An old planetarium in Johannesburg has been transformed into the state-of-the-art ‘Wits Anglo American Digital Dome.’ After undergoing major renovations, the facility offers visitors an immersive look at the wonders of the universe. Zaheer Cassim reports from Johannesburg.
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Tensions heat up in the Arctic
Climate change is rapidly altering the Arctic region, creating environmental danger, economic opportunity and geopolitical tension as the world’s major powers scramble to control newly accessible shipping lanes and resource deposits.
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Westminster show’s canine athletes get their piece of Super Bowl weekend
New York — They’re at the top of their sport. They run, weave and go airborne. And they went all out for this weekend’s championship.
Sorry — no, they’re not the Chiefs or the Eagles. They’re the agility dogs at the Westminster Kennel Club show, which began Saturday by showcasing agility and other dog sports.
Dog folk often call Westminster the Super Bowl of dog shows, and the comparison might be especially fitting this year. The United States’ most prestigious canine competition opened on the same weekend as pro football’s Super Bowl, which features the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday. The rare coincidence comes after both competitions’ dates shifted in recent years.
“I always said I wanted people to call the Super Bowl ‘the Westminster of football,’ ” quipped dog expert David Frei, who has a foot in both worlds: He used to work in publicity for the Denver Broncos and the San Francisco 49ers.
The Westminster of football? Well, Westminster is 90 years older than the Super Bowl, after all.
And there have been some other connections between the gridiron and Westminster’s green carpet. Los Angeles Chargers defensive end Morgan Fox co-owns a French bulldog who came within a smushy-nose length of winning at Westminster in 2022 and was a finalist the following year. (Many other NFL players also have dogs for fun, if not for show, including Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes.)
Whatever the analogy, being at Westminster was a triumph for Guster the rescue pug. He and owner Steve Martin took up agility after Guster started wagging his tail and tilting his head while they watched the Westminster agility contest on TV several years ago.
“We never thought we’d be here. And now we’re here,” Martin, of Austin, Texas, said Saturday.
A border collie named Vanish won the contest, which featured about 300 champion-level canines.
“She’s very intuitive, very natural — probably smarter than me,” handler Emily Klarman of Doylestown, Pennsylvania, told a Fox interviewer in the ring. While Klarman said the win initially left her speechless, Vanish had plenty to say, barking enthusiastically.
A special award for the best mixed-breed competitor went to Gable, handled by Kayla Feeney of Lima, New York.
Westminster added agility in 2014, marking the show’s first event with mixed-breed dogs since the 1800s. Last year saw the first mixed-breed agility winner, a border collie-papillon mix named Nimble, who competed again this year.
She’s an intentional blend of two top agility breeds. But the sport also draws rescue dogs such as an Australian cattle dog mix named Sawyer, or Soy Sauce for short.
His owner, Dr. Amy Ondeyka, has a complicated work schedule as a New Jersey emergency room doctor and EMS medical director. But she made time for agility after realizing she’d adopted a super-energetic dog who opens cabinets, unzips things and otherwise causes domestic mayhem when bored.
“He’s always exciting — he does ridiculous things,” Ondeyka said as he intermittently leaped into her arms during what was ostensibly down time between agility runs. “We have fun, regardless what happens.”
While some dogs do agility to burn off energy, the sport helps others come out of their shell. Tully, a lanky, shaggy, mostly Labradoodle mix, used to be “afraid of the world” but now is excited to go to agility classes and competitions, owner Carla Rash said.
Saturday’s competitors were a spectrum of dogdom, from a great Dane to a 7-pound (0.9-kilogramg) papillon, and they included such lesser-known breeds as a large Munsterlander and a Danish-Swedish farmdog.
They navigated jumps, tunnels, ramps and other obstacles as handlers gave hand and voice signals. The object is to be the fastest, without making mistakes.
Regardless of scores, some dogs won cheers from spectators. There was a bichon frise with its tail dyed blue, a standard poodle that took a leisurely trot across an A-frame ramp, and a curly-coated mix that apparently had second thoughts about the weave poles, circled around and went through them again.
Westminster’s traditional, breed-by-breed judging happens Monday and Tuesday, capped by the coveted best in show prize Tuesday night.
That’s for purebreds only, but mixed-breed dogs also were eligible for Saturday’s obedience competition, an event that Westminster added in 2016. The top prize went to Willie, an Australian shepherd who also won in 2022 with handler Kathleen Keller of Flemington, New Jersey.
Steve Wesler sported a Philadelphia Eagles sweatshirt as he cheered on partner Jennifer Weinik and Cookie, her Belgian Malinois. They came away with a ribbon, which Wesler deemed more exciting than the Super Bowl — because he was confident the Eagles would prevail.
There are no cash prizes at Westminster, but the agility and obedience winners each get to direct a $5,000 donation to a training club or the American Kennel Club Humane Fund.
The show also featured Westminster’s first demonstration of flyball, a canine relay race that involves retrieving a ball.
“It’s a lot of organized chaos,” Hillary Brown said after competing with her Boston terrier, Paxil. His teammates on a York, Pennsylvania-based squad called Clean Break were a standard poodle, a border collie and a whippet-border collie mix.
“It’s a blast. The dogs love it,” Brown said.
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German chancellor candidates clash on Trump, the far-right and NATO
Berlin — Europe is prepared to respond “within an hour” if the United States levies tariffs against the European Union, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in a pre-election debate with his conservative challenger Friedrich Merz.
In the first duel ahead of the Feb. 23 election, Merz portrayed Scholz as a ditherer who had led Germany into economic crisis, while the Social Democrat presented himself as an experienced leader in command of the details.
Asked if the EU was ready with a targeted response if the U.S. imposed tariffs, Scholz, well behind Merz in the polls, said, “Yes … We as the European Union can act within an hour.”
U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to enact tariffs against the United States’ largest trading partners, accusing them of free-riding on American prosperity. Trade policy is an EU competence, run by the European Commission in Brussels.
Trump and the far-right Alternative for Germany, endorsed by his confidante Elon Musk, overshadowed the debate.
Merz, far ahead in the polls and the favorite to become Germany’s next chancellor, expressed reluctance to raise taxes or borrow to reach the NATO alliance’s defense spending target of 2% of gross domestic product, far short of the 5% Trump is demanding.
When Scholz said that would not be enough, Merz signaled his openness to discuss scrapping Germany’s totemic spending cap — despite a manifesto pledge to keep the constitutional debt braked.
The two clashed over the AfD, with Scholz warning that Merz could not be trusted not to govern with the party. Merz ruled that out, blaming what he called Scholz’s “left-wing” policies for fueling the far-right party’s rise to second in the polls.
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Ukraine looks to bargain rare earth minerals for continued US support
The presidents of Ukraine and the United States are looking to make a deal. This comes as world leaders meet later this week in Munich to discuss, among other issues, the future of Ukraine’s security. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.
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‘Dog Man’ bests ‘Heart Eyes,’ ‘Love Hurts’ at box office
New York — On a quiet winter weekend at the box office, DreamWorks Animation’s “Dog Man” chased its own tail, repeating as the top movie in theaters.
The animated Universal Pictures release, adapted from Dav Pilkey’s popular graphic novel series, collected $13.7 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday. Both new releases — the Ke Huy Quan action movie “Love Hurts” and the Valentine’s Day-themed slasher “Heart Eyes”— were left nipping at the heels of “Dog Man.”
