Month: April 2017

Turkey Arrests American and Briton Entering From Syria

Posted on by SeeEU

An American and a British man, allegedly members of the Islamic State group, were arrested in Turkey after crossing the border from Syria and handing themselves over to the authorities, officials said Friday.

A Turkish official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government protocol, said American Kary Paul Kleman and Briton Stefan Aristidou arrived at Oncupinar border crossing in Kilis province on April 20 and were arrested four days later.

Kleman was traveling with his Syrian wife and four children. His family was put under administrative detention to be deported to the U.S. in order to keep them together, according to the official.

A British Foreign Office official said British authorities are in contact with Turkish authorities “following the detention of a British man on the Turkey/Syria border.” Aristidou’s British wife and child would be deported to the U.K., according to the Turkish official.

Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency reported Friday that the men were detained and later arrested on suspicion that they are members of the extremist Islamic State group.

Anadolu said two Egyptians and four more children were also traveling with the group and will be deported.
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British Economy Slows as Brexit Vote Boosts Inflation

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Britain’s economy slowed sharply in the first three months of 2017 as higher inflation, boosted by last year’s Brexit vote, hit spending on the high street and hurt other consumer-focused businesses.

With the country heading for an election June 8, there were other signs Friday of a slowdown in the economy as house prices fell for a second month and measures of consumer confidence fell.

The Office for National Statistics said growth in the overall economy weakened to a one-year low of 0.3 percent in the January-March period from 0.7 percent in the last three months of 2016.

That represented a sharper slowdown in the rate of quarterly gross domestic product growth than the drop to 0.4 percent forecast by economists in a Reuters poll.

Last year, on par with Germany

Last year, Britain vied with Germany to be the fastest growing of the world’s major advanced economies with annual growth of 1.8 percent, defying widespread predictions of recession after the vote to leave the European Union.

But Friday’s figures are the clearest sign so far that the country is slowing in the run-up to the early election called by Prime Minister Theresa May.

British finance minister Philip Hammond said the economy remained resilient.

Fair to blame Brexit

But Alan Clarke, an economist at Scotiabank, said he expected it would slow further in the coming months.

“This weakness is likely to be blamed on Brexit. That is probably fair,” Clarke said, citing higher inflation.

“We see the trough in growth at 0.2 percent quarter-on-quarter towards the end of this year, when the squeeze from inflation is at its most intense,” he added.

The June 2016 Brexit vote led to a big fall in the value of sterling, which is now starting to push up inflation and eat into consumers’ disposable income.

The ONS said the biggest drag to first-quarter growth came from retailers and hotels, which had been hurt by higher prices.

Official data last week showed the biggest quarterly fall in retail sales since 2010.

Consumer price inflation is rising at its fastest since September 2013 as companies pass on increased costs caused by sterling’s slide in value since the Brexit vote, and many economists expect it to hit 3 percent later this year.

Despite the pick-up in inflation, the Bank of England is widely expected to keep interest rates at their record low of 0.25 percent as it waits to see the full impact of Brexit on the country’s economy.
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Stockholm Truck Attack Toll Rises to Five

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A woman in her 60s who was injured in the April 7 truck attack in Stockholm has died, Swedish authorities said Friday, raising the death toll to five.

The Stockholm police said in a statement the woman, who has not been publicly identified, had been hospitalized in southern Sweden.

Other victims of attack were an 11-year-old Swedish girl, a 31-year-old Belgian woman, a 69-year-old Swedish woman, and a 41-year-old Briton whom the British government identified as Chris Bevington. Fourteen others were injured in the attack.

A 39-year-old Uzbek man, Rakhmat Akilov, has pleaded guilty to a terrorist crime for ramming the truck into a crowd on a main pedestrian shopping street in the Swedish capital. Police have not disclosed a motive for the attack and no extremist group has claimed responsibility for it.

Akilov’s Swedish residency application was rejected last year, but police said there was nothing to indicate he might plan an attack. After the rejection, Akilov had been been ordered to leave Sweden in December. Instead, he allegedly eluded authorities’ attempts to track him down.

Akilov was caught in a northern suburb of Stockholm, hours after he drove the stolen beer truck into the crowd of afternoon shoppers outside the Ahlens store.

The attack shocked Sweden, known for its welcoming policy toward migrants and refugees.

In 2015, a record 163,000 asylum-seekers arrived in the country, the highest per-capita rate in Europe. The government responded by tightening border controls and curtailing some immigrant rights.
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Trump to Sign Order Aimed at Expanding Offshore Drilling

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President Donald Trump will sign an executive order Friday that could lead to the future expansion of drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans.

The order will direct his interior secretary to review a plan that dictates which locations are open to offshore drilling.

It’s Trump’s latest effort to dismantle his predecessor’s environmental legacy and part of his promise to unleash the nation’s untapped energy reserves in an effort to reduce reliance on foreign oil and spur jobs.

The move is already drawing fierce opposition from environmental activists, who warn offshore drilling harms whales, walruses and other wildlife and exacerbates global warming.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said the order “will cement our nation’s position as a global energy leader” and puts the U.S. “on track for American energy independence.”
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Trump: ‘Major, Major’ N. Korea Conflict Possible, but Diplomacy Preferred

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U.S. President Donald Trump said Thursday a major conflict with North Korea is possible in the standoff over its nuclear and missile programs, but he would prefer a diplomatic outcome to the dispute.

“There is a chance that we could end up having a major, major conflict with North Korea. Absolutely,” Trump told Reuters in an Oval Office interview ahead of his 100th day in office Saturday.

Nonetheless, Trump said he wanted to peacefully resolve a crisis that has bedeviled multiple U.S. presidents, a path that he and his administration are emphasizing by preparing a variety of new economic sanctions while not taking the military option off the table.

“We’d love to solve things diplomatically but it’s very difficult,” he said.

Praise for Xi

Trump lavished praise on Chinese President Xi Jinping for Chinese assistance in trying to rein in North Korea. The two leaders met in Florida earlier this month.

