‘Trump talk’ takes center stage at African mining conference

Posted on by SeeUS

CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA — The 31st Investing in African Mining Indaba is underway in Cape Town, South Africa with over 115 countries represented. At the forefront of many discussions are the plans of U.S. President Donald Trump, and the effect that U.S. tariffs and the freeze on foreign aid might have on Africa’s mining industries. 

The theme of this year’s conference is “Future-proofing African Mining, Today.” However, some participants are concerned that tariffs imposed by Trump — most notably the 10% tariff on Chinese goods announced Saturday — will make this mission much harder. 

Denys Denya, senior executive vice president of Afreximbank, which is involved in funding trade expansion projects, said tariffs are dominating their talks, but answers are few so far. 

“Because China sources lots of its minerals from Africa that go into its manufacturing which then gets exported, there’s a potential negative knock-on effect on African mining, if the demand is not there as a result of the tariff,” Denya said. “But we are waiting to see what the impact will be. At the moment we can speculate, but we don’t really have the evidence.” 

Trump’s decision to freeze U.S. foreign aid was also a topic of discussion.  

South Africa’s Minister of Minerals and Petroleum Resources, Gwede Mantashe, told delegates in his opening address that Africa should withhold minerals if funding is withdrawn. 

But Denya had an opposing view. 

“I think every administration has a right to determine how national resources are going to be deployed, so the Trump administration has a right to determine where to use their resources and we cannot impose on the United States to continue to fund certain activities. So, it’s up to the American people to decide,” Denya said. 

Veteran mining analyst Peter Major said that unlike China, the U.S. has been cautious with its investments in Africa, due to several factors including political instability on the continent. 

A case in point is the current conflict in the mineral-rich eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where M23 rebels and the Congolese government are fighting for control. 

Major urged the U.S. to continue with the Lobito Corridor, a rail project for the transport of minerals from Congo and Zambia to the port of Lobito in Angola on the Atlantic coast. The project was supported by former President Joe Biden’s administration. 

“I think it was the U.S. putting a toe in the water and they mustn’t stop now,” Major said. “They must put the foot in the water, they must get the leg in there, they must maximize the value and leverage of that project and show Africa how keen they are to come here and help under reasonable, logical, beneficially good terms for all players.” 

Africa is believed to hold 30% of the world’s minerals, some of them traditional sources of wealth like diamonds and gold, others used in products like batteries and electric vehicles, regarded as critical for the transition to cleaner energy sources.  

Delegates at the conference, which runs until Feb. 6, represent mining companies, investors and governments. There is a delegation from the United States, but all media inquiries are being directed to Washington.
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Film director found guilty of sexual assault in France’s first big #MeToo trial 

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Paris — A Paris court found a filmmaker guilty of sexual assault on French actor Adèle Haenel when she was between 12 and 15 in the early 2000s, in the country’s first big #MeToo trial.

Filmmaker Christophe Ruggia was sentenced Monday to two years under house arrest with an electronic bracelet plus a two-year suspended sentence. Ruggia had denied any wrongdoing.

Haenel, now 35, was the first top actor in France to accuse the film industry of turning a blind eye to sexual abuse after the #MeToo movement broke out. In 2019, she accused Ruggia of having repeatedly touched her inappropriately during and after filming of the movie “Les Diables,” or “The Devils,” in the early 2000s.

Haenel appeared relieved, breathing deeply, as Monday’s verdict was being released. She was applauded by some women’s rights activists as she left the courtroom.

The court ruled that Ruggia “took advantage of the dominant position” he had on Haenel at the time. “During quasi-weekly meetings at your home for over three years you had sexualized gestures and attitudes,” as Haenel was “gradually isolated” from her loved ones, the court said in a statement.

Ruggia’s lawyer said her client would appeal.

He “maintains that he has never touched Adele Haenel,” the lawyer, Fanny Colin, said. “Sentenced in these conditions and on the sole basis of her words seems to us not only unjustified but dangerous.”

Haenel, star of the 2019 Cannes entry “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” has in recent years vocally protested what she’s called an insufficient response to sexual abuse in French filmmaking.

At the Cesar Awards in 2020, she walked out of the ceremony after Roman Polanski won best director. Polanski is still wanted in the United States decades after he was charged with raping a 13-year-old girl in 1977.

In 2023, Haenel, announced she was quitting the French film industry that she denounced for “complacency toward sexual aggressors.” She published an open letter in which she said Cannes and other pillars of the French film industry are “ready to do anything to defend their rapist chiefs.”

While #MeToo initially struggled to find traction in France, some other actors and film industry workers have since spoken out.

French renowned actor Judith Godreche attended Monday’s verdict at the Paris courthouse. “It was a very moving and a very important moment that reminded me of things that, in my case, may go unpunished,” she told reporters with tears in her eyes.

Last year, Godreche accused film director Benoit Jacquot of having raped and physically abused her in a six-year relationship that began when she was 14 years old. Jacquot, who has more than 50 director credits in film and television, was handed preliminary charges of rape, sexual assault and violence in July 2024.

Godreche is also accusing another film director, Jacques Doillon, of sexual abuse while he was directing a film when she was 15.

Both Jacquot and Doillon have denied the allegations.

In a separate case, French actor Gerard Depardieu is to go on trial in March on charges of sexually assaulting two women on a film set.

Depardieu, who has denied any wrongdoing, is accused of using “violence, coercion, surprise or threat” in the alleged sexual assaults that prosecutors say took place in 2021 on the set of “Les Volets verts,” or “The Green Shutters.”
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Crews return to the Potomac River to recover wreckage from DC midair collision  

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Arlington — Crews were on the scene on the Potomac River on Monday to retrieve the submerged wreckage of an airliner and an Army helicopter that collided midair in the deadliest U.S. air disaster since 2001.

Authorities have recovered and identified 55 of the 67 people killed in the crash and Washington, D.C., Fire and EMS Chief John Donnelly has said they are confident all will be found.

Crews were expected to begin the work of lifting the wreckage on Monday and at daybreak they could be seen aboard a vessel with a crane. More than 300 responders were taking part in the recovery effort at a given time, officials said.

Two Navy barges were also deployed to lift heavy wreckage. Divers and salvage workers are adhering to strict protocols and will stop moving debris if a body is found, Col. Francis B. Pera of the Army Corps of Engineers said Sunday.

The “dignified recovery” of remains takes precedence over all else, he said.

Portions of the two aircraft that collided over the river Wednesday night near Reagan Washington National Airport — an American Airlines jet with 64 people aboard and an Army Black Hawk helicopter with 3 aboard — will be loaded onto flatbed trucks and taken to a hangar for investigation.

The crash occurred when the jet, en route from Wichita, Kansas, was about to land. The Black Hawk was on a training mission. There were no survivors.

On Sunday, family members were taken in buses with a police escort to the Potomac River bank near where the two aircraft came to rest after colliding. The plane’s passengers included figure skaters returning from the 2025 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita and a group of hunters returning from a guided trip.

Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Austin O’Hara, 28, of Lilburn, Georgia; Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves, 39, of Great Mills, Maryland; and Capt. Rebecca M. Lobach, of Durham, North Carolina, were in the helicopter.

Federal investigators were working to piece together the events that led to the collision.

Full investigations typically take a year or more. Investigators hope to have a preliminary report within 30 days. Wednesday’s crash was the deadliest in the U.S. since Nov. 12, 2001, when a jet slammed into a New York City neighborhood just after takeoff, killing all 260 people on board and five on the ground.

Experts stress that plane travel is overwhelmingly safe, but the crowded airspace around Reagan Airport can challenge even experienced pilots.
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South Africa defends itself against Trump and Musk attacks on land policy 

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JOHANNESBURG — South Africa defended itself on Monday against attacks on its land confiscation policy by Donald Trump and his South African-born billionaire backer Elon Musk after the U.S. president said he would cut off funding to the country over the issue. 

Trump said on Sunday, without citing evidence, that “South Africa is confiscating land” and “certain classes of people” were being treated “very badly.” 

“I will be cutting off all future funding to South Africa until a full investigation of this situation has been completed!” he said. 

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the government had not confiscated any land, and he looked forward to engaging with Trump to foster a better understanding over the matter. 

