Category: General

Teenage pilot Zara Rutherford landed in Kortrijk, Belgium, Thursday to officially become the youngest woman to fly around the world solo.

The Belgian British 19-year-old landed her single-seat Shark ultralight aircraft to cheers and honking horns from a crowd that had gathered to welcome her home. Rutherford originally embarked from Kortrijk on August 18, 2021 — 155 days ago.

As she stepped from the cockpit, she shared a hug with her parents and brother and was presented with framed copies of a certificate from the Guiness Book of World Records certifying her accomplishment.

The 51,000-kilometer, east-to-west journey took her across 52 countries and five continents. To meet the criteria for a round-the-world flight, Rutherford touched two points opposite each other on the globe: Jambi, Indonesia, and Tumaco, Colombia.

The trip was all the more challenging as she flew without the aid of flight instruments or a pressurized cabin.

Rutherford told reporters the last leg of her journey — from a small airstrip near Frankfurt, Germany, where she landed Wednesday, to the Kortrijk airstrip – had been a bit tricky because of rain and snow. Rutherford said she had to wiggle in some valleys and wait for a while for the snow to clear.

But Rutherford said she was glad to be home and was looking forward to her favorite sandwich from a local shop.

Rutherford had said her big goal is to use this experience to encourage other young women to go into flying or study science, technology and mathematics “and other fields they might not have thought about.”

In September, she plans to go to college to study engineering in either Britain or the United States.

Rutherford broke the record set by American aviator Shaesta Waiz, who was 30 when she set the previous record for the youngest woman to circumnavigate the world solo in 2017.

Source: Voice of America

GENEVA, The past seven years have been the hottest on record, the United Nations confirmed, adding that 2021 temperatures remained high despite the cooling effect of the La Nina weather

phenomenon.

“The warmest seven years have all been since 2015,” the UN’s World Meteorological Organization said in a statement.

And despite the fact that two consecutive La Nina events captured global attention for large portions of the year, 2021 still ranked among the seven warmest years on record, the WMO said.

“Back-to-back La Nina events mean that 2021 warming was relatively less pronounced compared to recent years. Even so, 2021 was still warmer than previous years influenced by La Nina,” WMO chief Petteri Taalas said in the

statement.

This, he said, shows that “the overall long-term warming as a result of greenhouse gas increases is now far larger than the year-to-year variability in global average temperatures caused by naturally occurring climate drivers.”

La Nina refers to the large-scale cooling of surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, with widespread impacts on weather around the world.

The phenomenon, which typically has the opposite impacts as the warming El Nino phenomenon, usually occurs every two to seven years, but has now hit twice since 2020.

WMO reached its conclusions by consolidating six leading international datasets, including the European Union’s Copernicus climate monitor (C3S) and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which

announced similar findings last week.

The datasets showed that the average global temperature in 2021 was around 1.11 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial levels measured between 1850 and 1900.

Last year also marked the seventh consecutive year that global temperatures were more than 1C above pre-industrial levels, the datasets showed.

“The global average temperature in 2021 is already approaching the lowerlimit of temperature increase the Paris Agreement seeks to avert,” the WMO warned.

The 2015 Paris Agreement saw countries agree to cap global warming at “well below” 2C above pre-industrial levels, and 1.5C if possible.

The WMO stressed that the unbroken warm streak over the past seven years was part of a longer-term trend towards higher global temperatures.

“Since the 1980s, each decade has been warmer than the previous one,” it said.

“This is expected to continue.”

The datasets varied slightly in their assessment of where 2021 ranked among the seven warmest years, with C3S ranking it fifth, NOAA ranking it sixth, and others saying it was seventh.

“The small differences among these datasets indicates the margin of error for calculating the average global temperature,” the WMO said.

But while 2021 was among the coolest of the top-seven hottest years, it was still marked by a range of record temperatures and extreme weather events linked to global warming.

Taalas pointed to the “record-shattering temperature of nearly 50C in Canada, comparable to the values reported in the hot Saharan Desert of Algeria, exceptional rainfall, and deadly flooding in Asia and Europe as well as drought in parts of Africa and South America.”

“Climate change impacts and weather-related hazards had life-changing and devastating impacts on communities on every single continent.”

Source: Nam News Network

WASHINGTON — Tuesday started like any other day for Jindar Barakat. The reporter, who works part time at a currency exchange, was opening up the store in the northeastern Syrian city of Al-Hasakah.

But instead of customers, masked men in military uniform filled the store.

“They were probably five men, all masked up,” Barakat said. “Two of them captured me, while the rest started to search the store, seizing my cellphone and other personal belongings.”

The 33-year-old was confused, but as he was blindfolded and bundled into a nearby vehicle, he suspected he was being targeted for his reporting for Yekiti Media.

