Russia’s defense ministry on Saturday attacked U.S. plans to maintain and boost the American military presence in eastern Syria as “international state banditry” motivated by a desire to protect oil smugglers and not by real security concerns.
U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Friday Washington would send armored vehicles and troops to the Syrian oil fields in order to prevent them from falling into the hands of Islamic State militants.
His comments came after President Donald Trump earlier this month pulled some 1,000 U.S. military personnel out of northeast Syria, a move that prompted Turkey to launch a cross-border incursion targeting the Kurdish YPG militia, a former U.S. ally against Islamic State.
Trump’s decision drew an angry backlash from Congress, including key Republicans who saw the pullout as a betrayal of the Kurds and a move that could bolster Islamic State.
In a statement, Russia’s defense ministry said Washington had no mandate under international or U.S. law to increase its military presence in Syria and said its plan was not motivated by genuine security concerns in the region.
“Therefore Washington’s current actions – capturing and maintaining military control over oil fields in eastern Syria – is, simply put, international state banditry,” it said.
U.S. troops and private security companies in eastern Syria are protecting oil smugglers who make more than $30 million a month, the statement said.
Russia, which backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and has helped him turn the tide of a bloody civil war, has long insisted that the U.S. military presence in Syria is illegal.
Moscow has further bolstered its position in Syria following the U.S. withdrawal from the northeast of the country, negotiating a deal this week with Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan to help remove the Kurdish YPG militia from within a 30 km (19 mile) strip along the Syrian-Turkish border.
Ankara views the YPG as terrorists linked to Kurdish insurgents operating in southeast Turkey.
A supplier of election technology whose software was used in highly suspect Venezuelan balloting, faces a fresh test of its products during a decisive election this Sunday in Argentina.
The company, Smartmatic, made headlines in 2017 by pulling out of Venezuela when the United States, the European Union and the Organization of American States accused the country’s leftist government of massive vote tampering.
Smartmactic CEO Antonio Mujica, a Venezuelan engineer, said at the time that Venezuela’s election authorities had grossly inflated the number of voters participating in the election of a special constituent assembly that was convened to change the constitution.
But government opponents had already filed a series of lawsuits, alleging major irregularities in previous elections administered by Smartmatic, which had worked with the Venezuelan government for more than a decade.
FILE – Venezuelan presidential candidate Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores celebrate after the official results gave him a victory in the balloting, Caracas, April 14, 2013.
Fraud allegations
Cases of fraud alleged by the opposition included a 2013 vote that elevated then-Vice President Nicolas Maduro to the presidency, even as the country reeled from spiraling inflation and a scarcity of consumer products.
“In the few districts, which we managed to audit through unfettered access to the paper ballots, we found that the opposition had won by huge margins even as election authorities reported that they had gone for Maduro,” said Adriana Vigilanza, a lawyer and international monitor of election processes who has led investigations into Venezuela’s balloting.
She said the Venezuelan military and government militias, or “colectivos,” prevented audits from being conducted in most districts, threatening local authorities with arrest if they allowed independent verification of ballot boxes.
The Venezuelan government contracted Smartmatic to supply election machinery when the company started up in Florida in 2004.
Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez, faced a challenging recall referendum at the time and wanted to replace the Spanish firm INDRA, which had been Venezuela’s main election technology provider.
FILE – The corporate logo of Smartmatic at its offices in Caracas, Venezuela, Aug. 2, 2017.
The government acquired a 28% stake in Smartmatic’s software provider, Bitza, which it sold back to the company when critics brought up conflict of interest concerns. Bitza and Smartmatic have interlocking directorships, and members of Venezuelan government agencies initially served on Bitza’s board of directors, according to corporate records seen by VOA.
Smartmatic’s website says the firm is present in several countries where it “designs technology to give authorities all the hardware, software and services they need to successfully manage each phase of the election process.”
Election commissions throughout the world have used Smartmatic technology to process 4.6 billion votes “without a single discrepancy,” according to the company.
There is no evidence that Smartmatic or its personnel have actively participated in election fraud. Mujica said it was his denunciation of irregularities in Venezuela’s 2017 Constituent Assembly elections that alerted the international community.
But Smartmatic’s past association with the Venezuelan government is raising alarms in other countries where its products are used.
FILE – Smartmatic founder and CEO Antonio Mugica speaks during a press briefing in London, Aug. 2, 2017.
Probe of Smartmatic acquisition
U.S. Congress members called for an investigation into Smartmatic’s acquisition in 2005 of Sequoia voting systems, which manages election technology in 17 American states.
In the Philippines, members of congress have charged that Smartmatic allowed multiple servers to be connected to the vote-counting center instead of only one secure line as specified in the original government contract.
Controversy has most recently been triggered in Argentina over technology that Smartmatic is providing for presidential elections Sunday. Incumbent Alfonso Macri faces a tough reelection challenge against a rival from the Peronist party, which has dominated Argentine politics for decades.
Smartmatic has been contracted by Argentina’s post office service to supply software for transmitting results through real time “telegrams” from voting centers to the national tallying office, according to government officials.
Argentine President Mauricio Macri, who is running for reelection with the “Juntos Por el Cambio” party, applauds next to rival candidate Alberto Fernandez, with the “Frente de Todos” party, at the end of a debate in Buenos Aires, Oct. 20, 2019.
Pro-Macri congresswoman Elisa Carrio has charged that the telegrams were loaded with excessive votes for Peronista candidate Alberto Fernandez in a three-way primary, which he won two months ago. A judge has ordered the designation of judicial poll watchers to control the transmission of results.
“The machines are only as honest as the people managing them,” said Vigilanza, the international elections monitor, who added that in the case of Venezuela, the transmission of results was tightly controlled by the central electoral commission dominated by Chavez and Maduro officials.
“There are a variety of ways of hacking electronic voting results,” said Guillermo Salas, a Spain-based election computer expert.
Salas and Vigilanza both charge that in Venezuela, a two-way server allowed central authorities to manipulate numbers at local voting centers before they were published.
The U.S. Embassy in Caracas reported use of the two-way line in confidential diplomatic cables revealed by Wikileaks.