The United States committed nearly $440 million in assistance to South Africa in 2023, the most recent U.S. government data showed. The lion’s share of the sum, $315 million, was for HIV/AIDS. 

Ramaphosa said U.S. funding accounted for 17% of South Africa’s HIV/AIDS program but it was reliant on “no other significant funding” from the United States. 

The president signed into law a bill last month to make it easier for the state to expropriate land in the public interest, despite objections by some parties in his ruling coalition. The law aims to address stark racial disparities in land ownership that persist three decades after the end of apartheid in 1994. 

“The recently adopted Expropriation Act is not a confiscation instrument, but a constitutionally mandated legal process that ensures public access to land in an equitable and just manner as guided by the constitution,” the presidency said. 

The question of land reform is highly politically charged in South Africa due to the legacy of the colonial and apartheid eras, when Black people were dispossessed of their lands and denied property rights. 

Musk, the world’s richest person and a South African-born U.S. citizen who has Trump’s ear and more than 200 million followers on the X social media platform that he owns, quickly waded into the dispute. 

“Why do you have openly racist ownership laws?” he said in a post on X, responding to Ramaphosa who had posted the presidency statement. He was apparently suggesting white people were the victims of the racism he alleged. 

Ramaphosa’s spokesperson Vincent Magwenya urged Musk to talk constructively with the South African president. 

“My brother, you would know that owing to a devastating legacy of centuries of oppressive and brutal colonialism and apartheid, our constitution provides for redressing the ills of the past,” he said. 

Under the Expropriation Act, special conditions have to be met before expropriating land such as it having longtime informal occupants, being unused and held purely for speculation, or being abandoned. 

South Africa’s rand fell nearly 2% against the dollar early on Monday after Trump’s remarks. Stocks and the benchmark government bond also tumbled. 

Charles Robertson, an emerging markets specialist at FIM Partners, said that African countries were relatively well positioned to withstand an attack by Trump because the United States was a far less important investor than China and Europe. 

But any U.S. measures against South Africa would represent a serious challenge for Ramaphosa, who has been trying to boost the sluggish economy and attract foreign investors, he said. 

“The difficulty with South Africa is, do you want to set up a factory in a country where today, Trump’s cutting off all aid. Maybe tomorrow, he’s ripping up AGOA (a trade deal with Africa) and maybe on Wednesday, he’s adding 25% tariffs because they’re too close to China,” he said. 
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Hospitals in eastern Congo are crowded with wounded and exhausting their supplies  

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GOMA, Congo — Hundreds of wounded people have poured into overcrowded hospitals in Goma, a major city in eastern Congo, as fighting rages on between government forces and the Rwanda-backed rebels who seized the city of around 2 million people.

“They will get infected before we can treat them all,” said Florence Douet, an operating room nurse at Bethesda Hospital, as she attended to patients with varying degrees of injuries.

Since the start of the M23 rebels’ offensive on Goma on Jan. 26, more than 700 people have been killed and nearly 3,000 have been wounded in the city and its vicinity, officials say. Bethesda Hospital alone said it receives more than 100 new patients each day, overstretching its capacity of 250 beds.

Bethesda is one of several hospitals in Goma that The Associated Press visited that has inadequate personnel and supplies. The city hosts many of the close to 6.5 million people displaced by the conflict, which is one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises.

As more people arrived at the hospitals with gunshot or shrapnel wounds, many were forced to share beds while others lay on the floor, writhing in pain as they waited for medical attention.

“This is the first time I’m experiencing this,” said Patrick Bagamuhunda, who was wounded in the fighting. “This war has caused a lot of damage, but at least we are still breathing.”

The M23 rebels are backed by some 4,000 troops from neighboring Rwanda, according to U.N. experts, far more than in 2012, when they first captured Goma before withdrawing under international pressure. They are the most potent of the more than 100 armed groups vying for control in Congo’s mineral-rich east, which holds vast deposits critical to much of the world’s technology.

Unlike in 2012, the rebels say they now plan to march to Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, 1,600 kilometers away, describing the country as a failed state under President Félix Tshisekedi.

The fighting in Congo has connections with a decadeslong ethnic conflict. M23 says it is defending ethnic Tutsis in Congo. Rwanda has claimed the Tutsis are being persecuted by Hutus and former militias responsible for the 1994 genocide of 800,000 Tutsis and others in Rwanda. Many Hutus fled to Congo after the genocide and founded the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) militia group. Rwanda said the group is “fully integrated” into the Congolese military, which denies the charges.

Hospitals are running out of supplies

Medical workers at Kyeshero Hospital in Goma say they are treating an increasing number of patients with bullet wounds.

“We removed 48 bullets yesterday,” Johnny Kasangati, a surgeon, said Friday as he examined a patient under a tent.

Kyeshero is also severely overcrowded, hitting more than 200% of its capacity on some days, according to Joseph Amadomon Sagara, a project coordinator for Doctors Without Borders, which runs the hospital.

In the past, hospitals in Goma could transport wounded patients by boat to South Kivu’s main city, Bukavu, 180 kilometers to the south, but transport across Lake Kivu was suspended during the rebellion and roads have been mostly cut.

The fighting in and around Goma has also disrupted supply chains, leading to shortages in medical supplies that aid groups rely on. Some of it previously entered the city through its international airport, which is now under rebel control.

“Goma was cut off from the world. It was a total blackout,” said Virginie Napolitano, Goma’s emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders.

The aid group’s stockpiles, along with those of other groups, have been looted.

“We’re getting by with what we had in the cabinets, but I don’t know for how long,” Napolitano said.

How many have died in the conflict?

Congo’s government has confirmed 773 deaths and 2,880 injured persons at morgues and hospitals. The toll could be higher, it said, citing fears of finding mass graves and more bodies.

The Maternité de la Charité Hospital in Goma was among those struggling to find space for the dead.

“We had 66 bodies here. Fifty-six were transferred to the provincial hospital, where the morgue has more space than ours,” said Jules Kafitiye, the hospital’s medical director.

“We need to avoid decomposition due to disease,” he added, pointing to a tent where bodies were being stored.

Fears of disease spread as morgues overflow

Scores of bodies lay on streets and in hospitals in Goma after the city’s capture, raising fears of disease outbreaks in the region, which is also facing mpox and cholera outbreaks.

The U.N. health body warned last week that repeated mass displacement in Congo has created ideal conditions for the spread of endemic diseases in displacement camps and surrounding communities, including cholera, which saw more than 22,000 infections last year, and measles, which affected close to 12,000 people. The region also battles with chronic child malnutrition.

“There’s a fear for the disease to be spreading widely in communities,” said Dr. Boureima Hama Sambo, the World Health Organization’s representative in Congo. “But at this point, we cannot say because we have not been able to get there.”

 
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WHO proposes budget cut after US exit, defends its work

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London — World Health Organization member states will discuss cutting part of its budget by $400 million in light of President Trump’s move to withdraw the United States, its biggest government funder, from the agency, a document released on Monday showed.

Opening the agency’s annual executive board meeting, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also defended the agency’s work and recent reforms and reiterated a call for the U.S. to reconsider its exit and enter into dialog with the WHO about further change.

“We would welcome suggestions from the United States, and all member states, for how we can serve you and the people of the world better,” he said.

The budget cut will be discussed at the Feb. 3-11 Geneva meeting, during which member state representatives will discuss the agency’s funding and work for the 2026-2027 period.

The executive board proposes cutting the base programs section of the budget from a proposed $5.3 billion to $4.9 billion, according to a document released on Monday. That is part of the wider $7.5 billion budget for 2026-2027 that was originally proposed, including money for polio eradication and tackling emergencies.

“With the departure of the biggest financial contributor, the budget could not be ‘business as usual,'” the document reads. The U.S. is the WHO’s biggest government donor, contributing around 18% of its overall funding. The WHO has already separately taken some cost-cutting steps after the U.S. move.

However, some board representatives also wanted to send a message that the WHO would preserve its strategic direction despite the challenges, the document adds.

The $4.9 billion is roughly the same as the base program budget for the previous period, 2024-2025.

