A Russian journalist who was detained for a week during a private visit to Iran this month says she believes her detention was intended to punish her for her Iran-related journalism.
 
Yulia Yuzik has worked as a reporter for Russia’s Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper and Russky Newsweek, a former publication that was the Russian version of U.S. magazine Newsweek. She also has authored two books based on her investigative journalism since 2003, including Brides of Allah about female suicide bombers and Requiem For Beslan about her interviews with survivors of the 2004 Beslan school massacre in Russia’s North Ossetia.
 
In a series of interviews since she returned to Moscow from Iran on Oct.10, Yuzik has accused Iranian authorities of luring her to the country to retaliate against her for negative Iran-related news and analysis that she had posted to her Facebook page. The interviews appeared on VOA’s Russian Service, VOA’s sister networks RFE/RL and Radio Farda, and Russia’s MK newspaper.
 
“I think my whole story of being guided into Iran was a planned operation, but anyone behind that decision did not think that my arrest would produce such a noise,” Yuzik told Radio Farda, referring to Russian diplomatic protests that led to her release. Those protests included Russian foreign ministry statements calling on Iran to grant consular access to Yuzik and quickly resolve her case.
 
Yuzik, a mother of four who previously lived and worked as a journalist in Iran, arrived in Tehran on Sept. 29 on what she said was a private trip at the invitation of her former boss at the Iranian state-run network PressTV. Yuzik said she had worked for Bahram Hanlar, the head of PressTV’s IranToday program, for several months in 2017 before returning to Russia.
 
She said Hanlar, a man she had trusted, invited her back to the Iranian capital to clear up “misunderstandings” from an October 2018 visit that had ended unpleasantly, with authorities at Tehran’s airport delaying her departure for almost a day as they questioned her and searched her belongings. She said the security personnel found nothing wrong and apologized for the hassle.
 
Yuzik said she paid for and was granted a visa on her arrival in Tehran last month, but was stopped at a customs checkpoint and had her passport taken away for what authorities said were “technical reasons.” She said  security personnel refused to let her return immediately to Russia, while Hanlar, who had arrived at the airport to meet her, also refused to escort her from the airport to the Russian Embassy in Tehran, at which point she felt that she was in a “hostage” situation.
 
She said Hanlar, who insisted on accompanying her from the airport, took her to a hotel and the next day to an hours-long interrogation by Iranian agents, while repeatedly assuring her that she would get her passport back shortly. She said her former boss also took her souvenir shopping in Tehran on Oct. 1, the second full day of her visit, before security agents entered her hotel room and arrested her the next day.
 
Yuzik said she had communicated privately with her mother in Russia about her predicament in the two days before her arrest but did not say anything publicly about her concerns for fear of making the situation worse. She said she later realized that her public silence was a mistake.
 
After being detained at her hotel, Yuzik said she was taken blindfolded to a prison and a courtroom in unknown locations, where authorities accused her of being a spy for Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency. She said they demanded that she confess to espionage but provided no evidence of wrongdoing besides telling her that her last name “Yuzik” sounded like the word for “Jewish” in Farsi, which it does.
 
‘Every day turned into hell’

In her media interviews, Yuzik said she is neither Jewish nor Israeli and never worked for Israeli intelligence. She said she told that to her interrogators, who warned her that she could face the death penalty for spying.  
 
“Every day (in custody) turned into hell. They psychologically toyed with me,” Yuzik told VOA Russian. “The interrogations were sophisticated – they scare you to death and then show your passport and say, if you give us information now, we don’t need to keep you anymore, you’ll go home, and we will buy you a (plane) ticket today. And so it went on, day after day. They made me hysterical,” she said.
 
Despite her mental anguish, Yuzik said she was not physically abused or harmed in prison.
 
Yuzik said she suspected that her interrogators, who had seized and accessed her phone, were angered by her recent Facebook postings about Iran and Israel-related news developments. She cited one particular post in April, when she reported claims by Iranian opposition activists that Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps General Ali Nasiri had defected and fled the country.
 