International political consultant Ray Cantillo, whose clients have ranged from former U.S. President Ronald Reagan to Spain’s Socialist Party, said the United Nations should back the formation of an independent body to monitor electronic voting.
“A growing perception that elections are fixed is undermining democracy throughout the world,” he said.
For some she was the spy who wasn’t – just an eager Russian gun-rights enthusiast keen to improve relations between Russia and America, who was turned into a scapegoat by vengeful U.S. counterintelligence agencies.
For others, Maria Butina is a clandestine Russian agent, a real-life Red Sparrow, with flame-colored hair to match, who infiltrated conservative circles in the U.S., including the National Rifle Association, to establish ‘back channel’ communications with political figures and aspiring politicians with the goal of influencing them.
However, when she arrived home at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport to be greeted by her father and a melee of reporters, the 30-year-old shed no new light on the circumstances that led to her getting into trouble with U.S. authorities. She said she felt “well” and was happy “to return home.” She was greeted by people offering her flowers.
She has continued to maintain her overall innocence, despite having pled guilty to acting as an unregistered foreign agent. On board an Aeroflot flight from Miami, reporters lined up to interview her even before landing. She told them: “Well guys, almost home. Only a little bit left, only several hours. Thank you for your support. I’m waiting for the plane to land. I’ll be in my homeland.”
She added her imprisonment had been a “very painful and lengthy experience.” On her arrival she again thanked Russians for their support. “I didn’t give up simply because I knew that I could not do that,” she said.
After hugging her father, Butina added:”It was especially frightening when I was sitting in prison and seeing how they chose the scariest photos of me to air on the news. And they made shows on TV about it. I couldn’t even turn it off. I was forced to watch that. And the guards laughed and watched along. It was very hard to bear.”
Journalists wait for Maria Butina’s arrival, at Sheremetyevo International Airport outside Moscow, Russia, Oct. 26, 2019.
Released from Tallahassee’s Federal Correction Institution Friday after having served more than 15 months behind bars, Butina pled guilty in December to one count of conspiring to engage in unregistered lobbying on behalf of a foreign power. In the Russian capital awaiting her midday Saturday arrival was her father, Valeriy Butin, a retired 55-year-old manufacturing engineer, who had dubbed the charges against her in the past as “psychopathic and a witch-hunt.”
She has said she plans to go home to Barnaul, a beaten-down city in Siberia, once a manufacturing center for tanks, ammunition and tractors, but now one with little future.
There were no high-profile Kremlin dignitaries planning to be present at the airport. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said Russian President Vladimir Putin had no plans to meet with Butina as he did subsequently with Anna Chapman, the Russian agent who was part of a 2010 spy swap. Chapman was feted on her return and turned into a celebrity with her own television show.
That may suit Butina. In an interview with CNN this year she appeared to distance herself from Chapman, sniffing she had no intention of following in Chapman’s footsteps, maintaining curtly, “I’m not a circus bear.”
There was a time though that she liked the comparison with Chapman — “You have upstaged Anna Chapman,” Butina’s Kremlin contact wrote in an email he sent her from Russia while she was working in Washington, according to U.S. court papers.
Maria Butina is accompanied by federal agents after her release from a Florida prison, during her transfer onto a plane bound for Moscow, at Miami International Airport, in Miami, Florida, Oct. 25, 2019.
Despite their absence at the airport, Kremlin officials lauded Butina. Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the foreign ministry, described Butina as a “prisoner of conscience,” and said she had been subjected to “physical and psychological experiments” in prison.
Last week, when it became known that Butina would be released early for good behavior, Zakharova told state-owned RIA Novosti that “not every adult man would be able to take what Butina has lived through in the American prison.”
Butina was sentenced to 18 months in prison after having been arrested on July 15, 2018. FBI agents say she was a small cog in a much larger Russian influence campaign. Her infiltration though was apparently separate from the 2016 Russian election-meddling detailed in former special counsel Robert Mueller’s recent report.
But her Washington activity coincided with the broader Moscow-directed effort to covertly shape the last U.S. presidential election. Her trial judge noted Butina was transmitting political reports back to Moscow.
Putin criticized the prosecution of Butina labeling it “arbitrary.” He said in April, “It’s not clear what she was convicted of or what crime she committed. I think it is a prime example of ‘saving face.’ They arrested her and put the girl in jail.”
FILE – Maria Butina poses for a photo at a shooting range in Moscow, Russia, April 22, 2012.
She has her defenders in the U.S. as well, including Thomas Massie, a Republican congressman from Kentucky.
He tweeted Friday: “She served a ridiculously long sentence essentially for not filing the right paperwork. But now she is free. Sadly, she was jailed to satiate the rampant Russophobia in the US these days. We are better than this.”
James Bamford, author of best-selling books on U.S. intelligence agencies, profiled her for the New Republic magazine and argued Butina was “simply an idealistic young Russian” hoping to contribute to a better understanding between Russia and America. She told Bamford: “I thought it would be a good opportunity to do what I could, as an unpaid private citizen, not a government employee, to help bring our two countries together.”
That wasn’t the view of the judge who presided over her case, though, who said her work was directed by a Kremlin-linked Russian official.
Butina was not formally charged with espionage, which would have suggested the stealing of state and military secrets. Experts say her focus was on infiltrating U.S. political circles in ways that would be useful for Russia’s foreign policy.
Some former U.S. counterintelligence officials dismiss her claims of innocence, while acknowledging she wasn’t a run-of-the-mill spy. Joseph Augustyn, a 28-year veteran of the CIA’s clandestine service, commented in the Atlantic Monthly: “One thing the public should know about Butina is that she was not a ‘spy’ in the traditional sense, but rather what the intelligence community would call an access agent.”
FILE – Court papers, unsealed July 16, 2018, and photographed in Washington, show part of the criminal complaint against Maria Butina.
As an access agent she would have been able to pinpoint possible recruits and use unwitting accomplices to help promote Russian interests, he and other former counter-intelligence officers argue.
U.S. prosecutors alleged in court documents that Butina “maintained contact information for individuals identified as employees of the Russian FSB,” or Russian Federal Security Service. Additionally, prosecutors claimed FBI surveillance observed Butina having a meal with a Russian diplomat whom the U.S. government expelled in March 2018 on suspicion of being a Russian intelligence officer.
