The family of an American investor of Somali origin whose body was found with torture wounds days after he went missing in Nairobi wants Kenya’s director of public prosecutions to run a separate investigation from one being done by police.In a letter sent through their lawyer, relatives of Bashir Mohamed Mohamud, 36, question the behavior of police after Mohamud disappeared in an apparent abduction.The family questioned the time it took police to ask them to positively identify Mohamud when he had been identified days before they were notified. In the letter delivered to the DPP’s office this week, they asked why the shell of Mohamud’s burned Range Rover was taken away within minutes after the vehicle was linked to him.The family delivered the letter even as local media published stories quoting unnamed sources without evidence insinuating that Mohamud was funding extremism through money transfers made by his construction company, Infinity Development Limited.Human rights defenders in Kenya have previously illustrated how police linked slaying victims to extremism or robberies to explain unsolved killings.Wilfred Ollal, the coordinator of a network of community-based social justice centers in Kenya, said people disappear every week before their bodies are found in the countryside, while others are never found.The killings and forced disappearances are rampant in low-income areas of the capital, but nobody is immune, he said.”Our interventions save some, but the bodies of others are found in rivers,” Ollal said Saturday.Police, without producing any evidence, attempt to explain such killings on social media pages associated with the force by saying the person killed was a criminal who would have bribed his way to freedom, if arrested and prosecuted. Both claims have been proven false by the media and human rights activists. According to rights group Missing Persons, Kenyan police killed 157 people in 2020 and 10 people disappeared without a trace after being arrested.According to Mohamud’s family and police, he was abducted on May 13 by unknown assailants as he drove from a mall in Nairobi’s wealthy Lavington neighborhood. The family reported him missing three days later, and police reported finding his body the same day in Kerugoya, a town 127 kilometers (78.91 miles) north of the city.Relatives question why they were not informed until May 22, when police had identified the body as Mohamud’s by at least May 18.An autopsy carried out by Kenya’s chief government pathologist revealed that Mohamud had been strangled. The autopsy report said the body showed signs of torture that included blunt head trauma and burn marks, suspected to have been caused by a vehicle’s cigarette lighter.
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Month: May 2021
British Prime Minister Weds Fiancee in Secret, Reports Say
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson married his fiancee, Carrie Symonds, in a secret ceremony at Westminster Cathedral on Saturday, The Sun and Mail on Sunday newspapers reported.A spokeswoman for Johnson’s Downing Street office declined to comment on the reports.Both newspapers said that guests were invited at the last minute to the central London ceremony, and that even senior members of Johnson’s office were unaware of the wedding plans.Weddings in England are currently limited to 30 people because of COVID-19 restrictions.The Catholic cathedral was suddenly locked down at 1:30 p.m. (1230 GMT) and Symonds, 33, arrived 30 minutes later in a limo, in a long white dress with no veil, both reports said.Johnson, 56, and Symonds, 33, have been living together in Downing Street since Johnson became prime minister in 2019.Last year they announced they were engaged and that they were expecting a child, and their son, Wilfred Lawrie Nicholas Johnson, was born in April 2020.Earlier this month the Sun had reported that wedding invitations had been sent to friends and family for July 2022.Johnson has a complicated private life. He was once sacked from the Conservative Party’s policy team while in opposition for lying about an extramarital affair. He has been divorced twice and refuses to say how many children he has fathered.Johnson’s last marriage was to Marina Wheeler, a lawyer. They had four children together but announced in September 2018 that they had separated.
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France Reports Drop in COVID Hospitalizations
France reported Saturday that the number of people in intensive care units with COVID-19 had fallen by 76 to 3,028, while the overall number of people in hospital with the disease had fallen by 425 to 16,847.Both numbers have been on a downward trend in recent weeks.While reporting 10,675 new cases, the health ministry also announced 68 new coronavirus deaths in hospitals and said there had been 487,309 COVID-19 vaccine injections over the past 24 hours.
