Month: September 2019

U.S. lawmakers at a congressional hearing Thursday pushed for answers on stalled peace talks with the Taliban following President Donald Trump’s suspension of the negotiations earlier this month. The open hearing followed a closed door session in which the top U.S. envoy to Afghanistan, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, complied with a congressional demand for more information on the negotiations. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more on the questions being raised about the future of the U.S. role in Afghanistan.
 

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The Washington Monument reopened to the public on Thursday after being closed for years to replace its aging elevator and security system. First lady Melania Trump attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Here’s more from White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara.
 

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African children are being left further and further behind and will make up more than half of the world’s poor by 2030, according to a new report.

The stark warning comes as more than 150 world leaders prepare to attend the U.N. Sustainable Development Summit in New York beginning Sept. 25 to work on tackling global poverty.

The United Nations has agreed on 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). No. 1 on the list is eradicating extreme poverty by 2030. But the world will fall well short of that target, according to the report by Save the Children and the Overseas Development Institute, which delivers a devastating verdict on global efforts to eradicate extreme poverty among children in Africa.

“On our projection, children in Africa will account for around 55% of all extreme poverty in the world by 2030,” said Kevin Watkins, chief executive of Save the Children UK.

African Children Will Make up Half of World’s Poor by 2030 video player.

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An estimated 87 million African children will be born into poverty each year in the 2020s, according to the report, which also says about 40% of Africans still live on less than $1.90 a day.

“On average, women are still having four to five children, and it’s the part of the world where poverty is coming down most slowly, partly because of slow growth but also because of very high levels of inequality,” Watkins said. “A child born into poverty faces greater risks of illiteracy; greater risks of mortality before the age of 5. They’re between two and three times more likely to die before their fifth birthday. They are far less likely to escape poverty themselves, which means that they will become the transmission mechanism for poverty to another generation.”

The report criticizes African governments for failing to develop coherent policies, and also warns that the IMF, the World Bank and other donors are failing in their response.

Watkins said dramatic changes in approach are urgently needed.

“Transferring more monetary resources to children who are living in poverty has to be part of the solution,” Watkins said. “But we also know that money is not enough. It’s critically important that these children get access to basic nutritional services, the basic health interventions, and the school systems that they need to escape poverty.”

The report warns that if poverty reduction targets are not met, the world will also fall short on other sustainable development goals in education, health and gender equality.

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Rain from Tropical Depression Imelda was still deluging parts of Texas and Louisiana on Thursday. Forecasters warned of life-threatening flash floods as an additional five to 10 inches falls through Friday, and predicted even “25 to 35 inches” in some places as the system moves slowly over the area.
 
Glenn LaMont, deputy emergency management coordinator in Brazoria County, south of Houston along the Gulf Coast, said he had seen no reports of flooded homes or people stranded despite heavy rainfall as of late Wednesday, but cautioned: “It’s too early to breathe a sigh of relief.”

Most of the heaviest showers had moved to the east of Houston, into Beaumont, Texas, and southwestern Louisiana, by Wednesday evening, but the storm’s remnants spawned several weak tornadoes in the Baytown area, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) east of Houston, damaging trees, barns and sheds and causing minor damage to some homes and vehicles.

Forecasters said the Houston area could still face some heavy rainfall on Thursday, even as the system’s center shifted to about 110 miles (180 kilometers) north of the city, moving north-northwest at 5 mph (7 kph).

Parts of East Texas could get up to 10 inches (254 millimeters) of rain through Thursday morning as the remnants of Imelda continue moving north and away from Houston, according to the National Weather Service.

Coastal counties, including Brazoria, Matagorda and Galveston, got the most rainfall so far. Some parts of the Houston area had received nearly 8 inches (203 millimeters) of rain, while the city of Galveston, which had street flooding, had received nearly 9 inches (229 millimeters), according to preliminary rainfall totals released Wednesday afternoon by the National Weather Service.

Sargent, a town of about 2,700 residents in Matagorda County, had received nearly 20 inches (508 millimeters) of rain since Tuesday.

Karen Romero, who lives with her husband in Sargent, said this was the most rain she has had in her neighborhood in her nine years living there.

“The rain (Tuesday) night was just massive sheets of rain and lightning storms,” said Romero, 57.

She said her home, located along a creek, was not in danger of flooding as it sits on stilts, like many others nearby.

In the Houston area, the rainfall flooded some roadways, stranding drivers, and caused several creeks and bayous to rise to high levels.

Many schools in the Houston and Galveston area canceled classes Wednesday. However, the Houston school district, the state’s largest, remained open. At least one school district Galveston said it was also canceling classes on Thursday.

The National Hurricane Center said Imelda, weakened after a tropical depression after making landfall Tuesday near Freeport, Texas, with maximum sustained winds of 40 mph (64 kph).
 
The weather service said Imelda is the first named storm to impact the Houston area since Hurricane Harvey dumped nearly 50 inches (130 centimeters) of rain on parts of the flood-prone city in August 2017, flooding more than 150,000 homes in the Houston area and causing an estimated $125 billion in damage in Texas.

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Canadian leader Justin Trudeau’s campaign moved to contain a growing scandal Thursday, following the publication of a yearbook photo showing him in brownface makeup at a 2001 costume party. The prime minister apologized and begged Canadians to forgive him.

