A surge of terrorist violence in Africa’s Sahel region is forcing West African nations to reconsider their strategy and unify military forces. Leaders invited by French President Emmanuel Macron to a G5 summit in the southern French city of Pau on Monday agreed to pursue their engagements with France – and put aside their differences with the former colonial power – to fight against jihadism. For VOA, Daniel Gillet reports from Pau. 
 
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The fiancée of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi called last month’s death sentences for five unnamed assailants a mockery of justice in her first ever English-language interview.”It’s like a joke to me. It’s unacceptable, really, because we don’t know any details about this investigation,” Hatice Cengiz told Oslo-based Skavlan in a television interview on Sunday.”They told us of only five men without names,” she said. “And why they are five? More than 10 people came to Turkey!”We want real punishment, even for [those who gave the] orders,” she told The brutal murder and dismemberment of the Saudi dissident writer with a bone saw occurred as Cengiz awaited his return outside the consulate walls.The December 23 Saudi ruling, the outcome of largely secret murder trial proceedings, has been widely dismissed for punishing those who carried out the attack while protecting those who ordered it.”Bottom line: the hit-men are guilty, sentenced to death, and the masterminds not only walk free, they have barely been touched by the investigation and the trial,” said Agnes Callamard, special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions for the United Nations human rights office.”That is the antithesis of Justice. It is a mockery,” Callamard saidRiyadh’s public prosecutor defended the ruling, explaining that death sentences targeted those who committed and directly participated in the murder, while imprisoning others “for their role in covering up this crime.”Callamard’s June 2019 U.N. probe concluded that 15 Saudi agents “acted under cover of their official status and used state means to execute Mr. Khashoggi.”
The U.N. report also found “credible evidence” linking Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to the killing, and a U.S. CIA assessment said the crown prince ordered the killing.
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На українському міжбанківському валютному ринку котирування знову сягнули рівня 24 гривні за долар. Станом на 12:20, за даними Finance.ua, торги відбувалися на позначках 24 гривні 0,5–3 копійки за долар.

«Сьогодні Міністерство фінансів буде розміщувати облігації на суму 5,5 млрд гривень, з яких на 4,5 млрд — довгострокові ОВДП. Ці папери цікаві іноземцям і тому на валютний ринок сьогодні (сам аукціон) і завтра (розрахунки по ньому) вийде валюта нерезидентів під угоди за ними. Це додасть пропозиції на торгах і спрацює на користь гривні», – прогнозували фахівці сайту «Мінфін».

Водночас експерти не радили забувати і про роль Національного банку на торгах.

«Саме вчорашня активна купівля регулятором долара на торгах і призвела до створення його штучного дефіциту на ринку та спекулятивного зростання котирувань наприкінці дня», – ідеться в повідомленні.

Національний банк України з 13 грудня 2019 року встановив облікову ставку на рівні 13,5%, знизивши її одразу на 2%. Також регулятор збільшив обсяг щоденного викупу валюти на міжбанку до 50 мільйонів доларів з попереднього рівня 30 мільйонів доларів.

