Day: November 4, 2019

California Winds Subside, Wildfires Mostly Contained

Officials in California say fierce winds that have fueled fires across the state have subsided, allowing firefighters to mostly contain blazes that raged in the north and south.

The largest fire, in the northern wine county, was 80% contained on Monday, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Cal Fire said the fire in Sonoma County, dubbed the Kincade Fire, burned more than 32,000 hectares and destroyed more than 370 structures since it began Oct. 23.

In Southern California, a blaze that erupted outside of Los Angeles on Thursday was 70% contained. The so-called Maria Fire destroyed 3,800 hectares and destroyed two structures near the community of Santa Paula, according to the Ventura County Fire Department.

A new study published Monday said invasive grasses may be contributing to more wildfires in the United States, especially in California. In the study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, ecologists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, along with colleagues at the University of Colorado-Boulder, show that locations where common Mediterranean grass invades, fires ignite three times more often. The scientists found eight species of non-native grass that correlated with increased fire risk.

The recent fires in California sparked Twitter comments on Sunday by President Donald Trump and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Trump tweeted that Newsom had done a “terrible job of forest management.”

“Every year, as the fire’s rage & California burns, it is the same thing-and then he comes to the Federal Government for $$$ help. No more,” Trump wrote.

..Every year, as the fire’s rage & California burns, it is the same thing-and then he comes to the Federal Government for $$$ help. No more. Get your act together Governor. You don’t see close to the level of burn in other states…But our teams are working well together in…..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2019

Newsom replied on Twitter: “You don’t believe in climate change. You are excused from this conversation.”

The wildfires across California forced nearly 200,000 people to evacuate. The fires have been fueled by seasonal Santa Ana winds, hot dry winds that blow in from the desert.

Last week, Southern California Edison said that 13 minutes before the Maria Fire broke out, the utility began to re-energize a power line in the same area where the fire erupted.

Another utility company, Pacific Gas & Electric acknowledged last week that one of its live power lines might have sparked the Kincade blaze. It said a transmission tower malfunctioned around the same time and place that the fire is believed to have begun.

California authorities blame PG&E lines for sparking last year’s wildfires that killed 85 people and destroyed entire towns. The utility, facing billions of dollars in lawsuits, was forced to declare bankruptcy earlier this year.

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Colorful Columbia Sportswear Co. Chairwoman Gert Boyle Dies

Gert Boyle, the colorful chairwoman of Oregon-based Columbia Sportswear Co. who starred in ads proclaiming her as “One Tough Mother,” died Sunday. She was 95.

Company spokeswoman Mary Ellen Glynn did not disclose the cause of death. Boyle, who was chairwoman of the company board of directors, died at a Portland, Oregon, assisted living facility, Glynn said.

Boyle took over the small outdoor clothing company in 1970 after her husband died from a heart attack. At the time, she was a 46-year-old housewife and mother of three with no real business experience. But she helped build the struggling company into a national brand and retailer.

“Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise,” Boyle often said, among other pet phrases.

It was her role in an advertising campaign in the 1980s that gave her national exposure.

The ads showed Boyle putting her son, Tim, president of the company, through treacherous outdoor feats to ensure the products met her standards. An iconic photo from the campaign, which has her flexing her arm emblazoned with a “Born to Nag” tattoo, still hangs in the company’s Beaverton headquarters.

Boyle’s father founded Columbia after the family fled Nazi Germany and settled in Portland. Her husband took over the business in 1964. When he died, the business took many calls wondering if Columbia would close and the bank urged her to sell the company.

Always plucky, she entertained an offer for its sale at the time but told a prospective buyer that for the price they were offering, she’d rather run it into the ground herself.

But Columbia flourished under her leadership, and that of her son.

While Tim ran the operations as president, Gert Boyle continued to put in 40-hour work weeks well into her 80s and signed every company check.

Columbia grew and over the years acquired key brands such as Mountain Hardwear, Pacific Trail and Sorel. The company now sells products in more than 100 countries.

She was well known for her no-nonsense attitude and boisterous personality – quick to offer staff or those nearby a “Gertism” and often a few comments not fit for print.

Boyle was the first woman inducted into the National Sporting Goods Hall of Fame and often recognized for her work as a female business leader, including a book on her experience.

