Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune is in the Ain Naadja Military Hospital in Algiers after reportedly contracting COVID-19. Tebboune was hospitalized Tuesday after reportedly contracting the disease several days ago. Algerian TV indicated in a terse statement that his health was “not a cause for worry.”The president’s hospitalization came days before a scheduled November 1 constitutional referendum that could give the country’s top leader more power, while at the same time limiting his tenure to two five-year terms.Prime Minister Abdelaziz Djerad, who announced the president’s hospitalization for “specialized treatment,” has been campaigning across the country in recent days to urge Algerians to approve the proposed constitutional changes.He said the amendments did not represent a break from the current Tebboune era, but rather a break from corruption.Khattar Abou Diab, who teaches political science at the University of Paris, told VOA that the president’s illness was cause for worry, but that he didn’t think the country would fall apart because of it.Diab said that given Tebboune’s age (74), there is always some sort of risk with this kind of illness, but he said Algeria’s governmental institutions have shown themselves to be fairly solid and that the referendum would go ahead as planned Sunday.Several French and Algerian media outlets suggested there were underlying tensions between Tebboune and the country’s military over the referendum. The Algerian military is a major power broker in the country and played a key role in the transition in 2019 between Tebboune and former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.
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Sudanese Christian, Muslim Leaders Agree to Promote Religious Freedom
Sudanese Muslim and Christian religious leaders have agreed to join forces and promote religious freedom in the country, now that the Islamist government of Omar al-Bashir is out of power and a recently signed peace deal includes language saying freedom of religion is a human right.At the end of a two-day conference this week, the religious leaders signed a declaration to promote peace and freedom of worship among all Sudanese communities and to encourage community dialogue among people of different faiths.Khartoum Catholic Archbishop Michael Didi said the declaration will help create space for more religious freedom in Sudan as the country embarks on a new era following the revolution that led to military leaders removing Bashir from power.Didi said three decades of religious oppression created social stigma among different communities across the country, and change will not happen overnight.“I think we are moving well but it will take some time because many things were planted for a long time and to uproot them and make things new, and the understanding and the change of heart, the change of thinking and the change of how to deal with one, maybe it will need some time,” Didi told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus.Juba pactJibril Bilal, a member of the Darfur-based rebel group Justice and Equality Movement, said the declaration’s resolutions are in line with the peace agreement mediated in Juba, which call for a secular system of governance in Sudan with equal rights for everyone.“The state and the government and the official bodies have to stand in the same level of the people of Sudan. The state and government have to look after the interests of the Sudanese, regardless of their religion, ethnicity, colors and all this stuff,” Bilal told South Sudan in Focus.William Delvin, co-chair of the Khartoum-based organization Unity International, said the declaration paves the way for religious freedom in Sudan after decades of strict Islamist rule.He called on Muslims and Christians to forget the past and work together to build a new Sudan where citizens are treated equally.Delvin praised the transitional government under the leadership of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok for enacting religious reforms.“I think that God providentially had us here at this time after the repeal of the apostasy law, the banning and criminalization of female genital mutilation, after the peace agreement [between the government and rebel groups] and the discussion of having a secular state, the separation of mosque, church and state,” he said.Raja Nichola Abdul Messih, a member of Sudan’s Sovereign Council, said the government is committed to reforming all oppressive laws and promoting social justice.Sudan can be a shining example to the world where multicultural groups can peacefully coexist, said Messih.“Sudan is known for multiethnic, multilingual, multireligious and multieconomic social and political activities. Therefore, its culture is a mixture of African and Arab features. They deal according to an interconnected social system through which it is easy to find suitable ground for the harmony of this hybrid of all their differences,” Messih told VOA.
