Tens of millions of people in southern and eastern Africa are facing emergency food insecurity partly caused by climate change – with half of them children, according to the charity Save the Children. The area has been hit by extreme cyclones, flooding and drought in recent months – and scientists warn the region is warming much faster than other parts of the world. As Henry Ridgwell reports, aid agencies are calling on world leaders meeting at the climate conference in Madrid to commit to bigger cuts in greenhouse gases.
Month: December 2019
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter was admitted to a hospital in the southern U.S. state of Georgia over the weekend with a urinary tract infection.
The 95-year-old statesman “is feeling better and looks forward to returning home soon,” Deanna Congileo, a spokeswoman for The Carter Center said Monday.
Carter was released from the hospital last week after undergoing surgery to relieve pressure on his brain caused by bleeding from a fall.
Carter has overcome several health challenges in recent years.
He was diagnosis with melanoma in 2015 but recovered after receiving radiation and immunotherapy.
A fall last spring required him to get hip replacement surgery. Two separate falls last month required 14 stitches and caused a pelvic fracture.
Carter, who was in the White House from 1977 to 1981, is now the longest-living former president in U.S. history.
Despite the health concerns, Carter has been active building homes for Habitat for Humanity and teaching Sunday school twice monthly at Maranatha Baptist Church in his hometown of Plains in southwest Georgia.
The United Nations Security Council called on all countries on Monday to implement an arms embargo on Libya and to stay out of the conflict after U.N. sanctions monitors accused Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey of repeated violations.
The 15-member council urged all states “not to intervene in the conflict or to take measures that would exacerbate the conflict” and expressed concern at “the growing involvement of mercenaries.” Such statements are agreed by consensus.
The council “called for full compliance with the arms embargo,” but any action over reported sanctions violations is unlikely, diplomats said.
Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey have repeatedly violated an arms embargo on Libya and it is “highly probable” that a foreign attack aircraft is responsible for a deadly strike on a migrant detention center, U.N. experts monitoring the implementation of sanctions on Libya reported last month.
The U.N. missions of Jordan and Turkey did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment at the time on the accusations. The United Arab Emirates said it was “firmly committed to complying with its obligations under the Libya sanctions regime and all relevant Security Council resolutions.”
“The transfers (of military material) to Libya were repeated and sometimes blatant with scant regard being paid to compliance with the sanctions measures,” the independent U.N. experts wrote in the confidential report, due to be published this month.
Libya descended into chaos after a NATO-backed uprising that overthrew leader Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.
Thousands of people have been killed in sporadic fighting since 2014 between factions in the east and west. The violence has allowed militants and migrant smugglers to flourish, hit Libya’s oil industry and divided the country’s key institutions.
Earlier this year commander Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) launched an offensive against the internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) and its forces in Tripoli. But the war has reached an impasse.
The U.N. experts accuse Jordan and the United Arab Emirates of supplying military material to Haftar’s forces, which they said then prompted Libya’s Government of National Accord to ask Turkey for help.
Haftar is also backed by Egypt and more recently Russian mercenaries, according to diplomats and Tripoli officials. The LNA denies it has foreign backing. The United States has pushed Haftar to end his offensive.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday signed legislation requiring all smartphones, computers and smart TV sets sold in the country to come pre-installed with Russian software.
The law, which will come into force on July 1 next year, has been met with resistance by some electronics retailers, who say the legislation was adopted without consulting them.
The law has been presented as a way to help Russian IT firms compete with foreign companies and spare consumers from having to download software upon purchasing a new device.
The country’s mobile phone market is dominated by foreign companies including Apple, Samsung and Huawei. The legislation signed by Putin said the government would come up with a list of Russian applications that would need to be installed on the different devices.
Russia has introduced tougher internet laws in recent years, requiring search engines to delete some search results, messaging services to share encryption keys with security services and social networks to store user data on servers in the country.
U.S. President Donald Trump is striking an optimistic tone on reaching a trade deal with China, despite Beijing’s opposition to a law Trump recently signed that expresses support for pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong.
“The Chinese want to make a deal. We’ll see what happens,” the president told reporters Monday, as he departed the White House for the NATO summit in London.
The U.S. leader signed the “Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act” last week, prompting stern protests from China.
The trade deal between the U.S. and China has stalled as a result, according to the news website Axios.
