Month: July 2024

DR Congo detects at least 25 mpox cases in Goma

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PARIS — At least 25 cases of a dangerous new strain of mpox spreading through the Democratic Republic of Congo have been detected in the eastern city of Goma, mostly in camps housing people fleeing a surrounding conflict, health authorities said Wednesday.

Congo has seen 20,000 cases and more than 1,000 deaths from mpox, mainly among children, since the start of 2023. Over 11,000 cases, including 443 deaths, have been reported so far this year.

Authorities recently approved the use of vaccines to tackle the upsurge, but none are currently available outside of clinical trials in the country.

The head of the national response team against the mpox epidemic, Cris Kacita, said in an interview that most of the new reported cases were in displaced people camps.

He said cases were infected with a new strain of the virus that is spreading in South Kivu province. Goma is the capital and largest city of the neighboring North Kivu province.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and scientists raised the alarm last month about the mpox situation in Congo, including the spread of a new strain of mpox spreading in South Kivu.

Mpox has been endemic in Congo for decades but a new variant of the clade I of the virus emerged last year. It is a viral infection that spreads through close contact, causing flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions. Most cases are mild, but it can kill.

A different, less severe form of mpox – clade IIb – spread globally in 2022, largely through sexual contact among men who have sex with men. This prompted the WHO to declare a public health emergency that has now ended, although there are still cases and the agency has said mpox remains a public health threat.

“The national biomedical research institute in Goma has sequenced the virus and this proves that the virus has been circulating for a long time in the city of Goma,” Kacita said.

“The risk here is the promiscuity in the camps and the speed with which the epidemic is spreading,” he warned.

Hundreds of thousands of people who fled conflict in Congo’s insurgent-hit east are staying in overcrowded camps in and around Goma.

The number of displaced has increased since a rebel group known as the M23 launched a major offensive in 2022, prompting national and regional military responses that have struggled to stem the militia’s advance. 
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Israel’s Holocaust memorial opens a facility to store artifacts, photos and more

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JERUSALEM — Israel’s national Holocaust museum opened a new conservation facility in Jerusalem on Monday that will preserve, restore and store its more than 45,000 artifacts and works of art in a vast new building, including five floors of underground storage.

Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, serves as both a museum and a research institution. It welcomes nearly a million visitors each year, leads the country’s annual Holocaust memorial day and hosts nearly all foreign dignitaries visiting Israel.

“Before we opened this building, it was very difficult to exhibit our treasures that were kept in our vaults. They were kind of secret,” said Yad Vashem chairman Dani Dayan. “Now there’s a state-of-the-art installation (that) will help us to exhibit them.”

The David and Fela Shapell Family Collections Center, located at the Yad Vashem museum in Jerusalem, will also provide organization and storage for the museum’s 225 million pages of documents and half a million photographs.

Dayan said the materials will now be kept in a facility that preserves them in optimal temperatures and conditions.

“Yad Vashem has the largest collections in the world of materials related to the Holocaust,” Dayan said. “We will make sure that these treasures are kept for eternity.”

The new facility includes advanced, high-tech labs for conservation, enabling experts to revisit some of the museum’s trickier items, such as a film canister that a family who fled Austria in 1939 brought with them. It was donated to the museum but arrived in an advanced state of decay.

“The film arrived in the worst state it could. It smelled really bad,” said Reut Ilan-Shafik, a photography conservator at Yad Vashem. Over the years, the film had congealed into a solid piece of plastic, making it impossible to be scanned.

Using organic solvents, conservators were able to restore some of the film’s flexibility, allowing them to carefully unravel pieces of it. Using a microscope, Ilan-Shafik was able to see a few frames in their entirety, including one showing a couple kissing on a bench in a park and other snapshots of Europe before World War II.

“It is unbelievable to know that the images of the film that we otherwise thought lost to time” have been recovered, said Orit Feldberg, granddaughter of Hans and Klara Lebel, the couple featured in the photo.

Feldberg’s mother donated the film canister, one of the few things the Lebels were able to take with them when they fled Austria.

“These photographs not only tell their unique story but also keep their memory vibrantly alive,” Feldberg said.

Conservation of items from the Holocaust is an expensive, painstaking process that has taken on greater importance as the number of survivors dwindles.

Last month, the Auschwitz Memorial announced it had finished a half-million-dollar project to conserve 3,000 of the 8,000 pairs of children’s shoes that are on display at the Nazi concentration camp in Poland.
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Syria-Turkey rapprochement: Here’s what it might mean for the region

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ANKARA — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Syrian President Bashar Assad have recently signaled that they are interested in restoring diplomatic ties that have been ruptured for more than a decade.

Erdogan has said that he hopes to arrange a meeting with Assad soon for the first time since the countries broke off relations in 2011 as mass anti-government protests and a brutal crackdown by security forces in Syria spiraled into a still-ongoing civil war.

Speaking at a NATO summit in Washington on Thursday, Erdogan said he had called on Assad two weeks ago to either come to Turkey for the meeting or to hold it in a third country, and that he had assigned Turkey’s foreign minister to follow up.