“I believe he is trying very hard. He certainly doesn’t want to see turmoil and death. He doesn’t want to see it. He is a good man. He is a very good man and I got to know him very well.

“With that being said, he loves China and he loves the people of China. I know he would like to be able to do something, perhaps it’s possible that he can’t,” Trump said.

Tillerson heads to UN

Trump spoke just a day after he and his top national security advisers briefed U.S. lawmakers on the North Korean threat and one day before Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will press the United Nations Security Council on sanctions to further isolate Pyongyang over its nuclear and missile programs.

The Trump administration on Wednesday declared North Korea “an urgent national security threat and top foreign policy priority.” It said it was focusing on economic and diplomatic pressure, including Chinese cooperation in containing its defiant neighbor and ally, and remained open to negotiations.

U.S. officials said military strikes remained an option but played down the prospect, though the administration has sent an aircraft carrier and a nuclear-powered submarine to the region in a show of force.

Risk of retaliation

Any direct U.S. military action would run the risk of massive North Korean retaliation and huge casualties in Japan and South Korea and among U.S. forces in both countries.

Trump, asked if he considered North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to be rational, said he was operating from the assumption that he is rational. He noted that Kim had taken over his country at an early age.

“He’s 27 years old. His father dies, took over a regime. So say what you want but that is not easy, especially at that age.

“I’m not giving him credit or not giving him credit, I’m just saying that’s a very hard thing to do. As to whether or not he’s rational, I have no opinion on it. I hope he’s rational,” he said.

Trump, sipping a Coke delivered by an aide after the president ordered it by pressing a button on his desk, appeared to rebuff an overture from Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, who told Reuters a direct phone call with Trump could take place again after their first conversation in early December angered Beijing.

China considers neighboring Taiwan to be a renegade province.

“My problem is that I have established a very good personal relationship with President Xi,” said Trump. “I really feel that he is doing everything in his power to help us with a big situation. So I wouldn’t want to be causing difficulty right now for him.”

“So I would certainly want to speak to him first.”
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Trump Signs Order Creating Accountability Office at VA

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President Donald Trump on Thursday created an office at the Department of Veterans Affairs to improve accountability and protect whistleblowers, calling it a “bold step forward.”

Trump, who made improving veterans’ care a prominent issue in his presidential campaign, said the Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection will make clear “that we will never, ever tolerate substandard care for our great veterans.” VA Secretary David Shulkin said the office will help identify “barriers” that make it difficult for the department to fire or reassign bad managers or employees.

Another function of the office will be to help shield whistleblowers from retaliation.

“With the creation of this office, we are sending a strong message: Those who fail our veterans will be held, for the first time, accountable,” Trump said at the VA before signing an executive order to create the office. “And at the same time, we will reward and retain the many VA employees who do a fantastic job, of which we have many.”

The move follows Trump’s signing last week of a bill that extends a VA program that allowed some veterans to seek medical care outside of the department’s troubled health system.

In 2014, as many as 40 veterans died as they spent months waiting for appointments at the VA medical center in Phoenix. Officials there were found to have manipulated appointment data and engaged in other schemes in attempt to cover up the backlog.

Trump also joined veterans’ groups in calling on the Senate to pass a pending accountability measure.

The House has already passed a bill to make it make it easier for the VA to fire, suspend or demote employees for poor performance or bad conduct, but the Senate continues to work on its version of the legislation. Shulkin said Trump’s decision to create the office even before Congress sends him a bill speaks to his commitment to accountability at the VA.

“He’s asking through his executive order for VA to do everything that it can internally,” Shulkin said Wednesday at a White House briefing. “But we know that that’s not going to be enough to get done what I want to get done, which is to be able to, once we identify people that need to leave the organization, to get them out quickly. So I do need legislative help as well.”

Improve care, reduce fraud and abuse

The VA said it will have an executive director for the accountability office by mid-June. The director will help identify ways the VA secretary can discipline or terminate a VA manager or employee as well as reward top performers. The VA has often complained it can’t discipline or remove employees due to a lengthy union grievance process.

Shulkin also announced additional steps Thursday to improve VA care and to reduce waste, fraud and abuse at the department through a task force made up of private-sector and government groups.

The VA also plans to partner with the Department of Health and Human Services to allow medical professionals from the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps to help provide care to veterans at VA facilities in underserved areas. Shulkin has said that his reform effort includes building a more “integrated” model of VA care that uses private doctors and doctors from other federal agencies.

The VA will also exempt state-owned veteran nursing homes from federal requirements to remove red tape and offer veterans more services, Shulkin said.

Meanwhile, veterans’ groups want the Senate to act soon to send the accountability legislation to Trump for his signature.

“The longer the Senate waits, the longer veterans will suffer,” said Mark Lucas, executive director of Concerned Veterans for America.

No new hiring

The new VA office will also investigate reports of retaliation against VA employees who expose illegal or unethical conduct, Shulkin said, adding that “we will take actions” if it is determined that an employee whistleblower has been subjected to retaliation for coming forward.

No new hiring will be done for the office. Existing VA employees will be transferred there, despite department-wide employee shortages and a decision to leave thousands of VA positions unfilled. Shulkin said he didn’t have dollar figures for how much the office would cost, but said it will require a “substantial commitment.”

The executive order is one of several Trump is signing this week as he seeks to score accomplishments before Saturday, his symbolic 100th day in office.
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US Presses for Americans’ Release in Direct Talks with Iran

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U.S. diplomats used a meeting with their Iranian counterparts to press the release of Americans being detained in Iran, the Trump administration said Thursday. It is the first public acknowledgment of direct U.S.-Iranian discussions since President Donald Trump took office.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the talks occurred on the sidelines of a meeting in Vienna this week that focused on implementation of the Iran nuclear deal. Trump has railed against the seven-nation accord that President Barack Obama’s administration led to completion in 2015. But Trump’s aides recently certified that Iran was upholding its commitment to not advance its nuclear program toward weapons capability.

Although Trump and his top advisers have publicly criticized Iran for its support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Yemeni rebels and militant groups throughout the Middle East, American officials haven’t spoken about any continuation of U.S.-Iranian conversations that became routine under the Obama administration.

