The top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan says the process of completely removing American troops from the conflict-torn country has already begun.
Gen. Scott Miller told local reporters in the Afghan capital, Kabul, Sunday that all of his troops “are now preparing to retrograde” under orders he had received.
Miller spoke nearly two weeks after U.S. President Joe Biden announced the last remaining 3,000 or so U.S. troops will be withdrawn by September 11 — the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon outside Washington. Biden said the military drawdown will start May 1 to close nearly 20 years of war, America’s longest.
Miller commands both U.S. troops and NATO’s noncombatant Resolute Support military mission in the country.
NATO allies have promised to match the action and withdraw around 7,000 of their forces, as well, in line with an agreement Washington negotiated with the Afghan Taliban insurgency a year ago.
“We will conduct an orderly withdrawal from Afghanistan, and that means transitioning bases and equipment to the Afghan security forces,” the general said.FILE – U.S. Army General Scott Miller, center, commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, is seen at the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan, Nov. 6, 2018.The United States and its allies launched a military invasion of the country days after the deadly September 11, 2001, terror strikes to punish the then-Taliban rulers for harboring and allowing al-Qaida leaders to plot the carnage.
The military action swiftly ousted the Islamist group from power in Kabul before the Taliban regrouped and launched a deadly insurgency against Afghan and U.S.-led international forces, reestablishing control over wide swathes of Afghanistan.
The February 2020 U.S.-Taliban agreement had required all foreign forces to leave Afghanistan by May 1, a week from now, but Biden cited logistical reasons for pushing back the deadline.
The insurgents, who halted attacks on foreign troops after signing the agreement, denounced the delay as a violation of the mutually agreed upon deadline, and threatened to resume hostilities against U.S. forces as they withdraw from Afghanistan.
Miller said his forces continue to retain “the military means and capability to fully protect themselves during the ongoing retrograde and will support the Afghan security forces.”
He rejected allegations the United States had violated the deal and warned of a forceful response if the Taliban attacked foreign forces. FILE – U.S. soldiers load onto a Chinook helicopter to head out on a mission in Afghanistan, Jan. 15, 2019. (1st Lt. Verniccia Ford/U.S. Army/Handout via Reuters)The American general, who was part of the U.S. team that negotiated the landmark pact with the insurgents, advised the Taliban to follow a political path to peace and desist from “senseless violence” to help bring an end to the years of hostilities.
“I’ve had the opportunity to talk to Taliban members with the Taliban Political Commission, and I’ve told them a return to violence, an effort to force a military decision, would be a tragedy for Afghanistan and the Afghan people,” said Miller, who spoke at the U.S. military headquarters in Kabul.
There are fears Afghan security forces will collapse in battles against the Taliban in the absence of U.S. assistance that could lead to more conflict and bloodshed.
The U.S. general reminded the Taliban they are bound under the agreement to break ties with al-Qaida militants to ensure Afghanistan will never be used as a haven for terrorism.
The United Nations reported this past January that there were about 500 al-Qaida operatives in Afghanistan and that the Taliban maintained close contacts with them. The Taliban denied an al-Qaida presence in the country and rejected charges they were in close contact.
The Afghan war to date has claimed an estimated 241,000 lives, including civilians and both local as well as combatants from international forces, and cost the U.S. at least $2.4 trillion, according to a new U.S. study published last week.
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Month: April 2021
Mariners Learn How Not to Get Stuck in the Suez Canal
In March, one of the world’s biggest container ships became stuck in Egypt’s Suez Canal, creating a commercial logjam and spikes in the cost of oil. At a training facility in France, mariners are learning how to avoid a similar predicament. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.
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Paris-Area Knife Assailant Viewed Jihadist Videos Prior to Attack, Officials Say
A fifth person is being held for questioning in the stabbing death late last week of a police employee outside Paris, France’s anti-terrorism prosecutor said Sunday. He noted the assailant, a Tunisian national, viewed videos glorifying jihad, or Muslim holy war, and may have visited to a Muslim prayer hall before the attack.AAnti-terrorism prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard confirmed reports that Tunisian Jamel Gorchene consulted videos on his cell phone extolling martyrdom and jihad, minutes before stabbing a 49-year-old police worker and mother of two Friday in the quiet town of Rambouillet, 60 kilometers from Paris.
Speaking at a press conference, Ricard recounted in detail Gorchene’s actions leading up to the attack that took place at a police station. Ricard said cameras captured Gorchene passing the station in Rambouillet several times on a scooter. They also captured him heading toward a Muslim prayer hall, but there were no images of him actually going inside. Ricard said police later found a Quran and Muslim prayer rug in Gorchene’s scooter.