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FBI Arrests Five People in China’s ‘Operation Fox Hunt’
The FBI arrested five people Wednesday in connection with a scheme to force a former Chinese municipal official and his family residing in the United States to return to China, as part of China’s “Operation Fox Hunt” anti-corruption campaign. The five men, including a naturalized U.S. citizen, were arrested in New Jersey, New York and California early Wednesday morning, officials said. Three others, also charged in connection with the scheme, remain at large in China. The defendants face charges of serving as illegal agents of China for allegedly participating in a campaign to “harass, stalk and coerce” U.S. residents to return to China as part of Operation Fox Hunt, the Justice Department said. Operation Fox Hunt was launched in 2014 as part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s sweeping anti-graft campaign. The program’s purported aim was the arrest of thousands of corrupt Chinese officials and businessmen who had fled abroad. US says dissidents real targetsU.S. officials say Operation Fox Hunt is an “extralegal repatriation effort” designed to target Chinese dissidents around the world. “With today’s charges, we have turned the PRC’s Operation Fox Hunt on its head. The hunters became the hunted, the pursuers the pursued,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers said at a news conference. “The five defendants the FBI arrested this morning on these charges of illegally doing the bidding of the Chinese government here in the United States now face the prospect of prison.” A criminal complaint unsealed in court Wednesday alleges the defendants surveilled, threatened and harassed the unidentified resident of New Jersey, as well as an unidentified woman, as part of an international campaign to force him to return to China. The complaint describes the first victim as a former official in a Chinese city government who has resided in the United States since 2010. In April 2017, they forced the first victim’s elderly father to travel to the U.S and sought to use his unexpected arrival to coerce the victim to return to China. In September 2018, two conspirators affixed a threatening note to the door of the victim’s residence. “If you are willing to go back to (the) mainland and spend 10 years in prison, your wife and children will be all right. That’s the end of this matter!” the note read. Messages on social mediaThe criminal complaint says the defendants later conducted surveillance of the victim’s adult daughter and sent her and her friends threatening messages on social media as part of the campaign to force her father to return to China. “The Chinese government’s brazen attempts to surveil, threaten and harass our own citizens and lawful permanent residents, while on American soil, are part of China’s diverse campaign of theft and malign influence in our country and around the world,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said. The five arrested defendants were identified as Zhu Yong, Hongru Jin, Michael McMahon, Rong Jing and Zheng Congying. McMahon, a private investigator, is accused of gathering intelligence about the victim and his wife and locating their whereabouts. Operation Fox Hunt is run by China’s Ministry of Public Security. Since its launch, hundreds of Chinese “fugitives” have been brought back to China to stand trial, some of them voluntarily, and others after being arrested in foreign countries.
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North Koreans Focus on Telling Their Own Stories in the South
Kang Nara, 23, is in her Seoul studio getting ready to record a YouTube podcast. She fled North Korea six years ago. Now she has a channel with 20 million views on which she shares personal stories about North Korean fashion choices, women’s rights, and why others choose to leave the communist dictatorship.She says she is trying to show South Koreans a side of North Korea they may not have seen before.Recent years have seen an explosion of defector YouTube channels, as North Koreans in the South become more involved in telling their own stories. And they are getting a big audience, said Sokeel Park with the group Liberty in North Korea.“There’s an appetite for broader stories, including about North Korean people, how they live their lives in a place which is so close to here but which is completely shut off,” he said.It has also impacted the film industry. Movies and shows have often portrayed North Koreans as dangerous or simple-minded.But more recently, the wildly popular TV drama “Crash Landing on You” portrayed a North Korean soldier who falls in love with a South Korean girl. Many saw it as an unusually three-dimensional image of the North.’People are people’In Seoul, a lighthearted play tells the story of a separated family that accidentally meets each other at the border separating the two Koreas.Director Kang Je-kwon said that in the past, South Koreans tended to look down on North Koreans or make fun of their accent. But now more shows are trying to inform people about North Korea. Tae-ho Lee, one of the actors in Kang’s play, said, “It’s not just about some political sides arguing about certain things. It’s not about that … people are people, and I think people in the South have generally really accepted that.”But that acceptance only goes so far. And while defectors are getting more media exposure, the attention is not always positive. In the end, some say they are treated like novelties.Oh Jin-ha, an artist who defected from North Korea, said many producers in the South do not like the more unifying approach, because it is not very captivating. So instead, they exaggerate and focus on the things that make North Koreans different. He said they portray North Koreans as almost different creatures.Back at her Seoul studio, Kang Nara is hopeful that can change.She said that since North and South Korea have been separated for decades, it makes sense they would feel distant from each other. But, she said, she wants to narrow the gap with her YouTube channel.North Koreans in the South are slowly learning to take charge of their own narrative.