Hollywood often largely punts Super Bowl weekend to the small screen. Last year, Apple’s much-derided “Argylle” debuted on the same weekend. Instead, the movie industry spends more energy pitching its blockbusters in trailers for the huge football audience on TV.
It wasn’t a banner weekend for “Dog Man.” It fell steeply, dropping 62% in it second weekend. But with a production budget of $40 million, “Dog Man” has already tallied $54.1 million domestically in two weeks.
Coming in second was Spyglass Media Group’s “Heart Eyes,” released by Sony. The horror-rom-com mashup earned $8.5 million from 3,102 locations. Reviews have been good for the film, directed by Josh Ruben and starring Oliva Holt and Mason Gooding, though audiences were less impressed. Moviegoers gave it a “B-” CinemaScore. Spyglass made “Heart Eyes” for $18 million.
“Love Hurts,” the action comedy from 87North Productions (“John Wick,” “The Fall Guy”), debuted with a paltry $5.8 million in 3,055 theaters. In his first big movie role since his Oscar-winning comeback in “Everything All at Once,” Ke Huy Quan stars as a mild-mannered realtor with a hitman past. Ariana DeBose co-stars. It, too, was modestly budgeted at $18 million. Audiences, however, mostly rejected the movie, giving “Love Hurts” a “C+” CinemaScore.
Next weekend should bring Hollywood its biggest box-office weekend of the year with the release of Marvel’s “Captain America: Brave New World” and Sony’s “Paddington in Peru.”
Final domestic figures will be released Monday. Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore:
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“Dog Man,” $13.7 million.
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“Heart Eyes,” $8.5 million.
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“Love Hurts,” $5.8 million.
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“Mufasa: The Lion King,” $3.9 million.
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“Companion,” $3 million.
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“One of Them Days,” $3 million.
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“Becoming Led Zeppelin,” $2.6 million.
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“Flight Risk,” $2.6 million.
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“Sonic the Hedgehog,” $1.8 million.
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“Moana 3,” $1.5 million.
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Military: Sudan to form new government after regaining Khartoum
Dubai — The formation of a new Sudanese government is expected to happen after the recapture of Khartoum is completed, military sources told Reuters on Sunday, a day after army head Abdel Fattah al-Burhan said he would form a technocratic wartime government.
The Sudanese army, long on the backfoot in its war with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has in recent weeks regained ground in the capital Khartoum along several axes, closing in on the symbolic presidential palace along the Nile.
The RSF, which has said it would support the formation of a rival civilian administration, has retreated, overpowered by the army’s expanded air capacities and ground ranks swollen by allied militias.
“We can call it a caretaker government, a wartime government, it’s a government that will help us complete what remains of our military objectives, which is freeing Sudan from these rebels,” Burhan told a meeting of army-aligned politicians in the army’s stronghold of Port Sudan on Saturday.
The RSF controls most of the west of the country — and is engaged in an intense campaign to cement its control of the Darfur region by seizing the city of al-Fashir. Burhan ruled out a Ramadan ceasefire unless the RSF stopped that campaign.
The war erupted in April 2023 over disputes about the integration of the two forces after they worked together to oust civilians with whom they had shared power after the uprising that ousted autocrat Omar al-Bashir.
The conflict has created one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises with the displacement of more than 12 million people and half the population facing hunger.
Burhan said there would be changes to the country’s interim constitution, which the military sources said would remove all references to partnership with civilians or the RSF, placing authority solely with the army which would appoint a technocratic prime minister who would then appoint a Cabinet.
Burhan called on members of the civilian Taqadum coalition to renounce the RSF, saying they would be welcomed back if they did so.
your ad hereRescuers recover 1 body and search for 28 people in a landslide in southwest China
Beijing — Emergency teams in China’s southwestern Sichuan province raced against time Sunday to locate 28 people after a landslide triggered by rains killed one person and buried homes.
Nearly 1,000 personnel were deployed following the landslide in the village of Jinping in Junlian county on Saturday. Some officers navigated through the remains of collapsed buildings, using drones and life-detection radars to locate any signs of life with the help of locals who were familiar with the area, state broadcaster CCTV said.
Two injured people were rescued and about 360 others evacuated after 10 houses and a manufacturing building were buried, CCTV reported.
At a news conference Sunday, authorities said preliminary assessments attributed the disaster to heavy rainfall and local geological conditions. They said these factors transformed a landslide into a debris flow about 1.2 kilometers (more than half a mile) long, with a total volume exceeding 100,000 cubic meters (3.5 million cubic feet).
The rescue operation was hampered by continuous rainfall and more landslides. According to preliminary estimates, the collapsed area was about 16 football pitches in size and many houses were carried far by the debris flow.
Chinese Vice Premier Liu Guozhong was at the site to guide the operation and visited the affected residents, according to official news agency Xinhua.
Liu also noted the surrounding slopes still pose collapse risks, calling for scientific assessment to ensure the safety of the operation and prevent another disaster, Xinhua said.
China has allocated about $11 million to support disaster relief and recovery efforts.
Landslides, often caused by rain or unsafe construction work, are not uncommon in China. Last year, a landslide in a remote, mountainous part of China’s southwestern province of Yunnan killed dozens of people.
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Baltic states switch to European power grid, ending Russia ties
VILNIUS — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania said on Sunday they had successfully synchronized their electricity systems to the European continental power grid, one day after severing decades-old energy ties to Russia and Belarus.
Planned for many years, the complex switch away from the grid of their former Soviet imperial overlord is designed to integrate the three Baltic nations more closely with the European Union and to boost the region’s energy security.
“We did it!,” Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics said in a post on social media X.
After disconnecting on Saturday from the IPS/UPS network, established by the Soviet Union in the 1950s and now run by Russia, the Baltic nations cut cross-border high-voltage transmission lines in eastern Latvia, some 100 meters from the Russian border, handing out pieces of chopped wire to enthusiastic bystanders as keepsakes.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, herself an Estonian, earlier this week called the switch “a victory for freedom and European unity.”
The Baltic Sea region is on high alert after power cable, telecom links and gas pipeline outages between the Baltics and Sweden or Finland. All were believed to have been caused by ships dragging anchors along the seabed following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia has denied any involvement.
Poland and the Baltics deployed navy assets, elite police units and helicopters after an undersea power link from Finland to Estonia was damaged in December, while Lithuania’s military began drills to protect the overland connection to Poland.
Analysts say more damage to links could push power prices in the Baltics to levels not seen since the invasion of Ukraine, when energy prices soared.
The IPS/UPS grid was the final remaining link to Russia for the three countries, which re-emerged as independent nations in the early 1990s at the fall of the Soviet Union, and joined the European Union and NATO in 2004.
The three staunch supporters of Kyiv stopped purchases of power from Russia following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 but have relied on the Russian grid to control frequencies and stabilize networks to avoid outages.
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High home prices and mortgage rates put American dream out of reach for many
The Petersen family’s two-bedroom apartment in northern California is starting to feel small.
Four-year-old Jerrik’s toy monster trucks are everywhere in the 1,100-square-foot unit in Campbell, just outside of San Jose. And it’s only a matter of time before 9-month-old Carolynn starts amassing more toys, adding to the disarray, said her mother, Jenn Petersen.