The news site quotes a source close to Trump’s negotiating team as saying the trade talks were “now stalled” because of the legislation, and time was needed to allow Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “domestic politics to calm.”
China says it is also taking other steps to retaliate against what it sees as U.S. support for Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said Monday it is slapping sanctions on U.S.-based non-governmental organizations that have acted “badly” during the recent protests in Hong Kong. NGOs affected by the sanctions include Human Rights Watch, the National Endowment for Democracy, and Freedom House.
China also announced Monday that it “has decided to suspend reviewing the applications for U.S. warships to go to Hong Kong for (rest and) recuperation as of today.”
A foreign spokeswoman said, “China urges the United States to correct its mistakes, stop any deeds and acts of interference in Hong Kong affairs and China’s internal affairs.”
Senior U.S. officials have repeatedly called on the Chinese government to honor its promises to the Hong Kong people who say they want the freedoms and liberties that they have been promised in the Sino-British Joint Declaration, a U.N.-registered treaty.
“The United States stands firmly in support of asking the Chinese leadership to honor that commitment, asking everyone involved in the political process there to do so without violence, and to find a resolution to this that honors the one country two systems policy that the Chinese leadership signed up for,” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told an audience Monday at the University of Louisville in Kentucky.
In another development, Reuters reports that hundreds of Hong Kong office workers came together during their lunch break Monday, the first in a week of lunchtime protests to show their support for pro-democracy politicians who were handed a resounding victory in district polls last week.
Protests erupted in Hong Kong in June over the local government’s plans to allow some criminal suspects to be extradited to the Chinese mainland.
Hong Kong officials withdrew the bill in September, but the street protests have continued, with the demonstrators fearing Beijing is preparing to water down Hong Kong’s democracy and autonomy nearly 30 years before the former British colony’s “special status” expires.
Cyber Monday sales were on course to bring in a record $9.4 billion, according to early estimates, building on a bumper Black Friday weekend for retailers driven by earlier-than-usual promotions and free shipping.
Shoppers have already had nearly a month of special offers and deals as retailers look to draw out their vital holiday
season, which is six days shorter this year due to a late Thanksgiving.
Estimates from Adobe Analytics on Monday predicted that some $72.1 billion has been spent online in the past month, with Cyber Monday – now traditionally the U.S. economy’s biggest internet shopping day – logging $473 million as of 9 a.m. ET.
Amazon.com Inc and other traditional retailers such as Target Corp and Walmart have beefed up delivery services to fulfill online orders faster as more customers shop on their mobile phones and tablets at home.
“At the end of the day, Cyber Monday is just Black Friday revisited so the momentum, and the deals, really started last
week,” said Carol Spieckerman president at consultancy Spieckerman Retail. “Retailers’ click and collect capabilities are running more efficiently, online shopping is more intuitive … Amazon isn’t the only one wearing the convenience crown this year.”
Penthouse protest
It may not all be smooth sailing for the world’s biggest online retailer. Amazon warehouse workers, community groups,
unions and elected officials, were set to march outside company chief Jeff Bezos’ Fifth Avenue penthouse, citing poor treatment of workers and rising climate emissions from the company’s push for speedier deliveries.
Activists also staged protests across France on Friday and tried to blockade a shopping mall in Paris, denouncing the
spread of Black Friday to European shores.
Target and Walmart have also taken aim at the company this year by making free shipping or same-day in-store pickups widely available. Commentators say those sorts of deals have proven a success over the past month.
The National Retail Federation estimates nearly 69 million Americans will scour the web on Monday for deals on everything from mobile phones to kitchenware, with Adobe estimating the biggest discounts were on televisions and computers.
Topping Adobe’s list of most popular products were Frozen 2 and Paw Patrol toys, L.O.L surprise dolls and Nintendo’s Switch mobile console.
“#CyberMonday2019 The day of the year 85% of the U.S. population pretends to actually be working,” tweeted Erika
Mayor, a user in Miami.
The United States reportedly flew a reconnaissance plane over South Korea on Monday, marking the second intelligence-gathering flyover this week, according to an aviation tracker cited by several South Korean news sources.
The aircraft — thought to be an RC-135W — was first reported on Twitter flying west to east across South Korea at an altitude of around 31,000 feet at approximately 8:26 a.m. The spy plane was spotted by Aircraft Spots, an account that monitors military aircraft movements.
