Month: February 2023

As Uganda looks to drill its first oil wells, critics say the government and its French and Chinese partners are damaging the environment and impeding wildlife migration. Halima Athumani reports from Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda. Camera: Francis Mukasa

India imposed by far the highest number of internet shutdowns in the world in 2022, internet advocacy watchdog Access Now said on Tuesday, as the country topped the list for the fifth successive year.

Out of 187 internet shutdowns globally recorded by Access Now, 84 took place in India, including 49 in Indian-administered Kashmir, the New York-based digital rights advocacy group said in a report published on Tuesday.

“Authorities disrupted internet access at least 49 times in Kashmir due to political instability and violence, including a string of 16 back-to-back orders for three-day-long curfew-style shutdowns in January and February 2022,” the watchdog report added.

Kashmir has long been a flashpoint between India and archrival Pakistan, which claim the region in full but rule only parts.

In August 2019, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi scrapped the autonomy of the Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir, splitting it into two federally administered territories.

The government has since regularly imposed communications restrictions on the region on security grounds, which rights groups have condemned and described as measures to quash dissent.

Militants have battled India’s rule in Kashmir for more than three decades. The South Asian country blames Pakistan for stoking the revolt. Islamabad denies the claims.

Although India once again led the world in internet shutdowns, 2022 marked the first time since 2017 that there were fewer than 100 shutdowns in the country, the watchdog said.

Ukraine was second on the list, with the Russian military cutting access to the internet at least 22 times after Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 of last year.

“During Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian military cut internet access at least 22 times, engaging in cyberattacks and deliberately destroying telecommunications infrastructure,” the watchdog said in its report.

Ukraine was followed on the list by Iran, where authorities imposed 18 internet shutdowns in 2022 in response to demonstrations against the government.

Nationwide anti-government protests erupted in Iran last fall after the death of 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini in police custody on September 16, 2022. Amini was arrested in Tehran by the morality police for flouting the hijab rules, which require women to entirely cover their hair and bodies. She died while in custody.

Give us 5 minutes, and we’ll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

M23 rebels continued fighting in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, local sources said on Tuesday, the day they were supposed to begin withdrawing from their positions under a regional plan.  

On February 17, East African leaders urged all non-state armed groups to withdraw from territory they occupy in eastern Congo by March 30.  

The withdrawal was intended to take place in three stages, with the initial phase to begin on February 28. 

But M23 rebels continued advancing in the DRC’s North Kivu province on Tuesday.  

On Monday, the Tutsi-led group seized the town of Mweso, about 100 kilometers west of the provincial capital Goma. 

Local civil society leader Alphonse Habimana told AFP on Tuesday that the M23 was in control of the town of 30,000 people.  

Heritier Ndangendange, spokesman for the APCLS, one of the militias fighting the M23, confirmed rebels had captured Mweso. 

Clashes with the M23 continued Tuesday about 30 kilometers west of Goma, a city of more than 1 million people, according to a security official who declined to be named.  

M23 fighters also remained in their positions several dozen kilometers north of Goma.  

The rebels are close to encircling the city, which is sandwiched between Lake Kivu and the Rwandan border, with three of the four roads leading out of it cut off. 

The remaining road, which leads to neighboring South Kivu province, is in a state of disrepair because of heavy rain last year.  

The M23 reemerged from dormancy in November 2021, accusing the DRC of ignoring a promise to integrate its fighters into the army. 

It subsequently won a string of victories over state forces, seizing swaths of territory in North Kivu province and displacing hundreds of thousands of people. 

The DRC accuses its smaller neighbor Rwanda of backing the M23, a charge supported by independent U.N. experts as well as the United States and several other western countries but denied by Kigali.  

German Finance Minister Christian Lindner said Saturday it was “regrettable” that China had blocked a Group of 20 communique to condemn Russia’s war on Ukraine.

“But for me it was more important that all the others adhered to a clear position of international law, multilateralism and the end of the war,” he said.

Lindner was speaking to reporters after a meeting of finance leaders from the world’s major economies in Bengaluru.

He said that he was cautiously optimistic that there could be progress this year on debt restructuring for highly indebted countries.

China is one of the largest creditors to poor nations in Africa and Asia.

“There was a cautious signal from China,” Lindner said.

Rights activists are voicing concern for the well-being of Myanmar Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh after the United Nations warned of cuts to refugees’ food rations due to a shortfall in international donations.

The U.N.’s World Food Program recently announced that, as of Wednesday, the monthly allowance for each refugee will be reduced from $12 to $10 per month — a decrease of 17%. The U.N. said it urgently needs an additional $125 million to avoid deeper cuts in April.

“Many Rohingya fled genocidal attacks more than five years ago and need reliable support, not cuts to the food on which they depend,” John Quinley, director of the investigative group Fortify Rights, told VOA.

