Zelenskyy to deliver virtual address to US Congress

Ukraine introduces temporary visa-free for foreigners who wants to help fight Russia

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will deliver a virtual address this week to the U.S. Congress, part of a series of high-profile speeches from a leader working to rally support as the Russian invasion of his country intensifies.

Zelenskyy will speak Wednesday to members of the House and Senate, an event that will be livestreamed for the public. It follows an address he delivered last week to the U.K. Parliament that carried echoes of Winston Churchill’s stirring words during World War II. On Tuesday, Zelenskyy is scheduled to deliver a speech to Canada’s parliament.

“It’s such a privilege to have this leader of this country, where these people are fighting for their democracy and our democracy,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday during an event at the Brooklyn Bridge with New York lawmakers.

Pelosi said Zelenskyy asked for the meeting when they spoke at the end of last week, and lawmakers are “thrilled” to have him address Congress.

The talk comes as the Ukrainians are fighting for their country’s survival in the escalating war as Russian President Vladimir Putin intensifies his assault, including airstrikes on the capital, Kyiv. Zelenskyy has pleaded with the U.S. for more air support, including the transfer of planes from neighboring Poland. Civilians in Ukraine are taking up arms to hold back Putin’s regime, but the war has launched a mass exodus of more then 2.8 million people from Ukraine.

“The Congress, our country and the world are in awe of the people of Ukraine,” said Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in a statement Monday announcing the address.

They said all lawmakers are invited to the talk that will be delivered via video at the U.S. Capitol. It comes after Congress recently approved $13.6 billion in emergency military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine.

Biden is expected to sign a big spending bill containing Ukraine aid into law on Tuesday, but lawmakers expect to hear more from Zelenskyy about his country’s immediate needs. During Pelosi’s call last week, Zelenskyy said his country would need help rebuilding from the war.

“We have to do more in terms of meeting the needs of some of the 2.7 million refugees,” she said.

She said of the Ukrainians, “They’re fighting for democracy writ large.”

In their statement Monday, the congressional leaders said Congress “remains unwavering in our commitment to supporting Ukraine as they face Putin’s cruel and diabolical aggression.”

Earlier this month, Zelenskyy spoke by video with House and Senate lawmakers, delivering a desperate plea for more military aid.

The Ukrainian president has specifically sought air support to battle the Russians, including the transfer of Soviet-era MiGs from Poland, but the Pentagon has closed the door on that idea for now, worried it could escalate U.S. involvement.

Schumer said Monday that it’s among the highest honors of any Congress to welcome foreign heads of state, “but it is nearly unheard of in modern times that we hear from a leader fighting for his life, fighting for his country’s survival, and fighting to preserve the very idea of democracy.”

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Jihadists strike again in Burkina Faso killing 13 soldiers

DNT Burkina Faso – Jihadists in Burkina Faso yesterday struck again this time killing 13 soldiers and injuring dozens others near the town of Namentenga in the center northern part of the country.

The soldiers were ambushed while rushing to provide first aid to passengers of a bus that had run aground after driving over land mines.

The Burkinabe military has launched what it calls a “Mopping up” exercise in response to this latest of a long string of Jihadist attacks on soldiers.

Attacks by jihadists linked to al Qaeda and the Islamic State group have killed thousands and displaced an estimated 1.5 million people in Burkina Faso since 2015.

Islamist militants now move freely across entire swaths of the country and have forced inhabitants of some regions to conform to a strict version of Islamic law. Meanwhile, the army’s continuing fight against the Islamists has depleted the country’s already meagre resources.

A timeline of jihadist violence in Burkina Faso 

On January 15, 2016, 30 people were killed in a double terrorist attack perpetrated by al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb on the Splendid Hotel and the Cappuccino restaurant in Ouagadougou. Many of the victims were Western expatriates.

On March 2, 2018, eight deaths among the security forces were reported after attacks targeting the French embassy and the Burkinabe Armed Forces.

On January 1, 2019, the Fulani ethnic group, accused of collaborating with jihadist groups, was targeted by the Mossi, another ethnic group, in an attack that left 72 people dead, according to official estimates. Another 6,000 were forced to flee.

On August 19, 2019, 24 soldiers were killed in an attack on an army base in Koutougou in the north of the country. The army was targeted again in December in a new attack by heavily armed jihadists on and around Arabinda, a city near the border with Mali.

On January 25, 2020, 39 civilians were massacred in the village market of Silgadji in the north of the country. Around 40 civilians were killed the week before in villages close to Nagraogo and Alamou.

From March to June 2021, a series of mutinies shook the Burkinabe capital: 566 soldiers were decommissioned and a new army chief was nominated by the president.

On June 5, 2021, at least 160 people were killed in a new massacre. Many victims were members of the Volunteers for the Defence of the Homeland army auxiliary group.