Turkey backed Syrian insurgent groups seeking to overthrow Assad and still maintains forces in the opposition-held northwest, a sore point for Damascus.

This is not the first time that there have been attempts to normalize relations between the two countries, but previous attempts failed to gain traction.

Here’s a look at what might happen this time around:

What happened at their last talks

Russia, which is one of the strongest backers of Assad’s government but also has close ties with Turkey, has been pushing for a return to diplomatic relations.

In December 2022, the Turkish, Syrian and Russian defense ministers held talks in Moscow, the first ministerial level meeting between rivals Turkey and Syria since 2011. Russia also brokered meetings between Syrian and Turkish officials last year.

However, the talks fizzled, and Syrian officials publicly continued to blast Turkey’s presence in northwest Syria. Assad said in an interview with Sky News Arabia last August that the objective of Erdogan’s overtures was “to legitimize the Turkish occupation in Syria.”

What’s different now

Russia appears to once again be promoting the talks, but this time around, Iraq — which shares a border with both Turkey and Syria — has also offered to mediate, as it previously did between regional arch-rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Aron Lund, a fellow with the Century International think tank, said Iraq may have taken the initiative as a way to deflect pressure from Turkey to crack down on the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, a Kurdish separatist group that has waged an insurgency against Turkey since the 1980s and has bases in northern Iraq.

By pushing rapprochement with Syria, Baghdad may be trying to “create some form of positive engagement with the Turks, kick the can down the road, and deflect the threat of an intervention,” Lund said.

The geopolitical situation in the region has also changed with the war in Gaza and fears of a wider regional conflict. Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, an analyst on Turkey and director of the German Marshall Fund in Ankara, said that both countries may be feeling insecure and seeking new alliances in the face of the war’s potential regional ripple effects.

What Turkey and Syria want

From Erdogan’s side, Unluhisarcikli said, the attempt to engage is likely driven in part by the increasing anti-Syrian sentiment in Turkey. Erdogan is likely hoping for a deal that could pave the way for the return of many of the 3.6 million Syrian refugees living in his country.

From the Syrian side, a return to relations with Turkey would be another step toward ending Assad’s political isolation in the region after more than a decade as a pariah due to his government’s brutal crackdown on protesters in 2011 and alleged war crimes afterward.

And despite their differences over Turkey’s presence in northwest Syria, Damascus and Ankara both have an interest in curtailing the autonomy of Kurdish groups in northeast Syria.

Turkey may be concerned that the security situation in northeast Syria could deteriorate in the event that the U.S. withdraws troops it currently has stationed there as part of a coalition against the Islamic State militant group, Unluhisarcikli said. That could require Turkey to “cooperate or at least coordinate with Syria, to manage the aftermath of the U.S. withdrawal,” he said.

Joseph Daher, a Swiss-Syrian researcher and visiting professor at the European University Institute in Florence, said the two governments likely hope for modest “economic gains” in a rapprochement. While trade never completely stopped, it currently goes through intermediaries, he said, while restoring diplomatic relations would allow official commerce to resume and make trade more fluid.

The prospects for an agreement

Analysts agreed that the talks are unlikely to bring about the full Turkish withdrawal from northwest Syria that Damascus has called for or any other major shift in conditions on the ground in the near term.

Although the two countries’ interests “actually overlap to a large degree,” Lund said, “there are also major disagreements” and “a lot of bad blood and bitterness” that could impede even “lower-level dealmaking.” Both Erdogan and Assad may also want to wait for the outcome of U.S. elections, which could determine the future American footprint in the region, before making a major deal, he said.

In the long run, Lund said, “The logic of the situation dictates Turkish-Syrian collaboration in some form. … They’re neighbors. They’re stuck with each other and the current stalemate does them no good.”

Unluhisarcikli agreed that a “grand bargain” is unlikely to come out of the present talks, but the increased dialogue could lead to “some confidence building measures,” he said.

Daher said the most probable outcome of the talks is some “security agreements” between the two sides, but not a full Turkish withdrawal from Syria in the short term, particularly since the Syrian government army is too weak to control northwest Syria by itself.

“On its own, it’s not able to take back the whole of the northwest — it needs to deal with Turkey,” he said.

How people in Turkey and Syria view a potential agreement

In Turkey and in government-controlled Syria, many view the prospects of a rapprochement positively. In northwest Syria, on the other hand, protests have broken out against the prospect of a normalization of relations between Ankara — which had previously positioned itself as a protector of the Syrian opposition — and Damascus.

Kurds in Syria have also viewed the potential rapprochement with apprehension. The Kurdish-led authority in northeast Syria said in a statement that the prospective reconciliation would be a “conspiracy against the Syrian people” and a “clear legitimization of the Turkish occupation” of previously Kurdish-majority areas that were seized by Turkish-backed forces. 
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Competition between NATO, China intensifies following Washington summit

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irvine, california — NATO and China’s efforts to deepen cooperation with like-minded countries in the Indo-Pacific and Europe are viewed by some analysts as part of the growing competition between major powers, especially between the United States and China.    