Some security analysts, however, say it still remains unclear whether her operation was initiated by Russia’s FSB or whether it was conceived by her patron, Alexander Torshin, a former deputy governor of Russia’s central bank, as a way to boost himself within the Kremlin administration.
According to Mark Galeotti, an analyst at Britain’s Royal United Services Institute, the shadowy siloviki – a Russian term for the “men of force” from the military, intelligence and security services — and their friends, clients and partners in business and politics compete with each other for Putin’s attention. Adventurism and covert missions can be highly rewarded when successful.
“They compete to catch his eye and win his favor,” he notes in his book “We Need To Talk About Putin.”
House Republicans have intensified their dissent against an impeachment inquiry of U.S. President Donald Trump, protesting that the House Intelligence Committee is questioning witnesses in hearings closed to the public and other lawmakers. The protest is part of Republicans’ strategy of attacking the process by which House Democrats probe allegations Trump sought foreign interference in the 2020 presidential election. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson reports from Capitol Hill.
Torrential rain that caused flooding and mudslides in towns east of Tokyo left at least nine people dead and added fresh damage in areas still recovering from recent typhoons, officials said Saturday.
Rescue workers were looking for one person still missing in Chiba. Another person was unaccounted for in Fukushima, farther north, which is still reeling from damage caused by Typhoon Hagibis earlier this month.
The death toll included eight people in Chiba and one in Fukushima.
Chiba inundated
While rains and floodwater subsided, parts of Chiba were still inundated. About 4,700 homes were out of running water and some train services delayed or suspended.
In the Midori district in Chiba, mudslides crushed three houses, killing three people who were buried underneath them. Another mudslide hit a house in nearby Ichihara city, killing a woman. In Narata and Chonan towns, three drivers drowned when their vehicles were submerged.
“There was enormous noise and impact, ‘boom’ like an earthquake, so I went outside. Then look what happened. I was terrified,” said a resident who lived near the crushed home in Midori. “Rain was even more intense than the typhoons.”
A street is flooded by heavy rain, Oct. 25, 2019, in Narita, east of Tokyo.
In Fukushima, a woman was found dead in a park in Soma city after a report that a car was washed away. A passenger is still missing.
Rain also washed out Friday’s second round of the PGA Tour’s first tournament held in Japan, the Zozo Championship in Inzai city.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held an emergency task force meeting Saturday morning and called for “the utmost effort in rescue and relief operations.” He also urged quick repairs of electricity, water and other essential services to help restore the lives of the disaster-hit residents.
Month’s worth of rain in half a day
The Prime Minister’s Office said the average rainfall for the entire month had fallen in just half a day Friday.
The downpour came from a low-pressure system above Japan’s main island of Honshu that moved northward later Friday. Power was restored Saturday at most of the 6,000 Chiba households that had lost electricity.
Two weeks ago, Typhoon Hagibis caused widespread flooding and left more than 80 people dead or presumed dead across Japan.
Yoshiki Takeuchi, an office worker who lives in a riverside house in Chiba’s Sodegaura city, said he had just finished temporary repairs to his roof after tiles were blown off by the September typhoon when Friday’s rains hit hard.
“I wasn’t ready for another disaster like this. I’ve had enough of this, and I need a break,” he told Kyodo News.
The Trump administration is banning U.S. flights to all Cuban cities except Havana in the latest move to roll back the Obama-era easing of relations, officials said Friday.
Supporters of the ban said it would starve the Havana government of cash and limit its ability to repress Cubans and support Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whom the U.S. wants to overthrow.
Opponents said prohibiting flights would simply make it harder for Cuban-Americans to visit their families outside the capital, without making a significant impact on the Cuban government.
The State Department said JetBlue flights to Santa Clara in central Cuba and the eastern cities of Holguin, Camaguey would be banned starting in December. American Airlines flights to Camaguey, Holguin and Santa Clara, the beach resort of Varadero and the eastern city of Santiago are also being banned.
Flights to Havana, which account for the great majority of U.S. flights to Cuba, will remain legal.
“This action will prevent the Castro regime from profiting from U.S. air travel and using the revenues to repress the Cuban people,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Twitter. Raul Castro stepped down as president last year but remains head of the Communist Party, the country’s highest authority.
Another stated reason for the move is to prevent tourism to Cuba, which is barred by U.S. law. But it is not clear how many people take the banned flights for tourism purposes. Many are used by Cuban-Americans visiting relatives in cities far from Havana by road.
“Eager to punish Cuba’s unbreakable defiance, imperialism is going after regular flights to various Cuban cities. It doesn’t matter that they’re affecting family relations, or the modest pocketbooks of most Cubans in both countries,” Carlos F. de Cossio, head of Cuba’s department of U.S. affairs, said on Twitter. “Our response isn’t changing.”
Charter flights to destinations outside Havana are apparently not affected by the ban, but those flights tend to be more expensive and far less convenient. The other remaining legal option is a flight to Havana and then a road trip that could last as much as eight to more than 12 hours over rutted, unsafe roads, in the case of Cuba’s eastern cities.
FILE – American Airlines planes arrive at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, July 17, 2019.
JetBlue and American issued brief statements saying they would comply with the decision.
The announcement coincided with an event in Miami calling for regime change in Cuba and featuring U.S. officials, Organization of Americans States President Luis Almagro, and a variety of Cuban-Americans and Cuban dissidents.
“This is a step forward,” said Cuba-born barber Ernesto Regues, who said he left the island in 2012 and still has family in Havana. “ow they need to stop the flights to Havana.”
Carrie Filipetti, deputy assistant secretary for Cuba and Venezuela in the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, said Havana would serve as the gateway for Cuban-Americans wanting to see their relatives.
“We want to make sure that Cuban-Americans do have a route to their families. You need to enter. Havana is currently carved out for this,” she said.
She warned, however, that “we will continue to increase sanctions” and said other countries should do the same.
“It is a long path with many steps along the way,” she said to a standing ovation.
Lourdes Diaz, a retired Cuban-American who arrived in the U.S. one year after Castro’s Revolution, said she disagrees with the current sanctions, feeling they help Cuba’s communist government more than hurt it.