Time magazine published the photo on Wednesday, saying it was taken from the yearbook from the West Point Grey Academy, a private school in British Columbia where Trudeau worked as a teacher before entering politics. It depicts the then 29-year-old Trudeau wearing a turban and robe, with dark makeup on his hands, face and neck.

Trudeau, who launched his reelection campaign exactly one week ago, said he should have known better.

“I’m pissed off at myself, I’m disappointed in myself,” Trudeau told reporters traveling with him on his campaign plane.

The Canadian prime minister is but the latest politician to face scrutiny over racially insensitive photos and actions from their younger days. Earlier this year, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam faced intense pressure to resign after a racist picture surfaced from his 1984 medical school yearbook page. He denied being in the picture but admitted wearing blackface as a young man while portraying Michael Jackson at a dance party in the 1980s. Since then, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring has acknowledged wearing blackface in college, and Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has publicly apologized for donning blackface during a college skit more than 50 years ago. None has resigned.

The photo of Trudeau was taken at the school’s annual dinner, which had an “Arabian Nights” theme that year, Trudeau said, adding that he was dressed as a character from “Aladdin.” The prime minister said it was not the first time he has painted his face; once, he said, he performed a version of Harry Belafonte’s “Banana Boat Song (Day-O)” during a talent show.

“I should have known better then but I didn’t, and I am deeply sorry for it,” Trudeau said. “I’m going to ask Canadians to forgive me for what I did. I shouldn’t have done that. I take responsibility for it.  It was a dumb thing to do.”

He said he has always been more enthusiastic about costumes than is “sometimes appropriate.”

“These are the situations I regret deeply,” Trudeau added.

The prime minister, who champions diversity and multiculturalism, said he didn’t consider it racist at the time but said society knows better now.

The photo’s publication could spell more trouble for Trudeau, who polls say is facing a serious challenge from Conservative leader Andrew Scheer.

Trudeau has been admired by liberals around the world for his progressive policies in the Trump era, with Canada accepting more refugees than the United States. His Liberal government has also strongly advocated free trade and legalized cannabis nationwide.

But the 47-year-old son of late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau was already vulnerable following one of the biggest scandals in Canadian political history, which arose when Trudeau’s former attorney general said he improperly pressured her to halt the criminal prosecution of a company in Quebec. Trudeau has said he was standing up for jobs, but the scandal rocked the government and led to multiple resignations earlier this year, causing a drop in the leader’s poll ratings.

Following the release of the brownface photo, Trudeau said he would talk to his kids in the morning about taking responsibility.

His quick apology did not stem the criticism from political opponents, who took the prime minister to task for what they said was troubling behavior.

“It is insulting. Any time we hear examples of brownface or blackface it’s making a mockery of someone for what they live, for what their lived experiences are. I think he has to answer for it,” said Leftist New Democrat leader Jagmeet Singh, a Sikh who wears a turban and the first visible minority to lead a national party.

Scheer, the opposition Conservative leader, said brownface was racist in 2001 and is racist in 2019.

“What Canadians saw this evening was someone with a complete lack of judgment and integrity and someone who is not fit to govern this country,” Scheer said.

Robert Bothwell, a professor of Canadian history and international relations at the University of Toronto, said he was “gobsmacked” at the development and wondered how it would land in Parliament and with voters.

“We’ll just have to see how the party reacts,” he said. “I’m very curious to know how Liberal members of Parliament that are black will react.”

He added: “The case has never been conclusively made that Justin is a person of substance. I mean he may well be. But that impression is just not out there.”  

How the scandal will affect Trudeau’s campaign remains in question. Nelson Wiseman, a political science professor at the University of Toronto, said he didn’t think the photo’s release would cause people to vote differently. Wiseman said race and blackface play a much bigger role in U.S. politics than in Canada.

“I don’t think this will swing the vote, although the story will get a lot of media play for a couple of days,” Wiseman said.  “The Liberals may very well lose the election — they almost certainly will not do as well as in 2015 — but this is not the type of scandal that will drive voters to the Conservatives.”

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On her daily walks from home to her job at a primary school in the city of Port Sudan, Khalda Saber would urge people to join the protests against the three-decade rule of Sudan’s autocratic President Omar al-Bashir.
 
At school, she rallied fellow teachers to join the pro-democracy uprising.

“I was telling them that there is nothing to lose, compared with what we have already lost. I was telling them that we have to take to the streets, demonstrate and express our rejection to what’s happening,” she said.

One January morning, two months after the protests erupted, plainclothes security forces snatched Saber off a bus and took her to the feared security and intelligence agency’s local office.
 
There, she was detained in a newly built wing in a prison in the capital, Khartoum, alongside other protesters. She said security forces beat her and the other new arrivals for several hours.

Saber spent 40 days in detention. She was among many thousands of Sudanese women who risked their lives leading protests that eventually pushed the military to overthrow al-Bashir in April.

Several turbulent months followed as the protesters feared the military would cling to power, before a power-sharing deal in July. An interim, civilian-led government was sworn in last month.

Amid high hopes for a new era, many Sudanese women like Saber are looking for greater freedoms and equality. They seek to overturn many of the restrictive laws based on Islamic jurisprudence, or Sharia, that activists say stifle women’s rights.

“For sure the whole Sudanese people have an interest in this revolution, but we, the women, had a bigger interest and motivation to make it happen,” Saber said.