The 42-year-old chiropractor had hoped she and her husband, Steve, a 39-year-old dental hygienist, would have bought a house by now. But when they can afford a bigger place, it will have to be another rental. Petersen has done the math: With mortgage rates and home prices stubbornly high, there’s no way the couple, who make about $270,000 a year and pay about $2,500 in monthly rent, can afford a home anywhere in their area.
According to October data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, a San Jose family with a median income of $156,700 would need to spend 80% of their income on housing — including an $8,600 monthly mortgage payment — to own a median-priced $1.54 million home. That’s far higher than the general rule of thumb that people should pay no more than 30% of their income on a mortgage or rent.
Moving out of state is out of the question for the Petersens — they have strong family ties to the area and their income would plummet if they move to a lower cost-of-living area. “I’m not willing to give up my job and close connections with my family for a house,” Petersen said.
The issue is widespread and near historic highs nationally: As of last fall, the median homeowner in the U.S. was paying 42% of their income on homeownership costs, according to the Atlanta Fed. Four years ago, that percentage was 28% and had not previously reached 38% since late 2007, just before the housing market crash.
“The American dream, as our parents knew it, doesn’t exist anymore,” Petersen said. “The whole idea that you get a house after you graduate college, get a steady job and get married? I’ve done most of those milestones. But the homeownership part? That just doesn’t fit financially.”
Supply lags demand
First-time homeowners are getting older. The same is true for an increasing number of American families.
In 2024, the median first-time homebuyer was 38 years old, a jump from age 35 the previous year, according to a recent report by the National Association of Realtors. That’s significantly above historic norms, when median first-time buyers hovered between 30 and 32 years old from 1993 to 2018.
The biggest driver of this trend, experts said, is simple: There are far too few houses on the market to match pent-up demand, driving prices past the point of affordability for many people who are relatively early in their careers. Coupled with high mortgage rates, many have concluded that renting is their only option.
“Wage growth hasn’t kept up with the increase in home prices and interest rates,” said Domonic Purviance, who studies housing at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta in Atlanta, Georgia. “Even though people are making more money, home prices are increasing at a faster rate.”
That gap has left many out of the housing market, which for generations has been a way for Americans to build equity and wealth that they can pass down or leverage to buy a larger home. It’s also led to widespread worries about housing in the United States. About 7 in 10 voters under age 45 said they were “very” concerned about the cost of housing in their community, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 120,000 voters in the 2024 election.
Is the dream going to fade?
Brian McCabe, a sociology professor at Georgetown University, said he frequently tells his students that “there are few things that all Americans agree on, but one of them is that they’d rather own a home than rent.”
McCabe said homeownership, especially as a wealth-building tool, is the right move for many, especially if the owner intends to be in one place for a long time. But he also said many are realizing that not owning a home has its advantages, too — it gives people more flexibility to move and allows them to live in exciting neighborhoods they would not be able to afford to buy property in.
McCabe said millennials are getting married later, having children later, have a stronger desire to stay in cities and, especially due to remote work, value the flexibility of being able to move with ease — all of which he said could prompt an end to the notion that homeownership is the “apex of the American dream.”
“The big question is whether we see the sheen of homeownership start to fade,” McCabe said. “It’s such an interesting cultural marker: Why is owning a home the pinnacle for so many people?”
It’s a question Petersen wrestles with because she knows any three-bedroom home she found in her area would leave her family “house poor.”
“I used to subscribe to the idea that owning a house is just a natural milestone you have to reach,” she said. “At some point, though, what are you sacrificing by just owning a house and gaining equity? I want to be able to travel with my kids. I want to be able to sign them up for extracurriculars. How are we supposed to do that if we’re paying a mortgage that’s most of our take-home pay?”
Petersen said she’ll “always hold out a little bit of hope” that homeownership will be in her family’s future. But if they find a townhouse to rent that has space for her kids and fits within their $3,600 monthly rental budget?
“I’d take that,” she said.
Cities offer support
Some cities are providing crucial aid to first-time homebuyers
Lifelong Boston resident Julieta Lopez, 63, spent decades hoping to buy a home but watched as prices became increasingly out of reach.
“The prices in Boston just got higher and higher and higher and higher,” said Lopez, who works for the city traffic department issuing tickets for parking violations.
Two years ago, furious to learn that her subsidized apartment’s monthly rent was being hiked to $2,900, Lopez, who earns about $60,000 annually, took out her phone and began searching for government programs that help first-time homebuyers. She was determined to finally own her own place.
Within months, she had succeeded. Lopez qualified to receive $50,000 from the local Massachusetts Affordable Homeownership Alliance nonprofit and another $50,000 from the city of Boston’s Office of Housing — funds that helped her with a down payment on the $430,000 two-bedroom condominium she shares with her 30-year-old son. She now pays about $2,160 a month on her mortgage.
Lopez knows she is lucky the city has placed such a focus on aiding first-time buyers like herself — Boston has poured more than $24 million into its homeownership assistance programs since Mayor Michelle Wu took office in 2021, helping nearly 700 residents get their first homes.
But Lopez also feels proud to have her own place after years of working — doing jobs that included everything from telecommunications to health care to electronics.
“I was determined to have my piece of the pie,” she said. “I felt I deserved that. I’ve always worked. Always. Nonstop.”
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Dalai Lama’s elder brother, who led several rounds of talks with China, dies at 97
NEW DELHI — The elder brother of the Dalai Lama and former chairman of the Tibetan government-in-exile in India, Gyalo Thondup, who led several rounds of talks with China and worked with foreign governments for the Tibetan cause, has died. He was 97.
Thondup died at his home in Kalimpong, a hill town in the Himalayan foothills of eastern West Bengal state, on Saturday evening, media reports said. No other details were immediately released about his death.
Tibetan media outlets credited Thondup for networking with foreign governments and praised his role in facilitating U.S. support for the Tibetan struggle.
The Dalai Lama led a prayer session for Thondup at a monastery in Bylakuppe town in India’s southern state of Karnataka on Sunday where the spiritual leader is currently staying for the winter months.
He prayed for Thondup’s “swift rebirth,” in accordance with Buddhist traditions, and said “his efforts towards the Tibetan struggle were immense and we are grateful for his contribution.”
Thondup, one of six siblings of the Tibetan spiritual leader and the only brother not groomed for a religious life, made India his home in 1952 and helped develop early contacts with the Indian and U.S. governments to seek support for Tibet. In 1957, Thondup helped recruit Tibetan fighters who were sent to U.S. training camps in subsequent years, a report by the U.S.-funded Radio Free Asia said.
According to RFA, Thondup was primarily responsible for liaising with the Indian government, including with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, when the Dalai Lama escaped to India in 1959. He also played a key role in establishing Tibetan leaders’ relations with U.S. officials.
Thondup began discussions between Tibetans and Chinese leaders in 1979, in a departure from his earlier approach, which sought an armed struggle against Chinese control of Tibet. The meeting laid a basis for a series of formal negotiations between the Dalai Lama’s official envoys and the Chinese leadership that continued until they were halted in 2010.
In an interview with RFA broadcast in 2003, Thondup said neither India nor the U.S. would be able to solve the Tibetan issue, and that progress could only come through face-to-face talks with Beijing.
Thondup served as chairman of the Tibetan government-in-exile based in India’s northern hillside town of Dharamshala from 1991 to 1993.