The same account reportedly identified a U.S. Air Force U-2S plane flying over Seoul on December 1, while South Korean media reported similar recent flights by U-2S, EP-3C, E8C and RC-135V jets. The United States’ most recent reconnaissance flight took place just days after North Korea launched its 13th projectile this year — “a super large multiple rocket launcher” — on Nov. 28.
“Monitoring like this is routine, and we can assume that the U.S. military is surveilling North Korea at all times,” C. Harrison Kim, a North Korea expert and professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, told VOA. “But at the same time, the recent missile launches from North Korea are seen as a provocation and so, given the situation, the U.S. has to respond on some level.”
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has given an end-of-year deadline for further nuclear talks between Washington and Pyongyang.
“The United States has to do some form of [military surveillance] to do its part as a military power in East Asia,” C. Harrison Kim said. “But I think the bigger situation at hand is that North Korea is sending a message to the world that it is ready to negotiate, and wants a concrete step forward with the United States.”
Clashes sparked by suspected cartel gunmen in a northern Mexican town killed 20 people this weekend, authorities said, putting more pressure on Mexico’s president to curb gang violence after the United States vowed to label the gangs terrorists.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, mindful of efforts by U.S. President Donald Trump to designate Mexican drug gangs as terrorist groups, repeated on Sunday that he would not accept any intervention from abroad, while doubling down on his strategy of trying to contain the cartels.
But the killings clouded celebrations marking Lopez Obrador’s first year in office, which were buffeted by a march in Mexico City by thousands of people protesting the violence.
The government of the northern state of Coahuila said local security forces killed 14 gunmen on Saturday and Sunday, after a major gunfight broke out in the small town of Villa Union near the Texas border. Earlier, the state government had said police had shot dead 17 cartel members.
Four police were also killed in the shootouts, which broke out around midday on Saturday, sparking fresh criticism of the government’s approach to handling the powerful gangs.
The bodies of two unarmed civilians apparently murdered by the gunmen were also recovered, the government said.
Riding into town in a convoy of heavily armed pickups, gunmen sprayed the offices of the mayor of Villa Union with bullets and fought police for more than 1 1/2 hours as gunfire echoed through the streets.
More than 60 gunmen took part in the fight and 17 of their vehicles were seized, Coahuila’s government said.
A number of the gunmen, who were suspected members of the Cartel of the Northeast from Tamaulipas state, were killed by state police in pursuit of the raiding party after it fled the town, authorities said.
The events in Villa Union add to a series of recent security lapses that have raised questions about Lopez Obrador’s policy.
During a speech in front of tens of thousands of supporters on his first anniversary as president, Lopez Obrador again said Mexico would handle its security problems, after Trump’s comments.
“We won’t accept any kind of intervention, we’re a sovereign, free country,” the veteran leftist said in Mexico City’s Zocalo central square. Trump’s remarks have stirred concerns in Mexico that Washington could try to take unilateral action to crush the drug cartels. U.S. Attorney General William Barr is due to visit the country next week to discuss cooperation on security.
Criticism at home and abroad has focused on the Nov. 4 massacre by suspected cartel gunmen of nine women and children of U.S.-Mexican origin from Mormon communities in northern Mexico, and the armed forces’ release of a captured son of drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman under threats from his gang in the city of Culiacan.
Critics accuse Lopez Obrador of caving in to the cartels, but he defended the release of Ovidio Guzman, saying it had prevented unnecessary bloodshed.
“Our adversaries can say we showed weakness, but nothing is more important than people’s lives,” he said.
The protest march united opposition politicians with grieving members of the U.S.-Mexican LeBaron family, who lost loved ones in the killings in the state of Sonora.
“We’re not against the president, we’re against the security policies that have been used until now, because they haven’t worked,” said Julian LeBaron, a relative of the victims.
Overnight, law enforcement agents captured several people suspected of involvement in those murders, the attorney general’s office of Sonora said.
Homicides reached record levels in Mexico last year and are on track to surpass that total this year.
Lopez Obrador has also presided over a slowdown in the economy, which has stagnated in 2019.
Yet while there has been some erosion of support for him, most recent opinion polls show he remains popular.
The White House says it will not participate in Wednesday impeachment hearing by the House Judiciary Committee.
Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler invited U.S. President Donald Trump and his counsel to attend the committee’s first hearing as the impeachment inquiry moves into its next phase.
While no one expected Trump to attend – he plans to be at a NATO summit near London this week – White House counsel Pat Cipollone is also declining the invitation.
