The Kennedy Center Honors will return in December with a class that includes Motown Records creator Berry Gordy, “Saturday Night Live” mastermind Lorne Michaels and actress-singer Bette Midler.Organizers expect to operate at full capacity, after last year’s ceremony was delayed for months and later conducted under COVID-19 restrictions.This 44th class of honorees for lifetime achievement in the creative arts is heavy on musical performers. The honorees also include opera singer Justino Diaz and folk music legend Joni Mitchell.All will be honored on December 5 with a trademark program that includes personalized tributes and performances that are kept secret from the honorees.Deborah Rutter, president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, said the current plan is to pack the center’s opera house to full capacity and require all attendees to wear masks. But the plans remain fluid and Rutter said they’re ready to adapt to changing circumstances depending on the country’s COVID-19 situation.Time to party”We don’t know for sure what it’s going to be like,” Rutter said in an interview. “But don’t you think we all deserve to have a party?”The 43rd Kennedy Center Honors class was delayed from December 2020 as the center largely shut down its indoor programming. A slimmed-down ceremony was finally held in May of this year, with a series of small socially distanced gatherings and pre-taped video performances replacing the normal gala event.”We know how to do it now. We will make whatever adjustments we need,” Rutter said. “We’re going to be wearing masks right up until we don’t have to.”Midler, 75, has won four Grammy Awards, three Emmys and two Tony Awards, along with two Oscar nominations. Her albums have sold over 30 million copies. In a statement, Midler said she was “stunned and grateful beyond words. For many years I have watched this broadcast celebrating the best talent in the performing arts that America has to offer, and I truly never imagined that I would find myself among these swans.”FILE – Joni Mitchell arrives at the Hammer Museum’s “Gala In The Garden,” in Los Angeles, Oct. 11, 2014.Mitchell, 77, emerged from the Canadian coffee shop circuit to become one of the standard-bearers for multiple generations of singer-songwriters. In 2020, Rolling Stone magazine declared her 1971 album “Blue” to be the third-best album of all time. In a brief statement, Mitchell, said, “I wish my mother and father were alive to see this. It’s a long way from Saskatoon.”The December 5 ceremony will be the centerpiece of the Kennedy Center’s 50th anniversary of cultural programing. The center opened in 1971 and a young Diaz, now 81, actually performed at the grand opening of the opera house.”It’s a very special thing,” said Diaz, a bass-baritone from San Juan, Puerto Rico. “It’s such a great privilege to be able to say I shared this space with all these geniuses.”Gordy, 91, founded Motown Records — the Detroit-based hit factory that spawned what became known as the Motown Sound and launched the careers of a huge list of artists, including Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, Lionel Ritchie, Marvin Gaye and Martha and the Vandellas.FILE – Berry Gordy attends the the 48th Annual Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction and Awards Gala at the New York Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York, June 15, 2017.Gordy said in an interview that he always held President John Kennedy as one of the greatest leaders in American history.”So to be honored in his name just means the world to me,” he said.Michaels, 76, is a comedy institution unto himself — creating and producing “Saturday Night Live” since 1975 and producing dozens of movies and television shows, including “Wayne’s World,” “Kids in the Hall” and “Mean Girls.” He received the Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Award for lifetime achievement in comedy in 2004.Not normally an on-stage performer, Michaels recalls the Mark Twain evening as “mostly nerve-racking” because he spent the evening dreading the traditional end-of-night speech he had to deliver.FILE – Producer Lorne Michaels attends the American Museum of Natural History’s 2019 Museum Gala in New York, Nov. 21, 2019.But the Kennedy Center Honors bring no such pressures, and Michaels said he intends to sit back in the special honorees box at the opera house and see what surprises the organizers have in store.”You don’t have to give a speech at the end, which is huge,” he said. “You’re just there with your friends.”