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DR Congo Eruption ‘False Alarm’ as Humanitarian Crisis Mounts
DR Congo’s government mistakenly announced Saturday that another volcano had erupted, later admitting it was a false alarm, with the scare coming a week after Mount Nyiragongo roared back into life, causing devastation and sparking a mass exodus.The blunder comes as the government is increasingly being criticized for a looming humanitarian crisis, with about 400,000 residents having evacuated the eastern city of Goma after a week of rolling aftershocks.More suffering briefly seemed imminent when the government said that Murara volcano, considered to be a crater of Mount Nyamuragira just 25 kilometers (15 miles) north of Goma, had erupted Saturday morning.Goma, DRCAbout 80,000 households — 400,000 inhabitants — have moved out of the city since Thursday, when a “preventative” evacuation order was given.Goma was quiet Saturday, with a handful of vehicles on the semi-deserted streets and only some small shops open, an AFP journalist said.’I have nothing left’Around 3,000 people fleeing Goma sought refuge at a temporary camp in Rugerero, about 10 kilometers (six miles) over the Rwandan border.But Saturday, an estimated 1,200 had left to return to Goma, a Rwanda government official at Rugerero told AFP on condition of anonymity. Military trucks were seen transporting refugees to the border.William Byukusenge, a construction worker, told AFP that “if it erupts again, we will come back to Rwanda”.But another evacuee, Marie Claire Uwineza, said she had nowhere left to go.”My house was burned, and I have nothing left,” said the 39-year-old, who fled with two of her children.People carry their belongings as they evacuate from recurrent earth tremors as aftershocks after homes were covered with lava deposited by the eruption of Mount Nyiragongo near Goma, in the Democratic Republic of Congo May 25, 2021.Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi held a cabinet meeting Friday in which he called on the government to “redouble its efforts to better deal with the humanitarian situation”.Criticism has been growing over the government response after Thursday’s evacuation order was met with fear and traffic jams, many not knowing where to go.”The population had the impression of being abandoned to their sad fate,” said the newspaper EcoNews, calling it “a perfect illustration of the fact that the state does not exist”.”The state has decided to evacuate the population of Goma and Nyiragongo without giving any help,” citizen movement Lucha tweeted.Prime Minister Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde defended the government’s response, saying the event had “no similarity to previous eruptions in that it occurred without warning signs”.The mounting humanitarian crisis comes in a region that has been ravaged by violence for three decades. Access to drinkable water is particularly urgent, according to aid organizations in the area.”Sometimes it’s the war, now it’s the volcano,” a customs officers grumbled Saturday.
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UN: Nicaraguan Election Law Undermines Election Fairness
United Nations human rights officials warn a new electoral law passed by Nicaragua’s National Assembly early this month undermines prospects that November’s presidential and parliamentary elections will be free and fair. The consequences of the new law have been immediate. In recent weeks, Nicaraguan authorities have used the so-called reforms under the new law to dissolve two political parties. They also have initiated a criminal investigation of one of the country’s main presumptive presidential candidates, Cristiana Chamorro.Spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Marta Hurtado says the authorities are investigating Chamorro for alleged money laundering.”The investigation is based on the law against money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction adopted in July 2018,” Hurtado said. “This broadly worded law has raised general concerns that it may be used to silence dissent. The allegations against Ms. Chamorro include the supposed misuse of funds received from international sources.” President Daniel Ortega has been a major political force in the country since the Sandinista Party overthrew the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza in 1979. He has maintained an iron grip on power since his last reelection as president in 2006. His opponent in that race was then-President Violeta Chamorro, Cristiana Chamorro’s mother.Hurtado says the National Police also have intensified actions to restrict the movements of other opposition leaders. “Under these circumstances, the dissolution of political parties and the initiation of criminal investigations that could lead to the disqualification of opposition candidates, without due process, not only undermine the right to stand for election by aspiring candidates, but also the right of voters to elect the candidates of their choice,” Hurtado said. “The new electoral law is the latest in a series of measures adopted by the National Assembly that disproportionately restrict the right to freedom of expression by human rights defenders, journalists, political and social leaders.The U.N. human rights office is calling on the Nicaraguan Government to stop harassing members of the opposition and journalists. It also is urging the authorities to amend the electoral law, which it says impinges on human rights and threatens a democratic electoral process.
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Medics March to WHO Headquarters in Climate Campaign
Medics concerned about the effects on public health of environmental degradation marched Saturday on the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, demanding health authorities make climate change and biodiversity loss their top priorities.White-clad activists from the group Doctors for Extinction Rebellion marched from Geneva’s Place des Nations to WHO headquarters where they were met by Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus, and Maria Neira, director of environment, climate change and health.”The pandemic will end, but there is no vaccine for climate change,” Tedros said as he welcomed the activists outside the building. “We have to act now, in solidarity, to prevent and prepare before it is too late.”
Professor Valerie D’Acremont, an infectious disease specialist and co-founder of Doctors For Extinction Rebellion, called on the WHO “to be the driving force and guarantor of public policies that respect the health of all and preserve life.”
The activists handed Tedros a letter and a large hourglass, the symbol of Extinction Rebellion which wants to prompt a wider revolt to avert the worst scenarios of devastation outlined by scientists studying climate change.
Tedros later retweeted a message from the WHO stating both bodies were “standing in solidarity & urging global action” to end the climate crisis and protect health everywhere. “These are inextricably intertwined.”
