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Month: March 2024
Ukrainians React to Biden’s Pledges of Continued Support
U.S. President Joe Biden opened his State of the Union address last week with a pledge to continue to support Ukraine, giving Ukrainians hope that a U.S. aid package will be approved. But a foreign aid bill that includes more assistance to Ukraine faces opposition in the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives. For VOA, Anna Chernikova reports from Kyiv. VOA footage by Eugene Shynkar.
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Despite Sanctions, Russia’s Economy Continues to Grow
In the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the United States and Europe imposed significant economic sanctions on Russia. But two years into the war, Moscow’s economy remains resilient. Liliya Anisimova has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. VOA footage by Andrey Degtyarev.
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India Successfully Tests Domestically Produced Multi-Warhead Missile
India Announces Steps to Implement Citizenship Law That Excludes Muslims
New Delhi — Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government on Monday announced rules to implement a 2019 citizenship law that excludes Muslims, weeks before the Hindu nationalist leader seeks a third term in office.
The Citizenship Amendment Act provides a fast track to naturalization for Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Christians who fled to Hindu-majority India from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan before Dec. 31, 2014. The law excludes Muslims, who are a majority in all three nations.
The law was approved by Indian Parliament in 2019, but Modi’s government had held off with its implementation after deadly protests broke out in capital New Delhi and elsewhere. Scores were killed during days of clashes.
The nationwide protests in 2019 drew people of all faiths who said the law undermines India’s foundation as a secular nation. Muslims were particularly worried that the government could use the law, combined with a proposed national register of citizens, to marginalize them.
The National Register of Citizens is part of Modi government’s effort to identify and weed out people it claims came to India illegally. The register has only been implemented in the northeastern state of Assam, and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has promised to roll out a similar citizenship verification program nationwide.
Modi’s government has defended the 2019 citizenship law as a humanitarian gesture. It argues that the law is meant only to extend citizenship to religious minorities fleeing persecution and would not be used against Indian citizens.
“These rules will now enable minorities persecuted on religious grounds in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan to acquire citizenship in our nation,” Home Minister Amit Shah wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
India’s main opposition Congress party questioned the announcement, saying “the timing right before the elections is evidently designed to polarize the elections.”
Human rights watchdog Amnesty India in a statement called the law “discriminatory” and said it “goes against the constitutional values of equality and international human rights law.” It said the law “legitimises discrimination based on religion” and is “exclusionary in its structure and intent.”
India is home to 200 million Muslims who make up a large minority group in the country of more than 1.4 billion people. They are scattered across almost every part of India and have been targeted in a series of attacks that have taken place Modi first assumed power in 2014.
Critics say Modi’s conspicuous silence over anti-Muslim violence has emboldened some of his most extreme supporters and enabled more hate speech against Muslims.
Modi has increasingly mixed religion with politics in a formula that has resonated deeply with India’s majority Hindu population. In January, he opened a Hindu temple at the site of a demolished mosque in northern Ayodhya city, fulfilling his party’s long-held Hindu nationalist pledge.
Most poll surveys suggest Modi will win a majority in a general election that is scheduled to be held by May.
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Pen Pal Program Offers Unique World View to US, Ukraine Teens
A teenage girl from Ukraine, which is dealing with the horrors of a Russian invasion, becomes pen pals with a teenage girl from the U.S. Their correspondence gives insight into two teenagers’ perception of the conflict.
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Swedish Flag Raised Over NATO Headquarters
Four European Countries Seal Free Trade Pact with India, Pledge $100 Billion Investment
New Delhi — India has signed a free trade pact with a group of four European nations that aims at drawing in investment of $100 billion over the next 15 years.
The deal announced Sunday with the European Free Trade Association, whose members are Switzerland, Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein, comes weeks ahead of India’s national elections in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made economic growth a key poll plank as he seeks a third term in office.
The trade deal is one of several New Delhi is pursuing as it steps up efforts to grow its exports and take advantage of geopolitical shifts that are seeing many Western countries trying to reduce trade dependence on China.
The pact was sealed after about 16 years of negotiations. “The pact is significant because it is India’s first with developed countries,” according to Biswajit Dhar, trade analyst and Distinguished Professor at the Council for Social Development in New Delhi. “So far India, which has many protectionist barriers, only had such agreements with developing countries.”