Trump moved to exit the WHO on his first day in office two weeks ago. The process will take one year under U.S. law.
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EU leaders to huddle on defense against Russia, economy, and US

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BRUSSELS — European Union leaders gather on Monday to discuss how to bolster the continent’s defenses against Russia and how to handle U.S. President Donald Trump after his decision to impose tariffs on goods from Canada, Mexico and China.

At a royal palace-turned-conference center in Brussels, the leaders of the EU’s 27 nations will also lunch with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and dine with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Antonio Costa, the president of the European Council of EU leaders, has billed the one-day gathering as a “retreat” devoted to defense policy rather than a formal summit, aiming for an open discussion without any official declaration or decisions.

The first session focuses on geopolitics and relations with the United States, meaning Trump’s sweeping weekend move on tariffs is certain to come up – particularly as EU officials fear they may soon face similar measures.

Trump, who began his second term as president on Jan. 20, will also be a major factor in the talks on defense, as he has demanded that European nations spend much more on their own protection and rely less on the United States via the NATO security alliance.

Trump’s call for EU member Denmark to cede Greenland to the United States – and his refusal to rule out military action or economic pressure to force Copenhagen’s hand – has also added strains to trans-Atlantic ties.

The EU leaders are expected to discuss what military capabilities they need in the coming years, how they could be funded and how they might cooperate more through joint projects.

“Europe needs to assume greater responsibility for its own defense,” Costa said in a letter to the leaders. “It needs to become more resilient, more efficient, more autonomous and a more reliable security and defense actor.”

Finding funding

The funding discussion will be especially tough, according to diplomats, as many European countries have little room in their public finances for big spending hikes.

Some countries, such as the Baltic states and France, advocate joint EU borrowing to spend on defense. But Germany and the Netherlands are staunchly opposed.

One compromise could be to borrow to finance loans rather than grants for defense projects, according to some diplomats.

European countries have ramped up defense spending in recent years, particularly since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which brought war to the EU’s borders.

But many EU leaders have said they will need to spend even more. Trump has said NATO’s European members should spend 5% of GDP on defense – a figure no member of the alliance including the United States currently reaches.

Last year, EU countries spent an average of 1.9% of GDP on defense – about $334.48 billion, according to EU estimates.

That is a 30% increase from 2021, according to the EU. But it also masks wide divergences among EU countries.

Poland and the Baltic states are among the biggest defense spenders in GDP terms, with Warsaw leading the pack at more than 4.1%, according to NATO estimates. But some of the EU’s biggest economies such as Italy and Spain spend much less – about 1.5% and 1.3% respectively.
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Asian markets slump after Trump announces tariffs

Posted on by SeeUS

Stock markets in Asia fell Monday amid investor concerns about new tariffs U.S. President Donald Trump announced he would levy on imports from China, Mexico and Canada.

Japan’s Nikkei index was down 2.4% at its midday break, while South Korea’s KOSPI index was trading down 3%.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was down more than 2% in early trading before cutting its loses to 1.4% around midday.

U.S. stock futures were down ahead of those markets opening Monday.

Trump on Saturday announced the 25% tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods, and a 10% tariff on Chinese goods.

Canada and Mexico have announced their own tariffs on U.S. goods in response to Trump’s move. China has pledged to take unspecified measures in its response.

China, Mexico and Canada are the top three U.S. trade partners.

Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press and Reuters.
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Rising floodwaters force evacuations in eastern Australia

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SYDNEY — Fast-moving floodwaters rose Monday in northeastern Australia after forcing many to flee, blacking out homes, and sweeping away a chunk of a critical bridge.

Storms have already dumped more than a meter of rain in two days in parts of Queensland, engulfing homes, businesses and roads in muddy waters, authorities said.

Aerial footage showed rural communities surrounded by the floodwaters, cut off from nearby roads.

“We are going to see widespread rain and storms spread across much of northern Queensland,” the state’s premier, David Crisafulli, warned in a news conference.

“We remain prepared for the ongoing prospect of more rain and the likelihood of more flooding, both flash flooding and riverine flooding,” he said.

Emergency services carried out 11 “swift water rescues” overnight, the premier said.

Areas of flood-hit Townsville, a popular coastal tourist destination that lies near the Great Barrier Reef, had been declared a “black zone,” he said.

“Our advice to residents in the black zone at the moment is to stay out of that zone and stay safe.”

The authorities told 2,100 people in the town to evacuate at the weekend, though about 10% refused, emergency services officials said.

‘Bridge torn in two’

One woman in her 60s was killed Sunday when the rescue boat she was in flipped over in the flood-hit rural town of Ingham, about 100 kilometers from Townsville, police said.

Her body was recovered later.

The floods swept away a section of a concrete bridge over a creek, cutting off the state’s main coastal road, the Bruce Highway, the state premier said.

“It’s not every day you see a bridge torn in two. That’s what has happened at Ollera Creek, and it is significant,” Crisafulli said.

Almost 11,000 properties remained without power across north Queensland,  Ergon Energy said, with no timeframe given for when electricity will be restored.

Townsville acting mayor Ann-Maree Greaney said the floods were expected to peak on Tuesday morning.

“The roads at the moment are cut off, so communities are isolated,” she told AFP.

The town was pressing for power to be restored and working with major supermarkets to deliver food, the mayor said.

As global temperatures rise because of climate change, scientists have warned that heatwaves and other extreme weather events, such as severe flooding, droughts and wildfires will become more frequent and more intense.

    
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Trial of Spain’s ex-football chief over forced kiss to begin

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MADRID — Spain’s former football chief Luis Rubiales goes on trial on Monday over the forced kiss he gave star forward Jenni Hermoso with the player scheduled to take the stand.

The 47-year-old provoked worldwide outrage after he cupped Hermoso’s head and gave her an unsolicited kiss after Spain beat England to win the 2023 Women’s World Cup in Australia.

Prosecutors are seeking two and a half years in prison for Rubiales, one year for sexual assault for the forced kiss and 18 months for allegedly coercing Hermoso, 34, to downplay the incident.

The kiss was given “unexpectedly and without the consent or acceptance of the player,” prosecutors wrote in their indictment.

“Constant and repeated pressure was exerted directly on the player Jennifer Hermoso and through her family and friends with the aim of justifying and publicly approving the kiss that Luis Rubiales gave her against her will,” it added.

The highly anticipated trial gets underway at the National Court in San Fernando de Henares near Madrid at 10 a.m. and is expected to run until Feb. 19.

Rubiales is scheduled to take the stand on Feb. 12. He has called the kiss an innocuous “peck between friends celebrating” and denied any coercion.

Among the accused alongside Rubiales are ex-women’s national team coach Jorge Vilda and two former federation officials, Ruben Rivera and Albert Luque.

They also stand accused of trying to coerce Hermoso with prosecutors seeking 18 months’ jail against them.

Historic success overshadowed

The scandal that rocked Spanish football and wrecked Rubiales’ career broke on Aug. 20, 2023, moments after the women’s national team had clinched World Cup glory in Sydney.

As Hermoso joined her teammates in collecting their winner’s medals, Rubiales clasped her head and kissed her on the lips before letting her go with two slaps on the back.

The act unleashed a public outcry at what critics deemed an abuse of power. A recent reform of the Spanish criminal code classifies a non-consensual kiss as sexual assault.

Rubiales, who was already under investigation for alleged corruption in his role as federation head, finally gave into pressure and stepped down in September 2023, two days after the start of a probe over the kiss. He had been federation chief since 2018.

In a recent Netflix documentary titled “Se acabo” (“It’s over”), which looks back at the players’ anger after the scandal overshadowed their historic success, Hermoso revealed she cried following the kiss.

Hermoso, the all-time top scorer for the national women’s team who now plays in Mexico, said in the documentary that the federation demanded she appear in a video where she would claim Rubiales’ kiss “was nothing, it was… joy, euphoria.”
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Gerber recalls baby teething sticks over possible choking hazard

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Arlington, Virginia — A baby food maker is recalling edible sticks meant to ease teething pain over a possible choking hazard. 

Gerber announced Friday that it was recalling and discontinuing its brand of “Sooth N Chew” teething sticks after receiving customer complaints about choking. The company said one emergency room visit had been reported. 