 
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The world’s oceans were the hottest in recorded history in 2019, scientists said on Tuesday, as manmade emissions warmed seas at an ever-increasing rate with potentially disastrous impacts on Earth’s climate.Oceans absorb more than 90 percent of excess heat created by greenhouse gas emissions and quantifying how much they have warmed up in recent years gives scientists an accurate read on the rate of global warming.A team of experts from around the world looked at data compiled by China’s Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP) to gain a clear picture of ocean warmth to a depth of 2,000 meters over several decades.They found that oceans last year were by far the hottest ever recorded and said that the effects of ocean warming were already being felt in the form of more extreme weather, rising sea levels and damage to marine life.The study, published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, said that last year the ocean was 0.075 Celsius hotter than the historical average between 1981-2010.That means the world’s oceans have absorbed 228 Zetta Joules (228 billion trillion Joules) of energy in recent decades.”That’s a lot of zeros,” said Cheng Lijing, lead paper author and associate professor at the International Center for Climate and Environmental Sciences at the IAP.”The amount of heat we have put in the world’s oceans in the past 25 years equals 3.6 billion Hiroshima atom bomb explosions.”The past five years are the five hottest years for the ocean, the study found.As well as the mid-term warming trend, the data showed that the ocean had absorbed 25 Zetta Joules of additional energy in 2019 compared with 2018’s figure.”That’s roughly equivalent to everyone on the planet running a hundred hairdryers or a hundred microwaves continuously for the entire year,” Michael Mann, director of Penn State’s Earth System Sciences Center, told AFP.Centuries of warming The 2015 Paris accord aims to limit global temperature rises to “well below” 2C, and to 1.5C if at all possible.With just 1C of warming since the pre-industrial period, Earth has experienced a cascade of droughts, superstorms, floods and wildfires made more likely by climate change.The study authors said there was a clear link between climate-related disasters — such as the bushfires that have ravaged southeastern Australia for months — and warming oceans.Warmer seas mean more evaporation, said Mann.”That means more rainfall but also it means more evaporative demand by the atmosphere,” he said.”That in turn leads to drying of the continents, a major factor that is behind the recent wildfires from the Amazon all the way to the Arctic, and including California and Australia.”Hotter oceans also expand, leading to sea level rises.The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in a landmark oceans report last year warned that tens of millions of people could be displaced from coastal areas by the end of the century because of encroaching seas.And given that the ocean has a far higher heat absorption capacity than the atmosphere, scientists believe they will continue to warm even if humanity manages to drag down its emissions in line with the Paris goals.”As long as we continue to warm up the planet with carbon emissions, we expect about 90 percent of the heating to continue to go into the oceans,” said Mann.”If we stop warming up the planet, heat will continue to diffuse down into the deep ocean for centuries, until eventually stabilising.”
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Ethiopians and U.S. foreign policy observers are trying to unravel a comment made by President Donald Trump last week where he claimed to have “saved a country” and implied he should have been given the Nobel Peace Prize for the achievement.  Trump made the comments during a rally in Toledo, Ohio, and appeared to be referencing Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed whose Nobel Peace Prize was announced in October. “I made a deal, I saved a country, and I just heard that the head of that country is now getting the Nobel Peace Prize for saving the country. I said, ‘what? Did I have something do with it?’”Abiy received the prize for his efforts to end nearly 20 years of hostility between Eritrea and Ethiopia relating to disputes over their shared border.Observers believe Trump was referring to White House efforts to mediate discussions between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan over water usage from the Nile River. Ethiopia is building a massive hydroelectric power project known as the Grand Renaissance Dam, but countries downstream on the Blue Nile are concerned it will deplete their principal water source.The U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee wasted no time jumping on what they believed to be a gaffe by Trump. “Trump is confused. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to bring peace to the Horn of Africa, not stalled negotiations about a new dam on the Nile,” the committee said on its Twitter account on Jan. 10.  The committee, which is chaired by a Democratic lawmaker, also pointed out that the negotiations have not been successful. The three countries continue to be deadlocked and have been unable to reach an agreement as they approach a Jan. 15 deadline to resolve the issue.  “If they gave the Nobel for deals that didn’t happen, the Pres. would have a shelf full of them,” the Foreign Affairs Committee Twitter account stated.Trump is confused.PM @AbiyAhmedAli was awarded the @NobelPrize for his efforts to bring peace to the Horn of Africa, not stalled negotiations about a new dam on the Nile.If they gave the Nobel for deals that didn’t happen, the Pres. would have a shelf full of them. #Ethiopiahttps://t.co/WhJ6nLvb6Z— House Foreign Affairs Committee (@HouseForeign) January 10, 2020 Trump has not elaborated on the comments since then. When asked about the meaning, the U.S. Embassy in Ethiopia referred reporters to comments made in October by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo congratulating Abiy on the award, the Washington Post reported.For his part, Abiy did not appear bothered by the statement. “To be honest, I don’t have any clue about the criteria [of] how the Nobel committee selects an individual for the prize. So, the issue of President Trump must go to the Nobel Prize Committee,” Abiy said on Jan. 12 during a press conference in South Africa.  Abiy added that he is more concerned with progress toward peace in the region than awards. “I am not working for the prize. I am working that peace is a very critical thing for our region and if they recognize and if President Trump complained, it must go to Oslo, not to Ethiopia,” he said.  VIDEO: After US President Donald Trump said that he believes he deserves the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize, Abiy Ahmed, the winner and Ethiopian Prime Minister replied: “If Donald Trump wants to complain, he should go to Oslo, not Ethiopia” pic.twitter.com/63IrjUKK9D— AFP news agency (@AFP) January 12, 2020Ambassador Herman Cohen, a former U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs, said these types of confounding, off-the-cuff remarks have become a hallmark of Trump’s presidency. “He has this tendency to make comments without first looking in the background. That’s the way he operates,” Cohen told VOA’s Amharic service.  But Cohen said the U.S. has the potential to play a leading role in relieving tensions among the Nile River countries. Representatives from Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia met at the White House on November 6. This week, the delegations are continuing to negotiate. They have meetings scheduled with Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin and the President of the World Bank David Malpass.  “Egypt has been in a very tense situation with Ethiopia. And what President Trump did was he called both countries and said ‘come to the United States and we’ll mediate your dispute.’ And this caused a drop in the tension between Ethiopia and Egypt,” Cohen said. “And for that, I think President Trump deserves a lot of credit. Now, maybe he’ll get the peace prize for that next year.”VOA Horn of Africa’s Amharic service Solomon Abate contributed to this story.  
