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Abuja, Nigeria — Police in Nigeria’s southwest Ondo state are searching for more than 30 people abducted Saturday as they were returning home from a funeral. The mass abduction came just a day after gunmen seized scores of worshippers at a mosque during Friday prayers in northwest Zamfara state. The almost weekly attacks have Nigerian authorities under intense criticism for the country’s worsening insecurity.

The police spokesperson in Ondo State, Funmilayo Odunlami, told Lagos-based Channels Television that the state has sent security agents into the forest to search for the hostages.

Odunlami said one of the victims had been rescued and was aiding security officials with details of the attack.

Gunmen intercepted two vehicles carrying travelers on the Benin-Owo expressway on Saturday evening. The travelers were returning home from a funeral in nearby Edo State.

It’s unclear whether the kidnappers have contacted families of the victims. Odunlami did not respond to several calls from VOA for comment.

A militia in Ondo state known as Amotekun has also deployed its men to search for the abductees.

The kidnapping comes amid growing criticism of the government for failing to address security issues across the country. Authorities are trying stop kidnap-for-ransom gangs while also battling Islamist insurgent groups in the Northeast.

Ondo State resident Goke Oluwole said fear is running high.

“Two vehicles, they were 32 in number including drivers and conductors. Thirty-two is an alarming number. The thing has been regular, there’s no day they don’t kidnap.”

Last Friday, gunmen disguised as worshippers invaded a mosque in northwest Zamfara State and abducted dozens of worshippers.

In early June, gunmen invaded a Catholic Church in Owo State and killed 40 worshippers and injured almost 90 others.

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Over the weekend, security analyst Senator Ireogbu told VOA that the government has not been proactive in addressing insecurities.

“I feel most of the responses have been reactionary and ad hoc in nature,” Ireogbu said. “There has to be a holistic definition of what is actually happening.”

Another security analyst, Kabiru Adamu, says there has been some progress.

“Security is best deployed in layers, have layers of protection around these areas using technologies, especially surveillance capability,” said Adamu. “But it must be mentioned that in the last few months we’ve seen an increase in both the clearance and operations by the Nigerian security forces, creating huge blows in the capacity and efficiency of the non-state actors to carry out attacks.”

Last month, Nigerian authorities said military airstrikes neutralized more than 50 members of a kidnapping gang in the northwest and central regions.

On Monday, a counter-insurgency expert in the Lake Chad region, Zagazola Makama, said military airstrikes killed 200 insurgents including five commanders. VOA could not immediately verify the claims.

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Ahead of the annual forum of Agra – an organization founded to transform African agriculture – a large network of African food producers and their allies are calling for international donors to stop funding the initiative, which they say has failed to improve productivity, incomes or food security.

This year’s forum takes place from September 5-9, when corporate executives, governments, and donors will gather in Kigali, Rwanda, championing “Bold Action for Resilient Food Systems”. Agra’s donors include the Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, USAID and governments of the UK, Germany, and others.

The organization’s critics cite studies showing that since Agra’s founding, food insecurity increased by 31% in the countries in which AGRA operates. The critics are demanding a decisive shift away from imported fossil-fuel-based fertilisers and chemicals and towards self-sufficient, ecological farming that revitalises soil and protects ecosystems. Last year over 200 organizations signed a letter from the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) saying Agra continues to “disenfranchise” the farmers that they claim to support and called for a move toward agroecological farming.

AFSA is the largest civil society movement on the continent, bringing together farmers, pastoralists, fishers, Indigenous peoples, faith groups, women’s movements, youth, and consumer associations in a united voice for food sovereignty. It is a network of networks operating in 50 African countries, representing 200 million people.

According to Anne Maina of the Biodiversity and Biosafety Association of Kenya, since the founding of Agra in 2006, and after receiving over U.S. $1 billion in funding, the results are dismal. Agra had said the approaches it advocates they would double productivity and food producers’ incomes in Africa by 2020, but that has not been the case. In the countries where AGRA works, almost 30% of smallholder farmers continue to face hunger.

“We need Afrocentric solutions to our problems, and our problems ought not to be settled or resolved by people external to the continent… AGRA is investing a lot in chemical fertilisers … The other thing that is problematic, especially with Green Revolution Forum is the fact it’s focusing on agribusiness …Agribusiness is all about intensified chemical use on the soil, intensified use of pesticides, and the push for monoculture. And as you all know that with monoculture, soil is losing its fertility … Our forefathers never suffered from various diseases that opening our continent is leading us to today. What we need is an ecologically produced method of food production that is healthy and culturally appropriate,” says Leonida Odongo of Haki Nawiri Afrika.

Ferdinand Wafula of Bio Gardening Innovations is calling for the use of locally sourced inputs that are in tune with nature and within farmers’ reach, like fermentation processes where animal manure can be used with other additives, such as ashes and rock dust and bokashi, which can be prepared locally, ready for 15 days and producing amazing results on a diverse level of crops.

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“Promoting these bio-fertilisers will contribute to recycling of local wastes for healthy soils and this can support the diverse cropping and animal systems. We do not need these chemicals, our soils are diverse and we have the knowledge that is in tune with the ecological principles of working with nature,” says Wafula.

The Food and Agriculture Organization predicted that worldwide use of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser will see a 50% increase from 2012 level by 2050. This will in turn lead to a large increase its nitrous oxide emissions from agricultural soils, potentially threatening the Paris Agreement climate target of keeping global warming within 1.5 degrees or well below two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures, according to Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director of the Oakland Institute.

“As we all know we are having a climate crisis that is driven by the very industrial funding that AGRA is championing in Africa. As people of faith, we are calling on AGRA and funders to stop industrial farming and support the small-scale farmers who’ve been living in harmony with nature, with biodiversity and to promote agriculture that is agri-ecology…

“We are calling on the funders that at this juncture you may redirect your money to the smallholder farmers, to the pastoralists, and the fisher folk,” says Gabriel Manyangadze of the Southern African Faith Communities’ Environment Institute (SAFCEI).

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Nairobi — Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni telephoned President-Elect William Ruto for the second time since his declaration as the winner of the August 9 presidential election to relay a congratulatory message following the Supreme Court verdict upholding Ruto’s election.

Museveni’s call on Monday just hours after a unanimous verdict by the seven-judge bench of the Supreme Court came even as State House remained silent on Ruto’s victory with President Uhuru Kenyatta avoiding to make a direct mention of the President-Elect in a recorded speech.

While commenting on the Supreme Court’s verdict, President Kenyatta, the patron of the Azimio Coalition Party which fielded Raila Odinga, 77, as its presidential candidate, only said he will uphold the rule of law and ensure compliance to the verdict.

“When I was sworn in as your President I made a pledge to the country: a pledge to uphold the rule of law and the decisions made by the Judiciary on all matter pertaining to our governance,” President Kenyatta remarked.

“Today the Supreme Court made a ruling on the presidential dispute upholding the results announced by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) on August 15. And in keeping to the pledge that I made to uphold the rule of law when I took the oath of office, I commit to executing the orders of this court to the latter,” he said.

The 7-minute speech shared by State House hours after Ruto’s address to the nation came even as reports emerged that Ruto’s call to President Kenyatta went answered.

Ruto had indicated he would be making a phone call to the President with whom he had not talked to for months to discuss transition matters.

“I will shortly be putting a call to my friend President Uhuru Kenyatta. I haven’t talked to him in months but shortly I will be doing a call to him so that we can have a conversation on the transition,” Ruto stated sarcastically in an apparent jibe.

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I rang H.E @WilliamsRuto to congratulate him on the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision to uphold his election as the 5th President of Kenya. I look forward to working with him to strengthen our Strategic Partnership in advancing the EAC agenda. God bless the people of Kenya. pic.twitter.com/8HrG5eRiWl– Yoweri K Museveni (@KagutaMuseveni) September 5, 2022

Ruto went on to state that he respects President Kenyatta’s decision to back a candidate of his choice but added Kenyans had made a democratic choice which must be respected.

“I know he has worked hard but the people of Kenya have made a decision and we have absolutely no issue with the democratic rights of Kenyans,” the President-Elect said.

“I take no offence that he decided to support somebody else, we will remain friends as we have been in the context of where we are,” he added.

–

The International Press Institute is set to host the 2022 global journalism congress in New York.

The congress, which will be held from 8 to 10 September at Columbia University in New York, is themed “Journalism on the frontline of Democracy.”

It will bring together at least 420 journalists and media professionals, including Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Dmitry Muratov, former New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet, Jelani Cobb, Kavita Devi, Preethi Nallu and Maria Ressa, also a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, among others.

“More than 300 people are registered to attend the IPI World Congress in person, and another 120 have registered to attend online, from every continent (except Antarctica!),” organisers said. “Together with our global audience joining online, there’s going to be lots of new friends to be made and smart people for us all to learn from and share with.

“The Congress will cover issues of press freedom as well as media innovation, collaboration, diversity, and technology, with dozens of fantastic speakers ready to share their insights and practical tips. The special closing reception event on Saturday evening will be hosted by the New York Times and is open only to IPI members, speakers and programme supporters.”

According to IPI’s North American Committee (NAC) Chair, John Daniszewski, the World Congress in New York was “conceived as a homecoming for IPI”, which “was launched in New York in 1950, when 35 international editors came together to create the first global alliance for press freedom.”

The International Press Institute (IPI) is a global network of media executives, editors and leading journalists.

Since its establishment in 1950, it has consistently and strongly crusaded for media freedom in every corner of the world.

READ ALSO: Nigeria’s police chief meets IPI Nigeria, promises to check violation of journalists’ rights
“Right now, we find our world and our communities once again divided between democracy and authoritarianism. Only free and independent journalism can meet the challenge of the moment,” the congress organisers said.

“At the 2022 IPI World Congress, we’re more than a conference. We’re a movement for journalism. For two-and-a-half days, we’ll put journalism at the centre of the world, back where IPI first started in 1950 at Columbia University in New York.”

A number of Nigerian top media executives are attending the conference, including the Editor-in-Chief of PREMIUM TIMES, Musikilu Mojeed, who is also the President of the Nigerian chapter of the IPI.

Chiamaka Okafor is a reporter at Premium Times in partnership with Report for the World, which matches local newsrooms with talented emerging journalists to report on under-covered issues around the globe.

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–

The Ondo State Government has assured that some burial guests abducted on the Owo/Benin Highways in Ifon, Ose Local Government Area on Saturday, would be rescued.

Addressing Government House reporters on Monday, the Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Bamidele Ademola-Olateju, stated that Ondo State would never be a haven for criminals, robbers and bandits.

While stressing that the scene of the incident was a known dark spot for criminals, she noted that the spot became convenient because it allowed the kidnappers to strike and run back to Edo State.

“Just before dusk on Saturday, coming from a burial, some of our people were even there, with a certain Tunde Arotiba. They went for a burial at Ewato town in Esan Local Government of Edo State,” she said.

“One of the buses, a 32-seater Coastal Bus hired from Rufus Giwa Polytechnic, was attacked by suspected kidnappers.The vehicle was ransacked, the people were searched, they were dispossessed of their valuables as the assailants shot into the air, scaring them.

READ ALSO: Two killed as herders clash with Amotekun in Ondo

“They selected 18 of the passengers and marched them into the bush. Some of those that were left behind immediately put a call to the Amotekun Corps, the Amotekun patrol men got to the scene within 15 minutes and pursued the kidnappers.

