Month: July 2021

Face mask requirements are returning to the United States in some communities and workplaces, along with directives for mandatory coronavirus vaccinations, in a new push to curb the easily transmissible delta variant of the infection that has already killed more than 611,000 Americans.

On the Independence Day holiday earlier this month, U.S. President Joe Biden heralded the strides the country had made in combating the coronavirus. But now he said he was seriously considering requiring that the more than 2.1 million federal workers be vaccinated, and that he would adhere to face mask rules when he visited parts of the country where the virus was surging.

The U.S. is now recording more than 60,000 new coronavirus cases each day, the government said, up from fewer than 12,000 a day in late June.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the leader of the Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives, has reimposed a mask requirement in the chamber.

The western state of Nevada, where the popular Las Vegas gambling mecca is located, is reimposing mask rules for indoor gatherings, as is the Midwestern city of Kansas City, Missouri. A major newspaper, The Washington Post, said it would require that all its journalists be vaccinated before returning to the office in mid-September.

The requirements follow new guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which said Tuesday that new data suggested even vaccinated people could pass on the virus if they became infected. The CDC said masks should be worn inside public places in communities that have seen a dramatic increase in COVID-19 cases in recent weeks. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the coronavirus.

“I know this is not a message America wants to hear,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky told CNN on Wednesday. “With prior variants, when people had these rare breakthrough infections, we didn’t see the capacity of them to spread the virus to others, but with the delta variant, we now see that you can actually now pass it to somebody else.”

She stressed that vaccines against the coronavirus were preventing greater levels of hospitalization and death. But millions of Americans remain skeptical of the vaccines and are refusing to get inoculated, or are saying  they are unlikely to do so.

Walensky said unvaccinated people were accounting for “a vast majority” of new infections. Two-thirds of the vaccine-eligible population of people 12 years and older in the U.S. have received at least one dose. Still, the government said slightly less than half of the U.S. population of more than 328 million people had been fully vaccinated.

“We can halt the chain of transmission,” Walensky said Wednesday on “CBS This Morning.” “We can do something if we unify together, if we get people vaccinated who are not yet vaccinated. If we mask in the interim, we can halt this in just a matter of a couple of weeks.”

With the new federal guidance, numerous state and municipal governments across the U.S. are reconsidering or rescinding their earlier easing of mask rules.

The CDC also called on school systems across the country to require masks for students, teachers and visitors as they start the new school year in August and September. But some states in the South have passed laws banning masks in schools, leaving it unclear as to how they may react to the new CDC guidance.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press.
 
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As the U.S economic recovery continues, many Americans want to buy new cars and trucks. But finding them is hard amid a global semiconductor shortage. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh has more on how COVID-19 continues to affect supply and demand in the automotive industry.

Producers: Kane Farabaugh, Adam Greenbaum. Videographer: Kane Farabaugh.
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U.S. Senate negotiators to a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill have reached agreement on the major components of the measure, Republican Senator Rob Portman told reporters on Wednesday. 

That could clear the way for the legislation to begin moving through the Senate following months of talks. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said a procedural vote on a bipartisan bill was possible as soon as Wednesday night. 

“Senators continue to make good progress,” Democrat Schumer said in a speech on the Senate floor. 

Republican Senator Susan Collins, however, cautioned that some details were still being finalized. 

Another Republican senator, Lisa Murkowski, told reporters, “I think that there is a strong, solid number of folks on both sides of the aisle that want to get on to an infrastructure package.” 

She added that senators will be briefed on the measure being negotiated “in these next hours.” 

The procedural vote would simply limit debate on whether the Senate should begin considering a bipartisan infrastructure investment bill that is thought to be in the range of $1.2 trillion. 

On July 21, Republicans blocked such a move, complaining that a bill had not yet been written. 

Democrats are hoping to pass this month or early next month whatever measure is agreed upon in the bipartisan negotiations. 

That could help clear the way for Democrats to begin pushing another large spending bill totaling around $3.5 trillion that Republicans are vowing to oppose. 
 
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The World Food Program warns Yemen’s already alarming hunger crisis is worsening due to ongoing conflict and a rapidly declining economy that are sending food prices soaring.  

Of Yemen’s population of just over 29 million people, around 21 million need humanitarian assistance. The United Nations, which considers Yemen the largest humanitarian crisis in the world, reports 16.2 million people are extremely short of food and suffering from acute hunger. 