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Typhoon Molave Blasts Central Vietnam
A powerful typhoon hit Vietnam on Wednesday, leaving at least two people dead and 26 fishermen missing.Typhoon Molave made landfall along the central coastline about noon local time with winds up to 135 kilometers per hour.Prior to landfall, thousands of people were evacuated from the storm’s path, Reuters reported, and those who stayed home were told to remain indoors.”I can see bits of roof, perhaps mine included, and tree branches flying under sky thick with clouds,” Nguyen Van Muoi, a Binh Dinh province resident, told Reuters.Cattle stand in a flooded field as Typhoon Molave sweeps through Hoi An, Vietnam, Oct. 28, 2020, in this image obtained from social media.Local TV footage has aired scenes of wind toppling trees in Quang Ngai, while roads in nearby Phu Yen province appeared littered with fallen power lines, trees and billboards, AP reported, adding that the winds blew the roofs off homes and destroyed fish farms.Some 250,000 soldiers stood at the ready to assist in the rescue and recovery process, according to news reports.”We are mounting one of our biggest relief operations ever,” Vietnam Red Cross President Nguyen Thi Xuan Thu said in a statement, which also called for $4 million in relief funds.In addition, Vietnam mobilized two naval ships to search for the 26 missing fishermen, the government said. There has been no word if any of the missing had been found.An empty street is barricaded ahead of Typhoon Molave in Da Nang, Vietnam, Oct. 28, 2020.The Southeast Asian country already has been battered by severe weather this month, which caused flooding and landslides. Some 130 people have died in the country’s central region, and many, including soldiers, remain missing.”The people of Vietnam are tough, yet this is among the worst destruction ever seen in many areas. The relentless storms and flooding are taking a devastating human toll,” Nguyen Thi Xuan Thu said in her statement.”All our hard work in containing the social and economic fallout of COVID-19 is being undone by these massive storms hitting us one after the other,” she said.Before hitting Vietnam, Molave hit the Philippines, killing at least nine.
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North Koreans Focus on Telling Their Own Stories in South
While much of the world’s media coverage about North Korea focuses on the country’s nuclear weapons, many South Koreans are seeing a more human side of the isolated country. As VOA’s Bill Gallo reports from Seoul, that’s because North Korean defectors are becoming more involved in telling their own stories.
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UN Rights Office Condemns ‘Merciless’ Attack on Cameroon School
The U.N. human rights office has joined a chorus of voices in strongly condemning what it calls the vile, merciless attack on a private school Saturday in southwestern Cameroon. The attack killed at least six children and injured another 13. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack on Mother Francisca International Bilingual Academy in Kumba, in the southwestern region of Cameroon. U.N. human rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani tells VOA her office has not been able to verify the identity of the perpetrators.“But we have been able to get information corroborated by various sources that it was perpetrated by a group of men armed with guns and machetes, who broke into the school and they shot indiscriminately while the students were studying,” Shamdasani said. Cameroonian authorities blame the attack on Ambazonian separatists. The English-speaking militants, who want independence from Cameroon and its French-speaking majority, accuse the government of being behind the assault. Shamdasani says the killing and maiming of children as well as attacks on educational facilities constitute serious violations of international law and says the perpetrators must be held accountable. She says governments have a duty to protect children’s access to education.Cameroon Condemns Killing of School Children, Calls for InvestigationGovernment Pledges to protect schools“In fact, the school was not benefiting from security protection measures, which is why we are calling on the government,” Shamdasani said. “We are reminding the government that it is their obligation in the middle of this crisis to protect access to education and, of course, to protect the physical safety of the students.” Shamdasani says the human rights office has received many other reports of serious human rights violations by both separatist groups and security forces in Cameroon. These include reports of extrajudicial executions, torture, sexual and gender-based violence and abductions.She says the root causes of the French-English divide go back decades. She says it is urgent for the government and affected communities to engage in an inclusive dialogue to work toward sustainable peace in this fractured country.
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UN Calls On Tanzania to Avoid Violence as Citizens Vote
The United Nations is calling on all governmental and civil society actors in Tanzania to refrain from violence, and ensure people can safely cast their votes in Wednesday’s general election.Following weeks of bitter political strife, U.N. monitor groups and human rights organizations fear Tanzania’s election Wednesday is likely not to be free and fair. The U.N. human rights office is expressing concern about “the shrinking democratic space” in the country. Spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani says her agency has received troubling reports of intimidation, harassment, and arbitrary arrests.The ruling party CCM presidential candidate Dr. John Magufuli, third left, stands in line to cast his vote at Chamwino in Dodoma, Oct. 28, 2020.Human Rights Watch says the government has arrested at least 17 opposition party members and critics since mid-June, notably from Chadema and the ACT-Wazalendo Party.Human rights spokeswoman Shamdasani says her office is urging authorities to promptly investigate the recent killings on Pemba Island in a thorough and transparent manner. She urges all parties to refrain from violence.“We call on all relevant actors to ensure that the elections take place in a peaceful, inclusive and participatory manner, with people being able to cast their votes free of fear and intimidation,” Shamdasani said.U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres echoes those sentiments. In a statement, he says an inclusive electoral process, with the broad participation of all members of society, is essential for safeguarding the country’s stability, democracy and sustainable development.
