Archives for June 2021

Nigerian government-enforced Twitter suspension takes effect

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Millions of Nigerians were unable to access Twitter Saturday after the government enforced an indefinite suspension of the microblogging platform’s operations in Nigeria.

The Association of Licensed Telecommunication Operators of Nigeria said in a statement that its members have suspended access to Twitter in compliance with a government directive to do so.

The Nigeria government said Friday it was indefinitely suspending Twitter in Africa’s most populous nation, after the company deleted a controversial tweet President Muhammadu Buhari made about a secessionist movement.

Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said Friday that government officials decided to suspend Twitter because the platform was being used “for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence.”

Mohammed has criticized Twitter for deleting the post saying: “The mission of Twitter in Nigeria is very suspicious,” adding that Twitter had in the past ignored inciting tweets against the Nigerian government.

Twitter had deleted Buhari’s post on Wednesday after the president threatened suspected militants in the southeast, calling it abusive.

More than 1 million people died during the 1967-1970 civil war that erupted when secessionists from the southeast sought to create an independent Biafra for the ethnic Igbo people. Buhari, an ethnic Fulani, was on the opposing side in the war against the Igbos.

In recent months, pro-Biafra separatists have been accused of attacking police and government buildings, and Buhari vowed to retaliate and “treat them in the language they understand.”

The government’s decision to suspend Twitter is being widely condemned. Amnesty International said it condemns the Nigerian government’s suspension of a social media widely used by Nigerians to exercise their human rights including their rights to freedom of expression and access to information.

“We call on the Nigerian authorities to immediately reverse the unlawful suspension and other plans to gag the media, repress the civic space, and undermine Nigerians’ human rights,” Amnesty said in a statement.

The U.S. mission in Nigeria said that Nigeria’s constitution provides for freedom of expression.

“The Government’s recent #Twitterban undermines Nigerians’ ability to exercise this fundamental freedom and sends a poor message to its citizens, investors and businesses. Banning social media and curbing every citizen’s ability to seek, receive, and impart information undermines fundamental freedoms,” it said in a statement.

In its reaction, Twitter said it is deeply concerned by the government’s action saying free and open internet is an essential human right in modern society.

There are an estimated 40 million Twitter users in Nigeria. Many them young people have been finding a way around the ban by turning to virtual private networks (VPN) apps to access the social media platform.

But the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, has warned that those defying the government’s ban on Twitter will be prosecuted.

The government has in the meantime ordered that all OTT and social media operations in the country be licensed, an indication that it wants to restrict the use of media and communications services like WhatApp, Netflix, and Facebook that use data provided by internet service providers.

Many Nigerians fear President Buhari is planning another aggressive attack on free speech as he did in 1984 when he was head of a military government.

At the time, he promulgated a military decree that gave him power to shut down media houses and to jail journalists for stories the government considers unfavorable.

Buhari who came to power in 2015 as an elected president has been facing a lot of social media criticism for his government’s poor performance.

Mental health: Stephens says it’s vital to keep talking

PARIS (AP) — Former U.S. Open champion Sloane Stephens wants more discussions about mental health to help people both inside and outside of tennis talk freely about what is troubling them.

“Absolutely. I feel like it’s not spoken about enough,” she said Saturday after winning her third-round match at the French Open. “I think it’s definitely (a) top priority for everyone, not just tennis players but also you guys who are dealing with life in general.”

Four-time Grand Slam winner Naomi Osaka put a renewed focus on mental health when she pulled out of the French Open on Monday and cited difficulties in dealing with “huge waves of anxiety.”

Players may keep far too silent, the 28-year-old Stephens said, when what they really need is to feel they can open up to others.

“I feel like a lot of players on our tour suffer in silence. I think that is not cool and not fair and we should definitely approach it differently,” she said. “The more support, the better. I think not only for us girls supporting each other but for the tour to be able to support us in different ways is super helpful.”

Stephens, an American who won the U.S. Open in 2017 and was runner-up at the French Open in 2018, says rivals may really need each other to cope off court.

“As competitors and colleagues, I think it’s important to support each other just because, honestly, on the road every single week we’re really all we have,” she said. “We’re the same faces that we see all the time. I think it’s super important to be able to support each other through, you know, the ups and downs, because obviously tennis is super emotional.”