“Among those who scampered into the bush, the Amotekun people went inside the bushes and beckoned on them to come out, seven of them were found.

“Of the 11 that were kidnapped, while they were marching them into the bush, two of them escaped. Right now as we speak, Amotekun is working with the Police, the DSS and the Nigerian Army.

“Today, the kidnappers have made contact with families of victims and they are demanding ransom of between 3 million to 10 million. Investigation into this abduction continues,” she said.

The commissioner commended the Amotekun Corps for getting to the scene and rescuing some victims.

“I must say again that a lot of accolades should go to our Governor, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu for his foresight, without Amotekun Corps, what would Ondo State have been?

“This morning, I was with the Amotekun Commander, Akogun Adetunji Adeleye, he informed me that 360 new recruits into the corps have started their training, that is batch 004.

“This is in addition to the 350 that were recruited in July for batch 003. Again, on the authority of Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, Ondo state will never be a haven for criminals, robbers, bandits, terrorists, it won’t happen,” she said.

(Bioreports)

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–

I began my work against the death penalty in the United States in 1981. It would be reasonable to suppose that by now, four decades on, I would have seen it all.

Not so. On September 22, Alabama lost a round in a ghoulish battle to execute Alan Miller. Initially, they promised a federal judge that they were ready to experiment with a novel method — nitrogen hypoxia (essentially, suffocating him by replacing oxygen in the air with pure nitrogen). The state then had to backtrack, saying they were not sure they knew how to do it, and so they would kill him by lethal injection.

In one of those midnight battles with which I am achingly familiar, the Supreme Court voted five-to-four to let the Alabama executioners go ahead with their ritual sacrifice, but by then it was too late for their probing needles to find a vein. So, Miller is safe for a short while, though doubtless Alabama will set another date soon.

In one sense his close — and temporary — escape is a metaphor for everything that is wrong with the death penalty. The inspiration for dabbling with nitrogen hypoxia as a new “kinder, gentler” method of execution is, bizarrely, a television programme recorded several years ago by Michael Portillo, former shadow chancellor for Britain’s Conservative Party.

In the 1980s, then a member of parliament, Portillo voted to reintroduce capital punishment to the United Kingdom. The bill was defeated. His ardour for executions faded as he learned how many innocent men and women had been sentenced to die. When the subject came up again in the 1990s, he switched his vote. Thankfully, the UK never mustered a majority to step backwards to rejoin the execution governments.

Meanwhile, in 2008, Portillo made a Bioreports documentary titled How to Kill a Human Being, focused on making any executions as humane as possible. For his film, he toured around the US considering — and rejecting — accepted execution methods, each of which he found barbaric. There was the electric chair: Jesse Tafero had a strong claim of innocence (his co-defendant, Sunny Jacobs, was later freed and now lives in Ireland). Tafero’s head caught fire when Florida electrocuted him in 1990. Portillo illustrated this in his documentary by running 2,400 Volts through a dead pig.

The gas chamber proved no better. The Mississippi Department of Corrections used Zyklon B for their executions. They allowed a Bioreports crew to film them testing this out on a black bunny rabbit, which died in agony (they were preparing to kill my African-American client Edward Earl Johnson). We sued on the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz to put an end to this barbarism.

Next the proponents of the lethal injection “three-drug cocktail” claimed it was a more civilised way to kill someone. It was advertised as nothing more than the kind of anaesthetic applied every day in thousands of hospitals.

Yet if there is one rule, it is that the history of executions is full of false promises. They were ignoring an obvious problem: the Hippocratic Oath forbids medical professionals from “doing harm”. The task of inserting the needle was delegated to technicians who had little skill. Hence even Dr Jay Chapman, who invented the three-drug cocktail, decried botched executions carried out by incompetent people who could not find a vein.

By the way, the “three drugs” are a sedative, a paralytic and a poison. Why the paralytic? Because it prevents the witnesses from seeing the victim thrash in pain when the sedative fails. Sometimes the paralytic agent failed as well, and the victim thrashed around in pain. All of this became increasingly problematic when the drug companies announced that they did not want their life-saving medicines used to kill people.

In short, none of these methods satisfied Portillo. They were not, he said, humane. Thus far, I can agree with him, having watched six of my clients die in front of me, two executed by each system.

Therefore, Portillo took his quest to an experimental laboratory run by the Dutch air force, where they were studying the hypoxia caused by high-altitude flying. They experimented on Portillo himself: he breathed in pure nitrogen. He described a kind of euphoria as he gradually lost consciousness. All in all, it was a kind way to kill someone, he concluded, as reflected by the calm response of laboratory mice to their euthanasia.

It does not take my 40 years of experience in this dark world to see what nonsense Portillo’s claim was: experimental mice have no idea that an omnipotent and vengeful government is planning to kill them. A human being, his euphoria replaced by panic, would tear at the gas mask, and howl in terror – and we would have to adopt another protocol to protect witnesses from the horror of it all.

Yet it is the extraordinary progenesis of this new form of execution that is most shocking. Surely an American government should not elect to execute its citizens based on a television programme?

Thus it was that this week we found ourselves on the cusp of conducting a human experiment on Miller, who was convicted for shooting three people – a senseless tragedy of a nature that takes place far too often in the US. He grew up in extreme poverty in a house overrun by rodents, the family money spent on his father’s drug habit. He was represented at trial by a court-appointed lawyer who made it clear to the jury that he did not want the job.

All of this is, sadly, fairly typical of capital punishment, where those without capital get the punishment.

Perhaps none of this matters to some people. Portillo interviewed New York University law Professor Robert Blecker, wary and wiry, outside a prison. As Portillo outlined his proposal for a supposedly humane method of execution, Blecker exhibited a rising disgust. “Punishment is supposed to be painful,” he said. The idea of a killer dying easily would be the “opposite of justice”.

Blecker must be a very superior person to feel comfortable wishing agony on people he has never met, about whom he knows so little. I wonder whether he will one day change his mind, as Portillo did, in the face of the diverse fallibilities that characterise the rest of us.

Regardless, since 1947, the Nuremberg Code (PDF) has stated that “no [human] experiment should be conducted where there is reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur”. Perhaps we should accept that our grotesque human experiments should be left in centuries past, where they belong.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Bioreports’s editorial stance.

–

Meanwhile, Puerto Rico continues to grapple with widespread power outages in the aftermath of the deadly hurricane.

Published On 23 Sep 202223 Sep 2022

Hurricane Fiona brought heavy rain and strong winds to Bermuda, but the island in the North Atlantic largely weathered the storm, now moving towards eastern Canada, where it is expected to be one of the worst in the country’s history.

Overnight, the storm approached Bermuda as a monster Category 4 hurricane but diminished a notch to Category 3 as it passed well to the west of the British territory, which lies 1,126km (700 miles) off the US state of North Carolina.

Still, gusts reached as high as 165km per hour (103mph), with sustained winds of up to 128kmph (80mph), the Bermuda Weather Service said in a bulletin.

The Bermuda Electric Light Co, the island’s sole power provider, said about 29,000 customers, or more than 80 percent of its customer base, had no electricity on Friday morning.

But Michelle Pitcher, the deputy director of the Bermuda Weather Service, said the territory appeared to be largely unscathed.

“It’s been a long night but there are no reports of injuries or fatalities,” she said. “There may be people with roof damage, but so far we haven’t heard of anything bad. As I said, we build our houses strong.”

The latest projections show Fiona making its next landfall on Cape Breton Island, home to about 135,000 people in Canada’s eastern province of Nova Scotia, Environment Canada said on Friday.

A hurricane warning was in effect for most of central and eastern Nova Scotia, as well as Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland. The eye will move across Nova Scotia later on Friday, into the Gulf of St Lawrence on Saturday and over Labrador on Sunday.

Forecasters say areas close to its path could get up to 200mm (8 inches) of rain, while winds could damage buildings and cause utility outages, with storm surges swamping the coastlines. The country’s two largest carriers, Air Canada and WestJet Airlines, are suspending service within the region starting Friday evening.

Fiona is shaping up to be one of the most powerful hurricanes to reach Canada in decades, comparable to Juan in 2003 and Dorian in 2017.

“A lot of the computer forecast models are indicating that this could set a record for the lowest-observed atmospheric pressure in Atlantic Canada,” said David Neil, an Environment Canada meteorologist. “So this does have a chance to be certainly a very, very intense storm, and a possible record setter.”

Meanwhile, Puerto Rico continues to grapple with widespread power outages in the aftermath of Fiona, which has been blamed for eight deaths on the island and brought heavy rainfall that has cut off hundreds of residents from much-needed supplies.

A growing number of businesses, including grocery stores and gas stations, are temporarily closing across the US territory as the outages drag on, sparking concern about the availability of fuel and basic goods.

Handwritten signs warning of closures have been popping up more frequently, eliciting sighs and groans from customers on an island where 62 percent of 1.47 million clients still do not have power more than four days after the hurricane hit.

Betty Merced, a retiree who lives in the southern coastal city of Salinas, said she has spent several days looking for diesel to fill up her generator to no avail. She uses a sleep apnea machine and cannot risk going without it.

“There are a lot of people with a lot of needs,” she said. “If there is no diesel, we’re going to be very much in harm’s way.”

–

The health ministry also says four more infections confirmed in the past 24 hours in the outbreak detected in Mubende district.

Published On 23 Sep 202223 Sep 2022

Health authorities in Uganda have confirmed the death of three more Ebola patients in the country, days after declaring an outbreak of a strain of the disease in a central district.

In a statement released on Friday, the health ministry said the total deaths attributable to the outbreak – confirmed and suspected – stood at 11.

It also said the total number of confirmed cases now stood at 11 after four more infections were confirmed in the past 24 hours. Nineteen others suspected of contracting Ebola were receiving treatment at a hospital, the ministry added.

UPDATE ON EBOLA VIRUS DISEASE OUTBREAK

Cumulative cases: 11

Cumulative deaths: 11

Active cases on admission: 25

Contacts listed: 58#EbolaOutbreakUG pic.twitter.com/cCHBE1av3z

— Ministry of Health- Uganda (@MinofHealthUG) September 23, 2022

Authorities declared an outbreak – attributed to the Ebola Sudan strain – in the district of Mubende on Tuesday, announcing the death of a 24-year-old man. Mubende is about 130km (81 miles) from Uganda’s capital, Kampala.

Ebola is an often fatal viral haemorrhagic fever. It has a typically high death rate, ranging up to 90 percent in some outbreaks, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Human transmission is through body fluids, with fever, vomiting, bleeding and diarrhoea the main symptoms.

Outbreaks are difficult to contain, especially in urban environments. People who are infected do not become contagious until symptoms appear, which is after an incubation period of between two and 21 days.

The WHO says the Ebola Sudan strain is less transmissible and has shown a lower fatality rate in previous outbreaks than Ebola Zaire, a strain that killed nearly 2,300 people in the 2018-20 epidemic in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

At present, there is no licensed medication to prevent or treat Ebola, although a range of experimental drugs are in development and thousands have been vaccinated in the DRC and some neighbouring countries.

The worst epidemic in West Africa between 2013 and 2016 killed more than 11,300 alone.

Source

:

Bioreports and news agencies

–

Washington, DC, – For months, the Republican governor of Texas has been sending asylum seekers on buses to Democratic-run states – without prior warning or coordination – to draw attention to the rising number of migrants crossing into the United States through its border with Mexico.

