North accuses US of hostility for S. Korean missile decision

North accuses US of hostility for S. Korean missile decision

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea said Monday the U.S. allowing South Korea to build more powerful missiles was an example of the U.S.’s hostile policy against the North, warning that it could lead to an “acute and instable situation” on the Korean Peninsula.

It’s North Korea’s first response to the May 21 summit between the leaders of the United States and South Korea, during which the U.S. ended decades-long restrictions that capped South Korea’s missile development and allowed its ally to develop weapons with unlimited ranges.

The accusation of U.S. policy being hostile to North Korea matters because it said it won’t return to talks and would enlarge its nuclear arsenal as long as U.S. hostility persists. But the latest statement was still attributed to an individual commentator, not a government body, suggesting North Korea may still want to leave room for potential diplomacy with the Biden administration.

“The termination step is a stark reminder of the U.S. hostile policy toward (North Korea) and its shameful double-dealing,” Kim Myong Chol, an international affairs critic, said, according to the official Korean Central News Agency. “It is engrossed in confrontation despite its lip-service to dialogue.”

“The U.S. is mistaken, however. It is a serious blunder for it to pressurize (North Korea) by creating asymmetric imbalance in and around the Korean Peninsula as this may lead to the acute and instable situation on the Korean Peninsula now technically at war,” he said.

The United States had previously barred South Korea from developing a missile with a range of longer than 800 kilometers (500 miles) out of concerns about a regional arms race. The range is enough for a South Korean weapon to strike all of North Korea but is short of hitting potential key targets in other neighbors like China and Japan.

Some South Korean observers hailed the end of the restrictions as restoring military sovereignty, but others suspected the U.S. intent was to boost its ally’s military capability amid a rivalry with China.

The commentator Kim accused Washington of trying to spark an arms race, thwart North Korean development and deploy intermediate-range missiles targeting countries near North Korea.

The South Korean government said it “prudently watches” North Korea’s reaction, but Unification Ministry spokeswoman Lee Jong-joo wouldn’t comment otherwise, since the remarks were attributed to an individual, not an official statement from the North Korean government.

The North Korean statement comes as the Biden administration shapes a new approach on North Korea amid long-dormant talks over the North’s nuclear program. During their summit, Biden and South Korean President Moon Jae-in said a new U.S. policy review on North Korea “takes a calibrated and practical approach that is open to and will explore diplomacy” with the North.

U.S. officials have suggested Biden would adopt a middle ground policy between his predecessors — Donald Trump’s direct dealings with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Barack Obama’s “strategic patience.” Some experts say Biden won’t likely provide North Korea with major sanctions relief unless it takes concrete denuclearization steps first.

The North Korean statement criticized the Biden administration’s review indirectly, saying the new policy was viewed by other countries “as just trickery.”

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Hundreds evacuated, some by chopper, from New Zealand floods

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Several hundred people in New Zealand were evacuated from their homes Monday with some recounting dramatic helicopter rescues as heavy rain caused widespread flooding in the Canterbury region.

Authorities declared a state of emergency after some places received as much as 40 centimeters (16 inches) of rain over the weekend and into Monday. Forecasters warned of possible heavy rain through Monday evening before conditions improved.

The military helped evacuate more than 50 people including several overnight in an NH-90 military helicopter.

One man was clinging to a tree near the town of Darfield when he jumped into floodwaters and tried to swim to safety but was swept away, the military said.

Helicopter crews scoured the water for 30 minutes before finding the man and plucking him to safety. The military helicopter also rescued an elderly couple from the roof of their car.

“Seeing the community overnight pull together and support the displaced residents who were evacuated from their homes has been heartening,” said Army Liaison Officer Cpt. Jake Faber.

Another man was rescued by a civilian helicopter pilot Sunday after he was swept from his farm as he tried to move his stock to safety.

Paul Adams told news organization Stuff he thinks he got hit by a wall of water he didn’t see coming. He was swept down the raging Ashburton River before managing to drag himself onto a fence and then into a tree. Another farmer spotted his headlamp and organized a rescue mission.

“The rescuers are fantastic,” Adams told Stuff, adding that he was now back on his farm and “good as gold.” He said that so far he’d only found about 100 of his herd of 250 animals alive.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who was visiting New Zealand, told reporters that he was thinking of those caught up in the floods.

