As the COP29 climate summit enters the final stretch in Azerbaijan, there are growing frustrations over the apparent lack of progress toward securing a deal on climate finance – seen as a crucial step in reducing emissions and limiting global warming. Henry Ridgwell reports.
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Month: November 2024
Lithuania steps up surveillance at sea following damage to undersea cable
VILNIUS, Lithuania — Lithuania’s Navy said on Tuesday it had increased monitoring of its waters after an undersea communications cable connecting the country with Sweden had been damaged.
An assessment is now being carried out along with allies, a spokesperson for the Lithuanian armed forces told Reuters.
The cable was one of two fiber-optic cables in the Baltic Sea which were severed in recent days, raising suspicions of sabotage by bad actors, countries and companies involved said on Monday.
A spokesperson for Arelion, the owner and operator of the communications cable, told Reuters on Tuesday that the link between Lithuania and Sweden was “fully out” but that the reason remained unclear.
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Opposition leader wins Somaliland presidential contest
The Somaliland electoral commission announced Tuesday that opposition leader Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi “Irro” defeated incumbent Muse Bihi Abdi for the presidency of the breakaway region located on the Horn of Africa.
Independent observers described the election as peaceful. Irro, candidate for the Waddani (National) party captured 63.92% of the vote, compared with Bihi’s 34.81%. A third candidate, Faysal Ali Warabe, received 0.74% of the votes.
The election was originally scheduled to take place in 2022 but was delayed due to political differences.
Bihi, who defeated Irro in the last election in 2017, promised during the campaign that he would respect the results of the election.
Irro ran on a platform of change, promising to create a brighter future for the people of Somaliland, including more work and job opportunities for women.
Somaliland in 1991 declared its independence from Somalia, which views it as a northern breakaway region, not a separate nation.
Its location near Djibouti puts it close to the only permanent U.S. military base in Africa and the first overseas base for China.
Both Bihi and Irro said they hope the incoming administration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will review policy toward Somaliland. The U.S. and Somaliland do not have diplomatic relations. The U.S. recognizes the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Somalia within its 1960 borders.
Irro recently posted messages of congratulations to Trump after his victory.
“We Somalilanders are thrilled with your bold policies towards Somaliland and look forward to strengthening the #Somaliland-US Partnership, as the President Aspirant, I look forward to promoting and contributing to a more stable, peaceful, and prosperous East Africa and the Red Sea,” Irro said.
The International Election Observation Mission (IEOM) to Somaliland’s presidential elections said the elections took place in a “mostly calm and peaceful environment where registered voters were able to exercise their right to vote during the day.”
IEOM said it did not observe any serious irregularities or electoral malpractice, although observers noticed procedural and administrative inconsistencies that could be addressed by better training.
The mission said it “identified a number of issues that electoral authorities could address including making sure that the secrecy of the vote is upheld in future elections and that the voter register is updated more regularly and closer to the holding of elections to ensure it is up-to-date.”
“In addition, voters need to be better informed about voting procedures,” the mission added in an assessment of the election.
Who is the new president?
Abdirahman Irro, as he is commonly referred to, was born on April 29, 1955, in Hargeisa, Somalia. After completing his secondary school education at Sheikh high school near Burao town, he moved to Mogadishu for higher education.
He has a diploma from the Somali Institute of Development Administration and Management, and SIDAM/California State University and he earned an MBA from SIDAM/New York State University, according to the Waddani party’s website.
He speaks Somali, English, Arabic, Russian and Finnish, the party said.
In 1981 he was employed by Somalia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a diplomat. During his time there, he worked at the Somali embassy in Moscow, before moving to Finland to live with his family.
He started leading Somaliland community organizations in Finland before he returned to Somaliland in 1999 to join politics. He was elected to the Somaliland Parliament in 2005, and became the speaker for the first democratically elected Parliament, a position he held for 12 years.
In 2012, he co-founded the Waddani political party and was chosen as its first chairman as well as the presidential candidate for the 2017 election.
Following parliamentary elections in 2021, Waddani become the majority party in parliament.
According to human rights lawyer and analyst Guleid Ahmed Jama, the election shows the strength of Somaliland’s democracy.
“After two years of political controversy and election delays that resulted in political violence, the successful completion of the electoral process is good news,” he said.
“However, it does not solve the many problems Somaliland is facing. There are big tasks ahead of the president-elect. I believe a government of national unity can salvage Somaliland and unite the divided and polarized people. The president-elect should not treat this as a win-lose scenario. He should come up with a plan to unite the people.”