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Indonesia’s Pandemic Response: A Law to Create Millions of Jobs
A landmark law passed this month in Indonesia will open the populous, impoverished country to labor-intensive industry like many of its Southeast Asian neighbors despite a hit to worker rights, people on the ground say. The 905-page Omnibus Bill on Job Creation bill will give millions of young people chances to work, including in formal jobs that can be hard to find because older Indonesian laws discouraged foreign investors from setting up factories, analysts believe. Indonesians are struggling to earn income during an unrelenting COVID-19 outbreak that prompted shutdowns from April. The nation with nearly 400,000 infections reported a sharp drop in retail sales from April through August and a fall in exports over the three months ending in September. “With this new law, it is expected that the investment would come not only to the Indonesian economy, but also come to the labor-intensive part, and by getting more investment in that area it is expected that more jobs will be created, and those jobs are more of the quality jobs, not only informal jobs,” said Yose Rizal Damuri, economics department head with the Center for Strategic and International Studies research organization in Jakarta. Indonesia’s government and House of Representatives passed the bill ahead of schedule on October 5, the Jakarta Post reported. The bill aims to cut bureaucracy and make it easier for investors to create jobs, said Richard Borsuk, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies adjunct senior fellow in Singapore.Protest against the government’s proposed labor reforms in Sukabumi, West Java, Oct. 7, 2020.President Joko Widodo’s government sees this bill as part of his “legacy” to stimulate the 270 million-person country’s economy, Rizal said. Minerals, oil and farming make up much of Indonesia’s $1 trillion-plus GDP today. “Labor-intensive” industry players find Indonesia too expensive now, Rizal said, explaining why that sub-sector makes up just 2% of the country’s total investment. Foreign manufacturers of garments, shoes and textiles normally pick other low-cost Southeast Asian countries, such as Vietnam, over the past decade because of stiff pro-labor laws, economists say. Foreign investment eventually raises the living standards, as witnessed in China and eventually Vietnam. “It’s probably something that will be a long-term benefit, if this does go through,” said Rajiv Biswas, senior regional economist with IHS Markit, a London-based analysis firm. “It creates a better environment for foreign multinationals to hire, because from the perspective of foreign multinationals, it’s very restrictive labor laws there,” Biswas said. “They’re worried about hiring because it’s very hard to reduce the workforce later on.” Foreign investors will consider the law a “step in the right” direction for making Indonesia friendlier, forecast Song Seng Wun, an economist in the private banking unit of Malaysian bank CIMB.“This Omnibus Bill is part of something that Jokowi [was] looking to see how they can help sort of improve the investment landscape to make it a little bit more attractive in Indonesia, just to make sure Indonesia doesn’t get pushed down the investible list of countries,” Song said, using the Indonesian president’s nickname. But the law sparked staunch opposition. Some governors have asked Widodo to revoke the law and other people protested in the streets over three days, sometimes violently, Borsuk’s study says. The law effectively eliminates the power of labor unions, said Paramita Supamijoto, an international relations lecturer at Bina Nusantara University in greater Jakarta. The October bill would roll back legal support for fair wages, safe working conditions and excessive overtime, U.S.-headquartered human rights advocacy group Amnesty International said in a statement in August. It called the bill’s preparation process “opaque.” Severance pay for laid-off workers will also slip, Damuri said. For workers, the law means that “whatever you do, your life will be determined by your employers,” Supamijoto said.But the law could stoke enough investment to stop people from migrating overseas in search of work, she said. “Under our current president’s administration, they prefer to invite the investors rather than sending workers abroad, so it’s better to invite you to come here to spend money, to invest your money, then to help us to build the infrastructure,” she said.
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Asian Markets Mixed Wednesday
Asian markets are mixed Wednesday as concerns grow among investors over a new surge of coronavirus cases across Europe and the United States. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei index closed 0.2% lower. In Australia, the S&P/ASX index finished 0.1% higher. The KOSPI index in South Korea rose 0.6%, while Taiwan’s TSEC index dropped 0.6% In late afternoon trading, the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong is down 0.1%, Shanghai’s Composite index is up 0.4%, and Mumbai’s Sensex is down one percent. In commodities trading, gold is selling at $1,908.40 an ounce, down 0.1%. U.S. crude oil is selling at $38.55 per barrel, down 2.5%, and Brent crude is selling at $40.35 per barrel, down 2%. All three U.S. indices are trending negatively in futures trading.
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