“We cannot fairly be expected to participate in a hearing while the witnesses are yet to be named and while it remains unclear whether the Judiciary Committee will afford the president a fair process through additional hearings,” Cipollone said in a letter to Nadler late Sunday.
Cipollone said he will reply by the end of the week on whether the White House would appear at future hearings.
Nadler assured Trump and his counsel in his invitation letter last week that he “remains committed to ensuring a fair and informative process.”
He said Trump has the “opportunity to be represented in the impeachment hearings, or he can stop complaining about the process.”
Wednesday’s Judiciary Committee hearing will focus on the constitutional grounds surrounding impeaching a president. The yet-to-be-named witnesses will be legal experts.
The Intelligence Committee, which held a series of public and closed-room hearings last month, will send its findings to the Judiciary Committee, whose members will decide whether to draw up articles of impeachment against Trump.
Possible charges that could lead to his impeachment include bribery and high crimes and misdemeanors.
Trump is accused of holding up nearly $400 million in badly-needed military aid to Ukraine in exchange for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s public commitment to investigate Trump’s 2020 presidential rival Joe Biden for alleged corruption.
Biden’s son, Hunter, sat on the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma. Trump alleges that when Biden was vice president, he threatened to hold up U.S. loan guarantees to Ukraine unless the government fired a prosecutor who was investigating Burisma.
Trump also insists it was Ukraine, not Russia that interfered in the 2016 U.S. election on behalf of Democrats.
No evidence against the Bidens has ever surfaced and the charge against Ukraine was based on a debunked conspiracy theory that originated in Russia.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing and calls the impeachment inquiry a hoax.
A statue of U.S. civil rights leader Rosa Parks has been unveiled in Montgomery, capital of the southern state of Alabama.
The unveiling Sunday marks the 64th anniversary of the day Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man.
“Today, on the second official Rosa Parks Day, we honor a seamstress and a servant, one whose courage ran counter to her physical stature,” said Mayor Steven Reed, the city’s first African American mayor. “She was a consummate contributor to equality and did so with a quiet humility that is an example for all of us.”
On December 1, 1955, Parks was on her way home when she was asked to vacate her seat for a white man. She refused.
Her subsequent arrest led to the 381-day boycott of the Montgomery bus system, organized by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., then pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.
The statue is located at Montgomery Plaza, about 9 meters from the spot where Parks is believed to have boarded the bus.
Parks’ small act of defiance made her a major symbol of the civil rights movement.
She died in 2005 at age 92.
A U.S. State Department official accused China of attempting to erase the Muslim identity of Uighurs by seeking to demolish or close places of worship in Xinjiang in northwest China.
The official, who spoke to VOA on the condition of anonymity, said the Chinese Communist Party in its campaign against the Uighur minority has removed religious symbols from places of worship, imposing strict surveillance on them.
“As part of its ongoing attempts to eradicate the Islamic faith and “re-educate” Muslims, Beijing has closed or destroyed mosques, shrines, burial grounds, and other Islamic structures, perhaps more,” the official told VOA.
“Mosques permitted to remain open have been stripped of certain features like minarets and domes and are heavily monitored by surveillance cameras and security personnel,” the official said, adding that Beijing’s acts have denied Muslims the ability to practice their faith in public.
An estimated 13 million ethnic Uighurs and other Turkic Muslim minorities are believed to live in the Xinjiang region.
The Chinese government since early 2017 has been accused of a harsh crackdown in the region through detention and forceful “re-education” of the people who are accused of being disloyal to the government’s ideology.
Chinese officials, however, have called the alleged detention program a “vocational” training and said their efforts in Xinjiang are aimed at curbing the threat of Islamic extremism.
The U.S. government and rights organizations say at least one million Uighurs are being held in the camps where they are exposed to torture and forced labor. Outside the camps, the minority population is put under stringent control where simple religious practices are prohibited.
According to an investigation by Uyghur (Uighur) Human Rights Project (UHRP), a D.C.-based organization funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, between 10,000-15,000 of mosques and other sites, amounting to about 40%, were demolished in each city, county and township all over Xinjiang since late 2016.
Bahram Sintash, who led the investigation, told VOA that in addition to local testimonies, satellite imagery of the sites confirm a “systematic destruction” of at least 140 Uighur religious places.