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Roadside Bomb Kills Three University Teachers in Afghanistan, Police Say
A roadside bomb hit a bus carrying university staff in northern Afghanistan on Saturday, killing three teachers and wounding 15 others, police said Saturday.The incident took place in Charikar, the provincial capital of Parwan. The bus was carrying teachers from Al-Biruni university, according to a spokesman for the provincial police, Salim Noori.
Some of the wounded teachers were in critical condition, said Hamed Obaidi, a spokesman for the ministry of higher education.
No group claimed responsibility for the incident. Roadside bombs, small magnetic bombs attached under vehicles and other attacks have targeted members of security forces, judges, government officials, civil society activists and journalists in recent months in Afghanistan.
The government usually blames the Taliban for such attacks, but the insurgent group denies involvement. Violence has sharply increased since Washington announced plans last month to pull out all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan by September 11.
Three weeks ago, a bomb attack outside a school in the capital Kabul killed 68 people, most of them students, and wounded 165 others.
Nearly 1,800 Afghan civilians were killed or wounded in the first three months of 2021 during fighting between government forces and Taliban insurgents despite efforts to find peace, the United Nations said last month.
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Talks Between Russian, Belarusian Leaders Continue Into Second Day: TASS
Talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko in the southern Russian town of Sochi continued into a second day on Saturday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Lukashenko flew into Russia on Friday for talks with Putin amid an uproar in Europe over the grounding of a passenger plane in Minsk and the arrest of a dissident blogger.
“Discussion between the two presidents continue today,” Peskov was quoted as saying by TASS news agency.
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Second Volcano Erupts Near DR Congo’s Goma City: Govt
A second volcano erupted Saturday near the eastern DR Congo city of Goma, a week after Mount Nyiragongo roared back into life, causing devastation and sparking an exodus.”Today the Murara volcano near an uninhabited area of Virunga erupted,” government spokesman Patrick Muyaya said, referring to a wildlife reserve that is home to a quarter of the world’s population of critically endangered mountain gorillas.The eastern DR Congo city of Goma was eerily deserted after nearly 400,000 of its inhabitants fled following warnings that nearby Mount Nyiragongo volcano may erupt again.Goma, DRCThe wider Goma area has a population of around two million.The authorities arranged transport towards Sake, but the roads became choked with cars, trucks, buses and people seeking safety on foot.Many spent the night in the open or slept in schools or churches.Evacuee Eugene Kubugoo said the water was giving children diarrhea, adding: “We don’t have anything to eat or any place to sleep.”Tens of thousands had fled Goma last Saturday night but many returned when the eruption ended the following day.’Limnic’ riskFriday’s report, issued after experts carried out a risk assessment at the volcano’s summit, said “seismicity and ground deformation continues to indicate the presence of magma under the Goma area, with an extension under Lake Kivu.”People should remain vigilant and listen to news bulletins, as the situation “may change quickly”, it warned.People carry their belongings as they evacuate from recurrent earth tremors as aftershocks after homes were covered with lava deposited by the eruption of Mount Nyiragongo near Goma, in the Democratic Republic of Congo May 25, 2021.Volcanologists say the worst-case scenario is of an eruption under the lake.This could release hundreds of thousands of tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) that are currently dissolved in the water’s depths.The gas would rise to the surface of the lake, forming an invisible cloud that would linger at ground level and displace oxygen, asphyxiating life.In 1986, one of these so-called limnic eruptions killed more than 1,700 people and thousands of cattle at Lake Nyos in western Cameroon.Empty cityOn Friday, almost all the shops and banks in central Goma were closed, and just a handful of people and some motorcycle taxis were on the usually bustling streets.In the poorer districts in the north of the city, a handful of stores were open and there were more people, including children who gamboled near a water truck.”I will stay in the city. I know that I’m in imminent danger, but I don’t have a choice,” said Aline Uramahoro, who has a beer store.”I will leave when the volcano starts spitting.”Nearly 3,500 meters high, Nyiragongo straddles the East African Rift tectonic divide.Its last major eruption, in 2002, claimed around 100 lives and the deadliest eruption on record killed more than 600 people in 1977.Herman Paluku, who gave his age as 94, said he had seen them all — and insisted he wouldn’t budge this time.”There is a small hill near here which means that the lava does not reach us. And that’s what protects us a bit,” he said in Swahili, his hands sweeping the air.”I can never leave here, in this situation. I can’t.”
