Month: June 2023

NAIROBI, KENYA – At least 48 people were killed Friday when a truck apparently lost control and plowed into other vehicles and pedestrians at a busy junction in western Kenya, police said. 

Television images showed scenes of devastation at the crash site with the mangled wreckage of several minibuses and the overturned truck as rescue workers hunted for people feared trapped. 

“So far we can confirm 48 dead and we are suspecting one or two are still trapped under the truck,” local police commander Geoffrey Mayek told AFP after the accident on the highway between the towns of Kericho and Nakuru. 

He said another 30 people had been seriously injured and rushed to various hospitals. 

Tom Mboya Odero, the regional police commander for the Rift Valley, said the truck traveling toward Kericho “lost control and rammed into eight vehicles, several motorcycles, people who were by the roadside, vendors, and other people who were on other businesses.”  

Kenyan leaders including President William Ruto expressed their condolences after the accident, which took place about 6:30 p.m. (1530 GMT) at a busy area known as Londiani junction. 

Transport Minister Kipchumba Murkomen said on Twitter that the rescue efforts would be followed by an investigation to determine the cause of the crash. 

Collins Kipkoech, a senior doctor at Kericho County Hospital, said his facility’s morgue had so far received 45 bodies while more victims were taken to other hospitals “and the rescue is still ongoing.” 

The Kenyan Red Cross, which sent ambulances and rescue workers to the scene, said heavy rains were hindering rescue operations. 

“The truck was [traveling at] high speed. … It tried to avoid several vehicles before it came straight into the market,” said one witness, Maureen Jepkoech. 

“All I can say is that I am lucky to be alive because I saw what happened and I am alive because I ran. I am just lucky,” she added.  

“I have seen a very bad scene, bodies and blood all over. So many people are dead.” 

‘Happened in a flash’

Another witness, Joel Rotich, said, “The accident happened in a flash. Many of them had no time to escape. There was a lot of confusion because people were screaming all over and everyone was running after the accident.”

He added, “It took some time before people gathered courage and started helping those injured.”

According to figures from the National Transport and Safety Authority, at least 21,760 people were involved in road accidents last year in Kenya, including 4,690 who died.  

“My heart is crushed,” Kericho County Governor Erick Mutai wrote on Facebook, describing it as a “dark moment for the people of Kericho.” 

“My heart goes out to the families who have just lost their loved ones,” he said, adding that ambulances had been mobilized and all health facilities were on standby. 

Ruto, for his part, said the country was mourning with the families who had lost their loved ones. He urged motorists to be extra cautious on the roads, particularly when there was heavy rain. 

“It is distressing that some of the fatalities are young people with a promising future and businesspeople who were on their daily chores,” he said on Twitter. 

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that no new nuclear agreement was on the table with Iran, after quiet new diplomacy between the adversaries.

“There is no agreement in the offing, even as we continue to be willing to explore diplomatic paths,” Blinken said at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

“We’ll see by their actions,” Blinken said of the future relationship, calling on Iran to choose to “not take actions that further escalate the tensions” with the United States and in the Middle East.

President Joe Biden took office with hopes of returning to a 2015 nuclear accord with Iran that was scrapped by his predecessor, Donald Trump. But EU-mediated talks collapsed and mass protests in Iran made Washington increasingly hesitant to strike a deal with the clerical state.

Diplomats, however, say indirect talks have quietly resumed in recent months with Oman as an intermediary, with the focus largely on the status of U.S. prisoners in Iran.

The talks on restoring the 2015 nuclear accord broke down over disputes on the extent of relief from sweeping U.S. sanctions imposed by Trump and over when Iran would return to compliance by pulling back from countermeasures taken in response to the U.S. withdrawal from the deal.  

Blinken said the Biden administration had made a “good-faith effort” with European powers as well as rivals China and Russia to return and that for a time “that looked possible.”

“Iran either couldn’t or wouldn’t do what was necessary to get back into compliance,” he said.

Elsewhere in the region, Blinken has served as a go-between for Israel and Saudi Arabia, both of which have uneasy relations with the United States, as they explore establishing relations.  

“Both Saudi Arabia and Israel of course are interested in the prospect of normalization,” said Blinken, who traveled to Saudi Arabia earlier in June.

