Month: October 2023

Adiara Traore was due to travel to France with an international dance troupe before France suspended visa services in Mali, and the French Ministry of Culture asked the country’s artistic union to “suspend cooperation” with artists from Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. Amid tensions between France and Sahelian juntas, Malian artists and their supporters are asking the French government to allow artists to continue the cultural exchange that has flourished between Mali and France for years. Annie Risemberg reports.

Thailand’s foreign minister begins an urgent visit to Qatar and Egypt on Tuesday for talks on the fate of at least 22 Thais taken hostage by Hamas in its attack on Israel.

Israeli authorities say more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, were killed in an attack launched by the Palestinian militant group on October 7 from the Gaza Strip.

In response, the Israeli military has pounded Gaza, where the Hamas-controlled health ministry says more than 8,300 have been killed — more than 3,000 of them children.

More than 230 hostages are being held by Hamas in Gaza, according to the latest Israeli figures — 22 of them Thai nationals, the foreign ministry in Bangkok has said. However, Israeli officials have said 54 Thais are among the hostages. 

Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin said Monday his government was working hard to get Thai citizens home.

He has dispatched Foreign Minister Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara to meet the Qatari prime minister and foreign minister Tuesday, before talks with the Egyptian foreign minister Wednesday.

Parnpree will “discuss the situation of Thai nationals being held hostage as a result of the ongoing violence in Israel and Gaza”, the ministry said in a statement.

About 30,000 Thais were working in Israel, many in the agricultural sector, when the conflict erupted.

At least 32 Thais have been killed in the conflict and 19 wounded, according to the ministry.

“We are more like victims of the war,” Srettha told reporters before a trip to neighboring Laos Monday.

“We have been more affected because there are more workers from Thailand in Israel than from other countries.”

Srettha said the government would provide financial help for Thais wanting to return home from Israel.

“The reason why Thais won’t return to Thailand is because of money,” he said. 

“We are providing financial aid of $1,400 per person, including those who already returned,” Srettha told reporters.

A man accused of murder, attempted murder and a hate crime in an attack on a Palestinian American woman and her young son pleaded not guilty Monday following his indictment by an Illinois grand jury. 

Joseph Czuba, 71, is charged in the fatal stabbing of six-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume and the wounding of Hanaan Shahin on October 14. Authorities said the victims were targeted because of their Muslim faith and as a response to the war between Israel and Hamas. 

Shahin told police that Czuba, her landlord in Plainfield in Will County, was upset over the war and attacked them after she had urged him to “pray for peace.” 

Czuba appeared in court Monday wearing a red jail uniform, socks and yellow rubber slippers. 

His attorney George Lenard entered the not guilty plea after the judge read the 8-count indictment. Czuba did not speak, looking down at the podium with his hands folded behind his back as he stood before the judge in the court in Joliet, 50 miles (80 kilometers) southwest of Chicago. 

Shahin, 32, is recovering from multiple stab wounds. Hundreds of people attended her son’s funeral on October 16 where he was remembered as an energetic boy who loved playing games. He had recently had a birthday. 

The boy’s father and other family members attended the hearing. They declined to speak to reporters. 

The murder charge in the indictment against Czuba describes the boy’s death as the result of “exceptionally brutal or heinous behavior.” The attack on the family — which renewed anti-Islamic fears in the Chicago area’s large and established Palestinian community — has drawn condemnation from the White House. 

Judge David Carlson ruled that Czuba will remain detained as he awaits a January 8 court hearing. 

In arguing to keep Czuba detained, Will County Assistant State’s Attorney Michael Fitzgerald said Czuba was a danger to Shahin and others. 

“We also believe he is a threat to the safety of the community,” he said. 

Czuba’s attorneys disagreed, citing Czuba’s age and the fact that he is a veteran without any criminal convictions. 

Lenard and Fitzgerald declined to comment to reporters after the hearing. 

Shahin asked the public to “pray for peace” and said her son was her best friend in a statement issued last week through the Chicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. 

The attack comes amid rising hostility against Muslim and Jewish communities in the U.S. since Hamas attacked Israel. 

