More than 1 billion animals have been killed in bushfires in the Australian state of New South Wales, according to leading wildlife experts.

Bushfires have had a terrible impact on Australia. Lives have been lost, thousands of homes destroyed and vast areas of land incinerated. The disaster has also had catastrophic consequences for animals. Images of badly burned koalas, Australia’s famous furry marsupials, have come to define the severity of the fire emergency.

The University of Sydney has estimated that more than 1 billion mammals, birds and reptiles, as well as “hundreds of billions” of insects have died in the fires. Experts have warned that “for some species we are looking at imminent extinction.”

They also fear that animals that have survived the fires by fleeing or seeking safety underground will return to areas that will not have the food, water or shelter to support them. 

Saving the zoo animals

At zoos and wildlife reserves, staff risked their lives protecting the animals in their care.

As fires tore through the town of Mogo on the New South Wales south coast on New Year’s Eve, there were grave fears for the animals at the local zoo. Remarkably, they all survived, but the property is badly damaged.

Chad Staples, the head keeper, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation about his decision to stay to fight the flames.

“We have a lot of damaged fences,” he said. “The good thing is that we saved every single animal, there is no injuries, there’s no sickness. We had to stay here and protect them. We knew that this was the best place that we, if we worked hard, could make this a safe place. But, yeah, of course, I think everyone, at [a] different point, was scared out of their wits.”

Farm animals perish

Tens of thousands of farm animals also have likely died in the bushfire disaster.

Farmers have been forced to euthanize injured stock. The losses could run into the millions of dollars.

Only when the fires clear will Australia be able to more accurately assess the full extent of the damage on livestock and wildlife.

Dozens of fires continue to burn across several Australian states.

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Two Eritrean asylum-seekers were shot dead in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, days after the U.N. refugee agency pressed them to leave its facility citing overcrowding.

The UNHCR confirmed the deaths in a statement Friday saying it’s “deeply saddened” by the Thursday deaths in Tripoli.

Three refugees told The Associated Press that the men were among dozens forced out of the UNHCR-run Gathering and Departure Facility 10 days ago. The three spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

The facility was promoted as an “alternative to detention” but when the numbers of refugees increased, the U.N. offered money and pressed new arrivals to leave. The slain refugees were among those who accepted the money and left.

They were among thousands held in Libya’s detention centers where abuses are rampant. The country is a major waypoint for migrants fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East to Europe.

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The Islamic State group gloated over the recent U.S. killing of a senior Iranian general, who rose to prominence by advising forces fighting the extremists.

In the first IS comments since Gen. Qassem Soleimani’s slaying, the group said his death “pleased the hearts of believers.” The editorial was released in the group’s al-Nabaa online newspaper late Thursday.

Although the U.S. and Iran strictly avoided working together directly, they were once on the same side in the fight against IS. Neither side wants to see the extremists stage a comeback.

But as the various players in Iraq jockey to come out ahead in a post-Soleimani landscape, Islamic State militants may find an opening. Thousands of fighters are scattered among the group’s sleeper cells, and have claimed attacks in both Iraq and neighboring Syria in recent months.

As the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, Soleimani was one of the main commanders on the ground spearheading the fight against IS. He sent thousands of Iran-backed fighters to Iraq and Syria to battle the extremists, and directed Iraqi Shiite militias as well. A top Iraqi militia commander was killed alongside Soleimani in last week’s U.S. drone strike.

The IS editorial said that its members tried for years to kill the two commanders, but that “God brought their end at the hands of their allies.” It said both men “have gone too far in shedding the blood of Muslims in Iraq and Syria.”

Iraq’s caretaker prime minister has now asked Washington to start working out a road map for withdrawing the more than 5,000 American troops in Iraq, in response to Soleimani’s killing. But the U.S. State Department on Friday bluntly rejected the request.

Iraqis have felt furious and helpless at being caught in the middle of fighting between Baghdad’s two closest allies.

 

 

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The United Nations human rights office accused members of the ethnic-Lendu community in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ituri Province of mass violations against the ethnic Hema community, which could constitute crimes against humanity.

Inter-ethnic tensions between the Lendu and Hema communities over land and other resources have gone on for decades.  But the U.N. human rights office reports those disputes have spiraled out of control and become particularly dangerous and alarming.  

A U.N. investigation from December 2017 to September 2019 found more than 700 people were killed, 168 injured and at least 143 people sexually violated in the territories of Djugu and Mahagi in DRC’s Ituri Province.  U.N. human rights spokesman Rupert Colville said most of the perpetrators are Lendu and most of the victims are Hema.

“The report documents numerous cases of women being raped, of children—some in school uniforms—being killed, and of looting and burning of villages,” he said. “The violence could contain some elements of crimes against humanity through murder, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence, pillage and persecution.”  