At Tuesday’s meeting in Austria, Toner said, “the U.S. delegation raised with the Iranian delegation its serious concerns regarding the cases of U.S. citizens detained and missing in Iran, and called on Iran to immediately release these U.S. citizens so they can be reunited with their families.”

Toner cited the detentions of Iranian-American businessman Siamak Namazi and his 81-year-old father, Baquer Namazi, who are serving 10-year prison sentences for “cooperating with the hostile American government.” The younger Namazi has been detained since October 2015 and his father was taken into custody in February 2016.

Their supporters deny the charges and say the two are being held as leverage against the United States. Iran has detained dual nationals to use as bargaining chips in negotiations with the West, most notably in a controversial 2016 prisoner swap with the U.S. that coincided with American sanctions being removed as part of the nuclear deal and a $1.7 billion payment by Washington to settle a decades-old dispute with Tehran over a frozen Iranian account.

Both Namazis appear to be ensnared by hard-liners within Iran’s security services who oppose Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and the nuclear deal he struck with world powers.

Toner also noted it has been more than a decade since the disappearance of former FBI agent Robert Levinson, a CIA contractor in 2007 traveling on an unauthorized mission to collect intelligence. The only photos and video of Levinson emerged in 2010 and 2011. He appeared gaunt and bearded with long hair, and was wearing an orange jumpsuit similar to those worn by detainees at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay.

“Iran committed to cooperating with the United States in bringing Bob home and we call on Iran to fulfill this commitment,” Toner said, though Tehran has been providing such commitments previously. “The United States remains unwavering in its efforts to return Bob to his family.”

Toner made no mention of an Iranian-American who was recently released on bail from his long prison sentence in Iran for “collaboration with a hostile government.” While Robin Shahini of San Diego was let go from prison, it was unclear if he would be permitted to leave Iran. Shahini traveled to Iran to see his mother, who has Alzheimer’s disease, and was detained last July.

In December, a human rights group reported that Iranian-American art gallery manager Karan Vafadari and his Iranian wife also were detained.
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US to Push China, Others for Maximum Pressure on N. Korea at UN

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U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will make his United Nations debut Friday, chairing a high-level Security Council session on the threat posed by North Korea’s quest to build a nuclear bomb.

No immediate council action is expected, but Tillerson is expected to push for other members to join the U.S. in ratcheting up the pressure on Pyongyang.

The top U.S. diplomat for East Asia on Wednesday called it the start of a “last best way to see if we can get a peaceful resolution.”

“The problem has become a lot more urgent,” acting Assistant Secretary of State Susan Thornton told an audience in Washington, adding that the focus will be on economic sanctions.

“It’s very necessary for the international community to come together and share information and go after some of these companies that are providing either products or equipment that contribute to the weapons program,” she said. “We are definitely looking at China and expecting them to really step up and do a lot more than they’ve done in the past.”

Trump administration officials have expressed hope in recent weeks that Beijing is willing to do more.

Later Thursday, Tillerson said on Fox News that China had threatened sanctions if North Korea were to conduct another nuclear test.

He said China is in communication with Pyongyang, and “they confirmed to us that they had requested the regime conduct no further nuclear test.” He added that despite major ceremonies this week, there had been no nuclear or missile tests.

The secretary of state, however, did not say when China made the threat and there was no immediate confirmation from Beijing, according to Reuters.

Time may be running out

Most recently, the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific told lawmakers he is “reasonably optimistic” about China’s efforts, although he cautioned that time may be running out.

“The crisis on the Korean Peninsula is real as the worst I’ve seen,” Admiral Harry Harris told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday, adding “there is no doubt” North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is intent on building the capacity to threaten the U.S. with nuclear weapons.

The Security Council meeting will come two days after U.S. President Donald Trump gathered lawmakers for extraordinary classified briefings on the threat from Pyongyang and on his administration’s plans to try to defuse the rising tensions.

Meeting a critical opportunity

Friday’s meeting, which will include China’s foreign minister as well as his counterparts from Japan and South Korea, will be a critical opportunity for the U.S. secretary of state to lay out Washington’s game plan for countries that are on the front line of the North Korean nuclear threat.

“Tillerson’s appearance before the Security Council is going to be, I imagine, a call for greater focus, greater urgency and greater strength by the Security Council,” said David Pressman, former deputy U.N. ambassador from the United States and a partner with Boies Schiller Flexner in New York. He said it also would be a call to China to use its influence on North Korea to have it change course.

Last year, North Korea conducted two nuclear tests and 24 ballistic missile launches. Already this year it has carried out ballistic missile tests in February, March and April, and experts believe another nuclear test could be imminent.

Strengthening sanctions

On Monday, during a lunch meeting with Security Council ambassadors at the White House, Trump said the council must be prepared to impose additional and stronger sanctions on North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

Since 2006, the Security Council has imposed five rounds of sanctions on the regime, in an effort to stop it from advancing its nuclear program.

Pressman led the U.S. negotiations for the Obama administration on the last and most robust round of targeted sanctions, which the council unanimously approved last November. He says Beijing has demonstrated a willingness to respond strongly to Pyongyang’s provocations, but so far, China’s engagement has not yielded the necessary results.

“Is there more that China can do? There is, absolutely. Are they prepared to do it? I certainly hope so,” Pressman said. “Because should they not be willing to do so, then the options for diplomacy to resolve this situation are becoming increasingly limited, and that is obviously extremely concerning when you are dealing with nuclear weapons.”

Speaking earlier this week in Athens, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that “China is neither the focus of current conflicts nor the holder of the key to solving the Korean Peninsula issue,” according to his ministry’s website, and he called for a “peaceful and rational voice” on the matter.
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No Confirmation of Reported Changes to US Immigration Policies for Somalis

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Somalia’s ambassador to the U.S., Ahmed Isse Awad, says U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has informed his embassy the agency will no longer arrest illegal Somali immigrants in their homes or at their workplaces. However, federal authorities have not confirmed that there has been any shift in policy.