Tobias Flaemig, the World Food Program head of Research, Assessment and Monitoring in Yemen, says people are resorting to desperate measures to survive, including cutting their food intake to just one meal a day.   

“We recently visited a village where families were resorting to eating leaves to survive,” he said via a video link from the capital Sanaa. “Traveling to work, to reach markets or even to seek medical care is almost impossible because the cost of fuel is too high. Hunger leaves people acutely vulnerable to the various public health risks facing the country, including COVID-19, cholera, dengue, malaria.” 

The U.N. children’s fund projects nearly 2.3 million children under age 5 will suffer from acute malnutrition in Yemen this year. Of these, it warns some 400,000 children suffering from severe acute malnutrition could die if they do not receive urgent treatment. 

The World Food Program estimates more than five million people in Yemen are on the brink of famine. Flaemig says WFP has not yet declared a famine because specific evidence of food security, malnutrition and mortality must be collected. This, he says, is difficult to do in a conflict zone. 

“The international community must not wait for such a classification in Yemen to act. People do not start dying when a declaration of famine is made. It is only their deaths that trigger a declaration,” Flaemig said.    

WFP provides emergency food assistance to nearly 13 million people every month. The agency has increased food aid in all famine-risk areas since the start of the year as additional funds have become available. 

However, money remains in short supply, leading to cuts. For example, three million beneficiaries are receiving food rations on alternate months instead of monthly. 

WFP requires $1.9 billion to run its humanitarian operation this year. It is $900 million short of this mark and is appealing to the international community to close the gap. 
 
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The White House is strongly considering requiring federal employees to show proof they’ve been vaccinated against the coronavirus or otherwise submit to regular testing and wear a mask — a potentially major shift in policy that reflects growing concerns about the spread of the more infectious delta variant. 

The possible vaccine mandate for federal employees — regardless of the rate of transmission in their area — is one option under consideration by the Biden administration, according to a person familiar with the plans who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss deliberations that have yet to be made public. The White House is expected to announce its final decision after completing a policy review this week. 

According to an analysis from the federal Office of Management and Budget, in 2020 there were more than 4.2 million federal workers nationwide, including those in the military. 

President Joe Biden suggested Tuesday that expanding that mandate to the entire federal workforce was “under consideration,” but offered no further details. The Department of Veterans Affairs on Monday became the first federal agency to require vaccinations for its health workers. 

The broader requirement under consideration would be the most significant shift by the Biden administration this week as the White House grapples with a surge in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations nationwide driven by the spread of the delta variant and breakthrough infections among vaccinated Americans. 

On Tuesday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reversed its masking guidelines and said that all Americans living in areas with substantial or high coronavirus transmission rates should wear masks indoors, regardless of their vaccination status. 

And just like that, masks were back at the White House. 

By Tuesday afternoon, when the latest CDC data found that Washington, D.C., is facing substantial rates of transmission, White House staff were asked to begin wearing masks indoors starting Wednesday. Members of the press were asked to follow suit, and those staff and reporters remaining in the White House were masking up. 

An aide for Vice President Kamala Harris passed out masks to the reporters covering her events earlier that day, asking them to put them on before walking into her meeting with Native American leaders on voting rights. 

Masks will also be required again at the U.S. House. 

Citing the new CDC guidance, the Capitol’s Attending Physician Brian P. Monahan issued a memo late Tuesday reinstating the mask requirement for all individuals, vaccinated and not, when entering the House chamber or other interior spaces in the complex when others are present. Fines that had been established under previous House rules can be imposed for offenders, though exceptions will be allowed when lawmakers are recognized to speak during proceedings. 

For the Senate, with far fewer members, the masks are being recommended but not required for the chamber and other indoor spaces. 

“All individuals should wear a well-fitted, medical-grade filtration mask,” Monahan wrote in a similar letter obtained by The Associated Press. 

Biden dismissed concerns that the new masking guidance from the CDC could create confusion among Americans, saying those who remain unvaccinated are the ones who are “sowing enormous confusion.” 

“The more we learn, the more we learn about this virus and the delta variation, the more we have to be worried and concerned. And there’s only one thing we know for sure — if those other 100 million people got vaccinated, we’d be in a very different world,” he told reporters after speaking to intelligence community employees at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Tuesday. 