“Australia is no stranger to floods,” Morrison said. “Or fires, or cyclones, or, indeed, even mouse plagues. We have, both countries, endured a large amount of challenge over the course, particularly, of these last few years.”

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern planned to travel to Christchurch later Monday to be briefed on the situation firsthand.

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Johnson & Johnson asks high court to void $2B talc verdict

WASHINGTON (AP) — Johnson & Johnson is asking for Supreme Court review of a $2 billion verdict in favor of women who claim they developed ovarian cancer from using the company’s talc products.

The case features an array of high-profile attorneys, some in unusual alliances, including former independent counsel Kenneth Starr, who is representing the women who sued Johnson & Johnson. The nation’s largest business groups are backing the company, and a justice’s father also makes an appearance because of his long association with the trade group for cosmetics and personal care products.

The court could say as soon as Tuesday whether it will get involved.

At the root, Johnson & Johnson argues that the company didn’t get a fair shake in a trial in state court in Missouri that resulted in an initial $4.7 billion verdict in favor of 22 women who used talc products and developed ovarian cancer.

A state appeals court cut more than half the money out of the verdict and eliminated two of the plaintiffs, but otherwise upheld the outcome in a trial in which lawyers for both sides presented dueling expert testimony about whether the company’s talc products contain asbestos and asbestos-laced talc can cause ovarian cancer.

The jury found for the women on both points, after which Judge Rex M. Burlison wrote that evidence at the trial showed “particularly reprehensible conduct on the part of Defendants.”

The evidence, Burlison wrote, included that the company knew there was asbestos in products aimed at mothers and babies, knew of the potential harm and “misrepresented the safety of these products for decades.”

Nine of the women have died from ovarian cancer, lawyers for the plaintiffs said

Johnson & Johnson denies that its talc products cause cancer and it called the verdict in the Missouri trial “at odds with decades of independent scientific evaluations confirming Johnson’s Baby Powder is safe, is not contaminated by asbestos and does not cause cancer.” The company also is the maker of one of three COVID-19 vaccines approved for use in the United States.

Health concerns about talcum powders have prompted thousands of U.S. lawsuits by women who claim asbestos in the powder caused their cancer. Talc is a mineral similar in structure to asbestos, which is known to cause cancer, and they are sometimes obtained from the same mines. The cosmetics industry in 1976 agreed to make sure its talc products do not contain detectable amounts of asbestos.

Last year, a U.S. government-led analysis of 250,000 women found no strong evidence linking baby powder with ovarian cancer in the largest analysis to look at the question, though the study’s lead author called the results “very ambiguous.”

The findings were called “overall reassuring” in an editorial published with the study in January 2020 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study wasn’t definitive but more conclusive research probably isn’t feasible because a dwindling number of women use powder for personal hygiene, the editorial said.

A few months later, the company announced it would stop selling its iconic talc-based Johnson’s Baby Powder in the U.S. and Canada, citing declining demand driven by what it called misinformation about health concerns.

The disputed link between cancer and talc is not really a part of the high court case. Instead, the company said it should have not been forced to defend itself in one trial against claims by women from 12 states, differing backgrounds and with varying histories of using Johnson & Johnson products containing talc.

The $1.6 billion in punitive damages is out of line and should be reduced, the company also argued in a brief that was written by Neal Katyal, a Washington lawyer who aligns with progressive causes and also represents corporate clients. Katyal, who was the acting top Supreme Court lawyer for a time in the Obama administration, declined an on-the-record interview.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and trade associations for manufacturers, insurers and the pharmaceutical industry are among the business organizations backing Johnson & Johnson’s appeal.

Tiger Joyce, president of the American Tort Reform Association, pointed to how long it took the trial judge to read the jury its instructions as an indication of how unfair the trial was to Johnson & Johnson.

“When a defendant is facing a case where it takes over five hours for the judge to read the jury instructions to the jury, you just have to ask yourself what are we doing here,” said Joyce, whose group generally backs limits on liability lawsuits.

Starr said in an interview with The Associated Press that none of Johnson & Johnson’s legal arguments is worth the court’s time. “As the jury found and as every judge to review this six-week trial record has concluded, Johnson & Johnson’s conduct over decades was reprehensible,” Starr said.