“It is incredibly challenging, hard, not something that can happen overnight, but it’s also a real prospect and one that we’re working on,” he said.  

Israel in 2020 normalized relations with three Arab states — the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco — in what both Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu see as a crowning achievement.  

For Netanyahu, Saudi recognition would be an ultimate coup because of the country’s size and influence in the Arab world and its status as the guardian of Islam’s holiest sites. The Saudis have called for progress on the rights of the Palestinians.

Blinken on Tuesday spoke to Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen to make a new call for de-escalation in the West Bank and to voice concern over recent unrest, which has included violence against Palestinian-Americans.  

“We’ve told our friends and allies in Israel that if there’s a fire burning in their backyard, it’s going to be a lot tougher if not impossible to actually both deepen the existing agreements, as well as to expand them to include potentially Saudi Arabia,” Blinken said.

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Mehdi Taj, head of the Iranian Football Federation, has renewed the promise of allowing women into stadiums. This time, he says he has approval from the Supreme National Security Council of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Taj assured women’s entry to stadiums in a recent interview with Radio Sport of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He announced the approval by the Supreme National Security Council, with a dedicated task force assigned to oversee its implementation. The Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Sports and Youth, the Football Federation and two intelligence agencies are actively planning the process of facilitating women’s access.

Despite repeated promises, the issue of women’s presence in football stadiums remains unresolved. The obligation imposed by FIFA, football’s world governing body, falls on the authorities of the Islamic Republic, yet Iranian officials have consistently downplayed the matter. Over the past several years, women have been granted limited access to stadiums only on a few occasions during national competitions.

While Taj has made repeated promises, this is the first time it has been mentioned that the Supreme National Security Council has endorsed the presence of women. The council serves as a government entity within Iran, with its security decisions gaining executive authority after approval by the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic.

The secretariat of the Supreme National Security Council has yet to respond to Taj’s statement. Even if the council were to grant its approval, it would still require confirmation from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

In another segment of his speech, Taj addressed the stadiums where women will be granted access and said, “The presence of women is no longer up for debate. Women will be present in stadiums such as Gol Gohar, Sepahan, Zob Ahan and Ghadir Ahvaz, which are deemed suitable. Azadi Stadium should also make necessary preparations.”

In previous years, when women came to watch national and club matches, Azadi Stadium played host to them, and it was often cited as the sole stadium in Iran equipped to accommodate women’s presence. The sudden change raises questions about what might have transpired in recent months to render Azadi Stadium unprepared to host women at the current time.

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.

The United States has to find a way to “coexist peacefully” with China amid intense competition, said U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday, noting that Washington is not economically “decoupling” from Beijing and that bilateral trade last year hit a record high.

“China is not going away. We are not going away,” Blinken told a New York audience during an event hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations. “We have to find a way to coexist and coexist peacefully.”

Days after Blinken concluded his meetings in Beijing with senior Chinese officials, he said the U.S. relationship with China is “a long-term competition” without a “clear finish line.”

As the United States is considering measures to limit the flow of U.S. money and technology to China because of national security concerns, the top U.S. diplomat said, “we want to make sure that in that competition, we’re in a position of strength” and “able to shape what comes next.”

Yellen’s China visit

Blinken’s remarks came ahead of U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s expected trip to Beijing in the coming weeks. He highlighted the fact that bilateral trade between the two countries continues to expand despite tensions over issues such as advanced semiconductors and Beijing’s persecution of Uyghurs.

“Our trade with China last year reached the highest level ever. We had more foreign direct investment going to China last year than any year since 2014,” said Blinken, adding U.S. export controls and sanctions on Chinese entities affect only a very small fraction of companies operating in China.

Yellen has warned of the economic downside of decoupling with China and called for a deepening economic relationship between the world’s two largest economies.

But U.S. officials are also facing tough questions from critics who want the Biden administration to take a harder position on China.

This week, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley a 2024 Republican presidential hopeful, called for Washington to revoke China’s permanent normal trade relations status until the Beijing government helps eradicate the flow of chemicals used to create fentanyl.

In an event hosted by the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute on Tuesday, Haley said she would push American companies to leave China.

“China is much more than just a mere competitor. Communist China is an enemy. It is the most dangerous foreign threat we’ve faced since the Second World War,” she said.