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AI in action at Africa Tech Festival
Artificial intelligence was much discussed and demonstrated at the Africa Tech Festival in Cape Town, South Africa earlier this month. The conference highlighted how technology is changing industries on the continent. Vicky Stark filed this report.
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Arthur Frommer, travel guide innovator, has died at 95
NEW YORK — Arthur Frommer, whose “Europe on 5 Dollars a Day” guidebooks revolutionized leisure travel by convincing average Americans to take budget vacations abroad, has died. He was 95.
Frommer died from complications of pneumonia, his daughter Pauline Frommer said Monday.
“My father opened up the world to so many people,” she said. “He believed deeply that travel could be an enlightening activity and one that did not require a big budget.”
Frommer began writing about travel while serving in the U.S. Army in Europe in the 1950s. When a guidebook he wrote for American soldiers overseas sold out, he launched what became one of the travel industry’s best-known brands, self-publishing “Europe on 5 Dollars a Day” in 1957.
“It struck a chord and became an immediate best-seller,” he recalled in an interview with The Associated Press in 2007, on the 50th anniversary of the book’s debut.
The Frommer’s brand, led today by his daughter Pauline, remains one of the best-known names in the travel industry, with guidebooks to destinations around the world, an influential social media presence, podcasts and a radio show.
Frommer’s philosophy — stay in inns and budget hotels instead of five-star hotels, sightsee on your own using public transportation, eat with locals in small cafes instead of fancy restaurants — changed the way Americans traveled in the mid- to late 20th century. He said budget travel was preferable to luxury travel “because it leads to a more authentic experience.” That message encouraged average people, not just the wealthy, to vacation abroad.
It didn’t hurt that his books hit the market as the rise of jet travel made getting to Europe easier than crossing the Atlantic by ship. The books became so popular that there was a time when you couldn’t visit a place like the Eiffel Tower without spotting Frommer’s guidebooks in the hands of every other American tourist.
Frommer’s advice also became so standard that it’s hard to remember how radical it seemed in the days before discount flights and backpacks. “It was really pioneering stuff,” Tony Wheeler, founder of the Lonely Planet guidebook company, said in an interview in 2013. Before Frommer, Wheeler said, you could find guidebooks “that would tell you everything about the church or the temple ruin. But the idea that you wanted to eat somewhere and find a hotel or get from A to B — well, I’ve got a huge amount of respect for Arthur.”
“Arthur did for travel what Consumer Reports did for everything else,” said Pat Carrier, former owner of The Globe Corner, a travel bookstore in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The final editions of Frommer’s groundbreaking series were titled “Europe from $95 a Day.” The concept no longer made sense when hotels could not be had for less than $100 a night, so the series was discontinued in 2007. But the Frommer publishing empire did not disappear, despite a series of sales that started when Frommer sold the guidebook company to Simon & Schuster. It was later acquired by Wiley Publishing, which in turn sold it to Google in 2012. Google quietly shut the guidebooks down, but Arthur Frommer — in a David vs. Goliath triumph — got his brand back from Google. In November 2013 with his daughter Pauline, he relaunched the print series with dozens of new guidebook titles.
“I never dreamed at my age I’d be working this hard,” he told the AP at the time, age 84.
Frommer also remained a well-known figure in 21st century travel, opinionated to the end of his career, speaking out on his blog and radio show. He hated mega-cruise ships and railed against travel websites where consumers put up their own reviews, saying they were too easily manipulated with phony postings. And he coined the phrase “Trump Slump” in a widely quoted column that predicted a slump in tourism to the U.S. after Donald Trump was elected president.
Frommer was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, and grew up during the Great Depression in Jefferson City, Missouri, the child of a Polish father and Austrian mother. “My father had one job after another, one company after another that went bankrupt,” he recalled. The family moved to New York when he was a teenager. He worked as an office boy at Newsweek, went to New York University and was drafted upon graduating from Yale Law School in 1953. Because he spoke French and Russian, he was sent to work in Army intelligence at a U.S. base in Germany, where the Cold War was heating up.
His first glimpse of Europe was from the window of a military transport plane. Whenever he had a weekend leave or a three-day pass, he’d hop a train to Paris or hitch a ride to England on an Air Force flight. Eventually he wrote “The GI’s Guide to Traveling in Europe,” and a few weeks before his Army stint was up, he had 5,000 copies printed by a typesetter in a German village. They were priced at 50 cents apiece, distributed by the Army newspaper, Stars & Stripes.