To ease access to its vast market of 1.4 billion people, India will reduce tariffs on goods ranging from industrial imports to processed foods, beverages and items such as Swiss watches. New Delhi hopes to boost its exports in areas such as information technology and business services.
India is the European Free Trade Association’s fifth-largest trading partner after the European Union, the United States, Britain and China with two-way trade adding up to $18.65 billion in 2022-23.
The investment pledge by the four European countries will create one million jobs, according to Indian Commerce Minister, Piyush Goyal.
“It’s for the first time that we are inking a free trade agreement with a binding commitment to invest $100 billion in India,” Goyal said. “It is a modern trade agreement, fair, equitable and win-win for all five countries.”
European officials said pledging the investment made it a “balanced” deal for both sides. “If you look at the different market sizes, India offers 1.4bn population, plus it’s a door to the global world,” Helene Budliger Artieda, Swiss state secretary for economic affairs, told reporters.
However, trade analyst Dhar said that it remains to be seen how the investment promise translates on the ground. “These four countries had invested just $10 billion in the last 23 years. So taking this up to up to $100 billion in 15 years is a tall order, it does not seem realistic,” he said.
In recent years, India has stepped up efforts to pursue trade agreements to boost its fast-growing economy. In the last two years, it has concluded a free trade pact with the UAE and a preliminary agreement with Australia. Officials are also trying to finalize deals with Britain and Oman.
“This landmark pact underlines our commitment to boosting economic progress and create opportunities for our youth,” Modi said in a post on X after the deal with the European countries was concluded.
Modi is promising to make India, which is a lower middle-income country, a developed nation by 2047.
Bucking the trend of slowing growth in many countries, the Indian economy is growing briskly. It is expected to grow at more than 7% in the financial year that ends in March — the fastest growth among major economies.
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Five of Six Missing Skiers Found Dead in Switzerland, Police Say
Ethiopia’s Tigray Region Is Now Peaceful, But Extreme Hunger Afflicts Its Children
NEBAR HADNET, Ethiopia — The cruel realities of war and drought seem to have merged for Tinseu Hiluf, a widow living in the arid depths of Ethiopia’s Tigray region who is raising four children left behind by her sister’s recent death in childbirth.
A two-year war between federal troops and regional forces killed one of her own sons, the rest of whom are already adults. And now, a lack of food stemming from the region’s drought has left the youngest of the children she is raising malnourished.
She tries to forage seeds among the scarce greenery of the desert’s yellow, rocky landscape. But she recently resorted to traveling to the nearby Finarwa health center in southeastern Tigray to try to keep the 1-year-old baby alive.
“When hungry, we eat anything from the desert,” she said. “Otherwise, nothing.”
She joined several other mothers seeking help at the center in the remote administrative area of Nebar Hadnet. A mother of five complained that she had no breastmilk for her eight-month-old baby. Another with 1-year-old twins said she needed sachets of baby food to keep “my babies alive.”
Tigray is now peaceful, but war’s effects linger, compounded by drought and a level of aid mismanagement that caused the U.N. and the U.S. to temporarily suspend deliveries last year.
Once-lush fields lie barren. Mothers, faces etched with worry, watch helplessly as their children weaken from malnutrition. Nearly 400 people died of starvation in Tigray and the neighboring Amhara region in the six months leading to January, the national ombudsman revealed in January, a rare admission of hunger-related deaths by a federal government.
Most of those deaths were recorded in Tigray, home to 5.5 million people.
Until the signing of a peace agreement in November 2022, the region was the scene of a deadly war between federal troops and forces loyal to the region’s now-ousted ruling party. But months after the end of the conflict, the U.N. and the U.S. halted food aid for Tigray because of a massive scheme by Ethiopian officials to steal humanitarian grain.
An inadequate growing season followed.
Persistent insecurity meant only 49% of Tigray’s farmland was planted during the main planting season last year, according to an assessment by U.N. agencies, NGOs and the regional authorities, and seen by the AP. Crop production in these areas was only 37% of the expected total because of drought. In some areas the proportion was as low as 2%, that assessment said.