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Day: July 21, 2021
Barring another postponement, Friday’s opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics will launch competitions overshadowed by a pandemic that has already forced a major delay, has interfered with the pageantry ahead of the Games, and will keep spectators from the stands and prevent some athletes from competing at all.For casual observers in the United States, excitement and anticipation are hard to find as the Olympic Games vie for attention with dire domestic and international headlines.”We’ve hardly heard much about it,” Kevin Watson of Alexandria, Virginia, told VOA. “It’s already been a letdown, with few interviews with the athletes or TV commercials to promote the sports.”Even before the pandemic, primetime ratings for the Summer Olympics had been declining.Surfer Carissa Moore of the United States heads into the water for a practice run at Tsurigasaki beach at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, in Ichinomiya, Japan, July 21, 2021.Data compiled by Zeta Global in New York indicated that 60% of Americans were not interested or excited about the Tokyo Games. And at least 45% were not even looking forward to them.No spectatorsAccording to the Zeta Global website, the reasons included last year’s postponement of the Games, less desire to sit in front of the TV after a year of lockdown, and the barring of spectators at the events.”Since there won’t be spectators to watch, cheer, jeer and shout in the stands behind the competitors, that makes the coverage boring,” Alex Willman in Carlsbad, California, said in a VOA interview. “The best part of any sporting event with a large audience is to watch their reaction to the scores.”Eliot Greenwald said he hadn’t paid much attention to the run-up to the Olympics. The avid sailor from Bethesda, Maryland, said he’d probably get more interested in the events once they began, especially watersports like sailing and diving.FILE – Katie Ledecky participates in the women’s 800-meter freestyle during wave 2 of the U.S. Olympic Swim Trials, June 19, 2021, in Omaha, Neb.With some of the athletes testing positive for the coronavirus in Tokyo, some people think the Games should be postponed again.”I love the Olympic Games, but I don’t think they should be happening now,” Barry Hunter, a boxing trainer at Headbangers Gym in Washington, told VOA by phone. He added that because of the pandemic, “the average person in the U.S. is not as excited about them as they normally would be.””They seem less important when there’s a pandemic going on around the world,” said Louise Korver, who lives in Huntersville, North Carolina.However, Jeff Shell, the chief executive of NBCUniversal, the major U.S. television network that is broadcasting most of the Olympics, thinks the time is right for the Games to begin.NBC is airing 7,000 hours of coverage across its multiple television networks. Shell told a virtual conference this week that the Tokyo Games could be the most profitable Olympics in NBC’s history.Some fans are eagerThe lack of enthusiasm is far from universal. Some Americans can’t wait to watch their favorite sports.Luisa Handem Piette in Londonderry, New Hampshire, said she would be among those glued to the TV watching the Olympics. “The U.S. audience will be much larger than anticipated,” she said in a phone interview with VOA.FILE – Signs from the Belgian and Austrian teams hang on the apartment building hosting Olympics participants at the Athletes Village, in Tokyo, July 18, 2021.Bob Mandau, in Chesterland, Ohio, said he “welcomes the Olympics as a much-needed break from the negative politics on TV.”Meanwhile, Rick Kinney from Wellesley, Massachusetts, said Americans like him would watch the Olympics because “people like a feel-good story about how hard the athletes worked to get to the Games.”Sam Doering is on the swim team at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas. She will be following American Katie Ledecky, one of the world’s top swimmers and a favorite for top medals at the Games.”I think it’s going to be fantastic watching Ledecky, and hopefully other U.S. swimmers, do well in the swimming competitions,” she said. “And hearing the national anthem being played after they’ve won the medals is really cool.”Of all the events, women’s gymnastics is projected to be the most popular with American viewers. Zeta Global predicted 33% of the people interested in the Olympics would be focusing on that competition.Ashley Umberger, owner and head coach at North Stars Gymnastics Academy in Boonton, New Jersey, said she thought the U.S. women’s team “is going to be the one to watch” as Americans tune in to watch Simone Biles, the top-ranked female gymnast, “who is really breaking barriers.”
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In this edition of Straight Talk Africa, host Haydé Adams looks at Africa’s urban development.
She is joined by Wandile Mthiyane, architect and CEO of Ubuntu Design Group, Emana Nsikan-George, climate researcher and sustainability practitioner on climate actions, Christian Benimana, managing director of MASS Design Group and Johnny Miller, photographer of Unequal Scenes.
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In this edition of Straight Talk Africa, host Haydé Adams looks at Africa’s urban development.
She is joined by Wandile Mthiyane, architect and CEO of Ubuntu Design Group, Emana Nsikan-George, climate researcher and sustainability practitioner on climate actions, Christian Benimana, managing director of MASS Design Group and Johnny Miller, photographer of Unequal Scenes.
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Pfizer and BioNTech have reached an agreement with a South African company to produce their COVID-19 vaccine for distribution in Africa, the biotechnology companies said Wednesday.The Biovac Institute in Cape Town will manufacture 100 million doses of the vaccine annually starting in 2022. The company will mix vaccine ingredients it receives from Europe, place them in vials and package them for distribution to the 54 countries in Africa.The agreement may eventually help alleviate vaccine shortages on a continent where the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says less than 2% of its population of 1.3 billion has received at least one dose. Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said the company’s goal is to provide people throughout Africa with the vaccine, a departure from previous bilateral agreements that saw most doses being sold to wealthy countries.The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is already being manufactured in South Africa in a similar “fill and finish” process that has the capacity to produce more than 200 million doses annually. The vaccines are also being distributed across the African continent.
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In Armenia, there is no shortage of COVID-19 vaccines in part because of vaccination hesitancy across the region. While in neighboring Iran, the lack of vaccines has led to long waiting periods for those who want to get inoculated. Now, Armenia is now offering Iranians a chance to get a shot for free. Shake Avoyan has the story narrated by Anna Rice.