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Nearly 400,000 Flee DR Congo City Over Fears Volcano Could Erupt Again
The eastern DR Congo city of Goma was eerily deserted after nearly 400,000 of its inhabitants fled following warnings that nearby Mount Nyiragongo volcano may erupt again.The authorities geared up for a major humanitarian effort, centered on Sake, around 25 kilometers west of the city, where tens of thousands of people are gathered.Located on the shore of Lake Kivu in the shadow of Africa’s most active volcano, the city has lived in fear since Nyiragongo roared back into life last weekend.The strato-volcano spewed rivers of lava that claimed nearly three dozen lives and destroyed the homes of some 20,000 people before the eruption stopped.Scientists have since recorded hundreds of aftershocks.They warn of a potentially catastrophic scenario — a “limnic eruption” that could smother the area with suffocating carbon dioxide.A report on an emergency meeting early Friday said 80,000 households — around 400,000 inhabitants — had emptied on Thursday following a “preventative” evacuation order.Most people have headed for Sake or the Rwandan border in the northeast, while others have fled by boat across Lake Kivu.Late Friday, Rwandan President Paul Kagame said those fleeing needed “urgent, global support.”Aid efforts are being organized to provide drinking water, food and other supplies, and workers are helping to reunite children who became separated from their families.Nearly 10,000 people are taking refuge in Bukavu on the southern bank of Lake Kivu, according to Governor Theo Ngwabidje, many of them in host families.Quieter nightSeveral days of aftershocks, some of them equivalent to small earthquakes, yielded to a quieter night Thursday, and tremors eased both in numbers and intensity, an AFP journalist said.But late Friday afternoon black smoke could be seen rising from the crater on the horizon, causing worry.General Constant Ndima, the military governor of North Kivu province, ordered the evacuation of districts that potentially applies to nearly 400,000 out of Goma’s 600,000 residents, according to an estimate by the UN humanitarian agency OCHA.The wider Goma area has a population of around 2 million.The authorities arranged transport towards Sake, but the roads became choked with cars, trucks, buses and people seeking safety on foot.Many spent the night in the open or slept in schools or churches.Evacuee Eugene Kubugoo said the water was giving children diarrhea, adding: “We don’t have anything to eat or any place to sleep.”Tens of thousands had fled Goma last Saturday night but many returned when the eruption ended the following day.’Limnic’ riskFriday’s report, issued after experts carried out a risk assessment at the volcano’s summit, said “seismicity and ground deformation continues to indicate the presence of magma under the Goma area, with an extension under Lake Kivu.”People should remain vigilant and listen to news bulletins, as the situation “may change quickly,” it warned.Volcanologists say the worst-case scenario is of an eruption under the lake.This could release hundreds of thousands of tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) that are currently dissolved in the water’s depths.The gas would rise to the surface of the lake, forming an invisible cloud that would linger at ground level and displace oxygen, asphyxiating life.In 1986, one of these so-called limnic eruptions killed more than 1,700 people and thousands of cattle at Lake Nyos in western Cameroon.Empty cityOn Friday, almost all the shops and banks in central Goma were closed, and just a handful of people and some motorcycle taxis were on the usually bustling streets.In the poorer districts in the north of the city, a handful of stores were open and there were more people, including children who gamboled near a water truck.”I will stay in the city. I know that I’m in imminent danger, but I don’t have a choice,” said Aline Uramahoro, who has a beer store.”I will leave when the volcano starts spitting.”Nearly 3,500 meters high, Nyiragongo straddles the East African Rift tectonic divide.Its last major eruption, in 2002, claimed around 100 lives and the deadliest eruption on record killed more than 600 people in 1977.Herman Paluku, who gave his age as 94, said he had seen them all — and insisted he wouldn’t budge this time.”There is a small hill near here which means that the lava does not reach us. And that’s what protects us a bit,” he said in Swahili, his hands sweeping the air.”I can never leave here, in this situation. I can’t.”