But the whiplash on masking and vaccinations — just the day before, White House press secretary Jen Psaki had avoided questions over why the administration had yet to require vaccines for federal workers — reflects the uncertainty surrounding the coronavirus. 

Various state and local governments, private companies, hospital administrators and universities across the nation have reverted to indoor mask mandates and instituted vaccine mandates in recent months, but just 60% of American adults have been completely vaccinated, and the latest wave of the coronavirus is hitting those communities with low vaccination rates particularly hard. The nation is averaging more than 57,000 cases a day and 24,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations. 

But the Biden administration had thus far avoided embracing a vaccine mandate for its own employees — in part because officials are wary of further politicizing an already fraught issue by coming down too hard on the side of vaccine mandates. 

Psaki acknowledged Tuesday that administration officials are aware of the risk that Biden’s support for vaccine mandates could harden opposition to vaccines among his detractors. 

“The president certainly recognizes that he is not always the right voice to every community about the benefits of getting vaccinated, which is why we have invested as much as we have in local voices and empowering local, trusted voices,” she said. 
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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is expected to recommend that vaccinated people in parts of the country wear masks while indoors, reversing a decision it made two months ago.

Federal officials with knowledge of the decision told news agencies the CDC is expected to make the announcement later Tuesday, based on surging numbers of new cases in regions with low vaccination rates.   

The rising caseload is driven by the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.  

There has also been a rise in cases of so-called breakthrough infections among fully vaccinated people, suggesting the delta variant may be able to cause such infections more often than previous strains of the virus.  

Health officials say vaccines remain effective against the worst outcomes of infection with the virus, including those involving the delta variant.

In televised interviews Sunday, White House medical advisor and top U.S. infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci said the mask guidelines were under review, as new infections in areas with low vaccination rates have been surging. The CDC says 30 states have less than half their residents fully vaccinated.

In May, the CDC said fully vaccinated people no longer would be required to wear masks or maintain social distancing of six feet from other people.  The agency still suggested people remain masked on public transportation and at crowded outdoor events.  

For months, COVID-19 cases, deaths and hospitalizations in the U.S. fell steadily, but those trends reversed over the past two months as the delta variant of the coronavirus began to spread.

The New York Times reports several cities and towns have restored indoor masking rules in recent weeks, including St. Louis, Missouri, Savannah, Georgia and Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Some information for this report was provided by the Associated Press, Reuters and the French News agency, AFP.
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The UN refugee agency warns about 24,000 Eritrean refugees trapped in two camps in northern Ethiopia’s Tigray province are in great danger as fighting among armed groups escalates. 

Concerns are growing for the safety and wellbeing of thousands of Eritrean refugees in Mai Aini and Adi Harush camps as fighting intensifies in Tigray’s Mai Tsebri area.  

The UN refugee agency reports aid agencies have been unable to access the camps since July 14.  It says conditions for the refugees have become increasingly dire and worrisome since then. 

UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch says members of armed groups have infiltrated the camps.  He says the Eritreans are living in constant fear.  He says they are facing intimidation and harassment and are cut off from humanitarian assistance.

“We have received disturbing and credible reports in recent days from Mai Aini camp that at least one refugee was killed by armed elements operating inside the camp,” Baloch said. “The latest death is in addition to the killing of another refugee on 14 July.”   

Baloch says he does not know which of the armed groups is responsible for the killings.  However, his agency, he says, has received credible reports that people with guns are operating inside the two refugee camps.

He says the UNHCR has been appealing to the local authorities and the Ethiopian refugee agency to provide safety for the refugees and to grant aid agencies access to the camps.  He notes the Eritrean refugees have been without humanitarian assistance for the last two weeks.

“Trapped refugees need urgent life-saving assistance,” Baloch said. “Clean drinking water is running out, no healthcare services are available, and hunger is a real danger.  The last food distribution to both refugee camps was done in late June, which provided them rations for just one month.  

Baloch says recent armed clashes in Afar region to the east of Tigray have displaced thousands of people, among them about 55,000 Eritrean refugees.  He says concerns for their safety also are growing as armed confrontations are taking place near where the refugees live.
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Human Rights Watch on Tuesday accused the Israeli military of carrying out attacks that “apparently amount to war crimes” during an 11-day war against the Hamas militant group in May.

The international human rights organization issued its conclusions after investigating three Israeli airstrikes that it said killed 62 Palestinian civilians. It said “there were no evident military targets in the vicinity” of the attacks.

