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Medical Workers Increasingly at Risk in Syria's Idlib
Rami Fares was carrying out his daily tasks as a medical worker at a local hospital in a rebel-held town near Idlib city in northwest Syria when several airstrikes and missiles hit the town.
As he was trying to call his family to make sure they survived the deadly raid, Fares' workplace, Kafr Nabl Surgical Hospital, was targeted as well.
"Airstrikes hitting the hospital lasted for about an hour," Fares, 30, told VOA, recalling the June attack, reportedly carried out by Syrian government warplanes on the town of Kafr Nabl, 50 kilometers south of Idlib.
"The hardest strike was when a barrel bomb hit the entrance of the hospital and the pressure of the explosion threw me to the floor. We had to evacuate the hospital that day," he said.
Because the hospital had been built underground to protect patients from heavy bombings, no one was killed in that attack.
Years of deadly conflict in the country has led Syrians to build structures that are able to withstand the constant shelling. That has led underground shelters and hideouts to become common throughout the country.
Fares said his family was also lucky to be in one of the nearby underground shelters when the bombing struck their home. Unsettled by the attack, he sent his wife and two sons to Turkey.
Syrian regime forces and Russian warplanes have been pounding Kafr Nabl and other towns in Idlib governorate since late 2015, claiming they are going after Islamist militants affiliated with al-Qaida.
Rights organizations, however, say civilian targets have been greatly affected, with airstrikes often targeting medical facilities and health workers.
According to UNICEF, there have been 25 confirmed attacks on health care facilities in Idlib since late April that have left at least six health workers dead.
In Kafr Nabl alone, bombings in May put the Hikma and Kafr Nabl surgical hospitals out of service, limiting access to health care for about 64,000 children.
"These attacks compound an already dire health situation in the country, where close to half of all health facilities are either nonfunctional or partially functional," the U.N.'s children's organization said in a June statement.
Since the beginning of the Syrian conflict in 2011, more than 850 medical workers have been killed, according to the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS), a U.S.-based group that supports medical facilities in rebel-held areas in Syria.
And despite a unilateral cease-fire in Idlib that Russia announced two weeks ago, Syrian regime troops have continued targeting civilians there, local sources said.
Humanitarian deconfliction
In a bid to prevent attacks on health facilities and workers, the U.N. has set up a humanitarian deconfliction system, requiring nongovernmental organizations in the war-torn country to share the locations of the medical facilities with the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). OCHA, in turn, shares these locations with the warring sides, particularly those with air power.
Activists, however, say the system has proven ineffective as scores of medical facilities whose locations had already been given to the OCHA were subject to Syrian and Russian airstrikes.
"We provided the coordinates of the Kafr Nabl hospital to a U.N. committee to document its location and [those of other] health facilities in Idlib," said medical worker Fares. "One week later, we were surprised that the hospital and other medical facilities were attacked."
Documented attacks
New York-based Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) said it has confirmed 578 attacks on 350 separate facilities and documented the killing of 890 medical personnel from March 2011 to July 2019 across Syria.
Susannah Sirkin, director of policy at PHR, said that Russia's representative at the U.N. did not deny the attacks on medical facilities in Syria in a Security Council session in late July. Russia, however, insists that it targets "terrorist" groups who use medical facilities as hideouts.
"Russia also claimed that the targeted health facilities are not functioning ones, which contradicts the representative of OCHA, Mark Lowcock, who confirmed that they are functioning health facilities and they are supported by the U.N.," Sirkin said.
'Scorched-earth assault'
Syria is one of the signatory states to the Geneva Conventions, which prevent warring parties from attacking people, including aid workers, who are not part of the conflict.
Sirkin said her group has documented attacks by all parties in Syria, but the Russian and Syrian regime's warplanes carry out nearly 90 percent of those attacks.
"It is part of a scorched-earth assault to destroy civilian infrastructure and anything in its way. The Syrian regime is obliterating civilian infrastructure," Sirkin said.