As Kenya prepares for heavy rains forecasted to occur in November and December, water-harvesting and recycling technology developed by a Kenyan entrepreneur could help reduce water shortages during drier times of the year. Juma Majanga reports from Isinya, Kenya. Videographer: Amos Wangwa

Last week, President Joe Biden told reporters he had “no confidence” in how the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip has calculated the mounting death toll. He gave no explanation as to why he believes the ministry is unreliable.

The Health Ministry replied to Biden on October 27, publishing a 212-page report listing the name, age, sex and ID numbers of 6,747 dead Palestinians, blaming the massive casualties entirely on Israeli military “aggression.”

When the list was released, the ministry said the number of dead was even greater than it had reported, with nearly 300 slain Palestinians then unidentified.

Now, according to the ministry, at least 8,306 Palestinians have died in Israel’s counteroffensive since war broke out in the Gaza Strip, following Hamas’ October 7 invasion of southern Israel in which about 1,400 Israelis were slaughtered.

The ministry’s current numbers include 471 reported deaths from a blast at the Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City two weeks ago.

Palestinian politicians said an Israeli missile destroyed the hospital, but the latest intelligence out of Israel and the United States points to a misfired rocket out of Gaza. Nevertheless, the ministry holds Israel responsible in its official tabulation.

Days ago, U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby described the ministry as “a front for Hamas,” a U.S. designated terrorist group.

While all official communications coming out of the Gaza Strip are strictly regulated by Hamas, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank technically oversees the ministry, paying workers and sending medical equipment to Gaza hospitals.

But the ministry’s independence has been questioned by Kirby and many independent analysts, who think the death toll at the hospital has been exaggerated based on factors such as the size of the crater left by the explosion and the number of people thought to have been inside at the time of the disaster.

The White House may doubt the figures coming out of Gaza’s Health Ministry, but for the most part, human rights groups and politicians in the region outside of Israel think otherwise.

How Gaza collects its numbers

The Palestinian Authority has described its data collection process to the media over the years. A spokesman recently told Reuters that casualties are recorded based on direct reporting from hospitals, ambulances and first responders in Gaza. The Red Crescent, he said, also helps.

Those slain and wounded, the spokesman said, are at first categorized by age, sex and severity of injury. The individuals are identified by name later on. Officials in Gaza then forward the information to Ramallah, the de facto capital of the West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority updates its records.

The spokesman noted occasional inconsistencies in the data but said it is generally reliable.

What medical professionals and watchdogs say

Human Rights Watch, a New York-based nongovernmental organization, said that the ministry’s figures are fairly accurate and that it has not found significant errors when it investigated Gazan casualties in the past.

In the aftermath of the contested hospital blast, Michael Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization’s health emergencies program, affirmed his trust in the ministry’s reporting at a virtual press conference.

“We believe that the numbers being reported in Israel and in the occupied Palestinian territories … may not be perfectly accurate on a minute-to-minute basis,” Ryan said, “but they grossly reflect the level of death and injury on both sides of that conflict.”

Israel and the PA’s positions on the ministry

Last week, an Israel Defense Forces spokesman made the accusation that Gaza’s Health Ministry “continuously inflates the number of civilian casualties.”

He said the ministry “has been caught lying in the past,” observing that officials in Gaza initially claimed that 500 had died in the Ahli Arab Hospital blast before lowering that number to 471.

Gazan officials have admitted that counting the deceased was hard given that some of those who perished in the hospital had been dismembered. Naming an exact death toll based on body parts, especially without the benefit of time and forensic tools, is not an exact science.

Shortly after the explosion, U.S. intelligence said the number of those who died in the hospital was “probably at the low end of the 100 to 300 spectrum.”

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh hit back against the U.S. in an interview with Al Jazeera last Thursday, referring indirectly to Biden and other detractors.

“There are certain leaders who don’t want to see reality,” he said. “The numbers are correct. They are our numbers. These numbers are fed to us from the hospitals of Gaza every single day that are received by our Ministry of Health.”

Thousands of meters beneath the Pacific Ocean lie vast deposits of the metals needed for the shift to renewable energy. Mining companies are ready to scoop up this sunken treasure strewn across an area more than half the size of the continental United States. But not much is known about the ecosystem deep beneath the ocean and what impacts mining these rocks might have. VOA’s Steve Baragona has more.

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.