The teething sticks are edible teethers marketed to parents and guardians of children six months and older. They come in strawberry-apple and banana flavors. 

Gerber said it was working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on the recall. 

Customers who bought the teething sticks should return them to stores where they were purchased for a refund, the company said. 

Anyone concerned about an injury or illness should contact a health care provider. For any additional support needed, Gerber is available 24/7 at 1-800-4-GERBER (1-800-443-7237). 

The company says it is working with the U.S. FDA on this recall and will cooperate with them fully. 
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Uganda set to begin Ebola vaccine trial after new outbreak kills nurse

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Kampala, Uganda — Ugandan officials are preparing to deploy a trial vaccine as part of efforts to stem an outbreak of Ebola in the capital, Kampala, a top health official said Sunday.

A range of scientists are developing research protocols relating to the planned deployment of more than 2,000 doses of a candidate vaccine against the Sudan strain of Ebola, said Pontiano Kaleebu, executive director of Uganda Virus Research Institute.

“Protocol is being accelerated” to get all the necessary regulatory approvals, he said. “This vaccine is not yet licensed.”

The World Health Organization said in a statement that its support to Uganda’s response to the outbreak includes access to 2,160 doses of trial vaccine.

“Research teams have been deployed to the field to work along with the surveillance teams as approvals are awaited,” the WHO statement said.

The candidate vaccine as well as candidate treatments are being made available through clinical trial protocols to further test for efficacy and safety, it said.

The vaccine maker wasn’t immediately known. There are no approved vaccines for the Sudan strain of Ebola that killed a nurse employed at Kampala’s main referral hospital. The man died on Wednesday and authorities declared an outbreak the next day.

 Officials are still investigating the source of the outbreak, and there has been no other confirmed case.

Uganda has had access to candidate vaccine doses since the end of an Ebola outbreak in September 2022 that killed at least 55 people. Ugandan officials ran out of time to begin a vaccine study when that outbreak, in central Uganda, was declared over about four months later, Kaleebu said.

A trial vaccine known as rVSV-ZEBOV, used to vaccinate 3,000 people at risk of infection during an outbreak of the Zaire strain of Ebola in eastern Congo between 2018 and 2020, proved effective in containing the spread of the disease there.

Uganda has had multiple Ebola outbreaks, including one in 2000 that killed hundreds. The 2014-16 Ebola outbreak in West Africa killed more than 11,000 people, the disease’s largest death toll.

Tracing contacts is also key to stemming the spread of Ebola, which manifests as a viral hemorrhagic fever.

At least 44 contacts of the victim in the current outbreak have been identified, including 30 health workers and patients, according to Uganda’s Ministry of Health.

Confirmation of Ebola in Uganda is the latest in a series of outbreaks of viral hemorrhagic fevers in the east African region. Tanzania declared an outbreak of the Ebola-like Marburg disease earlier this month, while in December Rwanda announced that its own outbreak of Marburg was over. The ongoing Marburg outbreak in northern Tanzania’s Kagera region has killed at least two people, according to local health authorities.

Kampala’s outbreak could prove difficult to respond to, because the city has a highly mobile population of about 4 million. The nurse who died had sought treatment at a hospital just outside Kampala and later traveled to Mbale, in the country’s east, where he was admitted to a public hospital. Health authorities said the man also sought the services of a traditional healer.

Ebola is spread by contact with bodily fluids of an infected person or contaminated materials. Symptoms include fever, vomiting, diarrhea, muscle pain and at times internal and external bleeding.

Scientists don’t know the natural reservoir of Ebola, but they suspect the first person infected in an outbreak acquired the virus through contact with an infected animal or eating its raw meat.

Ebola was discovered in 1976 in two simultaneous outbreaks in South Sudan and Congo, where it occurred in a village near the Ebola River, after which the disease is named.
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DR Congo: Near Goma, displaced people begin long journey home

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GOMA, DRC — Once crowded with white makeshift huts, the huge Kanyaruchinya camp for displaced people on the outskirts of Goma, in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, looked eerily empty Sunday.

Since Goma was taken by M23 fighters earlier this week, some 100,000 internally displaced people have left the jam-packed hillside where they had set up several years ago.

The ongoing crisis in the eastern DRC continues to escalate, with tensions involving the Congolese government, and the M23 rebel group. The DRC government has officially designated the M23 rebel group as a terrorist organization, while the U.N. and the U.S. classify it as an armed rebel group.

The DRC government has repeatedly accused Rwanda of supporting the M23 rebel group, a claim that Rwanda denies. Kigali, in turn, alleges that Kinshasa collaborates with the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a Hutu armed group with ties to the perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, an allegation the DRC rejects.

Military operations in the region remain fluid, with clashes leading to significant displacement and humanitarian concerns.

The M23 offensive in the mineral-rich eastern DRC is the latest to scar a region that has seen relentless conflict involving dozens of armed groups kill an estimated 6 million people over three decades.

“Life in the camp is a life of suffering and hunger,” said Christine Bwiza, one of the last people to leave camp Kanyaruchinya, which sits near the Rwandan border.

There, residents had cobbled together makeshift huts from sticks and tarpaulin. Hunger was rampant and poor hygiene regularly caused cholera outbreaks.

Many had mixed feelings about finally going home.

Some said they were relieved, others stressed they had no choice. All worried about their future.

On the side of the road, a convoy of overcrowded trucks picked up some of the last contingents of travelers.

“I was a displaced person who came with nothing. And today I’m going home just as I came,” said Denise Zaninga, seated at the back of a vehicle, adding that she had no idea where she was headed.  

“I am leaving but I don’t know where I’m going to live,” she said.

Others shared her anxiety.

“Our homes are destroyed, our children are lost because of the war, and we are returning home hungry,” said Bwiza.

For Aline Irafasha, “hunger will kill us wherever we go, but it’s better to suffer at home.”

The driver of the truck they had boarded said the M23 had paid for the vehicle and financed the trip.

Since M23 fighters and Rwandan troops have taken control of the city, the nearby front line has disappeared.

Surrounding territories are now accessible by road, bordered by abandoned military posts and charred armored vehicles.

Under pressure

The M23 has vowed to send displaced people back to where they came from, and their violent takeover of Goma meant people in the camp had little choice but to leave.

The overall population in Goma, a city of 1 million people, has nearly doubled in the past 30 years, swollen by victims fleeing violence.

At the camp, now a deserted, littered field, some said they had been pressured into leaving, but most preferred to go home before being forced to.

This sudden exodus sits well with locals whose farmlands were invaded and occupied for years.

“Here we used to have fields,” said Elizabeth Base Sembimbi, pointing to a plot of land in ruins in front of her plank house.

“But we had to stop harvesting because of the robberies,” she said, adding that she was looking forward to farming again.

On the side of the road, armed men, apparently from the Rwandan army, patrolled the street on foot.

One resident said that at nightfall, armed men had broken into people’s homes looking for weapons and forcing young people to carry food and water over long distances without paying them.

“People are starting to feel scared,” he said. “We can’t say anything, we keep our mouths shut and observe.”
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Italian who saved children from WWII massacre dies aged 96

Posted on by SeeEU

Rome — Milena Bernabo, awarded one of Italy’s top civilian honors for saving three children from the Nazis during World War II, died Sunday aged 96, local authorities said. 

Bernabo was awarded the gold medal for civil merit for saving her young neighbors during the August 1944 massacre of Sant’Anna di Stazzema, in Tuscany, in which 560 people died.  

Then aged 16, Bernabo had been led together with fellow villagers into an outhouse and targeted by German machine gun fire. 

Bernabo was wounded, according to the citation. 

But she managed to escape with Mario, five, and 10-year-olds Mauro and Lina, from the building as it was set on fire. 

The trio she saved were present to see Bernabo receive the valor award at a ceremony in the central city of Lucca in 2005. 

Officials at the time hailed her bravery as an example of many Italians’ “silent resistance” to Nazi occupation during the latter part of World War II. 

“Throughout her life she was an ambassador of peace, reminding the young people she encountered of the Nazi-Fascist massacre of Sant’Anna di Stazzema,” the office of the mayor of Stazzema, Maurizio Verona, told AFP in an emai 

“Milena remembered with the hope that those who listened would understand that Fascism and Nazism were absolute evils of the last century and that the institutions and their representatives would work to build a better future.” 