On November 14, 2021, 57 people were killed in an attack on the police station in Inata, 54 of whom were police officers. They had alerted authorities about a lack of resources two weeks before the attack.

On December 10, 2021, Lassina Zerbo was nominated prime minister after the resignation of his predecessor following criticism that he had been incapable of stopping terrorist violence.

On January 11, 2022, eight soldiers accused of planning “a project to destabilise the institutions of the republic” were arrested.

DNT News with Correspondence reports from Julius Ouya

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17 die as cyclone lashes Mozambique, Malawi

The death toll from a cyclone that struck Mozambique this week climbed to 12 on Sunday as it moved towards Malawi killing five more after devastating wind and rain lashed the southern African countries.

Cyclone Gombe has affected more than 30,000 people, injuring 40, and destroyed more than 3,000 homes since making landfall on Friday.

Powerful winds reaching 170 kilometres per hour (105 mph) and torrential rainfall hit the northern Nampula province by the Indian Ocean and neighbouring Zambezia province particularly hard.

In the port city of Nacala, houses were teetering on the edge of cliffs facing the ocean and walls had collapsed, an AFP photographer saw.

Most thatched roofs were damaged and another made of sheet metal lay on the ground after the wind swept away the bricks, while uprooted trees also littered the ground.

Eight shelters have opened in Nampula, Mozambique’s most populous province which suffered death and destruction when Tropical Storm Ana struck in January.

Mozambique was devastated by Cyclone Idai in 2019, the most violent storm to ever hit the country.

“Gombe arrived with more intensity than Idai, but luckily it didn’t have the same impact, in terms of destruction and the fact that it lost strength right at the beginning,” said Cesar Tembe from Mozambique’s national institute for risk management.

Gombe moved towards Malawi, according to Meteo-France, where five deaths were reported later Sunday, authorities said in a statement.

In some southern areas of the country, the rain had not stopped for two days.

Around 80 tropical storms or cyclones form above tropical waters around the world each year. The cyclone season in southern Africa lasts from November to April.

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Surge in Hong Kong Covid cases pushes neighboring Shenzhen City into lockdown

Although infection numbers on the mainland are relatively low, the authorities are enforcing a "zero tolerance" strategy to find and quarantine every infected person, and have imposed fresh restrictions in a number of areas.

editor by editor  March 13, 2022

Surge in Hong Kong Covid cases pushes neighboring Shenzhen City into lockdown

A city of 17.5 million people in China has gone into lockdown after a spike in coronavirus cases in neighbouring Hong Kong.

Everyone in the business centre of Shenzhen will undergo three rounds of COVID-19 testing after 60 new cases were reported on Sunday.

All businesses except those providing essential goods such as food and fuel have been ordered to shut or operate from home.

The number of coronavirus cases in China’s latest infection surge are low compared to other countries and with Hong Kong, which reported more than 32,000 on Sunday.

But mainland authorities are enforcing a “zero tolerance” strategy and have locked down entire cities to find and isolate every infected person.

As part of the clampdown, access to China’s most populous city of Shanghai with 24 million people, has been restricted with bus services suspended and a negative test required from anyone wanting to enter.

Shenzhen is home to some of China’s most prominent companies, including telecoms equipment giant Huawei Technologies.

The authorities reported 1,938 new cases on the Chinese mainland on Sunday, more than triple the previous day’s total.

Around three-quarters of those – 1,412 cases – were in Jilin province in the northeast, where entry to the industrial city of Changchun has been suspended and families told to stay at home.

China, where the first coronavirus cases were detected in late 2019 in the central city of Wuhan, has reported a total of 4,636 deaths on the mainland out of 115,466 confirmed cases since the pandemic started.

In Hong Kong, a health official warned the public not to assume the territory’s deadly coronavirus surge was under control as the government reported 190 new deaths, most of them elderly people, and 32,430 new cases.

This is down from above 50,000 after strict travel and business curbs were imposed.

Hong Kong, which has 7.4 million residents, is trying to contain an outbreak that has killed 3,993 people, most of them in the latest surge driven by the omicron variant, and swamped hospitals.

“People should not get the wrong impression that the virus situation is now under control,” Dr Albert Au, an expert with the government’s Centre for Health Protection, said.

“Once we let our guard down, it’s possible that (infections) will bounce back and rise again.”

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On the mainland, 831 new cases were reported on Sunday in Changchun, 571 in the nearby provincial capital city of Jilin and 150 in the eastern port city of Qingdao.

Figures published earlier this week showed six million people have now died of coronavirus since the pandemic began.

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Russia seeking military aid from China

A U.S. official said Russia asked China for military equipment to use in its invasion of Ukraine, a request that heightened tensions about the ongoing war ahead of a Monday meeting in Rome between top aides for the U.S. and Chinese governments.

In advance of the talks, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan bluntly warned China to avoid helping Russia evade punishment from global sanctions that have hammered the Russian economy. “We will not allow that to go forward,” he said.