Awad said the agency reached the decision after his embassy expressed concern to immigration authorities regarding the recent arrests of 11 Somalis in Virginia, Minnesota and Georgia.

“Once we found out that 11 Somalis were arrested from their homes for removal, we thought the arrests looked [like] profiling and targeting Somalis. Then we submitted our concern to ICE and asked clarification,” Awad told VOA’s Somali service. “Fortunately, they came back to us tell us that they would no longer arrest Somalis from their homes or at their workplaces.”

No response from ICE

Authorities at ICE did not respond directly to questions about the claimed policy change for Somalis.

However officials have previously said that ICE does not have specific exemptions in place for certain groups of people. The agency policy currently directs that anyone in violation of immigration laws may be subject to arrest, detention and removal from the United States.

Authorities say the agency’s policy directs personnel to avoid conducting enforcement activists at “sensitive places” such as schools, places of worship and hospitals, unless they have prior approval from a supervisor.

The U.S. government said almost 5,000 Somali nationals in the United States face deportation orders.

“As of April 1, 2017, there were 4,801 Somali nationals with final orders of removal,” ICE spokesman Brendan Raedy said last week. “As of that same date, 237 Somali nationals have been removed to Somalia in fiscal year 2017.”

Earlier rulings will stand

One of those arrested at home, Awad said, was a Somali father whose four children and wife are all U.S. citizens. Awad said, “He is not criminal, but a court ordered his removal in 2000.”

A 50-year-old Somali man who identified himself as second in command of Somalia’s National Security Service was also among those arrested. He had previously been deported to Somalia in 1996.

Awad said the decision does not mean a halt in the deportation of individuals whose removal cases have already been decided by an immigration judge.

“The U.S. law that ordered the enforcement of the removal of the individuals with aggravated criminal records is still in place, but I think what the ICE decision means is that they will not target Somalis and arrest them from their homes and workplaces.” Awad said. “They can continue their normal life.”

Requests for asylum denied

Most of the Somalis facing final orders of removal are not in detention centers and are unlikely to be removed in the near term because their cases are making their way through the system.

Since Somalia’s embassy in Washington reopened in November 2015, the ambassador said, about 170 Somali immigrants who either ran afoul of U.S. law or had their asylum applications rejected have been deported to Mogadishu, the Somali capital.

Most of those previously deported had applied for, but been denied, political asylum in the United States, he added. Another group of Somali applicants whose requests for asylum have been denied are now in detention centers or prisons, awaiting deportation.

Fewer than 300 face return

Fewer than 300 Somalis are scheduled to be moved out in the next couple of months, Awad told VOA, adding that his embassy was awaiting information from U.S. authorities on who the deportees were and when they would depart.

ICE agents recently arrested 82 people from 26 nations during a five-day operation in and around the U.S. capital.

According to a statement from ICE, 68 of those detained March 26-30 had previous criminal convictions for crimes including armed robbery, larceny and drug offenses. All but three were arrested in Virginia.

U.S. immigration officials said eight of those arrested during that roundup had no known criminal records; they either had overstayed visitor visas or ignored final orders to leave the country.

A different, dangerous country

Some of the Somali nationals who have been sent back to their homeland have told VOA and media outlets in Somalia they found a different and dangerous country awaiting them in East Africa.

Because Somalia lacked a strong central government for more than a quarter-century, many Western nations have refrained from forcibly returning Somali immigrants to their home country because of safety concerns.

U.S. immigration policies have been tightened considerably under President Donald Trump, and such a clemency policy for Somali nationals is no longer being observed. Trump’s travel order banned the issuance of visas to citizens of Somalia and five other countries. The order has been put on hold by two courts pending a review of its constitutionality.

VOA’s Jeff Seldin contributed to this report
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Protesters Attack Macedonia Lawmakers

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Scores of protesters in Macedonia have broken through a police cordon and entered parliament, attacking some lawmakers, to protest the election of a new speaker despite a months-long deadlock in talks to form a new government.
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Protesters Attack Macedonian Lawmakers After Albanian Voted as Speaker

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Scores of protesters, many wearing masks, broke through a police cordon and entered Macedonia’s parliament late Thursday, attacking lawmakers to protest the election of a new speaker despite a months-long deadlock in talks to form a new government.

The protesters stormed parliament after the country’s opposition Social Democrats and parties representing Macedonia’s ethnic Albanian minority voted for a new speaker. Shouting and throwing chairs, the protesters attacked lawmakers, including opposition leader Zoran Zaev, who television footage showed bleeding from the forehead.

 

 

Television footage showed Zaev and other Social Democrat lawmakers surrounded by protesters waving national flags, shouting “traitors” and refusing to allow them to leave.

Macedonia has been without a government since December, when former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski’s conservative party won elections, but without enough votes to form a government.

Coalition talks broke down over ethnic Albanian demands that Albanian be recognized as an official second language. One-fourth of Macedonia’s population is ethnic Albanian.

Zaev has been seeking a mandate to form a government for months, after reaching an agreement with an ethnic Albanian party, the Democratic Union for Integration, to form a coalition government. However, President Gjorge Ivanov refused to hand him the mandate.

The Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia, as the Balkan nation’s parliament is known, has been deadlocked for three weeks over electing a new speaker. Zaev had suggested earlier Thursday that one could be elected outside normal procedures, an idea immediately rejected by the conservative party as an attempted coup.

Zaev went ahead with the vote, and a majority in parliament elected Talat Xhaferi, a former defense minister and member of the Democratic Union for Integration.

Police said about 10 officers were injured during the melee and that reinforcements have been sent to assist those inside the parliament building.

DUI party spokesman Artan Grubi told Telma TV in a telephone interview that Zaev and three other lawmakers had been injured.

“This is a sad day for Macedonia,” Grubi said.

The protesters who stormed parliament Thursday night were among a group of demonstrators who have been holding protest rallies nightly for the past two months in the streets of Skopje and other cities in the country over the political situation. Many are supporters of Gruevski.

