World Tour - Trapped miners, and dead chickens

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: World Tour with Africa reporter Onize Ohikere.

ONIZE OHIKERE, REPORTER: Yoweri Museveni wins reelection—We start today here in Africa.

AUDIO: [Music, sounds of celebration]

Supporters of incumbent president Yoweri Museveni celebrated over the weekend as Uganda’s electoral commission declared him the winner of last week’s election.

Museveni won 59 percent of the vote to extend his 35-year grip on power for another four years. But the main opposition party, NUP, disputes the election results.

AUDIO: We have evidence of ballot stuffing and other forms of election malpractice. And after putting together, we are going to take all measures, I repeat all measures, that the law permits to challenging this fraud.

Opposition leader Bobi Wine came in second in last week’s vote. Since Thursday, soldiers and police have surrounded his home, preventing anyone from going in or out. During the campaign, government forces cracked down on the opposition, breaking up rallies and arresting Wine’s supporters.

Bird flu devastates farms in Iraq—Next we go to the Middle East.

AUDIO: [Sounds of chickens clucking]

An outbreak of bird flu north of Baghdad has killed thousands of chickens and left officials racing to contain its spread. The local governor estimated at least 60-thousand chickens caught the sickness within the first few days. But chicken farmers estimate nearly 200,000 birds have died so far.

AUDIO: [Man speaking Arabic]

The country does not have any vaccine available, so farmers are left to wait for their chickens to die.

One in five Iraqis work in agriculture, which represents 5 percent of the country’s GDP.

Guatemala holds up migrant caravan—Next we go to Central America.

AUDIO: [Police chanting, hitting batons on shields]

Police and soldiers in Guatemala broke up a caravan of migrants on Monday, using tear gas to disperse the crowd. Officials estimate about 2,000 migrants are traveling together through the country in hopes of reaching the United States. Police stopped them with a roadblock on a rural highway, where they camped for two days.

AUDIO: [Woman speaking Spanish]

The migrants are mostly from Honduras. This man says they left because they don’t have work or food. Two major hurricanes battered the country in November, compounding the misery of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hondurans already face grinding poverty and rampant gang violence.

Miners trapped in Chinese mine—Next, to Asia.

AUDIO: [Sounds of rescuers talking as note is pulled up]

Rescue crews in China are racing to save 12 miners trapped underground for more than a week in a collapsed gold mine. The men attached a note to the end of a wire fed into the mine on Sunday, providing the first confirmation that they are alive.

The explosion at the mine on January 10th trapped 22 men. Ten are still unaccounted for.

Paraplegic climbs skyscraper in Hong Kong—And finally, we end today in Hong Kong.

Lai Chi-wai was one of the world’s top mountain climbers before a car accident in 2011 left him confined to a wheelchair. But that hasn’t stopped him from enjoying his hobby or advocating for people with disabilities.

AUDIO: [Man speaking Mandarin]

On Saturday, Lai scaled a nearly 1,000 foot tall skyscraper to raise money for others suffering from spinal cord injuries. It took him 10 hours to haul himself more than 800 feet in the air using a pulley system attached to his wheelchair.

Although he didn’t make it to the top of the building, he raised more than $600,000.

That’s this week’s World Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Ohikere in Abuja, Nigeria.

(AP Photo/Jerome Delay) Supporters of Ugandan President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni celebrate in Kampala, Uganda, Saturday Jan. 16, 2021, after their candidate was declared winner of the presidential elections. 

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