In addition to Starr, other members of the women’s legal team are former Attorney General John Ashcroft and Washington lawyers David Frederick and Tom Goldstein, frequent advocates before the Supreme Court.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh worked for Starr when he investigated the affair between President Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, which led to Clinton’s impeachment.

Another name that pops up in some documents in the case is E. Edward Kavanaugh, who was the longtime president of the Cosmetic, Toiletry and Fragrance Association and is the justice’s father.

Kavanaugh’s group fought efforts to list talc as a carcinogen or attach warning labels to talc products. Kavanaugh is retired and the group now is called the Personal Care Products Council.

Ethicists contacted by the AP said they haven’t seen anything that would warrant the justice having to step aside from the case.

Already, one justice almost certainly won’t take part. Justice Samuel Alito reported last year that he owned $15,000 to $50,000 in Johnson & Johnson stock. Federal law prohibits judges from sitting on cases in which they have financial interest.

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WHO to issue DRC sexual abuse investigation findings by August

WHO says an independent investigation into allegations of sexual abuse by WHO workers in DR Congo should issue its findings by the end of August.

The World Health Organization, facing pressure from donors, said an independent investigation into allegations of sexual abuse in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) against WHO aid workers should issue findings by the end of August.

A report by the Associated Press news agency earlier this month said internal emails revealed that the WHO’s management was aware of sexual abuse claims in the DRC in 2019 and was asked how to handle it.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the organisation’s annual ministerial session that some states were frustrated by the pace of the inquiry. The allegations “undermine trust in WHO and threaten the critical work we are doing”, he said on Friday.

The independent commission set up its base in Goma in March and hired an investigative firm that began field investigations in early May, Tedros said.

Despite security challenges in DRC’s North Kivu region and volcanic eruptions in the past week, he said: “The team is doing its best to complete its work in time for the commission to deliver its report by the end of August 2021”.

Earlier, 53 countries voiced alarm at reports that WHO leaders knew of sexual abuse allegations against the United Nations agency’s staff and failed to report them.

In a joint statement, the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan and others demanded WHO chiefs display “strong and exemplary leadership” on preventing sexual abuse.

Delivering the joint statement to the WHO’s main annual assembly, Canadian Ambassador Leslie Norton said the tone “must be set from the top” and that the 53 countries wanted “credible outcomes” on tackling the issue.

“Since January 2018, we have been raising deep concerns about allegations relating to matters of sexual exploitation and abuse, and sexual harassment, as well as abuse of authority, in regard to WHO activities,” she said.

At a meeting of the WHO executive board’s programme, budget and administration committee last week, member states and the WHO secretariat discussed this issue in a “robust and transparent manner”, the statement said.

“We expressed alarm at the suggestions in the media that WHO management knew of reported cases of sexual exploitation and abuse, and sexual harassment and had failed to report them, as required by UN and WHO protocol, as well as at allegations that WHO staff acted to suppress the cases.”

‘Disciplinary action’

The countries, also including Australia, Brazil, Indonesia, Israel, Mexico Switzerland and Uruguay, said that adequately tackling the problem required cultural change across organisations and societies.

“It requires strong and exemplary leadership from managers and leaders throughout an organisation with the tone being set from the top,” they said, stressing they wanted “appropriate disciplinary action” where allegations are substantiated.

The WHO and two other UN agencies were left reeling last September after a report documented alleged exploitation and abuse of women by UN agency staff during DRC’s 2018-2020 Ebola crisis.

The WHO, the International Organization for Migration and the United Nations Children’s Fund were cited in an investigative report published by the Thomson Reuters Foundation and The New Humanitarian.

The year-long probe found that more than 50 women had accused Ebola aid workers – chiefly from the WHO but also from other UN agencies and leading non-governmental organisations – of sexual exploitation, including propositioning them, forcing them to have sex in exchange for a job, or terminating contracts when they refused.

The similarities between the accounts given by women in the eastern DRC city of Beni suggested the practices were widespread, the report said.

A report by WHO’s external auditor, presented on Friday, said that there were 14 cases of sexual misconduct implicating WHO employees last year, including the DRC case, compared with 11 in 2019.

“The number of complaints or reports of misconduct are a reflection of the ethical climate of an organisation and its ‘tone at the top’,” the report said, “and therefore, an increasing trend of such complaints should be a cause of concern for the management.”

SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES

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ECOWAS suspends Mali over second coup in nine months

West African leaders condemn coup and call for a return to democracy, but stop short of imposing new sanctions.

West African leaders have suspended Mali from their regional bloc in response to last week’s coup but stopped short of imposing new sanctions.

Leaders of the 15-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) held an emergency summit in Ghana’s capital, Accra on Sunday to agree to a response to the Malian military’s toppling of a president and prime minister for the second time in nine months.

Mali’s neighbours and international powers fear the latest revolt will jeopardise a commitment to hold a presidential election next February and undermine a regional fight against armed groups linked to al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS).

Speaking after the meeting, Ghana’s Foreign Minister Shirley Ayorkor Botchway said Mali’s suspension “from ECOWAS takes immediate effect until the deadline of the end of February 2022”, when the country’s interim leaders “are supposed to hand over to a democratically elected government”.

The bloc’s final communique also called for the immediate appointment of a new civilian prime minister and the formation of an “inclusive” government.

However it did not announce sanctions like those it imposed after the coup last August, which saw members temporarily close their borders with landlocked Mali and halt financial transactions.

It also did not call for new interim President Assimi Goita to step down. The army colonel, who led the August coup as well as last week’s revolt, was declared president on Friday.

Instead, the statement said, the head of the transition government, the vice president and the prime minister should not under any circumstances be candidates in the planned presidential election. “The date of 27th February 2022 already announced for the presidential election should be absolutely maintained,” it stressed.

There was no immediate response from Goita, who attended the summit.

The 38-year-old special forces commander was one of several colonels who overthrew President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita last year. He also ordered the arrests last Monday of interim President Bah Ndaw and Prime Minister Moctar Ouane, hours after a cabinet reshuffle that left out two members of the military.

Goita, who was Ndaw’s former deputy, justified his actions by saying there was discord within the transitional government and that he was not consulted, per the transitional charter, when the new cabinet was chosen.

Ndaw and Ouane resigned on Wednesday while still in detention and were later released to house arrest.

In their statement, ECOWAS condemned the arrests, saying the move violated mediation steps taken in the aftermath of the August coup. The bloc demanded that Malian authorities immediately release the pair.

It also went on to express “strong and deep concerns over the present crisis in Mali”, which it noted “is coming halfway to the end of the agreed transition period, in the context of the security challenges related to incessant terrorist attacks and the COVID-19 Pandemic with its dire socio-economic impacts”.

Other bodies including the United Nations and the African Union have also condemned the power grab. The UN Security Council has said the resignations of Ndaw and Ouane were coerced, while the United States has already pulled its security force support.

France and the European Union have meanwhile threatened sanctions.

French leader Emmanuel Macron said in an interview with the Journal du Dimanche newspaper published on Sunday that Paris “could not stay by the side of a country where there is no longer democratic legitimacy or a transition”.

And he warned that France would pull its troops out of Mali if the country lurches towards “radical Islamism” under Goita’s leadership.

France has approximately 5,100 troops in the region under Operation Barkhane, which spans five countries in the Sahel – Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger.

Underscoring the chronic instability in Mali, as ECOWAS heads of state met in Ghana, attackers killed four civilians and a police officer in southern Mali, a region that has previously been mostly spared from the country’s unrest.

The unidentified men attacked a checkpoint near the town of Bougouni, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Mali’s borders with Ivory Coast and Guinea, before dawn, a security official told the AFP news agency on the condition of anonymity.

A local legislator confirmed the attack.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

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Coronavirus vaccine could be made compulsory for NHS staff, minister says

Vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi tells Sky News the measure is being considered to help stop the virus spreading in hospitals.

COVID jabs could be made compulsory for NHS staff, the vaccines minister has told Sky News.

Nadhim Zahawi said the government is considering making coronavirus vaccines compulsory for healthcare workers to help stop the spread of the virus in hospitals.

He told Trevor Phillips on Sunday: “It would be incumbent on any responsible government to have the debate, to do the thinking as to how we go about protecting the most vulnerable by making sure that those who look after them are vaccinated.

“There is precedent for this – obviously surgeons get vaccinated for hepatitis B. So it’s something we are absolutely thinking about.”

A senior Labour frontbencher warned that “threatening” NHS staff would be less effective than working with those who had doubts about the jab.

