Month: January 2023

Authorities in Canada continue to discover what may be previously unknown graves of Indigenous children at former residential schools.

The latest discoveries of 66 possible graves are on the site of what was once St. Joseph’s Mission Residential School near Williams Lake, British Columbia, about a six-hour drive north of Vancouver.

Earlier exploration with the use of ground-penetrating radar found 93 similar impressions last year. So far, only 0.18 square kilometers of the former school grounds have been investigated. This is out of nearly 8 square kilometers.

More than 150,000 First Nations children from the 1830s to as late as 1997 were forced to attend the schools. The schools were designed to forcibly integrate First Nation children into European culture. The institutions were paid for by the Canadian government and run by Catholic and other Christian churches.

So far, thousands of possible unmarked graves have been discovered across Canada. News of undiscovered graves first emerged in May 2021 when the Tk’emlups te Secwépemc First Nation in Kamloops, British Columbia, announced it had found 215 possible unmarked graves.

Pope Francis visited Canada last year to apologize for the Catholic Church’s role in how the schools operated.

Willie Sellars, chief of the Williams Lake First Nation, said word of more graves is gut-wrenching news.

“You know, we’re almost conditioned to take that news and not react,” he said. “But all of us are continuing to hurt and know how we deal with our emotions and how we deal with our trauma is, of course, different in every single one of us.”

Sellars said the school’s impact was far-reaching, as students came from 48 First Nations.

He said exhumation might happen in the future but will have to be done in consultation with the different communities. DNA testing would be conducted before returning the remains to families.

Just before the announcement from Williams Lake, the Wauzhushk Onigum First Nation near Kenora, Ontario, announced it had discovered as many as 171 graves near another closed institution, St. Mary’s Residential School. Only five of the graves are marked.

Chief Chris Skead said because much of the area is undeveloped, hilly and now on private property, ground-penetrating radar will not always be feasible. The next step is to bring in cadaver dogs when the snow clears.

“Reason being is they wouldn’t be as effective in the wintertime just due to the snow cover,” Skead said. “But come snow free, we’re looking at utilizing … the cadaver dogs to search these heavily wooded areas that are still off site of the former residential school site.”

For Angela White, executive director of the Indian Residential School Survivors Society, the continuing discoveries are no surprise. She said many of the 139 former schools have yet to be examined and that many of them have not had or used ground-penetrating radar.

“The numbers are going to continue to grow,” she said.

As part of the reconciliation process, the Canadian government has announced a $2 billion ($2.8 billion CAD) settlement to be administered by different First Nation communities whose members attended the schools.

Haitians in the United States are facing enormous pressure to help family and friends under a U.S. migration program announced this month that may help some people escape Haiti’s escalating violence but is also putting strain on the nation’s diaspora.   

Giubert St Fort, a South Florida resident from Haiti, said he was inundated with calls almost immediately after the Biden administration said on January 5 that it was opening a new legal pathway for migrants from four countries, including Haiti, who had U.S. sponsors.   

“Things are very tense because everyone is expecting a call from someone,” said St Fort, 59, a social worker who is already sponsoring members of his family.   

“Many people unfortunately are not in a position to sponsor family members or friends back home, but they are receiving calls nonstop.”   

Haitians living in the United States, many of whom are struggling to make ends meet, say they are being sought out by everyone from immediate family members to distant acquaintances or neighbors they haven’t spoken with in years, community advocates and immigration lawyers said.   

Desperation to leave has grown in Haiti amid a political crisis and a spike in violence that most recently has included a wave of killings of police, triggering protests by angry officers who attacked the residence of interim Prime Minister Ariel Henry.   

U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, has struggled with a record number of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, including the arrival of more than 10,000 Haitians to southern Texas in September 2021. Many of the asylum seekers were deported back to Haiti or rapidly expelled, despite objections from human rights groups and a U.S. career diplomat who said doing so was “inhumane.”   