Al-Bashir came to power in an Islamist-backed military coup in 1989, adopting a harsh interpretation of Islamic law that diminished the ability of women to participate meaningfully in public life, Human Rights Watch said in a 2015 report.

Public order laws imposed an Islamic dress code on women and restricted their ability to move freely or, if unmarried, with male colleagues, said Jehanne Henry, an associate Africa director at the New York-based rights group. Violators faced lashing in public and hefty fines.
 
But the end of al-Bashir’s rule would lead Saber, who worked with a local NGO on women’s rights issues for years, to flee the country. She spoke to The Associated Press from her home in self-imposed exile in the Egyptian capital, Cairo.

Along with her husband and two daughters, Saber escaped Sudan just two days after al-Bashir’s ouster on April 11.

She says the family was threatened, mainly by the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group which grew out of the notorious Janjaweed militias that al-Bashir used in the conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region.
 
Saber had documented the RSF’s rights violations, especially against women, through testimonies before and during the uprising.

“There were threats that they would attack my daughters,” she said.
 
Following her release in March, she had immediately joined demonstrations at the main sit-in outside the military’s headquarters in Khartoum. “At this time, the threats were increased. I found no way but to leave (the country),” she said.

Saber’s story reflects a wave of violence against women during the protests. A Sudanese rights group, Sudanese Women Action, said in a report released earlier this month that women protesters faced an “unprecedented amount of violence and human rights violations” that amounted to “serious atrocities.” Twelve women and a 7-year-old girl were killed in the protests, it said.

The group said it documented at least 26 cases of rape as security forces broke up the protest camp outside the military headquarters in early June. Dozens more rape cases weren’t reported or documented “due to fears of reprisals or stigma,” the group alleged.

During the uprising, Saber said countless women in both rural and urban areas participated in the demonstrations.

“It was not strange to see so many women at the front in the marches,” she said. “This is because of growing awareness of women’s rights. Women in time realized they have to stick to their demands.”

After five months in Cairo, Saber remains wary. “Fear and dread still exist. It is too early to go back to Sudan,” she said.

Sudan’s democratic transition remains fragile. But the appointment of several women to the interim government _ including Sudan’s first female foreign minister, and two women in an 11-member sovereign council has raised hopes that the role women played in the uprising will lead to change.

Henry, the HRW associate director, said the new government is committed to several legal reforms, including changes needed to achieve gender equality. Family and inheritance laws “clearly discriminate against women, limiting their ability to inherit property equally,” she said.

Wifaq Gurashi, a women’s rights activist in Khartoum, said the government should prioritize annulling all laws that restrict women’s movement and freedoms, and implement policies that offer broader opportunities for women.

“With a little determination, we will be represented fairly,” said Gurashi, who was herself briefly detained during the uprising in February.

But, she said, women face formidable obstacles.

‘It’s a long way (to go), especially to get rid of the traditional way of thinking in this masculine and authoritarian society,” Gurashi said.

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The Vermont Air National Guard is due to take delivery of the first two of what will become 20 F-35 fighter aircrafts, the first guard unit to receive the next-generation fighter.

The aircraft will be based at the Burlington International Airport and are being flown to Vermont on Thursday from the factory in Fort Worth, Texas.

The delivery follows years of hard work, planning and missions in the guard’s previous aircraft, F-16s that flew continuously for weeks over New York after the 9/11 attacks and in multiple combat tours in Iraq and other areas of the Middle East.

“The F-35 coming into Burlington really secures our mission and our future for, you are talking the next three or four decades, and that allows us to serve our nation, but also to be ready to serve our state as well,” Col. David Smith, the commander of the 158th Fighter Wing that is the new home to the F-35s, said before they arrived.

But for some members of the community, the arrival of noisier aircraft marks the failure of years-long efforts to keep the Air Force from delivering the planes to an airport located among residential neighborhoods and industrial complexes in the middle of Vermont’s most populous county.

Rosanne Greco, the former chair of the South Burlington City Council and a retired Air Force colonel, said she supported basing the plane in her home city until she learned by reading the Air Force’s environmental impact statement about how noisy the F-35 is and what she feels are the dangers of having a new, unproven weapon system at a suburban airport.

“All I had to do was read what the Air Force said about the impact it would have,” Greco said. “The evidence was overwhelming it would have a very negative effect on close to 7,000 people” who live near the airport.

Smith said the Air National Guard understands the concerns of the community. The guard has modified the traffic patterns the planes will use and checked the take-off times to minimize noise disruptions. As to safety, he said that so far more than 400 F-35s have been delivered and the planes have accumulated more than 200,000 flying hours.

“It’s really important to us too to do everything we can to mitigate the impact on the community,” he said.

The Air Force describes the F-35 as its fifth-generation fighter, combining stealth technology with speed and agility. Different models are being built for the Air Force, Navy and Marines, and are being sold to American allies across the world.

It is also the U.S. military’s most expensive weapons system of all time, with an estimated total cost of $1.5 trillion over the expected half-century life of the program. The model of the planes that will be based in Burlington cost about $94 million each.

Assigning F-35s, which are designed to replace a number of aging fighter models, to Vermont shows the days are long gone when Air National Guard units received hand-me-down aircraft while new planes went exclusively to active duty Air Force units, said Ian Bryan, a retired Tennessee Air National Guard pilot who worked in Washington as a legislative liaison with the National Guard Bureau.