Ricard said on Friday afternoon, Gorchene headed to the police station as his victim left the building. He appeared to have consulted the phone videos just before sprinting after the worker as she reentered the precinct. Witnesses said he cried Allahu Akbhar, or God is great, in Arabic, as he stabbed her in the abdomen and throat. Ricard says police shot Gorchene dead after Gorchene refused to put down his knife. Police officers secure the area where an attacker stabbed a female police worker, in Rambouillet, near Paris, France, April 23, 2021.Police have detained several people, including Gorchene’s father, two cousins and a couple who sheltered the 36-year-old assailant in another Paris-area town. The father told French investigators his son had adopted a rigorous form of Islam. Ricard said Gorchene also consulted psychiatric services at a hospital but didn’t appear to need treatment.
The prosecutor said Gorchene’s Facebook page appears to show a slow change from religious ideology to embracing violence. He said Gorchene registered support, for example, for the assailant who beheaded school teacher Samuel Paty in a Paris suburb last October after Paty showed his class cartoons of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad. Many Muslims consider the images blasphemous.
Ricard said France is working with investigators in Tunisia, where Gorchene returned to visit family near the coastal city of Sousse earlier this year. Ricard said Gorchene received French working papers last year as a delivery man but appeared to have lived illegally in France for a long period before that.
Authorities are looking for other possible suspects or accomplices in the killing.
Tunisia was among the biggest exporters of jihadists to places like Syria and Libya a few years ago. Tunisian authorities have condemned the Rambouillet attack.
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin unveils new legislation Wednesday to reinforce the fight against terrorism here. In an interview published Sunday, Darmanin called it France’s biggest threat, with 575 suspected radicals expelled from the country since 2017.
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Pakistan Offers Key Medical Supplies to India
Pakistan has offered to provide essential medical supplies to rival India, which is in the grip of a devastating nationwide coronavirus surge and struggling to meet critical hospital needs, including medical oxygen.The offer comes amid months of ongoing backchannel talks involving top intelligence officials of the nuclear-armed neighboring countries seeking to reduce tensions and normalize bilateral ties.“As a gesture of solidarity with the people of India in the wake of the current wave of COVID-19, Pakistan has offered to provide relief support to India,” said a Pakistani foreign ministry statement issued late on Saturday. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the coronavirus.The supplies include ventilators, personal protective equipment, digital X-ray machines and other related gear.There was no immediate response from India.Pakistan said that authorities of both countries can work out modalities for a quick delivery of the relief items and explore possible ways of further cooperation “to mitigate the challenges posed by the pandemic.”“This is a very generous and significant offer, not just because it’s offering to provide supplies to its enemy, but because Pakistan itself is facing a rapidly growing COVID surge,” tweeted Michael Kugelman, deputy Asia program director at the Wilson Center, a Washington-based research group.The offer came on the same day Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, in a tweet, prayed for the “speedy recovery” of Indians affected by the virus. “We must fight this global challenge confronting humanity together,” Khan said.I want to express our solidarity with the people of India as they battle a dangerous wave of COVID-19. Our prayers for a speedy recovery go to all those suffering from the pandemic in our neighbourhood & the world. We must fight this global challenge confronting humanity together
— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) FILE – A Pakistan Army soldier stands guard at a hilltop post near the Line of Control (LoC) in Charikot Sector, Kashmir, July 22, 2020.Indian and Pakistani mainstream newspapers have written extensively about the secret negotiations in recent days but officials on both sides have declined to confirm the process.“It is an opportune time for us to take a strategic pause,” Pakistan’s daily Dawn newspaper quoted an official as saying on Saturday. “We need a break from the cycle of violence and focus on domestic issues,” said the official. Kashmir is said to be the focus of the discussions. The Himalayan region is split between the two countries. Both claim all of it and have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir since India and Pakistan gained independence from Britain in 1947.“The path of dialogue will be bumpy, but if we stay the course we can reach our objectives,” the daily Dawn newspaper quoted a senior official as saying. Bilateral tensions have dangerously escalated since August 2019, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government revoked the semiautonomous status of India-administered majority-Muslim Kashmir and declared it a union territory.Pakistan denounced the move and quickly downgraded all ties with India, saying it would do so until the neighbor reversed its Kashmir-related actions. Islamabad said the Indian actions violated a longstanding United Nations resolution, which recognizes the region as a disputed territory.New Delhi rejected the objection as an interference in its internal affairs but the ensuing months witnessed intense deadly clashes between the Indian and Pakistani militaries along the de facto Kashmir border, known as the Line of Control (LOC).Sikh pilgrims return from Pakistan after celebrating the Baisakhi festival at India-Pakistan Wagah border, about 35 kms from Amritsar, April 22, 2021.Mutual tensions have gradually eased since February when Indian and Pakistani border commanders agreed to halt military skirmishes and reinstitute a 2002 LOC cease-fire, a move that reportedly stemmed from the backchannel negotiations.In back-to-back statements last month, Khan and Pakistan’s military chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, advocated a “stable” relationship with India. They both called for a peaceful settlement to the long-running Kashmir dispute. Bajwa stressed that “it is time to bury the past and move forward,” saying the rivalry between the two South Asian countries “is dragging the region back to the swamp of poverty and underdevelopment.”