European Union Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn condemned Thursday’s violence, saying in a tweet that “Violence has NO place in Parliament. Democracy must run its course.”

Sweden’s ambassador to Macedonia, Mats Staffansson, speaking on behalf of other European diplomats, reminded the country’s politicians of the need for dialogue and said “it is the responsibility of the police of this country to make sure that this kind of violence does not happen.”

WATCH: Protesters storm Macedonian parliament
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Investors Have High Hopes for Ghana, Says Finance Minister

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Ghana’s finance minister says investors were optimistic in meetings with senior government officials who accompanied Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia to the World Bank spring meetings in Washington.

In an interview with VOA, Ken Ofori-Atta said investors detected a new energy, and a sense of hope in a team that is focused on getting Ghana out of its current predicament. He also said that with a new government in place, the world is ready to see Ghana shine again in a much more stable West Africa.

“We came in on a platform of change and real hope that we will revitalize the economy and create jobs and there would be growth,” Ofori-Atta said. “But we met some pretty difficult challenges with regards to fiscal deficit close to 9 percent, lots of unemployment, growth of 3.4 percent, which was very low, and the discovery of some 7 billion Cedis [$1.3 billion] arrears that we all did not know about. Foreign exchange was low, and you also had the exchange rate in a pretty difficult situation. So we had to contend with all of that since we came [to power].”

But opposition groups say the new administration should get to work rather than complain about the state of affairs. They contend that Ghanaians displayed confidence in them by rejecting the previous government for failing to improve the lives of its citizens.

Ofori-Atta said that in just over 100 days, the government outlined its plans to jump-start the economy in a budget, which was presented to parliament. The aim, he said, is to create millions of jobs as the ruling party, led by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, promised ahead of the December elections.

“We decided to create a budget that is both leading to a fiscal consolidation in a real way and also not compromising growth,” Ofori-Atta said. “So we brought down the deficit as a target from 8.7 percent to 6.5. We squeaked out a primary balance surplus. We’re reducing our debt-to-GDP ratio from 72.5 to 70.9 percent, and then increase revenue by 34 percent. So, quite dramatic contraction in a sense. However, we also were clear that we needed to spur growth.”

One means to achieve their goals: abolishing some taxes.

“One of the most dramatic things was to abolish about 14 taxes, which the senior minister [Yaw Osafo Marfo] termed to be nuisance taxes,” Ofori-Atta said. “Taxes that were kind of suppressive and created a sense of cohesion by the state. As a center-right party, we have to revitalize the economy, we have to give stimulus, we have to encourage people to use their creative energies.”

Ofori-Atta also said abolishing the taxes will free Ghanaian businesses, and entrepreneurs will help to “bring Ghana back” into a working mode.

Another measure the administration plans to implement is the revitalization of the rural economy. This, he said, includes establishing a factory in each of the country’s districts, as well as sending $1 million to each constituency as a resource to support the policy of one district, one factory, which was promised by the president in the run-up to the polls.

Critics, however, say the one district, one factory promise was overly ambitious. They contend that with the dramatic reduction of taxes, government revenue would be sharply reduced, thereby handicapping the ability of the administration to raise the necessary funds it needs to keep the promises to Ghanaians. They also say the reduction of taxes was just a ploy to score political points.

But supporters of the ruling party reject the criticisms as unfounded.
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Russia-West Tensions Exposed at Moscow Security Conference

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Tensions between Russia and the West over security in Europe, the Middle East and Asia have surfaced at an annual defense conference in Moscow. Major flashpoints include the situation in Syria and NATO expansion.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov gave a stark warning about the expanding threat of terrorism and conflict across the globe at the opening Wednesday of the two-day Moscow Conference on International Security.

“The situation in the world is not becoming more stable or predictable, rather the opposite,” he said. “In front of our eyes we see that tension on both global and regional levels is on the rise. Further erosion of international law is obvious, so are attempts to use force to promote personal interests, to strengthen own security at the expense of others’ security, to contain by all means the process of a formation of a polycentric world order.”

Middle East

As if to underscore the point, Israeli missiles hit a suspected Iranian arms depot in Damascus just hours after Lavrov and Israel’s Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman met on the sidelines of the security conference.

Those airstrikes also symbolize the complicated nature of Russia’s relationship with Israeli and Iran, says analyst Alexey Malashenko via Skype.

“Russia is playing a very difficult game between Israel and Iran,” he said. “It creates some problems. … I think similar situation will continue. So, Russia will keep the normal relations with both countries.”

Russia says it wants a global alliance against terrorists and is fighting them in Syria just like a U.S.-led Western alliance has been doing.

But Western and Arab states say Russia is defending Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and they accuse him of responsibility for a chemical attack on civilians this month that Moscow and Damascus blame on Syrian rebels.

The Western alliance wants Assad out of power, but the Kremlin fears losing its ally in Damascus would mean losing regional influence.

“Maybe the problem of Bashar al-Assad, his presidency, is most painful problem for Kremlin because indeed, it has to be replaced, and Putin and in Kremlin they understand it. That’s no doubt,” Malashenko said. “But, anyway, by whom it’s possible to replace him, who will come instead of him? This is a problem.”

NATO

Another problem, according to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, is the gradual expansion of the NATO Western military alliance into eastern Europe.

“NATO is a military and political bloc and not a group of stamp collectors. It follows a course of projecting its power and bringing more and more states into its orbit,” Shoigu said at the conference opening. “The recent decision to make Montenegro an alliance member is the latest proof of that. Podgorica’s military potential is close to zero, but its geographic location allows [the alliance] to strengthen control over the Balkans.”

Montenegro’s opposition held protests Tuesday against joining NATO. Many fear joining the Western alliance could upset relations with Russia, or even lead to a military clash.

Also this week, U.S. fighter jets arrived in Estonia, and British typhoon jets went to Romania, as NATO reassures members concerned about Russian aggression.

Trust is almost completely eroded between NATO and the Kremlin, says the Carnegie Moscow Center’s Petr Topychkanov via Skype.