He said Vermont, and the guard, are at the forefront of learning how to make the best use of the new airplanes.

“Ten years from now, we need to have figured out how to use this F-35 thing and it’s going to be the lead as the wings fall off some of these old airplanes,” Bryan said.

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Algeria’s army chief has ordered a clampdown on those who head into the capital for weekly demonstrations. 
 
In a speech Wednesday at an army barracks in the south of the gas-rich nation, Gen. Ahmed Gaid Salah said members of the military, or gendarmes, should arrest protesters heading to Algiers for the demonstrations and seize their vehicles. 
 
Gaid Salah’s tough new stance came days after a Dec. 12 date was set for presidential elections, as he had demanded. 
 
In his speech that was published by the Defense Ministry, Gaid Salah said that, for some people, coming into Algiers from other regions has become a pretext to justify dangerous behavior'' and a way to swell crowds. <br />
  <br />
Protest marches held in Algiers and other cities since Feb. 22 forced then-President Abdelaziz Bouteflika from office in April after two decades. Gaid Salah also called for the president, whose administration was mired in corruption, to stand down. <br />
 <br />
In the past, gendarmes, have often blocked roads into Algiers, without making arrests. <br />
 <br />
However, there recently have been arrests at the Friday protests, drawing condemnation from opposition politicians and human rights advocates. A former communications minister, Abdelaziz Rahabi, writing Tuesday on his Facebook page, called the arrests adangerous abuse” of power. 

‘The gang’
 
The army chief reiterated his claim that protesters were being manipulated by networks of “the gang,” a reference to those who held powerful positions under Bouteflika. The ex-president’s brother and two former intelligence chiefs have been jailed and are awaiting trial, starting Monday, on charges of plotting against the state. 
  
Gaid Salah, who has emerged as the authority figure amid a power vacuum, has consistently referred to a plot in his speeches, and suggested a foreign hand was involved. He has never elaborated on his accusation. 
 
He said a better future built “stone by stone” lies ahead for the nation, an apparent reference to the December presidential vote. 

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Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg appeared before a U.S. Congressional committee Wednesday, urging law makers to “listen to the science” and take action on global climate change.

The 16-year-old Thunberg has been in Washington since last week when she joined U.S. and indigenous activists for a protest designed to build support for a global climate strike on Friday and put pressure on lawmakers to take action on climate change.

She was one of four students to appear Wednesday before a joint hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, Energy, and the Environment and the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis.

She submitted a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in lieu of her testimony, and told the lawmakers to “follow the science:”

“Well, well I don’t see a reason to not listen to the science, is such just such a thing that we should be taking for granted that we listen to the current best available united science. It’s just something that everyone should do. This is not political opinions, political views or my opinions, this is, this is the science, so yeah,” she said.

Later on Wednesday, Thunberg joined seven young Americans who have sued the U.S. government for failing to take action on climate change on the steps of the Supreme Court. They urged political leaders and lawmakers to support their legal fight and take action to phase out the use of fossil fuels.

Thunberg first gained notoriety last year when she began skipping school each Friday to protest outside the Swedish parliament. She was joined by other students and later founded the ‘Fridays for Future’ weekly school walkouts around the world  to demand government climate-change action.

Her organization of “climate strikers” reached 3.6 million people across 169 countries. She has been in the United States since last month when she sailed in to New York on a solar-powered boat to attend a U.N. climate summit.

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HARARE — If there is one thing that unites doctors and patients in Zimbabwe’s ailing public health system, it’s fear.

The system is struggling to function amid a shattered economy and triple-digit inflation. Administrators, doctors and patients told VOA that hospitals often have a hard time getting supplies. And government doctors say they can’t make ends meet on an average salary worth just $100 a month.

But as they have learned, speaking out has consequences.

That became evident with the sudden disappearance of Dr. Peter Magombeyi, a junior doctor who led a strike over public-sector pay. He went missing over the weekend, and colleagues say he had received threats from people he identified as being members of Zimbabwe’s Central Intelligence Organization.

A different kind of fear afflicts patients. Dorcas Nyatoti, who is 36, says she hasn’t seen a doctor in decades, and not for lack of trying. When her feet — afflicted by childhood polio — give her pain, she grits her teeth or takes over-the-counter drugs. She says that’s because every time she has approached a hospital, she’s quoted terrifying prices despite her lack of income.

“I feel pain but there’s nothing I can do,” she told VOA in her one-room apartment, which she shares with four other people, in one of Harare’s poorer areas. “Because this is the road I’m on. This is my country.”

And fear is what kept teacher Milka Gwatiringa from seeking help for more than a decade, as an abdominal tumor grew to a staggering 12 kilograms before it was successfully removed by doctors at the nation’s largest hospital.

“I had so many fears,” she said. “So I was not willing to come, I was very much afraid.”

The fear isn’t just over medical costs. Dr. Shingirai Meki, the urologist who led Gwatiringa’s surgery, says patients are scared of the uncertainty in the public hospitals.

“A lot of patients, a lot of people are suffering in their homes, they are scared, they are not sure what is going to happen to them,” he said. “So she [Gwatiringa] is a wonderful success story which we wish everyone to be aware.”

VOA met with Magombeyi, the strike leader, last week before he went missing. At the time, he was blunt about Zimbabwe’s challenges — and his own.