Shortly after he returned to New York to practice law at the firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, he received a cable from Europe. “The book was sold out, would I arrange a reprint?” he said.
Soon after he spent his month’s vacation from the law firm doing a civilian version of the guide. “In 30 days I went to 15 different cities, getting up at 4 a.m., running up and down the streets, trying to find good cheap hotels and restaurants,” he recalled.
The resulting book, the very first “Europe on 5 Dollars a Day,” was much more than a list. It was written with a wide-eyed wonder that verged on poetry: “Venice is a fantastic dream,” Frommer wrote. “Try to arrive at night when the wonders of the city can steal upon you piecemeal and slow. … Out of the dark, there appear little clusters of candy-striped mooring poles; a gondola approaches with a lighted lantern hung from its prow.”
Eventually Frommer gave up law to write the guides full-time. Daughter Pauline joined him with his first wife, Hope Arthur, on their trips starting in 1965, when she was 4 months old. “They used to joke that the book should be called ‘Europe on Five Diapers a Day,'” Pauline Frommer said.
In the 1960s, when inflation forced Frommer to change the title of the book to “Europe on 5 and 10 Dollars a Day,” he said “it was as if someone had plunged a knife into my head.”
Asked to summarize the impact of his books in a 2017 Associated Press interview, he said that in the 1950s, “most Americans had been taught that foreign travel was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, especially travel to Europe. They were taught that they were going to a war-torn country where it was risky to stay in any hotel other than a five-star hotel. It was risky to go into anything but a top-notch restaurant. … And I knew that all these warnings were a lot of nonsense.”
He added: “We were pioneers in also suggesting that a different type of American should travel, that you didn’t have to be well-heeled.”
To the end of his life, he said he avoided traveling first class. “I fly economy class and I try to experience the same form of travel, the same experience that the average American and the average citizen of the world encounters,” he said.
As Frommer aged, his daughter Pauline gradually became the force behind the company, promoting the brand, managing the business and even writing some of the content based on her own travels. Her relationship with her father was both tender and respectful, and she summed it up this way in a 2012 email to AP: “It’s wonderful to have a working partner whose mind is a steel trap, and who doesn’t just have smarts, but wisdom. His opinions, whether or not you agree with them, come from his social values. He’s a man who puts ethics at the center of his life, and weaves them into everything he does.”
In addition to Pauline, Frommer’s survivors include his second wife, Roberta Brodfeld, and four grandchildren.
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Urban mosquito sparks malaria surge in East Africa
NAIROBI, KENYA — The spread of a mosquito in East Africa that thrives in urban areas and is immune to insecticide is fueling a surge in malaria that could reverse decades of progress against the disease, experts say.
Africa accounted for about 95% of the 249 million malaria cases and 608,000 deaths worldwide in 2022, according to the most recent data from the World Health Organization (WHO), which said children under 5 accounted for 80% of deaths in the region.
But the emergence of an invasive species of mosquito on the continent could massively increase those numbers.
Anopheles stephensi is native to parts of South Asia and the Middle East but was spotted for the first time in the tiny Horn of Africa state of Djibouti in 2012.
Djibouti had all but eradicated malaria only to see it make a slow but steady return over the following years, hitting more than 70,000 cases in 2020.
Then stephensi arrived in neighboring Ethiopia and WHO says it is key to an “unprecedented surge,” from 4.1 million malaria cases and 527 deaths last year to 7.3 million cases and 1,157 deaths between January 1 and October 20, 2024.
Unlike other species which are seasonal and prefer rural areas, stephensi thrives year-round in urban settings, breeding in man-made water storage tanks, roof gutters or even air conditioning units.
It appears to be highly resistant to insecticides, and bites earlier in the evening than other carriers. That means bed nets — up to now the prime weapon against malaria — may be much less effective.
“The invasion and spread of Anopheles stephensi has the potential to change the malaria landscape in Africa and reverse decades of progress we’ve made towards malaria control,” Meera Venkatesan, malaria division chief for USAID, told AFP.
More research is needed
The fear is that stephensi will infest dense cities like Mombasa on Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast and Sudan’s capital Khartoum, with one 2020 study warning it could eventually reach 126 million city-dwellers across Africa.
Only last month, Egypt was declared malaria-free by WHO after a century-long battle against the disease — a status that could be threatened by stephensi’s arrival.
Much remains unknown, however.