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US Targets Belarus with Sanctions Amid Western Outcry Over Plane
The United States on Friday announced punitive measures against Belarus targeting the regime of strongman President Alexander Lukashenko, who met with Russian leader Vladimir Putin amid a global outcry over the forced diversion of a European plane.White House press secretary Jen Psaki called for “a credible international investigation into the events of May 23,” which she called “a direct affront to international norms.”Belarus scrambled a military jet to divert a Ryanair plane and arrested 26-year-old opposition blogger and activist Roman Protasevich who was onboard, triggering a global outcry.The White House announced it was working with the European Union on a list of targeted sanctions against key members of Lukashenko’s regime.Meanwhile, economic sanctions against nine Belarusian state-owned enterprises, reimposed by Washington in April following a crackdown on pro-democracy protests, will come into effect on June 3.Further U.S. moves on Belarus could target “those that support corruption, the abuse of human rights, and attacks on democracy,” Psaki said.The White House also issued a “Do Not Travel” warning for Belarus to U.S. citizens, and warned American passenger planes to “exercise extreme caution” if considering flying over Belarusian airspace.The European Union has also urged EU-based carriers to avoid Belarusian airspace.However, President Vladimir Putin celebrated Russia’s close ties with Belarus on Friday as he hosted Lukashenko in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.With observers closely watching the talks to see how far the Kremlin would go to support the regime, the Russian leader said he was “very glad” to see Lukashenko and agreed with him the Western reaction was an “outburst of emotion.”‘Rock the boat’Lukashenko complained the West was seeking to stir unrest in Belarus.”An attempt is underway to rock the boat to reach the level of last August,” he said, referring to anti-regime protests following a disputed election.”It’s clear what these Western friends want from us.”The Belarus strongman, who arrived with a briefcase, said he wanted to show Putin “some documents” related to the Ryanair incident and thanked him for his support in the latest standoff with the West.The talks lasted for more than five hours but their results were not announced.Over the past years Lukashenko has had a volatile relationship with Moscow, playing it off against the West and ruling out outright unification with Russia.But after the Ryanair plane incident his options appear to be limited.Putin and the Belarus leader have met regularly since August, when historic protests broke out against Lukashenko’s nearly three-decade rule.The 66-year-old waged a ruthless crackdown on his opponents and has leaned increasingly on the Russian president amid condemnation from the West.Several people died during the unrest in Belarus, thousands were detained, and hundreds reported torture in prison.Sunday’s plane diversion was a dramatic escalation, with EU leaders accusing Minsk of essentially hijacking a European flight to arrest Protasevich.Technical reasonsThe overflight ban has led to several cancellations of air journeys between Russia and Europe, after Russian authorities rejected planes that would have skipped Belarusian airspace.Russia insists the cancellations are purely “technical,” but they have raised concerns that Moscow could be systematically refusing to let European airlines land if they avoid Belarus.The Kremlin criticized the flight ban as politically motivated and dangerous, with foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova calling it “completely irresponsible.”EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the bloc was monitoring whether this was a broader policy from Russia, but Moscow insisted the disruptions were in no way political.Belarus authorities claimed to have received a bomb threat against the Ryanair flight from Athens to Vilnius carrying the dissident.Minsk said it demanded the flight land in the Belarus capital based on the message it said was sent from a ProtonMail address by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.Protasevich, who helped organize the demonstrations against Lukashenko’s rule last year, was arrested along with Russian girlfriend Sofia Sapega, 23, after the plane landed in the city.’Braver’Borrell has said proposals are “on the table” to target key sectors of the Belarusian economy including its oil products and potash sectors.Belarus opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya on Friday urged the EU to be “braver” and impose more sanctions against the Minsk regime.After meeting Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte in The Hague, Tikhanovskaya said measures being discussed by EU countries did not go far enough.EU chief Ursula von der Leyen on Friday warned Lukashenko that “it is time to change course.””No amount of repression, brutality or coercion will bring any legitimacy to your authoritarian regime,” she said.The European Commission president also wrote to the opposition offering a 3-billion-euro package to support “a democratic Belarus” if Lukashenko steps down.
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Colombia’s Duque Says He’s Deploying Military to Protest-hit Cali
Colombian President Ivan Duque announced Friday he was deploying military troops to Cali, at the epicenter of bloody anti-government protests across the country that have left dozens dead over the past month.”Starting tonight, the maximum deployment of military assistance to the national police in the city of Cali begins,” Duque announced after chairing a security meeting in the city of 2.2 million people.Three people died Friday during the protests in Cali, authorities said, the latest fatalities in weeks of unrest.The new toll brings to 49 the deaths officially reported to date, two of them police officers. Human Rights Watch puts the tally at 63.The latest deaths occurred in clashes between “those blocking and those trying to get through” a barricade, Cali’s Mayor Jorge Ivan Ospina said in a video posted to social media.Video footage showed a man lying in a pool of blood and another nearby wielding a gun, who was then attacked by a group of people.Ospina regretted what he described as an “insane situation of death and pain.””We cannot allow these circumstances to keep happening in Cali,” he said. “We must not fall into the temptation of violence and death,” he added.Colombians first took to the streets on April 28 against a proposed tax increase many said would leave them poorer even as the coronavirus pandemic was erasing jobs and eating into savings.Though the reform was quickly withdrawn, it triggered a broad anti-government mobilization by people who felt they were left to fend for themselves in the health crisis, and angry over the heavy-handed response of the security forces.The police clampdown has provoked international condemnation.A family sits in their car at a roadblock set up by anti-government protesters in Madrid, on the outskirts of Bogota, Colombia, May 28, 2021.U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Colombia’s Vice President Marta Lucia Ramirez in Washington on Friday.The U.S. diplomat “expressed his concern and condolences for the loss of life during recent protests in Colombia and reiterated the unquestionable right of citizens to protest peacefully,” according to spokesperson Ned Price.Blinken also “welcomed the national dialogue President (Ivan) Duque has convened as an opportunity for the Colombian people to work together to construct a peaceful, prosperous future.”Two weeks of negotiations to end the unrest have yet to bear fruit.In order to move forward, protest leaders insist the government must acknowledge abuses by the armed forces.But Bogota, while conceding individual bad apples, claims leftist guerrillas and dissident FARC fighters have infiltrated the demonstrations to foment violence and vandalism.On Monday, the White House had urged Colombia to find more than 100 people reported missing as a result of the unrest.Some 2,000 people have been reported injured.