The IRGC denied those claims, while announcing Nasiri had been reassigned from his position as head of an IRGC “protection” unit that oversees security for senior Iranian officials.
 
“I was one of the first in Russia to write that the head of Iranian counterintelligence fled either to Israel or to America,” Yuzik told RFE/RL, referring to Nasiri. “When I ended up in this (prison) cell, I started thinking that perhaps he hadn’t fled, maybe it was all some kind of propaganda fabrication … (and) perhaps they were seeking revenge by accusing me of working for Israel.”
 
Yuzik said she believed her Iranian interrogators thought they could get away with detaining her because they knew she was a Russian opposition figure whom they assumed Russia’s government would be unwilling to help. She had staged an unsuccessful run for a parliamentary seat in 2016 with a Russian opposition party.
 
During Yuzik’s detention, Russia’s foreign ministry said it had summoned Iran’s ambassador to Moscow to seek “clarifications” over her arrest and to ensure that her rights were respected.
 
“I’m sure the decision (to intervene in my case) was made at the highest level, and maybe because of good relations with Russia, Iran agreed to do something it usually doesn’t,” Yuzik said to Radio Farda. She said Iranian authorities released her on Oct. 9, taking her blindfolded from prison to Tehran’s airport, where a Russian diplomat met her before she boarded a flight home. Iran has jailed other foreigners accused of security offenses for years.

In an Oct. 10 Facebook post (her Facebook account currently appears to be inactive) after she arrived back in Moscow, Yuzik specifically thanked Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov for working toward her release.
 
In a radio interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda on the same day, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova declined to discuss the steps taken by Russia to secure Yuzik’s release. “The fact that she is free is all that is important to us,” Zakharova said.
 
Never going back

In her media interviews, Yuzik vowed never to return to Iran. She said she may have been naive in believing that the love she developed toward the country by visiting multiple times in recent years would be reciprocated by her Iranian hosts.
 
Iranian officials have not commented on Yuzik’s case since her post-release interviews were published. While she was in detention, Iranian government spokesman Ali Rabiei said she had been arrested for allegedly violating visa rules rather than for engaging in espionage.
 
Media rights groups have not commented on Yuzik’s allegation that her detention was intended to punish her for posting negative news about Iran online.

Journalist #YuliaYuzik has been freed and is on her way back to Moscow. We welcome her release and call on Iranian authorities to clarify the reasons for the arrest #PressFreedom@RujNewshttps://t.co/X7jQUmGjWQ

— IFJ (@IFJGlobal) October 10, 2019

Prior to the publication of Yuzik’s interviews, the Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists welcomed her release and called on Iranian authorities to “clarify” the reasons for her arrest.
 
The Washington-based Committee to Protect Journalists told VOA Persian that it determined Yuzik’s arrest was “not directly connected to her journalism” and does not fall under CPJ’s mandate.
 
The Paris-based group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) had issued a call for Yuzik’s release on Oct. 8, a day before she was set free. But RSF did not respond to a VOA Persian request for comment about her allegation that Iran detained her because of her journalistic activities online.
 
 This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service.

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From: MeNeedIt

A United Nations mission in Afghanistan said more civilians have been killed or injured in the past quarter than in any three-month period in the last decade.

A report released Thursday said the 1,174 civilian deaths and 3,139 injuries in the third quarter of this year marked a 42% increase compared with the same period last year.

 In the previous quarter, 785 civilians were killed and 1,254 were wounded.

The latest figures brings to more than 8,000 the number of casualties in the first nine months of 2019. The U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said most of those were caused buy anti-government insurgents.

The report said women and children accounted for more than 41% of casualties this month, with 631 children being killed and 1,830 injured.

“The harm caused to civilians by the fighting in Afghanistan signals the importance of peace talks leading to a cease-fire and a permanent political settlement to the conflict; there is no other way forward,” said Tadamichi Yamamoto, the U.N. secretary-general’s special representative for Afghanistan. “Civilian casualties are totally unacceptable, especially in the context of the widespread recognition that there can be no military solution to the conflict in Afghanistan.”
 