“I love Zimbabwe, and my colleagues would agree with me, that they also love Zimbabwe,” he said. “We love our country, it’s beautiful. However, it doesn’t negate the fact that when the economy is deteriorating like this, we are forced to think outside the box.”

Two days later, he was gone. Fellow doctors have marched in Harare this week, demanding his return.

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The recent retirement of Jack Ma, former chairman of the Alibaba Group, has set a positive example in China for entrepreneurs to plan succession, ensuring the long-term sustainability of their businesses, according to some analysts.    

But others insist it is still too early to tell if the world’s largest e-commerce giant and its charismatic founder have since steered away from the clutches of the Communist Party, which seemingly views large private companies as a threat.

“They key thing here is not to be too confident about any outcome yet, because we’re simply too early in the cycle here. Jack can still retire and then find himself in a lot of problems later,” said Fraser Howie, co-author of three books on the Chinese financial system, including “Red Capitalism: The Fragile Financial Foundations of China’s Extraordinary Rise.”

On the heels of his official retirement last Tuesday, rife speculation remains that Ma was forced out because he had become “too powerful and influential” and posed a challenge to the authority of China’s top leadership. His tech empire remains under the government’s close scrutiny.

State pressure

It is believed that through his retirement, Ma has avoided being caught up in the Chinese government’s crackdown of big dealmakers in recent years, such as HNA Group’s Wang Jian, Anbang Insurance Group’s Wu Xiaohui, and movie star Fan Bingbing. The latter two “disappeared” for months at one point, according to observers.

“He’s getting an airlift before the hammer falls because he clearly would have been the most high-profile scalp within the private sector,” said Howie, adding that Ma’s case also fires a warning shot across the bow of the country’s rich and famous.

Additionally, the fact that some of the country’s tycoons, including Ma, have pledged to hand over control of their businesses to the Communist Party, if needed, epitomizes the lopsided relationship between the state and the private sector under the leadership of President Xi Jinping.

For example, shortly after Ma expressed his intention to step down, Alibaba’s online payment platform Alipay inked an agreement with state-owned UnionPay to cooperate on cardless and barcode payments — a development that led to much speculation that Alipay eventually would be nationalized.

Xi has good reason to view Ma as a threat because the tycoon’s popularity among the public has outshone that of any government officials in China, said Emmy Hu, former executive editor-in-chief of Global E-Businessmen, an online media platform under Alibaba.

“He is one of the most popular and iconic figures in China. Shall democratic and free elections be held, he would have won most votes across China if he’s up to,” Hu said.

Corporate rivalry

Ma is so popular in China that many fraudsters use the catchphrase “you’ll be the next Jack Ma” in an effort to entice victims, she noted.

It’s hard to imagine, therefore, that someone as hardworking, ambitious and successful as Ma would choose to step down at a young age of 55 if it weren’t for political pressure, according to Hu.

The journalist added that Ma’s success as a business leader, who has made a great contribution to the economy and provided a livelihood for more than 10 million vendors on Alibaba-owned online shopping site Taobao, made him an obvious target for the Communist Party as it tightened its grip on the private sector.    

“The pressure that the state has exerted on private enterprises is getting more and more evident. That includes policies requiring companies to set up (Communist) party committees or business executives to join the party” to name a few, Hu said.

Apart from the impact of the U.S.-China trade war, the business environment in China has become increasingly hostile toward private companies that state-owned companies see as rivals and hope to edge out to expand market shares, she said.

Succession model

Hu says from a purely business point of view, Ma set a marvelous example in Asia for businessmen to plan succession — an observation with which venture capitalist C.Y. Huang agrees.

“I think he is a role model who has completed a successful succession for peer mainland Chinese companies (to look up to). … In five years, he has groomed his successors … and proved that his company doesn’t necessarily rely on one person,” said Huang, a partner at FCC Partners, a Taipei-based investment bank.     

Daniel Zhang replaced Ma as Alibaba’s chief executive in 2015. Last week, he also took over Ma’s chairmanship.

Huang underscored that all too often, founding patriarchs of Asian companies have refused to hand over the reins, which then creates barriers for businesses to modernize. He pointed out that on a personal level, Ma sets an example for business people to enjoy their lives, and pursue dreams and goals outside of their businesses.

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Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. human rights chief, has denied claims by a Brazilian businessman under investigation in Brazil’s massive Car Wash scandal that he paid $141,000 to cover debts incurred by her 2013 Chilean presidential campaign.

Leo Pinheiro is reported to have told prosecutors as part of a plea bargain that his engineering firm, OAS, paid the money at the suggestion of the former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Lula is serving a 12-year prison sentence for taking bribes in connection with the scandal, which involved payoffs and political kickbacks on contracts with oil company Petrobras and other state-run companies.

Two other Brazilian presidents have been implicated in the scandal, along with two Peruvian presidents.

On Monday, Brazil’s Folha de Sao Paolo newspaper cited messages between prosecutors working on Pinheiro’s case in a report that claimed he told them OAS paid the money to Bachelet’s campaign to ensure a consortium it was involved in retained a contract to build a bridge to the Chilean island of Chiloe.

On Tuesday, Bachelet, a socialist who served from 2006 to 2010 and again from 2014 to 2018 and is the current United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, denied the claims.

“My truth is the same as always, I have never had links with OAS,” she told Chilean TV station 24 Horas in Geneva.

She highlighted the fact that Pinheiro had failed to mention his claims to tell a Chilean prosecutor investigating the potential involvement of Chilean businesses or politicians in the cross-continental scandal.