“Rohingya we spoke with after hearing of the cuts in aid expressed fear about the future,” he said. “The cuts on food aid will be dire and could lead to significant health consequences for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.” 

Mohammad Shukur is a Rohingya living in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar area.

“With the price of some food materials steeply rising in the past one or two years; we have already been facing difficulties,” he said, speaking to VOA in the Rohingya language. “Now if the WFP [food assistance] voucher value is reduced from 1,224 takas [$12] to 1,020 takas [$10] per person, we will be met with greater hardship.”

Dependency on WFP 

Upwards of 1 million Rohingya Muslims live in the congested bamboo and tarpaulin shanties of the world’s largest refugee settlement in Cox’s Bazar district. Many fled Buddhist-majority Myanmar in 2017 to escape a crackdown that followed attacks on military personnel by an insurgent group. Myanmar has denied accusations of genocide.

The refugees are not allowed to leave the strictly guarded camps or work, and they are almost completely dependent on food aid provided by the WFP.

Rohingya refugees in the camps say the food aid they receive is already very limited; they survive on staples such as rice, lentils and oil, and most suffer from malnutrition.

“The $2 reduction per head count will have serious repercussions for each refugee family. So far, we have eaten fish or chicken once or twice a month. Now, after the cut, we won’t be able to buy fish or chicken at all,” Mohammed Rezuwan Khan, a Rohingya social activist in Cox’s Bazar, told VOA.   

“While the value of the food ration voucher has not increased, prices of many food materials have doubled in the past two-and-a-half years. The food ration assistance is being cut at a time when the refugees were praying for its increase, to cope with the growing inflation and poverty-triggered sufferings.”  

Noor Qadr, a Rohingya teacher in Cox’s Bazar, said the cut in WFP food assistance would have a negative impact on the health of the refugees.

“When the refugees are not allowed to go out of the camp, work in local villages and earn some money for their families, the cut in WFP food assistance comes as a very big blow to the entire Rohingya community,” Qadr told VOA. “Apart from food, we also need money for some medical needs, clothing, the maintenance of children, and others. Most Rohingya are going through a severe hardship not being able to earn anything by doing some work.”

‘Livelihood restrictions should go’

U.N. officials agree the repercussions of the cuts in food assistance will be massive for the Rohingya community in Bangladesh.

“If these cuts are made, they will be imposed on vulnerable people who are already food insecure,” U.N. officials Tom Andrews and Michael Fakhri said in a statement. “Acute malnutrition levels remain high and chronic malnutrition is pervasive among the Rohingya refugee population in Bangladesh, with more than a third of children stunted and underweight.”

Quinley, of Fortify Rights, said Dhaka’s restrictions on refugees’  rights — including livelihood restrictions — are not the answer.

“The Bangladesh government needs to support middle-term solutions for the Rohingya, including access to work and freedom of movement,” he said.

Government reluctance

Citing domestic reasons, the government said it is not in favor of lifting the livelihood-related restrictions for the Rohingya.

“Bangladesh is a densely populated country which is economically not that strong. We already have surplus manpower in the country. In such a situation, if our laborers are pushed out of the job market because of the Rohingya, it will create great social tension and the law and order situation will deteriorate,” Mohammad Mizanur Rahman, the refugee relief and repatriation commissioner, told VOA.

“It will not be good for the Rohingya to be caught in such a conflict with the host nation, either…for the sake of the well-being of the Rohingya, and maintenance of law and order they are not allowed to work outside the camp.”

The employment of Rohingya in Bangladesh would enhance their integration into the local society which in turn would frustrate their process of repatriation to Myanmar, the commissioner said. The government’s agenda, he said, “is not integration, but repatriation.”

Noting that WFP’s announced cuts to food rations for Rohingya refugees deal “a severe blow to their ability to survive,” Daniel Sullivan, director for Africa, Asia, and the Middle East at Refugees International, said that they are coming at a time of “rising insecurity in the camps and little prospect for safe return to Myanmar as the military junta continues to wreak havoc there.”

“The sad part is that this is something Bangladesh and the international donor community should have seen coming. They should have extended education and livelihood opportunities to the refugees to allow them to build their own resiliency,” Sullivan told VOA.

Donor fatigue, competing crises, and the economic effects of the conflict in Ukraine on commodity prices have all set the stage for this crisis, he said.

“But it’s not too late,” he said, “And as the displacement crisis continues, the time to allow those opportunities for self-reliance for Rohingya refugees is now. The United States and other leading donors should also hold a global pledging conference for the Rohingya and broader needs in Myanmar.”

Give us 5 minutes, and we’ll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we’ll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

President Joe Biden’s administration urged Congress on Tuesday to renew a controversial surveillance program that officials say has become an indispensable tool of U.S. national security.

The program, established under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, allows U.S. intelligence agencies to collect the online communications of foreigners without a court warrant. 