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From: MeNeedIt

U.S. President Donald Trump faced a strong rebuke from lawmakers of both parties Wednesday over his decision to withdraw U.S. forces from northeastern Syria. The withdrawal was quickly followed by Turkey’s assault on Syrian Kurds, who were a key U.S. ally in the fight against Islamic State terrorists. The U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly Thursday in favor of a resolution condemning Trump’s decision. Trump says he is demanding a halt to Turkey’s incursion into northern Syria. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
 

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From: MeNeedIt

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his 27 counterparts from across the European Union are converging on Brussels Thursday for a summit they hope will finally lay to rest the acrimony and frustration of a three-year divorce fight.

Yet even before dawn, Johnson had a serious setback when his Northern Irish government allies said they would not back his compromise proposals. The prime minister needs all the support he can get to push any deal past a deeply divided parliament.

It only added to the high anxiety that reigned Thursday morning, with the last outstanding issues of the divorce papers still unclear.

Technical negotiators again went into the night Wednesday to fine tune customs and sales tax regulations that will have to regulate trade in goods between the Northern Ireland and Ireland, where the U.K. and the EU share their only land border.

And they were set to continue right up to the summit’s midafternoon opening. If a deal is agreed on during the two-day summit, Johnson hopes to present it to Britain’s Parliament at a special sitting Saturday.

After months of gloom over the stalled Brexit process, European leaders have sounded upbeat this week. French President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday that “I want to believe that a deal is being finalized,” while German Chancellor Angela Merkel said negotiations were “in the final stretch.”

Johnson, who took office in July vowing Britain would finally leave the EU on Oct. 31, come what may, was slightly more cautious. He likened Brexit to climbing Mount Everest, saying the summit was in sight, though still shrouded in cloud.

Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party added to those clouds early Thursday.  DUP leader Arlen Foster and the party’s parliamentary chief Nigel Dodds said they “could not support what is being suggested on customs and consent issues,” referring to a say the Northern Irish authorities might have in future developments.

Both the customs and consent arrangements are key to guaranteeing an open border between the U.K.’s Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland — the main obstacle to a Brexit deal.

Foster and Dodds said they would continue to work with the U.K. government to get a “sensible” deal. The problem is that the closer Johnson aligns himself with the DUP, the further he removes himself from the EU, leaving him walking a political tightrope.

Brexit negotiations have been here before, seemingly closing in on a deal that is dashed at the last moment. But hopes have risen that this time may be different. Though with Britain’s Oct. 31 departure date looming and just hours to go before the EU summit, focus was on getting a broad political commitment, with the full legal details to be hammered out later. That could mean another EU summit on Brexit before the end of the month.

So far, all plans to keep an open and near-invisible border between the two have hit a brick wall of opposition from the DUP.

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From: MeNeedIt

A warming planet is triggering extreme weather patterns, rising sea levels, and loss of wildlife habitats. An American art exhibit is delving into the effects of climate change, which include melting glaciers and the destruction of coral reefs.  VOA’s Deborah Block takes us to the University of Rhode Island to see how art is used to fight climate change.

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From: MeNeedIt

The future was here at a recent marquee tech show in Japan.  The Consumer Exhibition of Advanced Technology, or CEATEC, showcased technologies that may simplify our lives … or rapidly bring them to an end. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi takes us back to the future!

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From: MeNeedIt

When hundreds of video cameras with the power to identify and track individuals started appearing in the streets of Belgrade, some protesters began having second thoughts about joining anti-government demonstrations in the Serbian capital.

Local authorities assert the system, created by Chinese telecommunications company Huawei, helps reduce crime. Critics contend it erodes personal freedoms and exposes citizens to snooping by the Chinese government.

The cameras, equipped with facial recognition technology, are being rolled out across cities around the world, particularly in poorer countries with weak track records on human rights where Beijing has increased its influence through big business deals. With the United States claiming that Chinese state can get backdoor access to Huawei data, the rollout is raising concerns about the privacy of millions of people.