The news website is affiliated with the Kurdish Yekiti Party in Syria, one of several political parties that oppose the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the de facto ruling party in northeast Syria.

The PYD and its affiliated military force, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), control large parts of north and eastern Syria. The SDF has been a major U.S. partner in the fight against the Islamic State terror group.

Barakat’s reporting focuses on abuses carried out by the local authorities, including the arrests of activists, recruitment of children by local military forces, and corruption.

As he was driven away, Barakat tried to make sense of what was happening.

“I asked them to identify themselves, but they were very harsh with me. I knew they were affiliated with the PYD because of their uniforms and also because they didn’t stop on checkpoints,” Barakat told VOA.

“I was blindfolded and handcuffed, and they kept beating me and insulting me,” he said.

About an hour later, the vehicle stopped, and Barakat said he was taken to what felt like an empty room.

“They kept me blindfolded and tied my already cuffed hands to a rope and pulled it upward,” he said. “They beat me on my back, neck and the back of my hands.”

As he was being beaten, Barakat said his captors told him they didn’t like his media work and Facebook posts. But “they didn’t point to a particular article or post,” he said.

Neither the press office at the PYD-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) nor the local security service known as Asayish responded to VOA’s requests for comment.

After several hours, Barakat was dropped without his phone at the side of the road, about 15 kilometers from his home. The journalist walked to a nearby house to borrow a phone to call a cab.

Images he shared with VOA showed bruising to his hands, the back of his neck, and his stomach.

“Their objective was to intimidate me and deter me in my work as a journalist,” he said. But “I won’t be afraid of them.”

Risky beat

Since the beginning of Syria’s conflict in 2011, the PYD-run semiautonomous region has largely been seen as friendly to international journalists.

But it’s a different story for local reporters, who can be detained, harassed or attacked for coverage deemed too critical of local authorities.

Red lines for media often include major corruption cases, oil deals made by the local administration and military matters, particularly those related to terrorism.

Security forces in the northeastern city of Qamishli last month briefly detained eight reporters and personnel from international and regional news organizations who were covering a demonstration against the recruitment of children by local military forces.

History of harassment

Barakat was first harassed over his reporting in 2015. It was the first of at least three occasions where he has been detained or taken for questioning by different security agencies, local news reported.

Last month, a stun grenade was thrown at the balcony of his apartment. He believes those responsible are part of the local security apparatus.

The incident was widely reported in Kurdish and regional media. The regional AANES security forces did not comment publicly on the incident.

Tuesday’s beating was condemned by the General Union of Kurdish Writers and Journalists in Syria.

In a statement, the union demanded that “the perpetrators be brought to a fair trial by independents, and in the presence of independent human rights organizations.”

Radwan Badini, a professor of politics and journalism at Iraq’s Salahaddin University-Erbil, said the violence against journalists in northeast Syria is alarming.

“This is increasingly becoming a regular occurrence, which will necessarily threaten the margin of press freedom that journalists in northeast Syria enjoy,” he told VOA.

While the northeast generally has a better climate for media than the rest of Syria, the country as a whole has a poor media freedom record. It ranks 173 out of 180 countries, where one is freest, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

“The risk of arrest, abduction or death makes journalism extremely dangerous and difficult,” according to RSF’s World Press Freedom Index.

Source: Voice of America

Ethiopia is the third-largest refugee-hosting country in Africa, sheltering 823,959 registered refugees and asylum-seekers as of 31 December 2021. The overwhelming majority originate from South Sudan, Somalia and Eritrea.

To date, 10,892 refugees have received COVID-19 vaccines, including 6,152 fully vaccinated. UNHCR, the Government’s Refugees and Returnees Service (RRS) and partners, continue to reinforce prevention measures in refugee camps and sites hosting Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).

UNHCR continues to respond to the situation of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Ethiopia, leading and co-leading the Protection and Camp Coordination & Camp Management (CCCM) Clusters and providing protection, emergency aid and other support to IDPs and IDP returnees.

Source: UN High Commissioner for Refugees

WASHINGTON — The U.S. special envoy for the Horn of Africa will visit Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Ethiopia next week amid ongoing crises in the two African nations, the State Department announced Friday.

David Satterfield and Assistant Secretary of State Molly Phee will travel to Riyadh, Khartoum and Addis Ababa from Jan. 17-20.

In Riyadh, the pair will meet with the Friends of Sudan, a group calling for the restoration of the country’s transitional government following a military coup in October.

The meeting aims to “marshal international support” for the U.N. mission to “facilitate a renewed civilian-led transition to democracy” in Sudan, according to the statement.

Satterfield and Phee will then travel to Khartoum, where they will meet with pro-democracy activists, women’s and youth groups, civil organizations and military and political figures.

“Their message will be clear: the United States is committed to freedom, peace, and justice for the Sudanese people,” the statement read.