She also pointed to the fact that the Chiloe bridge contract was awarded by the government of Chile’s current president, Sebastian Pinera.

Pinheiro was sentenced to 16 years in prison for his role in the scandal but released after three years in custody last weekend after his plea bargain was ratified by Brazil’s Supreme Court.

Chile’s chief prosecutor, Jorge Abbott, said in a statement on Monday that he would await formal confirmation of Pinheiro’s claims from Brazilian prosecutors before taking any action.

“We will continue with our investigation to determine the veracity of this financing and to be able to advance any corresponding criminal complaints,” he said.

“Whoever is ultimately implicated in this testimony, no one is above the law.”

Representatives for OAS, Lula and Pinheiro did not reply to requests for comment. Bachelet’s spokesman at the U.N., Rupert Colville, said she would not comment further on the issue.

“Obviously, as this concerns her political career in Chile, it is not an issue for OHCHR itself to comment on,” he said.

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Developing economies could face disruption from the shock waves of Britain crashing out of the European Union with no deal, according to analysts.

Brexit will affect not only Britain’s relations with the European Union, but also with hundreds of other countries with which Britain currently trades on EU terms, as Brussels sets trade policy for the entire EU bloc.

London has negotiated new post-Brexit trade arrangements with several countries, including Central American nations, Switzerland and South Korea, among others. That leaves hundreds of states — from smaller economies to relative giants like Japan and Canada — with whom trade would revert to World Trade Organization terms after a no-deal Brexit.

Striking new trade deals won’t be easy, said professor Anand Menon at a “Changing Europe” program at Kings College London.

“Many countries with whom we try and do trade deals will say to us, ‘Yes, that would be great. We’d quite like to know what your relationship with the European Union is going to be before we sign anything with you, though.’ So, all roads lead to Brussels,” Menon said.

Such uncertainty doesn’t help countries that sell goods to Britain. For example, Kenya exports cut flowers, fruits and vegetables, with total exports to Britain estimated at $400 million per year.

Bangladesh exports nearly $4 billion worth of goods to Britain, which are currently traded under the EU’s preferential rules of origin that allocate zero or low tariffs on goods from developing countries. A no-deal Brexit will likely mean disruption, said Max Mendez-Parra, a trade expert at the Overseas Development Institute.

“The problem is that that will erode the preference that some of these countries receive. So for example, the advantage that a country such as Bangladesh and Cambodia have on certain products because they have access with a lower tariff, that would be removed.”

Speaking last month, Akinwumi Adesina, head of the Africa Development Bank, warned that the combination of a no-deal Brexit and the U.S.-China trade war were hitting African economies.

“The industrial capacity has fallen significantly, and so the demand, even for products and raw materials from Africa, will only fall even further. So, the effect of that could have a ripple effect on African economies as the demand for their products weaken from China,” Adesina said.

Britain, meanwhile, is stepping up its search for new trade deals. International Trade Secretary Liz Truss is visiting New Zealand, Australia and Japan this week. Many of these nations’ companies have large investments in Britain and fear the chaotic fallout of a no-deal Brexit.

For smaller economies, the impact is likely to be less severe, Mendez-Parra said.

“African countries seem to be more relaxed, developing countries are more and more relaxed — except some specific countries that trade a lot with the U.K. — about the prospect of a no-deal [Brexit]. And this is because the U.K. has lost over many years the sort of importance as a destination of exports for many of these countries.”

A no-deal Brexit would hit the economies of many EU states like Ireland, Germany and the Netherlands. But it is in Britain where the impact will inevitably be hardest-felt.

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This story originated in VOA’s Ukrainian Service.

Police have opened a criminal investigation in the apparent arson of a home belonging to the family of former National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) chief Valeria Gontareva, which was razed early Tuesday in Kyiv.

Gontarevа, who recently spoke with VOA’s Ukrainian Service from her home in London, has warned that a series of unfortunate events are evidence that her life and the lives of family members are being threatened as a result of financial reforms she oversaw during her tenure as NBU chief from 2014-2017.

Currently a senior policy fellow at the London School of Economics, Gontareva told VOA that she was hospitalized with broken bones after being struck by a car while walking through the streets of London on Aug. 26.

Ten days later, her daughter-in-law’s vehicle was set on fire in front of the family home in Kyiv, which was burned to the ground Tuesday. On Sept. 12, one week after the car was torched, Ukrainian police raided another of Gontareva’s Kyiv residential properties.

Gontarevа has told various news outlets that all of these events are tied to grievances held by banking tycoon Ihor Kolomoisky, the former owner Privatbank, the country’s largest lender, which was nationalized in 2016 as a part of Gontarevа-led reforms under former president Petro Poroshenko.

Gontarevа and her Ukrainian colleagues elected to nationalize Privatbank under Ukraine’s Finance Ministry after an audit revealed $5.5 billion in unaccounted funds. The move to nationalize was strongly supported by the International Monetary Fund, which saw nationalization of banks engaged in fraud as a key step to eradicating corruption.

An oligarch’s return

Kolomoisky, who returned to Kyiv after the April 2019 election of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, had been living in Switzerland and Israel since Privatbank was nationalized.

He and Privatbank’s original investors have been closely watching a series of new reforms being undertaken by Zelenskiy to see whether the nationalization may be reversed.