“It all started from Yugoslavia in 1990s, but then Georgia war, NATO extension, missile defense programs — United States and NATO — and, of course, the most recent and the most important thing was the Crimea annexation by Russia.”

On East Asia, Russian President Vladimir Putin and visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe discussed North Korea’s nuclear program.

Russia agrees to pressure Pyongyang to give up its nuclear ambitions, but only through the U.N. Security Council.
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Greek, Turkish Cypriot Officials Tour Unfinished Crossing

Posted on by SeeEU

A new crossing point intended to encourage Cyprus’ hoped-for reunification is nearing completion two years after the delay-plagued project was announced, Greek and Turkish Cypriot officials were told Thursday.

The Deryneia crossing, located near the east coast of Cyprus, was hailed as another important milestone in helping to build trust between the ethnically divided island’s breakaway Turkish Cypriots in the north and Greek Cypriots living in the internationally recognized south.

Greek Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci announced the crossing in May 2015, when they launched a new round of negotiations aimed at reunifying Cyprus as a federation.

But there have been delays, and work on the new passageway remains unfinished while troubled reunification talks trudge on.

Slovakia’s ambassador to Cyprus, Oksana Tomova, organized a tour of the crossing point on Thursday, calling the link “one of the most important confidence-building measures agreed by the leaders of the two communities.”

Deryneia would be the eighth such crossing since 2003, when the first cut was made through a U.N.-controlled buffer zone nearly three decades after Cyprus’ was divided. The island’s split came in 1974 when Turkey invaded following a coup by supporters of uniting Cyprus with Greece.

Most of the road work has been finished. But barbed wire, metal obstacles, acacias and other unchecked vegetation still crowd the 150-yard stretch across the no-man’s land that a nearby U.N. guard post oversees.

Deryneia Mayor Andros Karagiannis said the crossing’s opening would be an economic boon for his community by increasing tourist traffic and easing commerce between Greek and Turkish Cypriots.

Turkish Cypriot Halil Onashi said it would only take “a couple of minutes” to cross southwards from his home instead of having to take a longer, circuitous route through another crossing point.

No one on the tour could explain the reasons behind the delays. But an official with knowledge of the project’s details who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the project said all that remains is for funding to be allocated.

“We want to believe that it’ll open the soonest,” said Averof Neophytou, president of the largest Greek Cypriot political party, the right-wing Democratic Rally. “But it’s not enough to open crossing points after 43 years. … What we want is to reunify our divided country.”

In August 1996, the area where the new crossing will be located was the site of the worst outbreak of violence since the invasion. A Greek Cypriot man taking part in a protest against the island’s division was killed after being attacked by Turkish Cypriots. His cousin was fatally shot trying to take down a Turkish flag at a guard post a couple days later.
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Attack-hit City of Nice Split Over Le Pen Vote in French Presidentials

Posted on by SeeEU

Taking a break from his morning jog on Nice’s seaside boulevard, the Promenade des Anglais, 62-year-old Dominique Eche gets tears in his eyes when he recalls being around the corner when an Islamic State attack killed 86 people there last Bastille Day.

The sports coach’s children jumped down to the beach below to avoid the truck that ploughed into the crowd, and he says it is important to him to keep jogging there to show life goes on. But when he thinks about the presidential election and far-right National Front (FN) candidate Marine Le Pen’s insistence that her tough line on security will prevent such atrocities, he gets angry.

“I saw the Nice attack from the inside and I find it appalling to try and benefit from such attacks, to say: ‘It wouldn’t have happened if I’d been in power’,” Eche said on Thursday, speaking hours before a big election rally by Le Pen

in Nice. Next to him, workers were erecting concrete bollards to make sure trucks cannot access the pavement there anymore.

The FN has said some of the Islamist attacks that have killed more than 230 people in France since 2015 would have been prevented had it been in power thanks to a platform that includes locking up French-born suspected jihadists and expelling foreign ones and suspending the European Union’s open-border arrangement.

This resonates with some voters in Nice, where one in four voted for Le Pen in the first round of the presidential election on Sunday, against 21.3 percent nationally, as she qualified for the May 7 runoff behind centrist Emmanuel Macron.

“The Nice attacks are pushing people to vote for the FN,” said 63 year-old ex-fireman Guy Paillet as he waited at the Le Pen rally for her to make her speech. “She’s telling it as it is. We need to build back borders,” he said, wearing a giant blue-white-red hat with the French flag’s colors.

“Not safe?”

While opinion polls all say that Macron will easily beat Le Pen in the second round, the head of France’s south east region and deputy Nice mayor Christian Estrosi, a conservative, warned against considering it was in the bag for the young centrist. “Le Pen can win,” he told Reuters.

Local FN representative Lionel Tivoli said FN membership in Nice’s Alpes-Maritimes department had jumped from 740 two years ago to 3,500-4,000 now, driven in particular by the attacks.

“What strikes people is that this attack took place where they live, here in the Alpes-Maritimes,” Tivoli said in the FN’s local headquarters. “We’re not safe anywhere anymore.”

The 31-year-old Tunisian who drove the truck had a history of violence and brushes with the law, and had been handed a suspended six-month prison term for road rage a few months earlier.

Under the FN, Tivoli said, “this attack would have been avoided because he would not have been roaming free in Nice’s streets”.

Hubert, a 70-year-old FN supporter who said he does not miss a chance to see Le Pen at a rally, said the attacks had reinforced his resolve to vote for her. “We need to feel safe,” he said, adding derogatory comments about Arabs.

But 79-year-old Nice resident Roger Blanc, who backed conservative Francois Fillon in the first round and will vote Macron in the second, took a very different view.

He said: “I was very shocked by the attacks. But what would she [Le Pen] have done about it? What would she have done? Nothing. It’s all just talk.”

Le Pen’s first round score in Nice was up by two percentage points since the 2012 election, but this was a smaller increase than in her national score.