“I have been able to compile a list of over 140 mosques, shrines and cemeteries which have been confirmed or are suspected to have been fully demolished or desecrated since 2016,” Sintash told VOA in an interview.
The UHRP report found that among the demolished sites was Keriya Mosque in Hotan prefecture, a major historic building dating back to the 13th century and enlisted as a protected cultural site.
“Although China demolished many mosques in Xinjiang, it left some mosques untouched in big cities including the Korla Jama Mosque. In my findings, the mosque is one of the “selected” tourist destinations for Korla city. Therefore, the government kept the Korla Jama Mosque not for the sake of local Uighur communities and their prayer needs, but as pre-selected tour location to pretend its “protection” of Islam in that city and to lie to the international community and reporters,” said Sintash.
VOA could not independently verify UHRP’s report.
United Nations and human rights watchdogs in the past have continuously blamed Chinese officials for preventing independent bodies to have access to the region to investigate the alleged abuses. They say local population in the region are prevented from contacting the outside world, including their relatives who live in the diaspora.
The United Kingdom earlier this week urged China to give U.N. observers “immediate and unfettered access” to the region following a recent leak of classified Chinese government documents that rights groups say offer clear evidence of Beijing using detention camps as brainwashing centers.
Abduwaris Ablimit, a New York-based Uighur from Artush city in southern Xinjiang, said Uighurs living in the diaspora struggle to know the whereabouts of their loved ones stranded in Xinjiang due to communication restrictions. He said many of them turn to aerial imagery from airplanes to track changes made to their neighborhoods.
“When I was searching for my neighborhood mosque and other mosques around my hometown this year through google imagery, I was startled to find out that they were gone except for a few mosques.” Ablimit told VOA.
He said he had lost contact with his parents and brother in 2017, and one year later he found out that they were taken to “the concentration camps”.
Unknown gunmen opened fire on a church in eastern Burkina Faso Sunday, killing at least 14 people.
Officials say the attack took place in the town of Hantoukoura, near the border with Niger.
Soldiers are hunting for the attackers who fled on motor scooters after gunning down worshipers during a Sunday mass.
No one has claimed responsibility, but Islamic extremists are suspected.
Christians and others had lived peacefully in the Muslim majority country until a series of attacks blamed on jihadists spilled over from neighboring Mali last year, leaving hundreds dead.
Albania’s prime minister is asking the international community for financial aid and expert assistance following last week’s earthquake.
Edi Rama said at a Cabinet meeting Sunday, “Simply, this is humanly impossible to do this [reconstruction] alone.”
He said the budget is being reshaped to deal with the earthquake’s aftermath, but Albania still needs international support.
Rama said he has written to U.S. President Donald Trump to ask for help.
U.S. and European Union civil engineers are working with local experts in Albania to assess the damage.
The mayor of Durres, one of the hardest hit towns, resigned Sunday after public outcry about remarks she made that she was “pleased” that only 50 people had died in the earthquake. Valbona Sako said she was “hurt by the overwhelming negative reaction to a statement I made under stress that exceeds my strength.”
The search and rescue operation for earthquake survivors in Albania ended Saturday, the prime minister said.
The small town of Thumane, experienced the highest death toll from Tuesday’s quake with 26 people killed, six of whom belonged to one family, and all but one under age 30. They were buried Friday.
In the port city of Durres — 30 kilometers west of the capital, Tirana — the quake killed 24. One person also died in Kurbin.
In all, 51 people died, including seven children. Nine-hundred were injured. More than 5,000 people are without shelter; and 1,200 buildings were destroyed in the 6.4-magnitude quake and the aftershocks that followed.
Seismologist Rexhep Koci told VOA that while there is the likelihood for more aftershocks, but they would be weaker.
Neighboring countries provide assistance
EU Ambassador to Albania Luigi Soreca said Friday that the European Union and its member states are standing with Albania and working nonstop to provide assistance “in this very difficult moment.”
“It is a week of deep sorrow and tragedy for Albania,” Soreca said in a statement. “Our heartfelt condolences go once again to the Albanian people and especially to the families, friends and communities of those who have lost their lives.”
More than 200 military troops from Albania, Kosovo, Italy, Greece, Montenegro, Serbia, Croatia, France, Turkey, Switzerland, Romania, North Macedonia, the EU and the United States, participated in the search and rescue operation.