Second-ranked Osaka’s decision to withdraw from Roland Garros drew support for her courage in some quarters but also some hostility on social networks.

The multiplication of often explicit and offensive criticism on social networks has also made it too easy for people’s mental health to be impacted.

“Obviously we live in a world where there is the internet … all these things that creep into your mind,” Stephens said.

The psychological effects of the coronavirus pandemic, during which many people were alone and in isolation for long months, have increased the need for more communication.

“It’s really important to be able to talk to people, talk to someone, just about what you’re feeling, what you’re going through,” Stephens said. “It’s not easy to just pretend that everything is great when it’s not.”

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More AP Tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

El Salvador president wants Bitcoin as legal tender

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — El Salvador President Nayib Bukele announced in a recorded message played at a Bitcoin conference in Miami Saturday that next week he will send proposed legislation to the country’s congress that would make the cryptocurrency legal tender in the Central American nation.

The 39-year-old president, who has maintained approval ratings above 90% and made Twitter his preferred way of communicating, characterized it as an idea that could help El Salvador move forward.

“Next week I will send to Congress a bill that will make Bitcoin a legal tender in El Salvador,” Bukele said. “In the short term this will generate jobs and help provide financial inclusion to thousands outside the formal economy and in the medium and long term we hope that this small decision can help us push humanity at least a tiny bit into the right direction.”

The U.S. dollar is El Salvador’s official currency. About one quarter of El Salvador’s citizens live in the United States and last year, despite the pandemic, they sent home more than $6 billion in remittances.

Bukele’s New Ideas party holds a supermajority in the new congress seated May 1, giving any legislative proposal from the president a strong likelihood of passage.

Additional details of the plan were not released. But Bukele in subsequent messages on Twitter noted that Bitcoin could be “the fastest growing way to transfer 6 billion dollars a year in remittances.” He said that a big chunk of those money transfers were currently lost to intermediaries and with Bitcoin more than a million low-income families could benefit.

He also said 70% of El Salvador’s population does not have a bank account and works in the informal economy. Bitcoin could improve financial inclusion, he said.

Riding his high popularity and his party’s dominance performance in Feb. 28 elections, Bukele has concentrated power. His party’s supermajority in congress ousted the justices of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court May 1. They then replaced the attorney general.

They had been critical of some of Bukele’s more drastic measures during the pandemic, including a mandatory stay-at-home order and containment centers where those caught violating the policy were detained.

While enjoying a positive relationship with former U.S. President Donald Trump, Bukele has had a much more tense relationship with the administration of President Joe Biden.

Last month, the White House Special Envoy for the Northern Triangle Ricardo Zúñiga said during a visit to El Salvador that the U.S. government would like to see El Salvador reverse the moves against the court and the attorney general. Bukele said that would not happen.

Bukele’s concentration of power, attacks on critics and open disdain for checks on his power have raised concerns about El Salvador’s path. However, Bukele has a wide base of support in part due to the utter failure of the country’s traditional parties who ruled during the past 30 years to improve people’s lives and to his ability to provide short-term benefits.

Bukele has been praised for aggressively obtaining COVID-19 vaccines and running an efficient vaccination program far more successful than El Salvador’s neighbors.

US senators promise vaccines for Taiwan amid China row

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — The U.S. will give Taiwan 750,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine, part of President Joe Biden’s move to share tens of millions of jabs globally, three American senators said Sunday, after the self-ruled island complained that China is hindering its efforts to secure vaccines as it battles an outbreak.

Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, who made a three-hour stop in Taiwan with fellow Democrat Christopher Coons of Delaware and Republican Dan Sullivan of Alaska, said their visit underscores bipartisan U.S. support for the democratic island that Beijing claims as its own renegade territory. Taiwan faces a severe vaccine shortage and has geopolitical significance as a flashpoint in U.S.-China relations.

“I’m here to tell you that the United States will not let you stand alone,” Duckworth said at the airport after landing on a U.S. military transport plane. “We will be by your side to make sure the people of Taiwan have what they need to get to the other side of the pandemic and beyond.”