“[The latest development] is a standard major power competition,” said Ian Chong, a political scientist at the National University of Singapore.  

These efforts are aimed at “finding out where are their friends and who can support their efforts,” he said. “[But] it’s pretty clear that the competition between major powers is intensifying,” he told VOA by phone.    

During its annual summit in Washington, NATO announced it would launch four new joint projects with Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand. The projects will focus on deepening cooperation with the four Indo-Pacific countries on Ukraine, artificial intelligence, disinformation, and cybersecurity.

U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the goal is to “harness the unique strengths” of democracies to address shared global challenges. In response, the Chinese government accused NATO of “inciting bloc confrontation and hyping up regional tensions” by engaging with countries in the Indo-Pacific region.

Instead of expanding its footprint to the Indo-Pacific region through these joint projects, some experts say NATO is trying to involve more like-minded countries in the process of building up competencies in critical areas of competition.  

“These are core areas that will shape military and other forms of competition moving forward so NATO wants to establish more cooperation with like-minded democracies,” said Stephen Nagy, a regional security expert at the International Christian University in Japan.  

Since NATO has labeled China as “the decisive enabler” of Russia’s war against Ukraine, Nagy said the alliance is trying to show Beijing that it won’t back out of the global competition in key areas.    

“NATO is signaling to China that they can be part of the solution, or they would be part of the problem,” he told VOA by phone.    

In an interview with VOA’s Mandarin Service, Japan’s Foreign Press Secretary Maki Kobayashi said that while Tokyo has been working closely with NATO member states, these efforts shouldn’t be viewed as an attempt to establish a NATO in Asia.

China’s attempt to counter NATO  

While the U.S. and its NATO allies aimed to strengthen cooperation with Indo-Pacific countries through the summit in Washington, China is also beefing up military cooperation with Belarus and Russia.  

On Monday, China initiated an 11-day joint military exercise near the border of Poland with Belarus, the newest member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. While the Chinese Foreign Ministry insisted that the exercise wasn’t targeting any country, some analysts told VOA that the move is Beijing’s response to NATO’s growing interest in Asia.

In addition to the military exercise with Belarus in Europe, China also announced Friday a joint naval exercise with Russia in waters near the southern city of Zhanjiang.  

The Chinese defense ministry characterized the drills, which will take place near the disputed South China Sea, as attempts for Beijing and Moscow to demonstrate their resolve and capabilities to address “maritime security threats and preserving global and regional peace and stability.”  

Nagy in Japan said Beijing is trying to show its displeasure toward NATO’s efforts to strengthen ties with Indo-Pacific countries. 

“China is signaling to NATO member states that they can cause headaches for them in their region or regions that matter to them,” he told VOA.    

Apart from closely aligning the dates of the two military exercises with the NATO Summit, China also used last week’s SCO Summit in Kazakhstan to uphold its “no limits partnership” with Russia and promote the alternative world order that it has been championing in recent years.

While the SCO isn’t an alliance with a common goal, some experts say China will still try to use it as a platform to “build its own blocs” to counter NATO and dilute Western influence.    

“China is strengthening these arrangements through bilateral agreements and strategic partnership, which often include security,” Sari Arho Havren, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, told VOA by phone.    

But since the SCO includes member states such as India, which is also part of the quadrilateral security dialogue with Australia, Japan, and the U.S., Nagy thinks New Delhi is unlikely to back any efforts to transform SCO into a counterweight of NATO.  

And while China might engage in some security cooperation with other authoritarian states like Russia or Iran — such as the joint military exercise the three countries conducted in March — Nagy said the differences in the three countries’ tolerance for risk and their visions for these partnerships will make it difficult for them to form a formal alliance. 

In his view, Russia has a higher tolerance for risk while China is concerned about how the war in Ukraine may affect stability around the world.  

“In the North Korea front, China is not happy about Putin’s recent trip to Pyongyang while Beijing wants a stable relationship with Iran, which adds limits to their cooperation,” Nagy told VOA. 

“The idea that these countries can converge to form an alliance to combat the so-called Western containment is not feasible, but they may align themselves so they can coordinate the supply of resources,” he added. 

Despite some limitations in reality, Arho Havren said China and NATO’s latest efforts to deepen partnerships show that a bloc competition may be emerging. 

“Both sides are more assertive and clear about their messaging and recent developments may accelerate this trend,” she told VOA.   
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Nigeria exam day turns into disaster; school collapses, killing 22

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Jos, Nigeria — After her early morning class ended, 16-year-old Nigerian student Chidera Denis was waiting to join classmates for end-of-term exams.

Moments later, she was trapped under rubble as her school building suddenly collapsed, with pupils barely protected by the desks where they were sitting. 

Denis was one of the lucky ones. The collapse of the Saint Academy school in Jos North district in Plateau State killed 22 students Friday, with dozens more hospitalized for treatment, including Denis’ friend.  

“She said she was going to die … that if they rescued me, I should tell her mother,” Denis told AFP a day after the disaster.  