Camera: Shake Avoyan
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Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan has moved away from her predecessor’s pandemic denial to urge social distancing, handwashing and mask-wearing. But as the third wave of coronavirus sweeps across Africa, it seems the measures are being ignored by most of the public. Charles Kombe reports from Dar es Salaam.Camera: Rajabu Hassan
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Brisbane was picked Wednesday to host the 2032 Olympics, the inevitable winner of a one-city race steered by the IOC to avoid rival bids.The Games will go back to Australia 32 years after the popular 2000 Sydney Olympics. Melbourne hosted in 1956.“We know what it takes to deliver a successful Games in Australia,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison told International Olympic Committee voters in an 11-minute live video link from his office.When the award was later confirmed, winning the vote 72-5, Morrison raised both arms in the air and gave two thumbs up.The victory led to a fireworks display in Brisbane that was broadcast to IOC members in their five-star hotel in Tokyo.Brisbane follows 2028 host Los Angeles in getting 11 years to prepare for hosting the Games. Paris will host in 2024.The 2032 deal looked done months before the formal decision at the IOC meeting, which was held ahead of Friday’s opening ceremony of the Tokyo Games.The IOC gave Brisbane exclusive negotiating rights in February. That decision left Olympic officials in Qatar, Hungary and Germany looking blindsided with their own stalled bidding plans.Though the result was expected, a high-level Australian delegation went to Tokyo amid the COVID-19 pandemic to present speeches, films and promises on stage.The city of Brisbane sent Mayor Adrian Schrinner, the state of Queensland sent Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Australia’s federal government sent sports minister Richard Colbeck to woo Olympic voters.They were joined by long-time Australian Olympic official John Coates, now an IOC vice president who shaped the fast-track selection process two years ago.The first-time format, designed to cut campaign costs, gives the IOC more control and removes the risk of vote-buying.The project will see events staged across Queensland, including in Gold Coast, which hosted the 2018 Commonwealth Games.Brisbane’s renowned cricket stadium, known as the Gabba, will be upgraded and may host the sport at the Games. Cricket was played once at the Olympics, at the 1900 Paris Games.The next three Summer Games hosts — starting with Paris in 2024 — are now secured in wealthy and traditional Olympic host nations without any of the trio facing a contested vote.The IOC and its hands-on president, Thomas Bach, have torn up the template of traditional bidding campaigns and hosting votes to lock down preferred cities with the minimum risk.The future hosts offer stability for the IOC, which was stung by the two previous Summer Games contests being tainted by allegations of vote-buying when multiple cities were on the ballot.The 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics and the postponed 2020 Tokyo Olympics are still under investigation by French prosecutors. They have implicated officials who then lost their place in the IOC family as active or honorary members.A low-risk future beckons for the IOC following the often-troubled Tokyo Olympics and the 2022 Beijing Winter Games in February, which will throw scrutiny on China’s human rights record. Key partners have also been secured through 2032. The IOC’s signature broadcasting deal with NBC and top-tier sponsors Coca-Cola, Visa and Omega are tied down for the decade ahead.
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Since the last Summer Olympics in 2016, a global Black Lives Matter protest movement has resurfaced. The “Me Too” movement sprung up in support of women’s rights. And both may influence the Tokyo Games, which are expected to be a major platform for athlete activism.Several high-profile athletes competing at the Games have been at the forefront of progressive causes in their own countries and may make political statements in Tokyo, despite the International Olympic Committee threatening to punish those who speak out.“The more there are vibrant social movements in the streets, the better chances that we will see activism on the Olympic stage,” said Jules Boykoff, a former Olympic soccer player and author of four books on the Olympics. “I think we have a perfect storm, if you will, for an outburst of athlete activism.”Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
FILE – In this Oct. 16, 1968 file photo, U.S. athletes Tommie Smith, center, and John Carlos raise their gloved fists after Smith received the gold and Carlos the bronze for the 200 meter run at the Summer Olympic Games in Mexico City.ContradictionsSmith and Carlos are now widely viewed as icons for their salute. Even the IOC website FILE – Players take a knee before a Euro 2020 soccer championship quarterfinal match between Belgium and Italy at the Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany, July 2, 2021.The newly relaxed Rule 50 is vague about punishment. It’s not clear to what extent it will be enforced.Separately, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee announced late last year it would no longer punish U.S. athletes who conduct peaceful protests, such as kneeling or raising a fist.Protests already startingOn Wednesday, the first day of competition in Tokyo, players from at least four women’s soccer teams – the United States, Sweden, Chile and Britain – knelt before play. Others are expected to follow.Professional U.S. athletes — most prominently basketball players but also others — have attended anti-racism protests and worn Black Lives Matter gear before and during games.U.S. soccer star Megan Rapinoe has also been outspoken for equal pay for