status — had been issued for much of the Texas coast ahead of Beryl’s anticipated arrival there late on Sunday.

By late Friday, the NHC tracked Beryl 995 kilometers southeast of Corpus Christi in Texas, while the storm’s maximum sustained winds had slowed to 95 kph.

In Mexico, hundreds of tourists were evacuated from hotels along the coast before the storm’s arrival.

The army, which deployed some 8,000 troops to Tulum, said it had food supplies and 34,000 liters of purified water to distribute to the population.

The army also set up a soup kitchen in Tulum for people who could return home due to flooding or blocked roads.

Alvaro Rueda, a 51-year-old bricklayer, told AFP his neighborhood had already started clearing up after the storm’s passage.

“Most of the stores are already open… we have purchased food, even if it is canned, there is food,” he said.

Beryl is the first hurricane since NHC records began to reach the Category 4 level in June, and the earliest to hit the highest Category 5 in July.

It is extremely rare for such a powerful storm to form this early in the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from early June to late November.

Scientists say climate change likely plays a role in the rapid intensification of storms like Beryl, since there is more energy in a warmer ocean for them to feed on.

North Atlantic waters are currently between one- and three-degrees Celsius warmer than normal, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
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Russian drone attack on Ukraine hits energy facility in Sumy region

Posted on by SeeEU

KYIV, Ukraine — Russia launched an overnight drone attack across Ukraine on Saturday, hitting an energy facility in the Sumy region in the northeast of the country, officials said.

Ukrainian mobile drone hunter groups and air defense units shot down 24 of the 27 Russian drones fired on 12 regions, the air force said.

National grid operator Ukrenergo said the energy facility in the Sumy region was damaged, forcing emergency electricity shut-offs for industrial consumers in the city of Sumy. Repair teams were working to restore supplies, it said.

There were no immediate reports of casualties or other damage details from the regions.

Since March, Russian forces have intensified their bombardments of the Ukrainian power sector, knocking out the bulk of the thermal and hydropower generation and forcing long blackouts across the country.

Ukrenergo planned scheduled cut-offs of electricity throughout the day across the country as domestic generation and electricity imports could not cover the deficit.

Ukraine’s energy system was already hobbled in the first year after Russia’s invasion in February 2022. The power system lost about half of its available generation capacity due to the Russian missile and drone attacks in the past four months.  
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Divided West Africa hosts two summits this weekend

Posted on by SeeAF

Niamey, Niger — A divided West Africa hosts two presidential summits this weekend — one in Niger between Sahel region military regime leaders, followed by another in Nigeria on Sunday with leaders of a wider economic bloc.

Saturday’s summit in Niger’s capital, Niamey, will mark the first between the military leaders of a new regional bloc, the Alliance of Sahel States (AES).

Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger set up the mutual defense pact in September, leaving the wider Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) bloc in January.

Their ECOWAS exit was fueled in part by their accusation that Paris was manipulating the bloc and not providing enough support for anti-jihadist efforts.

The exit came as the trio shifted away from former colonial ruler France, expelling anti-jihadist French troops, and turned towards what they call their “sincere partners” — Russia, Turkey and Iran.

Given the deadly jihadist violence the three countries face, “the fight against terrorism” and the “consolidation of cooperation” will be on Saturday’s agenda, according to the Burkinabe presidency.

Sunday’s summit in the Nigerian capital Abuja then offers heads of ECOWAS states the opportunity to discuss relations with the AES.

Saturday’s summit

After several bilateral meetings, the three Sahelian strongmen are gathering for the first time since coming to power through coups between 2020 and 2023.

In mid-May, the foreign ministers of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger agreed in Niamey on a draft text creating the confederation, which the heads of states are expected to adopt at Saturday’s summit.

Niger’s General Abdourahamane Tiani welcomed his Burkinabe counterpart Ibrahim Traore in the capital Friday, while Malian Colonel Assimi Goita will arrive Saturday morning.

“Don’t expect many announcements, this is primarily a political event,” said Gilles Yabi, founder of the West African think tank Wathi.

“The aim is to show that this is a serious project with three committed heads of state showing their solidarity.”

In early March, AES announced joint anti-jihadist efforts, though they did not specify details.

Insurgents have carried out attacks for years in the vast “three borders” region between Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso, despite the massive deployment of anti-jihadist forces.

The trio have made sovereignty a guiding principle of their governance and aim to create a common currency.

‘Path of no return’

Sunday’s summit comes as several West African presidents have called in recent weeks for a solution to resume dialogue between the two camps.

Notably, Senegal’s new President Bassirou Diomaye Faye said in late May that reconciliation between ECOWAS and the three Sahel countries was possible.