The report also accused Palestinian militants of apparent war crimes by launching more than 4,000 unguided rockets and mortars at Israeli population centers. Such attacks, it said, violate “the prohibition against deliberate or indiscriminate attacks against civilians.”

The report, however, focused on Israeli actions during the fighting, and the group said it would issue a separate report on the actions of Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups in August.

“Israeli forces carried out attacks in Gaza in May that devastated entire families without any apparent military target nearby,” said Gerry Simpson, associated crisis and conflict director at HRW. He said Israel’s “consistent unwillingness to seriously investigate alleged war crimes,” coupled with Palestinian rocket fire at Israeli civilian areas, underscored the importance of an ongoing investigation into both sides by the International Criminal Court.

There was no immediate reaction to the report by the Israeli military, which has repeatedly said its attacks were aimed at military targets in Gaza. It says it takes numerous precautions to avoid harming civilians and blames Hamas for civilian casualties by launching rocket attacks and other military operations inside residential areas.

The war erupted on May 10 after Hamas fired a barrage of rockets toward Jerusalem in support of Palestinian protests against Israel’s heavy-handed policing of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and because of the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinian families by Jewish settlers in a nearby neighborhood. In all, Hamas fired more than 4,000 rockets and mortars toward Israel, while Israel has said it struck more than 1,000 targets linked to Gaza militants.

In all, some 254 people were killed in Gaza, including at least 67 children and 39 women, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Hamas has acknowledged the deaths of 80 militants, while Israel has claimed the number is much higher. Twelve civilians, including two children, were killed in Israel, along with one soldier.

The HRW report looked into Israeli airstrikes. The most serious, on May 16, involved a series of strikes on Al-Wahda Street, a central thoroughfare in downtown Gaza City. The airstrikes destroyed three apartment buildings and killed a total of 44 civilians, HRW said, including 18 children and 14 women. Twenty-two of the dead were members of a single family, the al-Kawlaks.

Israel has said the attacks were aimed at tunnels used by Hamas militants in the area and suggested the damage to the homes was unintentional. 

In its investigation, HRW concluded that Israel had used U.S.-made GBU-31 precision-guided bombs, and that Israel had not warned any of the residents to evacuate the area ahead of time. It also found no evidence of military targets in the area.

“An attack that is not directed at a specific military objective is unlawful,” it wrote.

The investigation also looked at a May 10 explosion that killed eight people, including six children, near the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun. It said the two adults were civilians.

Israel has suggested the explosion was caused by a misfired Palestinian rocket. But based on an analysis of munition remnants and witness accounts, HRW said evidence indicated the weapon had been “a type of guided missile.”

“Human Rights Watch found no evidence of a military target at or near the site of the strike,” it said.

The third attack it investigated occurred on May 15, in which an Israeli airstrike destroyed a three-story building in Gaza’s Shati refugee camp. The strike killed 10 people, including two women and eight children.

HRW investigators determined the building was hit by a U.S.-made guided missile. It said Israel has said that senior Hamas officials were hiding in the building. But the group found no evidence of a military target at or near the site and called for an investigation into whether there was a legitimate military objective and “all feasible precautions” were taken to avoid civilian casualties.

The May conflict was the fourth war between Israel and Hamas since the Islamic militant group, which opposes Israel’s existence, seized control of Gaza in 2007. Human Rights Watch, other rights groups and U.N. officials have accused both sides of committing war crimes in all of the conflicts.

Early this year, HRW accused Israel of being guilty of international crimes of apartheid and persecution because of discriminatory policies toward Palestinians, both inside Israel as well as in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israel rejected the accusations.

In Tuesday’s report, it called on the United States to condition security assistance to Israel on it taking “concrete and verifiable actions” to comply with international human rights law and to investigate past abuses. 

It also called on the ICC to include the recent Gaza war in its ongoing investigation into possible war crimes by Israel and Palestinian militant groups. Israel does not recognize the court’s jurisdiction and says it is capable of investigating any potential wrongdoing by its army and that the ICC probe is unfair and politically motivated.
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U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will likely discuss deterring Chinese aggression in Southeast Asia through his stated pursuit of “integrated deterrence” as he delivers an address Tuesday during a visit to Singapore. 

Austin is the first top official from the Biden administration to visit the region.

After talks Tuesday with Singapore’s Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen, the two countries said in a joint statement they discussed regional security issues and “the importance of sustaining a rules-based order,” a major tenet of U.S. foreign policy since Biden took office.