In response, Biden expanded pandemic-era restrictions put in place by his Republican predecessor, former President Donald Trump, to rapidly expel migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to Mexico. At the same time, Biden’s administration opened up the possibility for up to 30,000 migrants from those same countries to enter via air each month by applying for humanitarian “parole.”   

‘Undue stress’   

The parole program is aimed at encouraging migrants to safely travel to the United States instead of braving boats or grueling land journeys through Central America to the border. U.S. officials say illegal crossings by the four nationalities have already dropped dramatically.   

A senior administration official said last week that about 1,700 people from Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua have arrived in the United States through the program in recent weeks, with thousands more approved for travel.   

But finding willing sponsors is proving difficult for many Haitians as many immigrants already in the United States are concerned they won’t be able to provide for others with the rising cost of living and soaring rents, advocates and attorneys said.   

Tammy Rae, an American lawyer who works in Haiti, described the humanitarian parole program in a radio interview and was later flooded by calls from people seeking a sponsor.   

She said her clients have described being expected to sponsor entire extended families and in some cases face threats.   

“It’s true that this is a program that will unite families,” Rae said. “I would say it’s also a program that will place undue stress on families and cause family divisions.”   

The Department of Homeland Security, which administers the program, did not respond to a request for comment.   

Guerline Jozef, executive director of the nonprofit immigration advocacy group Haitian Bridge Alliance, which is helping Haitians find sponsors, described the dilemma.   

“People will say ‘I have more than one cousin I would like to sponsor, I’m only able to sponsor one of them,'” Jozef said. “And that creates a major issue because how do you choose which one to sponsor?” She is also opposed to the expulsions of Haitians and other migrants arriving at the southwest border, many of whom are seeking U.S. asylum.   

Jozef said immigrant advocates have long fought for measures such as humanitarian parole but said the program should not be attached to systematic deportation or expulsion of immigrants seeking asylum.   

“Unfortunately, it is attached to a lot of bad policies. It is being used to literally deter people from seeking protection at the U.S-Mexico border.” 

In the 1980s, more than 3 million people worldwide were infected with Guinea worm. At the end of 2022, the number of reported cases globally was down to 13.

There were 15 cases reported a year earlier, “which does not sound like a big reduction, but when you are dealing with very small numbers in very remote areas we take it as a huge step forward,” said Adam Weiss, director of the Carter Center’s Guinea Worm Eradication Program.

Guinea worm, a parasite usually ingested through contaminated water, grows inside the human body, then emerges through open sores creating intense pain.

When Weiss’ organization, founded by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, began spearheading the effort to rid the world of Guinea worm parasites in 1986, it existed in 20 countries.

In 2022, just four countries reported new Guinea worm infections in humans.

“We had six human cases in Chad, five human cases in South Sudan, and one in Ethiopia and one in the Central African Republic on the border with Chad,” Weiss told VOA during a recent Skype interview.

The Atlanta-based global nonprofit Carter Center is marking continued progress in the global fight against Guinea Worm infections as the World Health Organization recognizes World Neglected Tropical Diseases Day January 30.

Across the globe, from his office in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, Dr. Zerihun Tadesse Gebreselassie was pragmatic about the overall eradication efforts.

“It’s both good news and at the same time, not so good news,” he explained during a Skype interview with VOA. Gebreselassie serves as the Carter Center’s senior country representative in Ethiopia, a nation on the cusp of complete Guinea worm eradication.

“We are doing surveillance by moving from house to house in each and every village which has historically been reporting cases. So, we found only one person, and we found him before his clinical manifestation — which means we suspected that this could be a Guinea worm case — we kept him in a facility called a case containment center,” Gebreselassie said.

The Carter Center also provides financial incentives for people to report any potential Guinea worm infections. That, coupled with a robust water source filter education program and continued monitoring efforts in countries where the parasite exists, is helping the Carter Center remove obstacles on the path to complete eradication.

“Since this is a global eradication program, even when you have one case, still you have to continue monitoring,” Gebreselassie said. “We have to get rid of all cases for three consecutive years.”