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Virus Fails to Deter Hundreds of Climbers on Mount Everest
A year after Mount Everest was closed to climbers as the pandemic swept across the globe, hundreds are making the final push to the summit with only a few more days left in the season, saying they are undeterred by a coronavirus outbreak in base camp.Three expedition teams to Everest canceled their climb this month following reports of people getting sick. But the remaining 41 teams decided to continue with hundreds of climbers and their guides scaling the 8,849-meter top in the season that ends in May, before bad weather sets in.”Even though the coronavirus has reached the Everest base camp, it has not made any huge effect like what is being believed outside of the mountain,” said Mingma Sherpa of Seven Summit Treks, the biggest expedition operator on Everest. “No one has really fallen seriously sick because of COVID or died like the rumors that have been spreading.”With 122 clients from 10 teams on Everest, the company led the biggest group but there were no serious illnesses among them, he said.Nepalese officials have downplayed reports of coronavirus cases on Mount Everest, apparently out of concern of creating chaos and confusion in the base camp. After a gap year of no income from climbers, Nepal has been eager to cash in on this year’s season.”Many people made it to the base camp, and it is possible that the people who went there from here could have been infected,” Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli said. “But that does not mean that it (coronavirus) has reached the entire mountain, maybe a part of the base camp or the area below that.”In April, a Norwegian climber became the first to test positive at the Everest base camp. He was flown by helicopter to Kathmandu, where he was treated and later returned home.FILE – In this Nov. 12, 2015, file photo, Mount Everest is seen from the way to Kalapatthar in Nepal.Prominent guide Lukas Furtenbach of Austria decided to halt his expedition this month and pull out his clients because of an outbreak among team members.After returning from the mountain, Furtenbach estimated more than 100 climbers and support staff have been infected. He said in an interview last week that it was obvious there were many cases at the base camp because he could see people were sick and could hear them coughing in their tents.”I think with all the confirmed cases we know now — confirmed from (rescue) pilots, from insurance, from doctors, from expedition leaders — I have the positive tests so we can prove this,” Furtenbach told The Associated Press.China last week canceled climbing from its side of Everest due to fears the virus could spread from Nepal.The climbing season was accompanied by a devastating surge in coronavirus cases in Nepal, with record numbers of daily infections and deaths. On Friday, Nepal reported 6,951 new confirmed cases and 96 deaths, bringing the nation’s totals since the pandemic began to more than 549,111 infections and 7,047 deaths.Another expedition, by the Telluride, Colorado-based company Mountain Trip, also announced it was pulling out of Everest.”While it’s a difficult decision to make when considering all of the work, years of preparation, sacrifice and resources that have went into the expedition, it’s the only sensible outcome from a risk management standpoint,” a statement by the company said.Six Sherpa guides working for the company have been evacuated to Kathmandu with COVID-19 symptoms, it said.A total of 408 foreign climbers were issued permits to climb Everest this season, aided by several hundred Sherpas and support staff who have been stationed at base camp since April.Since Everest was first conquered on May 29, 1953, thousands of people have scaled the peak and many Nepalese Sherpas have done it multiple times. Veteran Sherpa guide Kami Rita scaled the summit a record 25th time this month.