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Chad’s Rising Tensions After Burial of Late President Idriss Deby
An uneasy calm pervades Chad’s capital N’Djamena since Friday’s funeral for President Idriss Deby, who ruled the central African country for more than 30 years. Civilians say handing over power to Deby’s 37-year-old son to lead a transitional military council for 18 months is undemocratic.Inoussa Labarang, 37, feeds his 27 chickens at his residence in Farcha, a neighborhood in Chad’s capital N’Djamena. Labarang says he expected to sell two chickens to raise money and buy millet to feed his family for at least three days. But no customer has come since the country’s long-serving President Idriss Deby was killed during a clash with rebels, he said. Fear has gripped the city. Labarang has a second job as a security guard for shop at night, where he earns $40 each month. The additional income helps him feed his wife and five children. From the little he earns, he gives his wife $10 to buy and sell groundnuts to generate more income. He is struggling, but he said his country should be wealthy. He believes the issue is with governance, pointing squarely at the leadership of the late President Deby, saying that he has given Chad’s wealth to an elite circle of family and friends. He is one of many in the country who believe that the transition and appointment of the late president’s son during this period is unconstitutional. Labarang supports opposition political parties and rebels who are asking the transitional military council created after Deby’s death to leave power. According to Chad’s Constitution, the speaker of the parliament must take over when a sitting president dies before elections can be held, he said. Before he was killed, provisional results showed that Deby won re-election for a sixth term in office. On April 20, the day of Deby’s death, Chad’s military announced on state media the creation of an 18-month transitional military council led by General Mahamat Idriss Deby, the 37-year-old son of the late president. Chad’s Interim President Faces Power StruggleRebels and opposition challenge General Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, 37, who has taken control after the death of his father, longtime President Idriss Deby ItnoA rebel force known as the Front for Change and Concord in Chad or FACT, released a statement vowing to take the capital and depose the 37-year-old. Following threats from rebels and the opposition, the transitional military council deployed troops to protect N’Djamena, activist Fundjoul Abdoul of Chad’s Rights Watch said. The transitional military council, Abdoul said, also declared a curfew in N’Djamena and is restricting movement of people in the city of over a million people. “There is total confusion in the whole country. There is a lot of uncertainty,” he said. “People are afraid to go out and the town has been virtually militarized. Chad does not know what future is being reserved for them. The opposition is not yet satisfied. The rebels too are threatening, so there is fear.” Chad’s state radio and TV have been broadcasting messages from Mahamat Idriss Deby calling for peace. In the message the new leader says he is open to dialogue.He says he is very thankful for the support a majority of Chadians and friendly nations, especially France, have given his family since President Idriss Deby’s death. He says his father worked tirelessly for peace, reconciliation and the unity of Chad.
Idriss Deby always encouraged dialogue, he said, as a solution to all forms of crisis. He says with the support of Idriss Deby’s family and the Chadian people, he will continue to defend his father’s ideology that is loved by most Chadians. Deby was a key ally of France in the fight against jihadist groups across West Africa including Boko Haram, which has destabilized the parts of Chad, Cameroon, Nigeria and Niger. French President Emmanuel Macron and the son of the late Chadian president Idriss Deby, general Mahamat Idriss Deby, attend the state funeral for the late Chadian president Idriss Deby in N’Djamena, Apr. 23, 2021.French President Emmanuel Macron who visited N’Djamena to attend Deby’s funeral said his country will not allow Chad to become destabilized. Chad’s civil society groups plan to hold a public demonstration Tuesday, demanding the dissolution of the transitional military council. In a statement, Max Loalngar, one of the leaders of a civil society coalition called Coordination of Citizen Actions, accused France and regional allies of undemocratically backing the fallen president’s son to take power. The group said Chad is not a monarchy.
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Albania Holds 10th Parliamentary Election After Fall of Communist Government
Voters in Albania cast ballots in parliamentary elections on Sunday after a bitter campaign by the two main political parties amid the coronavirus pandemic.More than 1,800 candidates who represent 12 political parties as well as electoral coalitions and independents, were competing for the 140 seats parliament.Prime Minister Edi Rama’s Socialist Party is seeking a third term while the opposition Democratic Party of Lulzim Basha is seeking a return to power. The vote at about 5,200 polling stations was being watched closely by observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Council of Europe, and many embassies in Albania.“We hope that every Albanian citizen goes and votes, free of fear, free of interference,” U.S. Ambassador Yuri Kim said at a polling station in the northern city of Shkodra. “This is your day,” Kim said.Albanian President Ilir Meta, who cast his ballot shortly after voting began, called on his people to go out and vote not only to exercise their constitutional right, but also to do so as a patriotic act.“The whole world has its eyes on Albania,” Meta said, adding, “Only the good progress of this process means that the Europe Union will open the road for Albania’s membership.”Although in a politicly neutral role as president, Meta has recently accused the Rama government of concentrating the legislative, administrative and judicial powers in his hands, while running a “kleptocratic regime” that has delayed Albania’s membership in EU.The results are not expected until Tuesday.