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From: MeNeedIt

The Iranian government has been holding a second French researcher in custody for the past four months, according to his colleagues.

Roland Marchal, a sub-Saharan Africa specialist at Paris university Sciences Po, was arrested in June when he traveled to Iran to visit his partner, Fariba Adelkhah, according to Sciences Po professor Richard Banegas.
 
Iranian authorities disclosed in July that they had arrested Adelkhah, a prominent anthropologist who holds dual French-Iranian nationality, on charges that have not been made public.
 
There was no immediate acknowledgement of Marchal’s arrest in Iranian state media.  
 
It’s unclear exactly what charges Marchal faces, but Banegas told The Associated Press that he and his colleagues consider him “an academic prisoner.”
 
The French Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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From: MeNeedIt

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren don’t just lead the Democratic presidential primary in fundraising. They’ve stockpiled millions more than their rivals, including former Vice President Joe Biden, who burned through money at a fast clip over the past three months while posting an anemic fundraising haul.

Sanders held $33.7 million cash on hand on his third-quarter fundraising report. Warren had $25.7 million during the same period, while South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg came next $23.3 million.

Biden, meanwhile, held just $8.9 million, a small fraction of what his leading rivals have at their disposal.

With the first votes of the Democratic contest just months away, the candidates are entering a critical and expensive period where having an ample supply of cash can make or break a campaign. Biden’s total raises questions about his durability as a front-runner.
“Can he do better at fundraising? Absolutely. And I think he will,” said Biden donor and fundraiser Steve Westly.

While many contenders in the crowded field will be triaging resources and making difficult spending decisions in the coming months, the advantage enjoyed by the Vermont and Massachusetts senators means they will have the luxury of spending when and where they want. That will allow them to buy large amounts of advertising, respond to attacks and boost their ground games in early voting states like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

“If you are sitting at fourth, fifth or even seventh place and you don’t have the money to have a real paid media campaign, the future for you is probably pretty bleak. You will get drowned out by the rest of the noise,” said Grant Woodard, a Des Moines attorney who is a veteran of John Kerry’s and Hillary Clinton’s Iowa campaigns. “It’s still a fluid race. But to be competitive in this thing you are going to have to be on TV, digital and you are going to have to be on direct mail. The fundamentals still matter.”

Biden has built a formidable campaign, but it’s come at a cost. The $17.6 million he spent over the past three months was more than the $15.7 million he took in, according to his fundraising figures that were submitted to the Federal Election Commission on Tuesday’s reporting deadline.

Despite his lackluster totals, he still remains a favored candidate in recent public opinion polls, along with Warren. And in recent weeks, both Biden and his wife, Jill, have kept up a busier fundraising schedule.

“People focused on the minutia and the details,” said Westly, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist. “The reality is this is quickly boiling down to a two-person race _ and that’s between Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren.”

Still, Biden is not alone in the sprawling field.

California Sen. Kamala Harris had $10.5 million cash on hand but deferred paying consultants including her pollster nearly $1 million, records show. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker held $4.2 million, disclosures show.

And the situation was far more dismal for others. Former Obama housing secretary Julian Castro had just $672,000 cash on hand, while Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan had even less, $158,000, records show.

The advantage Warren and Sanders have was evident in the way they have been able to spend.

Sanders’ $21.5 million in spending between July and the end of September topped the list. It enabled him to spend $3.8 million on advertising and online fundraising, drop nearly $1 million on campaign merchandise and pay his staff a combined $5.6 million, records show.

Warren’s $18.6 million in spending during that period allowed her to fund a sprawling staff operation that includes well over 500 people on the payroll, in addition to financing a more than $3.2 million digital operation, records show.

Buttigieg, too, has hired roughly 100 staffers in Iowa, where his campaign is betting on a strong performance.