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Mali’s Top Court Declares Coup Leader Goita Interim President
Mali’s constitutional court on Friday declared Assimi Goita, the colonel who led a military coup this week while serving as vice president, to be the new interim president.The ruling raises the stakes as West African leaders prepare to meet on Sunday to respond to the takeover, which has jeopardized a transition back to democracy and could undermine a regional fight against Islamist militants.Goita became interim vice president after leading the coup last August that overthrew President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita. He ordered the arrests on Monday of President Bah Ndaw and Prime Minister Moctar Ouane.Both resigned on Wednesday while still in detention. They were later released.The court said in its ruling that Goita should fill the vacancy left by Ndaw’s resignation “to lead the transition process to its conclusion” and carry the title of “president of the transition, head of state.”The ruling set Mali on a collision course with the 15-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which has insisted that the transition, which is due to end with elections in February, remain civilian-led.After agreeing in October to lift sanctions imposed after the coup against Keita, ECOWAS said in a declaration that the vice president of the transition “cannot under any circumstances replace the president.”ECOWAS heads of state are due to meet in Ghana on Sunday.They and Western powers including France and the United States fear the political crisis could exacerbate instability in northern and central Mali, a home base for regional affiliates of al Qaeda and Islamic State.Goita, a 38-year-old special forces commander, was one of several colonels who led the coup against Keita. He ousted Ndaw after the interim president named a new Cabinet that stripped two of the other coup leaders of their ministerial posts.Late on Friday, Goita said on national television that he would name a new prime minister from among the members of the M5-RFP coalition, which led protests against Keita last year and fell out with Ndaw and Ouane during the transition.Jeamille Bitar, a member of the coalition, said its pick for the post would be Choguel Maiga, a former government minister.
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EU Authorizes Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine for Young Adolescents
The European Commission has authorized the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for use in children as young as 12, widening the pool of those eligible to be inoculated, following similar approvals in the United States and Canada.The commission made the announcement Friday after the European Union’s medical regulator, the European Medicines Agency, recommended Friday the use of the vaccine in children ages 12-15, saying that data show it is safe and effective.”Extending the protection of a safe and effective vaccine in this younger population is an important step forward in the fight against this pandemic,” said Marco Cavaleri, the EMA’s head of health threats and vaccines strategy.It is now up to individual EU states to decide whether and when to offer the vaccine to young adolescents.Germany and Italy have already said they are preparing to extend their vaccination campaign to youths ages 12-15.Also Friday, Britain approved the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Johnson & Johnson. It is the fourth COVID-19 vaccine approved in the country, after inoculations made by Pfizer and BioNTech, AstraZeneca, and Moderna.French President Emmanuel Macron pledged Friday to help provide South Africa and other African countries with vaccine doses. During a visit to Pretoria, Macron said France would donate more than 30 million doses this year to the U.N.-backed COVAX global vaccine initiative.According to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, South Africa has so far vaccinated roughly 700,000 people out of its population of 40 million.In Australia, Melbourne went back under lockdown on Friday, as health authorities said a cluster of confirmed positive COVID-19 cases had increased to 39.Health officials have ordered residents to stay home for seven days to prevent the infection from spreading and allow time to investigate how the virus was transmitted from a man being quarantined at a hotel.The outbreak has been traced to an overseas traveler who was found to be infected with an Indian variant of the coronavirus.The acting premier of Australia’s southern state of Victoria, James Merlino, told reporters in Melbourne that the new outbreak is the result of “a highly infectious strain of the virus, a variant of concern, which is running faster than we have ever recorded.”Stores are closed during a lockdown to stop the spread of the new coronavirus in downtown Ribeirao Preto, Sao Paulo state, Brazil, May 28, 2021.During the lockdown, residents will be allowed to leave their homes only for essential work, school, shopping, caregiving, exercise and medical reasons, including receiving their scheduled coronavirus vaccinations.The new lockdown is the fourth one imposed on Victoria state since the start of the pandemic. The most severe period occurred in mid-2020 and lasted more than three months as Victoria was in the grip of a wave of COVID-19 infections that killed more than 800 people.Merlino had already imposed a new set of restrictions for Australia’s second most populous state, including limiting the size of public gatherings and making mask wearing mandatory in restaurants, hotels and other indoor venues until June 4.In other developments Friday, India reported 186,364 new coronavirus infections during the previous 24 hours, its lowest daily rise since April 14. Deaths rose from the previous day to 3,660.In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said children at summer camp who are not vaccinated do not have to wear masks outside unless they are in crowds or in sustained close contact with others. The new guidance comes as millions of children are set to resume summer camp this summer after the closure of many camps last year due to the virus.Americans are celebrating the start of the Memorial Day weekend by hitting the roads and skies as they seek to cast off more than a year of pandemic restrictions and try to resume a sense of normalcy.U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas urged Americans to be patient this weekend at busy airports.”People will see lines because there’s going to be a tremendous amount of people traveling this weekend,” he told ABC’s Good Morning America on Friday.More than 1.8 million people went through U.S. airports on Thursday, and that number is expected to rise over the weekend.Also in the United States, Facebook said it will no longer remove statements that COVID-19 was created by humans or manufactured “in light of ongoing investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and in consultation with public health experts.”A man in a protective suit stands next to the burning pyre of a person who died of COVID-19, at a crematorium in Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir, May 28, 2021.Since the beginning of the pandemic outbreak, Facebook has changed its policy several times on what is and is not allowed on the topic. Another claim banned from discussion on the platform is the notion that vaccines are toxic or not effective.The American Civil Liberties Union requested Thursday that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement “provide immediate vaccine access to the more than 22,100 people in ICE custody.””Over the course of the pandemic, ICE detention facilities have been some of the worst hotspots for the spread of COVID-19, with positivity rates five times greater than prisons and 20 times greater than the general U.S. population,” said the ACLU’s Eunice Cho.