Gilles Ivaldi, a specialist in the FN at the University of Nice, said this was partly because the local mainstream right was also strong in Nice, and took a hard line itself on issues such as security.
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Family of Jailed Eritrean Journalist Renews Calls for His Release

Posted on by SeeAF

When people from across the globe gather on May 3 to recognize World Press Freedom Day in Jakarta, Indonesia, the recipient of the top prize won’t be there.  He will be spending his 16th year in a secret prison in Eritrea.

The awardee, Dawit Isaak, is an Eritrean-born Swedish journalist and author who worked at Setit, one of Eritrea’s now-defunct independent newspapers.  He was arrested during a government crackdown in September 2001 that shut down newspapers and jailed journalists.

Isaak has not been seen or heard from for at least a decade, despite repeated requests from his family and the Swedish government.

“I am happy that he is nominated for this award, but I also feel sad because it would be good if he received this award himself,” said his daughter Betlehem Isaak, who will be accepting the prize on his behalf.

His brother, Esayas Isaak, will accompany her to accept the award.  He said that their aim is to make sure that Dawit Isaak is given the award himself sometime soon.

Esayas says he and his niece worry about Dawit’s condition. “We are concerned that we are not aware of his whereabouts and his situation,” he said, speaking to VOA Tigrigna Service.

Isaak was selected unanimously by an international jury of media professionals to receive the 2017 UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize.  The award is named for a Colombian journalist who was assassinated in front of his offices in 1986.  The award includes a prize of $25,000.

“He [Isaak] represents determination, courage.  He is also a figure of democracy and freedom of expression and I think he is really someone who has given his life for his values, universal values, that are freedom of expression and democracy,” said Sylvie Coudray of UNESCO.

Isaak and other arrested journalists have never been formally tried or charged.  Eritrean President Isayas Afwerki has been asked about Isaak’s status multiple times and has referred to him obliquely as an agent of foreign powers and the CIA.

Never tried or released

In a 2009 interview he claimed not to know where Isaak was being held, but said the journalist will never be tried or released.

Despite the lack of information, friends and advocates hold out hope that Isaak remains alive.  In 2016, Eritrean Foreign Affairs Minister Osman Saleh said he was still living, and a prisoner released about a year ago said he had seen Isaak during his 13 years in various Eritrean jails, although he added, “We didn’t see much of him since 2007.”

Martin Schibbye, a Swedish journalist who was imprisoned in Ethiopia, was allowed to visit Eritrea with a press visa last year.  He tried unsuccessfully to get information about Isaak’s location and health.

“I think until we are presented with a body, we have to assume that he’s alive,” he said.  “There are examples of people who spend decades in prison, and when you’re in prison and you know why you are there, that gives you a certain strength and energy to survive even the most terrible difficult conditions.”

Aaron Berhane, a former colleague of Isaak who now resides in Canada, said the award sends a message to the Eritrean government that Isaak and other imprisoned journalists will not be forgotten.

“It is a slap in the face to the regime in Eritrea because the regime thinks that it has stifled freedom of the press by imprisoning the journalists physically.  But this is a reminder that their spirit and influence is spreading globally and for that I am extremely happy and proud,” he told VOA’s Tigrigna Service.
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Trial Delayed for Burkina Faso’s Former President

Posted on by SeeAF

A Burkina Faso court has postponed the start of the trial of ex-president Blaise Compaoré and his former Cabinet. The accused are being tried for their alleged role in the violent crackdown on the 2014 uprising that ultimately ended Compaoré’s nearly three decades in power.

The much-anticipated trial of former president Blaise Compaoré and almost his entire former Cabinet was supposed to start Thursday. But instead, it was adjourned before it even began.

 

According to sources within the Ministry of Justice, there was a scheduling conflict. The Lawyers’ Association of Burkina Faso is holding its annual reunion. So the lawyers were at their official banquet, and not at the trial. A few showed up but only to request the hearing be adjourned. This was granted by the court’s president, Mathieu Ouédraogo.

 

The former government is on trial for allegedly authorizing the use of force against protesters in late October 2014. The popular uprising would cost Compaoré his presidency.

According to the official toll, 24 people lost their lives during those two days but the case before the court concerns the death of seven demonstrators, shot dead allegedly by security forces.

 

In all, 31 members of the former government are on trial. Compaoré is being tried in his capacity as minister for defense, a post he also held at the time of his ouster.

 

Much of Burkina Faso’s civil society, which drove the uprising and has documented abuses that went on at the time, is turning its back on the proceedings.

 

A prominent civil society figure present at the court Thursday made an impromptu statement immediately after the adjournment.

 

Safiatou Lopez Zongo said that she held “no hope at all that justice would be served. This is a spectacle, on behalf of people who are guiding this from behind their desks,” though she declined to name exactly who those people might be.

 

Proponents of the trial say it sends a clear signal clear that nobody can escape justice, but critics dismiss it as political score settling.

 

According to Issaka Lingani, the editor in chief of L’Opinion, which is close to the former ruling party, the trial serves to clear up the remaining bits of the previous government. Justice, in his opinion, will never be served.

 

NGO’s have pointed accusing fingers at the military, especially the now-disbanded special presidential guard. They are allegedly responsible for the deaths and injuries that occurred in October 2014. But no military personnel are on trial today. Why?

 

That question remains unanswered. The prosecutor was not available for an interview.

 

As for Compaoré, he remains in Ivory Coast where he fled after his ouster and has since taken citizenship.

 

The trial is now expected to begin May 4.

 
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Arkansas to Prepares for Last in a String of Executions

Posted on by SeeUS

Arkansas will reach the end of an aggressive execution schedule Thursday as it prepares for a fourth lethal injection in a week after initially planning twice as many over an 11-day period.

 

Kenneth Williams, 38, is set to die for killing a former deputy warden following an escape. Each of several stay requests has been rejected or overturned, and it will take a court order to prevent his execution at 7 p.m. Thursday.

 

“The Arkansas Supreme Court has denied all requests for stays of execution from Inmate Kenneth Williams,” Judd Deere, a spokesman for Arkansas’ attorney general, said in an email after the justices ruled in a case Wednesday. 