But just because they have a massive cash advantage doesn’t mean the other candidates are doomed. Even though time is running out, candidates could still see their financial picture improve, particularly if they have a viral online moment to boost their online fundraising.

“The question is: Do you have enough money to run a strong campaign? North of $5 million and you have the ability to get through the fourth quarter,” said Democratic donor and Wall Street financier Robert Wolf, who was an economic adviser to Barack Obama.

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From: MeNeedIt

Dutch authorities were Tuesday trying to piece together the story of a family found living isolated from the outside world in the rural east of the Netherlands.

Mayor Roger de Groot said that the six-member family is believed to have lived for nine years on a farm in Ruinerwold, 130 kilometers (80 miles) northeast of Amsterdam.

Drone images of the farm showed a cluster of buildings with a large vegetable garden on one side. The small property appeared to be ringed by a fence and largely obscured by trees.

Dutch media reported that the family was made up of five adult siblings and their father.

De Groot told reporters the siblings were aged from 18-25. He said their mother is believed to have died “a number of years ago.”

Local police said in a tweet that officers visited the farm after being alerted by somebody “concerned about the living conditions” of its residents.

Police said they arrested a 58-year-old man who rented the property, but it wasn’t immediately clear why or what his relationship was to the family. Police said he wasn’t the father.

Police investigating the farm found “a number of improvised rooms where a family lived a withdrawn life,” De Groot said in a statement.

Local bar owner Chris Westerbeek told broadcaster RTV Drenthe that he called police after a man “with a confused look in his eyes,” with unkempt hair, a long beard and old clothes walked in to his bar and ordered five beers for himself.

“He said where he came from, that he’d run away and that he needed help urgently,” Westerbeek said.

De Groot said the police investigation is looking into “all possible scenarios,” but didn’t elaborate.

He said the family was now “in a safe place receiving appropriate care and attention.”

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From: MeNeedIt

Dodging waves at low tide, a barefooted, shirtless Mixtec man is carefully walking along the Pacific Coast of Oaxaca, Mexico. He navigates his way through the gray rocks on a quest to catch a particular kind of snail, Purpura pansa. When he catches one, he presses just the right part of the snail’s foot to encourage it to secrete a neurotoxin directly onto a skein of cotton yarn. The milky liquid stains the yarn in a greenish color. As it oxidizes, the color turns blue and finally becomes a brilliant reddish-purple hue.

Extracting colors from snails is an ancient dyeing method that the Mixtec people have been practicing for around 1,500 years. Like their ancestors, Mixtec dyers do not hurt the snails. They carefully return them to their habitat. They give them time to recover and recharge. They also stay away from the snails during the mating season.

This group of Mixtec dyers is among more than two dozen artisans whom author Keith Recker profiled in his book, True Colors — World Masters of Natural Dyes and Pigments.

Recker is interested in natural dyes because he finds them fascinating.

“There is usually more than one thing happening in the union between the natural coloring substance and fiber,” he says. “I think the eye is much more entertained by this complexity than it is by chemical simplicity where you only have one weave length, one vibe coming to your eye from the fiber.”

To explore traditional techniques and personal approaches to natural dyeing, Recker embarked on a journey and met with artisans from all over the world, from West Africa to Bangladesh to China to Northern California to Mexico to Uzbekistan.

“Before 1856, when the first synthetic dye was invented in England by a chemist who made a beautiful purple color out of tar, all colors were natural. They were made in some vividly amazing ways,” Recker notes. “Dyes were mostly extracted from plants, but in some cases from animals.”

Most of these artisans not only keep their ancestors’ handmade natural dyeing techniques alive, they pass them to younger generations as they train other artisans in their communities.

Colorful journey

Artisans come from different artistic and cultural backgrounds, however, their work is similar in many ways.

Audrey Louise Reynolds, for instance, is an artisan living in Upstate New York. She extracts beautiful colors from turmeric, while Rupa Trivedi in Mumbai, India, creates a range of colors from marigold, hibiscus and rose flowers and coconut husks. With much trial and error and online research, the self-taught artist understood the principles of natural dyes and started her business 15 years ago.