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Kosovo votes for new parliament as foreign aid dwindles and talks with Serbia are stalled
PRISTINA, KOSOVO — Kosovars cast their votes Sunday in a parliamentary election considered a key test for Prime Minister Albin Kurti as talks on normalizing ties with rival Serbia remain stalled and foreign funding for one of Europe’s poorest countries in question.
Kurti’s left-wing Vetevendosje, or Self-Determination Movement Party, is seen as the front-runner but is not expected to win the necessary majority to govern alone, leaving open the possibility the other two contenders join ranks if he fails to form a Cabinet.
The other challengers are the Democratic Party of Kosovo, or PDK, whose main leaders are detained at an international criminal tribunal at The Hague accused of war crimes, and the Democratic League of Kosovo, or LDK, the oldest party in the country that lost much of its support after the death in 2006 of its leader, Ibrahim Rugova.
The parties made big-ticket pledges to increase public salaries and pensions, improve education and health services, and fight poverty. However, they did not explain where the money would come from, nor how they would attract more foreign investment.
Ties with Serbia remain a concern
Kurti has been at odds with Western powers after his Cabinet took several steps that raised tensions with Serbia and ethnic Serbs, including the ban on the use of the Serbian currency and dinar transfers from Serbia to Kosovo’s ethnic Serb minority that depends on Belgrade’s social services and payments. The U.S., the European Union and the NATO-led stabilization force KFOR have urged the government in Pristina to refrain from unilateral actions, fearing the revival of inter-ethnic conflict.
This is the first time since independence in 2008 that Kosovo’s parliament has completed a full four-year mandate. It is the ninth parliamentary vote in Kosovo since the end of the 1998-99 war between Serbian government forces and ethnic Albanian separatists that pushed Serbian forces out following a 78-day NATO air campaign. Serbia does not recognize Kosovo’s independence.
The vote will determine who will lead the Kosovo in negotiations with Serbia, which stalled again last year.
Some aid funds are suspended
The EU has suspended funding for some projects and set conditions for their gradual resumption, linked to Kosovo taking steps to de-escalate tensions in the north, where most of the Serb minority lives.
Kosovo is also suffering after Washington imposed a 90-day freeze on funding for different projects through the U.S. Agency for International Development, which has been key in promoting the country’s growth.
Some 2 million eligible voters will elect 120 lawmakers from 1,280 candidates from 27 political groupings. One independent candidate is also running. The Kosovar parliament has 20 seats reserved for minorities regardless of election results, 10 of which are for the Serb minority.
“I encourage all the citizens of Kosovo to use this opportunity to decide on the next four years,” Kurti said after casting his ballot.
There have been sporadic violent incidents. Prosecutors said they detained five people for trying to influence voters.
Kosovars abroad started voting on Saturday at 43 diplomatic missions. There are some 20,000 voters from the diaspora of nearly 100,000 casting ballots at the missions, and the rest by mail.
Although crucial for the region’s stability, negotiations with Serbia have not figured high on any party’s agenda.
“What can we do? We were born here. Our graves are here. It will be better, I hope. We have to come out and vote. That is our duty,” Mileva Kovacevic, a Serb resident in northern Mitrovica, said.
Kosovo, with a population of 1.6 million, is one of the poorest countries in Europe with an annual gross domestic product of less than 6,000 euros per person.
KFOR has increased its presence in Kosovo after last year’s tensions with Serbia as well as for the election.
A team of 100 observers from the EU, 18 from the Council of Europe and about 1,600 others from international or local organizations will monitor the vote.
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Sam Nujoma, Namibia’s first president, dies at 95
WINDHOEK, NAMIBIA — Sam Nujoma, the fiery freedom fighter who led Namibia to independence from apartheid South Africa in 1990 and served as its first president for 15 years, and was known as the father of the nation, has died. He was 95.
Nujoma’s death was announced Sunday by current Namibian President Nangolo Mbumba. Mbumba said Nujoma died on Saturday night after being hospitalized in the capital, Windhoek.
“The foundations of the Republic of Namibia have been shaken,” Mbumba said in a statement. “Over the past three weeks, the Founding President of the Republic of Namibia and Founding Father of the Namibian Nation was hospitalized for medical treatment and medical observation due to ill health.”
“Unfortunately, this time, the most gallant son of our land could not recover from his illness,” Mbumba added.
Nujoma was revered in his homeland as a charismatic father figure who steered his country to democracy and stability after long colonial rule by Germany and a bitter war of independence from South Africa. He spent nearly 30 years in exile as the leader of its independence movement before returning to be elected his country’s first democratic leader in 1990.
Nujoma, with his trademark white beard, was the last of a generation of African leaders who brought their countries out of colonial or white minority rule that included South Africa’s Nelson Mandela, Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, Zambia’s Kenneth Kaunda and Mozambique’s Samora Machel.
Many Namibians credited Nujoma’s leadership for the process of national healing and reconciliation after the deep divisions caused by the independence war and South Africa’s policies of dividing the country into ethnically based regional governments, with separate education and health care for each race.
Even his political opponents praised Nujoma — who was branded a Marxist and accused of ruthless suppression of dissent while in exile — for establishing a democratic Constitution and involving white businessmen and politicians in government after independence.
Despite his pragmatism and nation-building at home, Nujoma often hit foreign headlines for his fierce anti-Western rhetoric. He claimed AIDS was a man-made biological weapon and also occasionally waged a verbal war on homosexuality, calling gays “idiots” and branding homosexuality a “foreign and corrupt ideology.”
Nujoma built ties with North Korea, Cuba, Russia and China, some of which had supported Namibia’s liberation movement by providing arms and training.
But he balanced that with outreach to the West, and Nujoma was the first African leader to be hosted at the White House by former U.S. President Bill Clinton in 1993. Clinton called Nujoma “the George Washington of his country” and “a genuine hero of the world’s movement toward democracy.”
Nujoma grew up in a rural, impoverished family, the eldest of 11 children. His early life revolved around looking after his parents’ cattle and the cultivation of land. He attended a mission school before moving to Windhoek and working for South African Railways.
He was arrested following a political protest in 1959 and fled the territory shortly after his release. In exile, he helped establish the South West African People’s Organization and was named its president in 1960. SWAPO has been Namibia’s ruling party since 1990.
When South Africa refused to heed a 1966 U.N. resolution ending its mandate over the former German colony of South West Africa, Nujoma launched SWAPO’s guerrilla campaign.
“We started the armed struggle with only two sub-machine guns and two pistols,” Nujoma once said. “I got them from Algeria, plus some rounds of ammunition.”
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Economists raise concern over sustainability of Indonesian meal program
JAKARTA, INDONESIA — Economists are raising concerns about the viability of Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s program launched this year to combat child nutrition.
According to an Indonesian Ministry of Health Nutritional Status Study report, 21.6% of children ages 3 and 4 experienced stunting caused by malnutrition in 2022.
The first stage of the Free Nutritious Meal Program, extending through March, is intended to provide around 20 million Indonesian school children, pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers meals to improve their health and prevent stunting.
The effort was initially projected to cost $28 billion over five years. However, Coordinating Minister for Food Zulkifli Hasan said on Jan. 9 during a meeting on food security that the $4.4 billion budgeted for this year will run out in June and that $8.5 billion more will be requested to fund the program through December.
China, Japan, the United States and India have expressed support for the program, although it is unclear how much money will be provided or what form that support will take. Japan and India have said their help will be in the form of training.