Two other women from Sant’Anna were awarded the same honor — Cesira Pardini, who died in 2022, and Genny Bibolotti Marsili, who died the day of the massacre. 

They were all “heroines,” Mayor Verona told the ANSA news agency, hailing Bernabo’s strength and determination to keep the memory of what happened alive.           
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‘Dog Man’ bites off $36 million, taking No. 1 at box office

Posted on by SeeUS

New York — DreamWorks Animation’s “Dog Man” fetched $36 million in ticket sales at the weekend box office, according to studio estimates Sunday, making it the biggest debut yet in 2025.

It was a big opening for the Universal Pictures release adapted from the popular graphic novel series by author Dav Pilkey. The big-screen launch for the cartoon canine was produced for a modest $40 million, meaning it will easily coast through a profitable run. Audiences gave it an “A” CinemaScore.

Only one animated film before has had a better January launch: 2016’s “Kung Fu Panda 3.” “Dog Man,” though, was soft overseas, collecting $4.2 million from 29 international markets. The voice cast of the Peter Hastings-directed movie is led by Pete Davidson, Lil Rel Howery and Isla Fisher.

Family movies last year buoyed the box office, with PG-rated films accounting for $2.9 billion, or 33% of all ticket revenue, according to data firm Comscore. So far, they’re lifting 2025, too. The Walt Disney Co.’s December release “Mufasa: The Lion King” topped the weekend box office three times in January. In its seventh week of release, “Mufasa” held in third place with another $6.1 million, bringing its global tally to $653 million.

“The PG animation family film wave that was so prevalent in ’24 continues in ’25,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for Comscore.

The horror comedy “Companion,” from Warner Bros. and New Line, also opened well, with $9.5 million in 3,285 locations. Drew Hancock’s sci-fi tinged film set in the near future is about a group of friends on a weekend lakeside getaway.

“Companion,” starring Sophie Thatcher (“Heretic”), was lightly marketed and made for just $10 million. It will depend on glowing reviews (94% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) and strong word of mouth (a “B+” CinemaScore) to keep drawing moviegoers in the coming weeks.

Last week’s top film, Mel Gibson’s “Flight Risk,” dropped steeply in its second weekend. The action thriller starring Mark Wahlberg fell to fifth place with $5.6 million. Domestically, it has collected $20.9 million for Lionsgate.

One of the early year’s standout successes has been Sony Pictures’ “One of Them Days,” the R-rated comedy starring Keke Palmer and SZA. Though comedies have had a hard time in theaters in recent years, “One of Them Days” has proven the exception. The well-reviewed movie earned $5.6 million over the weekend, bringing its three-week total to $34.5 million – a stellar result for a movie that cost $14 million to make.

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

  1. “Dog Man,” $36 million.

  2. “Companion,” $9.5 million.

  3. “Mufasa,” $6.1 million.

  4. “One of Them Days,” $6 million.

  5. “Flight Risk” $5.6 million.

  6. “Sonic the Hedgehog 3,” $3.2 million.

  7. “Moana 2,” $2.8 million.

  8. “A Complete Unknown,” $2.2 million.

  9. “The Brutalist,” $1.9 million.

  10. “Den of Thieves: Pantera,” $1.6 million.
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Protests against Germany’s Merz who supports migration proposal backed by far-right

Posted on by SeeEU

Berlin — Tens of thousands took to the streets across Germany during the weekend to protest the center-right leader and front-runner in a Feb. 25 election for sending to parliament proposals for tough new migration rules that received the backing of a far-right party. 

Angry protesters in Hamburg, Munich, Cologne and Leipzig said that Friedrich Merz and his Christian Democrats broke Germany’s unwritten post-Nazi promise by all democratic parties to never pass any rule or resolution in parliament with the support of far-right, nationalist parties such as the Alternative for Germany (AfD). 

Merz on Wednesday proposed a nonbinding motion in parliament calling for Germany to turn back many more migrants at its borders. The measure squeaked through thanks to AfD’s support. 

Merz was determined to show commitment of his center-right Union bloc, which also includes the Bavaria-only CSU party, to cutting irregular migration after a deadly knife attack last month by a rejected asylum-seeker. 

However, on Friday, the German parliament narrowly rejected a bill calling for tougher rules on migration that risked becoming the first draft legislation to pass thanks to a far-right party. Nonetheless, it has become a focus of a controversy about the attitude toward the far right of the front-runner in the upcoming election. 

Merz has been accused by protesters and politicians on the left of breaking a taboo and endangering mainstream parties’ “firewall” against AfD. He insists his position is unchanged and that he didn’t and won’t work with the party. 

Hundreds of protesters temporarily blocked offices of the Christian Democrats in different cities, and Sunday afternoon up to 20,000 came together for a big rally in Berlin. 

In Cologne, people protested on 350 boats on the Rhine, German news agency dpa reported. The boats lined up in front of the city’s skyline with its famous cathedral with protesters holding up banners with slogans such as “No racism” and “For democracy and diversity.” 

Polls show the center-right Union, which put forward the migration proposal and bill, leading with around 30% support, while AfD is second with about 20%, and the Social Democrats and Greens further down. 

Merz appears to hope that he will gain support by making the Union look decisive in forcing a tougher approach to migration, while blunting the appeal of the anti-immigration AfD and making the governing parties — which say they already have done much to tackle the issue — look out of touch with Germans’ concerns. 

The 12-year-old AfD first entered the national parliament in 2017, benefiting from then-Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision two years earlier to allow large numbers of migrants into the country. 

A year ago, hundreds of thousands also protested in weeks-long rallies all over Germany against the rise of the far-right and purported plans to deport millions of immigrants, including some holding German passports. 
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Japan launches navigation satellite on new flagship rocket  

Posted on by SeeEA

TOKYO — Japan’s space agency said Sunday it successfully launched a navigation satellite on its new flagship H3 rocket as the country seeks to have a more precise location positioning system of its own. 

The H3 rocket carrying the Michibiki 6 satellite lifted off from the Tanegashima Space Center on a southwestern Japanese island. 

Everything went smoothly and the satellite successfully separated from the rocket as planned about 29 minutes after the liftoff, said Makoto Arita, H3 project manager for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA. 

Officials said it is expected to reach its targeted geospatial orbit in about two weeks. 

Japan currently has the quasi-zenith satellite system, or QZSS, with four satellites for a regional navigation system that first went into operation in 2018. The Michibiki 6 will be the fifth of its network. 

Michibiki’s signals are used to supplement American GPS and will further improve positioning data for smartphones, car and maritime navigation and drones. 

Japan plans to launch two more navigation satellites to have a seven-satellite system by March 2026 to have a more precise global positioning capability without relying on foreign services, including the U.S., according to the Japan Science and Technology Agency. By the late 2030s, Japan plans to have an 11-satellite network. 

Sunday’s launch, delayed by a day due to the weather, was the fourth consecutive successful flight for the H3 system after a shocking failed debut attempt last year when the rocket had to be destroyed with its payload. 

Japan sees a stable, commercially competitive space transport capability as key to its space program and national security and has been developing two new flagship rockets as successors to the mainstay H2A series — the larger H3 and a much smaller Epsilon system. It hopes to cater to diverse customer needs and improve its position in the growing satellite launch market. 

 
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In US, Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow, predicting 6 more weeks of wintry weather  

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PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. — U.S. groundhog Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow Sunday and predicted six more weeks of wintry weather, his top-hatted handlers announced to a raucous, record-sized crowd at Gobbler’s Knob in Pennsylvania.

Phil was welcomed with chants of “Phil, Phil, Phil,” and pulled from a hatch on his tree stump shortly after sunrise before a member of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club read from a scroll in which he boasted: “Only I know — you can’t trust A.I.”

The woodchuck’s weather forecast is an annual ritual that goes back more than a century in western Pennsylvania, with far older roots in European folklore, but it took Bill Murray’s 1993 “Groundhog Day” movie to transform the event into what it is today, with tens of thousands of revelers at the scene and imitators scattered around the United States and beyond.

When Phil is deemed to have not seen his shadow, that is said to usher in an early spring. When he does see it, there will be six more weeks of winter.

