World

For Former Rebel in West Africa, Her Allegiance Still Lies With Russia

Published

2 years ago

August 19, 2022

BISSAU, Guinea-Bissau — When her nation wanted arms to struggle its bitter liberation struggle towards its colonizer, it was the Soviet Union that offered them.

When her nation wanted medical employees to are inclined to the struggle’s wounded, it despatched her to coach as a nurse — within the Soviet Union.

So when Joana Gomes, now a lawmaker within the West African nation of Guinea-Bissau, heard concerning the struggle between Russia and Ukraine, her allegiance was clear from the beginning: It will be with Russia, though she generally slips and nonetheless calls it the Soviet Union.

“It was with their arms that we received our independence,” Ms. Gomes, 72, mentioned on a current wet afternoon, cooking lunch at residence within the capital, Bissau. “If not for them, even right this moment we’d not have our independence.”

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February, some voices had been absent from the worldwide live performance of condemnation, a lot of them African. Sixteen of the 35 nations that abstained from the United Nations vote to sentence Russia’s actions had been in Africa, as was one of many 5 that voted no, Eritrea.

For a lot of African nations, ties with Moscow run deep. The Soviet Union supported many African liberation wars, supplying coaching, schooling and weapons to freedom fighters like Ms. Gomes. Practically six a long time later, she hasn’t forgotten.

In 1964, when she stepped off a aircraft in the united statesS.R., the very first thing Ms. Gomes’s sponsors did was hand her gloves, a hat and a heavy coat.

She was 14. Till that time, she had by no means left Guinea-Bissau, a small West African nation that received independence from Portugal in 1974 after a decade-long struggle.

However her younger life had already been stuffed with drama, violence and tragedy. Her father, an outspoken proponent of the liberation struggle, was murdered by one among his comrades when Ms. Gomes was 13.

Heartbroken, she set out for the forested entrance strains of the struggle. She had determined that the one man who might assist her receive justice for her father was Amilcar Cabral, the chief of the liberation motion and one among Africa’s most iconic anticolonial philosophers and army leaders.

Her three-day march to fulfill Mr. Cabral within the hide-out utilized by him and his guerrilla fighters paid off. The accused murderer was arrested.

However the struggle towards the Portuguese was simply starting, and Ms. Gomes was thrust into one of many continent’s most brutal independence wars.

When Mr. Cabral, a founding father of the African Celebration for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde, or P.A.I.G.C., despatched lots of of Guinean youth for coaching in the united statesS.R., Ms. Gomes was amongst them. When she returned 5 years later, a talented nurse fluent in Russian, the struggle had intensified.

She labored lengthy days on the entrance strains at makeshift clinics, alongside her comrades and docs from Cuba, binding troopers’ wounds and saving the lives of civilians caught within the crossfire. On one event, she pulled shrapnel from the chest of a lady who was eight months pregnant, saving each mom and baby.

One among her most unforgettable moments got here on New Yr’s Eve day, as 1972 was ending.

That morning she wore a pink gown as an alternative of army fatigues, as she anticipated a small social gathering to have a good time. She was in a village just a few miles from her base camp, ordered to retrieve a fellow soldier recuperating from a chest an infection.

However simply because the morning’s espresso was starting to boil on an open hearth, Ms. Gomes heard enemy gunfire, and she or he ran for the duvet of the forest. “Perhaps that is the time I die,” she recollects pondering to herself. However simply then, she tripped, and a small bazooka rocket zoomed above the place her head had simply been. She didn’t make it to the New Yr’s social gathering, however she did make it out of that ambush alive.

Stephanie J. Urdang, a journalist born in South Africa, spent two months reporting from the entrance strains of Guinea-Bissau’s liberation struggle and wrote “Preventing Two Colonialisms: The Girls’s Wrestle in Guinea-Bissau” concerning the contributions ladies like Ms. Gomes made within the struggle for independence.

Assigned as nurses, lecturers and transporters of meals and weapons, the ladies had been trusted to make sure that guerrilla fighters had locations to stay and meals to eat, Ms. Urdang mentioned. However their roles in garnering common assist within the countryside had been maybe much more essential.

“Individuals within the villages knew what the Portuguese had been doing to them. They knew it by means of their incapability to promote their crops at a simply value, they knew it in the best way they had been taken for compelled labor,” Ms. Urdang mentioned.

“So when the P.A.I.G.C. got here in and had been going to do away with these oppressors, after which once they noticed colleges being constructed, well being facilities being constructed and literacy campaigns for folks, only a entire lot of providers had been offered that weren’t there earlier than — there was severe mobilization,” Ms. Urdang mentioned.