People spontaneously came from Kosovo, operating mobile kitchens, gathering donations and opening their homes. About 500 homeless Albanians are staying in a camp set up by Kosovo’s government in the city of Prizren. On Friday alone, individuals and businesses from Kosovo delivered 100 tons of much needed necessities.
Remembering victims
Tirana residents turned out in the city center to honor the victims, placing candles in a makeshift memorial near the statue of Albanian national hero Gjergj Kastrioti, known as Skanderbeg.
The state of emergency declared Wednesday for Durres and Thumane was extended to the heavily damaged town of Lac. Prime Minister Rama said he made the decision after opposition leader Lulzim Basha suggested it. Rama appeared to put on hold the acrimony often on display between the two political rivals.
“In this case, our concerns and ideas converge,” Rama said, inviting the opposition to participate in the Committee for Earthquake Relief.
For Rama, the tragedy hit close to home as his office confirmed that among the dead was his son Gregor’s fiance, Kristi Reci, whose entire family — both parents and her brother — died in Durres.
Physician Shkelqime Ladi said doctors are on hand to help with immediate needs.
“We are focusing more on the psychological aspect of the affected. Their psychological state is aggravated,” she told VOA in Lac.
Armand Mero reported from Tirana, Ilirian Agolli reported from Durres, Pellumb Sulo reported from Lac.
Britain’s political leaders sparred Sunday over who is responsible for the early release of a convicted extremist who launched a stabbing attack in central London that left two dead and injured three.
The argument centers over the early release from prison of Usman Khan, who served roughly half his sentence before being set free. He was able to stab five people before being shot dead by police despite conditions imposed on his release that were supposed to protect public safety.
After a one-day pause out of respect for victims, the Friday attack is dominating the political scene as the Dec. 12 election nears, shifting the focus, at least for the moment, from Brexit and the National Health Service to issues of security and criminal justice.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Sunday blamed Khan’s freedom on changes in sentencing rules made by the last Labour Party government before Johnson’s Conservatives took power in 2010. He promised to toughen sentencing laws.
“I think it is repulsive that individuals as dangerous as this man should be allowed out after serving only eight years and that’s why we are going to change the law,” he told BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.
Marr repeatedly challenged the prime minister by pointing out that the Conservatives had been in power for nearly a decade and not taken any steps to change the situation Johnson was complaining about.
The accuracy of Johnson’s claim was challenged by Ed Davey, deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, who told Sky News that the prime minister was misleading the public about the current law regarding early release of prisoners.
“Either he’s incompetent and doesn’t know the law, or he’s deliberately misleading people when we’ve got a tragedy on our hands, and I’m afraid, either way, it does not look good for the Prime Minister,” Davey said.
Other rivals complained that Johnson was trying to score political points in the aftermath of the extremist attack.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn accused the Conservatives of trying to provide security “on the cheap” and said he does not necessarily agree that all terrorist prisoners should be required to serve their full terms.
He said it depends on the circumstances and called for the Parole Board and the probation service to be more actively involved.
Algeria’s presidential campaign is in trouble. Candidates are struggling to fill rally venues, campaign managers have quit, voters have pelted campaign headquarters with tomatoes and eggs, and the country’s 9-month-old pro-democracy movement calls the whole thing a sham.
The five candidates seeking to replace President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in the Dec. 12 election have failed to captivate a disillusioned public. Bouteflika was pushed out in April after 20 years in power amid an exceptional, peaceful protest movement, and now demonstrators want a wholesale change of political leadership.
Instead, the election is managed by the long-serving power structure of this oil- and gas-rich country with a strategic role in the Mediterranean region. Instead of new faces, two of the candidates are former prime ministers and one is a loyalist of Algeria’s influential army chief.
The Hirak protest movement held their 41st weekly demonstrations Friday, denouncing the presidential election. But for the first time, thousands of pro-government supporters held their own rally Saturday.
The candidates have tried to convince voters that taking part in the election is the only alternative to chaos, an allusion to the civil war that ravaged Algeria in the 1990s. But that argument falls flat among the protesters, who have been overwhelmingly peaceful, with demonstrators calming each other down and ensuring that no one provokes police. It’s a sharp contrast to the sometimes deadly protests and security crackdowns shaking Iraq, Lebanon and other countries in recent weeks.
The candidates
Former Prime Minister Ali Benflis, considered a leading candidate, was heckled in Tlemcen, Guelma, Oued Souf, Annaba, while he had to cancel a meeting altogether in Maghnia on Algeria’s western edge.