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The Daily Orange isn’t daily anymore.The student-run newspaper has covered Syracuse University since 1903 and trained generations of journalists, but it now prints just three issues per week.Editor-in-chief Haley Robertson said she is looking for advertisers, worries about firing friends who work as staff, and searches for alumni donors who will pay to send reporters on the road to cover the university’s sports teams.These problems are similar to those faced by executives two or three times her age — evidence of how the news industry’s woes have seeped onto campuses. The schools are trying to harness youthful energy and idealism to turn out professionals who can inform the world, according to the Associated Press, which reported this story about student journalists in a recent article.”When I look at local news and see what’s happening, I’m pessimistic,” said Kathleen Culver, journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “When I look at 18- and 20-year-olds and see what they want to do, I’m optimistic.”Despite the challenges and an uncertain future, the student journalists continue to hone their craft, one story at a time. According to the AP, enrollment in journalism programs is up, and suggested that frequent attacks on the press have given birth to a new resolve. It was an apparent reference to President Donald Trump, whom the article did not mention by name. Trump has denounced the news media as an enemy that produces what he has termed “fake news.”Learning by doingThousands of young journalists train in classrooms and in student-run newsrooms. For college student Robertson, that means hours a day in a dingy office with yellowed headlines glued to the wall, metal file cabinets signed by editors dating back nearly 50 years and a ripped upholstered couch carried from The Daily Orange’s old office, which is now the site of a parking lot.Occasionally, college publications like The Daily Orange make national news by breaking news. In 2018, the paper first posted video of racist and sexist comments made at a Syracuse fraternity, leading to embarrassing headlines for the university across the country. Daily Orange managing editor Catherine Leffert sat on the floor at a campus meeting as that story developed, tapping out updates on her mobile phone, and slept on the office couch in two-hour intervals. The fraternity was suspended, AP reports.”What keeps me wanting to be a journalist and wanting to do it here is seeing the effect that The Daily Orange has. It’s really cool and exciting,” said Leffert as she acknowledged that seeing layoffs and newsroom cutbacks “was really disheartening.”Last year, Arizona State University’s student newspaper, The State Press, was the first outlet in the United States with word of the resignation of Kurt Volker, U.S. envoy to Ukraine. Volker runs Arizona State’s McCain Institute for International Leadership.Cutting up the paperThirty-five percent of school papers say they have reduced the frequency of print issues to save money, according to a College Media Association (CMA) survey taken back in 2019, said Chris Evans, CMA president and adviser to the University of Vermont newspaper, to the AP.Five percent have gone online only, as the University of Maryland’s The Diamondback said that it would do early next year. Half of the newspapers that haven’t abandoned publications like The Daily Orange, said they are not printing as many copies.Robertson touts the transition as a way to follow the industry by going digital, and The Daily Orange has an active website and social media presence.The University of North Carolina’s The Daily Tar Heel switched to publishing three days a week in 2017, when its directors realized they were going broke, said Maddy Arrowood, the paper’s editor-in-chief. The newspaper cut the pay of staff members and moved into a new, smaller office above a restaurant.”I spend most of my time very aware of our financial situation,” Arrowood said. “We’re always trying to tell the newsroom that your goal is to produce the best content that you can and be an indispensable resource for our readers.”Last year, The Daily Tar Heel reported a tiny profit.Struggling with a $280,000 debt, The Hilltop at Howard University printed its first edition this semester in mid-October. The Maneater at the University of Missouri used to print twice a week, then once. Now it’s down to once a month. It operates separately from a newspaper staffed by faculty and students in the university journalism school.Staff members are now charged annual dues, said Leah Glasser, the paper’s editor. They can avoid the “dues” if they find an alumni sponsor