“Kolomoisky wants the withdrawal of all Privatbank lawsuits against him all over the world, and the National Bank is hindering him,” Gontarevа told VOA, explaining that she has also been named as a key witness in various international fraud cases against Zelenskiy over his former ownership of Privatbank.

It was also reported that the search of Gontarevа’s home came 48 hours after Kolomoisky met privately with Zelenskiy.

On Tuesday, Ukrainian Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk told the Financial Times that the president is seeking a settlement with Kolomoisky over Privatbank’s nationalization, which would contradict Zelenskiy’s vigorous reform agenda and possibly upset Western backers.

According to the Financial Times, IMF officials have warned that a reversal of Privatbank’s nationalization would endanger nearly $4 billion in standby funding reserved to help Ukraine recover the $5.5 billion it lost recapitalizing Privatbank.

“Whatever solution we find, we have to find it together with the IMF,” Honcharuk was quoted as saying.

On Tuesday morning, Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov took to Twitter to note that the fire coincides with a Kyiv visit by IMF officials.

Although Gontarevа said she has been criticized by some Ukrainians who say the alleged threats are part of an effort to bolster her asylum claims in the West, she told VOA the issues are much bigger than her life alone.

Old-school intimidation tactics

“Independence of the National Bank guarantees the independence of monetary policy, exchange rate policy, and the macro stability of the Ukrainian economy,” she said, apparently warning that Kolomoisky’s efforts to seek compensation for the loss of Privatbank represents a return to the old-school intimidation tactics of the oligarchic era.

Kolomoisky, who denied any involvement in the injuries or property damages sustained by Gontareva or her family, spoke with reporters on the sidelines of the Yalta European Strategy conference in Kyiv on Sept. 13.

Asked about the London hit-and-run that left Gontareva temporarily wheelchair-bound, Kolomoisky reportedly said with a smug grin: “I promised to send her a plane, not a car.”

London police said they were not treating the incident as suspicious.

Official statements

On Tuesday, Zelenskiy’s office issued a statement calling the fire at Gontarevа’s home “a brutal crime, the rapid investigation of which should be a priority in the work of the law enforcement agencies.”

“Everyone should feel protected in Ukraine, regardless of their past or current positions and political views,” he said.

On Sept. 5, NBU board members issued a statement supporting Gontarevа’s claims that the car and house fires and London car accident are part of an organized intimidation campaign.

“Kolomoisky wants the withdrawal of all Privatbank lawsuits against him all over the world,” the former chairman of the NBU says. “And the National Bank is hindering him.”

“We regard this as a real threat to the personal integrity of the regulators who have implemented and continue to reform the financial sector, and in this way endeavor to undermine the central bank’s ability to fulfil its purpose,” the statement said.

The U.S. Embassy in Ukraine has expressed support for Gontarevа, calling for “a prompt and impartial investigation into incidents involving former NBU chairman Gontareva and her family.”

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Tunisia’s independent electoral commission Tuesday confirmed the stunning victories of two political outsiders in the first round of presidential voting — results seen as a major rebuff of the post-revolution political establishment.

Final results place law professor Kais Saied and business tycoon Nabil Karoui in first and second place respectively, capturing more than 18% and 16% of the vote. They now face a runoff in what is Tunisia’s second-only free and democratic presidential election.

But the bigger story may be the losers, starting with Prime Minister Youssef Chahed, who received just over 7% of the vote. Defense Minister Abdelkarim Zbidi also scored in the single digits. Turnout was less than 50% — another marker of voter disaffection.

Tunisian journalist Tarek Mami of France Magreb 2 radio says Tunisians got rid of one system during the revolution — that of autocratic President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Now, they’re getting rid of the system that replaced him. Widespread corruption and soaring food prices helped to fuel voter anger.

Saied and Karoui have one thing in common — both are newcomers when it comes to running for office. Both also kept low profiles during campaigning these past weeks, but for different reasons.

Karoui was jailed in August on corruption allegations — a move his supporters claim was politically motivated. Saied rejected state election funds and large rallies, favoring door-to-door campaigning. Saied is a social conservative and a frequent legal commentator on television. Karoui scored points with the poor for his foundation’s charitable works.

Social entrepreneur Wala Kasmi didn’t vote for Saied and was surprised by the results.

“But at the end, I think I’m happy about not the full results, but the results, because I think we are back to eight years ago, challenging the status quo, claiming a new model, a new system. … I think he’s the new voice of the revolution,” Kasmi said.

This is the first round in the election season. October’s legislative vote comes next, offering another test of whether Tunisians will continue to sanction the political establishment.

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Police in Britain have arrested a second man in connection with the theft of a solid-gold toilet that was part of an art exhibit at the birthplace and home of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

The 18-carat toilet, titled “America,” was created by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan. It was part of a larger exhibit of Cattelan’s work at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, England.

Police said 36-year-old man, from Cheltenham, was arrested and later released pending an investigation. Police also arrested and released on bail a 66-year-old man suspected of being part of the gang responsible for the theft.

The toilet was previously on display at New York’s Guggenheim Museum where “more than 100,000 people have waited patiently in line for the opportunity to commune with art and with nature” museum officials said at the time.

Last year, the chief curator at the Guggenheim offered to lend the golden toilet to U.S. President Donald Trump and his wife Melania Trump when they asked to borrow a Van Gogh painting for their private White House quarters.