Shadow Commons leader Thangam Debbonaire said: “Given we have got a recruitment crisis in parts of the NHS, I think it’s far more important we try and work with staff rather than against them.

“Threatening staff, I don’t think is a good idea.”

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China easing birth limits further to cope with aging society

BEIJING (AP) — China’s ruling Communist Party said Monday it will ease birth limits to allow all couples to have three children instead of two in hopes of slowing the rapid aging of its population, which is adding to strains on the economy and society.

The ruling party has enforced birth limits since 1980 to restrain population growth but worries the number of working-age people is falling too fast while the share over age 65 is rising. That threatens to disrupt its ambitions to transform China into a prosperous consumer society and global technology leader.

A ruling party meeting led by President Xi Jinping decided to introduce “measures to actively deal with the aging population,” the official Xinhua News Agency said. It said they agreed that ”implementing the policy of one couple can have three children and supporting measures are conducive to improving China’s population structure.”

Leaders also agreed China needs to raise its retirement age to keep more people in the workforce and improve pension and health services, Xinhua said.

Restrictions that limited most couples to one child were eased in 2015 to allow two, but the total number of births fell further, suggesting rule changes on their own have had little impact on the trend.

Couples say they are put off by high costs of raising a child, disruption to their jobs and the need to look after elderly parents.

China, along with Thailand and some other Asian economies, face what economists call the challenge of whether they can get rich before they get old.

The Chinese population of 1.4 billion already was expected to peak later this decade and start to decline. Census data released May 11 suggest that is happening faster than expected, adding to burdens on underfunded pension and health systems and cutting the number of future workers available to support a growing retiree group.

The share of working-age people 15 to 59 in the population fell to 63.3% last year from 70.1% a decade earlier. The group aged 65 and older grew to 13.5% from 8.9%.

The 12 million births reported last year was down nearly one-fifth from 2019.

About 40% were second children, down from 50% in 2017, according to Ning Jizhe, a statistics official who announced the data on May 11.

Chinese researchers and the labor ministry say the share of working-age people might fall to half the population by 2050. That increases the “dependency ratio,” or the number of retirees who rely on each worker to generate income for pension funds and to pay taxes for health and other public services.

Leaders at Monday’s meeting agreed it is “necessary to steadily implement the gradual postponement of the legal retirement age,” Xinhua said.

It gave no details, but the government has been debating raising the official retirement ages of 60 for men, 55 for white-collar female workers and 50 for blue-collar female workers.

The potential change is politically fraught. Female professionals welcome a chance to stay in satisfying careers, but others whose bodies are worn out from decades of manual labor resent being required to work longer.

The fertility rate, or the average number of births per mother, stood at 1.3 in 2020, well below the 2.1 that would maintain the size of the population.

China’s birth rate, paralleling trends in other Asian economies, already was falling before the one-child rule. The average number of children per Chinese mother tumbled from above six in the 1960s to below three by 1980, according to the World Bank.

Demographers say official birth limits concealed what would have been a further fall in the number of children per family without the restrictions.

The ruling party says it prevented as many as 400 million potential births, averting shortages of food and water. But demographers say if China followed trends in Thailand, parts of India and other countries, the number of additional babies might have been as low as a few million.

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Who is Naftali Bennett, Israel’s potential prime minister?

Former defence chief and Netanyahu ally officially parts ways with Israeli PM, announces bid to become prime minister.

Naftali Bennett has moved a step closer to replacing Israel’s veteran prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Bennett is a multi-millionaire former tech entrepreneur who made a name in politics with right-wing, religious-nationalist rhetoric.

The 49-year-old, who has made pitches to far-right voters throughout his career, leads the Yamina party, which has called for Israel to annex parts of the occupied West Bank.

A firebrand politician who has not shied away from controversy, Bennett is ultra-liberal on the economy and takes an aggressive line against Iran.

He shares this ideology with Netanyahu and has served in several of the Likud leader’s governments. In recent years, however, the two have become increasingly opposed.

On Sunday, Bennett said he would join a governing coalition that could end Netanyahu’s 12-year rule.

He agreed to join centrist Yair Lapid in a coalition to remove the prime minister. Lapid has offered to share power, letting Bennett serve the first term rotating as prime minister.

A former special forces commando, Bennett is the son of US-born parents and lives with his wife Galit and four children in the central city of Raanana.