women.United States’ Megan Rapinoe gives the victory sign before a women’s soccer match against Sweden at the 2020 Summer Olympics, July 21, 2021, in Tokyo.The British women’s football team has already announced it will take a knee before its matches to protest racism and discrimination.Conservatives, including most notably former U.S. President Donald Trump, often criticize activist athletes, saying players should stick to sports. But even Trump has embraced players who support him and who defend conservative ideals.Intertwined with politics“In reality, there has never been a separation of sport and politics,” said Heather Dichter, a professor of sports history at Britain’s De Montfort University. That’s especially the case with the Olympics, which is full of national flags, symbols, and anthems, Dichter said. “This is the world’s biggest platform,” she added.The ‘No Fun’ Olympics May Struggle to Attract Viewers Organizers hope new tech can spur online fan interaction But not every athlete will feel comfortable speaking out. Wealthier players who receive large salaries from their professional careers may be more likely to risk punishment by speaking their minds.“If you’re an athlete from a lesser-known sport who might get kicked off the team and have their career ended by standing up for politics and lose all your sponsorships, which are the only thing that can keep you going as an athlete, you might be less inclined to speak out,” Boykoff said. Since there is an abundance of professional athletes competing in the Games this year, it’s just more reason to expect protests.“It actually opens the door to the possibility that these athletes might speak out,” he said. “After all, the Olympics need these athletes more than these athletes need the Olympics.”VOA’s Jesusemen Oni contributed to this report.
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U.S. first lady Jill Biden heads to Alaska Wednesday on the first stop of a trip that will see her lead the official U.S. delegation at the Olympics in Tokyo. In Alaska, Biden is scheduled to tour a medical center and call attention to the need for access to health care in rural areas. The White House said Biden will also encourage people to get vaccinated against COVID-19. At the Games in Tokyo, Biden is scheduled to attend Friday’s opening ceremony. Joining her in the U.S. delegation is Raymond Greene, the chargé d’affaires and interim at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo. “Our team will be following very strict safety and health protocols, limiting engagement with the public, keeping our footprint as small as possible,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Tuesday. “Our COVID team at the White House, as well as health officials at the IOC (International Olympic Committee) and the government of Japan, all agree that the stringent protocols and health measures in place will help keep our delegation safe.”
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The Japanese women’s softball team posted an 8-1 rout of Australia Wednesday to usher in the Tokyo Olympic Games. The Games, delayed for a year by the pandemic, got off to a quiet start when Japanese pitcher Yukiko Ueno tossed the first pitch to Australian leadoff hitter Michelle Cox at a near-empty stadium in the northwest city of Fukushima, the site of the 2011 nuclear disaster. Australia took a 1-0 lead in the first inning after Ueno walked a batter and hit the next two, allowing Cox to score. But the host country quickly rebounded, tying the game in the same inning, then scoring two runs in the third and three more in the fourth. The game ended after Yu Yamamoto hit a two-run homer in the fifth inning that prompted the umpires to invoke the mercy rule. The Japan-Australia contest was the first of three games scheduled for Wednesday. The United States beat Italy 2-0 in the second game, with 38-year-old Cat Osterman, who won gold with the U.S. team in 2004 and silver in 2008, striking out nine batters while giving up just one hit over six innings. Mexico and Canada were slated for the third game at Fukushima Azuma Baseball Stadium. The first women’s soccer matches are scheduled to be held Wednesday in Tokyo. The Tokyo Olympics are being staged under a coronavirus state of emergency prompted by rising rates of new COVID-19 infections and low rates of vaccinations. So far, at least 70 people connected to the Games have tested positive for COVID-19 since athletes began arriving at the Olympic Village in Tokyo. Olympic organizers have banned fans from attending any of the events because of the current surge of new infections. Mexico’s national baseball team has been placed in quarantine in Mexico City after two players tested positive for COVID-19 before they were scheduled to travel to Japan. Meanwhile, an administrative error has caused six members of the Polish swim team to leave Tokyo and return home. A delegation of 23 swimmers arrived in Tokyo to take part in the Games, but the Polish Swimming Federation (PZP) recalled six of them home Sunday because of an administrative error. All six swimmers issued a statement calling on the entire organization’s board to resign immediately. PZP director Pawel Slominski issued a statement Monday expressing his “great regret, sadness and bitterness about the situation.” Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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Myanmar’s military rulers are again seeking to replace the country’s ambassador to the United Nations, who opposed their February 1 ouster of civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and takeover of the government.
Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin says in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that he has appointed Aung Thurein, who left the military this year after 26 years, as Myanmar’s U.N. ambassador. A copy of the letter was obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.