Stephensi was confirmed as present in Kenya in late 2022, but has so far stayed in hotter, dryer areas without reaching the high-altitude capital, Nairobi.
“We don’t yet fully understand the biology and behavior of this mosquito,” Charles Mbogo, president of the Pan-African Mosquito Control Association, told AFP.
“Possibly it is climate-driven and requires high temperatures, but much more research is needed.”
He called for increased funding for capturing and testing mosquitos, and for educating the public on prevention measures such as covering water receptacles.
Multiplying threats
The spread of stephensi could dovetail with other worrying trends, including increased evidence of drug resistant malaria recorded in Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania and Eritrea.
“The arrival of resistance is imminent,” said Dorothy Achu, WHO’s head of tropical and vector-borne diseases in Africa.
WHO is working with countries to diversify treatment programmes to delay resistance, she said.
A new malaria variant is also evading tests used to diagnose the disease.
“The increased transmission that stephensi is driving could potentially help accelerate the spread of other threats, such as drug resistance or another mutation in the parasite that leads it to be less detectable by our most widely-used diagnostics,” said Venkatesan at USAID.
Another added challenge is the lack of coordination between African governments.
Achu said WHO is working on “a more continental approach”.
But Mbogo in Kenya said “more political will” was needed.
“We share information as scientists with colleagues in neighbouring countries,” he said. “But we need to reach the higher level. We need cross-border collaborations, data-sharing.”
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Central African Republic applauds extension of peacekeepers’ mandate
Yaounde, Cameroon — Political parties and civil society groups in the Central African Republic are welcoming the U.N. Security Council’s decision to extend the mandate of the Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission, or MINUSCA.
Civil society groups say the U.N. peacekeeping troops will protect civilians from rebels during parliamentary and local elections that have now been rescheduled for April 6.
Blandine Ikom, a member of the C.A.R’s Coalition of Civil Society Groups, said she expected U.N. troops to help the nation make sure that local and parliamentary elections in 2025 and a presidential election expected in 2026 are held in peace to end more than a decade of chaos and political tensions. She said a return to democracy and local governance would restore peace and stability in the troubled state.
The success of the polls is not assured. Officials first scheduled the polls for October, postponed them to December, then changed the date again to April 6.
The government said rebel groups and opposition political parties were planning to disrupt the elections unless electoral laws and the 2023 constitution were revised. The opposition said the laws favor the party of President Faustin-Archange Touadera.
Last week, the U.N. Security Council extended the MINUSCA mandate through November 15, 2025. The council said MINUSCA would protect civilians, support C.A.R government officials, deploy forces for the preservation of territorial integrity and support an ongoing peace process.
Florence Marchal, MINUSCA spokesperson, said the force was also tasked with making sure all qualified C.A.R. civilians are registered on voter lists.
“The first step is to update the voter registration lists, and we are very keen on supporting this step because the same voter lists will be used for local elections, presidential elections and legislative elections,” Marchal told VOA by phone from Bangui, the C.A.R. capital. “Especially, we need to have more women on the voter lists. We have launched a specific project to support the registration of women on voter lists.”
Marchal said MINUSCA aims to have at least 50 percent of C.A.R. women registered to vote. The mission is assisting civilians who do not have a required birth certificate to obtain the document, Marchal said.
MINUSCA said it had developed what it called an integrated security plan with C.A.R military and police to ensure the safety of election officials, civilians and material during the April 6 polls and to lay the groundwork for presidential elections the next year.
Army General Zephirin Mamadou, the C.A.R.’s military chief of staff, said Monday on state TV that the extension of the U.N. peacekeepers’ mandate was another diplomatic victory for Touadera, who wants all civilians to live in peace and to have their goods protected from rebels who want to destabilize the C.A.R. Mamadou said the government troops he commands were galvanized by the extension and looked forward to collaborating with U.N. troops.
MINUSCA was created in 2014 to address the Central African Republic’s long-running security, humanitarian and political crisis. It is today made up of 14,400 troops, over 3,000 police and 108 corrections officers.
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Russia vetoes UN cease-fire resolution for Sudan
Russia vetoed a United Nation resolution Monday calling for an immediate cease-fire between Sudan’s warring parties and the delivery of humanitarian aid to millions of Sudanese.
Russia was the only Security Council member that voted against the cease-fire resolution.
China, Russia’s ally, supported the resolution, drafted by the United Kingdom and Sierra Leone.
Russian Deputy U.N. Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy told the council that Moscow vetoed the resolution because Sudan’s government should be “solely” responsible for what happens in Sudan.