The poor harvest prompted Tigray’s authorities to warn of an “unfolding famine” that could match the famine of 1984-5, which killed hundreds of thousands of people across northern Ethiopia, unless the aid response was scaled up. Food deliveries to Tigray in the second half of last year, but only a small fraction of needy people in Tigray are receiving food aid, humanitarian workers say.
Finarwa, a farming community of about 13,000 people, is among the worst-hit places.
The town’s health center still has war-damaged equipment and some of its rooms appear abandoned. Tadesse Mehari, the officer in charge of the clinic, said the lack of food at homes in the community has forced children to flee and beg in nearby towns.
“Nothing here to eat. So, for the sake of getting food and to save their lives, they are displaced anywhere, far from here,” he said. “So, in this area, a lot of people are suffering. They are starved. They are dying due to the absence of food.”
Some local leaders, feeling helpless, have been turning their own people away
Hayale Gebrekedian, a Nebar Hadnet district leader for five years, listened to the pleas of villagers who streamed into his office one recent afternoon. A widow named Serawit Wolde with 10 children was in tears as she recounted that five of them were falling ill from hunger.
“Please, any help,” she told Hayale.
Hayale told the woman he had nothing to give. “There simply isn’t any (food),” he said.
Hayale later told the AP, “This place used to be a source of hope, even for those displaced by the war. We had enough for everyone, but now we can’t even feed ourselves.”
“The war took everything,” he said. There’s nothing left.”
Havale said access to water was an additional challenge. Of the 25 wells that once sustained the community and its animals, only five remained functional. People now trek for over an hour and a half to access water, he said.
The region’s drought has meant that some areas that usually get about 60 days of rain during the rainy season have seen only a few.
Some farmers aren’t giving up.
Haile Gebre Kirstos, 70, continued to plough his parched land and plant sorghum in a village in Messebo, although rain fell “only two days during the last rainy season,” he said.
Once lush and teeming with livestock, the land is now a barren expanse, yet he remained hopeful even after the failure of the previous harvest.
Although the plowing usually doesn’t begin until the rainy season in May or June, this year he started the work early, driven by extreme need. He spoke of farmers who have sold their oxen and farming tools to feed their families.
For him, the memory of the 1980s famine is haunting. “It affected the entire region then,” he said. “Now, in some districts, it’s either as bad as the 1980s, or even worse.”
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Malawi Activists Lobby for Abortion Law Reforms
In Malawi, 35,000 backstreet abortions were carried out in 2022 and 2023, according to its Ministry of Health. These unsafe procedures are just one reason support for abortion rights has increased in recent years. Chimwemwe Padatha has more from Lilongwe.
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Zambia Rolls Out New HIV Prevention Medicine
Zambia has received the first shipment of a new medicine to prevent HIV infection. The delivery makes Zambia only the second country in the world after the United States to offer the injectable preventative outside of a research setting. Kathy Short reports from Lusaka, Zambia. Camera and video editing by Richard Kille.
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Why Did Ireland’s Referendums on Family, Women Fail?
Dublin, Ireland — Irish voters’ rejection of proposals to reword constitutional clauses on family roles and the duties of women has left politicians searching for answers.
Prime Minister Leo Varadkar had presented the vote, conducted on International Women’s Day on Friday and tallied Saturday, as a chance to remove “very old-fashioned, very sexist language about women” from the constitution.
But a proposal to expand the definition of family from a relationship founded on marriage to include other “durable relationships” was rejected by 67.7% of voters, with only 32.3 voting “yes.”
A second referendum on replacing language about a woman’s supposed duties in the home with a clause recognizing the role of family members in the provision of care was rejected by 73.9% of voters.
It was the largest ever referendum defeat in Ireland’s history.
The votes came despite the government, along with most opposition parties, endorsing the proposed changes, and polls forecasting a win for the “Yes-Yes” vote.
What went wrong?
A mix of unclear messaging, a hurried and lackluster “Yes-Yes” campaign and dissatisfaction among “no” voters resulted in an increase in undecided voters leading up to the vote.
Opposition parties gave the proposals only lukewarm support, complaining that the twin questions distorted the suggested wording produced by a Citizen’s Assembly — a nationwide focus group regularly held in Ireland on public issues.