“I said she should stop saying that, that we’ll be alive, that God is our strength.”  

Her brother also attended the school. 

“I am yet to see her brother,” she told AFP. “I am still searching. I am in pain.”  

 

Rescue efforts end

A spokesperson for the National Emergency Management Agency, Yohanna Audu, told AFP on Saturday that rescue efforts had ended after the disaster, the latest fatal building collapse in Nigeria.  

Audu said there were 22 fatalities, “all of whom are students.”   

The Red Cross posted on X, formerly Twitter, Saturday that a teacher and a student were still missing. 

“I was beside someone who died,” 14-year-old Chidinma Emmanuel told AFP. “He fell down on my arm and it broke. The falling debris landed on his head and killed him.” 

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu described the incident as a “huge loss to the nation.” 

The day after, 58 people were still hospitalized while 74 were discharged, the state commissioner for information Musa Ibrahim Ashoms said in a statement Saturday. 

 

Collapses common

Building collapses are common in Africa’s most populous country.  

The accident Friday was the deadliest since November 2021, when a high-rise building under construction in the country’s commercial hub of Lagos collapsed and killed at least 45 people, most of them construction workers. 

Poor quality of work, lack of oversight, and official corruption to bypass safety checks are often blamed for the incidents.   

Ashoms said it was not immediately clear what caused the collapse in Plateau, but residents said it came after three days of heavy rain. 

Although formal investigations have yet to commence, state authorities have said there was a need to reinforce building standard codes. 

Plateau Governor Caleb Mutfwang “emphasizes the need for all developers and property owners to submit their building plans to the Jos Metropolitan Development Board for verification and revalidation,” Ashoms said.  

The school building disaster was the latest tragedy to hit Plateau State, which has seen a series of deadly intercommunal clashes.  

Gunmen killed 40 people in Zurak, a mining village 260 kilometers (160 miles) east of Jos, in May. And nearly 200 people were killed in the state last December in raids on mostly Christian villages. 
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UN urges release of detained Libyan journalist

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Tripoli, Libya — The United Nations mission in Libya called Saturday for the “immediate” release of a prominent journalist arrested this week, warning against a “crackdown” on media freedoms in the war-torn country.  

Ahmed Sanussi, chief editor of Libyan financial news website Sada, who has long covered corruption in the hydrocarbon-rich country, was arrested in his Tripoli home after returning from Tunisia, his family said.  

The United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) said, it was “deeply concerned about the arbitrary arrest and detention of journalist Ahmed Sanussi on July 11 in Tripoli.”  

In a message on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, UNSMIL called for his “immediate release.”  

“The crackdown on journalism fosters a climate of fear and undermines the necessary environment for democratic transition in Libya,” it said.

Division and unrest 

Libya has been wracked by division and unrest since the 2011 NATO-backed overthrow of former dictator Moammar Gadhafi and remains divided between two rival administrations. 

The U.N. mission highlighted the need for a “thriving civic space where Libyans can engage in open and safe debate and dialogue by exercising their right to freedom of expression.”   

“All Libyan authorities must protect journalists and media professionals.” 

Sanussi’s latest reporting on corruption implicated Economy Ministry Mohamad Ali Houej.   

Authorities in Libya did not comment on the arrest, which was also condemned by Western governments. 

Journalism group pushes for release

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) deemed it “unacceptable that authorities have not disclosed where he is being held or the reason for his arrest.”  

The Netherlands’ ambassador in Libya, Joost Klarenbeek, said on X, formerly Twitter, he was “deeply concerned,” adding that “any acts of arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance or ill-treatment must be thoroughly investigated.”  

CPJ’s MENA program coordinator, Yeganeh Rezaian, said Libyan “authorities must release Sanussi immediately and unconditionally and ensure his safe return home.” 
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Missing Polish coal miner found alive more than two days after quake

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WARSAW, Poland — A miner who was reported missing after an earthquake shook Poland’s Rydultowy coal mine has been found alive more than two days after the accident that killed one of his colleagues and injured another 17, local officials said Saturday. 

The miner has been airlifted to a hospital and the rescue operation has been closed, said Witold Gałązka of the coal mining group that operates the mine. 

Earlier, the office of the provincial governor of the Silesia coal mining region, in southern Poland, said that the miner was conscious and was being transported to the surface. 

“This is fantastic news,” provincial governor Marek Wojcik said on TVN24. 

The head of the Polish Coal Mining Group that operates the mine, Leszek Pietraszek, said that rescuers reached the 32-year-old miner around 2 p.m. Saturday. He was conscious and communicating but had some problems breathing. He received first aid from a doctor who also prepared him for transportation to the surface. 

Hundreds of rescuers took part in the operation and at times had to be withdrawn from the corridor when more tremors were threatened or because of dangerous methane gas levels. The rescuers had to dig through the rubble by hand to reach the miner, authorities said. 

Seventy-eight miners were in the area when a magnitude 3.1 tremor struck about 1,200 meters below the surface on Thursday afternoon. 