“The only thing that suffers is the people,” Diaz said.
FILE – Tourists ride inside a vintage car as they pass by the Norwegian Sky cruise ship, operated by Norwegian Cruise Lines in Havana, Cuba, May 7, 2019.
The Trump administration has been regularly tightening the six-decade-old embargo on Cuba in recent months with the stated purpose of cutting off income to the Cuban government and forcing it to cut ties to Venezuela and grant more human rights to Cuban citizens. Washington has barred U.S. cruise ships visiting Cuba, sanctioned oil tankers moving petroleum from Venezuela to Cuba and permitted lawsuits against foreign companies profiting from their use of properties confiscated from Americans or from Cubans who later obtained American citizenship.
The measures have contributed to the Cuban government’s chronic shortages of hard currency and were blamed for several weeks of fuel shortages on the island, but so far there is no indication that the Trump policy is having its desired effect. Cuba’s security services continue to detain and harass dissenters and human rights groups say freedom of expression, assembly and other rights remain highly curtailed.
The Cuban and Venezuelan government remain tightly aligned and both have declared their intent to become even closer allies in the face of the Trump measures.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres urged leaders to listen to the problems of their people as demonstrations multiply in cities around the world.
“It is clear that there is a growing deficit of trust between people and political establishments, and rising threats to the social contract,” he told reporters Friday.
He cited economic problems, political demands, discrimination and corruption as some of the issues driving protests.
“People want a level playing field – including social, economic and financial systems that work for all,” Guterres said. “They want their human rights respected, and a say in the decisions that affect their lives.”
Demonstrations have erupted this year in scores of countries stretching across nearly every continent.
In Hong Kong, protestors have been on the streets since June, angered by a proposed bill that would allow extradition to mainland China. Hong Kong has been under Chinese rule since 1997. The bill was withdrawn last month, but protesters’ anger has not abated.
In the Middle East, demonstrations started sweeping Lebanon last week, after the government mismanaged the containment of massive forest fires and then, days later, announced plans to tax WhatsApp Internet-based phone calls.
Tens of thousands of protesters in the tiny country are demanding the cabinet’s resignation and early parliamentary elections. They want government corruption investigated, the minimum wage increased, and basic services provided — including clean water and 24-hour electricity.
Guterres said the Lebanese must solve their problems with dialogue and he urged maximum restraint and non-violence from both the government and the demonstrators.
In Iraq, the U.N. says at least 157 people have died and nearly 6,000 have been injured during protests that began October 1. Young people are frustrated with the lack of jobs and services, as well as government corruption and inefficiency.
“Governments have an obligation to uphold the freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly, and to safeguard civic space,” the U.N. chief said of all protests. “Security forces must act with maximum restraint, in conformity with international law.”
Guterres said he is “deeply concerned” that some protests have led to violence and loss of life.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, protests have erupted in Nicaragua, Ecuador, Haiti, Honduras, Bolivia and most recently Chile. While in Africa this year, demonstrators have raised their voices in Malawi, Zimbabwe, Guinea and Ethiopia. In Sudan, protesters succeeded in ousting the president who had been in power for 30 years.
Europeans are angry too. France, Britain and Spain have seen disruptive and sometimes violent protests, while in the United States, civil rights groups have marched for women’s rights. Supporters and opponents of President Donald Trump have also taken to the streets during the year.
Thousands of Zimbabweans marched Friday in Harare to protest sanctions imposed on the country’s leadership for most of the past two decades.
Protester Gilbert Shumba says the sanctions are to blame for food shortages.
“Let’s go and destroy and kick these sanctions,” he said. “These sanctions destroy us, they are affecting me, my family, my kids, my dog, my rat, even that wizard which resides in my house, even that cockroach is relying on myself. When I am in hunger, all those things are in hunger.”
Deputy Information Minister Energy Mutodi says Zimbabweans are united in demanding the sanctions end, in Harare, Oct. 25, 2019. (Columbus Mavhunga/VOA)
Deputy Information Minister Energy Mutodi said Zimbabweans are united in demanding that the sanctions end.
“As Zimbabwe, we are saying enough of these sanctions. These sanctions are making our people to suffer in big numbers, there is widespread poverty,” Mutodi said.
The United States and European Union first imposed sanctions on former President Robert Mugabe and dozens of his allies in 2002. The sanctions were a response to what then-U.S. President George W. Bush called a systematic campaign to repress dissent and undermine Zimbabwe’s democratic institutions.
The travel and financial sanctions targeted only Mugabe and his supporters, not the entire country. But Zimbabwean leaders, including current President Emmerson Mnangagwa, blame them for blocking development of Zimbabwe’s economy.
A public holiday was declared in Zimbabwe for Oct. 25, 2019, to allow schoolchildren and workers to join a protest against sanctions imposed on on the country’s leadership. (Columbus Mavhunga/VOA)
Ahead of the Friday march, Brian Nichols, the U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe, told media that Harare needed to make changes for the sanctions to be lifted.
“If the government of Zimbabwe were truly interested in the issue of sanctions and considered this a major problem, rather than having a rally, what the government of Zimbabwe would do was make a chart of what the things that the international community is asking it to do, and then come with an argument, saying we have addressed the concerns that you have here with you,” he said.
Nichols added that the U.S. has asked Zimbabwe to repeal laws that critics say are used to stifle dissent and media freedom, but the laws remain on the books.
In addition, the ambassador said Mnangagwa’s government should address corruption, which he said is causing Zimbabwe’s economy to remain depressed.
Rwanda is the latest African country to sign a nuclear deal with Russian state atomic company Rosatom. But the deals between Russia and several African countries are raising concerns from environmentalists who say nuclear energy is not always clean and does not come free.
A Russia-Africa summit in Sochi, Russia, this week brought together the heads of state and government representatives from 55 countries. Speaking at the forum, Russian President Vladimir Putin said his government was offering African countries an opportunity to use nuclear technology.
“Rosatom is prepared to help our African partners in creating a nuclear industry,” with “the construction of research centers based on multifunctional reactors,” he said.