She had three children with her husband, Neil, who was her college sweetheart. Tim Boyle is president of the company, her daughter Sally runs Portland company Moonstruck Chocolates and her daughter Kathy is an artist.

She had five grandchildren.

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Military Contractor Deaths Raise Questions About Russia’s Security Presence in Africa

The deaths in northern Mozambique of military contractors employed by a Russian firm are raising new questions about Russia’s security presence in Africa.

Five soldiers employed by the Wagner Group, a private military firm with connections to the Kremlin, and 20 soldiers in FADM, the Mozambique Defense Armed Forces, were killed in an ambush in Cabo Delgado Province’s Muidumbe district on Oct. 27, according to Carta de Moçambique, a local publication. Insurgents were said also to have burned two vehicles in the ambush.

VOA reached out to the Mozambique government for comment but did not receive a response. Russia denies its soldiers are in Mozambique, and Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said earlier in October, “As far as Mozambique is concerned, there are no Russian soldiers there,” according to Russian state-owned media. Peskov added that his country is more focused on forging economic and security ties with African nations.

But the killings last week, counterterrorism experts warn, show the growing sophistication of insurgent groups operating in the region, and bring into question the effectiveness of Russian private military contractors assisting African governments.

For more than two years, several Islamic militant groups have carried out attacks in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado region. The government has relied on Russian mercenaries to help contain the violence and protect vast reserves of natural gas.

“We are seeing them now more in a guerrilla type of war — retreat, attack, retreat, attack — creating the surprise element,” Jasmine Opperman, a researcher and terrorism expert in South Africa, told VOA. “And the Russians have been caught unaware of this level of sophistication and weapons available to the insurgents.”

Details contested

DefenceWeb, a South African security publication, reported that four of the Russian soldiers shot during the ambush were later decapitated. The fifth soldier died of wounds in a hospital, according to the site.

But experts on the region are urging skepticism of information circulating online and via social media, including photos of dismembered bodies.

“If you go into the WhatsApp, and when you look at the photographs, they are all fake, because most of the insurgents, when they do attack, they are dressed with Mozambique army or police special forces equipment,” said Yussuf Adam, an associate professor of Contemporary History at the University of Eduardo Mondlane in Maputo, Mozambique.

Adam added that the weaponry in some of the pictures shared was questionable. Those photographed are holding 12-gauge shotguns, but insurgents in the region more commonly carry AK-47s.

The Wagner Group

According to local media reports, the Russian soldiers killed in late October were employed by the Wagner Group, a private military company owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian oligarch with close ties to President Vladimir Putin.

“Prigozhin’s Wagner Group is almost like an official arm of state policy in Russia. I mean, obviously it’s not officially recognized, and yet its services can be a proxy for the Kremlin,” Michael Carpenter, senior director of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, told VOA’s Russian service.

Carpenter said the arrangement is similar to “privateers” operating hundreds of years ago — state-sanctioned mercenaries or pirates who helped carry out the foreign policies of countries like England, Spain and Portugal.

“When Prigozhin goes in and provides consulting services, either personal protection services to a dictator or election support services or mercenaries who can be helpful in guarding certain strategic assets in a given country, he paves the way for other Russian corporations … to do business in those countries,” Carpenter said.

Opperman said, based on her research, Wagner does nothing without the approval of the Kremlin. “I make no distinction between Russian soldiers and the Wagner Group — the way they cooperate, at this point in time,” she told VOA.

According to local media reports, the Russian soldiers killed in late October were employed by the Wagner Group, a private military company owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian oligarch with close ties to President Vladimir Putin.

“Prigozhin’s Wagner Group is almost like an official arm of state policy in Russia. I mean, obviously it’s not officially recognized, and yet its services can be a proxy for the Kremlin,” Michael Carpenter, senior director of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, told VOA’s Russian service.

Carpenter said the arrangement is similar to “privateers” operating hundreds of years ago — state-sanctioned mercenaries or pirates who helped carry out the foreign policies of countries like England, Spain and Portugal.

“When Prigozhin goes in and provides consulting services, either personal protection services to a dictator or election support services or mercenaries who can be helpful in guarding certain strategic assets in a given country, he paves the way for other Russian corporations … to do business in those countries,” Carpenter said.

Opperman said, based on her research, Wagner does nothing without the approval of the Kremlin. “I make no distinction between Russian soldiers and the Wagner Group — the way they cooperate, at this point in time,” she told VOA.