The report said the barbarity of the attacks reflects the desire of the attackers to inflict lasting trauma to the Hema communities and force them to flee and not return to their homes.  The U.N. said schools and health clinics were attacked and destroyed, houses and villages burned to the ground.  The attacks occurred in June and December during the harvest and planting seasons and aimed to prevent the Hema from cultivating their land and have them experience food shortages.

Colville told VOA those tactics have some characteristics of genocide.  But he said the burden of proof for genocide is so high one has to be very cautious before jumping to such conclusions.  

“I think what they are doing in the report is just flagging this element is there,” he said. “It is inter-ethnic.  It appears to be targeting on a big scale.  It is organized and systematic, and there are elements that could lead to, perhaps depending on what happens in the future to a characterization of genocide.  But it is a very tentative reference.  It is not dwelled on at any length.” 

The U.N. human rights office recommended DRC authorities address the root causes of the Lendu-Hema conflict, urged authorities to conduct an independent and impartial investigation into the violence, and to compensate the victims.

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South Sudanese First Vice President Taban Deng Gai is denying allegations of human rights abuses and criticizing U.S. sanctions against him.

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Deng on Wednesday. Officials say Deng arranged and directed the deaths of two prominent activists — human rights lawyer Samuel Dong Luak and opposition politician Aggrey Iddri — and tried to derail South Sudan’s peace process. Conflict broke out in 2013 following a power struggle between President Salva Kiir and then-Vice President Riek Machar.

The U.S. government also says Deng worked to divide opposition opponents and members of the broader ethnic Nuer community who were displaced because of the conflict. Officials say he directed the actions to solidify his position within Kiir’s government and to intimidate members of the SPLM-IO, of which Iddri was a member.

Deng called the sanctions “regrettable and baseless.”

The U.S. move is the latest in a series of sanctions against South Sudanese individuals.

The Treasury Department accuses South Sudan’s government of refusing to create “political space for dissenting voices, from opposition parties, ethnic groups, civil society, or media,” an issue it said has been a key factor in the country’s inability to implement a peace agreement and ongoing acts of violence against civilians.

In September 2018, Kiir and Machar signed a revitalized peace agreement that called for the formation of a national unity government by May 2019. Government and opposition leaders extended that deadline twice, but have not taken steps to create a unified national army — one of the measures seen as key to implementing the peace deal. The biggest remaining obstacle between the government and the opposition is the dispute over the number of states and their boundaries.

Kiir and Machar are scheduled to form the unity government in February.

Defending Deng 

Deng’s office manager defended his boss and his activities.

“In discharging his duties as the first vice president of the Republic of South Sudan, he dedicated and committed himself to working for the unity and peaceful co-existence among the people of South Sudan to secure a future for them,” Adel Sandrai told VOA.

The U.S. said the sanctions fall under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, which targets perpetrators of serious human rights abuse and corruption.

The Treasury Department noted in its statement that since the September 2018 peace deal, which included a permanent cease-fire, hundreds of civilians have been killed, raped and abducted. It said the U.S. will not hesitate to target individuals who have perpetuated the conflict.

Sandrai maintains that Deng has worked to restore peace in South Sudan.

“Despite the sanctions wrongly imposed on him, H.E General Taban Deng Gai pledges to continue to work with the United States and the international community to demonstrate such commitment and to prove the unfounded nature of the allegations against him,” Sandrai said.

The sanctions freeze all cash or assets held in the U.S. and block Deng from accessing the American financial system.

Next steps

Abraham Kuol Nyuon, professor of political science at the University of Juba, said Kiir should fire the officials already on the list of people sanctioned by the United States.

“The president should be able to redeem himself by trying to make sure he disassociates himself from the people who have already been sanctioned and the people who have become spoilers to the peace agreement,” Nyuon told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus program.

Nyuon said he believes the only way Kiir can turn things around is by convincing the international community he is ready to cooperate.

“All the people around the president are already sanctioned and now the United States is seriously watching every step of the president,” Nyuon said.

In December, the U.S. sanctioned Defense Minister Kuol Manyang Juuk and Cabinet Affairs Minister Martin Elia Lomuro, saying they fueled the five-year conflict and obstructed peace in South Sudan, the world’s youngest country. Five other South Sudanese were sanctioned last month.  
 

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The agency that oversees the United States’ nuclear arsenal says it doesn’t need to do any broad environmental reviews of a proposal that calls for ramping up production of plutonium triggers at federal installations in New Mexico and South Carolina.

The National Nuclear Security Administration on Wednesday released a supplemental analysis related to the project, saying the determination was made after reviewing extensive documentation and public comments that were received last year.

Nuclear watchdogs, government accountability advocates and other critics argue that the decision skirts requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act and a decades-old court order that included a mandate for an environmental review when the federal government embarked on plans to boost production to more than 80 of the nuclear cores a year.