But critics say the program, which allows the incidental collection of Americans’ communications, has been used to target innocent U.S. citizens.

The measure was first enacted in 2008, and unless Congress reauthorizes, it will expire at the end of December. 

Seeking to prevent its lapse, Biden administration officials embarked on an all-out push on Tuesday to ensure Congressional reauthorization, saying intelligence collected through the program is used to counter threats from China, Russia, North Korea and Iran as well as foreign terrorist organizations.

Matt Olsen, assistant attorney general for national security, said that intelligence collected through the program “contributed” to the U.S. strike that killed al-Qaida leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri in Kabul last summer. 

“In the 15 years since its enactment, Section 702 has become what I think is the intelligence community’s most valuable national security legal tool … and we must retain it to confront the evolving threats we are confronting in the years ahead,” Olsen said, speaking at the Brookings Institution. 

In a joint letter sent on Tuesday, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines urged top congressional leaders to “promptly reauthorize” the measure.

In the letter, Garland and Haines “emphasized that there is simply no way to replicate 702’s speed, agility, reliability, and insights,” said Olsen.

Garland is expected to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, while Haines will appear before both the Senate and the House intelligence committees next week. Both officials will likely face tough questions from lawmakers about Section 702.

In a statement, Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan added his voice to the administration’s call for the renewal of Section 702 and other expiring FISA provisions, saying it is a “top priority for the administration.”

“This authority is an invaluable tool that continues to protect Americans every day and is crucial to ensuring that U.S. defense, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies can respond to threats from the People’s Republic of China, Russia, nefarious cyber actors, terrorists, and those who seek to harm our critical infrastructure,” Sullivan said.

In 2018, Congress reauthorized Section 702 for six years despite initial opposition from then-President Donald Trump.

Although Olsen expressed confidence that Congress will renew the program, the reauthorization effort renews a divisive battle on Capitol Hill.

While moderate Democrats and Republicans support its renewal, conservative Republicans and civil liberties advocates stand in opposition. 

Patrick Toomey, deputy project director of the ACLU’s National Security Project, said the program has become a “spying tool” for the FBI.

“The government claims to be targeting people overseas, but it’s clearer than ever that agents are using this surveillance as a backdoor into Americans’ private emails and messages,” Toomey said.

“The FBI is amassing huge quantities of protected communications and then searching through them millions of times each year without a warrant,” Toomey said.

The program allows FBI agents to run search queries of data collected through the program for evidence of serious crimes.

Olsen said the Justice Department instituted a series of changes designed to address concerns about the program.

But Toomey said the Biden administration is seeking reauthorization of the program “without significant reforms that will protect Americans.” 

Nigerian opposition groups have called Saturday’s presidential election a “sham” that should be overturned as their supporters protested in the capital. The electoral commission says ballots show ruling party candidate Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the lead.

About 100 protesters, mostly women and youth, chanted as they held up placards less than 600 meters away from the national collation center in Abuja.

Barricades set up by security forces blocked them from getting closer to the venue where Nigeria’s Electoral Commission, INEC, announced the results of last weekend’s presidential elections for a third day.

As of late Tuesday, INEC had announced full results from two-thirds of Nigeria’s 36 states. The candidate for the ruling All Progressives Congress or APC party, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, led the race with more than seven million votes.

Tinubu was followed by Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party, who had over six million votes, and Peter Obi of the Labor Party, with more than five million.

But protesters like Moses Paul say the results have been manipulated.

“The results collation is fraudulent, it’s false because we have seen many cases where people are disenfranchised,” said Paul. “INEC materials arrived late in many places where thousands of people had already left, ballots were snatched, certain political groups told other political groups to get out.”

The election was marked by widespread delays, operational issues with the voting machines, violence and coercion in some areas.

Many observers including the EU mission have said the voting lacked transparency and fell below expectations.

On Monday, ten political party representatives walked out of the collation center after calling for the vote count to be suspended, alleging irregularities and discrepancies.

INEC refused to do so. Supporters of the ruling APC also protested in Abuja saying INEC must be allowed to complete the process.

“INEC has done well in the process,” said Lawal. “If you had such evidence, audio-visual evidence, of violence, of distortions, it’s too minute to affect the outcome of this election.”

This is the first time INEC has used the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System in a national election.

The system, in theory, allows for real time monitoring and uploading of results from the polling units to INEC’s server, but in most cases that did not happen.

European Union chief observer Barry Andrews spoke to VOA Monday about the mission’s preliminary observations.

“The technology that promised so much did not meet expectations,” said Andrews. “There were significant problems about uploading results, there were problems with BVAS facial recognition and recognition of fingerprints. There was lack of security in the configuration of polling booths, so, unfortunately, this sort of undermined the trust and the integrity of the electoral session.”

Final results from the presidential and parliamentary elections are not expected for at least another two days.

As more results are announced, experts say tensions may increase across Nigeria.