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Latest Mediterranean Migrants Tragedy a Time for Shame, Pope says
Pope Francis said on Sunday that “now is the time for shame” after 130 migrants were feared dead in the Mediterranean and a U.N. organization accused states of not responding to distress calls. Merchant vessels and a charity ship searching the Mediterranean for boats with migrants found 10 bodies floating near a capsized rubber boat in international waters near Libya believed to have had 130 people on board, French humanitarian organization SOS Mediterranee said on Friday. “I confess to you that I am very pained over yet another tragedy in the Mediterranean,” Francis said to hundreds of people in St. Peter’s Square for his weekly blessing. “They are people. They are human lives who for two entire days begged in vain for help, a help that never arrived. Brothers and sisters, let us all question ourselves over this, yet another tragedy. Now is the time for shame,” he said. The civilian hotline Alarm Phone had reported three boats were in distress on Wednesday, prompting SOS Mediterranee to launch a search. Safa Msehli, a spokesperson for the U.N. International Organization for Migration (IOM), said on Friday that “states stood defiant and refused to act to save the lives of more than 100 people.” The pope asked for prayers for all migrants who die at sea as well as for “those who can help but prefer to look the other way. Let us pay in silence for them.” Libya, divided by civil conflict for years, is a major route for migrants seeking to reach Europe. The IOM said the latest deaths would bring the tally for the central Mediterranean route to close to 500 people this year, more than triple the toll for the same period of 2020.
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Modi: COVID-19 Has ‘Shaken’ India
COVID-19 has “shaken” India, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in his monthly radio address Sunday.349,691 new COVID cases had been recorded in the previous 24-hour period, yet another daily record, the country’s health ministry said Sunday.The new infection figures are likely undercounted, public health officials have warned. A recent account in The New York Times said, “however staggering” the reports are from the ministry of a string of days with more than 300,000 new infections, the numbers “represent just a fraction of the real reach of the virus’s spread.”The U.S. is under pressure from the international community to release some of its warehoused COVID vaccines to India and other countries that need the shots.In addition to hundreds of thousands of new daily COVID cases, India is also experiencing an oxygen shortage, literally leaving COVID patients gasping for air.The Biden administration’s top medical adviser on the pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said Friday the U.S. is attempting to help India contain its coronavirus surge by providing technical support and assistance.Phnom Penh closed its markets Saturday. The Cambodian capital went into lockdown April 15, but markets remained open. High infection rates at the markets, however, prompted the local government to issue shutdown orders Friday for the markets. The snap move went into effect Saturday, catching many residents off guard, causing them to plead with the government for food. The market lockdown is in effect until May 7.According to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, Cambodia has one of the world’s lowest COVID infection rates with 9,359 cases.The governor of the U.S. state of New York announced Saturday the state would immediately resume vaccinating residents with the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, despite evidence that it is linked to rare cases of blood clots.New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo made the announcement in a statement one day after a U.S. health panel recommended ending a pause on the use of the vaccine.“World-renowned public health experts from the federal government and our own independent state task force have reviewed the data and reaffirmed that the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine can resume,” Cuomo said. “The state of New York will resume administration of this vaccine at all of our state-run sites effective immediately.”Advisers to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday that use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine should be resumed in the U.S. after regulators had paused it last week to review reports of rare but severe blood clots in a handful of Americans who had received the shot.The panel voted 10-4 for resumption of the vaccine, arguing that benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risks.The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported early Sunday there were more than 146 million global COVID-19 infections. The U.S. remains at the top of the list as the country with the most infections, with more than 32 million. India is second on the list with almost 17 million cases, followed by Brazil with 14.3 million.