Lwin said in an accompanying letter that Kyaw Moe Tun, Myanmar’s currently recognized U.N. ambassador, “has been terminated on Feb. 27, 2021, due to abuses of his assigned duty and mandate.”
In a dramatic speech to a General Assembly meeting on Myanmar on February 26 — weeks after the military takeover — Tun appealed for “the strongest possible action from the international community” to restore democracy to the country. He also urged all countries to strongly condemn the coup, refuse to recognize the military regime, and ask the military leaders to respect the November 2020 elections won by Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party.
“We will continue to fight for a government which is of the people, by the people, for the people,” Tun said in a speech that drew loud applause from diplomats in the assembly chamber who called it powerful, brave and courageous.
The military’s previous attempt to oust Tun failed and there has been no reported action on the foreign minister’s letter, which is dated May 12.
The 193-member General Assembly is in charge of accrediting diplomats. A request for accreditation must first go to its nine-member credentials committee, which this year is made up of Cameroon, China, Iceland, Papua New Guinea, Russia, Trinidad and Tobago, Tanzania, United States and Uruguay.
U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said that as far as he understands, no meeting of the credentials committee has been scheduled.
In June, the U.N. said the secretary-general indicated that the results of the November election that gave a strong second mandate to Suu Kyi’s party must be upheld.
The London-based Myanmar Accountability Project condemned the military’s attempts to replace Tun as well as Myanmar’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, Kyaw Zwar Minn, who also remains loyal to Suu Kyi. The Guardian newspaper reported in April that Minn remains in limbo after being locked out of the London embassy by his deputy and the country’s military attaché.
The Guardian quoted Minn as saying his friends and relatives in Myanmar had been forced into hiding and he did not feel safe in the ambassador’s residence, which he still occupied at the time.
The Myanmar Accountability Project’s director, Chris Gunness, said the military is seeking to replace Minn with former fighter pilot Htun Aung Kyaw.
Both Thurein and Kyaw have strong military backgrounds that “make ugly reading,” Gunness said, adding that Thurein’s remaining in the military until 2021 strongly suggests he served during the February 1 military takeover and the crackdown afterward.
He called it “an affront to the world body” that the military is seeking to send to the U.N. “a man with such strong connections to an institution with blood on its hands and which stood accused of genocide in The Hague even before the coup.”
A U.N.-established investigation has recommended the prosecution of Myanmar’s top military commanders on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for the 2017 military crackdown on Rohingya Muslims that forced 700,000 to flee to neighboring Bangladesh.
In January 2020, the United Nations’ top court based in The Hague, Netherlands, ordered Myanmar to do all it can to prevent genocide against the Rohingya still in Myanmar. The ruling by the International Court of Justice came despite appeals by Suu Kyi for the judges to drop the case amid her denials of genocide by the armed forces.
Gunness said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other leaders have condemned the coup and the U.K. and its allies have imposed sanctions on Myanmar’s military leaders and their commercial interests. He said it would be “a gross double standard and a moral outrage” for the government to accredit Kyaw, saying he doesn’t represent the legitimate government and “served in an army that stands accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
He also urged Britain to use its influence at the U.N. to ensure that the credentials committee doesn’t accredit Thurein.
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Canada’s western province of British Columbia declared a state of emergency Tuesday, with wildfires expected to grow even larger in the coming days due to high heat and winds. “We have reached a critical point,” said provincial public safety minister Mike Farnworth. “Based on the advice of emergency management and wildfire officials, and my briefing last night on the worsening weather, I am declaring a provincial state of emergency.” The decision empowers officials to organize mass-scale evacuations and to provide emergency accommodation for evacuees, he added. Some 5,700 people were under evacuation orders in the province Tuesday — more than double the previous day’s tally, as the threatened region grew in size. Around 32,000 more residents have been placed on alert. “Please have an evacuation plan ready for your family,” said Cliff Chapman, the director of operations for British Columbia’s wildfire service. “From working in this branch for 20 years, I would be taking my family out if I was on an evacuation order today.” Fires have been ravaging western Canada and the U.S. West Coast for several weeks following a scorching heat wave in late June that experts have tied to climate change. Chapman said around 1,200 square miles (3,000 square kilometers) has already gone up in smoke in British Columbia — more than three times higher than the average area typically burnt by this point in the year. The province has nearly 300 active wildfires, spurred by hot, dry weather that is expected to continue in the coming days, in addition to rising winds that may spread the flames. The interior and southwest of British Columbia, including part of its border with the United States, are particularly affected. More than 3,000 firefighters are currently battling blazes across the province. In the United States, more than 80 large fires are burning, the biggest of which is in the Pacific Northwest state of Oregon. The Bootleg Fire has scorched almost 390,000 acres — an area bigger than Los Angeles. “Fighting this fire is a marathon, not a sprint,” Rob Allen, the incident commander for firefighters in the zone, said in a statement Tuesday. “We’re in this for as long as it takes to safely confine this monster.” Smoke has reached as far afield as the eastern United States and Canada, parts of which were shrouded in a gray smoky haze Tuesday. New York state’s environmental protection services issued an air quality advisory.