The crowd was treated to a fireworks show, confetti and live music that ranged from the Ramones to “Pennsylvania Polka” as they awaited sunrise and Phil’s emergence. Gov. Josh Shapiro, local and state elected officials and a pair of pageant winners were among the dignitaries at the scene.

Self-employed New York gingerbread artist Jon Lovitch has attended the event for 33 years. “I like the cold, you know, and this is probably the best and biggest midwinter party in the entire world,” Lovitch said in Punxsutawney. “And it’s just a really good time.”

Phil has predicted a longer winter far more often than an early spring, and one effort to track his accuracy concluded he was right less than half the time. What six more weeks of winter means is subjective.

Tom Dunkel, president of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club, says there are two types of people who make the trek to Gobbler’s Knob: the faithful seeking to validate their beliefs and the doubters who want to confirm their skepticism.

Phil communicated his forecast to Dunkel through “Groundhog-ese” with the help of a special cane that Dunkel has inherited as the club’s leader. It’s not as if he speaks in English words. “He’ll like wink, he’ll purr, he’ll chatter, he’ll — you know — nod,” Dunkel said.

Attendance is free but it cost $5 to take a bus and avoid a 1.6 kilometer trek from the middle of town to the stage where the prediction was made, some 123 kilometers northeast of Pittsburgh.

The need for so many buses is why the local schools, where the sports mascot is the Chucks, close when Groundhog Day falls on a weekday.

Keith Post, his wife and a friend have watched the “Groundhog Day” movie in each of the past five years and decided this was the time to make the trip from Ohio to witness the event.

“We booked rooms almost a year in advance and we’re here,” Post said. “We’re doing it.”

A new welcome center opened four years ago and the club is working on an elaborate second living space for Phil and family so they can split time between Gobbler’s Knob and Phil’s longtime home at the town library. The club also put up large video screens and more powerful speakers this year to help attendees in the back of the crowd follow the proceedings.

“It’s a holiday where you don’t really owe anyone anything,” said A.J. Dereume, who among the club’s 15-member inner circle serves as Phil’s handler and held him up to loud cheers on Sunday. “You’re grasping onto the belief, you know, in something that’s just fun to believe in.”

Jackie Handley agreed a year ago to visit Punxsutawney for the first time to help a friend check off an item on their bucket list. They were ready for the subfreezing temperatures. “It’s once in a lifetime — we’re probably not going to come back. And we have tons of warm clothes,” said Handley, who lives in Falls Church, Virginia. After the forecast was made, club members and Phil posed for photos with people from the crowd.

Phil has a wife, Punxsutawney Phyllis, and two pups born this spring, Shadow and Sunny, although his family did not join him on stage for the big event. The groundhog family eats fruits and vegetables, get daily visits from Dereume and sees a veterinarian at least once a year. The club’s lore is that Phil is the same woodchuck who has been issuing weather forecasts for the past century, thanks to an “elixir of life” that keeps him immortal. “There’s only one Phil, and it’s not something that can be handed down,” Dunkel said. “Just like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, there’s only one.”

Groundhog Day celebrations, formal and informal, were being held in many Pennsylvania towns and elsewhere on Sunday. There have been Groundhog Day events in at least 28 U.S. states and Canadian provinces.
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Turkey says it will join with neighbors to fight Islamic State group in Syria 

Posted on by SeeEU

ISTANBUL — Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Jordan will come together to fight the remnants of the Islamic State group, a move the Turkish foreign minister says would allow the United States to cut ties with Kurdish militants in Syria. 

Washington’s decadelong relationship with Kurdish-led forces in Syria is opposed by Turkey. Ankara says the People’s Defense Units, or YPG, are tied to another Kurdish group listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the European Union. 

The YPG, which spearheads the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, has played a central role in fighting IS alongside American special forces and now guards thousands of IS prisoners in northeast Syria. 

“The basic problem is that the YPG has been guarding Daesh inmates and keeping them in prison … they’re not doing anything else,” Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Sunday, using the Arabic term for IS. 

“So Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Jordan need to come together to fight Daesh. We are capable of doing that and God willing this is the step we will be taking as four countries in the near future. We have already done the preliminary talks for that process.” 

Fidan, who was speaking at a news conference in Doha, Qatar, alongside Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, said that the new Syrian government had indicated it will take responsibility for IS prisoners. 

Turkey wants U.S. President Donald Trump to step back from supporting the Kurdish fighters, who Ankara regards as terrorists due to their links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has waged war against Turkey since 1984. 

“We hope that President Trump will make the right decision and right this wrong … it is an open wound that needs to be closed as soon as possible,” Fidan added. 

Since Syrian rebels launched an offensive to take the country in November, Turkish-backed fighters have targeted Kurdish forces, taking a number of towns. Meanwhile, the Turkish military has maintained pressure on Kurdish fighters in both Syria and northern Iraq. On Sunday, the Defense Ministry said Turkish troops killed 23 “PKK/YPG terrorists” in northern Syria without providing further details. 

Ankara has called for the Syrian Democratic Forces to be purged of elements linked to the PKK and be absorbed into a future Syrian military. 

The U.S. currently has around 2,000 troops in northeast Syria. During his first term in office, Trump said he would withdraw all American forces from Syria, which triggered a Turkish offensive against the YPG in 2019. 

His seemingly warm relationship with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has led to speculation that Trump will again seek to remove the U.S. military presence. 
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Farmers’ lawsuit targets ban on sharing seeds in Kenya

Posted on by SeeAF

KIKUYU, Kenya — Tucked away in a lush, forested area of central Kenya’s Kikuyu town, the National Seed Bank stands as a crucial safeguard for the future of the country’s agriculture.  

Inside two chilly rooms of a government building, more than 50,000 seed varieties are cataloged and stored.

The bank was established in 1988 after the realization that some traditional varieties of seeds were being lost, an occurrence that is becoming more common with climate change. It aims to conserve seeds for research and reintroduction to farms.  

“We realize that some of the traditional varieties that we had abandoned then are actually more resilient to climate change, so when you introduce them, especially in marginal areas, those varieties outperform the improved varieties,” said Desterio Nyamongo, director of the Genetic Resources Research Institute that operates the bank, referring to hybrid seeds that must be bought every planting season.  

He said the some of bank’s seeds also were found to be more resistant to diseases and pests and were high-yielding. This gives hope to a country that relies heavily on rain-fed agriculture instead of irrigation, leaving it more vulnerable to climate shocks like drought. The sector contributes a third of Kenya’s GDP.  

Kenya is not alone facing food security pressures. According to a U.N Food and Agriculture and Organization report in 2023, over a billion people across Africa are unable to afford healthful diets, and the number of hungry people is increasing.  

But in Kenya, another complication has emerged. Farmers in recent months suffered losses in the millions of shillings (tens of thousands of dollars) after planting counterfeit seeds bought from private sellers.  

Kenyan officials have acknowledged that the seed sector is critical. During the country’s first international seed quality conference in August, the agriculture ministry’s permanent secretary, Paul Rono, said Africa has limited capacity to produce high-quality certified seeds that are subjected to quality standards.  

The head of the Eastern Africa Farmers Federation, Stephen Muchiri, said the vigor of crops in Kenya has become low, and he believes that the main reason is a flawed seed breeding and propagation program.  

But some farmers say efforts to improve the seed system in Kenya have been limited by a 2012 law banning seed sharing, which is what millions of farmers did every planting season to cut their production cost.  

The government has said the law is meant to prevent the circulation of uncertified seeds and protects farmers, but it faces a court challenge from more than a dozen farmers across Kenya who say it’s expensive having to buy new seeds every planting season. 

The next hearing in the case is in March. Francis Ngiri is one of the farmers who filed the case. He runs an indigenous seed bank for the local community on his five-acre farm in the semi-arid Gilgil area located 120 kilometers from the capital, Nairobi.  

His work has become a learning ground for farmers who have experienced disappointing yields from hybrid seeds. “We have seen that indigenous seeds are more resilient and perform better in our area even when there is reduced rainfall,” he told The Associated Press.  

He passionately shares his knowledge on conserving the seeds using traditional methods such as covering them with wood ash — believed to repel weevils — or keeping them in earthen pots.  

