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'Diamond' Niyonsaba lauded upon return to Burundi
Francine Niyonsaba is lauded by a large crowd as the athlete returns to Burundi after her Diamond League title and world record.
Rights Groups Condemn Rwandan Court Conviction of Paul Rusesabagina
Rights groups in Africa have condemned the Rwandan High Court’s sentencing of Paul Rusesabagina, made famous in the Hollywood film Hotel Rwanda, to 25 years in prison. The court on Monday found Rusesabagina and 20 other suspects guilty of terrorism. Rusesabagina denies the charges, and critics say his arrest and trial did not meet international standards for justice. Bahima Macumi fled to Kenya more than 20 years ago following Rwanda's civil war, but has been following Rusesabagina's trial closely. He said Rusesabagina clearly did not get a fair trial. He says this shows the Rwandan government does not want to be corrected, because if it did, they would have at least listened to this person who saved over 1,000 people. He says if the person who saved over 1,000 people can be called a terrorist, what would they call the one who did not save anybody? To the world at large, Rusesabagina is a hero for sheltering at-risk Tutsis and Hutus in the Kigali hotel he managed during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. To the Rwandan government, he is a threat, a fierce critic of President Paul Kagame who allegedly supported a militia group that seeks to overthrow the Rwandan government. Human rights advocates are condemning his conviction. According to Amnesty International, the Monday court ruling puts in question the fairness of Rwanda's judicial system when it comes to high-profile and sensitive cases. Sarah Jackson is Amnesty’s deputy regional director for East Africa, the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes. "We found many fair trial violations, including his unlawful rendition to Rwanda, his imposed disappearance at the beginning of the case and his initial inability to select a lawyer of his own choosing and all of these things during the pretrial period impact the fairness of the trial itself," Jackson said. Rusesabagina has 30 days to appeal his conviction, but rights groups doubt that judges can make an impartial decision on the case. Human Rights Watch's Lewis Mudge explains. "Unfortunately, this case has become an emblematic case in Rwanda so much that it really does highlight the lack of independence in the judiciary," Mudge said. "It's difficult for us to say that an appeal should happen or will happen because that will imply a degree of confidence in the judicial system that is currently in Rwanda.” Rusesabagina says he was tricked into going to Rwanda in August of 2020. He had boarded a flight in Dubai that he believed was bound for Burundi, only for the flight to land in Kigali, where he was quickly arrested. He went on trial along with 20 others in February. U.S State Department spokesman Ned Price Monday said the reported lack of fair trial in Rusesabagina's case calls into question the fairness of the verdict. Rwandan prosecutors maintain the trial was fair.
Mary Keitany: Kenyan world record holder retires
Kenya's Mary Keitany, who holds the word record for a women-only marathon, retires from competing at the age of 39 because of a back injury.
Report : Drugmakers Fall Short on Offering COVID Vaccines to Poorer Nations
Amnesty International is accusing the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies of creating an “unprecedented human rights crisis” by failing to provide enough COVID-19 vaccines for the world’s poorest nations. In a report issued Wednesday, the human rights advocacy group says AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, Novavax and the partnership of Pfizer and BioNTech have “failed to meet their human rights responsibilities” by refusing to participate in global vaccine sharing initiatives and share vaccine technology by waiving their intellectual property rights. Amnesty says only a “paltry” 0.3% of the 5.76 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines distributed around the world have gone to low-income countries, while 79% have gone to upper-middle and high-income countries. It says the disparity is “pushing weakened health systems to the very brink and causing tens of thousands of preventable deaths every week,” especially in parts of Latin America, Africa and Asia. The organization says Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna alone are set to make $130 billion combined by the end of 2022. “Profits should never come before lives,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general. Amnesty is calling on governments and pharmaceutical companies to immediately deliver 2 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines to low and lower-middle income countries to meet the World Health Organization’s goal of vaccinating 40% of the population of such countries by the end of the year. COVID Summit The report was issued ahead of U.S. President Joe Biden’s virtual COVID Summit, held in conjunction with this week’s United Nations General Assembly. Biden is expected to announce a global vaccination target of 70% along with an additional purchase of 500 million doses of the two-shot Pfizer vaccine, bringing the United States’ overall donations to more than 1.1 billion doses. “America is committed to beating COVID-19. Today, the United States is doubling our total number of global donated vaccines to more than 1.1 billion. For every shot we've put in an American arm to date, we are donating three shots globally,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday on Twitter. Extreme poverty The Asian Development Bank says the pandemic likely pushed as many as 80 million people in Asia’s developing nations into extreme poverty last year. A report issued Tuesday by the Manila-based institution said the region’s developing economies will likely grow at a slower-than-expected pace in 2021 due to lingering COVID-19 outbreaks and the slow pace of vaccination efforts The ADB is predicting Southeast Asian economies to grow by just 3.1 percent this year, a drop from the 4.4 percent rate forecast in its economic outlook back in April. Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France Presse (AFP).
World Leaders Address UN General Assembly
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Malawi President Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera are among the world leaders scheduled to take their turn to address the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday. Johnson has highlighted in the days before his speech the need to take action to address climate change, saying a global economic recovery “must be rooted in green growth.” Rich nations have benefitted from growth that resulted in pollution, and now “have a duty to help developing countries grow their economies in a green and sustainable way,” Johnson said in a Twitter post Monday. Johnson’s address comes a day after he met with U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House. Combatting climate change was among the topics of discussion in separate meetings U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres held Tuesday with Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei and Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez ahead of their addresses to the General Assembly on Wednesday. Other speakers Wednesday include Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Bio and Norway’s Prime Minister Erna Solberg. After the coronavirus pandemic kept heads of state from attending last year’s General Assembly meetings, about 100 are attending this year’s session in New York. Others are choosing to stay home and deliver their remarks via a recording. Those giving pre-recorded addresses Wednesday include Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Indonesian President Joko Widodo, Jordan’s King Abdullah and Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.
Nine Chad Villagers Killed in Jihadist Assault
Nine people have died in an attack on a village in the Lake Chad area that is plagued by violence led by jihadist groups, a local governor and an NGO said Tuesday. The region borders Niger, Nigeria and Cameroon, and fighters from Boko Haram and a rival splinter group, the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), have used it for years as a haven from which to attack troops and civilians. "Elements from Boko Haram attacked Kadjigoroum and killed nine people and set fire to the village" on Sunday night, regional governor Mahamat Fadoul Mackaye told Agence France-Presse by telephone. Chadian authorities use the Boko Haram label to refer to both militant groups. The head of a local NGO confirmed the attack and death toll at the village, asking not to be identified. In August, 26 soldiers died in a Boko Haram raid on marshy Lake Chad's Tchoukou Telia island, about 190 kilometers (120 miles) north of the capital, N'Djamena. In March 2020, 100 Chadian troops died in an attack on the lake's Bohoma peninsula, prompting an offensive the following month led by Chad's then-President Idriss Deby Itno. After pursuing the militants deep into Niger and Nigeria, Deby said there was "not a single jihadist anywhere" on the Chadian side of the lake region. The attacks, however, have increased against the army and civilians. Deby was killed in April 2021 during fighting against rebels in the north and was succeeded by his son, Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, as the head of a military junta.