Taiwan was included on a long list of places announced last week that would receive 25 million doses from the United States in what the Biden administration says is the first tranche of at least 80 million doses to be distributed globally. Most of the first tranche, including Taiwan’s, will be sent through COVAX, a U.N.-backed program to distribute vaccines to low and middle-income countries.

The island of 24 million people, which lies 160 kilometers (100 miles) off China’s east coast, is desperate for vaccines after a sudden outbreak that started in late April caught authorities by surprise. Japan shipped 1.2 million doses to Taiwan on Friday, opting to skip the COVAX process in the interest of speed. It was unclear when the 750,000 American doses would arrive.

Taiwan has accused China of blocking its efforts to reach a deal with BioNTech to import the vaccine co-developed by the German company and Pfizer. Beijing has said it is willing to supply vaccines to Taiwan, including BioNTech, through Chinese partner Fosun, and that the island’s government is to blame for putting politics above the lives of its people. Taiwanese law bans the import of Chinese-made medicines.

Foreign Minister Joseph Wu, welcoming the senators at the airport, said that Taiwan is fortunate to have like-minded countries showing support, which he said is about sustaining freedom and democracy in the face of autocracy.

“Taiwan is facing unique challenges in combating the virus,” he said. “While we are doing our best to import vaccines, we must overcome obstacles to ensure that these life-saving medicine are delivered free from troubles of Beijing.”

He said China is trying to block Taiwan’s international assistance and prevent it from participating in the World Health Organization. “We are no strangers to that kind of obstructionism,” he said.

Taiwan and China split amid civil war in 1949, and most Taiwanese favor maintaining the current state of de facto independence while engaging in robust economic exchanges with the mainland.

China’s ruling Communist Party says Taiwan must come under its control, and has in recent months increased pressure on the island, including flying warplanes near Taiwan. The increasing activity and vast improvements in China’s military capabilities have raised concern in the U.S., which is bound by its own laws to ensure Taiwan is capable of defending itself and to regard all threats to the island’s security as matters of “grave concern.”

Taiwan, which had weathered the pandemic virtually unscathed until the recent outbreak, is now facing its most serious flare-up with more than 10,000 new cases since late April.

President Tsai Ing-wen, meeting with the senators, expressed gratitude to the Biden administration for including Taiwan in the first group to receive vaccines and said the doses will arrive at a critical time for the island.

“I hope that through cooperation with the United States, Japan and other countries, Taiwan will be able to overcome the immediate challenges and … and move towards recovery,” she said.

Both Duckworth, who was born in Thailand, and Sullivan said the American donation also reflects gratitude for Taiwan’s support for the U.S., as Taiwan donated millions of masks and other supplies to the U.S. in the early days of the pandemic.

“This is love from America in return,” Sullivan said, wearing a mask that he noted had “Love from Taiwan” written on it.

The three senators arrived at 7:30 a.m. from South Korea, where they met senior officials including the foreign and defense ministers on Friday and Saturday to discuss COVID-19 cooperation, the U.S.-South Korea military alliance and North Korea. They departed Taiwan at 10.30 a.m. the same morning, according to Taiwan’s foreign ministry.

___ Soo reported from Hong Kong.

D-Day spirit of remembrance lives on, despite the pandemic

CARENTAN, France (AP) — In a small Normandy town where paratroopers landed in the early hours of D-Day, applause broke the silence to honor Charles Shay. He was the only veteran attending a ceremony in Carentan commemorating the 77th anniversary of the assault that helped bring an end to World War II.

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, this year’s D-Day commemorations are taking place with travel restrictions that have prevented veterans or families of fallen soldiers from the U.S., Britain and other allied countries from making the trip to France. Only a few officials were allowed exceptions.

Shay, who now lives in Normandy, was a 19-year-old U.S. Army medic when he landed on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944. Today, he recalls the “many good friends” he lost on the battlefield.

Under a bright sun, the 96-year-old Penobscot Native American from Indian Island, Maine, stood steadily while the hymns of the Allied countries were played Friday in front of the monument commemorating the assault in Carentan that allowed the Allies to establish a continuous front joining nearby Utah Beach to Omaha Beach.