He entered politics after selling his tech start-up for $145m in 2005, and the next year became chief of staff to Netanyahu, who was then in opposition.

After leaving Netanyahu’s office, Bennett in 2010 became head of the Yesha Council, which lobbies for Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank.

He then took politics by storm in 2012 when he took charge of the far-right Jewish Home party, which was facing annihilation.

He increased its parliamentary presence fourfold, while making headlines with a series of incendiary comments about the Palestinians.

In 2013, he said Palestinian “terrorists should be killed, not released”.

He has courted controversy on several occasions, once stating that the West Bank is not under occupation because “there was never a Palestinian state here”, and that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could not be resolved but must be endured.

Beyond holding the defence portfolio, Bennett has served as Netanyahu’s economy minister and education minister.

He re-branded Jewish Home as Yamina (Rightward) in 2018, and was part of Netanyahu’s coalition which collapsed the same year.

But he was not asked to join a Netanyahu-led unity government in May last year – a move seen as an expression of the prime minister’s personal contempt towards him, despite their shared ideology.

In opposition and with the coronavirus pandemic raging in 2020, Bennett dampened his right-wing rhetoric to focus on the health crisis, moving to broaden his appeal by releasing plans to contain the virus and aid the economy.

SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES

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Press freedom watchdog calls for release of Zimbabwean journalist

Detention of New York Times freelancer Jeffrey Moyo shows ‘Zimbabwe continues to violate the right to press freedom’, says Committee to Protect Journalists.

A press freedom watchdog has called on Zimbabwean authorities to immediately release a local journalist who was remanded in custody on accusations of violating the country’s immigration laws to facilitate a reporting trip by two foreign colleagues.

Global African Family Meeting

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said on Friday the “baseless” charges against Jeffrey Moyo, a New York Times freelancer who has also worked for other international media outlets, including The Globe and Mail, should be dropped.

Moyo, 37, was arrested on Wednesday in the capital, Harare. His lawyer, Doug Coltart, told the CPJ Moyo was charged with violating Section 36 of the Immigration Act for allegedly presenting false information to immigration officials to help two New York Times journalists enter the country.

According to Coltart, the two colleagues – Christina Goldbaum and Joao Silva – who arrived in the southern city of Bulawayo from South Africa on May 5 were deported on May 8 because they allegedly did not have proper accreditation from the Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC).

“Four days into their trip, the visiting journalists were ordered to leave after immigration officials advised them and Mr. Moyo that official notice of their accreditation credentials had not been received from the necessary authorities,” the New York Times reported.

The newspaper quoted Coltart as saying that Moyo was subsequently arrested along with a ZMC official because immigration officials are “now saying those accreditation cards were fake”.

In a statement on Facebook, the ZMC said that the two New York Times reporters had applied for clearance to work in the country but their application was denied by the responsible authorities.

“However the two had proceeded to come to the country anyway,” it said. “The accreditation card numbers and receipts representing proof of payment for accreditation they produced were clear forgeries.”

Moyo has denied the allegations, according to his lawyer.

Calling for his release, Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator, said the journalist “should never have been detained, let alone charged”.

“The fact that he was arrested, and his New York Times colleagues forced to leave the country, shows that Zimbabwe continues to violate the right to press freedom and the public’s right to know.”

The New York Times said in a statement: “We are deeply concerned by Jeffrey Moyo’s arrest and are assisting his lawyers to secure his timely release.”

It described Moyo as “a widely respected journalist” with many years of reporting experience in Zimbabwe. “His detainment raises troubling questions about the state of press freedom in Zimbabwe,” it added.

Reporters Without Borders ranks Zimbabwe 130th out of 180 countries in its World Press Freedom Index.

Moyo on Thursday appeared in the magistrate’s court in Bulawayo, along with his co-accused, ZMC official Thabang Manhika. An initial request for bail was denied, with another ruling expected on Monday.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

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Several killed as roadside bomb targets minibus in Afghanistan

The vehicle was bringing staff and students to Alberoni University in northern Afghanistan, the interior ministry says.

A roadside bomb hit a minibus carrying university lecturers and students in Afghanistan’s northern Parvan province, killing at least four people and wounding 11 others, officials said.

Interior ministry spokesman Tariq Arian said the minibus was targeted on Saturday in the provincial capital of Charikar while transferring the group to Alberoni University in the neighbouring Kapisa province.