Arizona followed soon after, and more recently, the governor of Florida has joined the effort by sending some 50 migrants from Texas on planes to a wealthy island in Massachusetts. Officials say the migrants were promised jobs and financial assistance when there were none.

The Republican governors blame President Joe Biden’s immigration policies for the rise in arrivals at the border and say their campaign is necessary in order to share the burden of hosting the asylum seekers.

But with midterm elections coming up in November, migrant advocates say the move is a cruel political stunt to gain votes.

Bioreports looks at what is going on:

How many people have been bussed or flown across the US?
So far, more than 13,000 migrants have been affected by the Republican legislators’ campaign.

Texas says it has bussed more than 8,000 migrants to Washington, DC, and another 2,500 more to New York City since April. More than 600 migrants from Texas also have been sent to Chicago since late August, the state said.

Arizona has bussed 2,000 migrants to the nation’s capital, according to local media reports.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis also took credit for flying approximately 50 migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard earlier this month.

Where are the migrants from?
According to officials and volunteers, many of the migrants are from Venezuela, which has seen a mass exodus in recent years amid dire socioeconomic conditions and a rise in violence.

Others have been from Nicaragua, Colombia, Cuba, and Haiti, among other countries.

How do the Republican legislators justify their campaign?
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has said the Biden administration is to blame for the growing number of migrants crossing the US-Mexico border, and that northern, Democratic-run states should share the burden of hosting them.

Texas, which borders Mexico, is often the first state asylum seekers land in.

“The Biden-Harris Administration continues ignoring and denying the historic crisis at our southern border, which has endangered and overwhelmed Texas communities for almost two years,” Abbott said in a statement on September 15.

A group of mainly Venezuelan migrants was taken by bus from Texas to the home of US Vice President Kamala Harris in Washington, DC, this month [File: Marat Sadana/Reuters]
How are people being moved across the US?
Abbott and Arizona Governor Doug Ducey have been sending buses to transport the migrants and asylum seekers in more than 30-hour journeys to other parts of the country.

The campaign intensified this month, however, when Florida’s DeSantis put migrants on private planes to Martha’s Vineyard.

That has raised questions about the legality of these transfers of migrants, as US media have reported that the people sent to Massachusetts – most of whom were from Venezuela – were recruited by another migrant in Texas and misled into believing that upon reaching the island they would be given housing, work and other assistance.

So is this legal?
It remains unclear if any US or international laws were broken, but the effort is already being challenged in court.

Earlier this week, a county sheriff in Texas announced that he had opened a criminal investigation into the migrant flights to Martha’s Vineyard. Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar told reporters that the 48 migrants were “lured under false pretences” and “stranded unceremoniously in Martha’s Vineyard … for nothing other than a photo op”.

The following day, Alianza Americas, a coalition of 53 migrant-led organisations, and three migrants who were flown to Massachusetts filed a class action lawsuit against DeSantis and other Florida state officials for what they said was a “premeditated, fraudulent, and illegal scheme” that was aimed at “advancing their own personal, financial and political interests”.

But DeSantis has defended the flights. “Immigrants have been more than willing to leave Bexar County after being abandoned, homeless, and ‘left to fend for themselves.’ Florida gave them an opportunity to seek greener pastures in a sanctuary jurisdiction that offered greater resources for them, as we expected,” his office said in a statement.

Migrants waiting outside the City of San Antonio Migrant Resource Center in San Antonio, Texas [Jordan Vonderhaar/Reuters]
How have receiving cities responded?
Washington, DC, New York and Chicago have struggled to cope with the arrivals. Local leaders have denounced the Republican governors and called on the Biden administration to provide federal assistance.

On Thursday, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced that the city would open so-called “Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Centers” to support the migrants coming from Texas. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot set up a website for donations and volunteers.

Earlier this month, Muriel Bowser, the mayor of Washington, DC, declared a public health emergency over the arrivals and on September 20, the city council voted unanimously to set up a new $10m Office of Migrant Services.

Bowser said the new office will be charged with welcoming the migrants and giving them temporary shelter, food, medical support and transport to their final destinations. Earlier, she had made two requests for help from the National Guard, but both were denied by the Pentagon.

Why have those cities been singled out?
Washington, DC, New York City, and Chicago are run by Democratic Party leaders.

They also are so-called “Sanctuary Cities”, which means that city officials will not ask residents about their immigration status or deny them services on the basis of that status, nor will they share such information with federal immigration authorities.

Sanctuary cities were targeted by former US President Donald Trump, who threatened to pull funding over their immigration policy.

What has Biden said about the current Republican campaign?
Biden has blasted the effort, calling it “reckless” and “un-American”.

“Republicans are playing politics with human beings, using them as props,” he said on September 15. “What they’re doing is simply wrong … And we have a process in place to manage migrants at the border. We’re working to make sure it’s safe and orderly and humane.

“Republican officials should not interfere with that process by waging these political stunts,” Biden added.

Migrants boarding a Border Patrol van after being processed in Eagle Pass, Texas [File: Brandon Bell/Getty Images via AFP]
How have the migrants been treated?
Local organisations, charities and volunteer groups have stepped in to provide food, shelter, transportation and other forms of assistance to the migrants and asylum seekers. Many people have also donated items and money or volunteered to host migrants in their homes.

But the journey, especially for young children and the elderly, has been gruelling, and several people have required hospitalisation upon their arrival. Most migrants are travelling with very few belongings and little money, which makes them reliant on aid.

How have migrant rights groups responded?
Advocacy groups have blasted the Republican governors – as well as the Florida-funded flights, in particular – for a campaign they say is cynical and cruel.

“This is nothing but a cruel political stunt. Seeking asylum is a human right and legal under US and international law,” Paul R Chavez, the senior supervising lawyer for the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) Immigrant Justice Project, said in a September 16 statement.

“The abuse of desperate children and families as political pawns is a failure of leadership and not in keeping with our nation’s values.”

America’s Voice, a pro-immigration advocacy group, also called the effort a deliberate attack on people of colour. “Shipping vulnerable migrants, including children, across the US is a calculated systematic attack on a targeted population – here immigrants of color, many of whom are lawfully in the U.S. as asylum applicants,” David Leopold, a legal adviser with the group, said in a statement.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has defended the bussing campaign [File: LM Otero/AP Photo]

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West Africa regional bloc announces new sanctions over Guinea’s schedule for a transition to democracy.

Published On 23 Sep 202223 Sep 2022

The Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS, has announced more sanctions on Guinea’s military government after it failed to establish a new schedule for a transition to democracy.

In an extraordinary summit held on Thursday on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, leaders from West Africa’s main political and economic bloc agreed to freeze military government members’ financial assets and bar them from travelling to other countries in the region.

The regional bloc also gave Guinea until October 22 to establish a “reasonable” timetable or face additional sanctions.

“These sanctions were taken with a view to facilitating the process of an early return to constitutional order in Guinea, a prerequisite for peace, stability and development,” the bloc said in a statement following the summit.

Guinea has been ruled by the military since a coup in September 2021 removed President Alpha Conde, who had held power since 2010.

Guinea’s military-appointed prime minister, Bernard Gomou, earlier slammed ECOWAS chief Umaro Sissoco Embalo, describing him as a “puppet wearing the mantle of a statesman”.

It was not made clear who would be affected by the new sanctions, with much of the military leadership already under strict financial and travel restrictions since taking power.

The ECOWAS Development Bank said in a statement that it would suspend financing to Guinean development projects as part of the new sanctions. The bank currently supports at least two energy projects in the country.

ECOWAS first sanctioned Guinea’s military rulers and their families in the days following the September 2021 coup.

Interim President Mamady Dumbouya proposed a three-year transition schedule in May, which ECOWAS rejected in early July. They said the military rulers would face additional sanctions if no new date were set by the beginning of August.

In late July, Embalo said Guinea had agreed to cut the timeline of its planned transition to civilian rule from three to two years.

Embalo however warned on Wednesday that if the military rulers maintained that timetable, there would be sanctions.

Colonel Amara Camara, a senior military figure, responded by accusing Embalo of “lies” and “intimidation”.

The West Africa bloc has been struggling with a string of military coups in the region in the past two years.

ECOWAS leaders also used the summit as an opportunity to condemn the ongoing detention of 46 Ivorian soldiers in Mali, who have been held in the capital Bamako since July 10 on accusations of acting as mercenaries.

Ivory Coast, which has repeatedly called for their release, says the soldiers were deployed as part of a security and logistics support contract signed with the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali.

ECOWAS leaders condemned Malian authorities for using “blackmail” in their negotiations with Ivorian authorities and said the presidents of Ghana, Togo and Senegal will soon travel to Mali to negotiate for the soldiers’ unconditional release.

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Bioreports and news agencies

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An aerial view shows flooding after Super Typhoon Noru struck San Miguel in Bulacan province [Adrian Portugal/Reuters]Published On 26 Sep 2src2226 Sep 2src22

Typhoon Noru has blown out of the northern Philippines, leaving five rescuers dead, causing floods and power outages, and forcing officials to suspend classes and government work in the capital and outlying provinces.

The most powerful typhoon to hit the country this year slammed into the coast in Burdeos town in Quezon province before nightfall on Sunday, then weakened as it barreled overnight across the main Luzon region, where thousands of people moved to emergency shelters, some forcibly, officials said.

Governor Daniel Fernando of Bulacan province, north of Manila, said five rescuers, who were using a boat to help residents trapped in floodwaters, were hit by a collapsed wall and then apparently drowned in the rampaging waters.

More than 17,srcsrcsrc people were moved to emergency shelters from high-risk communities prone to tidal surges, flooding and landslides in Quezon alone.

More than 3,srcsrcsrc people were evacuated to safety in Metropolitan Manila, which was lashed by fierce wind and rain overnight. Classes and government work were suspended Monday in the capital and outlying provinces as a precaution although the morning skies were sunny.

The entire northern provinces of Aurora and Nueva Ecija, which were hit by the typhoon, remained without power and repair crews were at work to bring back electricity, Energy Secretary Raphael Lotilla told President Ferdinand Marcos Jr in a televised meeting he called to assess the damage and coordinate a disaster-response.

About 2src storms and typhoons batter the Philippines each year. The archipelago also lies in the “Pacific Ring of Fire” – a region along most of the Pacific Ocean rim where many volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur, making the Southeast Asian nation one of the world’s most disaster-prone.

In 2src13, Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest recorded tropical cyclones in the world, left more than 7,3srcsrc people dead or missing, flattened entire villages, swept ships inland and displaced more than five million in the central Philippines – well to the south of Noru’s path.

Residents wait on the roofs of their homes for flooding to subside in San Miguel. [Eloisa Lopez/Reuters]

A woman wades through chest-deep floodwaters in San Ildefonso, Bulacan province. [Eloisa Lopez/Reuters]

A woman clears mud out of her home following the flood caused by Super Typhoon Noru, in Marikina City, Metro Manila. [Lisa Marie David/Reuters]

Children on a bicycle pass by debris from the flood caused by the typhoon in Marikina City. [Lisa Marie David/Reuters]

Residents who evacuated from their flooded homes sit on a roadside in San Ildefonso. [Eloisa Lopez/Reuters]

Noru made landfall as a Category 3 typhoon but weakened as it traversed land on Sunday night. [Aaron Favila/AP Photo]

The Philippines, an archipelago of more than 7,6srcsrc islands, sees an average of 2src tropical storms yearly. [Aaron Favila/AP Photo]

Residents wade through deep floods in San Miguel, Bulacan province. [Aaron Favila/AP Photo]

A view of flooded areas in Central Luzon. [Twitter @Bongbongmarcos via Reuters]

The attacker turned the gun on himself after killing several people in the central Udmurtia region.