One miner, age 41, was killed and 17 were hospitalized with injuries. Thirteen of the injured have since been released from the hospital. 

The tremor caused a slide of rocks into the corridor at one spot, where the miner was found Saturday. 

The mining group has suffered several deadly accidents this year. In May, three miners died in a cave-in at the Myslowice-Wesola coal mine, and one was killed at the same mine in April. 

Two miners lost their lives in separate accidents in 2019 and 2020 in the Rydultowy mine, which was opened in 1792 and employs about 2,000 miners. 

Coal mining is considered hazardous in Poland, where some mines are prone to methane gas explosions or to cave-ins. Excavation in older mines goes deep into the ground in the search for coal, increasing the job’s hazards. The coal industry is among Poland’s key employers, providing some 75,000 jobs. 

Last year, 15 miners died in accidents. 
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Pakistan’s ex-PM Khan still jailed despite acquittal in marriage case

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ISLAMABAD, pakistan — An appeals court in Pakistan on Saturday acquitted former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife of charges their 2018 marriage was in breach of Islamic law, a crime for which both had been serving seven-year sentences. 

However, authorities promptly re-arrested Khan, the 71-year-old most popular Pakistani politician, and his third wife, Bushra Bibi, citing new charges against them, including corruption and inciting violence against the powerful military and other state institutions. 

The two were found guilty in February of allegedly breaking Islamic law by failing to observe the mandated three-month interval between Bibi’s divorce from a previous marriage and their marriage. 

The federal court ruled Saturday that the prosecution had failed to prove its case, and “consequently, both the appellants are acquitted of the charge.” It added, “They are directed to be released forthwith if not required to be detained in any other case.” 

But Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) political party said that following the acquittal verdict, authorities issued new arrest warrants and prevented the couple from leaving the prison near the capital, Islamabad. 

Khan was initially convicted and sentenced on corruption charges last August. He received three back-to-back convictions, including the one related to his marriage, and long prison terms as well as disqualification from politics just days before the February 8 national election.  

The rapid judicial actions prompted the former prime minister and his party to accuse Pakistan’s powerful military of influencing court proceedings to block Khan from running again and undermine PTI campaigning. 

Despite repeated convictions and a nationwide state crackdown on PTI supporters, Khan-backed candidates won 93 of 266 seats in the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament. All of Khan’s sentences have since been overturned or suspended, and he was supposed to walk out of jail on Saturday. 

“Mr. Khan has been arrested in 3 more cases. …Yet another gimmick to keep the illegal imprisonment prolonged,” a PTI statement said, rejecting as baseless new charges of anti-state violence and corruption against Khan and his wife. 

The PTI warned that the political turmoil gripping Pakistan since the former prime minister was removed from power in 2022 through a parliamentary vote of no confidence would only worsen by keeping Khan in jail despite his acquittals. 

Saturday’s ruling came a day after Pakistan’s Supreme Court declared that the PTI was unconstitutionally denied at least 20 seats in the National Assembly, citing pre-poll manipulation by the country’s election commission. That verdict dealt a critical blow to the country’s ruling coalition led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who is believed to be backed by the military. 

Friday’s top court verdict would further enhance the PTI’s strength and turn it into the largest parliamentary party. However, observers say it does not immediately threaten Sharif’s coalition government, which came to power after the highly contentious February vote. 

“It is now hoped that this judgment will preclude the kind of blatant engineering that defined this last general election,” Pakistan’s prominent English-language DAWN newspaper wrote in an editorial Saturday. “The government and establishment must not stand in the way of its implementation,” the paper said. 

The reference to establishment collectively refers to the military and spy agencies it leads. The military has staged several coups against elected governments and governed Pakistan for more than three decades since it gained independence in 1947. 

Politicians, including Khan, have publicly claimed that generals influence national political affairs even when not in power, charges the army denies. 
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Thousands rally in Pakistan, denounce Israeli strikes in Gaza

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ISLAMABAD — Thousands of supporters of a Pakistani radical political party rallied near the capital, Islamabad, on Saturday, denouncing Israeli strikes in Gaza and urging the government to send more aid to the Palestinians.

The protesters also demanded that Pakistan declare Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “a terrorist.” There was no immediate response from the government following the rally in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.

Pakistan has no diplomatic relations with Israel. Pakistan has been calling for a cease-fire in the nine-month Israel-Hamas war, and in recent months has sent relief items for the Palestinians in Gaza.

Saad Rizvi, head of the Islamist Tehreek-e-Labiak Pakistan party, which led the rally, said the sit-in at the protest would continue as long as its demands are not accepted by the government.

Hundreds of police were deployed near the rally, which took place as militant attacks have surged in Pakistan.
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Marathon wedding hosted by India’s richest man holds country in thrall

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NEW DELHI — When the son of Asia’s richest man gets married, the celebrations are expected to be lavish. But the breathtaking scale of the festivities held for the youngest son of Indian business tycoon Mukesh Ambani has become the talk of the country.