He emphasized the use of locally available materials at no cost. Farmer Maximilla Onyura, who farms sorghum in the western county of Busia, said indigenous crops offer a food security solution.  

She isn’t part of the legal challenge but collaborates with Ngiri through a Kenyan organization called the Seed Savers Network. However, “instead of our government encouraging those offering solutions through indigenous crops, they are now cracking down on those sharing seeds at community level,” she said.  

Seed sharing in Kenya can bring two years in prison, a fine of up to 1 million Kenyan shillings ($7,700), or both. No farmer has been charged.  

The National Seed Bank occasionally distributes some of its collection to farmers at no cost in the hope that the varieties that had long adopted to local conditions will be more resilient.  

The director, Nyamongo, said farmers who cannot afford farm inputs like fertilizers required for hybrid seeds are better off planting the traditional varieties.  

“It would be wrong for farmers, especially farmers in marginal areas, to start thinking that using the indigenous seed is backwardness,” he said. “Far from it, because some of the indigenous varieties have adopted over time to the local conditions, and therefore they are more resilient.”  

Nyamongo did not comment on the farmers’ court challenge to the seed-sharing ban. 

 The president of the Dutch-based climate change adaptation nonprofit Global Center on Adaptation, Patrick V. Verkooijen, said governments can invest in community-based seed programs to preserve a diversity of indigenous varieties.  

“Indigenous crop varieties offer many benefits, particularly their genetic diversity, which helps farmers adapt to climate change, combat pests and diseases, and manage poor soil fertility. However, they also come with challenges, such as potentially lower yields or susceptibility to new pests and diseases,” he said.  

Kenyan proponents of indigenous seeds like Ngiri said lower yields and susceptibility to new pests and diseases only happen when a seed variety is taken from its native location.  

“The reason why they are indigenous is because they have adapted to the climatic conditions and the diseases found in the area they originally came from,” Ngiri said.
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Artists help fellow creators who lost works, archives in L.A. fires

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LOS ANGELES — Anthony Obi never imagined the night of Jan. 7 would be the last time he’d step inside his safe haven. 

The Houston rapper, known professionally as Fat Tony, has lived in the Altadena neighborhood for a year and says he and his neighbors were prepared for heavy winds and perhaps a few days of power outages. 

“I totally expected, you know, maybe my windows are going to get damaged, and I’ll come back in, like, a day or two and just clean it up,” said the rapper. 

But residents like Obi woke up the following morning to news that thousands of homes and entire neighborhoods had been burned to ash, destroyed by flames that wiped out large areas of Pacific Palisades and Altadena. Although the neighborhoods are on opposite ends of the county, they are known hubs for many of the city’s creative community, housing filmmakers, actors, musicians and artists of various mediums. 

“L.A. is not just rich, famous people who have giant mansions that were destroyed,” said visual artist Andrea Bowers, who is helping artists recover. “So many members of our community lost everything. They lost all their artworks and their archives – that’s irreplaceable, a lifetime of labor and a lifetime of research.” 

“A lot of my collectors lost their homes,” said figurative and conceptual artist Salomon Huerta, who lost his Altadena home of three years to the Eaton fire and worries the art scene in L.A. will downsize as a result of the wildfire. “Before the fire, I was in talks with certain collectors. And then, after the fire, they’re not in a good place to talk. I’m hoping that there’s support so that the art scene can still thrive. But it’s going to be tough.” 

Obi and Huerta lost not only personal treasures, business opportunities and homes but also vital equipment and professional archives, adding to their emotional burden. 

Huerta left behind slides and transparencies of past work that he had planned to digitize for an upcoming book. 

“Everything’s gone,” Obi said. “All of my stuff that is related to Fat Tony music that was in that house is gone, and it was the motherlode of it.” 

Grief and Hope 

Kathryn Andrews never imagined she’d experience another wildfire in her lifetime. 

The conceptual artist was forced to flee her Pacific Palisades neighborhood as smoke drew near, the second time in four years she’s had to escape a wildfire. 

She lost her Juniper Hills property to the 2020 Bobcat fire, which burned a large section of rural Los Angeles County. 

“I’ve already experienced one home being burned. I think you have a different focus after that. Maybe we become a little bit less attached to material things. And we began looking at a bigger long-term picture, thinking about, you know, how we live together in community, how we live in relation to the land and how we can work together to solve this,” she said. 

Andrews is the co-founder of relief effort Grief and Hope, which aims to support creatives financially as they enter the long road ahead and was founded alongside a group of gallery directors, art professionals and artists like Bowers, Ariel Pittman, Olivia Gauthier and Julia V. Hendrickson. 

“Our primary goal is getting people triage money for just whatever the most emergent need is,” said Pittman. 

The fundraising effort began shortly after the fires broke out with a Go Fund Me seeking $500,000. They have now raised over $940,000 of their new $1 million goal via The Brick, a nonprofit art space. As of Tuesday, Grief and Hope had received more than 450 inquiries, and Pittman said the funds would be evenly distributed to applicants. The deadline for artists to submit a needs survey has concluded, but the relief effort will continue fundraising until mid-March. 

Grief and Hope also has five different groups of volunteers providing peer-to-peer support, helping with medical needs, safety issues and renter’s issues, and collecting survey data to better serve their creative community. 

“These are people who already have made very long-term commitments in their work, including the five of us, towards building community and building sustainability around artists and art workers in our city and beyond,” said Pittman. 

For Grief and Hope, creating a more sustainable future for artists throughout the city begins with affordable studio spaces and housing. 

Long road ahead 

For photographer Joy Wong, losing her home of eight years meant losing the beauty of Altadena. She described the overall area as “a pocket of heaven.” 

“I didn’t want to leave,” said Wong, who safely evacuated with her husband and 2-year-old daughter. “We were just so in love with this house, and it wasn’t just my house. It was also my studio space.” 

Many, like Obi, Wong and Huerta, have started GoFundMe accounts. Meanwhile, initiatives and relief efforts have popped up around Southern California, ready to assist with clothing donations, art supplies, professional equipment for creatives and more. 

“I’m applying to everything,” said Obi, who needs to replace his instruments and recording equipment. 

Wong said she’s received much support from family, friends and colleagues. 

“I think I just have to kind of lean on the community and get back into shooting,” she said. “I got to get all my gear back, too. It’s going to be a long road, but it’ll be OK.” 

Arts scene rebirth 

Superchief Gallery co-founder and director Bill Dunleavy said he believes that this is an opportunity to rebuild long-needed infrastructure for the arts throughout Los Angeles. 

“Quite a lot was lost in the areas affected by the fire. And it’s going to affect rent prices and studio prices and art markets and everything else,” said Dunleavy. “I’ve been so impressed with the amount of compassion that people feel and the sense of duty people have felt to help with this. … I hope that continues into the coming years.” 

Creative director Celina Rodriguez said she hopes freelance artists and creatives continue to work and shoot production or projects throughout the city, rather than leaving because of the wildfires. 

“Having lost so many locations that we would shoot, typically in Malibu, Topanga, the Palisades, all throughout, we will have to absolutely come together and figure out how we can continue working in Los Angeles … and urge people to shoot productions here,” she said. 

Rodriguez and Dunleavy began collecting donations at the Downtown Los Angeles gallery and within 48 hours transformed it into a bustling donation center with over 150 volunteers. The duo are now working with displaced families to make sure their daily needs are being met. 

Dunleavy said the relief effort has only encouraged him to take this work beyond just the donation center and explore the possibilities of nonprofit work for the community. 

“All of our wheels are turning now that we’ve seen the power that just self-organizing can have.”
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Couple challenges Vatican bank’s ban on workplace marriages

Posted on by SeeEU

ROME — Pope Francis has long urged couples to marry and have babies rather than dogs. And he has long championed the rights of workers and held up labor itself as the foundation of human dignity. So it has come as something of a surprise to many in the Holy See that the Vatican bank fired a newlywed couple, with three young children between them, after a new internal bank regulation went into effect barring workplace marriages.

The apparent contradiction between what the pope preaches and what his Vatican practices isn’t lost on Silvia Carlucci and Domenico Fabiani, who on Thursday challenged the ban in a wrongful termination lawsuit before the Vatican tribunal.