The use of the undefined phrase “durable relationships” in the first referendum was widely criticized as too vague.
The second amendment would have replaced language on “women’s role in the home” with a pledge that the government would “strive” — not be obliged — to support carers in the home.
It failed to mention care outside of the home.
“The government went on a solo run,” said Mary Lou McDonald, leader of the leftist-nationalist Sinn Fein, the largest opposition party which grudgingly backed a “Yes-Yes” vote.
“There is little point in having a Citizens Assembly if the government are then going to ignore the outcome,” she said.
Who voted no and why?
Turnout at less than 50% was lower than in previous referendums, like one on same-sex marriage equality in 2015 and an abortion ban repeal that captured the public attention in 2018.
Only one of 39 constituencies — an affluent area near Dublin — returned a “yes” vote in the family referendum and all 39 voted “no” in the home care referendum.
While “yes” voters failed to turn out in numbers, a disparate coalition of “no” voters angry for different reasons — both progressive and conservative — were energized.
“When a government doesn’t have all its own side on board and has split its liberal vote, it’s in trouble,” David Quinn, head of the conservative Iona Institute, told AFP.
The care amendment proposal was fiercely criticized by disability rights activists and carers who expressed relief at the result.
“They wanted people and families just to care for people at home, but we need the support of the government too,” Susan Bowles, a 39-year-old care assistant, told AFP in Dublin after the vote.
An anti-government right-wing protest vote was also a factor, according to analysts.
“No” campaigners warned against “woke” liberals and “cancelling” the words “women” and “mother” from the constitution.
The result was “a significant victory for the people against the political establishment,” Peadar Toibin, leader of the conservative Aontu, the only parliamentary party to back a No-No vote, told AFP.
Setback for women’s rights?
The ballots had been framed by some on the “Yes-Yes” side as the latest effort to mirror the evolving identity of Ireland, a member of the European Union.
It would also signify the diminishing influence of the once-dominant Catholic Church after the successful 2015 and 2018 referendums.
But holding the referendums on International Women’s Day — reportedly Varadkar’s idea — was a “hammy gesture,” according to Pat Leahy, a journalist with the Irish Times.
“There was an unavoidable sense of people being taken for granted in this,” he said.
Orla O’Connor, head of the National Women’s Council of Ireland which led the “Yes-Yes” campaign, cautioned against interpreting the result as Ireland voting to keep “life within the home” language for women in the constitution.
“It is more nuanced than that… We will go back and we will fight for those things and continue to fight for equality for families and equality for women,” she told local media.
What is the political fallout?
In the aftermath a visibly shaken Varadkar, who heads up a center-right-green coalition, admitted that the government had received “two wallops” from the public.
With a general election looming within the next 12 months, the defeat poses questions about Varadkar’s and other party leaders’ judgement.
The result “does not mean that general trend of society has lurched permanently to a conservative one,” wrote Leahy.
“But it definitely means that future governments will not assume that similar constitutional changes are a foregone conclusion,” he said.
Political scientist Eoin O’Malley of Dublin City University called it “a poorly executed referendum that nobody needed or wanted.”
“It was politically designed to secure a liberal legacy for Leo Varadkar, but it makes that legacy look opportunistic,” he told AFP.
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In Swiss Alps, Major Search Continues for 6 Missing Ski Hikers
Geneva — The “major rescue operation” aimed at finding six Swiss ski hikers wanted since Saturday in the Swiss Alps must continue overnight, but the danger of avalanches is complicating operations, police said Sunday.
The six people are aged 21 to 58 and five of them are members of the same family.
They are “actively sought on the Zermatt-Arolla hiking route,” which is in the canton of Valais (southwest), the police said in a news release.
The group left Zermatt on Saturday with the aim of reaching Arolla the same day.
Saturday around 4 p.m. (3 p.m. GMT), a member of the family who came to pick up the group in Arolla contacted the cantonal police and the cantonal Valais emergency organization (OCVS), worried about not seeing their loved ones arrive.
A little over an hour later, the hikers were located in the Col de Tete Blanche area, at approximately 3,500 meters above sea level, because a member of the group managed to contact emergency services.