Published On 26 Sep 2src2226 Sep 2src22

A gunman has opened fire in a school in central Russia, killing at least 17 people and wounding 24 others before shooting himself dead, authorities said.

The shooting took place on Monday in School No 88 in Izhevsk, a city 96srckm (6srcsrc miles) east of Moscow in the Udmurtia region.

Russia’s Investigative Committee identified the gunman as 34-year-old Artyom Kazantsev, a graduate of the same school, and said he was wearing a black T-shirt bearing “Nazi symbols”. No details about his motives have been released.

The government of Udmurtia said 17 people, including 11 children, were killed in the shooting. According to Russia’s Investigative Committee, 24 other people, including 22 children, were wounded in the attack.

The governor of Udmurtia, Alexander Brechalov, said the gunman, who he said was registered as a patient at a psychiatric facility, killed himself after the attack.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday denounced the Izhevsk attack as “inhuman”.

“President Putin deeply mourns the deaths of people, children, at a school where there was a terrorist attack by a person, who apparently belongs to a neo-fascist group,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

“The president wishes for the recovery of those injured as a result of this inhuman terrorist attack,” Peskov added.

Russia’s National Guard said Kazantsev used two non-lethal handguns adapted to fire real bullets. The guns were not registered with the authorities. A criminal investigation into the incident has been launched on charges of multiple murders and illegal possession of firearms.

The school, which teaches children aged six to 17, was evacuated and the area around it was cordoned off.

Izhevsk is a city of about 64src,srcsrcsrc people located west of the Ural Mountains in central Russia.

The attack comes at a critical time for Russia, which is waging a deadly war in Ukraine and has recently announced a partial mobilisation order to boost its forces.

Hours before the school shooting, a man opened fire and wounded a military recruitment officer at an enlistment centre in Siberia.

“Any shooting at a school is a cause for deep concern for authorities, families and the nation in general. We have seen that in the United States and many other countries,” said Bioreports’s Mohamed Vall, reporting from Moscow.

“But Russians are saying this is not a frequent occurrence in Russia – and most of the time it is difficult to establish the motives behind it.”

Police and paramedics at the scene of the shooting at the school in Izhevsk [AP Photo]
The last such tragedy took place in April 2src22, when a man killed two children and a teacher at a kindergarten in the central Ulyanovsk region before killing himself.

In May 2src21, nine people – including seven children – were killed after a lone teenage gunman opened fire in Russia’s southwestern city of Kazan.

In 2src18, a student at a college in Russian-annexed Crimea killed 2src people before turning his gun on himself.

Other high-profile shooting cases have taken place in Russia’s army, putting the issue of hazing in the spotlight in the country where military service is compulsory for men aged between 18 and 27.

In November 2src2src, a 2src-year-old soldier killed three fellow servicemen at a military base near the city of Voronezh. In a similar attack in 2src19, a young recruit shot dead eight servicemen, saying he faced bullying and harassment in the army.

Source

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Bioreports and news agencies

Health Ministry says rapid assessment testing confirmed 338 cases since the outbreak was first recorded last month.

Published On 26 Sep 2src2226 Sep 2src22

At least 29 people have been killed due to a cholera outbreak in several regions of Syria, in what the United Nations has called the worst outbreak in the war-torn country for years.

Rapid assessment testing confirmed 338 cases since the outbreak was first recorded last month, with the bulk of deaths and cases in the northern Aleppo province, the Syrian health ministry said in a statement on Monday.

23src cases were reported in Aleppo province, with 25 people confirmed dead.

The UN this month said the outbreak was believed to be linked to the irrigation of crops using contaminated water and people drinking unsafe water from the Euphrates River, which bisects Syria from north to east.

Suspected cholera cases have risen to 2,src92 in the northeast of Syria since the outbreak was first reported [File: Aboud Hamam/Reuters]
The UN has made an urgent appeal for funds to control the outbreak as well as approvals to “ensure timely delivery” of life-saving medicine and supplies.

The highly contagious disease has also spread to the country’s Kurdish-held northeast and opposition areas in north and northwestern Syria, where millions have been displaced by the decade-old war in the country, medical officials said.

Suspected cholera cases have risen to 2,src92 in the northeast of Syria since the outbreak was announced this month, said the United States-based International Rescue Committee (IRC), which operates in the region.

It said there were fears that cases had been significantly under-reported.

The UN has warned the outbreak underscored “severe shortages of water” throughout Syria, where much of the population relies on unsafe water sources following the destruction of the national water infrastructure in the war.

Hundreds of thousands of people have died and millions have been made homeless since protests against President Bashar al-Assad in 2src11 escalated into a civil war that drew in foreign powers and left Syria carved into zones controlled by rival parties.

The situation has been made worse by drought-like conditions that have caused water levels along the Euphrates to drop. Farmers have also blamed Turkey’s water policies for the decrease in flow.

Source

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Bioreports and news agencies

Military says the chopper crashes during a late night mission in the country’s southwest, killing all six on board.

Published On 26 Sep 2src2226 Sep 2src22

Islamabad, Pakistan – An army helicopter has crashed during an overnight mission in southwest Pakistan’s Balochistan province, killing all six people on board, including two officers.

In a statement on Monday, the military said the chopper crashed late last night during an operational flight near the town of Khost, roughly 121 kilometres (75 miles) from Balochistan’s capital Quetta.

“A helicopter on a flying mission crashed late last night. Six personnel – including two army majors (both pilots) embraced shahadat (martyrdom) in the crash,” said the statement.

The army’s statement did not elaborate on what caused the incident or the nature of their operation in the area.

In a tweet in Urdu language, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Monday offered his condolences and prayed for the deceased soldiers and their families.

Opposition leader and former federal information minister, Fawad Chaudhry, demanded an evaluation of the safety of Pakistan army helicopters.

“Heli flying is getting dangerous. This needs engineering evaluation, too many crashes,” he tweeted.

Authorities said they are investigating the incident – the second in less than two months.

On August 1, an army helicopter crashed in Balochistan’s Lasbela district during a flood-related operation, killing six including a senior army official.

Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest province, is also the hub of a decades-old separatist movement. Various armed groups based in the province have claimed attacks on Pakistani security forces in the past.

However, no rebel group has so far claimed responsibility for Sunday night’s crash.

Balochistan is also a key component of Pakistan ally China’s multi-billion Belt and Road Initiative.

India’s Hindu right wing has long advocated for its vision across the world. Overseas offshoots of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have helped in this, as have allied groups like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad or World Hindu Council.

Now, recent events in Leicester in the United Kingdom suggest that their dream of propagating Hindutva, their political philosophy, is coming true in new ways – violently, on the streets of cities far from India.

On September 17, young Hindu men marched through the streets of Leicester, chanting “Jai Sri Ram” – now a Hindu nationalist war cry – and attacking Muslims. This is the muscular brand of Hindu pride and chauvinism that Hindu nationalists have always aspired to.

These tensions have been in the offing. In May, a Muslim teenager in Leicester had to be hospitalised after an unprovoked attack by a Hindu crowd. In August after India’s win against Pakistan in a cricket match, a Hindu group walked through the streets chanting “Death to Pakistan” before attacking a Sikh man. There were similar reports after a second cricket match between the two countries that India lost. In response, groups of Muslim men have also held protests – in one instance, a man pulled down a flag from outside a Hindu religious centre.

There is, of course, a long history of Hindu nationalist and Conservative Party collaboration in the UK. In the lead-up to the 2src16 London mayoral elections, Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith sent anti-Muslim campaign literature to Hindus and Sikhs to bring down his Muslim opponent, Sadiq Khan, of the Labour Party. On the eve of the 2src19 UK general elections, there were reports that Hindu nationalist groups in the country were actively campaigning for Conservative candidates, since Labour’s then-leader, Jeremy Corbyn, had criticised the Modi government’s 2src19 crackdown in Indian-administered Kashmir. Many of these groups have direct links to the BJP and their actions represented attempts at influencing an overseas election.

However, this is not just a UK problem. The scourge of Hindu nationalism has gone global.

‘True friend in the White House’
Like in the UK, Hindu nationalists have actively campaigned for right-wing, Islamophobic candidates in the United States. This was apparent during the 2src16 presidential elections when Hindu groups went all out in their efforts to mobilise Hindu Americans for Republican candidates.

In 2src15 an Indian American lobby, the Republican Hindu Coalition (RHC), was launched by Chicago-based businessman Shalabh Kumar, who has had close ties to Modi. Its members  donated to former US President Donald Trump’s campaign and the RHC supported him as he ran for the presidency. At an event with the group ahead of the vote, Trump declared: “The Indian and Hindu community will have a true friend in the White House.” He also praised Modi, calling him a “great man,” and released a campaign video wooing Hindu Americans.

Ahead of the 2src2src US presidential election, Modi acted almost as a campaigner for Trump, holding two joint rallies with the realtor-turned-politician – one in Ahmedabad, India, and the other in Houston, Texas. In the latter event, Modi seemed to give tacit backing to Trump’s re-election campaign, even uttering the phrase “Ab ki baar, Trump sarkar (This time, it’s going to be a Trump government)”.

However, like in the UK, the Hindu right in the US has now moved from electoral influence to demonstrations of street might. In August this year, bulldozers adorned with posters of Modi and the BJP chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath, appeared at an Indian Independence Day parade in Edison, New Jersey, apparently celebrating the disturbing trend of local governments demolishing the homes of Muslim activists in India. Following criticism, the organiser – the Indian Business Association – apologised for the incident.

Open threats
In Canada too, Hindu nationalists have been making waves. In December last year anti-Sikh slogans and the Hindu swastika appeared outside a Sikh school. Canadian academics have been harassed and faced death and rape threats from diaspora Hindutva supporters for criticising the Modi government in India.

In June, Ron Banerjee, a Canadian Hindu nationalist openly called for the genocide of Muslims and Sikhs. “It is awesome what Modi is doing,” Banerjee said, in an interview to a YouTube channel. “I support the killing of Muslims and Sikhs in the Republic of India because they deserve to die.” 

Australia too is witnessing an uptick in hate crimes committed by Hindus against Muslims and Sikhs. One such attacker, Vishal Sood, was eventually arrested for a series of attacks on Sikhs, and was convicted and deported since his visa had expired. When he got back to India, he received a hero’s welcome.

Attempts have also been made by Indian authorities in Australia to silence critics of Modi and his Hindu nationalist policies. Thirteen academic fellows resigned from the Australia India Institute at the University of Melbourne citing interference from the Indian High Commission and attempts to censor research and writing that presented an “unflattering” image of India.

Why has Hindutva gone global?
Undoubtedly, the rise of Hindu nationalism globally has much to do with the rise of Modi.

Since becoming prime minister in 2src14, he has overseen a highly controversial citizenship reform that discriminates against Muslim asylum seekers, scrapped the constitutionally guaranteed autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir and built a temple at the location of a historic mosque demolished by Hindu hardliners in 1992. All while going after opposition leaders, activists and critics.

Modi’s success in delivering on Hindutva’s promises at home has inspired his supporters in the diaspora to exude a sense of chauvinistic pride abroad.