According the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), an estimated 4 million people in northwestern Syria need medical assistance, even as attacks on medical facilities continue to deprive people from getting lifesaving care.
"This pattern of continued forced displacement, and damage or destruction of essential civilian infrastructure such as health facilities, is a deeply disturbing reality in the Syrian conflict," HRW said in a report published this month.
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Watters on de Blasio's 2020 exit: 'He can go back to dropping groundhogs' "The Five" co-hosts Jesse Watters and Greg Gutfeld blasted New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio amid news that he was exiting the 2020 presidential race and returning to his position in the Big Apple.
September 21, 2019 at 08:07AM
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US, El Salvador to Sign Asylum Deal
The United States planned to sign an agreement Friday to help make one of Central America's most violent countries, El Salvador, a haven for migrants seeking asylum, according to a senior Trump administration official.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan would sign a ``cooperative asylum agreement.''
Two other officials described the agreement as a first step in the governments' working together on asylum. Details of the agreement will be settled in the weeks ahead, they said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity.
The agreement could be struck despite the fact that many Salvadorans are fleeing their nation and seeking asylum in the United States. A Salvadoran delegation has been in the U.S. this week discussing the matter.
Remain-in-Mexico policy
The asylum agreement would be the latest effort by President Donald Trump's administration to force asylum-seekers in Central America to seek refuge outside the United States. Immigration officials also are forcing more than 42,000 people to remain in Mexico as their cases play out, and they have changed policy to deny asylum to anyone who transited through a third country en route to the southern border of the U.S.
The agreement would be another step by the Trump administration aimed at stopping the flow of migrants into the United States. McAleenan also signed a "safe third country" agreement with Guatemala, but officials in that country are still working out how it would be implemented.
The arrangement with El Salvador was not described as a ``safe third country'' agreement, under which nations agree that their respective countries are safe enough and have robust enough asylum systems, so that if migrants transit through one of the countries they must remain there instead of moving on to another country.
The U.S. officially has only one such agreement in place, with Canada, but has been working toward others in Honduras and agreed to the one in Guatemala that has not yet been implemented.
The Trump administration this year threatened to withhold all federal assistance to three Central American countries unless they did more to stem the migrant flow. Congress resisted the move, as experts had said that the cuts would most likely only exacerbate the number of migrants seeking to make the hazardous journey to the U.S. because of a further lack of resources.
In June, the State Department announced that the Trump administration was reversing some of the cuts but would not approve future aid to those nations. The State Department said then that $370 million from the 2018 budget would not be spent and instead would be moved to other projects.
Dangerous place
Gang-plagued El Salvador is among the world's deadliest countries, with one of the highest homicide rates on the globe.
According to a 2018 State Department report, human rights issues included allegations of ``unlawful killings of suspected gang members and others by security forces; forced disappearances by military personnel; torture by security forces; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention; lack of government respect for judicial independence.''
Many people who flee from El Salvador have said they and their families were threatened by gang members. Teenagers often are pressured to join gangs and have had their lives and their families threatened if they refuse. Some young women are forced to become the girlfriends of gang members, facing rape or murder if they refuse.
The two main street gangs in El Salvador are MS-13 and the 18th Street gang, both of which trace their origins to Los Angeles, where many Salvadorans sought refuge during their country's civil war. Gang members arrested for crimes in the U.S. were deported back to El Salvador, taking their knowledge of gang culture with them. Trump frequently seizes on MS-13, also known as Mara Salvatrucha, as a reason to tighten U.S. immigration policy.
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US-Iranian Tensions Threaten to Overshadow UN General Assembly
As world leaders prepare to gather for their annual meetings at the U.N. General Assembly, heightened tensions between the United States and Iran threaten to overshadow a summit on global warming.
"Let's face it, we have no time to lose. We are losing the race against climate change," U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres told reporters Wednesday. "The imperative to act could not be more clear, and this is exactly why I am convening the Climate Action Summit."