His campaign director in the important region of Kabylie resigned, citing pressure from his family. Many in Kabylie oppose holding the election at all.
Candidate Abdelamdjid Tebboune, considered the candidate of army chief Gen. Ahmed Gaid Salah, had to cancel his first rally in Algiers because not enough people signed up.
His campaign manager also resigned, without explanation. And then one of his leading campaign funders was jailed on corruption charges.
Another candidate, Abdelakder Bengrina, began his campaign on the esplanade of the central post office in Algiers — the emblematic site of the protest movement. He had to interrupt his speech to dive into his car under police cover to escape a crowd of angry demonstrators. The portrait on the balcony of his campaign headquarters has been bombarded with eggs and tomatoes.
No shows
Many poster boards around Algiers meant to hold candidates’ portraits remain empty. In other sites, Algerians have covered the portraits with garbage bags and signs reading “candidates of shame.”
In some towns of the Kabylie region, protesters have blocked access to campaign offices by piling the entrances with bricks.
Tensions mounted last week when Algerians started holding evening marches to denounce the elections. Several demonstrators were arrested, and some have already been convicted to prison terms for disturbing election campaigns or destruction of public property, according to protest organizers.
Given troubles in the capital and Kabylie, the candidates are focusing on small campaign events in areas where the protest movement is less active.
The president of the body overseeing the election, Moahamed Charfi, has minimized the campaign troubles, saying the candidates are “accepted by the population.”
Army chief Gaid Salah has yet to publicly acknowledge the problems either, instead praising Algerians in a recent speech for “the adherence of the people around their army, chanting, with one voice, patriotic slogans expressing their collective the will to head massively to the polls on December 12, in order to make the presidential election succeed and thus contribute to build a promising future.”
If no candidate wins more than 50 percent in the first round, the election goes to a second round in the ensuing weeks.
An Australian teacher held captive with an American colleague by the Taliban for more than three years believes U.S. special forces tried and failed six times to free them.
Timothy Weeks was released last month in a prisoner swap along with Kevin King, ending an ordeal that began with their abduction in 2016 outside the American University in Kabul, where they worked.
Weeks, 50, told a news conference Sunday he believed that Navy SEAL teams tried repeatedly to rescue them, sometimes missing them only by “hours” after the two hostages were moved to other locations by their captors.
‘I believe … they came in six times’
“I believe, and I hope this is correct, that they came in six times to try to get us, and that a number of times they missed us only by hours,” Weeks said.
One attempt came in April this year. Weeks said he was woken at 2 a.m. by his guards, who told him they were under attack from Islamic State fighters, and moved him into a tunnel beneath where they were being held.
“I believe now that it was the Navy SEALs coming in to get us,” Weeks said. “I believe they were right outside our door. The moment that we got into the tunnels, we were 1 or 2 meters underground and there was a huge bang at the front door. And our guards went up and there was a lot of machine-gun fire. They pushed me over the top into the tunnels and I fell backwards and rolled and knocked myself unconscious.”
Weeks said he and King were shifted through various remote locations in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan throughout their captivity and were often kept in tiny, windowless cells.
While their lives were often at risk, he said he never gave up hope of being rescued.
“I never, ever gave up hope, and I think in that sort of situation, that if you give up hope, there is very little left for you,” said Weeks, flanked by his sisters Alyssa and Jo Carter. “I knew that I would leave that place eventually. It just took a little longer than I expected.”
Love, respect for guards
While expressing thanks to President Donald Trump and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison for the work that led to their release, Weeks said some Taliban guards he had encountered were “lovely people.”
“I don’t hate them at all,” he said. “And some of them, I have great respect for, and great love for, almost. Some of them were so compassionate and such lovely, lovely people. And it really led me to think about … how did they end up like this?”
He added: “I know a lot of people don’t admit this, but for me, they were soldiers. And soldiers obey the commands of their commanders. (They) don’t get a choice.”
Weeks said he had hugged some of his Taliban guards when they parted company on the day of his and King’s release.
Enormous relief
Still, the sight of the two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters arriving to take them away had been an enormous relief.
“From the moment I sighted both Black Hawk helicopters and was placed in the hands of special forces, I knew my long and tortuous ordeal had come to an end,” he said.
“Out of a big dust cloud came six special forces and they walked towards us and one of them stepped towards me and he just put his arm around me and he held me and he said, ‘Are you OK?’ And then he walked me back to the Black Hawk.”