In Ethiopia, the pair will talk with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to seek a resolution to the deepening civil war.

“They will encourage government officials to seize the current opening for peace by ending the air strikes and other hostilities,” the statement read.

They will also ask for the establishment of a cease-fire, the release of political prisoners and the restoration of humanitarian access.

Satterfield, the former US ambassador to Turkey, was appointed to replace Jeffrey Feltman as special envoy Jan. 6.

Feltman quit just as he visited Ethiopia in a bid to encourage peace talks to end more than a year of war following the withdrawal of Tigrayan rebels.

The Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front, which last year threatened to march on Addis Ababa, by December had withdrawn to its stronghold, and the government has not pursued the rebels further on the ground.

Feltman had also sought to tackle the crisis in Sudan, but he was treated unceremoniously in October when Sudan’s military ruler, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, carried out a coup just after the U.S. envoy had left the country.

Feltman’s resignation came days after Sudan’s civilian prime minister, Abdalla Hamdok, quit, leaving Burhan as the undisputed leader of the country despite Western calls to preserve a democratic transition launched in 2019.

Source: Voice of America

OUAGADOUGOU, BURKINA FASO — Human Rights Watch has released its World Report for 2022, which gives a country-by-country review of human rights in more than 100 states over the last year.

In the HRW report released Thursday, which cites reporting by VOA at times, the monitoring group criticizes governments in the western Sahel region and their international partners, including France, the EU and the U.S., for reluctance to hold security forces to account for human rights abuses.

Ida Sawyer is the deputy director of HRW’s Africa division.

“We’ve seen how international partners have regularly issued statements to denounce abuses by Islamic armed groups, but they remain reluctant to denounce abuses by pro-government forces or to publicly press the national authorities to investigate the allegations of abuse,” Sawyer said.

Sawyer added that some international partners offering military support in the region were also failing to hold their own armed forces to account for alleged abuses.

“We have specifically called for a thorough investigation into allegations that a French airstrike killed 19 civilians in Bounti village in central Mali last January,” Sawyer said.

France has denied the findings of a U.N. report into the incident, saying the people killed were combatants and the report is “biased.”

Meanwhile, Sahel governments have rejected accusations by HRW that their armed forces are committing atrocities. For example, Burkina Faso’s government denied a HRW report in 2020 saying that more than 180 people were executed and buried in a mass grave in the northern town of Djibo.

Mali — and later Niger and Burkina Faso — has been embroiled in a conflict with armed groups linked to Islamic State and al-Qaida since 2012.

According to data by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, more than 8,000 civilians died in the conflict in those countries during that period.

The report says that Sahel governments and international partners have taken steps to engage security forces in human rights training.

The report also expresses concerns for the human rights of people displaced by the conflict. The United Nations refugee agency says there are almost 3.5 million displaced people in the western Sahel.

Alexandra Lamarche, senior advocate for West and Central Africa at Refugees International, spoke with VOA.

“Numerous reports of atrocities and human rights violations, including murder, rape, torture and violent persecution based on ethnic and religious grounds,” Lamarche said. “All of which fuels intercommunal violence and continues to force people to flee their homes and the temporary displacement camps they sought refuge in.”

Lamarche added that efforts have been made by governments to protect the displaced from such abuses.

Source: Voice of America

UNITED NATIONS — Iran, Venezuela and Sudan are in arrears on paying dues to the United Nations’ operating budget and are among eight nations that will lose their voting rights in the 193-member General Assembly, the U.N. chief said in a letter circulated Wednesday.

Also losing voting rights are Antigua and Barbuda, Republic of Congo, Guinea, Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in the letter to General Assembly President Abdulla Shahid.

The suspension takes effect immediately.

The U.N. Charter states that members whose arrears equal or exceed the amount of their contributions for the preceding two full years lose their voting rights. But it also gives the General Assembly the authority to decide “that the failure to pay is due to conditions beyond the control of the member,” and in that case, a country can continue to vote.

The General Assembly decided that three African countries on the list of nations in arrears — Comoros, Sao Tome and Principe, and Somalia — would be able to keep their voting rights.

According to the secretary-general’s letter, the minimum payments needed to restore voting rights are $18,412,438 for Iran, $39,850,761 for Venezuela and $299,044 for Sudan. The five other countries each need less than $75,000 to restore their voting rights.

Iran also lost its voting rights in January 2021. It regained those rights in June after making the minimum payment on its dues and lashed out at the United States for maintaining sanctions that have prevented it from accessing billions of dollars in foreign banks. At that time, U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq thanked banking and government authorities in various places, including South Korea, for enabling the payment to be made.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump reimposed sanctions on Iran after pulling the U.S. out of the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and six major powers in 2018.