After the struggle was received, thanks partly to that mobilization, Ms. Gomes went again to the Soviet Union, the place she educated as a health care provider earlier than returning to Guinea-Bissau in 1987 to work in native hospitals.

She turned director of the nationwide bodily rehabilitation middle and later labored as an inspector of well being amenities for the Ministry of Well being, a begin to her authorities expertise.

Then, just a few years in the past, she determined to as soon as once more deploy her medical information on the entrance strains — of politics, this time, not struggle.

In 2019 within the nation’s rural southwest, throughout her marketing campaign for a seat in Parliament, Ms. Gomes oversaw an effort to ship dozens of recent beds to a small hospital. She wished to indicate she was decided to do one thing concerning the dire well being care system in Guinea-Bissau, whose residents have a median life expectancy of 58.

Ms. Gomes received her election, however her efforts to enhance a well being care system that sits close to the underside in world rankings have run into endemic obstacles.

Since independence, Guinea-Bissau has struggled to search out its footing amid each inside combating and international pressures. There have been 4 coups and lots of extra tried.

On this nation so dominated by water, mangroves swamps and islands, it could actually appear as if residents are at all times ready for the tide to alter to allow them to get someplace — the bodily tide or the political one.

Ms. Gomes’s small concrete residence in Bissau is in a continuing state of destruction and reconstruction. So is her nation, the place residents should cope with unreliable hospitals, colleges and infrastructure.

Then in Could, the president, Umaro Sissoco Embaló, dissolved the Nationwide Meeting, deepening the nation’s cycle of political instability.

Together with her parliamentary work attempting to enhance the nation’s well being care system now on maintain, Ms. Gomes has had extra time to replicate on the struggle between Russia and Ukraine.

Her nurse coaching was in Kyiv, then a part of the Soviet Union, and she or he mentioned she is sympathetic to either side.

“I spent my youth in Ukraine, I’ve associates there, I don’t need folks to undergo. I want there could possibly be an understanding between Ukraine and Putin,” she mentioned. “I used to be in a struggle, I do know what struggle is, I do know what it’s to undergo in a struggle.”

However for all of the day by day struggles which might be nonetheless a part of life in Guinea-Bissau, one hard-fought achievement continues to be intact: independence.

And the Kremlin’s function in that’s nonetheless gratefully remembered, and she or he disagrees with the various who take into account the struggle an act of unjustified Russian aggression.

“Ukraine, why did they wish to be part of NATO?” Ms. Gomes requested. “Russia doesn’t settle for that.”

NATO, she famous, “is an enemy of the Soviet Union. If somebody is my enemy and I inform my father I’m going to their home — to my enemy’s home — is that good?”

In her assist of Russia, she is much from alone in Guinea-Bissau, or certainly the broader area, the place a complete era received liberation from colonial oppressors with Soviet support.

Manuel dos Santos, a former freedom fighter in Guinea-Bissau who has served in varied ministerial posts, was additionally clear about his assist. “If I needed to take sides on this second — and I don’t should — however let’s say I needed to, I might say that Russia had been provoked in each approach,” he mentioned.

Not removed from the Nationwide Meeting constructing in downtown Bissau, on the Guinea-Bissau Nationwide Liberation Museum, many Soviet-supplied weapons are displayed.

“I used to have a Kalashnikov. The Portuguese had American weapons,” Mr. Dos Santos mentioned. “It’s so simple as that.”

“I perceive the sense of dedication due to what the Soviet Union did,” mentioned Ms. Urdang, the author. “However that was the Soviet Union. Russia is totally different now.”

Whichever aspect they’re on, folks in Guinea-Bissau have felt the struggle’s results firsthand.

Strains at gasoline stations had been worst this spring, when gas shortages meant drivers spent hours ready to replenish. However only in the near past, costs for buses and taxis elevated due to increased vitality prices.

Regardless of her appreciation for the united statesS.R., Ms. Gomes didn’t embrace its atheism. On a current Sunday, she obtained able to attend one of many three evangelical church buildings the place she worships.

Whereas there, she deliberate to hope for an finish to Guinea-Bissau’s political crises.

She famous she had been combating for her nation since she was a youngster. However now, it felt like all she might do was look forward to the tide to alter.

“I really feel ache, as a former liberation fighter. What did we struggle for?” she requested. “Guinea-Bissau, it’s with out a authorities, with out something proper now.”

World

Russia sinks space nuke ban at UN amid rumors of Putin's orbital weapon

Published

3 mins ago

April 24, 2024

Press Room

Russia sinks space nuke ban at UN amid rumors of Putin's orbital weapon

A U.S.-led resolution that would prevent using nuclear weapons in outer space received dozens of co-sponsors, but Russia vetoed the measure amid reports it has deployed a weapon that can destroy satellites.