In June, his newly reelected Mauritanian counterpart, President Mohamed Ould Cheikh El Ghazouani, called on West African countries to unite again against the expansion of jihadism.

But successive summits on the same weekend raises fears of a stiffening of positions between AES and ECOWAS.

“I do not see the AES countries seeking to return to ECOWAS. I think it’s ECOWAS will have to tone it down (the situation),” Nigerien lawyer Djibril Abarchi told AFP.

While AES is currently an economic and defense cooperation body, its three member countries have repeatedly expressed their desire to go further.

At the end of June, Colonel Goita assured that cooperation within the AES had taken “a path of no return” during a visit to Ouagadougou, Burkina’s capital.

The potential creation of a new common currency would also mean leaving behind the CFA franc they currently share with neighboring countries.

“Leaving a currency zone is not easy,” warned Yabi. “Any country can change its currency, but it takes a lot of time and requires a clear political choice as well as a technical and financial preparation process.”

Issoufou Kado, a Nigerien financial expert and political analyst, agreed: “They have to be very careful, because the mechanism takes time.”
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Anti-doping agency sharpens its tools for Paris Olympics

Posted on by SeeEU

Lausanne, Switzerland — In the battle against drug use at the Paris Olympics, the International Testing Agency plans to deploy a more streamlined, high-tech approach to identify and target potential cheats.

In an interview with Agence France-Presse, Benjamin Cohen, director general of the ITA, said potential tools at its disposal included biological and performance passports as well as a mountain of other data.

Upgraded software, possibly using artificial intelligence, could also help; an investigative unit aided by whistleblowers was making inroads; and increased cooperation with sports bodies and police was bearing fruit.

The ITA, which was founded in 2018, runs the anti-doping program for the Olympics, the Tour de France and “more than 65 international organizations,” said Cohen.

The challenge was to refine the “risk analysis” and identify athletes to monitor using as little time and resources as possible, said Cohen, a Swiss lawyer who has headed the agency since its creation.

The problem is accentuated in the run-up to the Paris Games.

“We still have 30,000 potentially qualifying athletes and we cannot wait to have the final list to focus on the 11,000 participants,” Cohen said.

“Certain doping practices enable athletes to achieve results very quickly,” he said. “Traditionally the pre-Olympic period is high-risk time … the last moment to make a difference. Athletes know that they will be very closely monitored at the Olympics, so I would hope that very few, if any, will be tempted to take drugs in the Olympic Village in Paris.”

At the Games, only medalists are automatically tested, but the ITA wants to find ways to target potential dopers before the finish.

Cohen said the ITA tries to identify patterns. It looks at the demands of each discipline and the substances it might tempt athletes to use. Then the ITA looks at delegations and “the history of doping in that country.” Finally, it scrutinizes each individual athlete and “the development of his or her performances, any suspicious biological passport profiles, suspicious anti-doping tests and so on.”

“That’s hundreds of thousands of pieces of data.”

“Risk analysis”

“Today we have our own software, and the next stage” will involve “programming computers to extract this data, because we still do a lot of this work manually.”

After that, the ITA hopes to “seize all the opportunities offered by artificial intelligence,” provided “we use these new tools ethically.”

“If it’s done properly,” he said, “AI will enable us to go much further in risk analysis and prediction.”

The ITA is developing a “performance passport” as a counterpart to the long-established biological passport.

The objective is to “predict results on the basis of what an athlete has done over the last four years,” said Cohen.

“Artificial intelligence will enable us to say: ‘This is really an unusual result, which could suggest doping,'” he said. “It could help us flag them.”

The performance passport project was initially tested in swimming and weightlifting, two indoor sports in which athletes compete in identical environments each time.

Weightlifting also is one of the sports that have returned a vast number of positive tests at Summer Olympics.

In 2021, the ITA carried out “a major investigation into weightlifting,” and that enabled them to set up a specialized unit in cooperation with the sport.

Focus on cycling

It now has more than 10 such units. “Cycling is a particular focus,” but “other sports are beginning to understand the benefits of gathering intelligence, having anonymous sources and promoting whistleblowers.”

“It’s a new method that complements traditional testing.”

Cohen said the ITA has been working to build links with law enforcement and exploit “synergies.”

“They are bearing fruit,” he said, referring to the case of 23-year-old Italian cyclist Andrea Piccolo, arrested on June 21 by the Italian Carabinieri who caught him returning to the country with growth hormones.

“ITA asked the Italian authorities to open his luggage, which would not have been possible six years ago,” Cohen said.

“We carry out the controls, we monitor the performances of these athletes, we know the networks, the doctors involved and the drugs they are taking. And they can seize and open suitcases and enter hotel rooms.”
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