The statement said the defense ministers also talked about potential areas of further cooperation, including cyber defense, humanitarian aid and disaster relief. 

Austin’s trip includes further stops in Vietnam and the Philippines.

 
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Britain enjoyed a one-two finish on Tuesday in the men’s 200-meter freestyle, while Russian swimmers ended U.S. dominance in the 100-meter backstroke and Kaylee McKeown gave Australia’s women more Olympic gold to celebrate at the Tokyo pool. 

Tom Dean won gold and teammate Duncan Scott took the silver in the 200-meter freestyle as the two British swimmers left their rivals in their wake, Brazil’s Fernando Scheffer won the bronze. 

It was Britain’s second swimming gold following Adam Peaty’s victory in the 100-meter breaststroke on Monday. 

“It’s amazing,” said Dean, reflecting on his journey to becoming Olympic champion. “It’s a dream come true having a gold around my neck. … I contracted COVID twice in the last 12 months … sitting in my flat in isolation, an Olympic gold was a million miles away.” 

It was the first time since 1908 that two male British swimmers have finished on the Olympic podium together. 

Scott had gone into the race as the slightly faster swimmer and narrowly favored for gold, but the blow of missing out was softened by his teammate’s joy. 

“Just a massive credit to Tom Dean. That was unbelievable. Olympic champion,” he said. “To come along so far in the last 18 months, it’s a pleasure to watch him. It’s great to be able to say he’s a good mate out of the pool.” 

In the men’s 100 backstroke, an event won by U.S. swimmers at the last six Games, Evgeny Rylov and Kliment Kolesnikov took top spots on the podium with Rio champion Ryan Murphy of the United States coming in third. 

Russian men had not won a swimming gold since 1996 when Alexander Popov and Denis Pankratov both topped the podium twice. 

Rylov and Kolesnikov were competing under the banner of the Russian Olympic Committee as part of sanctions imposed for several doping scandals. 

Women’s events 

Australia’s McKeown delivered a stunning victory in the women’s 100 backstroke as well as the team took gold in the 4×100 freestyle relay. 

The 20-year-old McKeown’s time was just two hundredths of a second shy of the world record she set in the Australian trials in June. 

McKeown would almost certainly not have been able to compete at Tokyo if the Games had been held on schedule last year with her father struggling with brain cancer. He died in August. 

McKeown forms part of an impressive generation of Australian women swimmers and the latest to see her golden goal come true. 

“I’m just thankful I have a good support team. A few people before the race came up and said to just have all the faith in the world that you have got this.” 

In another race that went down to the wire, Lydia Jacoby of the United States won gold in the women’s 100-meter breaststroke, the 17-year-old Alaskan finishing in 1:04.95, 0.27 seconds ahead of Tatjana Schoenmaker of South Africa. 

Jacoby’s teammate Lilly King, who won the event in Rio in 2016, took the bronze. 

Jacoby is the first Alaskan to represent the U.S. swim team and said she was stunned when she saw the scoreboard. 

“I was definitely racing for a medal. I knew I had it in me. I wasn’t really expecting a gold medal,” she said. “When I looked up and saw that scoreboard, it was insane.”  
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The U.S. Senate has confirmed Frank Kendall’s nomination to lead the Air Force. 

The approval of President Joe Biden’s choice came in a voice vote late Monday. 

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement that Kendall brings decades of expertise and is “an unmatched asset for the challenges we face today.” 

“Throughout his career, Frank has led the department’s acquisition efforts to equip our warfighters with the latest capabilities and cutting-edge weaponry for the battlefield, educated our next generation of leaders at West Point, and served as a human rights lawyer,” Austin said. 

Kendall served as undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics during the administration of former President Barack Obama. 

He earlier worked as a vice president for defense contractor Raytheon. 

Carla Babb contributed to this report.
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Hearings begin Tuesday in the House of Representatives for a select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. VOA’s Steve Redisch explains the committee’s work and the political controversy surrounding it.

Camera:  Mary Cieslak  
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Some Haitian officials are expressing doubt and criticism about U.S. Special Envoy Daniel Foote’s mission in Haiti after he had meetings over the weekend with National Police Chief Leon Charles and Senate President Joseph Lambert.  

“(This is just) one more American official. But to do what?” Senator Patrice Dumont, one of 10 Haitian senators whose parliament terms have not expired, told VOA. “Haiti is an adult and should resolve its own problems.”  

