Day: December 2, 2021

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Two Soldiers Killed in Militant Attack in Benin, Army Says

Two soldiers were killed and several more were wounded when Islamist militants attacked a border security post in northern Benin on Wednesday night, the army said.

The raid in Porga region was the second in Benin this week. Islamist militants attacked an army patrol in the department of Alibori on Tuesday morning, army chief Colonel Fructueux Gbaguidi said in an internal statement on Thursday seen by Reuters.

The army killed one militant in Tuesday's attack and another on Wednesday night, he said. An official statement by the army later confirmed the deaths and attributed the attacks to unidentified armed men.

Militant attacks are rare in Benin, but groups linked to al-Qaida and Islamic State are active in its northern neighbors Burkina Faso and Niger and have made increasing incursions south.

Islamist militant violence has ravaged much of West Africa's Sahel region, and states on the Gulf of Guinea have reinforced security to try to keep it at bay.

"This new test reminds us in blood and pain that the danger on the ground is real," Gbaguidi said in his note to officers.

Benin had not reported an Islamist attack since 2019, when two French tourists were kidnapped in a national park and later taken by the militants into Burkina Faso. They were rescued by the French military.

Neighboring Togo said last month it had repelled an attack near its northern border, which was the first by suspected Islamists in the country.

Source: Voice of America

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COVID, Conflicts Prompt UN to Make Record Appeal for Humanitarian Aid

The United Nations is appealing for a record $41 billion to help 183 million of the world’s most vulnerable people suffering from multiple crises, including poverty, hunger, conflict, and the impact of COVID-19.

U.N. officials report an estimated 274 million people worldwide will require emergency aid and protection next year. This is a 17-percent increase from 2021.

U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths cites long lasting conflicts, political instability, failing economies, climate crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic as the main drivers of need.

“There are 45 million people at risk of famine worldwide. One percent of humanity is displaced, and it would be no surprise to all of us that women and girls continue to suffer the most, just as civilians continue to suffer the most in war,” he said.

Griffiths said humanitarian aid can limit the worst consequences of existing and emerging crises. For example, he said U.N. aid brought back half a million people from the brink of famine in South Sudan this year. He said aid agencies delivered health care for 10 million people in Yemen and helped vaccinate millions of others against killer diseases in Myanmar.

While aid does save lives, he notes it is no solution. He said humanitarian aid does not replace development assistance.

“And we see in many countries—Afghanistan is just one most recent example. Humanitarian assistance is not a remedy for the people of Afghanistan. It is not the way to stabilize societies. One of the tragedies of the situation in Ethiopia that we see now as a result of that conflict, is the erosion of the development gains over the last 40 years,” he said.

Griffiths considers the crisis in Ethiopia to be the most alarming in terms of immediate emergency needs. He notes nine million people in northern Ethiopia’s Amhara, Afar and Tigray regions are seriously short of food.

Of those, he says five million people in Tigray are suffering from acute hunger, with 400,000 on the verge of famine. He said he is very worried about the rebel military advance on the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, warning it will have a seismic effect on the rest of the country, engulfing the entire region.

Source: Voice of America

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Suspect Arrested in Death of Philanthropist Jacqueline Avant

BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA —

A 29-year-old man has been arrested in the death of philanthropist Jacqueline Avant, who was fatally shot this week at the Beverly Hills home she shared with her husband, legendary music executive Clarence Avant, police said Thursday.

Aariel Maynor, who was on parole, was taken into custody early Wednesday by Los Angeles police at a separate residence after a burglary there, Beverly Hills Police Chief Mark Stainbrook said.

Police recovered an AR-15 rifle at that home that was believed to have been used in the shooting of Jacqueline Avant. Maynor accidentally shot himself in the foot with the gun, police said, and was being treated before he could be booked into jail.

Authorities said they did not believe there were any other suspects in the Avant case, and Stainbrook said there were no outstanding threats to public safety.

Police had not yet determined a motive or whether the Avant home was targeted. It was not immediately known if Maynor had an attorney.

Maynor has previous felony convictions for assault, robbery and grand theft.

Police were called to the Avants' home early Wednesday after receiving a call reporting a shooting. Officers found Jacqueline Avant, 81, with a gunshot wound. She was taken to the hospital but did not survive.

Clarence Avant and a security guard at their home were not hurt during the shooting.

Reported shooting

An hour later, Los Angeles police were called to a home in the Hollywood Hills — about 7 miles (11.27 kilometers) from the Avant residence — because of a reported shooting. They found Maynor there, as well as evidence of a burglary at that home, and took him into custody.