However, world leaders are guilty too, of legitimising Modi, giving this subsection of Hindu expatriates the conviction that their bigoted vision has some global cache. From Trump to former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and from former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, multiple right-wing politicians have presented themselves as “friends” of Modi.

Even those Western leaders who do not have a particularly pronounced right-wing agenda have been keen to establish and develop their economic and strategic ties with India while turning a blind eye to the Modi government’s dismal human rights record.

What is next?
Islamophobia now appears to be a matter of public and foreign policy for India. The Indian High Commission in the UK responded to the events in Leicester by specifically referring only to the worries of the Hindu community there.

However, Leicester should serve as a wake-up call: Hindu nationalism cannot be ignored any more as a domestic, Indian issue. The movement has gone international – and is taking an increasingly violent form in other countries too. It is now a threat to democratic principles, equality and human rights everywhere. India under Modi will not address it. The world must.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Bioreports’s editorial stance.

Japan condemns ‘unprecedented pace’ of North Korean missile launches, lodges official protest through Beijing embassy.

Published On 25 Sep 2src2225 Sep 2src22

North Korea has fired a ballistic missile towards its eastern seas, ahead of planned military drills by South Korea and the United States.

South Korea’s military said Sunday’s weapon test involved a single, short-range ballistic missile fired from near the Taechon area of North Pyongyang Province just before 7am (22:srcsrc GMT on Saturday).

It did not immediately release further specifics about the weapon, including what type of missile it was or how far it flew.

Japanese defence minister Yasukazu Hamada said Japan estimated it reached maximum altitude at 5src kilometres (31 miles) and may have flown on an irregular trajectory.

Hamada said it fell outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone and there were no reports of problems with shipping or air traffic.

Many of the short-range missiles tested by North Korea in recent years have been designed to evade missile defences by manoeuvring during flight and flying on a lower, “depressed” trajectory, experts have said.

“If you include launches of cruise missiles, this is the nineteenth launch, which is an unprecedented pace,” Hamada said. “North Korea’s action represents a threat to the peace and security of our country, the region and the international community and to do this as the Ukraine invasion unfolds is unforgivable.”

He added that Japan had delivered a protest through North Korea’s embassy in Beijing.

The launch comes after the arrival of the nuclear-powered American aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan in South Korea to participate in joint drills with South Korean forces, and ahead of a planned visit to Seoul this week by US Vice President Kamala Harris.

It was the first time North Korea carried out such a launch after firing eight short-range ballistic missiles in one day in early June, which led the US to call for more sanctions for violating United Nations Security Council resolutions.

North Korea rejects UN resolutions as an infringement of its sovereign right to self-defence and space exploration, and has criticised previous joint drills by the US and South Korea as proof of their hostile policies.

The drills have also been criticised by Russia and China, which have called on all sides not to take steps that raise tensions in the region and have called for an easing of sanctions.

After North Korea conducted an unprecedented number of missile tests earlier this year, including of intercontinental ballistic missiles for the first time since 2src17, South Korea and the US said they would boost joint drills and military displays of power to deter Pyongyang.

“Defence exercises are not going to prevent North Korean missile tests,” Leif-Eric Easley, an international affairs professor at Ewha University in Seoul, told Reuters news agency.

But US-South Korea security cooperation helps to deter a North Korean attack and counter Pyongyang’s coercion and the allies should not let provocations stop them from conducting military training and exchanges needed to maintain the alliance, he added.

On Saturday, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported that North Korea might also be preparing to test a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), citing South Korea’s military.

A North-Korea focused think-tank, 38North, also said last week that Pyongyang was possibly preparing to launch a new submarine capable of firing ballistic missiles. The group said its analysis of commercial satellite imagery shows multiple barges and other vessels gathered at the eastern port of Sinpo, where the country has a major shipyard building submarines.

North Korea has been working to acquire the ability to fire nuclear-armed missiles from submarines, which would, in theory, bolster its deterrent as they would ensure retaliation after absorbing a nuclear attack on land.

Ballistic missile submarines would also add a new maritime threat to North Korea’s growing collection of solid-fuel weapons fired from land vehicles, which are being developed with an apparent aim to overwhelm missile defence systems in South Korea and Japan.

Still, experts say the heavily sanctioned nation would need considerably more time, resources and major technological improvements to build at least several submarines that could travel quietly in seas and reliably execute attacks.

Rights groups say more than 73src people were detained at anti-war protests across the country.

Published On 24 Sep 2src2224 Sep 2src22

Russian police have dispersed peaceful protests against President Vladimir Putin’s military mobilisation order, arresting hundreds, including some children, across the country, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Russians that their president was knowingly “sending citizens to their death”.

Police detained nearly 75src people, including more than 37src in the capital Moscow and some 15src in St Petersburg, according to OVD-Info, an independent website that monitors political arrests in Russia. Some of the arrested individuals were minors, OVD-Info said on Saturday.

Protests erupted within hours on Wednesday after Putin announced a call-up of 3srcsrc,srcsrcsrc army reservists in a move to beef up his forces fighting in Ukraine after the Russian military suffered battlefield setbacks. A Russian general who handled supplies at the Ukraine front lines was replaced on Saturday.

Police deployed in cities where protests were scheduled by opposition group Vesna and supporters of jailed opposition leader Alexey Navalny, quickly arresting demonstrators before they could hold protests.

The Ukrainian president, in his late-night address, called on Moscow’s forces to surrender, saying they would “be treated in a civilised manner… no one will know the circumstances of your surrender”.

The comments came just hours after Russia passed a law making voluntary surrender and desertion a crime punishable by 1src years of imprisonment.

A separate law, also signed on Saturday, facilitated Russian citizenship for foreigners who enlist in the Russian army for at least a year, bypassing the normal requirement for five years of residency in the country.

Russia officially counts millions of former conscripts as reservists – most of the male population of fighting age – and the “partial mobilisation” gave no criteria for who would be called up.

Reports have surfaced of men with no military experience or who are past draft age receiving call-up papers, adding to the outrage that has revived anti-war demonstrations.

Criticism appeared to be spreading
Criticism also appeared to be spreading among Putin’s supporters. The head of the Russian president’s human rights commission, Valery Fadeyev, called on defence minister Sergei Shoigu to put a halt to the brutal manner with which many draft boards were proceeding.

The editor-in-chief of pro-Kremlin Russian television RT also expressed anger at the new recruitments. “They’re infuriating people, as if on purpose, as if out of spite. As if they’d been sent by Kyiv,” she said.

In another rare sign of turmoil, the defence ministry said the deputy minister in charge of logistics, four-star General Dmitry Bulgakov, had been replaced “for transfer to another role”, giving no additional details.

As long queues of men trying to leave the country formed at Russia’s borders, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov delivered a fiery speech at the UN General Assembly accusing Western nations of seeking to “destroy” the nation.

“The official Russophobia in the West is unprecedented, now the scope is grotesque,” Lavrov said.

“They are not shying away from declaring the intent to inflict not only military defeat on our country but also to destroy and fracture Russia.”.

Meanwhile, Russia staged its second day of the so-called referendums in four occupied regions of Ukraine and appears set to formally annex a swath of the territory next week.

Kyiv and the West have denounced the votes as a sham and said outcomes in favour of annexation are pre-determined.

Putin this week warned that Moscow would use “all means” to protect its territory, which former Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev said on social media could include the use of “strategic nuclear weapons”.

The annexation raises concerns that Russia could then view any military move on the occupied regions as an attack on its own territory.

Source

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Bioreports and news agencies

Video Duration 25 minutes 4src seconds 25:4src

From: Inside StoryDozens of migrants drown as their boat sinks on way to Europe.

Lebanon’s economic meltdown is pushing more people to take dangerous sea journeys to seek better lives abroad.

Dozens drowned off the coast of Syria in the worst capsizing of a migrant boat this year.

The vessel carrying up to 15src Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian refugees and migrants had sailed from Tripoli, the poorest city in Lebanon.

Many reportedly paid smugglers thousands of dollars to take them to Europe.

Years of war, sectarian violence and corruption have led to Lebanon’s economic collapse.

The currency has lost 95 percent of its value, and most people cannot afford food, clean water or medicine.

Can anything prevent people from taking risky boat journeys?

Presenter: Imran Khan

Guests:

Zeina Mohanna – Board member, Amel Association International

Patrick Mardini – President and founder, Lebanese Institute for Market Studies

Bente Scheller – Director, Heinrich Böll Foundation’s Middle East office in Beirut

Published On 24 Sep 2src2224 Sep 2src22

Abdoulaye Maiga lashes out at the former colonial ruler, the UN as he praised the ‘exemplary’ cooperation with Russia.

Published On 24 Sep 2src2224 Sep 2src22

Mali’s military-appointed prime minister has lashed out at France and the United Nations in a grievance-filled address over his nation’s deteriorating security situation while praising the “exemplary” cooperation with Russia.

Addressing the 77th session of the UN General Assembly on Saturday, Abdoulaye Maiga slammed what he called France’s “unilateral decision” to relocate its remaining troops to neighbouring Niger amid deteriorating relations with Mali’s two-time coup leader Assimi Goita.

While it was Goita and his allies who overthrew a democratically elected president by military force two years ago, Mali’s prime minister repeatedly referred to a “French junta” throughout his 3src-minute speech.

“Move on from the colonial past and hear the anger, the frustration, the rejection that is coming up from the African cities and countryside, and understand that this movement is inexorable,” Maiga, who was appointed prime minister last month, said.

“Your intimidations and subversive actions have only swelled the ranks of Africans concerned with preserving their dignity,” he added.

The Malian prime minister also offered a grim assessment of the UN peacekeeping mission, known as MINUSMA, while openly praising the “exemplary and fruitful cooperation between Mali and Russia” and the influence of mercenaries from the Wagner Group.

“We must recognise that nearly 1src years after its establishment, the objectives for which MINUSMA was deployed in Mali have not been achieved,” Maiga said. “This is despite numerous Security Council resolutions.”

France intervened militarily in Mali in 2src13, leading an effort to remove armed groups from the control of the northern Malian towns they had overtaken. Over the past nine years, Paris had continued its presence in a bid to stabilise the country amid repeated attacks by armed groups.

The French departure in August raised new concerns about whether those fighters will regain territory with security responsibilities now falling to the Malian military and UN peacekeepers.

The Wagner Group, a Russian network providing fighters for hire, has been allowed to operate in Mali despite evidence collected by the UN pointing to their involvement in mass summary executions, arbitrary detentions, torture, and forced disappearances in the Central African Republic.

The Malian prime minister also criticised UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for his recent comments on the standoff between Mali and Ivory Coast over 46 detained Ivorian soldiers.

“Since friendship is based on sincerity, I would like to express my deep disagreement with your recent media appearance, in which you took a position and expressed yourself on the case of the 46 Ivorian mercenaries,” he said in comments aimed at Guterres.

The nature of the offences in the case “does not fall within the remit of the secretary-general of the United Nations”, he added.

Maiga reiterated claims that the soldiers were sent to Mali as mercenaries, which the Ivorian government has vigorously denied. Ivory Coast says the soldiers were to provide security for a company contracted by the UN, but Maiga maintained on Saturday that there is “no link between the 46 and the United Nations”.

Three female Ivorian soldiers have been released as a “humanitarian gesture”, but there have been no updates about the others.

Source

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Bioreports and news agencies

Israeli forces say the Palestinian man ‘attempted ramming attack’, but the Palestinian foreign ministry says it was a ‘traffic accident’.