U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said, “It is shocking that Russia has vetoed an effort to save lives, though perhaps it shouldn’t be.”
She added, “For months, Russia has obstructed and obfuscated, standing in the way of council action to address the catastrophic situation in Sudan and playing … both sides of the conflict, to advance its own political objectives at the expense of Sudanese lives.”
British Foreign Minister David Lammy said, “One country stood in the way of the council speaking with one voice. One country is the blocker. One country is the enemy of peace. This Russian veto is a disgrace, and it shows to the world yet again, Russia’s true colors.”
Polyanskiy accused the Security Council of operating under a double standard, pointing to the council’s failure to rein in Israel with what he said are violations of humanitarian law in Gaza.
War broke out between Sudan’s military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in April 2023, in the capital, Khartoum, just before the country was set to transition to civilian rule. The violence has spread to other regions around the country.
Eleven million people in Sudan have been displaced and half of the country’s population, an estimated 25 million people, are struggling with crisis-level food insecurity, according to the United Nations. Famine was confirmed in August in the northern part of Sudan’s Darfur region.
Some information in this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters.
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Greece to repay chunk of bailout debt early
Athens, Greece — Greece will make an early repayment of 5 billion euros ($5.3 billion) in bailout-era debt in 2025, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told a banking conference in Athens on Monday, describing the move as a signal of the country’s fiscal recovery.
“This … underscores our confidence in public finances and reflects our commitment to fiscal discipline,” Mitsotakis said.
Finance Ministry officials say they plan to reduce debt through primary surpluses, loan repayments and combating tax evasion.
Greece has rebounded from a 10-year financial crisis that forced it to borrow tens of billions of euros from its European Union partners and the International Monetary Fund.
But Mitsotakis’ center-right government, elected for a second term in 2023, is struggling to address a cost of living crisis that has sapped Greeks’ spending power. Despite the lack of any substantial challenge from opposition parties, the high cost of living has nibbled away at the government’s approval ratings and triggered union anger.
The country’s two main private and public sector unions have called a general strike for Wednesday that will keep island ferries in port and disrupt other forms of transport and public services.
A protest march will be held in central Athens on Wednesday morning.
The GSEE main private sector union Monday accused the government of “refusing to take any meaningful measures that would secure workers dignified living conditions.”
“The cost of living is sky-high and our salaries rock-bottom, (while) high housing costs have left young people in a tragic position,” GSEE chairman Yiannis Panagopoulos said.
According to EU forecasts, Greece’s economy is expected to grow 2.1% in 2024 and maintain a broadly similar course over the following two years.
Unemployment, now below 10%, is expected to keep declining, while inflation is projected at 3% this year.
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Militants kill 8 Pakistani soldiers, abduct 7 police officers
Islamabad — Authorities in northwestern Pakistan reported Monday that militants ambushed a military convoy near the border with Afghanistan and killed at least eight soldiers.
The attack occurred in Khyber, a volatile border district in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, targeting soldiers returning to their base after a counterinsurgency operation.
The ambush left at least three soldiers injured, one of whom is in “serious” condition, multiple security officials said. They spoke anonymously to VOA because they were not authorized to discuss the details with the media. The ensuing clashes reportedly also left several assailants dead.
The Pakistan military’s media wing did not immediately comment on the deadly attack or the reported casualties that followed.
Separately, dozens of heavily armed men stormed a security outpost in the province’s militancy-hit Bannu district Monday evening, taking seven armed police officers hostage. Police officials in the area reported that an operation to track down the assailants and rescue the abducted personnel was under way.
Several districts in the Pakistani border province, including Khyber and Bannu, routinely experience attacks on security forces, which are mostly attributed to or claimed by the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, an outlawed militant group.
TTP-led militants in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and ethnic Baloch separatists in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan, which borders Afghanistan, have lately intensified their attacks.
The militant violence has killed more than 1,100 Pakistani security forces and civilians nationwide so far this year, according to data reported by the Islamabad-based, independent Center for Research and Security Studies.
TTP is declared a terrorist group by the United Nations, while the Baloch Liberation Army, which is believed to be the largest insurgent group in Balochistan, is designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the United States.
BLA claimed responsibility for two attacks last week, including a railway station suicide bombing, that collectively killed at least 34 soldiers.
Pakistani leaders have persistently complained that TTP and Baloch insurgents orchestrate cross-border terrorism from Afghan bases, charges the neighboring country’s de facto Taliban authorities deny.