The summit will take place Monday, and more than 100 heads of state and government are expected to attend. Only those who bring dynamic and concrete plans to mitigate the effects of global warming will be invited to speak.
Guterres, who has made slowing climate change his signature issue, said he expects a number of "meaningful plans" for drastically reducing emissions during the next decade and for reaching carbon neutrality by 2050.
"We will showcase promising initiatives aiming at moving away from coal, putting a price on carbon, stopping subsidies for fossil fuels, and cutting the pollution that damages our health," he said. "And we will highlight the importance of scaling up nature-based solutions, creating cleaner ways in the way we work and societies function, building resilience, protecting people, mobilizing finance and promoting decent jobs for a just transition."
The U.N. wants to accelerate action on the 2015 Paris climate accord, which aims to limit the Earth's temperature rise this century to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Experts warn that the Paris commitments are inadequate to avoid the worst impacts of climate change and more ambitious action needs to happen.
Current evidence
"We're seeing that actually, I think, on the ground in real time," said David Waskow, director of the International Climate Initiative at the World Resources Institute. "We have floods, we have major weather events, we have droughts that are showing us what's happening."
While most of the world is on board — 195 countries have signed the Paris Agreement and 186 have ratified it — one of the world's biggest emitters, the United States, announced under President Donald Trump that it would leave the pact. The U.S. decision has not stopped climate action at the state, local and private sector levels.
On Friday, youth climate activists held "strikes" in cities and towns across the globe demanding bolder action from adults. Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, 16, joined youth strikers in New York City, where she will be attending a youth climate summit Saturday at the United Nations.
"The best leadership I've seen so far is actually coming from young people," Deputy U.N. Secretary-General Amina Mohammed told reporters this week. "The future is going to be very different. It will be about them, and they've started now and not tomorrow."
Saudi Arabia attacked
But this collective push for more climate action risks being overshadowed by the latest geopolitical crisis in the Middle East.
On Sept. 14, Saudi Arabia's two most important oil installations were attacked, threatening global oil supplies. Houthi rebels, whom the Saudis are fighting in neighboring Yemen, claimed responsibility. The United States believes their patron, Iran, was the perpetrator.
The attack has dashed growing expectations that there could be a meeting between Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on the margins of the General Assembly.
Interlocutors, including President Emmanuel Macron of France, had been working on it since the meeting of the Group of Seven major industrialized countries in Biarritz, France, in late August. Trump had repeatedly expressed interest in the possibility, and the firing of his hawkish national security adviser, John Bolton, appeared to eliminate a voice within the administration that would have been against a meeting.
But such an encounter always carried more political risk for the Iranian president than the American one, and the Iranians had said they would consider a meeting only if U.S. sanctions were lifted first.
"So if there is a meeting with President Trump in New York, and the Iranian president gets nothing in return, that photo opportunity might work well for President Trump in the United States for his base. But back in Iran, Rouhani will be attacked as somebody who was naive, who should have never shown up for that meeting, because they will say predictively, 'He's got nothing to show for it,' " said Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington.
What else to watch for
While these tensions are likely to garner much of the media spotlight, work will be going on out of the public eye in bilateral meetings, at working lunches and at side events to tackle an array of issues from development to health to myriad conflicts.
Trump is also hosting a session Monday morning on protecting religious freedom. Vice President Mike Pence will join him at the event the White House says aims to prevent attacks on people based on their religion or beliefs and ensure the sanctity of houses of worship.
Starting Tuesday, world leaders will take to the large marble podium in the General Assembly hall to talk about the issues that are most important to their governments and peoples.
One of the most anticipated statements will be from the U.S. president, who will speak Tuesday morning.