“The detonation of a nuclear weapon in space would destroy satellites that are vital to communications, agriculture, national security, and more worldwide, with grave implications for sustainable development, and other aspects of international peace and security,” the U.S. Mission to the United Nations wrote in a press release prior to the vote.

“The diverse group of cosponsors of this resolution reflects the strong shared interest in avoiding such an outcome,” the statement read. “We join these Member States in calling on the Security Council to meet this moment today and adopt the resolution unanimously, consistent with its mandate to maintain international peace and security.”

The U.S. and Japan presented the resolution to the U.N. Security Council for a vote on Wednesday, but Russia shot the measure down. Prior to the vote, Russia’s Deputy U.N. Ambassador Dmitry Polyansky reported that his country’s initial impression was that the resolution served as “yet another propaganda stunt by Washington” and called it a “very politicized” effort “divorced from reality,” The Associated Press reported.

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The draft resolution, which received backing from 60 member states, states that “the prevention of an arms race in outer space would avert a grave danger for international peace and security.” It affirms that countries that ratified the 1967 Outer Space Treaty must comply with their obligations.

A Security Council meeting at United Nations headquarters, March 22, 2024. (Getty Images)

The tug-of-war over hypothetical space-based weapons follows claims from the White House in February that Russia had deployed a “troubling” anti-satellite weapon – though no one has yet confirmed the weapon is operational or even in a testing phase.

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The weapon would allegedly be capable of destroying satellites by creating a massive energy wave when detonated, Foreign Policy reported. The weapon could therefore potentially cripple countless other satellites that serve both commercial and government purposes, including cellphone use and internet access.

Vassily Nebenzia, Russia’s permanent representative to the U.N., attends a Security Council meeting at U.N. headquarters in New York City on April 14, 2024. (Fatih Aktas/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Russia at the time argued that it would uphold the international 1967 treaty, which bans the deployment of “nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction” into orbit or the stationing of “weapons in outer space in any other manner.”

“Our position is quite clear and transparent: we have always been and remain categorically opposed to the deployment of nuclear weapons in space,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in February. “Just the opposite, we are urging everyone to adhere to all the agreements that exist in this sphere.”

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., attends the Security Council meeting to demand an immediate cease-fire in Gaza on March 25, 2024, in New York. (Fatih Aktas/Anadolu via Getty Images)

However, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu cryptically added at another time that Russia has only developed space capabilities that “other nations, including the U.S., have.”

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U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres later warned that “geopolitical tensions and mistrust have escalated the risk of nuclear warfare to its highest point in decades.”

Russia’s Soyuz-2.1a, carrying the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft, was successfully launched from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur spaceport on March 23, 2024, according to TASS News Agency. (Roscosmos/Ivan Timoshenko/Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Putin, throughout the conflict with Ukraine, has dangled threats of nuclear weapons. He said that “from a military-technical point of view, we are, of course, ready,” when asked in March about a potential nuclear war.

Putin has used the threat of nuclear weapons in Ukraine as a means of preventing more direct intervention from the U.S. and other NATO allies, repeatedly stressing that any deployment of troops or similar more direct moves against Russia would be viewed as intervening in the war.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Peter Aitken is a Fox News Digital reporter with a focus on national and global news.

World

What do newly approved anti-money laundering rules cover?

Published

47 mins ago

April 24, 2024

Press Room

What do newly approved anti-money laundering rules cover?

EU lawmakers voted in a landslide in favour of new curbs on crypto, football clubs and cash transactions.

EU lawmakers today voted 482 to 47 to set up a long-promised EU anti-money laundering agency, as part of a package that would also see large cash payments banned across Europe.

The move – taken by MEPs at their last voting session before June elections – means new rules apply for football deals and crypto transactions, as the bloc seeks to repair its reputation after a series of financial-sector scandals.

“Dirty money finances terrible crimes,” EU financial services commissioner Mairead McGuinness said, adding that there was an “absolute imperative to improve significantly on the current situation”.

Those views seemed largely shared across the political divide – including by Damien Carême (France/Greens), one of the MEPs who led negotiations.

Terrorists and fraudsters “exploit the loopholes in European legislation”, Carême told lawmakers. “We have to act decisively to ensure a robust system.”

What do new EU money-laundering rules do?

New rules include a limit on professional traders accepting or paying cash for any transaction over €10,000 – given that big wads of untraceable banknotes can send alarm bells over financial crime.

Some lawmakers claim that’s an attack on financial freedom.

“Keep your hands off our cash and our digital currencies,” Patrick Breyer of the German Pirate Party told lawmakers. “We Pirates say no to this creeping financial disenfranchisement.”