A leading Turkish bank, Ziraat Katilim, has opened a branch in Mogadishu, becoming the first foreign bank to operate in Somalia in over a half-century, officials said.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held Sunday in Mogadishu, where officials hailed the inauguration as a “historic moment.”

“This marks more than 50 years [since] the first international bank that comes to the country,” the governor of Somalia’s central bank, Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi, told VOA Somali in an interview.

All foreign banks closed down in 1970 when the Somali government nationalized the banking system.

“We welcome the investment and the establishment of Ziraat Bank,” Abdullahi said. “It will boost our financial sector, it will create jobs, it will attract or facilitate investment.”

Abdullahi said the presence of Ziraat Bank will also make it easier for Somalis to conduct transactions outside the country.

The bank’s operations will focus on corporate financing and trade financing, officials said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“They will focus on businesses, medium and large; trade financing will be a big part of their activities since they are the only bank that can provide a letter of guarantees,” Abdullahi said.

Ziraat Bank was one of two banks to obtain license from the Somali government last year; the other was Banq Misr of Egypt. Abdullahi said Ziraat Bank met all the requirements to operate in the country.

In a post on X, the bank confirmed opening of the branch in Mogadishu, its second in Africa.

Despite the decades-long civil strife in Somalia, the business sector has thrived in certain areas such as telecommunications, and the country has domestic, private banks. But the conflict discouraged significant foreign investment in Somalia.

Turkey’s prominent role in Somalia’s humanitarian and development activities started in August 2011 when then prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Mogadishu amid the fighting against al-Shabab, to draw international attention to Somalia’s deadly famine, which killed tens of thousands of people.

Since then, Turkey has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in humanitarian assistance and development. Turkish companies also invested Mogadishu’s air and seaport.

Turkey built its biggest embassy in Africa, and its largest overseas military facility in Mogadishu.

After the United Arab Emirates, China and India, Turkey is now the fourth Somalia’s largest trading partner, with imports from Turkey amounting to an estimated $409 million in 2022, according to Abdullahi.

Somali still faces security challenges, with al-Shabab carrying out deadly attacks, mainly in the country’s south-central regions. But last year Somali government soldiers supported by local fighters launched a military campaign which drove al-Shabab from vast areas in the countryside.

“The security situation in the country has improved significantly, and the government has done remarkable job in fighting al-Shabab and terrorism,” Abdullahi said.

“That will give, not only Ziraat Bank, but also other international investors the confidence to invest in the country.”

Ziraat Bank is the first foreign bank to re-establish itself in Somalia, but it will not be the last, Abdullahi predicted.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Tuesday that he is “deeply alarmed” by the intensification of the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, saying civilians must be protected.

“International humanitarian law establishes clear rules that cannot be ignored,” he said. “It is not an a la carte menu and cannot be applied selectively.”

He said all parties must abide by the rules of war, including the principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution.

“With too many Israeli and Palestinian lives already lost, this escalation only increases the immense suffering of civilians,” he said.

As his statement was issued, there were reports of a massive blast at the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, with reports of heavy casualties. 

Israel put the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip under a complete blockade following the October 7 attack that killed 1,400 Israelis. After two weeks of international negotiations, limited relief supplies of food, water and medicine started entering Gaza on October 21.

The U.N said Tuesday that since then, only 143 aid trucks have entered Gaza.

“The level of humanitarian assistance that has been allowed into Gaza up to this point is completely inadequate and not commensurate with the needs of people in Gaza, compounding the humanitarian tragedy,” Guterres said, reiterating his call for a humanitarian cease-fire and unimpeded aid access.

The U.N. agency that assists Palestinians said Tuesday that three more of their staff have been killed in the ongoing air strikes, bringing to 67 UNRWA personnel killed since October 7.

The U.N. chief also expressed his concern about the risk of the conflict spreading and urged all leaders to “exercise the utmost restraint to avoid a wider conflagration.”

On Tuesday, regional media reported that Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen had fired a barrage of ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as drones, at targets in Israel.

Protesters disrupt hearings in Congress as Biden administration officials make the case for continued Ukraine support. Ukraine’s parliament vote this week to ban Russian Orthodox church. Groups work to preserve Ukraine’s history and heritage.