Published On 24 Sep 2src2224 Sep 2src22

Israeli forces have shot dead a Palestinian in the occupied West Bank after what the army called an “attempted ramming attack”, but the Palestinian authorities have accused Israeli police of intentionally killing the man, identified as Muhammad Ali Hussein Awad.

“The Israeli police deliberately shot Awad, with the aim of killing him, after his vehicle collided with a police vehicle in a traffic accident,” the Palestinian foreign ministry said on Saturday.

The 36-year-old from the West Bank town of Beit Ijza, near Jerusalem, was a “defenceless Palestinian” who was not “posing any danger”, the ministry added.

The Israeli military said a soldier and a police officer saw a vehicle speeding up as it headed straight at them in an apparent attempt to ram into them. The soldier then shot towards the vehicle, it said, and the suspect was “neutralised”.

The victim’s family also contested the Israeli army’s version of the incident, saying the 36-year-old likely lost control of the car, according to Reuters.

Bioreports could not immediately verify rival accounts of the incident.

The father of three worked as a teacher in a school in Bir Nabala village, northwest of occupied East Jerusalem, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA.

His cousin, Ramadan, told WAFA that the Israeli forces opened fire rather than assisting him after the crash.

They have faced criticism over their frequent use of lethal force, including in the killing of Bioreports journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in Jenin in May.

Israel has been on high alert in advance of the Jewish holiday season, beginning on Sunday evening with Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year.

Car-ramming incidents and other attacks by Palestinians on Israeli military vehicles at checkpoints have regularly taken place in recent years in the West Bank, which Israel occupied after the Six Day War of 1967.

The northern West Bank – notably Jenin and Nablus – has seen near-daily Israeli military operations since March.

Israel has launched hundreds of raids in the area in pursuit of individuals it accuses of involvement in deadly attacks targeting Israelis.

These raids have sparked clashes that have killed dozens of Palestinians and inflamed tensions across Israel and the occupied territories.

Source

:

Bioreports and news agencies

More than a million Rohingya live in camps in southern Bangladesh that comprise the world’s largest refugee settlements.

Published On 17 Sep 2src2217 Sep 2src22

A Rohingya teenager has been killed and at least six people were injured when a mortar shell fired from Myanmar exploded inside Bangladesh territory, local officials and a Rohingya leader said.

The youth was killed by a mortar blast late on Friday, said Dil Mohammed, a Rohingya leader, in an area designated as no-man’s land – a strip of land along the Myanmar-Bangladesh border where an estimated 4,srcsrcsrc Rohingya live.

“We are living here in constant fear. Any time any catastrophe can happen,” Mohammed told Reuters on Saturday.

Local media in Bangladesh said that people in the area reported that five mortars were fired from Myanmar territory and three exploded at approximately 8:3srcpm local time (14:3src GMT) on Friday night.

The victim was identified by Bangladesh’s The Daily Star newspaper as Iqbal Hossain Bari, 18. Four Bangladesh nationals were also injured, according to the news organisation.

A Bangladesh government and border guard official said that strong protests would be lodged with Myanmar over the incident.

He said mortar shells went off at No Man’s Land in Konarpara on the Tumbru border of Ghumdhum union in the upazila, leaving one Rohingya youth Iqbal Hossain Bari (18) dead and four other Bangladeshis injured.#Bangladesh #Myanmar #Rohingya https://t.co/FUEvCBwCCp

— The Daily Star (@dailystarnews) September 16, 2src22

More than a million Rohingya are living in makeshift camps in southern Bangladesh that comprise the world’s largest refugee settlement, the vast majority having fled from Myanmar during a military crackdown in 2src17.

The Rohingya have also been caught in the crossfire between Myanmar’s military and the Arakan Army, an armed group who are fighting for self-determination for ethnic minorities in Rakhine state.

Bangladesh this month issued a statement expressing serious concern over mortar shells landing inside Bangladesh territory, as well as “indiscriminate aerial firing from Myanmar in the bordering areas, and air space violation from Myanmar”.

The Myanmar envoy in Dhaka has been summoned three times in recent weeks and the concerns of the Bangladesh government have been expressed.

Russia ‘planned for an occupation, not necessarily an invasion, and that has set them back’, Pentagon official says.

Published On 17 Sep 2src2217 Sep 2src22

Setbacks for Russian forces and stretched resources in Ukraine show that Moscow’s forces are incapable of achieving President Vladimir Putin’s initial invasion aims as things stand now, the Pentagon’s intelligence chief has said.

“We’re coming to a point right now where I think Putin is going to have to revise what his objectives are for this operation,” Lieutenant General Scott Berrier, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told a conference on Friday.

“It’s pretty clear right now that he’s … not going to be able to do what he initially intended to do.”

Russian forces have suffered major setbacks since the launch last week of a Ukrainian counteroffensive, which has forced Moscow’s troops back from large swaths of Ukraine’s northeast.

“The Russians planned for an occupation, not necessarily an invasion, and that has set them back,” Berrier said, citing Putin’s reluctance so far to fully mobilise Russian forces to get more manpower into the fight.

US President Joe Biden and other administration officials have taken care not to call Russia’s latest retreat a Ukrainian victory or turning point in the war, and analysts caution that it is impossible to assess what may lie ahead in the conflict.

“He’s coming to a decision point,” Berrier said of Putin.

“What that decision will be we don’t know. But that will largely drive how long this conflict lasts.”

he is not going to be able to achieve what he initially intended to do.”

— DIA (@DefenseIntel) September 16, 2src22

Putin’s ‘risk appetite’
Berrier spoke at a panel with other senior officials at the intelligence community’s Intelligence and National Security Summit at National Harbor in Maryland just outside Washington.

CIA Deputy Director David Cohen said that Putin’s “risk appetite” should not be underestimated.

“I don’t think we should underestimate Putin’s adherence to his original agenda, which was to control Ukraine. I don’t think we’ve seen any reason to believe he has moved off that.”

Separately, at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Uzbekistan on Friday, Putin promised to press ahead with his attack on Ukraine and warned that Moscow could ramp up its strikes on the country’s infrastructure if Ukrainian forces target facilities in Russia.

Putin said the “liberation” of Ukraine’s entire eastern Donbas region was Russia’s main military goal and that he saw no need to revise it.

“We aren’t in a rush,” the Russian leader said.

US military officials said on Friday that two new surface-to-air missile systems and counter-artillery radars (NASAMS) will be delivered to Ukraine.

Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Brigadier General Pat Ryder said that “two NASAMS are expected to be delivered within the next two months or so”.

The White House said it was the 21st time that the defence department has pulled weapons and other equipment off the shelves to deliver to Ukraine.

Speaking on Tuesday, Ryder said that Western weapons and supplies had played a role in the success of the current Ukrainian counteroffensive.

According to Ryder, US officials and their counterparts from almost 5src nations have pledged to keep the supply chain of weaponry to Ukraine moving, and to also increase aid for the mid and long-term defence of Ukraine.

A senior defence official told reporters the NASAMS are intended to help Ukraine transition away from using Soviet-era air defence systems that, besides being well known to the Russians, have to be repaired with spare parts that are hard to procure.

The US has committed more than $8.8bn in weapons and military training to Ukraine, whose leaders have sought more help from Western allies to repel larger and more heavily equipped Russian forces.

Israel has intensified missile attacks on Syrian airports saying the strikes target Iranian forces and military assets.

Published On 17 Sep 2src2217 Sep 2src22

Israel has carried out an air attack on Syria’s Damascus International Airport and other positions south of the capital, killing five soldiers and causing material damage, the ministry of defence said.

Syrian air defences intercepted the raid and managed to down most of the missiles, the ministry said in a statement early on Saturday.

There was no immediate confirmation whether the attack has affected flight operations at Damascus airport.

The defence ministry said on its website that the attack was launched at about srcsrc:45am local time (21:45 GMT) with a missile fired from the air from the northeastern direction of Lake Tiberias, targeting the airport and other targets south of the city.

“The aggression led to the death of five soldiers and some material damage,” Syria’s official news agency Sana quoted a military source as saying.

Israel has intensified strikes on Syria’s airports on the grounds that it wants to disrupt Tehran’s increasing use of aerial supply routes to deliver arms to allies in Syria and Lebanon, including Hezbollah, regional diplomatic and intelligence sources told Reuters.

An Israeli missile strike in the countryside around the capital Damascus and south of coastal Tartous province killed three soldiers last month.

In June, Israeli air raids put Damascus airport out of service for nearly two weeks.

In the past month, Israeli attacks have twice targeted Aleppo airport.

While Israel rarely comments on individual attacks, it has acknowledged carrying out hundreds in Syria that it has said are necessary to prevent regional rival Iran from gaining a foothold on its doorstep.

Tehran considers air transport as a more reliable means of ferrying military equipment to its forces and allied fighters in Syria, following disruptions to ground transport amid a continuing civil war.

Hundreds of thousands of people have died and millions made homeless since protests against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in 2src11 developed into a civil conflict that drew in foreign powers and left Syria carved into competing zones of control.

Source

:

Bioreports and news agencies

Families are pushing US to secure release of WNBA star Brittney Griner and former US marine Paul Whelan, held in Russia.

Published On 16 Sep 2src2216 Sep 2src22

US President Joe Biden has met with the families of basketball star Brittney Griner and former marine Paul Whelan, amid continuing efforts in Washington to secure two American citizens’ release from detention in Russia.

Biden sat down in the Oval Office on Friday with Cherelle Griner, the wife of Griner, and Elizabeth Whelan, the ex-marine’s sister.

The meetings began shortly before 5pm (21:srcsrc GMT), the White House said.

Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said earlier this week that Biden hoped the face-to-face talks will show the families “that they remain front of mind” for the United States administration.

“While I would love to say that the purpose of this meeting is to inform the families that the Russians have accepted our offer and we are bringing their loved-ones home, that is not what we’re seeing in these negotiations at this time,” Jean-Pierre told reporters.

Griner, a Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) and two-time Olympic gold medallist, was sentenced to nine years in jail last month over drug charges.

She was arrested in February, days before Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and her case has moved through the Russian court system amid frayed relations between Moscow and Washington over the war.

Whelan, a marine veteran, was sentenced to 16 years in prison in 2src2src on espionage charges.

The US State Department has called the imprisonment of both US citizens unjustified.

Earlier on Friday, a White House National Security Council spokesman said negotiations with Moscow to secure the two Americans’ release are continuing.

“The president felt it was important to continue the dialogue with the family members … We have stayed in touch with them throughout; we have kept them informed throughout,” John Kirby told reporters.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in July that Washington made a “substantial proposal” to Moscow to free Griner and Whelan.

Several US media outlets reported about that time that the Biden administration offered a prisoner exchange involving a Russian arms dealer jailed in the US.

On Friday, Kirby told reporters that Russia has not responded to that offer, “but that doesn’t mean that we’re not still in negotiations or we’re not still trying”.

Moscow said last month that it was “ready” to discuss a prisoner swap deal with Washington.

Meanwhile, Griner’s relatives, teammates and supporters have been calling on the US government to put its full weight behind the case to push for her release.

Griner was accused of bringing vape canisters containing cannabis oil into Russia, where she was set to play for a basketball team in Yekaterinburg.

Despite the deteriorating ties between Washington and Moscow, Russia in April freed Trevor Reed, a former US marine. In exchange, the US released Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, who was serving a 2src-year sentence in the US over drug charges.

