WASHINGTON: The Trump administration sent termination notices late on Friday to employees of a worker health and safety agency that provides research and services for coal miners, firefighters and others, despite appeals by a lawmaker from Trump’s Republican Party to preserve its programs.
Employees of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health received reduction-in-force notices that said the job losses were necessary to reshape the workforce of the Department of Health and Human Services, according to a copy of the notices reviewed by Reuters.
Nearly all NIOSH employees were placed on administrative leave in February but around 40 who worked on coal-mining and firefighter safety were asked to return temporarily to work several days ago, the union for the agency’s employees said. At least two of those employees have now been notified of termination.
US Senator Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican from West Virginia, had lobbied Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to restore the programs, including the coal-focused work of its Morgantown, West Virginia, office.
The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees NIOSH, did not immediately respond to a request for comment after regular business hours. A spokesperson earlier this week said NIOSH’s functions would join the new Administration for a Healthy America, alongside multiple agencies. It was not clear whether any of the terminated employees would be transferred elsewhere.
Reuters reported last month that the halting of NIOSH’s key services ended vital health and safety programs for coal miners, such as mobile health and lung screenings, and a program to relocate miners afflicted with black lung disease to less dusty parts of a mine.
There has been a resurgence of black lung disease in the last decade, including among young coal miners. At the same time, President Donald Trump has led a high-profile campaign to revive coal mining and use, which had been declining in the US.
US worker safety agency notifies employees of firings
https://arab.news/29w38
US worker safety agency notifies employees of firings
Ethiopia’s prime minister accuses Eritrea of mass killings during Tigray war
- Landlocked Ethiopia says that Eritrea is arming rebel groups, while Eritrea says Ethiopia’s aspiration is to gain access to a seaport
- Ethiopia lost sovereign access to the Red Sea when Eritrea seceded in 1993 after decades of guerrilla warfare
ADDIS ABABA: Ethiopia’s government Tuesday for the first time acknowledged the involvement of troops from neighboring Eritrea in the war in the Tigray region that ended in 2022, accusing them of mass killings, amid reports of renewed fighting in the region.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, while addressing parliament Tuesday, accused Eritrean troops fighting alongside Ethiopian forces of mass killings in the war, during which more than 400,000 people are estimated to have died.
Eritrean and Ethiopian troops fought against regional forces in the northern Tigray region in a war that ended in 2022 with the signing of a peace agreement.
Eritrea’s Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel told The Associated Press that Ahmed’s comments were “cheap and despicable lies” and did not merit a response.
Both nations have been accusing each other of provoking a potential civil war, with landlocked Ethiopia saying that Eritrea is arming and funding rebel groups, while Eritrea says Ethiopia’s aspiration is to gain access to a seaport.
“The rift did not begin with the Red Sea issue, as many people think,” Ahmed told parliamentarians. “It started in the first round of the war in Tigray, when the Eritrean army followed us into Shire and began demolishing houses, massacred our youth in Axum, looted factories in Adwa, and uprooted our factories.”
“The Red Sea and Ethiopia cannot remain separated forever,” he added.
Ethiopia lost sovereign access to the Red Sea when Eritrea seceded in 1993 after decades of guerrilla warfare.
Gebremeskel said the prime minister has only recently changed his tune in his push for access to the Red Sea.
Ahmed “and his top military brass were profusely showering praises and State Medals on the Eritrea army and its senior officers. … But when he later developed the delusional malaise of ‘sovereignty access to the sea’ and an agenda of war against Eritrea, he began to sing to a different chorus,” he said.
Eritrea and Ethiopia initially made peace after Abiy came to power in 2018, with Abiy winning a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts toward reconciliation.
In June, Eritrea accused Ethiopia of having a “long-brewing war agenda” aimed at seizing its Red Sea ports. Ethiopia recently said that Eritrea was “actively preparing to wage war against it.”
Analysts say an alliance between Eritrea and regional forces in the troubled Tigray region may be forming, as fighting has been reported in recent weeks. Flights by the national carrier to the region were canceled last week over the renewed clashes.