Trump is in campaign mode this year and he gave reporters a glimpse of where he might go in his speech:
"I'm going to say, 'The United States is the greatest country in the world. It's never been stronger and it's never been better, and they certainly have one of the great presidents in our history.' "
Last year, a similar line about his administration accomplishing more than almost any other administration in the history of the United States garnered laughter from the assembly.
Focus on North Korea expected
Richard Gowan, U.N. director for the International Crisis Group, told VOA that Trump is likely to focus a lot on what he sees as progress on the diplomatic front with North Korea.
"Trump likes to present himself as a peacemaker — he clearly isn't succeeding in that when it comes to dealing with Iran — so the Korean issue is the one that he will strongly emphasize," Gowan said.
North Korea is not sending its foreign minister to New York this year, making any new developments on that issue unlikely during the week.
Others to watch include the debut of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is deep into Brexit, and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a climate change skeptic. Brazil's Amazon rainforest has experienced devastating fires in recent months.
A late dropout from the lineup will be Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose political future is in limbo after a parliamentary election Tuesday did not hand him a clear victory.
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How Pompeo Took Charge of US Response to Attack on Saudi Oil Fields
As the world waited for the U.S. and Saudi Arabia to decide what to do next in response to last weekend's drone and missile attack on two major Saudi oil fields, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made the most bellicose statement yet on the attacks, unambiguously accusing Iran of launching them and declaring the attacks an "act of war."
Almost as soon as the attacks were reported, Pompeo, a former member of Congress and director of the CIA, asserted himself as the person driving the U.S. response. "Iran has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world's energy supply," he wrote on Twitter. "There is no evidence the attacks on Saturday came from Yemen."
Tehran is behind nearly 100 attacks on Saudi Arabia while Rouhani and Zarif pretend to engage in diplomacy. Amid all the calls for de-escalation, Iran has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world's energy supply. There is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen.
— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) September 14, 2019
The Houthis, a rebel group that controls much of Saudi Arabia's neighbor, Yemen, has claimed responsibility for the attack, calling it retaliation for years of bombing by the Saudi Air Force that has killed thousands of Yemenis and left others on the brink of starvation. U.S. and Saudi officials have denied that the Houthis could have carried out the attack, calling it far too sophisticated, and instead pointing the finger at Iran, which has been providing the Houthis with support.
In fact, there was little public evidence that pointed in either direction in the immediate aftermath of the attack, and the accusation of Iran put Pompeo far out front of President Trump, who as late as Tuesday was still reluctant to say definitively that Iran, not the Houthis, was responsible.
Although Trump had yet to reach a definitive conclusion about the source of the attacks or what to do about them, many interpreted Pompeo's "act of war" declaration while conferring with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to mean retaliation was imminent.
Already a dominant voice in the foreign policy apparatus of the Trump administration, Pompeo assumed a commanding role over the past 10 days, with the departure of former National Security Adviser John Bolton from the White House. This marked the culmination of nearly two years of chaos within the ranks of national security, intelligence and defense, when practically every one of Trump's original cabinet members and senior officials fell by the wayside. Pompeo has shown himself to be not only a master tactician but a political survivor, according to some analysts. Further strengthening Pompeo's position was the announcement Wednesday that Bolton's place would be taken by Robert C. O'Brien, a Pompeo protégé who has been serving under him as the State Department's chief hostage negotiator.
Warnings of "all-out war"
In an interview with CNN Thursday, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif repeated earlier denials by top officials of his country's involvement and said that a military strike by the United States or Saudi Arabia on Iran would lead to "all out war." While insisting that Iranian leaders "don't want to engage in a military confrontation," Zarif added, "But we won't blink to defend our territory."
On Thursday, as he prepared to leave the Middle East, Pompeo was asked about Zarif's comment, and painted Iran as the party moving the situation toward conflict.
"We'd like a peaceful resolution -- indeed, I think we've demonstrated that," he said. "They've taken down American UAVs, conducted the largest attack on the globe's energy in an awfully long time. And we're still striving to build out a coalition."