Kapisa provincial police spokesman Shayeq Shoresh said the bomb was set off by remote control.

Some of the wounded were in critical condition, said Hamed Obaidi, a spokesman for the ministry of higher education.

Afghanistan’s TOLO News reported that the attack took place at about 3:15pm (10:45 GMT).

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. Previous deadly attacks on the Kabul University in November last year were claimed by the ISIL (ISIS) group.

Large swaths of war-ravaged Afghanistan have been littered with bombs and landmines. Many have been planted by fighters to target military convoys, but they often kill civilians instead.

Saturday’s attack comes weeks after the remaining 2,500 to 3,500 US troops officially began leaving the country.

They will be gone by September 11 at the latest. The pullout comes amid a resurgent Taliban, which controls or holds sway over half of Afghanistan.

Under an agreement signed by the Taliban and the US last year, Washington was to pull out troops in exchange for Taliban security guarantees and for the group to start peace talks with the Afghan government.

However, in recent months, violence in the country has soared.

Three weeks ago, a bomb attack outside a school in the capital Kabul killed 68 people, most of them students, and wounded 165 others.

Nearly 1,800 Afghan civilians were killed or wounded in the first three months of 2021 during fighting between government forces and Taliban fighters, the United Nations said last month.

SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES

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US faces ‘difficult questions’ on Egypt ties after Gaza ceasefire

Advocates question Joe Biden’s promise to take a rights-based approach to foreign policy amid Egypt-led mediation.

US President Joe Biden is facing renewed scrutiny over the United States’ relationship with Egypt – and his promise to stand up to rights abuses committed by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s government – in the wake of 11 days of deadly violence in the Gaza Strip.

Washington this month relied heavily on Egyptian mediators, who shuttled between Tel Aviv and Gaza to reach and maintain a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian faction Hamas, which governs the besieged Palestinian territory.

In so doing, the Biden administration has been confronted with lingering questions over its promise to take a “human rights centred” approach to Egypt, which has long served as an interlocutor in the Israel-Palestine conflict as one of the few countries that engages with both Israel and Hamas.

The US president had previously said there would be “no more blank checks” for el-Sisi, whom he called his predecessor Donald Trump’s “favorite dictator”, but some rights advocates say Biden has already fallen short of that commitment.

“Once again, we see that nothing has changed,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), a Washington, DC-based think-tank.

“[Antony] Blinken did not meet with a single civil society representative during his stop in Cairo,” she said of the US secretary of state’s visit to the Egyptian capital last week in support of the ceasefire.

“He said no more about human rights than [former Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo and the Trump administration before him.”

‘Strategic partnership’

In two calls between Biden and el-Sisi this month – the first since Biden took office in January – the US president “thanked Egypt for its successful diplomacy”, according to a readout from the White House. “President Biden underscored the importance of a constructive dialogue on human rights in Egypt,” the statement added.

On Wednesday’s visit to Cairo, Blinken also affirmed the US’s “strategic partnership” with Egypt.

He told reporters he had a “lengthy discussion and exchange on human rights” with the Egyptian leader, who came to power in a 2013 military coup that overthrew President Mohamed Morsi. El-Sisi was most recently re-elected in 2018, running virtually unopposed after his main challenger was arrested and several candidates dropped out citing intimidation.

Seth Binder, the advocacy officer at the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED), said the Biden administration’s expression of gratitude “misread” the situation and sent the wrong message to Cairo.

“The Egyptians are doing this out of their own interest,” he told Al Jazeera. “We don’t need to bend over backwards to try to congratulate them on doing what’s in their interests.

“We can still work with them on brokering a ceasefire, and at the same time pressure them and continue to centre human rights in the relationship.”

El-Sisi’s ‘usefulness’

For el-Sisi, the timing of the Gaza mediation has been “Manna from heaven”, said Michele Dunne, director and a senior fellow of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Middle East programme.

It increased the Egyptian leader’s relevance as the Biden administration sought to focus its foreign policy on other parts of the Middle East and the world, and allowed el-Sisi “to demonstrate his usefulness”, Dunne told Al Jazeera.

She noted the Egyptian president this time embraced the political benefit of serving as a mediator with Hamas, compared with the 2014 Gaza war, in which he treated Hamas as a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and supported Israeli aggression.