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At least 12 people are dead in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou after massive floods triggered by several days of heavy rains. The rains washed out streets throughout the capital of Henan province, forcing stranded motorists to wade through waist-deep waters that submerged cars and even sent them floating away. The floods also washed out Zhengzhou’s subway system, with riders posting videos on social media awaiting rescue in waist-high muddy waters. A passenger named Xiaopei posted on Weibo that “the water in the carriage has reached (their) chest.” Dozens of reservoirs and dams have reached critical levels, with local authorities warning that the Yihetan dam in the nearby city of Luoyang had sustained a 20-meter breach and was on the verge of imminent collapse. Authorities have evacuated 100,000 residents to safe zones. Henan province, home to about 94 million people, has experienced severe rains through the past week. Forecasters say Zhengzhou received as much rainfall in three days as it normally gets in a year. A representative of the city of Xu Liyi, a member of the Standing Committee of Henan Provincial Party Committee, and secretary of the Zhengzhou Municipal Party Committee said the high levels of rainfall were unusual. Extreme weather events have surged this summer in China, with recent flooding in Sichuan province killing hundreds of citizens and forcing thousands to evacuate the area. Officials of Greenpeace International, an environmental group, warn that China’s rapid urbanization will increase the frequency of climate disasters. Speaking to the Chinese media, Liu Junyan of Greenpeace said, “because of the highly concentrated population, infrastructure and economic activity, the exposure and vulnerability of climate hazards are higher in urban areas.” This report contains information from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Space company Blue Origin and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos rocketed to space Tuesday, with the world’s oldest and youngest people to ever fly in space in tow. Bezos’ flight follows last week’s suborbital jaunt by Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson. The two billionaires are further ushering in an era of space tourism and exploration. VOA’s Laurel Bowman has our story.
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Fighting in Afghanistan temporarily subsided Tuesday on the first day of the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, as Taliban insurgents said they were observing an unannounced cease-fire to enable Afghans to peacefully participate in the festivities.
While there were no reports of battlefield clashes between Afghan government forces and the Taliban across the country, a rocket attack shattered the capital, Kabul, during early morning prayers, which mark the opening of the three-day Eid celebrations.
The Afghan interior ministry said at least three rockets landed near the presidential palace, where President Ashraf Ghani was offering Eid prayers, along with top government officials. But TV images showed Ghani and most of other worshippers continued praying at the outdoor gathering. No casualties were reported.
The Islamic State’s regional affiliate, known as IS Khorasan Province, claimed responsibility for the attack.
The Taliban have regularly called Eid truces with Afghan security forces since mid-2018, but the insurgent group made no such official announcement for this week’s festivities.
“Every year there is a de facto Eid cease-fire from our side to enable our nation to peacefully and comfortably attend the festivities,” Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen told VOA when asked why his group this time did not declare a truce.
“Sometimes we officially announce it and sometimes we don’t. But even when we don’t declare a cease-fire on Eid, practically it is in place,” Shaheen explained.
The Afghan private TOLOnews TV channel said there were no reports of Taliban attacks or clashes in contested districts between the government forces and the insurgents.
“The cessation of fighting allowed Afghans to celebrate the beginning of the holiday with calm,” the network reported.
Insecurity has worsened in Afghanistan as the withdrawal of the United-States-led foreign troops is progressing ahead of scheduled and it should conclude by the end of next month.
The drawdown process is more than 95% complete, but it has encouraged the Taliban to step up attacks and overrun a growing number of Afghan districts as well as key border crossings the landlocked nation has with neighboring countries.
The U.S.-brokered peace talks between the Taliban and Afghan government representatives have not produced any significant outcome.
Top leaders from the two sides met in Doha, Qatar, last week and agreed to accelerate the peace process but did not report any major breakthrough.
Shaheen reiterated Tuesday that the Taliban do not intend to militarily seize power in Afghanistan and want to negotiate a peace arrangement with rival Afghans to end the war.
But Ghani and foreign critics are skeptical of the insurgent pledges.
“We have the resolve for peace, and we are ready to sacrifice for it. But they (Taliban) have no intention, nor they desire peace,” Ghani said in his nationally televised speech following the morning prayers for Eid.
On Monday, foreign diplomatic missions in Kabul also collectively called for the Taliban to urgently cease military offensives, saying they run counter to claims the insurgent group wants a negotiated settlement to the war.
“We continue to call for an accelerated path to a political settlement and an end to the violence,” U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters in Washington on Tuesday.