Source

:

Bioreports and news agencies

Video Duration 25 minutes srcsrc seconds 25:srcsrc

It has been nearly three years since COVID-19 first emerged.

The disease has killed 6.5 million people and infected more than 6srcsrc million others around the globe.

But the World Health Organization says things are starting to improve.

The number of deaths last week was the lowest since March 2src2src when the pandemic was declared.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says the end of the pandemic ‘is in sight’ but has warned against complacecy.

Is that assessment realistic?

And what lessons can be learned in case we face another outbreak?

Presenter: Imran Khan

Guests:

Dr Margaret Harris – Spokeswoman for the World Health Organization

Jeffrey Lazarus – Health Systems Research Group, Barcelona Institute for Global Health

Serah Makka – Interim Africa director for the One Campaign

Published On 16 Sep 2src2216 Sep 2src22

Pressure is growing on Japan and South Korea to resolve their historical feuds, with Seoul’s top court set to examine a case that could see the assets of some Japanese firms sold off to compensate Korean wartime labourers.

The case is one of dozens that South Koreans have lodged against Japan, which colonised the Korean peninsula from 191src – 1945, seeking reparations for forced labour and sexual slavery in Japanese military brothels during World War II.

The South Korean Supreme Court, in a series of landmark rulings in 2src18, has already ordered Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Nippon Steel to compensate some 14 former workers for their brutal treatment and unpaid labour.

Many of them are now in their 9srcs, and several have died since the rulings without seeing any compensation.

“I cannot pass away before receiving an apology from Japan,” one of the former labourers, Yang Geum-deok, wrote in a recent letter to the South Korean government. The 93 year old, who was sent to work at a Mitsubishi aircraft factory in 1944, when she was 14, said the Japanese company “needs to apologise and turn over the money”.

But both Mitsubishi Heavy and Nippon Steel have refused to comply with the rulings, with the Japanese government insisting the issue has been settled in past bilateral agreements.

Lee Choon-shik, a victim of wartime forced labour during the Japanese colonial period, holds a banner that reads ‘Apologise for forced labour and fulfil the compensation’ during an anti-Japan protest on Liberation Day in Seoul, South Korea, on August 15, 2src19 [File: Kim Hong-Ji/ Reuters]
Students hold portraits of deceased former South Korean sex slaves during an anti-Japan rally in Seoul, South Korea, on August 15, 2src18 [File: Kim Hong-Ji/ Reuters]
The South Korean Supreme Court is now set to deliberate on a lower court ruling that ordered the liquidation of some of Mitusbishi Heavy Industries’ assets, and experts are urging Seoul and Tokyo to reach a resolution before a verdict is announced.

They say the long-running feuds could threaten security cooperation between the two neighbours at a time when North Korea has warned of preemptive nuclear strikes and launched an unprecedented number of missiles and weapons tests. The stakes are high for the United States, too. For Washington, which has military bases and troops in both countries, the feuds undermine its efforts to build an Indo-Pacific alliance to counter China’s growing global influence.

Japan and South Korea have “got to avert the impending Sword of Damocles,” said Daniel Sneider, lecturer in East Asian Studies at Stanford University in the US. “If the court moves ahead to seize the assets of Japanese companies, then everything breaks down,” he said, with potentially “tragic” consequences for global trade, as well as the US’s ability to defend its two allies in the event of a North Korean attack.

As calls grow for a settlement, here’s a look at the history behind the bitter feuds and why they seem so intractable.

‘Comfort women’
Japan and Korea share a long history of rivalry and war. The Japanese have repeatedly tried to invade the Korean peninsula, and succeeded in annexing and colonising it in 191src. During World War II, Japanese authorities forced tens of thousands of Koreans to work in factories and mines and sent women and girls into military brothels. A United Nations expert, in a 1996 report, said some 2srcsrc,srcsrcsrc Korean “comfort women” were forced into a system of “military sexual slavery” and called the abuses “crimes against humanity”.

After Japan’s rule of Korea ended in 1945, the peninsula was split along the 38th parallel, with rival governments taking power in Pyongyang and Seoul. The US, which backed the government in Seoul, lobbied it for better relations with Tokyo. And after 14 years of secretive negotiations, South Korea and Japan in 1965 signed a treaty normalising relations. Under that deal, Japan agreed to provide South Korea with $5srcsrcm in grants and loans and any issues concerning property, rights and interests of the two countries and their peoples were considered to “have been settled completely and finally”.

But the agreement set off mass protests in South Korea, with the opposition and student demonstrators accusing then-President Park Chung-hee of “selling away the country” for a “paltry sum”. The government imposed martial law to quash the nationwide demonstrations and went on to use the Japanese funds to kick-start South Korea’s development, including by building highways and a steel factory.

Grievances over the issue of forced labour and sexual slavery continued to fester, however.

In the early 9srcs, South Korean victims of forced labour, including Yang Geum-deok, filed for compensation in Japanese courts while survivors of the military brothels went public with accounts of their abuses. The Japanese courts threw out the Korean forced labour petitions, but in 1993, the Japanese chief cabinet secretary, Yohei Kono, publicly offered “sincere apologies and remorse” for the military’s involvement in the forced recruitment of Korean women for sex.

Two years later, Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Marayama acknowledged the suffering caused by Japan’s “colonial rule and aggression” and made a “profound apology to all those who, as wartime comfort women, suffered emotional and physical wounds that can never be closed”. He also established a fund from private contributions to compensate victims in South Korea and other Asian countries.

Japan’s apologies
But many in South Korea did not consider Japan’s remorse as sincere, and tensions flared again when former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was first elected to the post in 2srcsrc6, claimed there was no evidence to suggest Japan coerced Korean women into sexual slavery.

The former leader, who was assassinated in July, was of the view that Tokyo has atoned enough for its past abuses. During his second stint as prime minister, his government said the term “sexual slavery” could not be used to describe the women’s plight and disputed claims that large numbers of women were recruited as “comfort women”, saying the 2srcsrc,srcsrcsrc figure lacked “concrete evidence”.

These statements angered South Koreans, but still, amid concerns over North Korea’s growing nuclear arsenal, the government of then-President Park Geun-hye – the daughter of former President Park Chung-hee – signed a new deal with Tokyo, agreeing to “finally and irreversibly” resolve the “comfort women” issue in return for a renewed apology and a 1 billion yen (now $6.9m) fund to help the victims. At the time, 46 of the 239 women who had registered with the South Korean government were still alive in South Korea, and 34 of them received compensation.

Others condemned the deal, however, saying it had ignored their demands that Japan take legal responsibility for the atrocities and provide official reparations.

Park was later impeached and jailed for corruption, and her successor, Moon Jae-in, dismantled the fund in 2src18.

It was that same year that the South Korean Supreme Court ordered Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Nippon Steel to compensate Korean wartime labourers.

Japan responded furiously, calling the rulings “totally unacceptable” and removing South Korea’s favoured trade partner status and imposing export controls on chemicals vital to the Korean semiconductor industry. It also warned of “serious” ramifications should the Japanese companies’ assets be seized. Moon’s government, meanwhile, also downgraded Japan’s trade status and nearly scrapped a military intelligence pact, while South Koreans launched a boycott of Japanese goods, including the beer brand, Asahi, and the clothing company, Uniqlo.

The crisis was the worst since the two countries normalised ties.

The recent change in South Korea’s presidency, from Moon to Yoon Suk-yeol, has raised hopes of a thaw.

Two days after his election victory in March, Yoon spoke to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida about the need for the two nations to work together. Yoon promised to promote “friendly relations” while Kishida said ties between the two countries are “indispensable” at a time when the world was “confronted with epoch-making changes”.

‘Ball is in Korea’s court’
But despite the warm rhetoric, attempts to arrange a meeting between the two leaders have yet to bear fruit. Yoon invited Kishida to his inauguration, but the Japanese foreign minister attended. Similarly, an attempt at arranging a meeting during US President Joe Biden’s visit to Asia in May and a NATO meeting in June also failed.

“Japanese politicians think the ball is in Korea’s court and want to see how Yoon will handle the forced labour issue,” said Jeffrey Kingston, professor of history and Asian studies at the Temple University in Japan.

“The prevailing view is scepticism about overcoming history controversies and a feeling that Korea plays the history card to badger and humiliate Japan for colonial-era misdeeds. This feeds into a sanctimonious nationalism and condescending views towards Korea among Japanese conservatives. Basically, the costs of bad relation­s with Korea are not seen to be very high and not worth making concessions,” he said.

In a bid to find a way forward, Yoon in June convened a group of victims, experts and officials to advise the government on the forced labour issue. The group has discussed several solutions, according to local media reports, including establishing a joint fund managed by two governments using voluntary contributions from South Korean and Japanese companies to compensate the forced labour victims.

But several victims are against the idea.

“If it were about the money, I would have given up by now,” Yang Geum-deok wrote in her letter, stressing that she would “never accept” the money if “other people give it to me”.

Victims of sexual slavery, meanwhile, are appealing for a United Nations judgement on the issue.

Lee Yong-soo, who was dragged from her home at 16 and sent to a brothel in Japanese-occupied Taiwan, told the Bioreports news agency in March: “Both South Korea and Japan keep waiting for us to die, but I will fight until the very end.” She told the agency that her campaign for intervention from the UN’s International Court of Justice is aimed at pressuring Japan to fully accept responsibility and acknowledge its past military sexual slavery as war crimes.

Given the strong South Korean sentiment, Choi Eunmi, research fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, said it is necessary for the government in Seoul to generate greater social consensus on the importance of seeking better ties with Japan.

“It’s their task to persuade and let ordinary Korean people know why Japan is important globally and why the Korea-Japan relations should not only be focused on the past problems,” she said. At the same time, Japan also needs to do much more, she said. “Japan can’t just wait and see what the Korean side says,” she said, urging Tokyo to extend an “olive branch” to help turn public sentiment in South Korea, including by lifting some of the sanctions and restrictions on trade and tourism between the two countries.

Sneider of Stanford University also said he wished the “Japanese felt a greater sense of urgency about improving relations with Korea”. He said “real clear pressure” from the US was essential to get Japan to reciprocate the Korean desire to improve relations.

“Because in Tokyo, they don’t care nearly as much about what Koreans think as they do about what Americans think. That is a reality,” he said.

Patrick Leahy suggests US assistance to Israel could be restricted to ensure accountability for journalist’s killing.

Washington, DC – United States Senator Patrick Leahy, a senior Democrat, has raised a series of questions about the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh in a statement that also suggested that US aid to Israel could be restricted to ensure accountability.

A US law that carries Leahy’s name prohibits military aid to countries that commit human rights violations. On Thursday, the veteran senator said it “must be” applied to Israel if Abu Akleh, who was Palestinian American, was killed intentionally.

“Whether her killing was intentional, reckless, or a tragic mistake, there must be accountability,” Leahy said in the statement. “And if it was intentional, and if no one is held accountable, then the Leahy Law must be applied.”

Israel, which rights groups accuse of imposing a system of apartheid on Palestinians, receives $3.8bn in US security assistance annually.

Abu Akleh was fatally shot by Israeli forces during a raid in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin on May 11. Her killing spurred worldwide condemnation and demands for justice.

The Biden administration has rejected calls for an independent investigation, insisting instead that Israel is able to investigate allegations of misconduct by its troops. But on July 4, the State Department dismissed the killing of Abu Akleh as unintentional — a stance criticised by Leahy.