Asked by VOA if Haiti should accept American assistance in resolving its political crisis, Dumont responded, “Absolutely not.”  

A State Department statement emailed to VOA said Foote will lead “U.S. diplomatic efforts and coordinate the effort of U.S. federal agencies in Haiti from Washington, advise the secretary and acting assistant secretary for the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, and coordinate closely with the National Security Council staff on the administration’s efforts to support the Haitian people and Haiti’s democratic institutions in the aftermath of the tragic assassination of (President) Jovenel Moise.”  

On Saturday, the national police posted three photos on its official Twitter account showing Charles meeting with Foote, U.S. Ambassador Michele Sison and a police official.  

The message did not provide any details about what was discussed during the meeting. It said only that it was in response to a request for assistance made by former Prime Minister Claude Joseph shortly after Moise’s assassination.

Lambert also posted on Twitter a photo of his meeting on Sunday with Foote and Sison.

“I was invited by Ambassadors Sison and Foote. Our conversation was intense. Our exchanges took into consideration Haiti’s situation, which is currently at an impasse, as well as the urgent need to restore the country’s institutions,” Lambert tweeted.  

Foote is a Foreign Service officer whose experience as a diplomat includes serving twice as the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince. He also served as U.S. ambassador to Zambia during the Trump administration.  

The envoy arrived in Haiti on Friday with a delegation of American officials named by President Joe Biden to represent the United States at the national funeral of Moise. The delegation was evacuated from Haiti after gunfire erupted and angry protesters approached a private compound serving as the site of the funeral.  

Pastor Edouard Paultre, who heads the civil society organization National Council of Non-State Actors, said Foote should follow the will of the Haitian people.  

“This is a period of extreme distress for our nation, as well as institutional bankruptcy. None of our institutions are able to function properly. It’s in this context that Daniel Foote is arriving in Haiti. But he is also arriving at a time when civil society is collaborating with other sectors of Haiti to search for a solution to the crisis,” Paultre told VOA. “I don’t know what he’s looking for, but he should not be making any unilateral decisions.”  

The pastor said he thinks Foote should work with Haitians toward an “inter-Haitian” consensus.  

Foote has not yet commented on his meetings with Haitian officials. But two U.S. representatives who traveled with him from Washington to Haiti for the funeral on Friday issued statements about their brief time in the country.  

New York Democrat Gregory Meeks, chair of the House Foreign Relations Committee, said the U.S. wants to support the Haitian people as they work toward security and a stable government.  

“Now is the time for the international community to listen to the voices of the Haitian people and stand shoulder to shoulder with them as they navigate these turbulent times, helping bring about a better future for all of Haiti,” Meeks said in a statement emailed to VOA.  

U.S. Representative Jeff Fortenberry, a Nebraska Republican, posted a video message on Twitter that he had recorded on the tarmac at the Cap-Haitien airport. He expressed regret about having to leave so abruptly.  

“I regret that, because it’s a bit undignified, the way we had to leave,” Fortenberry said. “This is an important country, in proximity to America. It’s on our doorstep as we’ve tried to help significantly over the years, and we want to stand in solidarity with the Haitian people as they mourn and suffer.”  

Fortenberry expressed hope that the tragedy of Moise’s assassination would lead to redevelopment and hope for Haiti’s people in the future.  

Congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson contributed to this report.
 
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Wanini Kireri is changing the leadership landscape in the Kenya’s prison system. Kireri oversees both men’s and women’s prisons across the country, where her leadership style has been hailed as firm but humane.

Kireri is the first woman in Kenya’s Prison Service to hold the position of senior assistant commissioner of prisons, and the first to lead the Prison Staff Training College, based in Ruiru, central Kenya, as its commandant.

She joined the Kenya Prisons in 1982 and has been steadily rising through the ranks at the various institutions she has served. 

Kireri says her second stint at Langata Women’s Prison, situated in the capital, Nairobi, was the turning point in her career and the beginning of her legacy in the prison system.

“I have seen my journey, what I have done, my impact in Kenya prisons, because I became a change agent, and it takes a lot of boldness,” she said.

Kireri was the first officer in charge of Langata Women’s prison, where she allowed media cameras into the correctional facility that showed for the first time how female inmates and their babies were being treated. Then, the inmates were sleeping on the floor, with limited basic supplies like sanitary towels and diapers for the babies. 