“I’m sure that Sisi hopes that his usefulness on dealing with Hamas and perhaps his usefulness in helping with humanitarian relief in Gaza will get him a pass on human rights and other issues in US-Egyptian relations,” Dunne said.

The most recent round of engagement comes as el-Sisi has contended not only with the stated position of the Biden administration, but also with US legislators who have become increasingly critical of US military assistance to Egypt, which totals $1.3bn annually.

Pressure on Biden

In recent years, Congress has regularly passed legislation requiring the State Department to certify Egypt is taking steps to meet human rights standards before the funds are released.

Last year, Congress passed a bill that conditions $75m of that aid on Cairo’s release of political prisoners and meeting other human rights standards – and does not contain a provision for a State Department waiver.

Some in the US have also questioned Egypt’s wider strategic significance, once considered a certainty given Cairo’s influence in the Arab world, control over the Suez Canal – an arterial trade route connecting the Mediterranean and the Red Sea – and its land border with the Gaza Strip.

Still, the Biden administration has shown it may not pursue a policy overhaul, dismaying rights advocates and some legislators by approving a $197m sale of missiles and related equipment to Egypt in February.

That came just a month before the State Department’s annual human rights report decried a laundry list of abuses in Egypt, including extrajudicial killings, torture, forced disappearances, crackdowns on journalists and political opponents, and violence against the LGBTQ community.

El-Sisi’s government has overseen a widespread arrest campaign against rights advocates, journalists, and other perceived critics – and approximately 60,000 Egyptians are still imprisoned.

US-based Egyptian rights activists also recently accused the Egyptian government of detaining their relatives in Egypt as a way to pressure them into silence – an accusation that el-Sisi has rejected, but which rights groups have raised serious alarm over.

“The current conflict has brought up uncomfortable questions and policy dilemmas that the Biden administration doesn’t want to deal with,” Dunne told Al Jazeera. “And they are going to be facing a lot of difficult decisions.”

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

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President Biden is slammed for singling out ‘elementary school-aged’ girl during speech and saying ‘she looks like she’s 19 years old’

Joe Biden has been slammed for ‘creepy’ remarks he made about a young girl during a speech at a Virginia military base on Friday.

The Commander-in-chief, 78, went off-script to point out the ‘elementary school- aged’ girl as he delivered an address at Joint Base Langley-Eustis ahead of Memorial Day.

‘I love those barrettes in your hair, man,’ the President said to the girl, who was sitting at the side of the stage

‘I tell you what, look at her, she looks like she’s 19 years old, sitting there like a little lady with her legs crossed,’ Biden bizarrely continued.

The girl’s mother had reportedly introduced Biden to the stage prior to his speech. Her full name and aged have not been publicly released.

Footage of Biden’s odd remarks was shared to The Post Millennial’s Twitter page, with many users perturbed by what they heard.

‘Your president people… there is a reason they don’t let him talk in front of cameras often..’ one stated.

‘Looks like she’s 19’: Biden remarks about girl at VA military base

A second person chimed in: ‘This would be front page news on the New York Times and the lead story on CNN for two weeks if Trump did this. And no, this isn’t whataboutism,’ one person remarked.

Another defended Biden, but did concede that there was media bias.

‘He’s socially awkward. He says it like he’s trying to be sweet. Innocent in his head meanwhile everyone else is like ‘Uhhh what??” the person wrote on Twitter.

‘[But I] Gotta agree with some comments here. If Trump said it then it would have been front page news. That’s how biased our news outlets are.’

The President’s press team have not addressed the remark.

Biden has a history of making eyebrow-raising remarks about girls and women.

Last year, during an event in Florida, Biden told a group of underage female dancers: ‘I’m coming back and I want to see these beautiful young ladies, I want to see them dancing when they are four years older too!’

In 2019, he told a 10-year-old girl: ‘I’ll bet you’re as bright as you are good-looking.’

He has also been photographed over the years kissing and touching young girls and women during public events.

Biden has a history of making eyebrow-raising remarks about girls and women.

Last year, during an event in Florida, Biden told a group of underage female dancers: ‘I’m coming back and I want to see these beautiful young ladies, I want to see them dancing when they are four years older too!’

In 2019, he told a 10-year-old girl: ‘I’ll bet you’re as bright as you are good-looking.’

He has also been photographed over the years kissing and touching young girls and women during public events.

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