Source: Voice of America

The U.S. military conducted about half as many airstrikes in 2021 as it did in 2020, a change that defense analysts say is due at least in part to the withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Biden administration’s emphasis on diplomacy over military force.

According to data published by the military, U.S. airstrikes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Somalia totaled 510 last year, which was 48.3% fewer than the 987 U.S. airstrikes carried out in the same war zones in 2020.

VOA used airstrike confirmations provided in press releases by U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and airpower summaries published by U.S. Air Forces Central Command (AFCENT) for this report.

However, since VOA began inquiring about global airstrike data, two U.S. military officials have confirmed that the published airstrike numbers, which reporters rely on to monitor these strikes, are an incomplete picture of the total number of global airstrikes carried out by the U.S. military. Since 2019, a counterterror joint task force established in the Middle East has carried out additional airstrikes in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan that are not included in the AFCENT airpower summaries because AFCENT is not responsible for those strikes.

VOA has asked U.S. Central Command for the number of additional airstrikes carried out by the joint task force in 2020 and 2021, which will increase the total numbers of strikes from both years, but that data was not provided ahead of publication.

Two weeks after Inauguration Day, President Joe Biden announced his administration would take steps to “course-correct” U.S. foreign policy to “better unite our democratic values with our diplomatic leadership.” He tasked Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to lead a review of U.S. forces around the world, so that America’s military footprint was, in his words, “appropriately aligned with our foreign policy and national security priorities.”

Michael O’Hanlon, a senior defense analyst at the Brookings Institution, told VOA a decrease in airstrikes falls in line with Biden’s views about diplomacy but also reflects both the U.S-led coalition’s withdrawal from Afghanistan last year and the more stable situations against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

“There were fewer targets to hit, and fewer reasons to do so,” he told VOA.

U.S. forces halted strikes in Afghanistan following the end of its troop pullout on Aug. 31, 2021.

The Pentagon has vowed to use “over the horizon” airstrikes from outside Afghanistan to target terrorists in the country who plan to attack the U.S. homeland or the homelands of American allies. However, the last such strike occurred on Aug. 27, 2021, targeting the Islamic State-Khorasan terror group in eastern Afghanistan. That strike came a day after a suicide bombing at Kabul’s international airport killed 13 U.S. service members and scores of Afghan civilians.

In Iraq and Syria, U.S. and international forces officially transitioned to a non-combat mission on Dec. 9, 2021, a day before Iraq’s government celebrated its fourth anniversary of defeating the Islamic State. Airstrikes there in 2020 and 2021 were used to target the terror group’s remnants and defend U.S. and international allies from attacks by militant groups backed by Iran.

“Even as the (Biden) administration negotiates with Iran in Vienna, Tehran’s proxies are attacking our troops,” Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told VOA. He added that increased attacks from Iranian-backed militants and decreased U.S. airstrikes were a result of the president’s “misunderstanding of the relationship between diplomatic success and military power.”

In the Horn of Africa nation of Somalia, U.S. airstrikes surged during the Trump administration, as military commanders used the strikes to quickly target the al-Qaida affiliate al-Shabab without placing significant numbers of troops on the ground.

The fast pace of strikes continued into the final days of Trump’s presidency, with six of the 10 strikes of 2021 carried out before Biden took office January 20.

In 2020 and 2021, no U.S. military airstrikes were carried out in Yemen, which once saw multiple airstrikes each year against members of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), according to U.S. Central Command.

Criticism of civilian casualty investigations

Though U.S. commanders and some analysts have applauded airstrikes’ ability to limit risk to American forces, these strikes have come under increased scrutiny in recent weeks after a New York Times investigation revealed several flaws in the Pentagon’s dismissals of civilian casualty claims.

Allegations that civilians were killed in U.S. airstrikes were dismissed a majority of the time by the civilian casualty cell tasked with assessing them.

However, the New York Times reviewed 80 such assessments and “repeatedly found what appeared to be simple mistakes,” – “oversights that Times reporters were able to detect using resources widely available to the public.”

In one example, the military learned of a claim that more than 30 people, including women and children, were killed in an airstrike in the Mosul neighborhood of Siha, but military investigators dismissed the claim because they failed to locate the neighborhood. Times reporters found the neighborhood in Google Maps simply by adding an “h” to the end of Siha, as Arabic names often have multiple spelling variations when converted to English. Several news reports at the time had also verified the neighborhood’s location.

Other claims were dismissed because of the investigator’s inability to determine which of many strikes in the area was the subject of the claim.

The Pentagon has said that it is committed to investigating these mistakes.

“Civilian harm is something that we do take seriously, and as the secretary said himself, we do recognize that we’ve got to do better,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said earlier this month in response to a question from VOA. “And as we make improvements, as we make changes, we’ll certainly be transparent about that.”

Source: Voice of America