As soon as the alert was received, all emergency resources were mobilized on both sides of the route and numerous technical resources were deployed to find the hikers, the police said.
But the weather conditions, which were very bad over the weekend, made the emergency response very difficult.
The storm which raged in the south of the Swiss Alps as well as the danger of avalanches prevented helicopters and rescue columns from being able to approach the area.
An attempt to approach by land from Zermatt was undertaken during the night from Saturday to Sunday by “5 experienced rescuers” from the OCVS but they had to give up more than 3,000 meters of altitude due to the very bad weather conditions and the risks involved.
All day Sunday, the various specialized units of the cantonal police, in particular the mountain group as well as the technical and telecommunications officers, were engaged alongside the OCVS rescuers and the army air forces.
Operations will continue overnight.
In a separate news release published in the evening, the Valais police announced that an avalanche had carried away a skier traveling off-piste in Val Ferret on Sunday: “Freed from the snow mass, he was taken to hospital of Zion where he died.
Other avalanches and heavy snowfall in the region have also buried roads, blocking traffic.
Great caution is required over the coming days, when “the situation will be critical on the avalanche front,” warns the cantonal police.
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Pakistani Police Crack Down on Khan Supporters During Alleged Vote Fraud Protest
ISLAMABAD — Police in Pakistan detained dozens of supporters of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan Sunday as they rallied nationwide to protest alleged voter fraud in recent general elections.
Khan’s opposition party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, said that the police action occurred in the country’s most populous province of Punjab and disrupted “peaceful” protests there.
Television footage showed security personnel rounding up senior party leaders and workers in the provincial capital, Lahore, and elsewhere in the province. The authorities have not yet explained the charges under which they arrested the protesters.
PTI said in a statement that more than 100 people were taken into custody for demonstrating against “rigging and mandate theft.” It condemned the crackdown and demanded that all detainees be immediately released.
“Staging peaceful protest is a democratic right as per the constitution of Pakistan; however, the imposed government is not willing to have anyone call them out, hence why the arrests, using police as their aides,” the party stated.
The independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan condemned “the consistent high-handedness of the state in cracking down on PTI protesters” and detaining several of its key leaders during Sunday’s protests against alleged electoral malpractice.
“All citizens, regardless of their political affiliation, have a constitutionally protected right to assemble freely and peacefully. The Punjab government must respect and uphold its political rivals’ right to do so if it is to restore people’s trust in the state,” the watchdog said on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The February 8 elections for national and provincial parliaments were marred by widespread allegations of rigging and irregularities. Pakistani authorities shut down mobile phone and internet services nationwide on election day and announced the results with an unprecedented delay of almost three days.
The communication blackout and delay gave credence to PTI’s claims of electoral fraud and made the elections one of the least credible in the country’s troubled democratic history.
Several countries, including the United States and the European Union, have called for a full investigation into rigging allegations. Pakistani authorities have dismissed foreign criticism of the election, saying it was free and fair.
The vote delivered a split mandate, with PTI-backed candidates winning the most seats in the 336-seat National Assembly or the lower house of parliament, but it fell short of a simple majority.
This allowed the two family-run rival parties, former Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, or PML-N, and the Pakistan Peoples Party, or PPP, to cobble together a coalition government, enabling Sharif to return to power for a second time.
Khan and his party have promised to continue their protest campaign until the election results are reversed. They allege that the PTI won a two-thirds majority, but the election commission manipulated the outcome to “steal its mandate.” The commission denies the accusations.
On Sunday, PPP co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari was sworn in as Pakistan’s new president a day after lawmakers elected him to the largely ceremonial constitutional office for a second time.
Zardari, 68, was the joint candidate of the PML-N and the PPP.
Khan, rated as the most popular national politician by public polls, is currently serving lengthy prison terms after having been convicted of corruption, fraudulent marriage, and leaking state secrets in the lead-up to the February 8 elections.
The 71-year-old cricket hero-turned-prime minister was ousted from office in 2022 through a parliamentary vote of no-confidence and has since faced scores of legal challenges. Khan denies wrongdoing and accuses Pakistan’s powerful military of being behind what he dismisses as politically motivated and frivolous charges.
The military denies it meddles in political matters.
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