Maria Elena Pompo, who moved from Venezuela to the United States and from engineering to fashion design, also developed her natural dyeing technique through experimentation.

“She colors her clothing with recycled avocado pits,” Recker says. “She goes around Brooklyn, collecting avocado pits from Mexican restaurants and uses them in a very precise way to create a whole range of blushes and yellowy apricots and pink browns. It is very low impact because they’re things that would otherwise go to trash.”

Red is one of basic colors artisans use in dyeing fabrics, but they extract it from different resources.  

In southwestern Mexico, the Gutierrez Contreras family members who are weaving textiles using old Zapotec traditions are famous for working with cochineal.

“Cochineal is a red color that comes from dried beetles,” Recker explains. “That sounds terrible, but the body of these dried beetles is made of carminic acid, which is still the safest red colorant we’ve known of.”

Carpetmakers Fatillo Kendjeav and his family, in Bukhara, Uzbekistan, extract a variety of red shades from madder roots. They use other natural ingredients to deepen the authenticity of their carpets, such as walnut hulls to create deep browns, and pomegranate skins to create a beautiful bronze green. They also use onion skins, apple, grape and mulberry leaves to create different shades of yellow.
 
Recker notes that these artisans tend to use such natural plants not only as colorants, but also as food and medicine.

True color advocates
            
As many people have become more conscious about natural foods and healthy eating habits, some see wearing naturally dyed fabrics as another step toward a healthier lifestyle. These dyeing techniques also have a lower impact on the environment as they encourage recycling and reusing practices, says Recker.

“If you learn how to use natural ingredients available around you, you can easily refresh an old, tired T-shirt, or a scarf, or a sheet and give it a new life instead of throwing them away,” adds the author.

Even if he does not inspire readers to do it themselves, Recker hopes raising awareness about natural colors will press the fashion industry worldwide to become more sustainable and environmentally friendly.
 

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From: MeNeedIt

The remains of 28 of the 32 Kenyans killed in the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in March have arrived in Nairobi. 

Hearses lined up at the VIP section of Jomo Kenyatta International Airport early Monday morning as family members streamed in. A somber mood engulfed the airport as victims’ families, most dressed in black, waited to receive their loved ones.

Kenya’s Cabinet secretary for foreign affairs, Monica Juma, was among the top government officials greeting the families.

“We have had a chance to meet with the families,” Juma said. “We have had a chance to give them a final service, interdenominational service, so that they can bring closure to seven months of grieving, of sorrow, of sadness.”

She said all the bodies of Kenyans killed in the crash have been accounted for; the four bodies not returned Monday were either cremated or interred privately by their families.

After prayers Monday at the airport, the victims’ remains were turned over to family members.

Three hours later, a funeral was held for 34-year-old Abdulahi Ibrahim at his home in the Kibera section of Nairobi. Ibrahim had worked for a dairy company in Saudi Arabia and was on his way home for vacation when he died in the plane crash.

His friends carried his casket to a Muslim cemetery, as they marched the same streets where they had played football as children.

His father, Ibrahim Mohammed, said that now, he could probably start to heal.

“For this 7 months, I have been traumatized,” he said. “When they handed over my son’s body, I was thankful and felt some relief because that’s my son and I have buried him now, so I feel relieved and I believe now my health will start to improve.”

Imam Ahmed Idriss led the prayers at Ibrahim’s send off, saying, “We thank God that Ibrahim’s remains are home and he is now buried next to his grandparents and great great grandparents. … Now the parents can finally have peace because their son is buried here next to his family and according what the Muslim religion dictates.”

A total of 157 people died when the Boeing 737 Max aircraft crashed March 10 in the town of Bishoftu, Ethiopia.  

Last month, Boeing announced it had set up a $50 million fund to compensate victims of the crash and another involving a 737 Max in Indonesia last year.

All 737 Max planes remain grounded while the company investigates reports that faulty sensors were to blame for both tragedies.
 

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From: MeNeedIt