One of the biggest setbacks to declaring the world free of Guinea worm was its discovery in domesticated animals and wildlife.

“It was a punch to the gut back in 2012 when we started seeing infections,” Weiss said.

But after years of dramatic increases in the number of dogs and cats in remote villages carrying the parasite, 2022 showed encouraging results.

“The last several years we went from several thousand animal infections to this year being just over 600 animal infections in the world,” Weiss said.

But the magic number in the overall eradication effort is zero cases in both humans and animals.

“We have to get rid of it from all hosts in order to meet the definition of eradication,” Weiss said.

Gebreselassie is optimistic that the goal of complete eradication is in sight despite setbacks.

“We are in the last mile, which is the most difficult one,” he told VOA.

If the effort is successful, Guinea worm would be only the second disease eradicated from the planet, but the first through prevention as there is no medicine to treat, and no vaccine to prevent, infections.

The Somali government has sent thousands of military recruits to nearby countries for training to strengthen the army for its war against al-Shabab militants, according to the national security adviser for the Somali president.

In an exclusive interview on January 26 with VOA Somali, Hussein Sheikh-Ali said Somalia has sent 3,000 soldiers each to Eritrea and Uganda in the past few weeks. He said an additional 6,000 recruits will be sent to Ethiopia and Egypt.

“We want to complete making 15,000 soldiers ready within 2023,” Ali told VOA in the one-on-one interview in Washington where he met with U.S. officials to seek more support for Somalia.

The news comes as a report by the Mogadishu-based think tank Heritage Institute for Political Studies (HIPS) cast doubt that the government will meet its December 2024 deadline to have 24,000 soldiers ready to assume security responsibilities when troops from the African Transitional Mission in Somalia (ATMIS) are scheduled to leave.

“This timetable is ambitious because the Somali security services are unlikely to be fully autonomous by then, nor is it likely that al-Shabab will have been militarily defeated,” the report said.

“The deadline and the fact the army is in a war while at the same time they are being rebuilt … we argue it’s a tight deadline,” said Afyare Elmi, executive director of HIPS and the report’s coauthor. “It will be difficult to meet.”

The report noted that in November, the Somali government asked ATMIS to delay the first drawdown of 2,000 soldiers by six months, from December 2022 to June 30, 2023.

Ali said the delay was requested because the troops Somalia is expecting to take over from ATMIS are in training abroad. He also said the government doesn’t want to disrupt military operations against al-Shabab in central Somalia, as the areas ATMIS troops would vacate will have to be taken over by Somali forces.

The Somali government recently brought home most of the 5,000 soldiers who were trained in Eritrea. Ali defended the decision to send more recruits there, calling the plan “transparent.” He said the government is ahead of its training schedule.

He said the government will have 24,000 troops trained and fully equipped by next year.

“There is no reason for ATMIS to stay or to continue to stay in Somalia,” he added.

Ali also made a bold prediction that the government will defeat the militant group by next summer.

“Our … primary goal is that in the summer of 2024, before June or July, that there will be no al-Shabab person occupying a territory in Somalia. You can note that down,” he said.

Financial challenges

The Somali army, working with local clan militia, succeeded in taking several towns and villages in central Somalia from al-Shabab in 2022.

Despite these successes, Somali security forces have other challenges, including financial constraints, and capability and training gaps, the HIPS report said.

The Somali parliament recently approved its biggest-ever budget for 2023 at $967 million, but domestic revenue is very low, and two-thirds of the budget comes from external support. That budget allocates $113 million for the national army.

“To date, the Somali authorities alone cannot afford the army they want,” the report said.

Elmi said building an army without a budgetary plan could result in an unsustainable situation.

“An army is more than paying a salary. So many expenses come with it,” he said.

“We have only emphasized sustainability. We are not specifying a number. We are saying they must be affordable. That affordability is coming from the capacity of the state.”