Officials plan to implement the program in stages, eventually reaching 83 million people — more than a quarter of Indonesia’s 280 million population — by 2029, Muhammad Qodari, deputy chief of the presidential staff told reporters on Feb. 3.
The program is part of a long-term strategy to develop the nation’s youth to achieve a “Golden Indonesia” generation, referring to a plan to make Indonesia a sovereign, advanced and prosperous nation by its 2045 centennial.
The program’s cost could make Prabowo politically vulnerable, according to Dinna Prapto Raharja, a professor of international relations at Jakarta’s Bina Nusantara University and a senior policy adviser at Jakarta consulting firm Synergy Policies.
“In order to finance this program, Prabowo has taken steps to implement major cutbacks in his government budget with some ministries seeing 50% cuts,” Dinna said.
“Now he is forced to seek financial assistance from overseas sources.” she told VOA on Jan. 31.
The Finance Ministry said the spending cuts would amount to $18.7 billion, 8% of this fiscal year’s approved spending.
While other nations said they would support the program, officials from the National Nutrition Agency — which manages the program — said internal talks about the level of foreign aid, type of assistance and technical aspects of its implementation have not begun.
Support from China, Japan, US and India
In November, China committed to supporting free nutritious meals but did not pledge a specific amount.
The Chinese Embassy in Jakarta did not respond to VOA requests for further information on the value and form of the assistance. It remains unclear whether China’s financial assistance will be in the form of a loan or grant.
The United States is providing training to Indonesian dairy farmers to support the program, which has increased the demand for locally produced milk. Indonesia, so far, can provide milk only two to three times a week to school children, according to Deddy Fachrudin Kurniawan, CEO of Dairy Pro Indonesia and project leader of U.S. Dairy Export Council training.
Deddy told VOA on Jan. 8 that Indonesia has had to import 84% of its milk in the past, and that demand will double because of the food program.
In January, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba announced Japan will support the meal program by helping the Indonesian government increase its ability to combat childhood malnutrition.
Ishiba offered Japan’s support by training Indonesian cooks and sending Japanese chefs to assist. Prabowo added that Japan will also assist in improving the fishery and agriculture sectors, based on Japan’s experience.
More recently, India reaffirmed support for the program through the sharing of knowledge of the government’s Food Corporation of India and other institutions with Indonesian officials.
“India shares its experiences in the fields of health and food security, including the [free] lunch scheme and public [service] distribution system to the Indonesia government,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on his YouTube channel on Jan. 25.
Other support and reaction
Other countries have said they support the program. France and Brazil expressed their support on the sidelines of the recent G20 Leaders Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
Prabowo instructed his team to arrange a visit of an Indonesian delegation to Brazil to take notes from the South American country’s similar program. France, which has a similar school feeding program, intends to share its expertise and help Indonesia modernize its agricultural sector.
Teuku Rezasyah, an associate professor of international relations at Bandung’s Universitas Padjajaran, noted that India exported 20,000 metric tons of water buffalo meat to Indonesia last year while Brazil exported 100,000 metric tons of beef to Indonesia.
British Deputy Prime Minister Angela Reynar showed similar interest during her meeting with Prabowo in London in November. However, it remains unclear what type of support the U.K will offer.
Mohammad Faisal, executive director of the Center of Reform on Economics, told VOA in Jakarta on Jan. 31 that countries offering support will have their own interests in mind, as well.
“I believe there’s no free lunch,” Faisal said. “The donations may be partly altruistic, but not entirely. Donor countries consider it as strengthening bilateral ties, but they may also expect to reap the benefits in the future, such as enjoying ease of investing in Indonesia through incentives and getting better penetration of export markets as a reward.”
Rezasyah agreed.
“Donor countries are probably hoping Indonesia will import more products from their countries to support this multibillion-dollar supplemental food program,” he said. “On the other hand, they see Indonesia becoming a middle power that could contribute to finding solutions to global affairs.”
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North Korea slams US-South Korea-Japan partnership, vows to boost nuclear program
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said an elevated U.S. security partnership with South Korea and Japan poses a grave threat to his country and vowed to bolster his nuclear weapons program, state media reported Sunday.
Kim has previously made similar warnings, but his latest statement implies again that the North Korean leader won’t likely embrace U.S. President Donald Trump’s overture to meet him and revive diplomacy anytime soon.
In a speech on Saturday marking the 77th founding anniversary of the Korean People’s Army, Kim said the U.S.-Japan-South Korea trilateral security partnership was established under a U.S. plot to form a NATO-like regional military bloc. He said it is inviting military imbalance on the Korean Peninsula and “raising a grave challenge to the security environment of our state,” according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
“Referring to a series of new plans for rapidly bolstering all deterrence including nuclear forces, he clarified once again the unshakable policy of more highly developing the nuclear forces,” KCNA said.
Amid stalled diplomacy with the U.S. and South Korea in recent years, Kim has focused on enlarging and modernizing his arsenal of nuclear weapons. In response, the United States and South Korea have expanded their bilateral military exercises and trilateral training involving Japan. North Korea has lashed out at those drills, calling them rehearsals to invade the country.
Trump on Kim: ‘I got along with him’
Since his January 20 inauguration, Trump has said he would reach out to Kim again as he boasted of his high-stakes summit with him during his first term.
During a joint news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Friday, Trump said, “We will have relations with North Korea, with Kim Jong Un. I got along with him very well, as you know. I think I stopped the war.”
During a Fox News interview broadcast on January 23, Trump was asked if he will reach out to Kim again, Trump replied, “I will, yeah.”
Trump met Kim three times in 2018-19 to discuss how to end North Korea’s nuclear program in what was the first-ever summitry between the leaders of the U.S. and North Korea. The high-stakes diplomacy eventually collapsed after Trump rejected Kim’s offer to dismantle his main nuclear complex, a partial denuclearization step, in return for broad sanctions relief.
North Korea hasn’t directly responded to Trump’s recent overture, as it continues weapons testing activities and hostile rhetoric against the U.S. Many experts say Kim is now preoccupied with his dispatch of troops to Russia to support its war efforts against Ukraine. They say Kim would eventually consider returning to diplomacy with Trump if he determines he would fail to maintain the current solid cooperation with Russia after the war ends.
Kim reaffirms support for Russia
In his Saturday speech, Kim reaffirmed that North Korea “will invariably support and encourage the just cause of the Russian army and people to defend their sovereignty, security and territorial integrity.” Kim accused the U.S. of being behind “the war machine which is stirring up the tragic situation of Ukraine.”
In South Korea, some worry that Trump might abandon the international community’s long-running goal of achieving a complete denuclearization of North Korea to produce a diplomatic achievement.
But a joint statement issued by Trump and Ishiba after their summit stated the two leaders reaffirmed “their resolute commitment to the complete denuclearization of the DPRK,” the acronym of North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The statement said the U.S. and Japan also affirmed the importance of the Japan-U.S.-South Korean trilateral partnership in responding to North Korea.
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Japan prime minister voices optimism over averting US tariffs
TOKYO — Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba expressed optimism on Sunday that his country could avoid higher U.S. tariffs, saying President Donald Trump had recognized Japan’s huge investment in the U.S. and the American jobs that it creates.
At his first White House summit on Friday, Ishiba told public broadcaster NHK, he explained to Trump how many Japanese automakers were creating jobs in the United States.