Planned facilities
Rosatom is building a $29 billion nuclear plant for Egypt. The same company is helping Uganda, the Republic of Congo and Rwanda establish nuclear facilities.
Right now, South Africa is the only country in the continent with a nuclear power plant.
FILE – The Koeberg Nuclear Power Station, about 30 kilometers north of Cape Town, is owned and operated by South Africa’s power utility Eksom, Jan. 18, 2007.
In Rwanda, Rosatom will construct the Center of Nuclear Science and Technologies. In Nigeria, a planned Rosatom nuclear reactor may provide the West African nation with electricity.
Environmental activists are wary of these deals. Jakpor Philip of Nigeria’s Environment Rights Action said, “We continue to hear, for instance, that nuclear energy is clean, but in truth, it is not clean because you need a lot of water to keep the nuclear plant cool. You need an independent power to keep powering 24/7. If you need that much power to keep that plant running, then it shows it’s not clean.”
Most African countries have needs that could be met by nuclear energy. According to the International Energy Agency, 57 percent of Africa’s population does not have easy access to electricity, and those who have it must deal with frequent power outages.
‘In-country’ managers
Michael Gatari, the head of nuclear science and technology at the University of Nairobi, said African countries can pursue nuclear technology but must get their own people to manage the nuclear reactors.
“We should have in-country, competent, well-trained manpower not depending on expatriates’ support, because that would be very expensive in long run,” he said. “Manpower development for nuclear energy is very critical.”
Gatari also said Russia was seeking business in Africa, not giving away gifts.
“Africa is not going to get a free reactor,” he said. “They are selling their technology. So the issue of helping does not come in. Of course, there is a component of ‘we will train your people, we’ll do this,’ but still if you calculate the cost, it’s we who cough. So the African countries should move into it with a business vision.”
And in Sochi where Putin rolled out the red carpet for African leaders, he reminded them Russia was open for business.
North Korea has proposed that Seoul discuss the removal of its facilities from the North’s resort of Mount Kumgang, a key symbol of cooperation that Pyongyang recently criticized as “shabby” and “capitalist,” the South’s officials said on Friday.
In the latest sign of the neighbors’ cooling ties, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has urged that the South’s “backward” and “hotchpotch” facilities at the infrequently used resort be taken down and rebuilt, the North’s KCNA news agency has said.
On Friday, North Korea sent notices to the South’s Unification Ministry, which handles issues between the two sides, and Hyundai Group, whose affiliate Hyundai Asan Corp built resort facilities, asking for the demolition and seeking discussion through the exchange of documents, the ministry said.
“The government will prepare a creative solution to the Mt. Kumgang tourism project” by protecting the property rights of South Korean people while considering the international situation, inter-Korean agreements and domestic consensus, Unification Ministry spokesman Lee Sang-min said in a briefing.
Any withdrawal of South Korean relics from the scenic resort would be another setback for President Moon Jae-in’s campaign to end confrontation between the old foes, including efforts to resume stalled business initiatives.
“The North asking the South to discuss the issue ‘in writing’ means they don’t even want to talk about other things,” said Cheong Seong-chang, a senior fellow at South Korea’s Sejong Institute.
Mt. Kumgang is on North Korea’s eastern coast, just beyond the demilitarized zone separating the two countries. It was one of two major inter-Korean economic projects, along with the Kaesong industrial zone, and an important token of rapprochement during decades of hostilities following the 1950-53 Korean War.
Kim, on a visit to a nearby province, hailed a new tourist resort being built there as a striking contrast to Mt. Kumgang’s “architecture of capitalist businesses targeting profit-making from roughly built buildings,” KCNA said.
However, the South’s Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul said he did not see the North’s proposal as a bid to exclude the South, because Kim Jong Un had said he would welcome South Koreans if it was properly rebuilt, the Yonhap news agency said.
Tourism has become increasingly key to Kim’s policy of “self-reliant” economic growth, as it is not directly subject to U.N. sanctions aimed at curbing the North’s nuclear programs, though they ban the transfer of bulk cash to Pyongyang.
There have been no South Korean tours to Mt. Kumgang since 2008, although there have been infrequent events such as the reunions of families from both sides separated by the war.
Kim has called for Mt. Kumgang to be refurbished in “our own style” alongside other tourist zones, such as the Wonsan-Kalma coastal area and the Masikryong ski resort.
The Wonsan beach resort, one of Kim’s pet projects, is seen nearing completion by early 2020 after “remarkable construction progress” since April, 38 North, a U.S.-based project that studies North Korea, said in a report, citing satellite imagery.
At least two demonstrators were killed in renewed anti-government rallies in the Iraqi capital on Friday, officials said, as security forces unleashed tear gas to push back thousands from Baghdad’s high-security Green Zone.
The protests were the second phase of a week-long movement in early October demanding an end to widespread corruption, unemployment and an overhaul of the political system.
Activists called Iraqis to go out on the streets again on Friday, which marks a year since Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi came to power. It is also a deadline set by the country’s top Shiite authority for him to enact desired reforms.
But the rallies began early, with hundreds gathering in the capital’s iconic Tahrir (Liberation) Square on Thursday evening.
On Friday, many crossed the bridge to mass near the Green Zone, which hosts government offices and foreign embassies, but security forces used a volley of tear gas to push them back.
“Two demonstrators died, with preliminary information indicating they were hit in the head or face by tear gas canisters,” said Ali Bayati, a member of the Iraqi Human Rights Commission.
He said nearly 100 more people were wounded.
There were no reports of live fire being used to disperse protesters.
‘We want dignity!’
“We’re not hungry — we want dignity!” a protester shouted in Baghdad on Friday morning, while another lashed out at “the so-called representatives of the people who have monopolised all the resources”.
One in five people lives in poverty in Iraq and youth unemployment sits around 25 percent, according to the World Bank.
The rates are staggering for OPEC’s second-biggest oil producer, which Transparency International ranks as the 12th most corrupt state in the world.
“I want my share of the oil!” another protester told AFP.
Rallies were also rocking the southern cities of Diwaniyah, Najaf and Nasiriyah, where demonstrators said they would remain in the streets “until the regime falls”.