A U.S. government watchdog, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, reported this month that “it remains unclear whether the Taliban have the will and capability to fully eliminate terrorist safe havens or control the flow of foreign terrorist fighters in and through Afghanistan.”
SIGAR referenced U.N. findings in its quarterly report to the U.S. Congress on November 7, stating that al-Qaida operates eight training camps in Afghanistan, supplying the TTP with Afghan fighters and offering training facilities.
This prompted the U.N. sanctions monitoring team to warn that “greater collaboration among al-Qaida affiliates and TTP could transform the latter into an “extra-regional threat,” the report stated.
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Zimbabwe urged to put money into cancer treatment services
Cancer patients and advocates are urging authorities in Zimbabwe to ensure cancer centers have lifesaving equipment needed to properly treat patients. Some patients say public hospitals do not have working machines to provide radiotherapy. Columbus Mavhunga has more from Harare. (Camera: Columbus Mavhunga)
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Nigeria celebrates Miss Universe success amid citizenship controversy
abuja, nigeria — Nigerians are celebrating the success of Chidimma Adetshina at the Miss Universe contest in Mexico Saturday. Adetshina fell just short of the title, being named first runner up, but was still crowned Miss Universe Africa and Oceania.
Another Nigerian beauty queen, Stephanie Kingsley, spent Saturday glued to her social media feed as she monitored the pageant.
She said her heart pounded with anxiety as Adetshina, 23, progressed to the top five and later emerged as the first runner up, only behind Miss Denmark, Victoria Kjaer Theilvig.
“I was talking to my friend in the U.K.,” Kingsley said. “We were on the phone for almost two hours; we were just screaming. We had goosebumps throughout. As a pageant girl, I’m really proud and grateful. It opens doors for us. You know it’s been a struggle.”
Adetshina won support from millions of Nigerians after a citizenship dispute forced her to step down from the Miss Universe South Africa race in early August.
Adetshina was born to a Nigerian father and a South African mother with Mozambican roots.
She said she was concerned for her safety and the well-being of her family after she was targeted in xenophobic online attacks.
Shortly after stepping down, Nigeria’s pageant organizers invited her to represent her father’s country.
Kingsley said Adetshina showed extraordinary strength and courage.
“She’s a really strong person mentally because I don’t even want to think about how she would have tried so hard to maintain sanity,” Kingsley said. “She was able to achieve this groundbreaking record for Nigeria, that we, the pageant girls, have been hungry for since 2001.”
In 2001, Nigerian model Agbani Darego won the Miss World pageant.
Adetshina is the first Nigerian and West African to place so highly in Miss Universe contest.
On Sunday, the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission praised Adetshina for her fortitude.
Smart Courage, a Nigerian who runs an agency that trains beauty queens for the runway, said discrimination among Africans is a serious issue.
“The aim of pageantry is to help work on social issues especially those that affect women,” Courage said. “Every time we say, ‘Black Lives Matter’ but we also have an internal issue where Africans do not see other Africans as being ‘African enough’ and that is a conversation we need to start having. Because if we do not rectify such problems within the African community, it’s going to be very difficult to say you’re speaking up for Black people around the country.”
South Africa’s Home Affairs department is still investigating Adetshina’s mother for alleged citizenship fraud.
Adetshina is not accused of wrongdoing as she was a baby in 2001, when authorities allege her mother committed identity theft to register their citizenship.
Neither Adetshina nor her mother has commented on the allegations.
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China’s Xi highlights ‘Global South’ measures at G20
Washington — Chinese President Xi Jinping announced a range of measures to boost global development in his remarks Monday at G20 Summit meetings in Rio de Janeiro — highlighting Beijing’s support for its global infrastructure project, the Belt and Road, and a joint technology initiative to support so-called “Global South” nations.
Xi said the “Open Science International Cooperation Initiative” would be spearheaded by China, Brazil, South Africa and the African Union to ensure that technological advances benefit less developed, underdeveloped and developing nations.
“China supports the G20 in carrying out practical cooperation for the benefit of the Global South,” Xi said, according to state news agency Xinhua. He also said China expects imports from developing countries to top $8 trillion between now and 2030.
The Global South generally refers to countries listed as “developing” by the United Nations but also includes China and several wealthy Gulf states. In recent years, China and Russia have stepped up their use of the grouping to highlight efforts to support the developing world and grow the political, military and economic influence.