Military cooperation expansion

Eugene Chausovsky, senior analyst at Stratfor, an intelligence analysis company, told VOA that Russia aims to support regimes under threat internally and to some degree isolated on the world stage. He calls it the “Syria model.”

“It comes in and supports a regime that’s been coming under threat from opposition forces,” he said. “And there’s been a lot of openings for Russia to do so in Africa.”

Moscow has pursued versions of this strategy in the Central African Republic, Mozambique and Sudan.

“Russia is looking to portray itself as a great power globally, and it is recognized that one of the places it has to do that is Africa,” said Judd Devermont, the director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank focusing on foreign policy.

“They need permissive markets to sell their energy and security deals. And as time went on they also started to see Africa as a place where they could make points at the U.S. to show that if the U.S. is not engaged, Russia is,” Devermont said. “And so we have seen them sign military deals and create their economic engagement.”

Eugene Chausovsky, senior analyst at Stratfor, an intelligence analysis company, told VOA that Russia aims to support regimes under threat internally and to some degree isolated on the world stage. He calls it the “Syria model.”

“It comes in and supports a regime that’s been coming under threat from opposition forces,” he said. “And there’s been a lot of openings for Russia to do so in Africa.”

Moscow has pursued versions of this strategy in the Central African Republic, Mozambique and Sudan.

“Russia is looking to portray itself as a great power globally, and it is recognized that one of the places it has to do that is Africa,” said Judd Devermont, the director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank focusing on foreign policy.

“They need permissive markets to sell their energy and security deals. And as time went on they also started to see Africa as a place where they could make points at the U.S. to show that if the U.S. is not engaged, Russia is,” Devermont said. “And so we have seen them sign military deals and create their economic engagement.”

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Thousands Attend Competing Rallies in Lebanon

Protesters in Lebanon rallied Sunday to call for President Michel Aoun’s ouster as part of a push for sweeping changes that have already brought the resignation of the country’s prime minister.

The protests in Beirut came hours after supporters of Aoun turned out to show their support for the president.

Aoun gave an address near the presidential palace in southeastern Beirut in which he said his supporters and the anti-government protesters should work together on anti-corruption efforts.

But in their later demonstration, the protesters rejected Aoun as a leader to deliver reforms, saying all of Lebanon’s political establishment needs to go.

The protests began last month in support of a complete overhaul of Lebanon’s sectarian-based politics. Under the current system, the president must be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim and the parliament speaker a Shi’ite Muslim.

The demonstrators have also blamed the political establishment for rampant corruption and poor public services.

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Brazil’s Bolsonaro Says ‘Worst is Yet to Come’ on Oil Spill

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said Sunday that “the worst is yet to come” with an oil spill that has affected more than 200 beaches on the country’s coast.

“What came so far and what was collected is a small amount of what was spilled,” Bolsonaro said in an interview with Record television.

He said he did not know if additional oil would impact his country’s coastline, but that “everything indicates that the currents went to the coast of Brazil.”

Oil slicks have been appearing for three months off the coast of northeast Brazil and fouling beaches along a 2,000 kilometer (1,250 mile) area of Brazil’s most celebrated shoreline.

Crews and volunteers have cleaned up tons of oil on the beaches.

Officials say it not yet possible to quantify the environmental and economic damage from the oil slicks.

The government on Friday named a Greek-flagged tanker as the prime suspect behind the oil slicks.

The ship Bouboulina took on oil in Venezuela and was headed for Singapore, it said.

The space agency Inpe said Friday there might still be oil at sea being pushed by currents and it could reach the states of Espiritu Santo and Rio de Janeiro in southeast Brazil.

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Federal Investigators Probe Under Armour’s Accounting

Under Armour Inc. is being investigated by federal authorities over its accounting practices.

The athletic gear company said Sunday that it has been cooperating with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice on their investigations for two years.

The company said it firmly believes its accounting practices and disclosures were appropriate.

Under Armour reports earnings for the third quarter Monday.

The investigation was first reported by The Wall Street Journal, which said the probe involves whether the retailer shifted sales from quarter to quarter to make results appear stronger.

Under Armour founder Kevin Plank stepped down as CEO last month. The company has struggled since its explosive sales growth petered out in 2017. Last year it announced job cuts as part of a restructuring effort.

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