He described his trip as an "act of diplomacy" undertaken "while the foreign minister of Iran is threatening all out war to fight to the last American. We're here to build out a coalition aimed at achieving peace and a peaceful resolution to this. That's my mission set. That's what President Trump certainly wants me to work to achieve and hope that the Islamic Republic of Iran sees it the same way. There's, there's no there's no evidence of that from his statement."
Pompeo's first major diplomatic test
The crisis in the Middle East is the first major diplomatic test for Pompeo, who took over the State Department in April of last year, after Trump fired his predecessor, Rex Tillerson.
Under Tillerson, the State Department's influence in the administration was notably diminished. When he took office, Pompeo saw his role as restoring State to the center of the foreign policy establishment.
To all appearances, he has been very effective in doing so. Spoken of as the "Trump whisperer," Pompeo appears to have more influence over the president than any other member of the administration.
Experts believe his close relationship with Trump has helped restore the sense among Pompeo's foreign counterparts that the State Department truly speaks for the Trump administration.
"For any secretary of state the international community wants to know they reflect the views of the president," Kelly Magsamen, Vice President for National Security and International Policy, Center for American Progress said in an interview with Voice of America. "I think for the most part Secretary Pompeo does do that very well despite some of his own instincts."
A West Point graduate
Pompeo, an Army veteran who graduated first in his class at West Point in 1986, is a longtime national security hawk. After five years of service in the Army he earned a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School and eventually settled in Kansas, where he launched a company that manufactured aircraft parts.
Four years after selling his interest in the firm, he became deeply involved with politically active groups funded by the conservative Koch Brothers. Amid the Tea Party wave of 2010, he launched his first run for Congress, winning the right to represent the state's fourth district, and would go on to win re-election three times.
In Congress, he made a name for himself as a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence with controversial stands on issues including restoring the government's ability to conduct surveillance of American citizens and resuming the use of the torture technique known as waterboarding in the interrogation of suspected terrorists.
Pompeo was also an active member of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, and publicly broke from his colleagues who determined that there was no evidence of wrongdoing by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the aftermath of the attack on a US diplomatic compound in Libya in 2012.
It was reportedly his stance on Benghazi that drew the attention of President Trump, who tapped Pompeo to serve as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency in January of 2017. Pompeo won over many at the agency with his willingness to break with President Trump on some key issues, including Russia's malign interference with the U.S. election in 2016.
A tempting open Senate seat
The biggest question surrounding Pompeo's role in the administration is how long he intends to hold on to it.
Never far from the surface in discussions about Pompeo is the fact that there will be an open Senate seat in his home state of Kansas next year, due to the planned retirement of Sen. Pat Roberts. The former Kansas Secretary of State Ken Kobach is currently the best-known Republican in the race to succeed Roberts, but his struggles in the polls against Democratic former U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom have many in the party hoping that Pompeo will make a run for a seat that has been in Republican hands for more than 100 years.
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Controversy over Trump phone call centers on Ukraine, as president claims new plot by Schiff The developing controversy over a mysterious phone conversation President Trump had with a foreign leader apparently centers on Ukraine, as the president and his allies claim the uproar is just another partisan plot against him.
September 20, 2019 at 10:45PM
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New Jersey pols apologize after using, defending anti-Semitic phrase Three politicians from New Jersey have apologized after they used and defended the phrase "Jew 'em down" in connection to a legal settlement that the state's capital city paid out, reports said.
September 20, 2019 at 10:44PM
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Leader of Zimbabwe Doctors Strike Reappears After 5 Days Missing
The Zimbabwean doctor whose disappearance sparked off a wave of doctors' protests across the country, has reappeared, alive.
Speaking Thursday on VOA Zimbabwe Service's Livetalk program, a disoriented-sounding Dr. Peter Magombeyi, the president of the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors' Association, confirmed he was the one on the other end of the phone.