Iraq’s highest Shiite authority, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who has backed reforms, urged protesters Friday during his weekly sermon to use “restraint” to stop the demos descending into “chaos”.
But the real test will be the afternoon, when many are expecting supporters of Moqtada al-Sadr — an influential cleric who controls the largest parliamentary bloc — to hit the streets.
His supporters have breached the Green Zone in previous years. This week, he called on his supporters to protest and even instructed members of his own paramilitary force to be on “high alert.”
They could be seen in parts of Baghdad on Friday in a clear show of force.
PM snipes at Sadr
The movement is unprecedented in recent Iraqi history both because of its spontaneity and independence, and because of the brutal violence with which a torrent of protests on October 1-6 was met.
At least 157 people were killed, according to a government probe published on Tuesday, which acknowledged that “excessive force” was used.
A vast majority of them were protesters in Baghdad, with 70 percent shot in the head or chest.
In response, Abdel Mahdi issued a laundry list of measures meant to ease public anger, including hiring drives and higher pensions for the families of protesters who died.
The beleaguered premier defended his reform agenda in a scheduled televised appearance early Friday, telling watchers it was their “right” to demonstrate as long as they did not “disturb public life”.
But he also said political figures demanding “reform” had themselves failed to enact it, in an apparent reference to Sadr’s “Alliance towards Reform” bloc.
Some have backed the government, including the powerful Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary force whose political branch is the second-largest parliamentary bloc.
And Iraq’s mostly-Kurdish north and Sunni west have stayed out of the protests.
Iraq has been ravaged by decades of conflict that finally calmed in 2017 with a declared victory over the Islamic State group.
Thus began a period of relative calm, with security forces lifting checkpoints and concrete blast walls and traffic choking city streets at hours once thought too dangerous.
Restrictions had even softened around the Green Zone but were reinstated as the October demonstrations picked up in Tahrir, which lies just across the Tigris River.
Authorities also imposed an internet blackout, which has been mostly lifted although social media remains blocked.
From making so-called side deals with Ukraine to pulling U.S. forces from northeastern Syria, U.S. President Donald Trump has gone his own way when it comes to conducting U.S. foreign policy. But the Syria decision has sparked widespread opposition in Washington and in the case of Ukraine, critics say Trump sidestepped career U.S. diplomats to further his own interests against a potential election rival.
Despite criticism, U.S. President Donald Trump is standing by his decision to move U.S. troops from the Syrian-Turkish border, where they fought alongside longtime Kurdish allies.
“They stayed for almost 10 years. Let someone else fight over this long, bloodstained sand,” Trump said.
This, as the top U.S. official to Syria appeared to distance himself from Trump’s decision.
“Were you consulted about the withdrawal of troops as was recently done?” Senator Bob Menendez, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee asked James Jeffrey, the U.S. Special Representative for Syria.
Elsewhere on Capitol Hill, other diplomats testified about the Trump administration’s delay providing approved U.S military assistance to Ukraine.
A written statement by one described how the White House bypassed normal diplomatic channels to press Ukraine to investigate Democrats and the Bidens in return for military aid.
“The idea that vital military assistance would be withheld for such a patently political reason, for the reason of serving the president’s re-election campaign is a phenomenal breach of the president’s duty to defend our national security,” said Democrat Adam Schiff, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
Trump’s actions on Ukraine could threaten his presidency as the impeachment inquiry continues.
“We have agencies, we have tasked areas along government, whose job it is to investigate those. And if President Trump wanted the Bidens investigated for their activities there, it should have been done through the diplomatic channels,” said Shannon Bow O’Brien of the University of Texas at Austin.
Those normal diplomatic channels have set the United States apart from countries whose policies are set by autocratic leaders, says terrorism expert Mike Newton.
“The checks and balances, where agencies push back against each other, and really experienced, smart policy makers wrestle with choices and consequences and diplomatic fallout and maybe military best practices,” Newton said.
When this process is bypassed, experts say, U.S. credibility around the world is damaged.
“If there are doubts about the President’s decisions which there are in the State Department and the Pentagon, and the intelligence community as well as in the Congress, there’s real questions about cohesiveness of U.S. foreign policy and whether we have a real strategy,” said Mark Simakovsky of the Atlantic Council, an international affairs think tank.
Donald Trump was elected on promises to break with traditional U.S. foreign policy, and his supporters show no sign of abandoning him.
But the impeachment inquiry and outcry over his Syria policy show there are limits to his approach.
Under a broad plane tree near Albania’s border with Greece, Jorgji Ilia filled a battered flask from one of the Vjosa River’s many springs.
“There is nothing else better than the river,” the retired schoolteacher said. “The Vjosa gives beauty to our village.”
The Vjosa is temperamental and fickle, changing from translucent cobalt blue to sludge brown to emerald green, from a steady flow to a raging torrent. Nothing holds it back for more than 270 kilometers (170 miles) in its course through the forest-covered slopes of Greece’s Pindus mountains to Albania’s Adriatic coast.
This is one of Europe’s last wild rivers. But for how long?
Albania’s government has set in motion plans to dam the Vjosa and its tributaries to generate much-needed electricity for one of Europe’s poorest countries, with the intent to build eight dams along the main river.
Hydropower boom
It’s part of a world hydropower boom, mainly in Southeast Asia, South America, Africa and less developed parts of Europe. In the Balkans alone, about 2,800 projects to tame rivers are underway or planned, said Olsi Nika of EcoAlbania, a nonprofit that opposes the projects.
Some tout hydropower as a reliable, cheap and renewable energy source that helps curb dependence on planet-warming fossil fuels. But some recent studies question hydropower’s value in the fight against global warming. Critics say the benefits of hydropower are overstated — and outweighed by the harm dams can do.
FILE – The sky is reflected in the Vjosa River after sunset near the village of Badelonje, Albania, June 30, 2019. Rivers are a crucial part of the global water cycle. They act like nature’s arteries.
Rivers are a crucial part of the global water cycle. They act as nature’s arteries, carrying energy and nutrients across vast landscapes, providing water for drinking, food production and industry. They’re a means of transportation for people and goods, and a haven for boaters and anglers. Rivers are home to a diversity of fish — including tiny minnows, trout and salmon — and provide shelter and food for birds and mammals.