Shay regretted that the pandemic “is interrupting everything.” He is expected to be the only veteran at Sunday’s anniversary day ceremony at the Normandy American Cemetery of Colleville-sur-Mer.

“We have no visitors coming to France this year for two years now. And I hope it will be over soon,” he told The Associated Press in Carentan.

Shay’s lone presence is all the more poignant as the number of survivors of the epochal battle dwindles. Only one veteran now remains from the French commando unit that joined U.S, British, Canadian and other allied troops in storming Normandy’s code-named beaches.

While France is planning to open up to vaccinated visitors starting next week, that comes too late for the D-Day anniversary. So for the second year in a row, most public commemoration events have been cancelled. A few solemn ceremonies have been maintained, with dignitaries and a few guests only.

Local residents, however, are coming in greater numbers than last year, as France started lifting its internal virus restrictions last month.

Some French and a few other World War II history enthusiasts from neighboring European countries gathered in Normandy.

Driving restored jeeps, dressed in old uniforms or joyfully eating at the newly reopened terraces of restaurants, they’re contributing to revive the commemorations’ special atmosphere — and keeping alive the memory of June 6, 1944.

“In France, people who remember these men, they kept them close to their heart,” Shay said. “And they remember what they did for them. And I don’t think the French people will ever forget.”

On Saturday morning, people in dozens of World War II vehicles, from motorcycles to jeeps and trucks, gathered in a field in Colleville-Montgomery to parade down the nearby roads along Sword Beach to the sounds of a pipe band. Residents, some waving French and American flags, came to watch.

Sitting in an old sidecar, Audrey Ergas, dressed in a vintage uniform including an aviator hat and glasses, said she used to come every year from the southern city of Marseille, except for last year due to virus travel restrictions.

“We absolutely wanted to come … it’s great pleasure, we needed it!” she said. “We were afraid that we might feel a bit alone, but in the end we were happy to do even small gatherings.”

Pascal Leclerc, a member of the Remember Omaha Beach 44 group, shared the same joy.

“We missed it a lot. That’s just fun, happiness, and also being able to pay tribute to all the veterans. That’s the main goal,” he said.

Henri-Jean Renaud, 86, remembers D-Day like it was yesterday. He was a young boy and was hidden in his family home in Sainte-Mere-Eglise when more than 800 planes bringing U.S. paratroopers flew over the town while German soldiers fired at them with machine guns.

Describing an “incredible noise” followed by silence, he remembers crossing the town’s central square in the morning of June 6. He especially recalls seeing one dead U.S. paratrooper stuck in a big tree that is still standing by the town’s church.

“I came here hundreds of times. The first thing I do is look at that tree,” he said. “That’s always to that young guy that I’m thinking of. He was told: ‘You’re going to jump in the middle of the night in a country you don’t know’… He died and his feet never touched (French) soil, and that is very moving to me.”

More than 12,000 soldiers were buried temporarily in Sainte-Mere-Eglise during and after the Battle of Normandy, before being moved to their final resting place.

In the years following the war, local people were allowed to go to the cemeteries. “Often, people had adopted a grave because they had seen a name they liked … They were a bit like friends,” Renaud said.

“Some, especially at the beginning when there were no coffins yet, had been buried in the ground. They had become the Normandy soil,” he added, in a voice filled by emotion.

On D-Day itself, more than 150,000 Allied troops landed on beaches code-named Omaha, Utah, Juno, Sword and Gold, carried by 7,000 boats. The Battle of Normandy hastened Germany’s defeat, which came less than a year later.

Still, that single day cost the lives of 4,414 Allied troops, 2,501 of them Americans. More than 5,000 were injured. On the German side, several thousand were killed or wounded.

This year, Col. Kevin Sharp came with a delegation of three other U.S. military officers from the 101st Airborne Division, based in Kentucky, to attend Friday’s commemorations in Carentan — the same division that took part in the D-Day operations there. His delegation received special, last-minute permission to come to France despite virus restrictions.

The U.S. military “really values the legacy of the soldiers and the paratroopers who came before us,” he told the AP. “It was important enough to send a small representation here to ensure that our appreciation for their sacrifices is made known.”

Archives for June 2021

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