Anant Ambani tied the knot with his fiancée, Radhika Merchant, Friday in Mumbai at a star-studded event where the guests included reality TV star, Kim Kardashian, actors Nick Jonas, Priyanka Chopra and John Cena, former British prime ministers Tony Blair and Boris Johnson, as well as the who’s who of India from Bollywood stars and politicians to top businessmen.

The nuptials marked neither the start nor the end of the extravaganza. More parties are in store for the weekend. They will cap monthslong prewedding bashes where international pop stars Justin Bieber and Rihanna have performed, and India’s most popular actors have shaken a leg.

In India, where weddings have long been a display of status and wealth, the Ambani gala has surpassed anything the country has seen so far. For some it marked the arrival of Indian billionaires and their growing global clout. Others saw the glitzy celebrations as shining a light on the country’s growing wealth inequalities.

Mukesh Ambani’s wealth is estimated at $124 billion, according to Forbes. The family’s sprawling business empire, Reliance Industries, spans interests in petrochemicals and oil and gas to telecoms and retail.

“If you look at it, in the past, it was the great Indian maharajas who lived and celebrated on this scale. The maharajas of this new era in India are really the billionaires,” Harish Bijoor, a brand consultant, told VOA in a phone interview.

“When guests come from across continents, it shows not just that they know how to do it in style, but also the influence they command,” he added.

Declaring the wedding a public event, Mumbai police blocked key roads around the Ambani-owned Jio Convention Center where ceremonies began last Friday. Many offices in the busy business hub where it is situated declared work-from-home for their staff.

The celebrations have set off a social media frenzy, with millions of Indians transfixed by the events. They have closely scrutinized the grand, sequin-studded outfits and stunning jewelry that included outsized emeralds and diamonds worn by the Ambani family. There has been huge speculation around how much the parties cost. The wedding invitations were made of silver and gold, according to local media reports.

While the events were private, leaked videos have made the rounds on social media.

Reliance’s official Facebook page has also shared some video clips of dance performances and photographs of the events.

The list of VIP’s who have joined in the celebrations is long. In March, at a three-day prewedding event in Ambani’s ancestral hometown of Jamnagar, among the 1,200 guests were tech billionaires Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner and a string of Bollywood stars. One hundred chefs whipped up some 500 dishes. Rihanna performed for the guests.

In May, the Ambanis went on a four-day European cruise on a chartered luxury ship that began in the Sicilian city of Palermo and ended in Rome. Videos showed performances on the liner by the Backstreet Boys, Pitbull and David Guetta and singer Katy Perry belting out numbers at a masquerade ball in Cannes.

In Indian living rooms, where cricket, Bollywood and politics usually hog the conversation, the Ambani wedding has become the hot topic of conversation, with opinion divided on whether the celebrations are too ostentatious or the billionaire family had the right to spend their money as they want in a country where the big fat Indian wedding is the norm for even the middle class.

India’s wedding industry is worth $130 billion, nearly double that of the United States, according to a report by Jefferies, a global investment firm.

“Why should the Ambanis make it a small affair? If they have the money, then why should they not splash on their wedding when the average Indian also does the same?” Bindu Sachthey, a New Delhi resident told VOA. “I don’t agree with people who criticize or troll them for this gala affair. I am enjoying having a peek into how the ultrarich celebrate.”

As the Ambani fortunes have grown in recent decades, the family has scaled up its lifestyle. Their Mumbai residence, built in 2010, is a 27-story private apartment building, with three helipads, a private movie theater and a hanging garden.

Some said the ostentatious celebrations made them uncomfortable in a country where millionaires and billionaires are multiplying as the economy grows, but the per capita annual income is still about $2,700.

India has 200 billionaires, worth around $1trillion in wealth, nearly a quarter of the country’s 2023 gross domestic product, according to Forbes.

“I am very ambivalent about these celebrations. I would rather Indian billionaires do more for philanthropy and use their wealth for society rather than spend in this manner,” said author Gurcharan Das, author and former top business executive told VOA.

“But if some of the influential and rich foreign guests who came here decide that this is the time to invest in a rising India, I would say brilliant, the wedding would have served a purpose.” 
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Moscow condemns Australia ‘paranoia’ for espionage arrests of Russia-born couple

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SYDNEY — Russia has accused Australia of inciting “anti-Russian paranoia” for charging a Russian-born couple with espionage, the Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC) reported Saturday.

The married couple, who hold Australian citizenship, were arrested on charges of working to access material related to Australia’s national security, though no significant compromise had been identified, the Australian Federal Police said on Friday.

The woman, 40, an information systems technician in the Australian Army, traveled to Russia and instructed her husband in Australia to log into her official account to access defense materials, police said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, speaking to reporters on Friday, warned that “people will be held to account who interfere with our national interests and that’s precisely what these arrests represent.”

Russia’s embassy in the capital, Canberra, said a press conference by Australian authorities on Friday about the arrests “was clearly intended to launch another wave of anti-Russian paranoia in Australia,” the ABC said, citing an embassy statement.