But dams interrupt their flow, and the life in and around them. While installing fish ladders and widening tunnels to bypass dams helps some species, it hasn’t worked in places like the Amazon, said Julian Olden, a University of Washington ecologist.
Dams block the natural flow of water and sediment. They also can change the chemistry of the water and cause toxic algae to grow.
Some will lose property
Those who live along the riverbank or rely on the waterway for their livelihood fear dams could kill the Vjosa as they know it. Its fragile ecosystem will be irreversibly altered, and many residents will lose their land and homes.
In the 1990s, an Italian company was awarded a contract to build a dam along the Vjosa in southern Albania. Construction began on the Kalivac dam but never was completed, plagued with delays and financial woes.
Now, the government has awarded a new contract for the site to a Turkish company. Energy ministry officials rejected multiple interview requests to discuss their hydropower plans.
FILE – People raft on the Vjosa River near Permet, Albania, June 25, 2019. Some tout hydropower as a reliable, cheap and renewable energy source, but critics say the benefits of hydropower are overstated and are outweighed by the harm dams can do.
Many locals oppose the plans. Dozens of residents from the village of Kute joined nonprofits to file what was Albania’s first environmental lawsuit against the construction of a dam in the Pocem gorge, a short distance downriver from Kalivac. They won in 2017, but the government has appealed.
The victory, while significant, was just one battle. A week later, the government issued the Kalivac contract. EcoAlbania plans to fight that project, too.
Ecologically, there is a lot at stake.
A recent study found the Vjosa was incredibly diverse. More than 90 types of aquatic invertebrates were found in the places where dams are planned, plus hundreds of fish, amphibian and reptile species, some endangered and others endemic to the Balkans.
Thwarting fish
Dams can unravel food chains, but the most well-known problem with building dams is that they block the paths of fish trying to migrate upstream to spawn.
As pressure to build dams intensifies in less developed countries, the opposite is happening in the U.S. and Western Europe, where there’s a movement to tear down dams considered obsolete and environmentally destructive.
More than 1,600 have been dismantled in the U.S., most within the past 30 years, according to the advocacy group American Rivers. In Europe, the largest-ever removal began this year in France, where two dams are being torn down on Normandy’s Selune River.
With so few wild rivers left around the globe, the Vjosa also is a valuable resource for studying river behavior.
“Science is only at the beginning of understanding how biodiversity in river networks is structured and maintained,” said researcher Gabriel Singer of the Leibniz-Institute in Germany. “The Vjosa is a unique system.”
FILE – An abandoned bulldozer sits on the banks of the Vjosa River at the construction site of the Kalivac dam in Albania, June 23, 2019.
For Shyqyri Seiti, it’s much more personal.
The 65-year-old boatman has been transporting locals, goods and livestock across the river for about a quarter-century. The construction of the Kalivac dam would spell disaster for him. Many of the fields and some of the houses in his nearby village of Ane Vjose would be lost.
“Someone will benefit from the construction of the dam, but it will flood everyone in the area,” he said. “What if they were in our place? How would they feel to lose everything?”
But the mayor, Metat Shehu, insisted that his community “has no interest” in the matter.
“The Vjosa is polluted. The plants and creatures of Vjosa have vanished,” Shehu said. The biggest issue, he added, is that villagers are being offered too little to give up their land. He hopes the dam will bring investment to the area.
‘Irreparable’ damage
Jonus Jonuzi, a 70-year-old farmer who grew up along the river, is hopeful the Vjosa will stay wild.
“Albania needs electrical energy. But not by creating one thing and destroying another,” he said. “Why do such damage that will be irreparable for life, that future generations will blame us for what we’ve done?”
This was produced in partnership with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Alaska’s famed Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race has joined a new global partnership billed as the World Series of long-distance sled dog racing and aimed at bringing more fans to the cold-weather sport.
The Iditarod has teamed up with Norway pet food supplement company and series creator, Aker BioMarine, and other races in Minnesota, Norway and Russia for the inaugural QRILL Pet Arctic World Series, or QPAWS, next year.
Logistics were still being worked out, but the series will use a joint point system over a still-undetermined time frame, GPS tracking and an online platform to follow the racing teams. Talks with potential broadcast outlets also are under way, organizers say.
FILE – Defending Iditarod champion Joar Lefseth Ulsom of Norway greets fans on the trail during the ceremonial start of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, March 2, 2019, in Anchorage, Alaska.
“Together with Iditarod and the other unique events, we will make QPAWS a winning TV concept in order to build the sport for the future,” series project manager Nils Marius Otterstad said in an email to The Associated Press. He said the Iditarod was approached about the idea a year ago and agreed to move forward on it during this year’s race in March.
The other races
At 1,000 miles (1,610 kilometers), the Iditarod will be the longest race among those participating the first year, as well as serve as the finale to the series next March. The series also will feature races kicking off in late January with the John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon in Minnesota, followed by the Femundlopet in Norway in early February by the Volga Quest in Russia a week later.
Discussions also are under way to add other races, including the 1,000-mile (1,610-kilometer) Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race traversing Alaska and Canada’s Yukon each February. Marti Steury, the Quest’s executive director for Alaska, said Quest officials are watching to see how the first year goes.
New Iditarod CEO Rob Urbach poses for a photo in Anchorage, Alaska, Oct. 15, 2019.
Participants in any of the QPAWS races don’t have to join the circuit if they prefer to stick to just one contest, according to the Iditarod’s new CEO, Rob Urbach. Because the races are so globally distant and scheduled so closely together, he said the circuit could take place over two years.
“The complexity of our racing is unique in the world of sports, and therefore may see some different ways to do the series,” he said.
The Iditarod is already well-steeped in technology, despite the low-tech aspect of the trail, which spans two mountain ranges and the frozen Yukon River before it heads up the wind-scrubbed Bering Sea Coast to the finish line in the Gold Rush town of Nome. Sleds are equipped with GPS trackers that allow fans to follow them online and enable organizers to ensure no one is missing.
Race volunteers and contractors working out of an Anchorage hotel process live video streamed from village checkpoints, using satellite dishes. Some volunteers handle race-standing updates sent through equipment that activates a super-size hot spot in the most remote places with satellite connections.