"I honestly don't know how to truly identify myself, but I am Dr. Peter Magombeyi, I work at Harare Hospital," he said.
The doctor, who had been spearheading calls for an increase of doctors' salaries when he disappeared on September 15, said he could not remember exactly what happened to him or how he ended up where he was — an area called Nyabira, about 33 kilometers from Harare.
"That part I'm just so vague about, I need time to recall," he said.
Dr. Magombeyi said his last recollection before being taken by unnamed people was the memory of being electrocuted.
"I remember being in a basement of some sort, being electrocuted at some point, that is what I vividly remember. I, I just don't remember," Dr. Magombeyi said, struggling to speak.
Zimbabwe's government and police have denied involvement in Magombeyi's disappearance, but said they were doing all they could to find the doctor.
Officials also suggested a third party could be involved in the disappearance to taint the government's image.
Responding to the police allegation, and also Twitter posts alluding to the same accusations, Magombeyi said he had no answers.
"I need time to think about it, I don't know," he said.
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Guinean President Visits US, Faces Term Limit Questions
As Guinea's president visits the U.S. preaching economic development, a debate rages back home about term limits.
President Alpha Condé spent the week visiting U.S. diplomats, granting interviews and meeting with business leaders. He said his goal is to attract investment and transform his country's economy, which historically has been heavily dependent on mineral extraction.
"Guinea has potential. We don't want to be providers of primary materials. We want businesses to come here, work here and create value," he told VOA's French to Africa service. "My dream is that Africa [becomes] not only a factory for Africa but a factory for the world."
Voices of concern
But observers are voicing concern about the state of Guinea's young democracy. Condé was elected in 2010 in the country's first free and fair election in nearly 50 years. According to Guinea's Constitution, he must leave office next year after his second term expires. But a campaign has emerged, believed to be supported by Condé and his allies, to strike down the term limits restriction. Condé instructed Prime Minister Ibrahima Kassory Fofana to travel the country and gather opinions about the amendment.
"Changing those term limits requires writing a completely new constitution and submitting it to parliament for approval and then submitting it for a popular referendum for approval," said Alix Boucher, an assistant research fellow at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies in Washington. "So the current situation is that the administration seems to be wanting to work towards taking those steps."
The move has provoked a backlash. According to a 2018 poll by Afrobarometer, 82 percent of Guineans support a two-term limit. Additionally, more than 70 percent prefer democracy to single-party rule.
"Guineans really don't seem to like that idea. They think democracy is preferable. They don't want single-party rule. They don't want one man rule," Boucher said.
For his part, Condé is keeping an arm's length from the question of the constitutional amendment. He told VOA, "I did not come to discuss politics, I came here for business."
But when asked directly how long he intends to stay in power Condé said: "Only God knows and the people of Guinea. It is normal. The people are sovereign. I want to remind you that the United States has changed [its] constitution 27 times, so it is normal that we ask the people. The world evolves."
Opposition
Guineans in the diaspora are expressing their opposition. On Sept. 11, Guineans living in the U.S. held a protest outside the State Department. Opposition members urged U.S. leaders to question Condé on his aspirations to extend his time in office.
"Alpha Condé is not here just for the United Nations. He is here to campaign for getting a third term, in direct violation of Guinea's Constitution," Talibe Bah, vice president for foreign relations and communications of the opposition Liberal Bloc Party told VOA's Daybreak Africa.
Bah also said Guinea was scheduled to hold legislative elections earlier this year, but none have taken place. This, he said, is further evidence of Condé's tightening control over the country's political process. The national election commission recently announced that the delayed elections will take place on Dec. 28.
"The legislative election was supposed to be held back in the beginning of this year — the first trimester of the year 2019. That has already passed. At this time, the legislative officers are there illegally," Bah said.
But Condé said he is not concerned by the criticism, particularly that coming from people living outside the country. "Guinea is independent and sovereign, therefore Guinean affairs are discussed in Guinea, not outside," he told VOA.