The two did not specifically discuss auto tariffs, Ishiba said, although he said he did not know whether Japan would be subject to the reciprocal tariffs that Trump has said he plans to impose on imports.
Tokyo has so far escaped the trade war Trump unleashed in his first weeks in office. He has announced tariffs on goods from Canada, Mexico and China, although he postponed the 25% duties on his North American neighbors to allow for talks.
The escalating trade tensions since Trump returned to the White House on Jan. 20 threaten to rupture the global economy.
Ishiba said he believes Trump “recognized the fact Japan has been the world’s largest investor in the United States for five straight years and is therefore different from other countries.”
“Japan is creating many U.S. jobs. I believe (Washington) won’t go straight to the idea of higher tariffs,” he said.
Ishiba voiced optimism that Japan and the U.S. can avoid a tit-for-tat tariff war, stressing that tariffs should be put in place in a way that “benefits both sides.”
“Any action that exploits or excludes the other side won’t last,” Ishiba said. “The question is whether there is any problem between Japan and the United States that warrants imposing higher tariffs,” he added.
Japan had the highest foreign direct investment in the United States in 2023 at $783.3 billion, followed by Canada and Germany, according to the most recent U.S. Commerce Department data.
Trump pressed Ishiba to close Japan’s $68.5 billion annual trade surplus with Washington but expressed optimism this could be done quickly, given a promise by Ishiba to bring Japanese investment in the U.S. to $1 trillion.
On Sunday, Ishiba identified liquefied natural gas, steel, AI and autos as areas that Japanese companies could invest in.
He also touched on Trump’s promise to look at Nippon Steel investing in U.S. Steel as opposed to buying the storied American company, a planned purchase opposed by Trump and blocked by his predecessor, Joe Biden.
“Investment is being made to ensure that it remains an American company. It will continue to operate under American management, with American employees,” Ishiba said. “The key point is how to ensure it remains an American company. From President Trump’s perspective, this is of utmost importance.”
On military spending, another area where Trump has pressed allies for increases, Ishiba said Japan would not increase its defense budget without first winning public backing.
“It is crucial to ensure that what is deemed necessary is something the taxpayers can understand and support,” he said.
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Scandal-hit narco-musical ‘Emilia Perez’ wins Spanish film prize
GRANADA, SPAIN — Narco-musical Emilia Perez won best European film at Spain’s equivalent of the Oscars on Saturday, after social media posts by the movie’s star prompted a backlash in the middle of awards season.
The mostly Spanish-language musical tells the story of a Mexican drug cartel boss who transitions to life as a woman and turns her back on crime.
Before the scandal broke, the film earned 13 Oscar nods, picked up four Golden Globes in January and won multiple prizes at last year’s Cannes Film Festival.
But old social media posts by star Karla Sofia Gascon, in which she denigrates Islam, China and African American George Floyd, unleashed a scandal that has harmed her reputation and the film.
Voting for the Goya awards closed on Jan. 24, days before the posts were uncovered.
Spaniard Gascon, the first transgender woman nominated for an Oscar for best actress, has apologized for her posts and distanced herself from publicity for the film.
She lives near Madrid but did not attend the Goya awards ceremony in Granada.
The movie’s French director Jacques Audiard has called the posts “inexcusable” and “absolutely hateful.”
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Ukrainians in Colorado open food truck featuring traditional food
Ukrainians Yevhenia and Kostiantyn Mukhin fled Kherson in 2022 with nothing but a backpack. They made their way to Denver, Colorado, determined to rebuild their lives, but also to spread the joy of Ukrainian culture. Svitlana Prystynska reports the story narrated by Anna Rice.
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US declares interest in developing African mining sector
CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA — The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump is interested in developing the mining sector in Africa. On the first day of his second term, Trump signed an executive order focusing on minerals, mineral extraction, and mineral processing.
“Mainly in the United States but if you read closely there are also multiple references in that executive order to international partnerships and you know, cooperating with partner nations,” said Scott Woodard, the acting deputy assistant secretary of state for energy transformation at the U.S. State Department.
Woodard spoke at a recent African mining conference — also known as an indaba — in Cape Town, South Africa.
Moderator Zainab Usman, director of the Africa Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, asked Woodard whether the U.S. understands that in addition to mineral extraction, Africans want projects that add value to the raw material in order to boost the continent’s industrialization.
Woodard replied that the Trump administration is still putting together its policies.
In recent years, America’s investment in the African minerals needed for cleaner energy has been driven by the Export-Import Bank of the United States.
In 2022, the U.S. entered into agreements with the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia to establish a supply chain for electric vehicle batteries, underscoring its interest in both countries’ copper, lithium and cobalt resources.
The U.S. also has funded the rebuilding of the Lobito Rail Corridor, which will transport minerals from Congo, Zambia and Angola on the west coast.
Speaking in the exhibition hall during the indaba, Zambia’s minister of transport and logistics, Frank Tayali, thanked the U.S. for its leadership.
“We have something like a $350 billion gap in terms of infrastructure gap financing that the continent needs,” said Tayali. “Now this focus on infrastructure development is really key in helping the African economies to be able to improve so that they are able to look after their people more effectively.”
China, meanwhile, is invested in rehabilitating the Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority — known as TAZARA — to bolster rail and sea transport in East Africa.
And in South Africa, the conference’s host country, transport and logistics problems at the state-owned Transnet railway system are being considered.
“The CEO of Transnet is very open about the state of the rail network,” said Allan Seccombe, head of communications at the Minerals Council of South Africa. ” … it needs a lot of work.”
How will they raise the money?
“They are going out on public tenders to try and get that investment in,” said Allan Seccombe, head of communications at the Minerals Council of South Africa. “Also, significantly they’re speaking to their customers who are by and large, large mining companies to maybe through tariffs they can invest in the rail network, improve it, then have private trains they can operate on the network.”
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Emboldened by Trump, Iranian dissidents demand overthrow of rulers
PARIS — Thousands of opponents to Iran’s authorities rallied in Paris on Saturday, joined by Ukrainians to call for the fall of the government in Tehran, hopeful that U.S. President Donald Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ campaign could lead to change in the country.
The protest, organized by the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran, which is banned in Iran, comes as two of the group’s members face imminent execution with a further six sentenced to death in November.
“We say your demise has arrived. With or without negotiations, with or without nuclear weapons, uprising and overthrow await you,” NCRI President-elect Maryam Rajavi said in a speech.
People from across Europe, some bussed in for the event, waved Iranian flags and chanted anti-government slogans amid images deriding Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Hundreds of Ukrainians accusing Iran of backing Russian President Vladimir Putin in the war against Ukraine joined the protest.
Iryna Serdiuk, 37, a nurse turned interpreter originally from Ukraine’s embattled Donbas region and now exiled in Germany, said she had come to Paris to join forces against a common enemy.
“I’m happy to see these Iranians because they are opposition. They support Ukraine and not the Iranian government which gives Russia weapons. We are together and one day it will be victory for Ukraine and Iran too,” she said.
The NCRI, also known by its Persian name Mujahideen-e-Khalq, was once listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union until 2012.
While its critics question its support inside Iran and how it operates, it remains one of the few opposition groups able to rally supporters.
Mohammad Sabetraftar, 63, an Iranian in exile for 40 years and who now runs a taxi business in the United Kingdom, dismissed criticism of the NCRI saying that it was the only alternative capable of achieving democracy in Iran.