The prospect of China offering Russia financial help is one of several concerns for President Joe Biden. A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said that in recent days, Russia had requested support from China, including military equipment, to press forward in its ongoing war with Ukraine. The official did not provide details on the scope of the request. The request was first reported by the Financial Times and The Washington Post.

The Biden administration is also accusing China of spreading Russian disinformation that could be a pretext for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces to attack Ukraine with chemical or biological weapons.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has put China in a delicate spot with two of its biggest trading partners: the U.S. and European Union. China needs access to those markets, yet it also has shown support for Moscow, joining with Russia in declaring a friendship with “no limits.”

In his talks with senior Chinese foreign policy adviser Yang Jiechi, Sullivan will indeed be looking for limits in what Beijing will do for Moscow.

“I’m not going to sit here publicly and brandish threats,” he told CNN in a round of Sunday news show interviews. “But what I will tell you is we are communicating directly and privately to Beijing that there absolutely will be consequences” if China helps Russia “backfill” its losses from the sanctions.

“We will not allow that to go forward and allow there to be a lifeline to Russia from these economic sanctions from any country anywhere in the world,” he said.

In brief comments on the talks, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian did not mention Ukraine, saying that the “key issue of this meeting is to implement the important consensus reached by the Chinese and U.S. heads of state in their virtual summit in November last year.”

“They will exchange views on China-U.S. relations and international and regional issues of common concern,” Zhao said in comments posted on the ministry’s website late Sunday.

The White House said the talks will focus on the direct impact of Russia’s war against Ukraine on regional and global security.

Biden administration officials say Beijing is spreading false Russian claims that Ukraine was running chemical and biological weapons labs with U.S. support. They say China is effectively providing cover if Russia moves ahead with a biological or chemical weapons attack on Ukrainians.

When Russia starts accusing other countries of preparing to launch biological or chemical attacks, Sullivan told NBC’s “Meet the Press,” “it’s a good tell that they may be on the cusp of doing it themselves.”

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US warns China against helping Russia

The US has said China will face “consequences” if it helps Russia evade sanctions in its invasion of Ukraine.

Unnamed US officials reportedly told multiple US news outlets that Russia had asked China to provide military assistance after it began the invasion.

The Chinese foreign ministry did not address the allegation directly, but accused the US of maliciously spreading disinformation about China.

The exchanges come as top US and Chinese officials are to meet in Rome.

US media outlets, citing Washington officials, say that Russia has in recent days asked China specifically for military equipment, including drones.

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said they were “communicating directly, privately to Beijing that there will absolutely be consequences for large-scale sanctions evasion efforts or support to Russia to backfill them”.

“We will not allow that to go forward and allow there to be a lifeline to Russia from these economic sanctions from any country, anywhere in the world,” he said.

He added that while the US believed China was aware that Russian leader Vladimir Putin was “planning something” before the invasion happened, Beijing “may not have understood the full extent of it”.

“Because it’s very possible that [Mr] Putin lied to them the same way that he lied to Europeans and others,” Mr Sullivan said.

In response, a spokesman for the foreign ministry in Beijing, Zhao Lijian, said the US was spreading disinformation.

He added that China’s stance had always been consistent and that China was playing a constructive role in promoting talks.

Mr. Sullivan is due to meet Yang Jiechi, a member of China’s top decision-making body, the Politburo, and the head of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission, on Monday in Rome. Reuters news agency quoted a US official as saying that during the meeting, Mr Sullivan would spell out the consequences and isolation China would face if it increased support for Russia.

China has so far refrained from condemning Russia for the invasion and has said Moscow’s “legitimate security concerns” should be taken seriously.When the United Nations General Assembly voted to condemn Russia’s invasion earlier this month, China was one of 35 countries that abstained.

But Beijing at the same time has expressed “unwavering support” for Ukraine’s sovereignty. It has also called for peace and has said it is ready to help end the war through diplomacy. Several countries have urged China to do more to stop Russia’s invasion.

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Minister calls on society for voter registration

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Luanda – Angola’s minister of Territory Administration Marcy Lopes Monday urged the churches and civil society to mobilise their communities to adhere to the Ex-officio electoral registration process.

In a meeting with representatives of the churches, traditional authorities and civil society, the minister said it was crucial to step up mobilisation work among citizens who have changed residence, with a view to updating the respective data.

The government official pointed out as a target group, at this stage of the process, citizens who have not taken the proof of life in 2017 and those who have reached the voting age.

Marcy Lopes informed that until the end of the process, March 31, the voter registration points will remain open on Sundays 10 am - 4 pm, but he ruled out the possibility of extending the registration period.

As for abroad, the minister said that registration is running smoothly, even on Saturdays and Sundays, but only in diplomatic and consular missions, as established by the Constitution.

He clarified that it is not legal to create a registration post outside diplomatic and consular missions abroad.