Cattelan has said the toilet is meant to be a satirical piece on excess wealth. “Whatever you eat, a $200 lunch or a $2 hot dog, the results are the same, toilet-wise,” he has said.

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The Cambodian government summoned three human rights organizations to meetings in Phnom Penh to examine research they published and comments one of them gave to the media, a move the NGOs described as attempts at intimidation. 

The organizations are Sahmakum Teang Tnaut (STT),  Licadho and Transparency International (TI).   

TI director Preap Kol was summoned separately for separate comments.

In their report Collateral Damage: Land Loss and Abuses in Cambodia’s Microfinance Sector, Licadho and STT highlight cases of Cambodians having lost their land when their land titles were used as collateral for taking up a loan. The report tells of Cambodian citizens being left deep in debt. 

Following the publication of the report, Licadho and STT were asked to meet Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan on September 4. 

Licadho director Naly Pilorge said that most of the meeting was spent on pushing both organizations to sign a pre-written statement that implied that the results found in their research were not accurate. “Of course, Licadho and STT refused to sign this joint statement,” she said. “So most of the meeting was to push, to coerce, to threaten both organizations to sign on.”

She said she assumed that they were called to meet because the report concentrated upon the issue of debt and raised issues that investors should be wary of. 

The government has repeatedly stressed that Cambodia’s economy was growing at a steady rate.

The two organizations were called in for a second meeting, an invitation both organizations declined. 

Government spokesman Phay Siphan said he had called the meeting with the two organizations because he said the “fake report is biased” and was “misrepresenting the reality.”

Chak Sopheap, executive director of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, condemned the move by the Council of Ministers. “The questioning of STT, Licadho and TI representatives sends a clear message to other human rights defenders and government critics that dissent is not tolerated in Cambodia,” she said in an email to VOA. “The intimidation of these NGOs formulates part of a wider, systemic attack on free speech and peaceful dissent. …. The severe curtailment of the abilities of citizens to exercise their fundamental freedoms has caused a chilling rise in self-censorship, illustrating that Cambodian’s feel unable or are unwilling to speak freely.”

Spokesman Siphan rejected that criticism. “I don’t condemn them… I invite them,” he said, rejecting allegations that he had pressured them. “I do not put pressure on them.”

Preap Kol, country director of Transparency International, had also been called for a meeting with Phay Siphan for comments he gave to the Southeast Asia Globe. 

“Cambodia applies ‘free market economy’ ideology and, as far as I know, does not yet have a policy that ensures an equitable share of profit to local people,” Kol told the Southeast Asia Globe. “Therefore, the majority of Cambodian people, especially those who are poor or disadvantaged, are not ideally benefiting from the impressive economic growth.”

Kol excused himself, saying that he was out of the country currently. 

Siphan said he would keep inviting Kol to meet. 

Kol said the move to call him in for a meeting was unusual and a first-off. “I have never been invited to a meeting of this nature to clarify my comments in the media,” he said in a message to Voice of America from Sweden. “This appears to make people feel intimidated to speak to the media but this would not stop me from continuing to speak the truth… I am open to meet and discuss with any concerned  as necessary, preferably in an environment that is free of intimidation and oppression.”

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Living conditions have improved greatly since 2000 even for the world’s poorest people, but billions remain mired in “layers of inequality.”

That is the assessment from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s third annual report on progress toward U.N. Sustainable Development Goals – 17 measures that most countries have pledged to try to reach by 2030. Those efforts are falling short, says Bill Gates.

“As much progress as we’re making, a child in many countries still over 10% are dying before the age of five. And in richer countries it is less than 1%. So the idea that any place in the world is still 10%, some almost 15%, that’s outrageous, and it should galvanize us to do a better job,” Gates told VOA.

The 63-year-old Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist sat down with VOA at the foundation’s offices in advance of the report, which was released to coincide with the opening of the United Nations General Assembly.

This year’s report uses geography and gender as lenses for examining progress, particularly in terms of health and education.

It finds “an increasing concentration of high mortality and low educational attainment levels” in Africa’s Sahel region as well as in parts of Pakistan, Afghanistan and northern India. People in those regions experience “multiple deprivations, including some of the highest fertility rates in the world, high levels of stunting and low vaccine coverage,” the report says.

Disadvantages fall more heavily on women than on men. Girls generally get less formal education than boys; those in sub-Saharan Africa average two fewer years of education. And even when girls obtain a good education, they’re less likely to parlay it into paid work. 

“Globally, there is a 26 percentage point gap between men’s and women’s labor force participation,” according to the report.

Monitoring progress on these fronts aligns with the Gates Foundation’s commitments, which include improving global health and aiding development in low-income countries. Since its start in 2000, the foundation has spent billions on efforts such as improving vaccines and nutrition, combatting malaria and other diseases, supporting innovative toilet designs to improve sanitation, and ensuring good data collection to identify problems.

As the news site Vox has pointed out, the Gates Foundation each year outspends the World Health Organization and most individual countries on global health. It has built the world’s largest trust — $46.8 billion as of December, according to its website.

That has led some to question philanthropy’s role in development.

“The billions of dollars available to Gates, Rockefeller and Wellcome might be spent with benevolent intent, but they confer extensive power. A power without much accountability,” Wellcome communications director Mark Henderson wrote last week in Inside Philanthropy, announcing that the London-based health charity – second in spending after Gates – would increase its transparency.

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