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Warsaw University Aims to Shape Future Conservative Lawyers
An increasingly influential Polish Catholic legal institute on Friday inaugurated a university in Warsaw that aims to educate a new generation of conservative lawyers in central Europe who it hopes will also shape wider European culture.The institute, Ordo Iuris, works to promote conservative causes, including restrictions on abortion and opposition to same-sex legal unions as it seeks to support traditional family structures. It successfully lobbied for the recent restriction of abortion rights in Poland and is spearheading efforts aimed at persuading countries not to ratify the Istanbul Convention, an international treaty against domestic violence, due to objections over how the treaty depicts gender relations in the family.Jerzy Kwasniewski, a Warsaw lawyer who heads Ordo Iuris, said that the university, Collegium Intermarium, is meant to be a space of free academic inquiry at a time of perceived censorship in traditional academic settings that he argued overwhelmingly targets and silences conservative thinkers.Kwasniewski also described the college as a counterweight to existing institutions, including the Central European University, which was founded by the liberal Hungarian American investor George Soros and which recently relocated from Budapest to Vienna under pressure from Hungary’s nationalist conservative government.”We all hope that Collegium Intermarium will bring change to the academic sphere of central Europe,” he said.A larger ambitionIntermarium (Latin for “between the seas”) is a historical term that refers to a swath of central Europe between the Baltic, Black and Adriatic seas. It’s a region of ex-communist countries that are largely more conservative than those in Western Europe, and it’s where nationalist parties have seen their support grow in recent years.The name points to a larger ambition, with Kwasniewski saying he also hopes the institution will allow conservatives from central Europe to one day shape the more secular culture dominant in the European Union.”We don’t follow the French way of a division between church and state. We rather follow the more American way of an alliance of the spiritual with the republic,” Kwasniewski told The Associated Press on the sidelines of the university’s inauguration conference. “We are not able to follow the motto of the European Union, ‘United in diversity,’ without acknowledging the diversity of different cultural spheres of Europe.”The Polish culture and education ministers praised the university as a place that will nurture Europe’s traditional Christian and classical traditions, while a letter was read out from Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, underscoring the conservative government’s support for the new institution. Representatives of the Hungarian government also voiced their support.The former Czech president, Vaclav Klaus, spoke about his support for strengthening nation states in the face of an EU which he accused of eroding freedoms. He also denounced the cultural changes in the West since the liberal revolution of the 1960s, saying that since then, “generations were born who do not understand the meaning of our civilizational, cultural and ethical heritage and are deprived of a moral compass guiding their behavior.”Viewed with suspicionOrdo Iuris is viewed with suspicion by LGBT and women’s rights groups, which accuse the Catholic group of being part of an international network seeking to erode the rights they have gained in recent decades.Ordo Iuris successfully backed a successful effort to restrict abortion rights in Poland. It provided legal arguments to the constitutional court, which ruled last year that abortions in cases of fetal abnormalities are not constitutional. The result is that Polish women are now required to carry very sick or even unviable fetuses to term — a ruling that in practice drives more women to have abortions abroad. The ruling sparked weeks of mass protests in the country, which already had one of Europe’s most restrictive abortion laws.The institute has worked across the region, for instance assisting a Romanian group that successfully lobbied to block the legalization of same-sex unions.Neil Datta, the head of the Brussels-based European Parliamentary Forum on Sexual and Reproductive Rights who has extensively researched Ordo Iuris, says he believes the university will become a center for training “a new cadre of elites that basically can transform and whitewash far-right thinking so it appears professional and acceptable in a certain political discourse.”He said the plan reminds him of what happened in the United States, where the Christian right years ago began funding universities that over time produced new elites with influence at think tanks and in politics.”This is a first step in the same thing,” Datta said.Ordo Iuris members say the group is unfairly portrayed by activists and the media.Kwasniewski told the AP that the group is not against women, arguing that the institute includes many women and that its anti-abortion position is a human rights position.”Abortion is not about women’s rights. Abortion is also performed on girls in the prenatal stage of development. It’s just about the violation of the right to life,” he said.The university will offer accredited degrees at the master’s level in law, with the curriculum to include related subjects such as philosophy. It plans to offer a doctorate program in four to five years. It will be privately funded at first but plans to seek public funding in the future, Kwasniewski said.
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