During the hearing, presiding Judge Venerando Marano asked if the two sides would consider a settlement. The couple is open to a deal but the bank refused, said the couple’s attorney Laura Sgro. A new hearing was scheduled for March 14.

Ahead of Thursday’s hearing, the couple told The Associated Press this week that they never once considered calling off their Aug. 31, 2024, nuptials after learning of the new regulation. And they said they couldn’t contemplate the bank’s suggestion that one of them quit to avoid running afoul of the new rule, because of financial obligations to their children, former spouses and new mortgage.

“I thought for sure there might have been an intervention by the Holy Father, who rightly gives so much emphasis and value to the role of the family,” Fabiani said in the office of his lawyer, with Carlucci by his side. “And yet here we find a family that works there and now finds itself on the street.”

Grasping for her husband’s hand, Carlucci was more blunt: “There’s a great contrast between what truly happens (in the Vatican) and what is promoted.”

A tipping point in employee discontent

The plight of the 41-year-olds, who between them worked for 25 years at the Institute for Religious Works, as the bank is known, has captured the attention of many in the Vatican, where employment has long been a coveted mark of status in overwhelmingly Catholic Italy.

A Vatican job comes with real benefits: tax-free income, access to a duty-free gas station, supermarket, pharmacy and department store and if lucky, access to below-market rents in some of the Holy See’s palazzi in Rome.

But for the past several years, amid a financial crisis that has resulted in hiring freezes, cuts to overtime, seniority bonuses and other benefits, employee discontent seems to be on the rise, with the Carlucci-Fabiani case something of a tipping point in a system where truly independent legal recourse doesn’t exist.

The Association of Lay Vatican Employees, the closest thing the Vatican has to a labor union, has taken up the couple’s cause, issuing an online solidarity appeal on their behalf. It has asserted that the new rule violates basic human rights as well as the Vatican’s fundamental laws and the church’s canon law, which in the Vatican take legal precedence over internal regulations.

“While we are confident that God will provide for them and their children, we cannot silence the voice of our conscience that recognizes the traits of injustice and lack of charity in the measure that affected these two former colleagues,” the online appeal reads. “The application of a regulation, while necessary in the governance of any institution, cannot fail to take into account the fact that any institution is made up of people and stands by virtue of the activity and professionalism of these same people.”

The unusual role of the Vatican bank The Institute for Religious Works, or IOR as it is known, is a peculiar institution, created in 1942 to help the church carry out its charitable mission while enabling Vatican embassies and religious orders in far-flung parts of the world to send and receive money when commercial banking might be problematic.

Located in a tower just steps inside Vatican City, the bank was long mired in scandal but spent over a decade cleaning up its books and ridding itself of its reputation as an offshore tax haven.

The reforms slimmed down its client base to around 12,300 customers among Vatican offices, employees, religious orders and embassies, who are served by a staff of around 100 at its lone Vatican branch.

According to the couple, the bank management announced a new personnel policy on May 2, laying out criteria for employment that said marriage between an IOR employee and another bank employee, or anyone else who works in the Vatican City State, was cause for termination.

The change shocked them: Three months earlier, they had told bank management of their plans to wed after securing the Catholic decrees of nullity for their previous marriages.

Carlucci got an advance on her yearly bonus to help secure their mortgage. They had formally publicized their pending nuptials in Rome city hall and their respective parishes. “They congratulated us, ‘A wedding, how wonderful this marriage. Great job, you made it,'” Carlucci recalls her superiors telling her.

But now, the couple doesn’t even have access to Italian unemployment benefits because of the nature of their termination, she said.

Couple’s employment terminated

The bank has strongly defended its policy as being consistent with best bank practices to promote transparency and impartiality and avoid conflicts of interest. It says it actually delayed implementing the policy until the last of five married couples in its workforce had retired in March.

With such a small staff and one branch, “this rule is in fact essential to prevent both inevitable professional conflicts of interest between the aspiring spouses concerned, as well as the emergence of possible familistic management doubts among its customers or the general public,” it said in a statement.

And yet anyone familiar with the Vatican knows plenty of married partners who work in the city state, not necessarily in the same department but among the 4,500 people employed by the Holy See.

While expressing “deep regret,” the bank said it had “reached the difficult decision” to terminate the couple’s employment on Oct. 1, a month after their church wedding. It is unclear why the bank didn’t just terminate one of the two. A transfer to an unrelated Vatican office wasn’t possible under the terms of the new regulation.

The pope seems aware morale is low

The couple had written to Francis personally, hoping he might intervene, but received no reply. Francis though seems keenly aware that employee morale is low and that times are tough for families. He recently approved the opening of the Vatican’s first day-care center, as well as a “baby bonus” of an extra 300 euros a month for Vatican employees with three or more children.

During his annual Christmas greetings to Vatican personnel last month, dedicated to the theme of family and work, Francis urged employees to talk to their managers if they have problems.

“If anyone has any special difficulties, please speak up, tell the people in charge, because we want to solve all difficulties,” Francis told the Dec. 21 audience, attended by far fewer people than in past years. “And this is done by dialogue and not by shouting or being silent.”

Carlucci would like her job back but says her new marriage and blended family matter more. “For us, family is at the basis of our entire lives, so no matter what happens and despite everything, we have won,” she said. 
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1 dead, thousands urged to evacuate as Australia’s northeast battles floods

Posted on by SeeEA

SYDNEY — One person died on Sunday in Australia’s north Queensland state in heavy flooding, authorities said, urging thousands of people to move to higher ground because of torrential rains.

Queensland authorities said major flooding was underway in coastal Hinchinbrook Shire, a locality of about 11,000 people about 500 kilometers north of state capital, Brisbane. Several suburbs in the nearby city of Townsville were also affected, authorities said.

North Queensland has large zinc reserves as well as major deposits of silver, lead, copper and iron ore. Townsville is a major processing center for the region’s base metals. In 2019, severe floods in the area disrupted lead and zinc concentrate rail shipments and damaged thousands of properties.

“Residents in low-lying areas should collect their evacuation kit and move to a safe place on higher ground. This situation may pose a threat to life and property,” regional emergency management authorities said on Sunday morning.

The flooding was triggered by heavy rain from a low-pressure system rich in tropical moisture, Australia’s weather forecaster said on its website, adding that 24-hour rainfall totals were likely up to 30 centimeters.

“The potential for heavy, locally intense rainfall and damaging winds may continue into early next week subject to the strength and position of the trough and low,” it said.

Frequent flooding has hit Australia’s east in recent years including “once in a century” floods that inundated the neighboring Northern Territory in January 2023 during a multiyear La Nina weather event. 
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UK to become 1st country to criminalize AI child abuse tools

Posted on by SeeEU

LONDON — Britain will become the first country to introduce laws against AI tools used to generate sexual abuse images, the government announced Saturday.

The government will make it illegal to possess, create or distribute AI tools designed to generate sexualized images of children, punishable by up to five years in prison, interior minister Yvette Cooper revealed.

It will also be illegal to possess AI “pedophile manuals” which teach people how to use AI to sexually abuse children, punishable by up to three years in prison.

“We know that sick predators’ activities online often lead to them carrying out the most horrific abuse in person,” said Cooper.

The new laws are “designed to keep our children safe online as technologies evolve. It is vital that we tackle child sexual abuse online as well as offline,” she added.

“Children will be protected from the growing threat of predators generating AI images and from online sexual abuse as the U.K. becomes the first country in the world to create new AI sexual abuse offences,” said a government statement.

AI tools are being used to generate child sexual abuse images by “nudeifying” real life images of children or by “stitching the faces of other children onto existing images,” said the government.

The new laws will also criminalize “predators who run websites designed for other pedophiles to share vile child sexual abuse content or advice on how to groom children,” punishable by up to ten years in prison, said the government.

The measures will be introduced as part of the Crime and Policing Bill when it comes to parliament.

The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) has warned of the growing number of sexual abuse AI images of children being produced.

Over a 30-day period in 2024, IWF analysts identified 3,512 AI child abuse images on a single dark web site.

The number of the most serious category of images also rose by 10% in a year, it found.
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