Weeks, from the small rural city of Wagga Wagga in New South Wales state, said his ordeal had had “a profound and unimaginable effect on me.”
His voice breaking, he said: “At times I felt as if my death was imminent and that I would never return to see those that I love again but by the will of God I am here, I am alive and I am safe and I am free.
“There is nothing else in the world that I need.”
A Northern California high school football team has lost in a championship game one year after a deadly fire destroyed most of their town, including the homes of most players and coaches.
Paradise High School lost to Sutter Union High School 20-7 Saturday night in the Northern Section Division III championship game. The game comes just more than one year after the fire in Paradise burned roughly 19,000 buildings and killed 85 people.
In the end zone after the game, senior running back Lukas Hartley cried with his teammates, telling reporters “I didn’t cry this bad when my house burned down.” He said he plans to be a firefighter after he finishes high school.
“I’m just proud of all my brothers and thankful to God for putting me on this path,” he said.
Friday night tradition
Paradise coach Rick Prinz told the team after the game he was proud of his players.
“No one really knows how much they truly battled just to be at practice and to do what they did,” Prinz said. “They lost everything they owned a year ago. They are all living in different places. And to pull it together like this and help our community come together is truly amazing.”
Most of the people who lived in Paradise have moved away. But many have returned on Friday nights to watch the football team’s remarkable season.
The high school has a football tradition, consistently fielding competitive teams. The school produced Jeff Maehl, a wide receiver who played for the University of Oregon in the 2011 BCS national championship game and later played for two NFL teams.
Last year, the school was 8-2 and preparing to host a home playoff game when the wildfire swept through the town. The school survived, but nearly every player and coach on the team lost their homes. The team forfeited the playoff game, ending their season.
A season to heal
The team almost didn’t have a 2019 season. But the players were determined to play.
Erica Browe, 38, lost her home in the fire. She now lives in Redding. At first, her two teenage sons went to a new school. But she said they were miserable and their grades suffered. They now live in Paradise with some friends so they can attend their old high school and play football.
Returning to Paradise made a big difference in her sons’ lives, she said, and the team’s success encouraged the community nestled along a ridge in the Sierra Nevada foothills.
“It gives hope back to the ridge that we can still be strong and stick together,” she said.
Paradise High School finished the regular season undefeated, outscoring their opponents by a combined score of 469-73. But their magical season ended Saturday on a rainy, cold night.
A tiny wooden relic that some Christians believe to be part of Jesus’ manger arrived Saturday in its permanent home in the biblical city of Bethlehem 1,400 years after it was sent to Rome as a gift to the pope.
Sheathed in an ornate case, cheerful crowds greeted the relic with much fanfare before it entered the Franciscan Church of St. Catherine next to the Church of the Nativity, the West Bank holy site where tradition says Jesus was born.
‘A great joy’
The return of the relic by the Vatican was a spirit-lifting moment for the Palestinians. It coincides with Advent, a four-week period leading up to Christmas. Troubled Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank is bracing for the occasion, where pilgrims from around the world flock to the city.
Young Palestinian scouts played bagpipes and the crowd snapped pictures as a clergyman held the silver reliquary and marched toward the church.
Christians make up a small minority of Palestinians and Bethlehem is one of the only cities in the West Bank and Gaza where Christmas is celebrated.
Brother Francesco Patton, the custodian of the Franciscan order in the Holy Land, said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had asked Pope Francis to borrow the entire manger, but the pope decided to send a tiny portion of it to stay permanently in Bethlehem.
“It’s a great joy” that the piece returns to its original place, Patton said, according to Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency.
Manger moved to Rome
A wooden structure that Christians believe was part of the manger where Jesus was born was sent by St. Sophronius, the patriarch of Jerusalem, to Pope Theodore I in the 640s, around the time of the Muslim conquest of the Holy Land.
On Friday, the thumb-sized wooden piece was unveiled to worshippers at the Notre Dame church in Jerusalem for a day of celebrations and prayer.
On Saturday evening, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh and other officials attended a Christmas tree lighting in Manger Square outside the Church of the Nativity.
Hundreds of faithful and residents also gathered for the festive annual event, which included fireworks and songs. Crowds cheered as the giant tree was illuminated.
Revelers and worshippers alike will pack the same square for Christmas Eve festivities later in December.