Yet one of the most touchy subjects of the complex package has been geographical: the question of where to house a new EU anti-money laundering agency.

After a first-of-a-kind 12-hour public hearing, German financial centre Frankfurt won out, from a slate of candidates that also comprised Paris, Rome, Madrid, Vienna, Riga, Vilnius, Brussels and Dublin.

Its 400-odd staff will directly supervise dirty-money controls at 40 of the bloc’s biggest financial institutions.

Expanded scope of new anti-money laundering laws

EU money laundering laws already apply to big institutions like banks, who are required to verify who their customers are, and report suspicious transactions to the authorities.

Those rules will also apply to high-risk sectors like traders in artwork, jewellery and luxury yachts. They’ll be extended to cover innovative services like cryptocurrency providers—as lawmakers are concerned bitcoin and other, even more anonymous assets can be used for illicit payments.

At MEPs’ insistence, the measures apply to major football clubs and agents – given the large amounts of sometimes dubious money that circulates between them.

More consistent rules

For the first time ever, the EU’s rules are set out in a regulation that will apply more or less consistently across the bloc.

That means less discretion for each country to tweak rules for the national context – creating discrepancies that make it harder for legitimate businesses to operate across borders, and easier for criminals and terrorists to exploit the system.

A separate money laundering directive, also agreed today, resolves issues over how journalists and activists can trace the financial structures used to hide wealth.

Arrangements were thrown into disarray by a shock 2022 EU court judgment that restricted access to company ownership registers on privacy grounds.

Why does the EU need new anti-money laundering rules?

Officials hope the new rulebook will help improve the EU’s reputation for dirty money, closing the chapter on a series of scandals.

Two EU members – Croatia and Bulgaria – currently sit on a “grey list” of suspect money laundering jurisdictions compiled by international standard-setter the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), and Malta was only recently taken off it.

The region also faced a series of financial-sector scandals involving institutions such as Danske Bank, Latvia’s ABLV, and Malta’s Pilatus bank.

Danske was fined billions of euros by US and Danish regulators in 2022, after admitting that around €200bn was laundered through its Estonian arm between 2007 and 2015.

EU talks were given extra salience by the need to enforce sanctions imposed on Russia for its war in Ukraine – given fears that ultra-wealthy oligarchs can use shady financial structures to evade curbs.

When will new EU money laundering rules take effect?

New anti-money laundering controls have been a long time coming, and it’s still not over.

Valdis Dombrovskis berated uneven enforcement and promised to examine a new EU agency in his hearing to become EU financial services commissioner as far back as October 2019.

After several last-minute wrangles, lawmakers and governments announced a tentative deal on the bulk of the law in January 2024.

Once nodded through by national ministers, much of the new regulation kicks in after three years, but there is some flexibility.

Rules for the football sector will take five years to apply, and the new EU agency could start work later this year – though the law setting it up takes effect formally in July 2025.

World

Reggie Bush reinstated as 2005 Heisman Trophy winner. Changes in NCAA rules led to the decision

Published

7 hours ago

April 24, 2024

Press Room

Reggie Bush reinstated as 2005 Heisman Trophy winner. Changes in NCAA rules led to the decision

NEW YORK (AP) — Reggie Bush has been reinstated as the 2005 Heisman Trophy winner more than a decade after Southern California returned the award following an NCAA investigation that found he received what were impermissible benefits during his time with the Trojans, the Heisman Trust announced Wednesday.

“We are thrilled to welcome Reggie Bush back to the Heisman family in recognition of his collegiate accomplishments,” said Michael Comerford, president of The Heisman Trophy Trust. “We considered the enormous changes in college athletics over the last several years in deciding that now is the right time to reinstate the Trophy for Reggie. We are so happy to welcome him back.”

Bush had won the trophy awarded to the top player in college football after amassing more than 2,000 yards from scrimmage and scoring 18 touchdowns in 2005. His 784 first-place votes were the fifth most in Heisman history.

The Heisman Trust has returned the trophy to Bush and the replica to USC. Bush will be invited to all future Heisman Trophy ceremonies.

The Trust said in a statement that its decision followed a “deliberative process” in which it closely monitored changes in the college football landscape. That included the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2021 decision that questioned the legality of the NCAA’s amateurism model and opened the door to athlete compensation; the ability of college football players to be paid for their name, image, and likeness; and the NCAA’s recent proposal to remove the cap on education-related payments.

“Recognizing that the compensation of student athletes is an accepted practice and appears here to stay, these fundamental changes in college athletics led the Trust to decide that now is the right time to return the Trophy to Bush, who unquestionably was the most outstanding college football player of 2005,” the Trust said.