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India Coronavirus Cases Set New Global Record, US Readies Help
India set a new global record of the most number of coronavirus infections in a day, as the United States said it was racing to send help to the country.India’s number of cases surged by 349,691 in the past 24 hours, the fourth straight day of record peaks, and hospitals in Delhi and across the country are turning away patients after running out of medical oxygen and beds.“Our hearts go out to the Indian people in the midst of the horrific COVID-19 outbreak. We are working closely with our partners in the Indian government, and we will rapidly deploy additional support to the people of India and India’s health care heroes,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Twitter.The United States has faced criticism in India for its export controls on raw materials for vaccines put in place via the Defense Production Act and an associated export embargo in February.The Serum Institute of India (SII), the world’s biggest vaccine maker, this month urged U.S. President Joe Biden to lift the embargo on U.S. exports of raw materials that is hurting its production of AstraZeneca shots.Others such as U.S. Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi urged the Biden administration to release unused vaccines to India.“When people in India and elsewhere desperately need help, we can’t let vaccines sit in a warehouse, we need to get them where they’ll save lives,” he said.India’s total tally of infections stands at 16.96 million and deaths 192,311 after 2,767 more died overnight, health ministry data showed.In the last month alone, daily cases have gone up eight times and deaths by ten times. Health experts say the death count is probably far higher.People were arranging stretchers and oxygen cylinders outside hospitals as they desperately pleaded for authorities to take patients in, Reuters photographers said.“Every day, it the same situation, we are left with two hours of oxygen, we only get assurances from the authorities,” one doctor said on television.The surge is expected to peak in mid-May with the daily count of infections reaching half a million, the Indian Express said citing an internal government assessment.V.K. Paul, a COVID-task force leader, made the presentation during a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and state chief ministers and said that the health infrastructure in heavily populated states is not adequate enough to cope, according to the newspaper.Paul did not respond to a Reuters request for comment. Experts said India became complacent in the winter, when new cases were running at about 10,000 a day and seemed to be under control. Authorities lifted restrictions, allowing for the resumption of big gatherings.
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From Scarcity to Abundance: US Faces Calls to Share Vaccines
Victor Guevara knows people his age have been vaccinated against COVID-19 in many countries. His own relatives in Houston have been inoculated.But the 72-year-old Honduran lawyer, like so many others in his country, is still waiting. And increasingly, he is wondering why the United States is not doing more to help, particularly as the American vaccine supply begins to outpace demand and doses that have been approved for use elsewhere in the world, but not in the U.S., sit idle.“We live in a state of defenselessness on every level,” Guevara said of the situation in his Central American homeland.Honduras has obtained a paltry 59,000 vaccine doses for its 10 million people. Similar gaps in vaccine access are found across Africa, where just 36 million doses have been acquired for the continent’s 1.3 billion people, as well as in parts of Asia.In the United States, more than one-fourth of the population — nearly 90 million people — has been fully vaccinated and supplies are so robust that some states are turning down planned shipments from the federal government.This stark access gap is prompting increased calls across the world for the U.S. to start shipping vaccine supplies to poorer countries. That is creating an early test for President Joe Biden, who has pledged to restore American leadership on the world stage and prove to wary nations that the U.S. is a reliable partner after years of retrenchment during the Trump administration.J. Stephen Morrison, senior vice president and director of the Global Health Policy Center at the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington, said that as the U.S. moves from vaccine scarcity to abundance, it has an opportunity to “shape the outcomes dramatically in this next phase because of the assets we have.”Biden, who took office in January as the virus was raging in the U.S., has responded cautiously to calls for help from abroad.He has focused the bulk of his administration’s vaccinations efforts at home. He kept in place an agreement struck by the Trump administration requiring drugmakers that got U.S. aid in developing or expanding vaccine manufacturing to sell their first doses produced in the country to the U.S. government. The U.S. has also used the Defense Production Act to secure vital supplies for the production of vaccine, a move that has blocked the export of some supplies outside the country.White House aides have argued that Biden’s cautious approach to promises around vaccine supply and delivery was validated in the wake of manufacturing issues with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and the subsequent safety “pause” to investigate a handful of reported blood clots. In addition, officials say they need to maintain reserves in the U.S. to vaccinate teenagers and younger children once safety studies for those age groups are completed and if booster shots should be required later.The White House is aware that the rest of the world is watching. Last month, the U.S. shared 4 million vaccine doses with neighboring Canada and Mexico, and this past week, Biden said those countries would be targets for additional supplies. He also said countries in Central America could receive U.S. vaccination help, though officials have not detailed any specific plans.The lack of U.S. vaccine assistance around the world has created an opportunity for China and Russia, which have promised millions of doses of domestically produced shots to other countries, though there have been production delays that have hampered the delivery of some supplies. China’s foreign minister Wang Yi said this month that China opposes “vaccine nationalism” and that vaccines should become a global public good.Norma Gonzalez, 68, waits for results after she was tested for the COVID-19 virus, in a Red Cross laboratory in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, April 23, 2021.Professor Willem Hanekom, director of the Africa Health Research Institute and a vaccinologist, said wealthy countries have a stake in the success of vaccination efforts in other corners of the world.