“What we have been consistent in saying is that the people of Afghanistan are united in their desire for a just and for a lasting peace, and that is what the diplomacy we are supporting and much of the international community is supporting is geared to effect.”
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Ecologists in a vast region of wetlands and forest in remote Oregon have spent the past decade thinning young trees and using planned fires to try to restore the thick stands of ponderosa to a less fire-prone state. This week, the nation’s biggest burning wildfire provided them with an unexpected, real-world experiment. As the massive inferno half the size of Rhode Island roared into the Sycan Marsh Preserve, firefighters said the flames jumped less from treetop to treetop and instead returned to the ground, where they were easier to fight, moved more slowly and did less damage to the overall forest. The initial assessment suggests that the many years of forest treatments worked, said Pete Caligiuri, Oregon forest program director for The Nature Conservancy, which runs the research at the preserve. “Generally speaking, what firefighters were reporting on the ground is that when the fire came into those areas that had been thinned … it had significantly less impact.” FILE – The Bootleg Fire burns at night near Highway 34 in southern Oregon, July 15, 2021, in this photo provided by the Bootleg Fire Incident Command.The reports were bittersweet for researchers, who still saw nearly 51.7 square kilometers of the preserve burn, but the findings add to a growing body of research about how to make wildfires less explosive by thinning undergrowth and allowing forests to burn periodically — as they naturally would do — instead of snuffing out every flame. The Bootleg Fire, now 1,569 square kilometers in size, has ravaged southern Oregon and is the fourth-largest fire in the state’s modern history. It’s been expanding by up to 6 kilometers a day, pushed by gusting winds and critically dry weather that’s turned trees and undergrowth into a tinderbox. Fire crews have had to retreat from the flames for 10 consecutive days as fireballs jump from treetop to treetop, trees explode, embers fly ahead of the fire to start new blazes, and in some cases, the inferno’s heat creates its own weather of shifting winds and dry lightning. Monstrous clouds of smoke and ash have risen up to 9.6 kilometers into the sky and are visible for more than 185.2 kilometers. The fire in the Fremont-Winema National Forest merged with a smaller nearby blaze Tuesday, and it has repeatedly breached a perimeter of treeless dirt and fire retardant meant to stop its advance. More evacuations were ordered Monday night, and a red flag weather warning signifying dangerous fire conditions was in effect through Tuesday. The fire is 30% contained. “We’re in this for as long as it takes to safely confine this monster,” Incident Commander Rob Allen said Tuesday. At least 2,000 homes have been evacuated at some point during the fire and another 5,000 threatened. At least 70 homes and more than 100 outbuildings have gone up in flames. Thick smoke chokes the area where residents and wildlife alike have already been dealing with months of drought and extreme heat. No one has died. FILE – The Bootleg Fire is seen smoldering in southern Oregon, July 17, 2021, in this photo provided by the Bootleg Fire Incident Command.The Bootleg Fire was one of many fires burning in a dozen states, most of them in the West. Sixteen large uncontained fires burned in Oregon and Washington state alone on Monday. Historically, wildfires in Oregon and elsewhere in the U.S. West burned an area as big or bigger than the current blaze more frequently but much less explosively. Periodic, naturally occurring fire cleared out the undergrowth and smaller trees that cause today’s fires to burn so dangerously. Those fires have not been allowed to burn for the past 120 years, said James Johnston, a researcher with Oregon State University’s College of Forestry who studies historical wildfires. The area on the northeastern flank of the Bootleg Fire is in the ancestral homeland of the Klamath Tribes, which have used intentional, managed fire to keep the fuel load low and prevent such explosive blazes. Scientists at the Sycan Marsh research station now work with the tribe and draw on that knowledge. Climate change is the catalyst for the worsening wildfire seasons in the West, Johnston said, but poor forest management and a policy of decades of fire suppression have made a bad situation even worse. “My colleagues and I have been predicting a massive fire in that area for years. It’s an area that’s exceptionally prone to catastrophic fire,” said Johnston, who is not affiliated with Sycan Marsh. “It’s dry. It’s fire-prone and always has been. But what’s changed over the past 100 years is an extraordinary amount of fuel buildup.” Other firesElsewhere, fire crews were engaged in other daunting battles. In Northern California, authorities expanded evacuations for the Tamarack Fire in Alpine County in the Sierra Nevada to include the mountain town of Mesa Vista late Monday. That fire, which exploded over the weekend was 158 square kilometers with no containment. On the western side of the Sierra, the Dixie Fire has scorched 163 square kilometers, threatening tiny communities in the Feather River Valley region. Meteorologist Julia Ruthford told a briefing that a surge of monsoonal moisture from the Southwest increased atmospheric instability Sunday and Monday, creating plumes topping 9.6 kilometers — so big that the fire generated a thunderstorm over itself, hurling lightning bolts and whipping up gusty winds. For the past two days in Oregon, the fire has danced around Sycan Marsh, where researchers raced to protect buildings with sprinklers and fire lines. The 121.7 square kilometer habitat attracts migrating and nesting birds and offers a unique location to research forest and fire ecology. The nonprofit operates its own fire engines and maintains federal firefighting certification. It now has three of its own engines and seven firefighters on the blaze, and more people are arriving from North Carolina and Florida to try to save the preserve. “It’s an amazing place,” Caligiuri said. “It’s very hard to watch it all happening, and seeing all of that work being threatened by this fire is a lot to process.”