A key component of every nuclear weapon, most of the plutonium cores in the stockpile were produced in the 1970s and 1980s, according to the nuclear agency.

Federal officials have set a deadline of 2030 for ramped-up core production, with work being split between Los Alamos National Laboratory in northern New Mexico and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. At stake are jobs and billions of dollars in federal funding that would be needed to revamp existing buildings or construct new factories to support the work.

The NNSA said it would prepare an environmental impact statement on core-making at Savannah River. A less extensive review is being done for Los Alamos, but watchdogs say that analysis will fall short of the nationwide public review required by such a significant proposal.

Legal challenge

Lawyers for the Natural Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Savannah River Site Watch and Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment first threatened legal action last fall. They reiterated Thursday that a legal challenge is possible since the nuclear agency has declined to prepare a broader review.

“We need to find smart ways to face the world’s renewed nuclear arms race. Unnecessary expanded production of questionable plutonium bomb cores is not the way to do it,” said Jay Coghlan of Nuclear Waste New Mexico.

Under the National Environmental Policy Act, Coghlan said the federal government should be considering credible alternatives to ensuring the reliability and sustainability of the nuclear arsenal rather than the rubber stamping of a “nukes forever” agenda that is funded by taxpayers.

Years-long debate

While the NNSA’s decision comes as President Donald Trump on Thursday proposed overhauling the half-century old National Environmental Policy Act, the issues surrounding plutonium pit production have spanned multiple presidential administrations.

Elected leaders in New Mexico and South Carolina long have been jockeying for the lucrative mission. Some members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation have resisted the nuclear agency’s plan, arguing that production should be centered at Los Alamos — the once-secret city in northern New Mexico where the atomic bomb was developed decades ago as part of the Manhattan Project.

The mission of producing the cores has been based at Los Alamos for years but none have been made since 2011 as the lab has been dogged by a string of safety lapses and concerns about a lack of accountability.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico criticized the Trump administration Thursday for its proposed rollbacks, saying the environmental policy act is the only law that requires federal agencies to consider the environmental and climate related consequences of federal actions. As for the plutonium project, the senior senator has yet to say whether he would support more environmental reviews.
 

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A radio station host and manager in the Mexican state of Michoacan who went missing in late November has been found dead, officials said Thursday, adding to the growing murder toll of journalists as violence escalates across the country.

Local media said he had been shot to death.

Mexico registered 10 killings of journalists in 2019, the same number as the year before and in line with Syria, according to Reporters Without Borders, making Mexico one of the world’s most dangerous places for media workers.

The body of Fidel Avila, of the “Ke Buena” station in the western state of Michoacan’s Huetamo municipality, was found on a highway earlier this week, 40 days after he was last seen at a cultural event in neighboring Guerrero state, Mexico’s National Commission of Human Rights said.

“Our condolences to the family and friends of Fidel Avila Gomez, journalist in Michoacan. We deeply lament his murder,” presidential spokesman Jesus Ramirez wrote in a post on Twitter.

Michoacan and Guerrero are two of Mexico’s most violent and lawless states, where rival drug gangs have battled to control smuggling routes.

The president of the Michoacan Association of Journalists, Alvaro Garcia, told local television that criminal activity in the area was at a peak.

“There is always a persistent risk,” he said.
 

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The number of migrants apprehended along the U.S.-Mexico border has declined sharply since May 2019, according to data released Thursday by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

A CBP official told reporters Thursday that the number of people apprehended or viewed as “inadmissible” totaled 40,620 last month, a 72% decrease from the more than 144,000 recorded at the peak of the border crisis last May.

During Thursday’s press call, border officials attributed the seven-month decline to the Trump administration’s policy initiatives aimed at deterring illegal border crossings.

Despite the drop, the December apprehensions number is not especially low, according to Migration Policy Institute analyst Jessica Bolter.

“Looking back at apprehensions in the month of December, this number is the fourth highest between 2012 and 2019. So, it’s solidly in the middle,” she said.

Even so, Bolter noted that apprehensions have been declining month after month since May.

“This indicates that there’s something going on other than seasonal factors that’s affecting migration flows,” she said. “The combination of MPP [Migrant Protection Protocols] and Mexico’s increased enforcement, which both mainly target Central Americans, is clearly having a deterrent effect.”

Under MPP, also known as “Remain in Mexico,” migrants are forced to await U.S. immigration court dates in Mexico. Human rights advocates say the program deters people with legitimate asylum claims from seeking protections in the United States.

In December, family units accounted for 12,064 people who crossed the border without authorization and were stopped by U.S. Border Patrol agents. There were 3,707 unaccompanied children and 24,788 single adults, down 4% from November.

Overall, CBP reports a 69% decline in unaccompanied children and a decrease across all key demographics since May.

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