“Beyond the moral obligation, the problem is that if there is not going to be control of the epidemic globally, this may ultimately backfire for these rich countries, if in areas where vaccines are not available variants emerge against which the vaccines might not work,” Hanekom said.The U.S. has also faced criticism that it is not only hoarding its own stockpiles, but also blocking other countries from accessing vaccines, including through its use of the law that gives Washington broad authority to direct private companies to meet the needs of the national defense.Adar Poonawalla, chief executive of the Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest maker of vaccines and a critical supplier of the U.N.-backed COVAX facility, asked Biden on Twitter on April 16 to lift the U.S. embargo on exporting raw materials needed to make the jabs.India is battling the world’s fastest pace of spreading infections. Its government has blocked vaccine exports for several months to better meet needs at home, exacerbating the difficulty of poor countries to access vaccine.The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ 2020 annual report also raised eyebrows for a section titled “Combatting malign influences in the Americas,” which said the U.S. had convinced Brazil to not buy the Russian shot.The U.S. Embassy denied exerting any pressure regarding vaccines approved by Brazil’s health regulator, which has not yet signed off on Sputnik V. Since March 13, Brazil has been trying to negotiate supply of U.S. surplus vaccines for itself, according to the foreign ministry.There are also concerns that the U.S. might link vaccine sharing to other diplomatic efforts. Washington’s loan of 2.7 million doses of AstraZeneca’s shots to Mexico last month came on the same day Mexico announced it was restricting crossings at its southern border, an effort that could help decrease the number of migrants seeking entry into the United States.A retired doctor from the public health system stands in a line as he waits to be inoculated with the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine, as part of a vaccination campaign in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, April 23, 2021.Those sort of parallel tracks of diplomacy will be closely watched as the Biden administration decides with whom to share its surplus vaccine, particularly in Central America, home to many countries where migrant families and unaccompanied children are trying to make their way to the U.S.“What we would hope to avoid is any perception that increased access to lifesaving vaccines in Central America is in exchange for increased tightening of border security,” said Maureen Meyer, vice president for programs at the Washington Office on Latin America.As the wait for vaccines continues in Honduras, desperation is growing.Last week, a private business group announced it would try to buy 1.5 million vaccine doses to help government efforts, though it was unclear how it might obtain them. In March, authorities in Mexico seized 5,700 doses of purported Russian vaccines found in false bottoms of ice chests aboard a private plane bound for Honduras. The company owner who chartered the plane said he was trying to obtain vaccines for his employees and their families. The vaccine’s Russian distributor said the vaccines were fake.Lilian Tilbeth Hernández Banegas, 46, was infected with COVID-19 in late November and spent 13 days in a Tegucigalpa hospital. The first days she struggled to breathe and thought she would die.The experience has made the mother of three more anxious about the virus and more diligent about avoiding it. The pandemic rocked her family’s finances. Her husband sells used cars but has not made a sale in more than four months.“I want to vaccinate myself, my family to be vaccinated, because my husband and my children go out to work, but it’s frustrating that the vaccines don’t arrive,” Hernández said.There is plenty of blame to go around, said Marco Tulio Medina, coordinator of the COVID-19 committee at the National Autonomous University of Honduras, noting his own government’s lackadaisical approach and the ferocity of the vaccine marketplace. But the wealthy can do more.“There’s a lack of humanism on the part of the rich countries,” he said. “They’re acting in an egotistical way, thinking of themselves and not of the world.”
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Soccer-English Leagues Announce Social Media Boycott in Stand Against Online Racism
England’s football authorities have joined forces to announce a social media boycott next weekend in response to continued online racist abuse of players.The boycott will take place across a full fixture program in the men’s and women’s professional game from 3 p.m. local time (1400 GMT) on Friday to 11.59 p.m. on May 3.Clubs across the Premier League, English Football League, Women’s Super League and Women’s Championship will switch off their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts to emphasize that social media companies must do more to eradicate online hate.“Racist behavior of any form is unacceptable and the appalling abuse we are seeing players receive on social media platforms cannot be allowed to continue,” Premier League CEO Richard Masters said in a statement.“The Premier League and our clubs stand alongside football in staging this boycott to highlight the urgent need for social media companies to do more in eliminating racial hatred.“We will not stop challenging social media companies and want to see significant improvements in their policies and processes to tackle online discriminatory abuse on their platforms.”A host of players at Premier League clubs have been targeted in the past few months, including Manchester United’s Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford, Liverpool’s Trent-Alexander Arnold and Sadio Mane, and Chelsea’s Reece James.Championship (second tier) sides Birmingham City and Swansea City and Scottish champions Rangers recently held weeklong boycotts following a spate of racial attacks on their players.Former Arsenal striker Thierry Henry said last month he was removing himself from social media because of racism and bullying, while Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson has handed over control of his accounts to an anti-cyberbullying charity.In February, English football bodies sent an open letter to Facebook and Twitter, urging blocking and swift takedowns of offensive posts, as well as an improved verification process for users.Facebook-owned Instagram has announced new measures and Twitter vowed to continue its efforts after acting on more than 700 cases of abuse related to soccer in Britain in 2019.