The embassy requested written information from the Australian authorities on the couple’s situation and was considering “appropriate measures of consular assistance,” the ABC reported.

The embassy did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment.

On Friday, Igor and Kira Korolev appeared in the magistrate’s court in Brisbane, court filings show, charged with one count each of preparing for an espionage offense, which carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in jail. The charges are the first under laws introduced in 2018.

They did not apply for bail and were remanded in custody until September 20 when they are next due to appear, media reported.

Australia, one of the largest non-NATO contributors to the West’s support for Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 invasion, announced a A$250 million ($170 million) military aid package for Kyiv on Thursday at a NATO summit in Washington.

Canberra has been supplying defense equipment to Kyiv, banned exports of aluminum ores to Russia and sanctioned more than 1,000 Russian individuals and entities.
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North Korea denounces NATO summit declaration

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seoul, south korea — North Korea has denounced a declaration at a recent NATO summit that condemned Pyongyang’s weapons exports to Russia, calling the document “illegal,” state media said Saturday.

In a joint declaration this week, NATO leaders condemned North Korea for “fueling Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine,” by “providing direct military support” to Moscow.

NATO leaders also voiced “profound concern” over China’s industrial support to Russia.

Pyongyang has repeatedly denied allegations that it is shipping weapons to Moscow, but in June leader Kim Jong Un and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin signed an agreement that included a pledge to come to each other’s military aid if attacked.

Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency reported Saturday that the foreign ministry “most strongly denounces and rejects” the NATO declaration.

Citing a ministry spokesman, the agency said the declaration “incites new Cold War and military confrontation on a global scale,” and requires “a new force and mode of counteraction.”

On the sidelines of the NATO summit, Seoul and Washington this week also signed guidelines on an integrated system of deterrence for the Korean peninsula to counter North Korea’s nuclear and military threats.

South Korea’s presidential office said Seoul and Washington will carry out joint military drills to help implement the newly announced guidelines, which formalize the deployment of U.S. nuclear assets on and around the Korean peninsula to deter and respond to potential nuclear attacks by Pyongyang.

Relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points in years, with Pyongyang ramping up weapons testing as it draws closer to Russia.

After Pyongyang sent multiple barrages of trash-carrying balloons across the border, Seoul last month fully suspended a tension-reducing military deal and resumed live-fire drills on border islands and by the demilitarized zone that divides the Korean peninsula.
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Malawi former vice president’s party pulls out of governing Tonse Alliance

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Blantyre, Malawi  — A political party led by Vice President Saulos Chilima, who died in a plane crash last month, is withdrawing from the governing Tonse Alliance led by President Lazarus Chakwera of the Malawi Congress Party. Leaders of the United Transformation Movement made the announcement Friday at a news conference at the party’s headquarters in the capital, Lilongwe.

United Transformation Movement spokesperson Felix Njawala said the party believes leaving Malawi’s governing Tonse Alliance is what the party’s president, the late Vice President Saulos Chilima, would have done if he were alive. 

Njawala said although Chilima partnered with the Malawi Congress Party, he faced a lot of problems with the alliance, including being arrested, rebuked and sometimes ignored. 

Njawala said they have agreed today that they should pull out from the alliance.   

Njawala said the party would now shift its focus to the 2025 elections.

He asked everyone who is wishing for the good of the country, including young people, to help the party fulfill the agenda of Chilima, who he said was making Malawi a better and prosperous nation.  

“Our friends in Kenya are calling themselves Gen Z,” said Njawala. “These are people who were born from 1995 and you also should not fear and get tired, but you should take part to support the UTM party, which has carried the vision of Saulos Chilima.” 

Chilima and President Lazarus Chakwera signed the Tonse Alliance in 2020 to unseat then-President Peter Mutharika of the Democratic Progressive Party after the Malawi court nullified the 2019 elections that Mutharika had won.  

The UTM party has become the third partner to pull out from the governing alliance, which at one time included nine political parties. 

Political analyst George Phiri is a former lecturer of political science at the University of Livingstonia in northern Malawi.  

“Looking at how this alliance has been managed or governed, one would likely think that the move that UTM has made now has been made late,” said Phiri. “They would have moved out from the alliance already while the late Dr. Saulos Chilima was still the vice president of his country.”  

Phiri said members of the alliance have long cried foul over the failure of the leadership to call meetings involving partners. 

“Because they were expecting to be meeting regularly in order to monitor how the alliance government was moving,” said Phiri. “But seemingly it shows that the Malawi Congress Party stole the show for the alliance and didn’t want these other parties to participate in decision making for the alliance government.” 

Phiri said the withdrawal of UTM technically means the end of the Tonse Alliance because the agreement for the alliance was signed by leaders of two parties; UTM and MCP. 

VOA sought a comment from the MCP but has yet to receive a response.  

UTM’s Secretary General Patricia Kaliati said the members of the party’s executive committee are expected to endorse the decision at a meeting on July 19. 
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Rwandan President Kagame seems to be coasting toward fourth term

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KIGALI, RWANDA — Three candidates are vying for the presidency in Rwanda, where incumbent President Paul Kagame has won every election since 2000 and is widely expected to win again Monday.