“What we expect from Mr. Trump or any Western politician is to not support this government. We don’t need money, we don’t need weapons, we rely on the people. No ties with the regime, no connections and put as much pressure on this government.”
Tehran has long called for a crackdown on the NCRI in Paris, Riyadh, and Washington. The group is regularly criticized in state media.
In January, Trump’s Ukraine envoy spoke at a conference organized by the group in Paris.
At the time, he outlined the president’s plan to return to a policy of maximum pressure on Iran that sought to wreck its economy, forcing the country to negotiate a deal on its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, and regional activities.
Homa Sabetraftar, 16, a schoolgirl in Britain, said she felt it was her duty to come to the event to represent the youth of Iran.
“Some people in Iran don’t have that voice and aren’t able to vocalize as freely as we are able to here,” she said. “We need to push for a better future.”
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White South Africans reject Trump’s resettlement plan
CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA — Groups representing some of South Africa’s white minority responded Saturday to a plan by President Donald Trump to offer them refugee status and resettlement in the United States by saying: thanks, but no thanks.
The plan was detailed in an executive order Trump signed Friday that stopped all aid and financial assistance to South Africa as punishment for what the Trump administration said were “rights violations” by the government against some of its white citizens.
The Trump administration accused the South African government of allowing violent attacks on white Afrikaner farmers and introducing a land expropriation law that enables it to “seize ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property without compensation.”
The South African government has denied there are any concerted attacks on white farmers and has said that Trump’s description of the new land law is full of misinformation and distortions.
On Saturday, two of the most prominent groups representing Afrikaners said they would not be taking up Trump’s offer of resettlement in the U.S.
“Our members work here, and want to stay here, and they are going to stay here,” said Dirk Hermann, chief executive of the Afrikaner trade union Solidarity, which says it represents about 2 million people. “We are committed to build a future here. We are not going anywhere.”
At the same news conference, Kallie Kriel, the CEO of the Afrikaner lobby group AfriForum, said: “We have to state categorically: We don’t want to move elsewhere.”
Trump’s move to sanction South Africa, a key U.S. trading partner in Africa, came after he and his South African-born adviser Elon Musk accused its Black leadership of having an anti-white stance. But the portrayal of Afrikaners as a downtrodden group that needed to be saved would surprise most South Africans.
“It is ironic that the executive order makes provision for refugee status in the U.S. for a group in South Africa that remains amongst the most economically privileged,” South Africa’s Foreign Ministry said.
There was “a campaign of misinformation and propaganda” aimed at South Africa, the ministry said.
Whites in South Africa still generally have a much better standard of living than Blacks more than 30 years after the end of the apartheid system of white minority rule in 1994. Despite being a small minority, whites still own about 70% of South Africa’s private farmland. A study in 2021 by the South Africa Human Rights Commission said 1% of whites were living in poverty compared with 64% of Blacks.
Trump’s action against South Africa has given international attention to a sentiment among some white South Africans that they are being discriminated against as a form of payback for apartheid. The leaders of the apartheid government were Afrikaners.
Solidarity, AfriForum and others are strongly opposed to the new land expropriation law, saying it will target land owned by whites who have worked to develop that land for years. They also say an equally contentious language law that’s recently been passed seeks to remove or limit their Afrikaans language in schools, while they have often criticized South Africa’s affirmative action policies in business that promote the interests of Blacks as racist laws.
“This government is allowing a certain section of the population to be targeted,” said AfriForum’s Kriel, who thanked Trump for raising the case of Afrikaners.
The South African government says the laws that have been criticized are aimed at the incredibly difficult task of redressing the wrongs of colonialism and then nearly a half-century of apartheid, when Blacks were stripped of their land and almost all their rights.
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White House order halts Myanmar refugee resettlement deal with Thailand
BANGKOK — The head of a Thai parliamentary committee that oversees border affairs and refugee camp officials told VOA the suspension by the United States of refugee admissions has halted a resettlement deal the U.S. struck with Thailand last year to take in thousands of Myanmar families.
About 90,000 refugees from Myanmar are in Thailand in a string of nine sealed-off camps along the countries’ shared border. Some have lived in the camps since the mid-1980s, fleeing decades of fighting between Myanmar’s military and ethnic-minority rebel groups vying for autonomy. Most are ethnic minority Karen.
After more than a year of talks and planning, the United States agreed to start taking in some of the refugees last year, although the U.S. State Department would not say how many of them might resettle. However, Thai lawmaker Rangsiman Rome, and an aid worker previously told VOA that local United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees staff told them in 2023 that it could be up to 10,000 per year, a claim the U.N. would not confirm or deny.
The first groups of 25 families left the camps for the United States in July.
U.S. President Donald Trump said that during the previous four years — the term of former President Joe Biden — “the United States has been inundated with record levels of migration, including through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program,” and he suspended the program by executive order Jan. 20, effective a week later.
The administration is allowing only case-by-case exceptions, “until such time as the further entry into the United States of refugees aligns with the interests of the United States.”
The U.S. Embassy in Bangkok declined to comment to VOA on the order’s impact on the resettlement deal the United States and Thailand struck last year.
Asked about the deal’s fate, a U.S. State Department spokesperson told VOA it was “coordinating with implementing partners to suspend refugee arrivals to the United States” and refused further comment.
Rangsiman, who chairs the Thai House of Representatives National Security, Border Affairs, National Strategy and National Reform Committee, which monitors the refugee camps, confirmed Friday that Trump’s order has put a stop to the deal, at least for the time being.
“We are aware that the deal is on hold but still waiting for updates from related departments if this deal can be renegotiated,” he told VOA.
Officials and spokespersons for the Thai government and ministries involved in managing the deal either refused to speak with VOA or did not reply to requests for comment.
Camp administrators told VOA that all work vetting and preparing the refugees in the camps for resettlement to the U.S., including interviews and medical checks, has stopped since the White House order.
“After the 20th, after the announcement, everything stopped,” said Nido, who goes by one name, the vice chairman of the committee managing day-to-day operations at the Umpiem camp in Tak province.
“On the 27th, many people from the camp had to go for their second vaccination. The doctors and nurses were there already preparing to vaccinate. But when the people arrived, they said there were some changes, so they had to stop the vaccination process. They told the people they will have to stop this process for a while, but they could not say for how long,” he said. “The interviews, the vaccinations — they had to stop it.”
Bweh Say, secretary of the Karen Refugee Committee that oversees the individual camp committees, said he was told by UNHCR staff that resettlement work was on hold across all the camps.
“Some of their staff, when we sit together, we talk together … they said [it has] stopped,” he said.
The UNHCR has been helping Thailand and the United States run the resettlement program, but it refused to comment to VOA on the impact of the suspension of the U.S. refugee admissions program, USRAP.
Camp officials and refugee advocates say the deal between Thailand and the U.S. was the only foreseeable chance in the near term for thousands of families to have a future other than as permanent refugees.
The Myanmar military’s overthrow of a democratically elected government in 2021 amplified violence in the country, setting off a civil war that has killed thousands of civilians.
Thailand itself will not allow the refugees to settle outside the camps and mostly denies them the chance to work or study outside the camps legally. Aid and advocacy groups that work with the refugees have described rising despair, drug abuse and violence.
No other country besides the United States has taken up Thailand’s call to resettle the refugees in large numbers.