“To say that fatally shooting an unarmed person, and in this case one with PRESS written in bold letters on her clothing, was not intentional, without providing any evidence to support that conclusion, calls into question the State Department’s commitment to an independent, credible investigation and to ‘follow the facts‘,” the senator said on Thursday.

Earlier this month, the Israeli government ruled out conducting a criminal investigation into the incident after releasing a public assessment stating that there is a “high possibility” that one of its soldiers shot Abu Akleh but that it was accidental.

Video footage, several witnesses and multiple investigations by independent media outlets show that there were no armed Palestinians in the area where Abu Akleh and other journalists were standing before Israeli soldiers started firing at them.

After calling for “accountability” for months and saying the journalist’s killers should be prosecuted, the Biden administration changed its tone after the Israeli statement this month.

Last week, US officials only called on Israel to review its rules of engagement to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future — a demand that was later publicly rejected by Israeli leaders.

In his statement on Thursday, Leahy questioned the approach of both Israel and the US to the incident. “If the soldier who fired the fatal shot did not intend to kill Ms. Abu Akleh, what did he intend?” the senator said.

“If, as the Israeli authorities appear to be saying, the soldier missed who he was aiming at and hit Ms. Abu Akleh by mistake, who was he aiming at? What evidence is there, if any, that anyone in the immediate vicinity of where Ms. Abu Akleh was shot was firing at the [Israeli] soldier who killed her?”

Leahy also asked if Israeli soldiers who attacked Abu Akleh’s funeral and beat the mourners carrying her coffin had been reprimanded.

“An independent, credible investigation – meaning not by the [Israeli army] and not by the PA – but with their full cooperation, must be conducted and the findings made public,” he said.

Leahy’s statement comes a day after the US Senate Foreign Affairs Committee advanced a legislative amendment that would require the Biden administration to share with legislators the full State Department report that led to its July 4 statement.

Senator Chris Van Hollen, who has been one of the most outspoken politicians in demanding an independent investigation into Abu Akleh’s killing, has led that effort.

“I will continue pressing for full accountability and transparency around the death of Shireen – anything less is unacceptable,” Van Hollen said in a statement on Wednesday.

Basketball jersey from Jordan’s famed ‘Last Dance’ season with the Chicago Bulls sets record for game-worn memorabilia.

Famed US basketball player Michael Jordan’s Game 1 jersey from the 1998 NBA Finals has been sold at auction for $1src.1m – a record for any game-worn sports memorabilia, auction house Sotheby’s has announced.

The red, number-23 jersey from Jordan’s “Last Dance” season with the Chicago Bulls fetched 2src separate bids, Sotheby’s said in a statement on Thursday, which drove the price to double its $5m estimate.

The sale also sets a new record for a basketball jersey sold at auction, and the jersey is the most valuable item of Jordan memorabilia ever to be sold.

“The historic jersey was worn during what is arguably the most celebrated season of Jordan’s legendary and storied career, when the superstar cemented his legacy as the greatest basketball player of all time,” Sotheby’s said.

According to the auction house, the jersey is one of just two of Jordan’s NBA Finals jerseys to ever appear at auction.

A record-breaking day. Michael Jordan’s iconic 1998 NBA Finals ‘The Last Dance’ jersey has sold for $1src.1 million, setting records for a basketball jersey, any game-worn sports memorabilia, and most valuable #MichaelJordan item ever sold at auction. pic.twitter.com/7t8G98N5pW

— Sotheby’s (@Sothebys) September 15, 2src22

Interest in Jordan’s 1998 season was sparked yet again after the 2src2src release of an ESPN/Netflix documentary titled, The Last Dance, which detailed the Chicago Bulls’ efforts to achieve an unprecedented sixth NBA championship in eight seasons.

The 1998 NBA Finals, which saw the Bulls take on the Utah Jazz, led by Karl Malone and John Stockton, was the most viewed NBA finals series ever.

It is also regarded as a testament to Jordan as a competitor, a sportsman and a teammate.

“Yet again, today’s record-breaking result, with an astounding 2src bids, solidifies Michael Jordan as the undisputed GOAT [Greatest of All Time], proving his name and incomparable legacy is just as relevant as it was nearly 25 years ago,” Brahm Wachter, Sotheby’s head of streetwear and modern collectables, said in a statement.

Game 1
On June 3, 1998, the Chicago Bulls arrived in Utah for Game 1 of the NBA Finals.

The home crowd was hostile to the team, but as the ESPN/Netflix documentary showed, Jordan was seemingly unfazed by the pressure. There is a now-famous scene of him grooving on the Bulls bus to R&B singer Kenny Lattimore.

Michael Jordan’s 1998 NBA Finals Game 1 jersey from the famed ‘Last Dance’ season sold for $1src.1m [Courtesy of Sotheby’s]
While the Bulls lost by three points in Game 1, Jordan played 45 minutes – the most of any game in the finals, Sotheby’s said. He also registered 33 points to help send the game into overtime.

That season, the Bulls went on to win their 6th NBA Championship and Jordan secured his 6th NBA Finals MVP Award.

The previous record for any item of Jordan’s sports memorabilia was an autographed relic card from 1997-1998, which sold for $2.7m, according to Sotheby’s.

Kobe Bryant’s game-worn and autographed jersey from the 1996-1997 season, which sold for $3.7m, had previously held the record for a basketball jersey.

Prior to Jordan’s jersey being sold for $1src.1m on Thursday, the previous record for any game-worn sports memorabilia was set by Diego Maradona’s “Hand of God” jersey, which fetched $9.3m earlier this year, Sotheby’s said.

In recent years, the auction house has expanded into the sneaker and sports memorabilia space.

Sotheby’s currently holds the record for the most valuable sneakers sold at auction, with Michael Jordan’s earliest known regular season game-worn Nikes selling for $1.5m last year.

Published On 15 Sep 2src2215 Sep 2src22

Hungary has reacted furiously to a vote in the European Parliament that declared that the country was no longer a “full democracy” and that the European Union needed to act.

Their response on Thursday came after MEPs voted 433 in favour, 123 against, in favour of the resolution.

It described Hungary as “a hybrid regime of electoral autocracy” in “serious breach” of EU democratic norms.

Lawmakers raised concerns about Hungary’s constitutional and electoral systems, judicial independence, possible corruption, public procurement irregularities, LGBTQ+ rights, as well as media, academic and religious freedoms.

The country is ruled by populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who maintains close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The vote was largely symbolic and does not change the course of EU decision-making, which requires unanimity of all 27 member states – including Hungary – to adopt positions on major issues, such as sanctions on Russia.

But Hungary’s Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told reporters in Budapest: “I consider it an insult against a Hungarian person if someone questions Hungary’s capacity for democracy.”

He said he was astonished that some in Brussels and Strasbourg insisted on “belittling” his country, he added.

Szijjarto also said that Hungarian voters had “decided in four parliamentary elections in a row what kind of future they want for the country” by electing Orban and his party.

“We resent that some people in Strasbourg and Brussels think that the Hungarian people are not mature enough to decide their own future,” he added.

With their vote, the EU lawmakers endorsed a parliamentary report that said Hungary had been backsliding on democratic and fundamental rights since 2src18 through the “deliberate and systematic efforts of the Hungarian government”.

The lack of action by EU institutions including the commission, which acts as “-” of the EU treaties enshrining democratic standards, had exacerbated the degradation, said the report.

The vote, which came during a plenary session in Strasbourg, France, does not impose any penalty on Orban’s government, nor does it bind other EU countries into taking any particular actions.

Concerns over corruption
It was also is the latest in a series of showdowns between the EU’s institutions and Orban’s government in Budapest.

Hungary has routinely blocked joint statements, decisions and events, ranging from high-level NATO meetings with Ukraine to an EU vote on corporate tax and a common EU position on an Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire.

EU countries have been treading a careful line around Hungary because of the need to win its assent on major decisions.

But diplomats privately are frustrated with Orban’s cosy relationship with the Kremlin and his blocking of further sanctions on Moscow.

The commission has likewise been careful to avoid overt criticism, but unease over Hungary’s swerve away from rule of law, particularly in failing to curb corruption, is becoming more evident.

Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday, in her State of the European Union address to the European Parliament, that the EU “must fight for our democracies”.

Her EU executive would work to protect the member states “from the external threats they face, and from the vices that corrode them from within”, she said.

Although she did not name Hungary directly in this context, she pledged legislative action to step up the fight against corruption, including against “illicit enrichment, trafficking in influence and abuse of power”.

Her EU justice commissioner, Didier Reynders, told MEPs in a debate on rule of law breaches in Hungary that the commission “shares a large number of concerns expressed by the European Parliament” regarding Budapest.

The European Parliament in 2src18 launched a procedure against the risk Hungary posed to European democratic values.

The EU has also earmarked 5.8bn euros ($5.8bn) for Hungary from its COVID-19 recovery fund. But Budapest’s spending plan for the funds has not been signed by Brussels due to corruption concerns.

In theory, the mechanism can lead to Hungary losing its right to vote in the Council of the EU, where member states adopt decisions affecting the bloc.

Authorities detain retired colonel weeks after a commission declared the disappearance of 43 students a ‘state crime’.

Published On 15 Sep 2src2215 Sep 2src22

Mexican authorities have detained a retired army colonel and two other military officials for their alleged involvement in the 2src14 disappearance of 43 students, a senior government official said, as families continue to search for answers and accountability.

Deputy Minister of Security Ricardo Mejia announced on Thursday that the government had issued arrest warrants for four military officials.

Three have been taken into custody, including the former commander of the army base in the southwestern city of Iguala where the students from Ayotzinapa Teacher Training College were abducted, Mejia said.

“At the moment, three of them have been carried out and there are three detainees, including the commander of the 27th infantry battalion at the time,” the deputy minister told reporters.

Mejia did not identify those arrested by name, but the commander of the Iguala base at that time was Jose Rodriguez Perez.

Last month, a truth commission faulted military personnel for the disappearance of the students, who had been commandeering local buses to go to Mexico City to mark the anniversary of the 1968 Tlatelolco student massacre.

Undersecretary of the Interior Alejandro Encinas, who led the commission, said in August that information corroborated with emergency telephone calls indicated that “six of the 43 disappeared students were held [for] several days” before allegedly being turned over to Perez.

“Allegedly, the six students were alive for as many as four days after the events and were killed and disappeared on orders of the colonel, allegedly the then-Colonel Jose Rodriguez Perez.”

The 2src14 disappearances spurred mass protests and international condemnation of the government of then-President Enrique Pena Nieto. The students’ loved ones have since continued to seek justice and answers as to what happened.

Authorities had said that the students were likely killed after being handed over to local drug gangs. Their remains were never found, but burned bone fragments have been matched to three students.

In 2src19, the administration of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador reopened the probe into the disappearances.

Since then, authorities have issued arrest warrants for several former officials, including Tomas Zeron, who was the head of the federal investigation agency at the time of the abductions and remains a fugitive in Israel.

Last month, federal prosecutors also arrested ex-Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam on charges of forced disappearance, torture and obstruction of justice in relation to the case.

This week’s arrest of military officials comes after Mexico’s Senate passed legislation that would transfer control of the country’s National Guard over to the military in a move that sparked an outcry about the growing power of the army.

Lopez Obrador has dismissed concerns over the increased militarisation of public security, saying the National Guard must now be under military command to prevent corruption.

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