Troubled time for Iditarod
The move to QPAWS follows a troublesome time for the Iditarod that was marked in recent years by multiple challenges, including escalating pressure from animal-welfare activists over multiple dog deaths, a 2017 dog-doping scandal and the loss of major sponsors.
Urbach, a former CEO of USA Triathlon, recently met with representatives of the Iditarod’s harshest critic, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. PETA’s executive vice president Tracy Reiman called the new racing circuit a “World Series of Cruelty” destined for failure.
“Just as Ringling Bros. circus struggled to find an audience for its abusive elephant shows, the dogsledding industry is desperately scrambling for viewers — but kind people today have no interest in watching dogs being forced to run until their paws bleed, they choke on their own vomit, and they drop dead on the trail,” Reiman said in an email.
Branding expert Conor O’Flaherty said the venture has the potential to create a bigger audience.
“What’s important for a sport like this is it not only represents the distinct community, it also represents part of cultural history that’s important to protect,” said O’Flaherty, managing director at New York-based SME Branding.
Urbach contends QPAWS will go far in raising the exposure of long-distance mushing and better educate the public about the special relationship the dogs have with their human teammates.
“You could argue that the sport needs a rejuvenation,” said Urbach, who took the helm of the Iditarod in July.
Mushers interested, cautious
With so many details about the series still unknown, many mushers are taking a wait-and-see approach. Defending champion Pete Kaiser said he plans to participate only in the Iditarod.
“My main concerns are, what do you have to do to win this thing and what are the logistics,” he said.
Three-time winner Mitch Seavey, who comes from a multigenerational family of mushers, also is watching developments closely.
“I’m in favor of the Iditarod and other races doing new things. We need to change our demographic. We need to change our fan base, or at least expand it. We need to modernize and appeal to more people,” Seavey said. “Give them a chance. That’s what I’m saying.”
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said on Thursday the South American nation will drop its requirement that visiting Chinese and Indian tourists or businesspeople obtain visas.
Bolsonaro, a far-right politician, came to power at the beginning of the year and has made it a policy to reduce visa requirements from a number of developed countries. But the announcement, made during an official visit to China, is the first he has made expanding that policy to the developing world.
Earlier this year, the Brazilian government ended visa requirements for tourists and businesspeople from the United States, Canada, Japan and Australia. Those countries, however, have not in return dropped their visa requirements for Brazilian citizens.
Fewer reports of vaping illnesses are coming in, but U.S. health officials say they are not sure what to make of it.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 125 additional cases were reported in the last week, bringing the total to 1,604 in this year’s outbreak. That includes 34 deaths, one more than last week.
The outbreak is still happening, but the count of new cases has dropped for three straight weeks. A CDC spokeswoman said reporting delays could be one explanation.
The outbreak appears to have started in March. No single ingredient, electronic cigarette or vaping device has been linked to all the illnesses. Most who got sick said they vaped products containing THC, the high-inducing ingredient in marijuana.
Former President Jimmy Carter is out of the hospital where he was treated after fracturing his pelvis in a recent fall.
The Carter Center said in a statement Thursday that the former president had been released from a hospital and was recovering at his home in Plains, Georgia.
The 95-year-old Carter is the oldest living former president in U.S. history.
Kurdish people in northeastern Syria are mourning the loss of lives and territory as they try to regroup after recent battles and ponder an uncertain future. VOA’s Heather Murdock has this report from Qameshli and Tal Tamer in Syria
The initiative to end polio has been a long haul. It has been going on since 1988, and, while it’s close, it’s not finished yet. The good news is that the disease has been reduced by 99.9%. But as we hear from VOA’s Carol Pearson, the poliovirus is stubbornly hanging on in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Ending polio has been a long haul. The global campaign to eradicate the virus has been going on since 1988, and while it’s close, it’s not over. Sometime in 2020, Africa may be declared polio-free. But the disease is hanging on stubbornly in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and as long as it hangs on, it can spread around the globe.
The effort to end polio started more than 30 years ago. It’s been a massive program that relies on global funding, countless volunteer vaccinators, negotiations with political and religious leaders and parents. Vaccinators sometimes work in conflict zones, all to save lives and prevent lifelong disability.
Polio cases down 99.9%
In Kenya, facts about polio and the vaccine are taught in schools. Children are even taught what to tell their parents.
The international effort has seen the polio cases drop by 99.9%. Nigeria had its last case more than three years ago. It’s possible that next year Nigeria, and all of Africa, will be declared polio free.
Another victory: There used to be three strains of the virus. As of this week, there is now only one.
Afghan women wearing burqas from a polio immunization team walk together during a vaccination campaign in Kandahar, Oct. 15, 2019. Polio immunization is compulsory in Afghanistan, but distrust of vaccines is rife.
Pakistan-Afghanistan border
It is here, at the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan where the wild polio virus spreads. People are constantly crossing from one country to another, mostly to visit family members. Both countries saw cases increase in 2019 from the previous year. Oliver Rosenbauer is a spokesman for the World Health Organization. He spoke to VOA by Skype.
“The reality is that both countries are essentially one epidemiological block, and there is so much population movement. The same virus family is being ping-ponged back and forth across the border with population movements,” he said.
A second challenge concerns restrictions the Taliban have placed on vaccinators. The vaccine can only be given at immunization centers. Door-to-door immunizations are now banned.
WATCH: Another Partial Victory in Ending Polio
Another Partial Victory in Ending Polio video player.
Program’s success
Still another challenge is a result of the program’s success. There are so very few cases in the two countries, the global program now has to address other urgent needs like access to clean water and better nutrition.
Carol Pandak, head of the PolioPlus program at Rotary International, says the partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative have always been able to adapt.
“UNICEF, in particular, has a strategy for both Afghanistan and Pakistan to provide these complimentary services, and Rotary, for many years now, has been working with Coca Cola in Pakistan, providing water filtration systems in some of these highest risk areas,” she said.
Those involved in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative have traveled a road that is longer and harder than was expected in 1988, when the program began. It’s far from over, but Rotary International, UNICEF, the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, along with countless local and federal governments, and the vaccinators themselves have not given up.
