Category: General

WASHINGTON — The United States on Tuesday imposed sanctions on more than a dozen people and entities in Iran, Syria and Uganda, accusing them of being connected to serious human rights abuses and repressive acts.

In an action marking the week of the U.S. Summit for Democracy, the Treasury Department said in a statement it was targeting repression and the undermining of democracy, designating individuals and entities tied to the violent suppression of peaceful protesters in Iran and deadly chemical weapons attacks against civilians in Syria, among others.

“Treasury will continue to defend against authoritarianism, promoting accountability for violent repression of people seeking to exercise their human rights and fundamental freedoms,” Andrea Gacki, director of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, said in the statement.

The action freezes any U.S. assets of those blacklisted and generally bars Americans from dealing with them.

Washington blacklisted two senior Syrian air Force officers it accused of being responsible for chemical weapon attacks on civilians and three senior officers in Syria’s security and intelligence apparatus, according to the statement.

Uganda’s chief of military intelligence, Major General Abel Kandiho, was also hit with sanctions over alleged human rights abuses committed under his watch. The Ugandan military said earlier on Tuesday that it was disappointed by the decision, which it said had been made without due process.

In Iran, the United States designated the Special Units of Iran’s Law Enforcement Forces and Counter-Terror Special Forces, as well as several of their officials, and Gholamreza Soleimani, who commands Iran’s hardline Basij militia. Two prisons and a prison director were also blacklisted over events that reportedly took place in the prisons.

Iran criticized the United States for imposing new sanctions days before talks are set to resume in Vienna on rescuing the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

“Even amid #ViennaTalks, US cannot stop imposing sanctions against Iran,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said on Twitter. “Doubling down on sanctions won’t create leverage — and is anything but seriousness & goodwill.”

The talks broke off on Friday as European officials voiced dismay at sweeping demands by Iran’s new hardline government.

The seventh round of talks in Vienna is the first with delegates sent by Iran’s anti-Western President Ebrahim Raisi on how to resuscitate the agreement under which Iran limited its nuclear program in return for relief from economic sanctions.

Source: Voice of America

The World Health Organization reports a significant rise in malaria cases and deaths in 2020 due to COVID-19 disruptions in malaria services.

Over the past two decades, global malaria death rates have been cut in half, saving the lives of 10.6 million people. New data gathered by the WHO show COVID-19 has stopped and even reversed the progress made in reducing deaths from this preventable, treatable disease.

The WHO’s World Malaria Report estimates 241 million malaria cases and 627,000 malaria deaths globally have occurred in 2020.This represents an increase of 14 million cases and 69,000 deaths compared to the previous year. WHO links the increase to disruptions of malaria prevention, diagnosis, and treatment services during the pandemic.

Director of WHO’s Global Malaria Program, Pedro Alonso, said the situation could have been far worse. The good news, he said is that the predicted doomsday scenario did not transpire. He notes gloomy projections made in March 2020 of a huge spike in malaria have not materialized.

“One worst case scenario implied a doubling of malaria deaths. So, let me reiterate this, that is not the case. We can call this a success story, even though an extra 47,000 people have died as a consequence of the disruptions,” said Alonso.

The report finds progress in the global fight against malaria remains uneven.

Between 2000 and 2020, WHO has certified 12 countries as being malaria-free. Two countries, China and El Salvador, have achieved this status in 2021, despite the ongoing pandemic.

Since 2015, both cases and deaths have stalled in most of the world’s 93 endemic countries and territories. However, other figures show malaria cases have increased in 32 countries, most in Sub-Saharan Africa and some in South America.

Alonso said the situation remains especially precarious in Africa, where the malaria burden remains unacceptably high. He notes Africa accounts for about 96 percent of global deaths, 80 percent among children under age five.

“At the same time, the pandemic is not over, and the pace of economic recovery is uncertain. Without immediate and accelerated action key 2030 targets of the WHO Global technical strategy will be missed, and additional ground may be lost,” he said.

WHO’s strategy calls for a 90-percent reduction in malaria cases and deaths by 2030.It also presses for the elimination of malaria in at least 35 countries and for the prevention of disease resurgence in all countries that are malaria-free.

Source: Voice of America

One of the scientists behind the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is warning that the next pandemic may be more contagious and more lethal unless more money is devoted to research and preparations to fight emerging viral threats.

In excerpts released before a speech Monday, Professor Sarah Gilbert says the scientific advances made in fighting deadly viruses “must not be lost” because of the cost of fighting the current pandemic.

“This will not be the last time a virus threatens our lives and our livelihoods,” Gilbert is expected to say. “The truth is, the next one could be worse. It could be more contagious, or more lethal, or both.”

Gilbert is scheduled to make the remarks Monday night when she delivers this year’s Richard Dimbleby lecture, named after the late broadcaster who was the BBC’s first war correspondent and a pioneer of television news in Britain. The annual televised lecture features addresses by influential figures in business, science and government.

Gilbert is set to call on governments to redouble their commitment to scientific research and pandemic preparedness, even after the threat of COVID-19 wanes.