Capability gaps

The report said ongoing military operations highlighted two major capability gaps for the Somali National Army (SNA). It says the troops suffered from many casualties over the years from improvised explosive devices, lack of equipment and armored personnel carriers, and a shortage of explosive ordnance disposal teams.

The report said Somali army units trained by the United States, known as Danab (Lightning), and Turkey, known as Gorgor (Eagle), are now “reasonably well equipped,” but the regular army units are only marginally better equipped than the Ma’awisley, the local clan militias supporting government forces.

“This inequality is so pronounced that officials now talk about the SNA being effectively two armies — one that is mobile, and one that is largely stationary,” the report says.

The report also highlights struggles in generating and deploying “hold” forces that can stabilize newly recaptured areas.

“There is an important difference between pushing al-Shabab forces out of areas and holding them long enough to deliver a real peace dividend to the local inhabitants,” it said.

The report further said al-Shabab made stabilization efforts much harder by destroying schools, medical facilities, wells and other important infrastructure.

Security and intelligence experts say it’s the responsibility of other government agencies such as police, intelligence and regional paramilitary forces to relieve the army in stabilizing recovered territories.

“To hold the areas seized, to defend themselves and to go forward and seize more territory is difficult for them, both quantity and quality,” said Brigadier General Abdi Hassan Hussein, a former intelligence officer and former police commander of Puntland region.

Hussein said the capacity of Somali soldiers has been affected by a decades-long international weapons embargo on Somalia. He said the United Nations and other stakeholders must look into the issue.

“If the stakeholders do not play a role in this fight and it fails, [peace] will be far away,” Hussein said.

Al-Shabab strategy

Al-Shabab is unwilling to fight the government’s war. It wants to fight its own war and is trying to draw the government into its war, experts on the militant group said.

The militant group has been using an older strategy to withdraw from territories as government forces and local militias approach. But the group’s fighters are not going far, according to former al-Shabab official and defector Omar Mohamed Abu Ayan.

“They are not defending the towns, which they used to do,” said Abu Ayan. “Instead of moving further away, they are hovering around in the forests nearby the towns, and then they send suicide bombers back into the town.”

Abu Ayan also said al-Shabab started withdrawing its money from banks after the government froze funds and shut down hundreds of accounts suspected of having links to the group.

“They developed hostility towards the banks,” he said. “They also called the companies and businesses and asked them to give the money they were supposed to pay them several years in advance, so that they can accumulate more money. They have also reduced their expenses.”

The Somali government announced that President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is hosting the heads of states from the “front-line” countries of Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti this week to discuss the war against al-Shabab. Defense ministers and army chiefs from the four countries met in Mogadishu on Tuesday ahead of Wednesday’s summit.

Facing crippling economic sanctions, inflation and widespread social unrest, the Iranian government has boosted oil sales to China at a highly discounted price.

Iran does not publish statistics about its oil sales, but analysts say Tehran has increased oil exports to more than 1.2 million barrels per day over the past three months. Iranian oil reaches the Chinese market through a camouflaged system of delivery that the Iranian regime has perfected over the past several decades of Western sanctions.

“[The] Iranian regime is now very experienced in bypassing sanctions that it is also doing it for Venezuela or even Russia,” Mahdi Ghodsi, an economist at the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, told VOA.

Iran is among the five largest crude oil producers in the world and can produce more than 3.5 million barrels of oil per day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Iran’s oil production reportedly hit a 30-year low in 2020 because of intensified U.S. sanctions as well as the economic impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic.

In the absence of official data, exactly how much Tehran makes from its oil and gas exports isn’t known. Estimates vary from $15 billion to $30 billion annually.

“Iran’s oil revenues fell from $100 billion to $8 billion a year after the U.S. withdrew from the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran nuclear deal],” said Umud Shokri, an analyst of global energy affairs.

The U.S. left the JCPOA in May 2018.

China benefits

Iran is the third largest provider of oil to China after Russia and Saudi Arabia.