She says the desire to change the institutions was also borne out of what she had witnessed as a junior officer.

“I didn’t like a lot that was going on. I could see the mistreatment, but now as a very young officer and junior, because there’s an officer in charge, there’s little you could do about it. And if you become a little kind to prisoners, it’s like there is something that is not right with you,” Kireri said.

That kindness, she says, is what has helped her to successfully navigate administration duties, even in Shimo la Tewa, a maximum-security prison for men located in the coastal city of Mombasa.

“I did not go with that character of ‘I’m the boss.’ I went with that character of like a mother, as much as I’m an administrator, I went with the character of a mother. I remember within one month, they were all very comfortable, and I would listen and I realized, it’s just about listening,” Kireri said.

Peter Ouko, a former inmate and now founder of a non-governmental organization that focuses on social justice, says a combination of respecting human rights laws in prison settings and Kireri’s personal qualities serve her well.

“You could see Wanini doing this, but she depended on the people below her. So, she’s a people person, she’s a servant leader, and the leadership was not only amongst her staff, [but] it was also amongst the inmates. So, it was a holistic approach and that’s why the changes were effected very fast,” Ouko said.

Vincent Mapesa, a long-serving prison officer, echoes his sentiments. He worked under seven male prison bosses before working with Kireri and says the prison is doing much better now.

“It is the conducive environment that she has created amongst our officers. No discrimination, it depends on your ability and your passion to work and she values every officer under her and that is the biggest difference, which is different from the former men that we were working under,” Mapesa said.

Kireri says she is hopeful that she will continue to climb the leadership ladder and maybe one day lead the entire Kenya Prisons Service, as she urges other women not to shy away from taking up leadership positions and challenging themselves.

 
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On the Olympic podium stood three teenage girls — 13, 13 and 16 — with weighty gold, silver and bronze medals around their young necks, rewards for having landed tricks on their skateboards that most kids their age only get to see on Instagram.

After decades in the shadows of men’s skateboarding, the future for the sport’s daring, trailblazing women suddenly looked brighter than ever at the Tokyo Games on Monday.

It’s anyone’s guess how many young girls tuned in to watch Momiji Nishiya of Japan win the debut Olympic skateboarding event for women, giving the host nation a sweep of golds in the street event after Yuto Horigome won the men’s event.

But around the world, girls trying to convince their parents that they, too, should be allowed to skate can now point to the 13-year-old from Osaka as an Olympic-sized example of skateboarding’s possibilities.

A champion of few words — “Simply delighted,” is how she described herself — Nishiya let her board do the talking, riding it down rails taller than she is. She said she’d celebrate by asking her mother to treat her to a dinner of Japanese yakiniku barbecue.

The silver went to Rayssa Leal, also 13 — Brazil’s second silver in skateboarding after Kelvin Hoefler finished in second place on Sunday in the men’s event.

Both Nishiya and Leal became their countries’ youngest-ever medalists. The bronze went to 16-year-old Funa Nakayama of Japan.

“Now I can convince all my friends to skateboard everywhere with me,” Leal said.

She first caught the skateboarding world’s attention as a 7-year-old with a video on Instagram of her attempting, and landing, a jump with a flip down three stairs while wearing a dress with angel wings.

“Skateboarding is for everyone,” she said.

But that hasn’t always been true for young girls, even among the 20 female pioneers who rode the rails, ramps and ledges at the Ariake Urban Sports Park.

The field included Leticia Bufoni of Brazil, whose board was snapped in two by her dad when she was a kid to try to stop her from skating.

She was 10.

“I cried for hours,” she recalled. “He thought girls shouldn’t skate because he had never seen a woman skate before.”

Bufoni added, half-joking, that getting him to relent had been harder than qualifying for the Tokyo Games.

“So I want be that girl that the little girls can show their parents and be like, ‘She can skate. I want to be like her,'” Bufoni said.

Annie Guglia of Canada said she didn’t see any other girls skate during her first two years on her board. The first contest she entered, at the age of 13, had no women’s category, so organizers had to create one for her.

“And I won, because I was the only one,” the 30-year-old Guglia said. “We have come a long way.”

Skaters predicted that by time the next Olympics roll around, in Paris in 2024, the women’s field will have a greater depth of talent and tricks, built on the foundations they laid in Tokyo.