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UEFA President: Ban Against Super League Teams Still on the Table
UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin has refused to rule out a ban from next season’s Champions League for all 12 clubs involved in trying to set up a breakaway European Super League.But Ceferin also told Britain’s Mail on Sunday that the six English clubs — Chelsea, Manchester City, Arsenal, Tottenham, Liverpool and Manchester United — deserve greater leniency as they were the first to back out.He said their stance was in contrast to that of Real Madrid, Barcelona and Juventus, ridiculed by Ceferin as “the ones who feel that Earth is flat and… think the Super League still exists.”In the space of 48 hours beginning last Sunday, UEFA, aided by fans and politicians, quelled a mutiny by English, Spanish and Italian clubs attempting to form a quasi-closed tournament designed to supplant the existing Champions League.Nine clubs, including all six in England, subsequently withdrew.But Ceferin, who thanked British Prime Minister Boris Johnson for his opposition to the Super League, said disciplinary action remained an option for UEFA, European football’s governing body.”Everyone has to take consequences for what they did and we cannot pretend nothing happened,” he warned.However, the Slovenian lawyer, elected UEFA president in 2016, added: “But for me it’s a clear difference between the English clubs and the other six. They pulled out first, they admitted they made a mistake. You have to have some greatness to say: ‘I was wrong.'””But everyone will be held responsible. In what way, we will see,” he said.The irony is that UEFA were on the brink of enacting changes that would have entrenched the position of many of the established Champions League powers behind the Super League.But Ceferin said he was open to dropping the two extra Champions League spots in an expanded competition that were meant to be reserved for clubs based on their historic record.
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Ukraine: YouTube Blocks Access to Ukrainian TV Channels Tied to Kremlin Ally
Three Ukrainian television channels linked to an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin were blocked from broadcasting on Google’s YouTube on Saturday, the Ukrainian government said, following its request to YouTube to have the channels taken down.The YouTube channels of ZiK, 112 Ukraine and NewsOne did not play their content and instead showed a blank screen with a message saying the channel was not available.”We are pleased such an influential American company is willing to cooperate when it concerns issues of Ukrainian national security and Russian disinformation,” Ukraine’s embassy to Washington said in a tweet.YouTube did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment.The move comes after weeks of tensions between Kyiv and Moscow over the conflict in eastern Ukraine and a Russian troop buildup on Ukraine’s borders that had alarmed Ukraine’s Western backers and the NATO military alliance.Russia said it began withdrawing its troops on Friday.Backed by the United States, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s government blocked the three channels from airing on Ukrainian television in February, accusing them of being instruments of Russian propaganda and partly financed by Russia.The government also asked YouTube to shut down the channels on its platform.The listed owner of the channels is Taras Kozak, a lawmaker from the Opposition Platform — For Life party.Kozak is an associate of Viktor Medvedchuk, a prominent opposition figure who says Putin is godfather to his daughter. The Kremlin has said its contacts with Medvedchuk represent Russia’s efforts to maintain ties with “the Russian world.”Medvedchuk and Kozak did not respond to requests for comment, but Kozak and Medvedchuk have both previously described the crackdown on the channels as illegal.Medvedchuk earlier this year told Reuters the clampdown was designed to silence criticism of Zelenskiy’s political blunders, saying Zelenskiy was “infuriated” by what the TV channels reported.Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko on Saturday thanked YouTube for the ban, calling the channels “part of Russia’s propaganda war against Ukraine.”
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Jihadists Kill at Least 11 in Northeast Nigeria Attack
At least 11 civilians were killed when IS-aligned jihadists invaded a town in northeast Nigerian Yobe state, an official and residents told AFP on Saturday.Fighters from the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) in eight trucks fitted with machine guns stormed the town of Geidam as residents were preparing to break their Ramadan fast on Friday, leading to a gunfight with troops from a nearby base.”We lost 11 people in the terrorist invasion and the gunmen are still in the town,” Ali Kolo Kachalla, Geidam political administrator, said.”Our people are trapped in the town and soldiers have been prevented from leaving,” Kachalla said by phone from the state capital Damaturu.The victims were killed when a projectile hit two adjoining homes in the Samunaka neighborhood of the town during the fighting between troops and the militants, residents said.”A projectile fell on the two houses, killing all the 11 occupants, six from one house and five from the other,” said resident Babagana Kyari.The militants destroyed telecom masts in the town, save a few from a mobile carrier, making communications limited.”The insurgents looted provision stores before setting them on fire,” said resident Ari Sanda, adding the fighters seized a military armored vehicle and destroyed three trucks.Soon after they entered the town on Friday, a fighter jet deployed and engaged the militants who hid among the civilian population to evade aerial attack, the sources said.On Saturday the jihadists came out of hiding and were joined by more of their comrades who arrived in the town in trucks, the residents said.”They are still in the town, they are camping under trees, with some of them sleeping,” said Kyari.Despite assurances they would not harm civilians, residents remained indoors while some tried to flee.Troops have blocked the road out of town, preventing panicked residents from leaving, prompting some to trek into the bush while others took boats to the other side the river to escape, said residents.”Our people want to leave town, but soldiers are preventing them without chasing the insurgents out, leaving our people in danger,” Kachalla said.Geidam, around 130 kilometers from Damaturu, has been repeatedly raided by the jihadists, including the military base where they killed troops and carted away weapons.The jihadist conflict which started in 2009 has killed 36,000 people and displaced around two million from their homes in the northeast, according to the U.N.