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The delta variant of the coronavirus now accounts for 83% of new cases in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. During the week of July 3, the variant accounted for 50% of new cases. “The best way to prevent the spread of COVID-19 variants is to prevent the spread of disease, and vaccination is the most powerful tool we have,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said during a U.S. Senate hearing Tuesday. The delta variant, which was first detected in India, reportedly spreads more easily than other iterations of the COVID-19 virus. Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department is urging Americans not to travel to Britain because of the rising levels of new COVID-19 cases there. The State Department raised its travel advisory for Britain to its highest level on Monday, following a similar action taken by the CDC earlier in the day. A Yeoman Warder, Barney Chandler gestures as he leads the first ‘Beefeater’ tour of the Tower of London in 16 months, at the Tower of London, July 19, 2021.Both agencies said if people must travel to Britain to make sure they are fully vaccinated before their journey. The revised advisories were issued as the British people celebrated “Freedom Day,” the official end of nearly all coronavirus lockdown restrictions, including mandatory mask wearing and social distancing. FILE – People drink shortly after the reopening at The Piano Works in Farringdon, in London, July 19, 20.But Prime Minister Boris Johnson likely cast a pall over the celebration when he announced that proof of vaccination will be required to enter nightclubs and other venues where large crowds gather beginning at the end of September. Johnson spent Freedom Day in quarantine after Britain’s health minister Sajid Javid tested positive for COVID-19. Cases in Britain topped 50,000 per day last week for the first time since January. The surge is largely driven by the delta variant of the virus, first identified in India. US-Canada borderOn the other side of the Atlantic, the Canadian government announced Monday that it would reopen its border to U.S. citizens and permanent residents living in the United States beginning August 9, as long as they show proof they are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and tested negative for the virus within 72 hours of arrival. Officials also said it will allow fully vaccinated visitors from other countries beginning September 7. FILE – Two closed Canadian border checkpoints are seen at the US-Canada border crossing at the Thousand Islands Bridge in Lansdowne, Canada, March 19, 2020.Canada and the United States had agreed to ban all nonessential travel across their border in March 2020, with both nations extending the ban on a month-to-month basis. A growing number of U.S. lawmakers and business groups have been calling on Ottawa to lift the ban, which they say has hurt tourism and negatively impacted families with relatives living on either side of the border. Lockdown in AustraliaMeanwhile, more than half of Australia’s 25 million citizens are under coronavirus lockdown measures Tuesday after South Australia state Premier Steven Marshall announced an immediate seven-day lockdown after five new cases were detected there.South Australia joins the neighboring states of Victoria and New South Wales to impose extended lockdowns since late June, when an airport limousine driver in Sydney, the capital of New South Wales, tested positive for the highly contagious delta variant after transporting international air crews. People wait outside a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccination centre at Sydney Olympic Park in Sydney, Australia, July 14, 2021.The new lockdown in South Australia came as Victoria state Premier Daniel Andrews extended a five-day lockdown imposed just last Thursday for at least another seven days after reporting 13 new local infections.New South Wales, which is in the fourth week of an extended lockdown, reported 78 new cases Tuesday, driving its total number of cases over 1,400 since the outbreak began. Australia has been largely successful in containing the spread of COVID-19 through aggressive lockdown efforts, posting just 32,120 total confirmed cases and 915 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.But it has proved vulnerable to fresh outbreaks due to a slow rollout of its vaccination campaign and confusing requirements involving the two-shot AstraZeneca vaccine, which is the dominant vaccine in its stockpile. Overall, Australia has administered over 10 million doses of vaccine to its population of more than 25 million people, or just over 11%, according to Johns Hopkins. And a new study released Tuesday by the U.S.-based Center for Global Development says India’s total death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic could be as much as 10 times higher than its official tally of 414,482 fatalities, likely making it the worst humanitarian disaster for the South Asian nation since gaining its independence from Britain in 1947. The study says as many as 3 million to 4.7 million people were killed by the virus between January 2020 and June of this year. The world’s second-most populous nation, with an estimated 1.3 billion people, is emerging from a devastating surge between April and May that was partly fueled by the delta variant. Some information in this report comes from The Associated Press.
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