Taiwan provocations

In Beijing last week, Blinken said the U.S. is concerned with China’s military provocations in the Taiwan Strait as Taiwan, a self-ruled democracy, plans to hold a presidential election in 2024.

Blinken also reiterated to China that the U.S. remains opposed to any unilateral changes to the status quo, expects the peaceful resolution of cross-strait differences, and does not support Taiwan independence.

On Wednesday, Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, asked Blinken why Washington can’t communicate to China with greater certainty that “we are there for Taiwan if they [China] use coercion.”

“I think it’s evident not only in what we’re saying, but also in what we’re doing, that we are there for Taiwan,” Blinken responded. “Under the Taiwan Relations Act, we’ve had a long-standing policy of making sure that we could do what’s necessary to help Taiwan defend itself.”

Blinken added that China’s “deployment of forces, the exercises, the missile tests” since 2016, “economic coercion exerted against Taiwan,” and its efforts to “pry Taiwan out of the international system” are “antithetical to the preservation of the status quo.”

The People’s Republic of China claims sovereignty over Taiwan. The U.S. “acknowledges” but does not “endorse” the PRC’s position.

The State Department has said the U.S. does not take a position on Taiwan’s sovereignty under Washington’s “One China” policy.

Some information for this report came from Reuters. VOA’s Mandarin Service contributed to this report.

LONDON — Most Europeans see Russia as an adversary following its invasion of Ukraine, according to a survey of over 16,000 people across 11 European Union member states.

Europeans tend to have a more favorable opinion of China, with a plurality seeing Beijing as a necessary partner.

Russian ‘adversary’

Two-thirds of Europeans now see Russia as an adversary since its invasion of Ukraine, according to the poll by the European Council on Foreign Relations, or ECFR, which was conducted in April. That’s double the figure from 2021, the last time the survey was taken.

“In particular, majorities in Denmark [74%] Poland [71%], Sweden [70%], the Netherlands [66%], Germany [62%] and Spain [55%], think of Russia as an “adversary” of Europe – while only 37% in Italy and 17% in Bulgaria do,” the ECFR report said.

Future relations

The respondents also were asked about Europe’s future relationship with Moscow.

“Around half of those surveyed [48%] believe their country’s relationship with Russia, in the event of a negotiated peace settlement in Ukraine, should be ‘limited,’” the report said.

“The only country where a majority [51%] of citizens expressed the view that it should be ‘fully cooperative’ was Bulgaria. Many in Austria [36%] and Hungary [32%] also supported this view,” it added.

European Security

The survey looked at attitudes toward the security guarantees provided by the United States and whether Europe should invest more in its own defense. Some EU leaders – notably French President Emmanuel Macron – have called for Europe to develop strategic autonomy, the ability to defend itself independent of the U.S.

Almost three-quarters of the respondents said Europe cannot always rely on the U.S. for its security.

“You can interpret it, of course, as a sign that Europeans are not trusting Americans that much as they used to historically. And in this sense, perhaps the presidency of Donald Trump has left lasting damage to that relationship,” said Pawel Zerka, a co-author of the report with the European Council on Foreign Relations, in an interview with VOA.

“But you can also have a more benevolent interpretation, according to which – simply due to the war in Ukraine and Russia’s invasion on Ukraine – Europeans are more ready right now to take responsibility for their security,” he said.

China’s position

The survey asked similar questions about European attitudes toward China.

“A plurality of respondents [43%] consider China a “necessary partner” of their country. This position puts them closer to the political positions of Germany’s Olaf Scholz and France’s Emmanuel Macron than China hawks, such as [European Union Commission President] Ursula von der Leyen,” the report said.

Co-author Pawel Zerka said that compared to Russia, there are marked differences in European attitudes toward China.

“People mostly say that the risks and benefits are balanced, so they do not recognize that economic relationship with China as particularly risky and therefore requiring some rebalancing,” he told VOA.

However, a majority of Europeans opposed the idea of Chinese ownership of key infrastructure, while 41% of respondents said that if Beijing gave weapons to Russia, the EU should impose sanctions on Beijing even if that would harm Western economies.

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.

Getting into Midtown Manhattan is going to get expensive in the coming months when early next year a new congestion pricing plan takes effect and may have some commuters trading their cars for trains and buses. Aron Ranen has the story.