Jacqueline Avant was a longtime local philanthropist who led organizations that helped low-income neighborhoods including Watts and South Los Angeles, and she was on the board of directors of the International Student Center at the University of California-Los Angeles.

Grammy-winning executive Clarence Avant is known as the "Godfather of Black Music" and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame earlier this year. The 90-year-old was also a concert promoter and manager who mentored and helped the careers of artists including Bill Withers, Little Willie John, L.A. Reid, Babyface, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis.

Tributes to Jacqueline Avant poured in from across the country. She was remembered by former President Bill Clinton, basketball icon Earvin "Magic" Johnson, Democratic Representative Karen Bass of California and music star Quincy Jones.

Source: Voice of America

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US Jobless Benefit Claims Remain at Low Level

WASHINGTON —

First-time claims for U.S. unemployment compensation remained at a low level last week as employers retained their workers and searched for more as the United States continues its economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

The Labor Department said Thursday that 222,000 jobless workers made first-time claims for unemployment compensation, up 28,000 from the revised figure of 194,000 the week before, which was a 52-year low.

Even with the increase in claims last week, the figures from both of the last two weeks were well below the 256,000 total in mid-March 2020 when the pandemic first swept into the country and employers started laying off workers by the hundreds of thousands.

The declining number of claims for unemployment benefits shows that many employers are hanging on to their workers even as millions have quit jobs to move to other companies offering higher pay and more benefits.

Many employers are looking for more workers, even as about 7.4 million workers remain unemployed in the United States.

There are 10.4 million available jobs in the country, but the skills of available workers often do not match what employers want, or the job openings are not where the unemployed live. In addition, many of the available jobs are low-wage service positions that the jobless are shunning.

U.S. employers added 531,000 jobs in October, the biggest monthly gain in three months and the unemployment rate dropped to 4.6%. But the U.S. economy is still short more than four million jobs since February 2020. The November jobs figure is set for release on Friday.

The U.S. economic advance is occurring even as President Joe Biden and Washington policy makers, along with consumers, voice concerns about the biggest increase in consumer prices in three decades and supply chain issues that have curtailed delivery of some products to retail store shelves.

Source: Voice of America

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Kenya’s Environmental Activists Welcome US Support on Plastic Pact

Kenya’s environmental activists are welcoming U.S. support for a global pact to combat plastic pollution in the oceans. Meanwhile, a community-based initiative is doing its part by collecting and recycling plastic washed up on Kenya’s beaches, where people depend on tourism to make a living.

There are mountains of plastic waste on Kenya’s beaches in Watamu - visible evidence of ocean plastic pollution.

So twice a week, the project coordinator at the Watamu Marine Association, Julie Myra, leads teams that pick up the bags and bottles and other items that wash up from the ocean. They collect an average of five tons of litter per week.

“It is sorted to be able to identify the items that can be recycled from it such as plastic, glass and metals. For the metals, we sell them to the scrap dealers. For the plastic, we shred it. The hard plastic as well as the plastic water bottles. We shred those and sell. The money that we get from such sales, we pour it back into the project to be able to fund us to do more beach clean ups,” Myra said.

Plastic pollution is a huge problem affecting the marine environment. According to a report by the United Nations Environment Program, an estimated eight million tons of plastic is dumped into the oceans each year — 80% of it from uncollected land waste.

The impact of this along Kenya’s coastal areas like Watamu is critical because the region relies heavily on tourism for income, says Myra. “If the tourists don’t want to visit a dirty beach, that means that the livelihoods of those local community members have been threatened as well as the business for the tourism industry.”

Visiting Nairobi recently, ahead of the resumed session of the fifth United Nations Environment Assembly, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced America’s support for a new global agreement to combat ocean plastic pollution.

“Our goal is to create a tool that we can use to protect our oceans and all the life that they sustain, from growing global harms of plastic pollution. It’s crucial that the agreement call on countries to develop and enforce strong national action plans to address this problem at its source,” Blinken said.

Environmentalists have welcomed U.S. support and urged other big plastic producers like China to join the negotiations.

Erastus Ooko, spokesperson for plastics at Greenpeace Africa says “the U.S. is one of the biggest polluters and also producers of plastic. And them coming on board in this shows a sign of leadership and them having not to lead just in terms of pollution and production, but also in terms of also joining in the solution, is quite significant. And we will be following keenly to see how they can be able to also cut off that type of plastic production from their end so that we don’t have more plastic into the environment. Maybe we will also see China getting to join in the same and other countries getting to support these negotiations.”

In the meantime, Myra and her group at the Watamu Marine Association will continue picking up trash, fighting the battle to keep Kenya’s beaches clean.

Source: Voice of America