At a recent campaign rally, Kagame told supporters much has been done but more is possible if he is reelected.

“There are roads, electricity and many other infrastructures that we have achieved,” Kagame said in Kinyarwanda, “but we still want to achieve more. We will do that with your help, starting with the elections we have on July 15.”

The 66-year-old Rwanda Patriotic Front leader is expected to cruise to an easy victory.

One reason, according to critics, is that he has ruled with a firm hand and stifled dissent.

But another, say analysts, is the way he’s been able to guide the East African country toward internal peace since the 1994 genocide, when an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by Hutu extremists.

Eric Ndushabandi, a political science and international relations professor at the University of Rwanda and an associate researcher at the Louvain University in Brussels, said Kagame’s support has been buoyed by his efforts to address Rwandans’ need for security and stability after the genocide.

“The language, practice and success around stabilization and security, mainly in internal politics, it is joining the expectations and aspirations of many Rwandans after this tragic and historical background,” Ndushabandi said.

He also said there is a big gap between the presidential candidates in terms of popularity, ideology, means and capacity.

The challengers

Democratic Green Party candidate Frank Habineza said he is in the race again this year because the incumbent president has been in office too long. Habineza last ran against Kagame in 2017.

He told VOA that he’s campaigned in 24 of the country’s 30 districts so far and that voters have been more enthusiastic this time around.

“I am giving them hope that after 30 years, we really need to see a different way of living, different political programs, different thinking and a different vision,” he said. “We are not going to destroy the good things that have been done before, but we want to give them better hope and a better future.”

Independent candidate Philippe Mpayimana, a journalist turned politician, also said he respects how far the country has come but wants to be seen as someone who can move it forward even more.

This is also his second bid for the top job. He says the innovative ideas and initiatives in his campaign manifesto have received coverage in 50 articles.

Other candidates were barred from the race by the National Electoral Commission for various reasons. One was a fierce Kagame critic, Diane Rwigara, who the commission said did not provide a criminal record statement and did not collect the minimum number of supporters’ signatures.

Rwigara expressed her disappointment on the X social media platform, where she told Kagame, “This is the second time you cheat me out of my right to campaign, why won’t you let me run.”

Critics and rights groups have long accused Kagame of silencing opposition voices and creating a climate of fear that discourages dissent in general.

Issues, economy

While support for Kagame remains generally strong on the streets of Kigali, some Rwandans say they’d like to see issues such as joblessness addressed.

“You see the progress this country has achieved by the leader who’s in charge. We wish that whoever is elected should not destroy what has been achieved but to continue it,” Theoneste Gatari, a Kigali resident, told VOA in Kinyarwanda.

Azabe Belton, another Kigali resident, said, “The youth make up most Rwandans. We want the person who’ll be elected to set up projects that help the youth get jobs because most of them are completely unemployed.”

According to the World Bank, the unemployment rate in Rwanda was 14.9% in 2023. While the bank lauded the resiliency of the country’s economy, which boasted a 7.6% growth rate in the first three quarters of 2023, it also said that public debt had increased significantly in recent years.

Teddy Kaberuka, an economic analyst, said Rwanda is a growing economy trying to attract industries and factories that can produce and provide jobs.

But the challenge, he said, is that “we are still having huge portions of the population [that] may be educated but not qualified [for manufacturing jobs]. Those are long-term investments that any government needs to address because it’s not in one year that you can create a pool of skilled people.”

Kaberuka said Rwanda is a country under construction that has gone through three economic phases since the genocide. The first 10 years, he said, were about laying a foundation for development by building security and institutions, providing basic needs for the population and allowing people to heal.

The second phase was about investing in development. The third phase was about weathering the COVID-19 pandemic, which wreaked havoc around the globe.

All that took place under the leadership of Kagame. Now, Kaberuka said, Rwanda is entering a new phase, one in which voters will decide who they trust to move the country forward.
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Inmates escape Niger prison that holds militants

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NIAMEY, niger — Niger’s interior ministry said it had ordered search units to be on alert after inmates escaped Thursday from the high-security Koutoukale prison, whose inmates include Islamist militants. 

The ministry statement did not say how many prisoners had escaped Koutoukale, which lies 50 kilometers northwest of the capital, Niamey, or how they had done so. In 2016 and 2019, attempted jail breaks at the facility were repelled. 

The prison’s inmates include detainees from the West African country’s conflict with armed groups linked to al-Qaida and Islamic State and suspected Boko Haram insurgents. 

Local authorities imposed an overnight curfew in the urban commune of Tillaberi, which is in the same region as the prison, but did not give further details.  

 

Niger and its neighbors in the central Sahel region are on the front lines of the battle to contain a jihadist threat that has steadily grown since 2012, when al-Qaida-linked fighters first seized parts of Mali. 

Thousands have been killed in the insurgencies and more than 3 million displaced, fueling a deep humanitarian crisis in some of the world’s poorest countries.
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