Beyond advocating for the Global South, China is also using the G20 summit to bolster its bilateral ties, meeting with the leaders from Britain and Australia on Monday, as well as host Brazil.
Xi’s meeting on Monday with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was a first for the two countries since 2018. Both sides were enthusiastic about building positive relations, despite a growing range of differences from security to human rights concerns.
During his meeting with Xi, Starmer said he wants relations between the two countries to be “consistent, durable and respectful.” He also stressed that Britain is “committed to the rule of law.”
Ties between Britain and China have been strained in recent years over a range of issues, including the case of Hong Kong media tycoon and British national Jimmy Lai, who is currently on trial in the port city, a former British colony.
Starmer raised Lai’s case directly during his meeting with Xi on Monday.
According to the Xinhua News Agency, Xi told Starmer that the two countries have the potential for more cooperation and “should open up new prospects for China-U.K. ties.”
During his meeting with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Xi lauded what he called the “positive progress” in ties, according to Chinese state media. Much like Beijing’s relations with Britain, ties between Australia and China have been strained in recent years.
After the G20 summit, Xi will pay a state visit to Brazil in honor of the 50th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two countries.
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Teenage Buddhist lama marks last birthday in US before joining monastery in Himalayas
ISANTI, Minn. — The young Buddhist lama sat on a throne near an altar decorated with flowers, fruits and golden statues of the Buddha, watching the celebrations of his 18th birthday in silence, with a faint smile.
Jalue Dorje knew it would be the last big party before he joins a monastery in the Himalayan foothills — thousands of kilometers from his home in a Minneapolis suburb, where he grew up like a typical American teen playing football and listening to rap music.
But this was not an ordinary coming-of-age celebration. It was an enthronement ceremony for an aspiring spiritual leader who from an early age was recognized by the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan Buddhist leaders as a reincarnated lama.
From the stage, he saw it all: The young women in white long bearded masks who danced, jumping acrobatically and twirling colorful sticks to wish him luck in a tradition reserved for dignitaries. The banging of drums. The procession of hundreds – from children to elderly — who lined up to bow to him and present him with a “khata” — the white Tibetan ceremonial scarves that symbolize auspiciousness.
From a throne reserved for lamas, he smelled the aroma of Tibetan dishes prepared by his mother over sleepless nights. He heard the monks with shaved heads, in maroon and gold robes like his own, chant sacred mantras. Behind them, his shaggy-haired high school football teammates sang “Happy Birthday” before he cut the first slice of cake.
One of his buddies gave him shaker bottles for hydrating during training at the gym; another, a gift card to eat at Chipotle Mexican Grill.
“I was in awe!” Dorje recalled later. “Usually, I’d be at the monk section looking up to whomever was celebrating. But that night it was for me.”
Watching Monday Night Football and memorizing ancient Buddhist prayers
Since the Dalai Lama’s recognition, Dorje has spent much of his life training to become a monk, memorizing sacred scriptures, practicing calligraphy and learning the teachings of Buddha.
After graduation in 2025, he’ll head to northern India to join the Mindrolling Monastery, more than 11,500 kilometers from his home in Columbia Heights.
Following several years of contemplation and ascetism, he hopes to return to America to teach in the Minnesota Buddhist community. His goal is “to become a leader of peace,” following the example of the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela and Gandhi.
“There’s going to be a lot of sacrifice involved,” Dorje said. But he’s not new to sacrifices.
He remembered all the early mornings reciting ancient prayers and memorizing Buddhist scriptures, often rewarded by his dad with Pokémon cards.
“As a child, even on the weekend, you’re like: ‘Why don’t I get to sleep more? Why can’t I get up and watch cartoons like other kids.’ But my dad always told me that it’s like planting a seed,” he said, “and one day it’s going to sprout.”
It all began with the process of identifying a lama, which is based on spiritual signs and visions. Dorje was about four months old when he was identified by Kyabje Trulshik Rinpoche, a venerated master of Tibetan Buddhism and leader of the Nyingma lineage. He was later confirmed by several lamas as the eighth Terchen Taksham Rinpoche — the first one was born in 1655.
After the Dalai Lama recognized him at age 2, Dorje’s parents took him to meet the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism when he visited Wisconsin in 2010.
The Dalai Lama cut a lock of Dorje’s hair in a ceremony and advised his parents to let their son stay in the U.S. to perfect his English before sending him to a monastery.