The U.S. and its Western allies have also imposed sanctions on Russian oil and gas exports in an effort to force Moscow to end the war in Ukraine.

Since December, the G-7 — U.S., Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, the U.K. and the 27-nation European Union — has imposed a $60 per barrel price cap on Russian crude oil.

While sanctions and the price cap have hurt oil revenue for both Russia and Iran, China appears to be benefiting.

The G-7 price cap on Russian oil is more than $25 lower than the Brent crude oil price. Iran sells to China at a price even lower than that.

“China benefits at least by 25% of Brent oil in terms of discount, which is enormous in the scale of 1.2 million barrels per day only for Iran’s oil,” said Ghodsi.

“Iran offers steep discounts for its oil — likely even steeper than a year ago given new competition with Russian crude — to persuade Chinese refiners to accept the risk of dealing with sanctioned Iranian entities,” said Henry Rome, a specialist on Iran sanctions and economy with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, speaking with VOA.

To camouflage transactions with a globally sanctioned Iran and also to make the most out of the oil purchase, China uses a barter trading system in which oil is exchanged for Chinese products including medicine, light machinery and food items.

“China is the biggest winner of the Iranian oil embargo,” said Shokri.

For Iran, however, the increase in oil sales is far from a stable solution for its longstanding economic woes.

The country has suffered chronic inflation that has pushed millions below the poverty line.

U.S. response

The United States is aware of and continues to monitor Iran’s oil sales to China, says U.S. Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley.

“We have been in contact with Chinese authorities, and we will continue to sanction those who are involved in the import of Iranian oil,” Malley told Bloomberg News this week.

Some analysts say the U.S. focus on countering the Russian war in Ukraine has given Iran an opportunity to boost oil exports not only to China but also to India and Turkey.

Separately, Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, has continued to supply oil to China while also significantly increasing bilateral trade with Beijing.

In 2021, U.S.-Saudi trade volume reached $24.7 billion, a marked increase since it hit a record low during the pandemic. In the same year, the Arab kingdom’s trade volume with China hit $87.3 billion, 30% higher than in 2020.

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As the World Health Organization celebrates World Neglected Tropical Diseases Day January 30, the Atlanta-based Carter Center is marking continued progress in the fight against Guinea worm infections. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh has more on how countries in Africa are working to rid the world of the parasite once and for all.

The West is preparing to debate sending jets to Ukraine. The former Prime Minister of Bulgaria discusses his secret plan to send weapons to Kyiv, and Human Rights Watch issues a report critical of Ukrainian forces, accusing them of using banned antipersonnel weapons.

Cindy Williams, who played Shirley opposite Penny Marshall’s Laverne on the popular sitcom “Laverne & Shirley,” has died, her family said Monday.

Williams died Wednesday in Los Angeles at age 75 after a brief illness, her children, Zak and Emily Hudson, said in a statement released through family spokeswoman Liza Cranis.

“The passing of our kind, hilarious mother, Cindy Williams, has brought us insurmountable sadness that could never truly be expressed,” the statement said.

“Knowing and loving her has been our joy and privilege. She was one of a kind, beautiful, generous and possessed a brilliant sense of humor and a glittering spirit that everyone loved.”

Williams also starred in director George Lucas’ 1973 film “American Graffiti” and director Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Conversation” from 1974.

But she was by far best known for “Laverne & Shirley,” the “Happy Days” spinoff that ran on ABC from 1976 to 1983 that in its prime was among the most popular shows on TV.

Williams played the straitlaced Shirley to Marshall’s more libertine Laverne on the show about a pair of roommates who worked at a Milwaukee bottling factory in the 1950s and ’60s.

Marshall, whose brother, Garry Marshall, co-created the series, died in 2018.

“Laverne & Shirley” was known almost as much for its opening theme as the show itself. Williams’ and Marshall’s chant of “schlemiel, schlimazel” as they skipped together became a cultural phenomenon and oft-invoked piece of nostalgia.