“This [deal] is very important for the refugees. Some of us have been staying in the camps for decades — two or almost three. Children have been born here,” said Nido, a refugee himself who fled Myanmar nearly 20 years ago.
“The situation in Myanmar now is very terrible,” he said. “A lot of conflict and fighting. It’s not possible to go back. It’s also not possible to be recognized as a Thai national or to get Thai ID, and when you’re stateless, it is very hard to move around or find work.”
Inside the camps, jobs are hard to come by except for running a small shop or working with an aid group for a modest stipend. Schools are barred from teaching the Thai curriculum or language, leaving little chance for a higher education. Monthly food allowances, funded by international donors, barely keep pace with inflation.
Since Trump took office, the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development also has compelled the clinics it was funding across the camps to close, forcing the refugees onto Thailand’s own public health care system. The Thai government has vowed to plug the gap, but media reports say it is struggling.
Some critics say the USAID programs are wasteful and promote an agenda that fosters dependence without addressing the root of the problem. A Justice Department official, Brett Shumate, said Friday, “The president has decided there is corruption and fraud at USAID,” although he did not detail the alleged mismanagement.
“If they could return [to Myanmar], if the situation [were] safe, of course everyone would want to return to their homes. But since it is impossible, then resettlement is one of their first options,” said Wahkushee Tenner, a former refugee from the camps who now runs the Karen Peace Support Network, a nongovernment group based in Thailand that advocates for the Karen.
“Resettlement is not the best option,” she said, “but there is no best … option.”
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African leaders call for ‘immediate ceasefire’ at DRC summit
BUKAVU, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO — A summit of African leaders meeting to address the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Saturday called for an “immediate and unconditional ceasefire” within five days.
The M23 armed rebel group has rapidly seized swathes of territory in the mineral-rich eastern DRC in an offensive that has left thousands dead and displaced vast numbers.
The DRC government has officially designated the M23 rebel group as a terrorist organization, while the United Nations and the United States classify it as an armed rebel group.
The summit in Tanzania brought together Rwandan President Paul Kagame and his Congolese counterpart, Felix Tshisekedi, as well as leaders from the East African Community bloc and 16-member Southern African Development Community.
Kagame appeared in person, while Tshisekedi joined via video call.
In the final statement, the summit called for army chiefs from both communities “to meet within five days and provide technical direction on an immediate and unconditional ceasefire.”
It also called for the opening of humanitarian corridors to evacuate the dead and injured.
Meanwhile, fighting was ongoing about 60 kilometers from the South Kivu provincial capital of Bakuvu, local and security sources told AFP.
The M23 took the strategic city of Goma, capital of North Kivu province, last week and is pushing into neighboring South Kivu in the latest episode of decadeslong turmoil in the region.
Local fears
Since the M23 reemerged in 2021, peace talks hosted by Angola and Kenya have failed and multiple ceasefires have collapsed.
While Rwanda continues to deny supporting the M23 militarily, a report by United Nations experts said last year Rwanda had around 4,000 troops in the DRC and profited from smuggling out of the country vast amounts of gold and coltan — a mineral vital for phones and laptops.
Rwanda accuses the DRC of sheltering the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, an armed group created by ethnic Hutus who massacred Tutsis during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
The summit comes amid reports that the M23 is closing on the town of Kavumu in South Kivu, which hosts an airport critical to supplying Congolese troops.
There have also been reports of panic in the provincial capital, Bukavu, as residents board up shops and seek to escape.
“The border with Rwanda is open but almost impassable because of the number of people trying to cross. It’s total chaos,” they said.
Gang rape, slavery
U.N. rights chief Volker Turk warned Friday: “If nothing is done, the worst may be yet to come for the people of the eastern DRC but also beyond the country’s borders.”
Turk said that nearly 3,000 people had been confirmed killed and 2,880 wounded since the M23 entered Goma on Jan. 26, and that the final tolls were likely to be much higher.
He also said his team was “currently verifying multiple allegations of rape, gang rape and sexual slavery.”
M23 has already installed its own mayor and local authorities in Goma.
It has vowed to march all the way to the national capital, Kinshasa, even though the city lies about 1,600 kilometers away across the vast country, which is roughly the size of Western Europe.
The DRC army, which has a reputation for poor training and corruption, has been forced into multiple retreats.
The M23 offensive has raised fears of a regional war, given that several countries are supporting the DRC militarily, including South Africa, Burundi and Malawi.
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Zelenskyy hints at ‘intensive’ talks with Trump as US, Ukraine discuss peace deal
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has not confirmed that he will meet with U.S. President Donald Trump next week but said the coming weeks may be “very intensive in diplomacy.”
Trump said on Feb. 7 that he is likely to meet with Zelenskyy next week. The site of the meeting “could be Washington,” he said, adding that he would not be going to Kyiv.
He also said he would “probably” be speaking with Russian President Vladimir Putin soon but did not give a time frame. Zelenskyy said it is important that he and Trump meet in person before the U.S. president meets with Putin.
Zelenskyy did not confirm a meeting with Trump but said diplomacy would be ramping up.
“The coming weeks may be very intensive in diplomacy, and we will do what’s needed to make this time effective and productive. We always appreciate working with President Trump,” he said shortly after Trump spoke.
“Weʼre also planning meetings and talks at the teams’ level. Right now Ukrainian and American teams are working out the details. A solid, lasting peace shall become closer.”
In his comments earlier at the White House, the U.S. president reiterated that he is interested in tying continued military aid to access to Ukraine’s raw materials.
“One of the things we’re looking at with President Zelenskyy is having the security of their assets. They have assets underground, rare earth and other things, but primarily rare earth,” he said.
“We’re looking to do a deal with Ukraine where they’re going to secure what we’re giving them with their rare earths and other things,” Trump said on Feb. 3.
He said on Feb. 7 that the United States wants “an equal amount of something” in exchange for U.S. support. “We would like them to equalize,” Trump said.
More than four dozen minerals, including several types of rare earths, nickel, and lithium, are considered critical to the U.S. economy and national defense. Ukraine has large deposits of uranium, lithium, and titanium.
Ukraine floated the idea of opening its critical minerals to investment by allies last year when it presented its plan to end the war and now suggests it could be open to a deal.
“If we are talking about a deal, then let’s do a deal. We are only for it,” Zelenskyy said on Feb. 7, emphasizing Ukraine’s need for security guarantees from its allies as part of any settlement of the war.
“Strong security always has many elements, and each one matters,” he said on X. “Ukraine possesses some of the largest strategic resource reserves in Europe, and protecting Ukraine also means protecting these resources.”
Less than 20% of Ukraine’s mineral resources, including about half its rare earth deposits, are under Russian occupation, Zelenskyy said in an interview with Reuters published on Feb. 7. Moscow could open those resources to North Korea and Iran if it maintains its hold on the territories.
“We need to stop Putin and protect what we have — a very rich Dnipro region, central Ukraine,” he told Reuters.
Zelenskyy is likely to further discuss the idea with allies next week at the Munich Security Conference.
Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, said this week he plans to attend the conference, but denied a report that he will present Trump’s plan for ending the war in Ukraine at the gathering, which starts Feb. 14.
Andriy Yermak, Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, said he had spoken to Kellogg about the battlefield situation, the safety of Ukrainian civilians, and meetings at the annual security conference. He also said Ukraine is looking forward to Kellogg’s visit later this month.
Some information for this report came from Reuters and dpa.
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