“It’s going to change the whole game,” U.S. skater Mariah Duran said. “This is like opening at least one door to, you know, many skaters who are having the conversations with their parents, who want to start skating.

“I’m not surprised if there’s probably already like 500 girls getting a board today.”
Nishiya is going places with hers. She said she aims to be at the Paris Games “and win.”

“I want to be famous,” she said.

But first — barbecue. Her delighted mom didn’t take much convincing.

“I’ll definitely take her,” she said.
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The head of a South Korean television channel apologized Monday after the broadcaster used stereotypical images to represent various countries during the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony, including a picture of Count Dracula for the Romanian team and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster to represent Team Ukraine.

At a press conference Monday, Park Sung-je, the president of Munwha Broadcasting Corp (MBC) bowed deeply and promised a “major makeover,” including installing an ethics committee and better screening system. The station also apologized to the embassies of Ukraine and Romania in Seoul, Park added.

MBC’s coverage of the Friday opening ceremony quickly went viral on the Internet, with some users expressing outrage and others laughter at the simplistic, offensive images used. For Norway, MBC used a picture of fresh salmon. For Italy: pizza. For Mongolia: Genghis Khan.

In an English statement posted online, MBC said the images and captions were intended to “make it easier for the viewers to understand the entering countries quickly” during the ceremony.

“However, we admit that there was a lack of consideration for the countries concerned, and inspection was not thorough enough,” the statement read. “It is an inexcusable mistake.”

MBC has been rebuked before for such behavior. During the 2008 Beijing Olympics, it referred to Chad as the “dead heart of Africa” and spoke of “murderous inflation” in Zimbabwe.
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U.S. swimmer Katie Ledecky lost for the first time in her Olympic career Sunday when Ariarne Titmus of Australia narrowly won the gold medal in the women’s 400-meter freestyle race at the Tokyo Summer Games.   

Ledecky was leading for most of the race when 20-year-old Titmus — known in her home country as the “Terminator,” the name of the popular big-screen cyborg killing machine portrayed by Arnold Schwarzeneggar — caught Ledecky in the final lap to win the race by just 0.67 seconds, dethroning 2016 Olympic champion and dashing her hopes of winning four gold medals in Tokyo. Ledecky’s world record still stands.   

Titmus’s victory triggered an emotional celebration by her coach Dean Boxall, whose screaming, fist-bumping dance in the stands immediately went viral.

Ledecky took home the silver medal for her second place finish, while China’s Li Bingjie won the bronze.  

Meanwhile, the U.S. men’s team won the 4×100 meter freestyle relay Sunday, led by star Caeleb Dressel, who is hoping to win six gold medals at Tokyo. Italy came in second, with the Australians taking home the bronze medal.  

In the men’s 100-meter breaststroke, Britain’s Adam Peaty won his second consecutive Olympic gold medal, repeating his victory at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Arno Kamminga of the Netherlands finished in second place, while Italy’s Nicolo Martinenghi finished in third place.

Canada’s Maggie MacNeil won the gold medal in the women’s 100-meter butterfly event, dethroning defending champion and world-record holder Sarah Sjöström of Sweden, who finished in seventh place. China’s Zhang Yufei and Emma McKeon of Australia won silver and bronze, respectively.

Another major upset Sunday occurred on the basketball court, when France defeated the United States 83-76 in the first round of tournament play. Evan Fournier scored 28 points as France handed the U.S. its first Olympic loss since 2004. The Americans, led by such NBA stars as Kevin Durant, Draymond Green and Jrue Holiday, had already lost two exhibition games in the runup to the Olympics, including a shocking 90-87 loss to Nigeria.

Monday’s competition began with a historic contest in skateboarding, when Japan’s Momiji Nishiya and Rayssa Leal of Brazil, both of them 13 years old, took home the gold and silver medals, respectively, in the women’s street event. Nishiya’s compatriot, 16-year-old Funa Nakayama, won the bronze in the sport’s Olympic debut.

Back at the pool, the British pair of Tom Daley and Matty Lee outpointed Chen Aisen and Cao Yuan of China to win gold in the men’s synchronized 10-meter platform diving event.  Alexsandr Bondar and Viktor Minibaev of the Russian Olympic Committee won the bronze.

As of Monday, China leads with 15 total medals, one more than the United States, while the host Japan has nine. The U.S. leads the gold medal count with seven gold medals, with China and Japan tied with six.
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