or sell enough advertising to cover it. The paper has a website, and Glasser and her staff are slowly getting used to the new monthly schedule.”It’s so difficult to hear, ‘We don’t have enough money,”’ she said. “We hear that a lot. As a generation, that doesn’t make us turn around and go home.”Newspaper jobs across the country sank from 52,000 in 2008 to 24,000 now, according to the University of North Carolina, AP reports.Funding sourcesNewspapers like The Daily Orange and The Daily Tar Heel don’t take money from the university or fellow students, believing that to be a conflict of interest. Most publications do, however. Tammy Merrett, faculty adviser to The Alestle at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, doesn’t know how her paper would survive without it.In 2008, The Alestle’s ad revenue was about $150,000 a year, aided by slick ads taken out by military recruiters, Planned Parenthood and local supermarkets. Now, the paper struggles to make $30,000 a year in ad sales.”At some universities, they have to approach student government directly and ask for funds, and there have been some instances where student government doesn’t like the coverage, so they deny it,” Merrett said. “Luckily, that doesn’t happen here.”Amid the worries, North Carolina’s Arrowood said her experience makes her more interested in a journalism career, not less. Her optimism “comes from knowing that people still need news, they still need information, and I’ve gotten to see that in a lot of ways,” she said. “I’m willing to meet people where they are.”What I want to do is still something that people need,” she said.With that, she cut the conversation short. Arrowood had a class to attend.
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The personal relationship between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump has no impact on Pyongyang’s denuclearization stance toward Washington, said experts.”The recent North Korean statement responding to Trump’s birthday card was very clear,” said Robert Manning, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. “The personal feelings between Trump and Kim have no bearing on DPRK policy.”The DPRK stands for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the official English name for North Korea.Over the past two years, Trump has attempted to parlay his personal relationship with Kim into a breakthrough on denuclearization talks. Kim Kye Gwan, first vice foreign minister of North Korea, arrives at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, July 26, 2011The Korean Central News Agency, North Korea’s state media, issued the statement on Saturday.Ken Gause, director of the Adversary Analytics Program at CNA, said the remarks do not mean that Kim will end his personal relationship with Trump but suggested, “Trump can’t trade on that relationship to get denuclearization or maybe even a freeze on testing.”Throughout the Trump administration’s diplomatic outreach to Pyongyang that began in 2018, Trump has touted his personal relationship with Kim, which culminated in an exchange of letters between the two.”I was really tough and so was he, and we went back and forth,” Trump told supporters at a West Virginia rally on September 30, 2018, months after he met Kim for the first time in Singapore. “Since the failed Hanoi Summit in February, North Korea has demanded that the U.S. relax sanctions imposed on the country. Kim’s advisor said in his statement that North Korea’s offer to close down a main nuclear facility at Yongbyon in exchange for sanctions relief made at the Hanoi Summit is no longer valid.  “There will never be such negotiations as that in Vietnam, in which we proposed exchanging a core nuclear facility for the lifting of some U.N. sanctions,” said Kim Kye Gwan.Klingner said, “Pyongyang’s demands remain constant, for the U.S. to capitulate to regime demands if Washington wants to have another nuclear agreement.”Gause said, “The U.S. will have to provide concessions to restart negotiations,” adding, “Birthday greetings won’t get it done.”Gause does not expect Trump to “offer concessions to restart negotiations until he feels emboldened domestically.”Gause said, “That is not likely to happen until and unless he is re-elected.” He continued, “I don’t expect major progress on the relationship until 2021, provided Trump is re-elected.”Trump is aiming for his second term as president in the upcoming election in November. But his re-election prospects are clouded by the impeachment trial Trump is expected to face by the Senate after the House votes this week to transmit the article of impeachment to the Senate. 
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