Dorje is fluent in English and Tibetan. He grew up reading the manga graphic novel series “Buddha,” and is an avid sports fan. He roots for the Timberwolves in basketball, Real Madrid in soccer, and the Atlanta Falcons in football. He even keeps a rookie card of wide receiver Drake London pasted to the back of his phone, which he carried wrapped in his robes during his party.
On the football field, playing as a left guard, his teammates praised his positivity, often reminding them to have fun and keep losses in perspective.
“It’s someone to look up to,” said Griffin Hogg, 20, a former player who took Dorje under his wing. He said they learned from each other and credits Dorje with helping him find his spirituality. “I’m more of a relaxed person after getting to know him and understanding his own journey.”
While Dorje tries to never miss Monday Night Football, he’s always there to help with any event hosted by the local Tibetan community, one of the largest in the United States.
“He has one foot in the normal high school life. And he has one foot in this amazing Tibetan culture that we have in the state of Minnesota,” said Kate Thomas, one of his tutors and the teachings coordinator at Minneapolis’ Bodhicitta Sangha Heart of Enlightenment Institute.
“You can see that he’s comfortable playing a role of sitting on a throne, of participating and being honored as a respected person in his community, as a religious figure. And yet, as soon as he has the opportunity, he wants to go and hang out with his high school buddies,” she said. “That’s testimony to his flexibility, his openness of mind.”
Listening to rap and making Tibetans proud
For years, he has followed the same routine. He wakes up to recite sacred texts and then attends school, followed by football practice. He returns home for tutoring about Tibetan history and Buddhism. Then he might practice calligraphy or run on a treadmill while listening to BossMan Dlow, Rod Wave and other rappers.
Although he was officially enthroned in 2019 in India, an estimated 1,000 people gathered at the Tibetan American Foundation of Minnesota for his recent ceremony.
“He unites us – Jalue is always here for us,” said Zenden Ugen, 21, a family friend and neighbor who performed Tibetan dances at the event.
“I wish him the best in life because being born and not being able to choose your life must be very hard,” Ugen said. “But he has a responsibility and him being able to take on that responsibility, I’m very inspired by him. I just hope he keeps being who he is.”
Dorje’s proud uncle, Tashi Lama, saw him grow up and become a Buddhist master.
“He’s somebody who’s going to be a leader, who’s going to teach compassion and peace and love and harmony among living beings,” he said about his nephew, often referred to as “Rinpoche” — a Tibetan word that means “precious one.”
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Protesters in Georgia’s capital set up tent camp, demand new elections
tbilisi, georgia — Demonstrators in Georgia’s capital have set up tents on a central thoroughfare and vowed Monday to stay around the clock to demand new parliamentary elections in the country.
The October 26 election kept the governing Georgian Dream party in power, but opponents say the vote was rigged with Russia’s assistance. Many Georgians viewed the election as a referendum on the country’s effort to join the European Union. Several large protests have been held since then.
President Salome Zourabichvili, who has rejected the official results, declared on Monday that she would appeal the vote results to the Constitutional Court. Zourabichvili, who holds a mostly ceremonial position, has said Georgia has fallen victim to pressure from Moscow against joining the EU.
Critics have accused Georgian Dream, established by Bidzina Ivanishvili, a shadowy billionaire who made his fortune in Russia, of becoming increasingly authoritarian and tilted toward Moscow. The party recently pushed through laws similar to those used by the Kremlin to crack down on freedom of speech and LGBTQ+ rights.
On Sunday, demonstrators closed an avenue leading into the center of Tbilisi. Nika Melia, leader of Coalition for Change, one of the opposition groups, voiced hope that the protests around the clock will mark “the beginning of the intense, strong protest movement that will finish with the fall of Ivanishvili’s regime.”
The EU suspended Georgia’s membership application process indefinitely in June after the country’s parliament passed a law requiring organizations that receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “pursuing the interest of a foreign power,” similar to a Russian law used to discredit organizations critical of the government.
The Central Election Commission said Georgian Dream won about 54% of the vote in October. Its leaders have rejected opposition claims of vote fraud. European election observers said the election took place in a “divisive” atmosphere marked by instances of bribery, double voting and physical violence.
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Russian opposition activists speak freely against Putin, but in Germany
Russian opposition members in exile took to the streets of Berlin Sunday to demand a pullout of Russian troops from Ukraine and the resignation of President Vladimir Putin in a protest that would have been impossible in Russia due to police and judicial pressure on opposition movements. Elizabeth Cherneff narrates this report from Ricardo Marquina in Berlin.
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