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Armenians Mark Anniversary of Ottoman-era Genocide in Middle East, Yerevan
Armenians in the Middle East, in modern-day Armenia and in other parts of the world on Saturday marked the 106th anniversary of the beginning of what historians call the Armenian genocide.Hundreds gathered at the Armenian Patriarchate north of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, for the observance. The head of the Armenian Orthodox Church of Cilicia, Aram I, delivered a eulogy for the victims. Paul Haidostian, president of Haigazian University in Beirut, told VOA he attended the three-hour memorial service, in which the patriarch expressed his thanks to U.S. President Joe Biden for recognizing the mass killings of Armenians as genocide.Historians say an estimated 1.5 million Armenians died at the hands of the Ottoman Empire — the predecessor to modern-day Turkey — between 1915 and 1923.The genocide, said Haidostian, officially began with the arrests of leading Armenian political figures and intellectuals in the Ottoman capital, Constantinople, in 1915.”The reason they mention April 24 [is] symbolic, in a way, because in Constantinople a few hundred leaders and politicians — Armenian leaders and intellectuals — were arrested and deported and killed, and then it was followed by systematic attacks all over the country,” he said.Country’s character changedHaidostian added that “the end result was that Armenians were either killed or kicked out of their historic lands … basically changing the character of eastern Turkey and Anatolia … and leaving a very different country with a totally different people.”The large Armenian community in Aleppo, Syria, commemorated the mass killings, while a marching band paraded through the streets of the city and waved burning torches as dusk fell over the region. Armenians also marked the event in the Syrian capital, Damascus, and the mostly Armenian town of Kessab, near the Turkish border.People line up to lay flowers at the monument to the victims of mass killings by Ottoman Turks, to commemorate the 106th anniversary of the massacre, in Yerevan, Armenia, April 24, 2021.Demetrios Orologas, a Greek writer living in the Armenian capital, Yerevan, told VOA that Armenians paid tribute at the genocide memorial, laying wreaths and playing music to honor the victims.Parts of Orologas’ own Greek family were also expelled from the formerly Greek city of Smyrna, which Kemal Ataturk, a military leader who became the founder and first president of the Republic of Turkey, burned in 1923. Orologas’ mother and her family were forced into exile in Greece after the calamity.”Not only the event was terrible, but also the wars that came after … [my family] became refugees, they became outcasts, they lost their homes, they lost their fortunes and they lived for years under a regime that was not friendly to them,” he said.Biden officially recognized the Ottoman-era Armenian genocide in a statement Saturday, 106 years to the day after the first Armenians were killed.
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Kazakhs Rally in Almaty Against Changes to Land Ownership
About 200 protesters gathered Saturday in Almaty for an unsanctioned rally to oppose a draft law on land ownership that they said posed a threat to Kazakh sovereignty and national security.Rallies were planned in other cities, too, but many of the organizers abandoned the protests after authorities blocked permits to gather, citing COVID-19 risks.The Kazakh parliament’s lower chamber, the Mazhilis, earlier this month approved the first reading of a bill banning the purchase and rental of farmland by foreigners in the Central Asian nation ahead of the expiration of a moratorium on land sales this summer.The five-year moratorium was introduced in 2016 after thousands demonstrated in unprecedented rallies across the tightly controlled nation, protesting the government’s plan to attract foreign investment into the agriculture sector by opening up the market.Agriculture Minister Saparkhan Omarov said at a session of parliament on April 7 that current agreements on farmland rented by some foreign companies or joint ventures with foreign capital would expire in the 2022-25 period and would not be extended. The move came after President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev proposed the ban in late February.The protests stopped after the government withdrew the plan, but two men who organized the largest rally in the western city of Atyrau, Talghat Ayan and Maks Boqaev, were sentenced to five years in prison each after being found guilty of inciting social discord, knowingly spreading false information and violating the law on public assembly.
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