“We cannot allow a situation where we have gone through all we have gone through, and then find that the enormous economic losses we have sustained mean that there is still no funding for pandemic preparedness,” she said. “The advances we have made, and the knowledge we have gained, must not be lost.”

Source: Voice of America

The United States “strongly condemns” a militant attack on a bus in central Mali that killed at least 31 people and wounded 17, the State Department said Sunday.

Unidentified gunmen on Friday opened fire on the bus as it traveled from the village of Songho to a market in Bandiagara, 10 kilometers away.

The villages sit in the heart of the Mopti region, an epicenter of violence in Mali fueled by insurgents linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group.

“The United States strongly condemns the attack on civilians on Saturday near Bandiagara, Mali, which left 31 dead and 17 injured,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a written statement.

“We extend our deepest condolences to the Malian people and will continue to partner with them in their pursuit of a safe, prosperous, and democratic future,” Price said.

Jihadist attacks have surged across Africa’s Sahel region, killing thousands and displacing millions across Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.

Source: Voice of America

Two explosions rocked U.N. camps in the northern Mali city of Gao on Sunday, causing damage but no casualties, AFP journalists at the scene said.

The early morning blasts shook the barracks of the U.N. mission in Mali, called MINUSMA, forcing the occupants to take refuge in shelters for two hours.

The French army reported only material damage, but had no information on the possible perpetrators of the blasts.

MINUSMA spokeswoman Myriam Dessables told AFP that two other camps in the north had been targeted with mortar fire on Saturday, causing no damage.

The latest violence in the West African country comes after 31 people were killed in an attack on Friday by suspected jihadists near the central town of Bandiagara.

Mali has been struggling to contain an Islamist insurgency that first erupted in the north in 2012 and has since claimed thousands of military and civilian lives.

Despite the presence of thousands of French and U.N. troops, the conflict has engulfed central Mali and spread to neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger.

France, the former colonial power in Mali, has said it will reduce its troop numbers in the Sahel.

It also said it is planning to transfer troops from Kidal, Tessalit and Timbuktu to Gao and Menaka, closer to the turbulent “three-borders” zone near Burkina Faso and Niger.

Source: Voice of America

America’s winter wonderland is starting out this season as anything but traditional.

The calendar says December, but for much of the country, temperatures beckon for sandals. Umbrellas, if not arks, are needed in the Pacific Northwest, while snow shovels are gathering cobwebs in the Rockies.

Meteorologists attribute the latest batch of record-shattering weather extremes to a stuck jet stream and the effects of a La Nina weather pattern from cooling waters in the equatorial Pacific.

It’s still fall astronomically, but winter starts December 1 for meteorologists. This year, no one told the weather that.

On Thursday, 65 weather stations across the nation set record high temperature marks for December 2, including Springfield, Missouri, hitting 24 Celsius (75 degrees Fahrenheit) and Roanoke, Virginia, 22 Celsius (72 degrees Fahrenheit). Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Billings, Montana, broke long-time high-temperature records by 6 degrees.

Parts of Canada and Montana have seen their highest December temperatures in recorded history. On Friday, parts of South Carolina and Georgia hit record highs.

In Washington state, Seattle, Bellingham and Quillayute all set 90-day fall records for rainfall. Bellingham was doused by nearly 60 centimeters (nearly 24 inches) of rain. The Olympic and Cascade mountains got hit harder, with more than 127 centimeters (50 inches) in three months, according to the National Weather Service. Forks, Washington, received more rain in 90 days than Las Vegas gets in 13 years.

On top of that, there is a blizzard warning on Hawaii’s Big Island summits with up to 30.5 centimeters (12 inches) of snow expected and wind gusts of more than 161 kilometers per hour (100 miles per hour).

Meantime, snow has gone missing in Colorado. Before this year, the latest first measurable snowfall on record in Denver was November 21, in 1934. There’s a slight possibility of snow Monday night, according to the weather service. Yet, with no snow since April 22, this is the third-longest stretch the city has gone without it.

Stationary stream

One big factor: The jet stream — the river of air that moves weather from west to east on a roller coaster-like path — has just been stuck. That means low pressure on one part of the stream is bringing rain to the Pacific Northwest, while high pressure hovering over about two-thirds of the nation produces dry and warmer weather, said Brian Hurley, a senior meteorologist at the weather service’s Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.

If the jet stream moves more or bends differently, rain and other extreme weather won’t be as concentrated, Hurley said.

This is a typical weather pattern with a natural La Nina weather oscillation, he said. The flip side of El Nino, a La Nina is a cooling of parts of the central Pacific Ocean that changes weather patterns across the globe. La Ninas tend to bring more rain to the Pacific Northwest and make the South drier and warmer.

These bouts of extreme weather happen more frequently as the world warms, said meteorologist Jeff Masters, founder of Weather Underground who now works at Yale Climate Connections.

In Boulder, Colorado, meteorologist Bob Henson enjoyed a rare December bike ride on Thursday.

Still, “there’s a lot of angst about the lack of snow,” he said. “It puts you in a psychic quandary. You enjoy the warm weather while keeping in mind it’s not good for Earth to be warming.”

Source: Voice of America