Legal injection drug expires

 

With one of its lethal injection drugs set to expire at the end of April, Arkansas had scheduled eight executions over the final two weeks of April. That would have been the most in such a compressed period since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

 

If Williams is put to death in the Cummins Unit prison at Varner, the state would have carried out four since last Thursday, including a double execution Monday, the nation’s first since 2000. Courts issued stays for four of the inmates.

 

Arkansas’ supply of midazolam, normally a surgical sedative, expires Sunday. The Arkansas Department of Correction has said it has no new source for the drug, though it has made similar remarks previously yet still found a new stash.

 

State officials have declared the string of executions a success, using terms like “closure” for the victims’ families. The inmates have died within 20 minutes of their executions beginning, a contrast from midazolam-related executions in other states that took anywhere from 43 minutes to two hours. The inmates’ lawyers have said there are still flaws, and that there is no certainty that the inmates aren’t suffering while they die.

In an emergency hearing by telephone, held after the first of Monday’s executions, Jeff Rosenzweig, a lawyer for death row inmates, told a federal judge that Jack Jones Jr.’s mouth moved several times when he should have been unconscious. Jones’ spiritual adviser described it as “a sort of gurgling.” An observer from the state attorney general’s office said it was “snoring; deep, deep sleep.”

 

One minute after the conference call ended, U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker allowed the second execution, of Marcel Williams, to proceed.

 

“Based upon what the court has learned from the eyewitnesses in regard to the execution, the court finds no support for a claim and an allegation that the execution appeared to be torturous and inhumane,” Baker said in a transcript of the hearing released Wednesday.

Linked to four deaths

 

Kenneth Williams was sentenced to death for killing Cecil Boren after escaping from the Cummins Unit prison in a 500-gallon barrel of hog slop. He left the prison, where the execution chamber is located in another part of the facility, less than three weeks into a life prison term for killing University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff cheerleader Dominique Hurd in 1998. At the conclusion of that trial, he had taunted the young woman’s family by turning to them after the sentence was announced and saying “You thought I was going to die, didn’t you?”

 

After jumping from the barrel, he sneaked along a tree line until reaching Boren’s house. He killed Boren, stole guns and Boren’s truck and then drove away to Missouri. There, he crashed into a water-delivery truck, killing the driver. While in prison, he confessed to killing another person in 1998.

 

At the time of Boren’s death, investigators said it did not appear Boren was targeted because of his former employment by the Arkansas Department of Correction.

 

On Wednesday, a top official with the European Union, which opposes capital punishment, urged Gov. Asa Hutchinson to cancel the Thursday execution. EU Ambassador to the U.S. David O’Sullivan said the letter was “an urgent humanitarian appeal” on Williams’ behalf.

 

“The EU recognizes the serious nature of the crimes involved, and wishes to express its sincere sympathies to the surviving families and friends of the victims,” the letter said. “However, the European Union does not believe that their loss will be mitigated by the death of Mr. Williams.”
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Egyptian Artist Shrugs off Violence, Paints Church Murals

Posted on by SeeEA

On a scaffold several stories high beneath the dome of a Cairo church, Ayman William paints for the glory of God, unfazed by recent attacks against his fellow Coptic Christians in Egypt.

 

The church, deep within the dusty alleyways of one of the many informal neighborhoods that have sprung up to accommodate the capital’s surging population, is building a new extension. And William, 41, who has painted murals in churches as far away as Kuwait and California, is happy to help.

Service to the church

 

“God gave me talent and I must make use of it to serve him,” said William, who was mostly self-taught and says he has drawn inspiration from the Bible during his 15 years in the profession, which he began learning after discovering an affinity for painting icons and murals with childhood friends.

 

Dozens of characters leap out from the dome around him, Adam, Eve, Moses and Samson, as well as New Testament figures such as St. Mark, considered the founder of Egypt’s Coptic Church. He’s been working on it for nearly six months, and expects to finish in a few weeks.

 

William has an assistant hoist his paintbrush, tools and palette to the upper levels of the scaffolding before he climbs up a giant ladder. For many of the images, he uses models dressed in period clothing to help him depict biblical scenes.

 

“I have to make studies using the Bible in each drawing in order to get the specific description,” he said. “Besides working for payment, I believe that what I am doing is a service to the church.”

 

Pope Francis will visit Egypt this weekend on a trip aimed at lifting the spirits of Christians in the Middle East, whose numbers have rapidly dwindled in recent decades because of war, displacement and emigration.

A solemn Easter

 

Egypt’s Copts, one of the oldest Christian communities in the world, marked a solemn Easter earlier this month, after suicide bombers attacked two churches in separate cities, killing dozens of worshippers on Palm Sunday. Last December a suicide bomber killed 30 people at Cairo’s Coptic Cathedral.

 

An Islamic State affiliate claimed all three attacks, and militant attacks on Christians in the northern Sinai Peninsula earlier this year forced hundreds of people to flee to safer parts of the country.

 

Nevertheless, Coptic church attendance remains high in the wake of the attacks. Many, like William, are determined to go about their lives despite the violence.

 

“Terrorism exists everywhere,” he said. “Not just in Egypt, but also in places like Iraq, Syria and even France. But the places I go to for work are good places, safe places.”
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Low-cost Drug Could Save Thousands of Mothers’ Lives Across Developing World

Posted on by SeeAF

A low-cost and widely available drug could save the lives of 1 in 3 mothers who would otherwise bleed to death after childbirth, according to a new study.

Severe bleeding, known as postpartum hemorrhage, or PPH, is the leading cause of maternal death worldwide, killing more than 100,000 women every year.  Even for mothers who survive, it is a painful and traumatic experience.

The world’s poorest countries, especially in Africa and India, are the worst hit.

Drug from 1960s

But there is new hope. In the 1960s, Japanese researchers developed a drug called tranexamic acid, which works by stopping blood clots from breaking down. But they could not persuade doctors to try the drug for treating PPH.

The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has done just that, in a trial involving 20,000 women in 21 countries, mainly in Africa and Asia. The results show tranexamic acid reduces the risk of bleeding to death by almost a third, with no side effects for either mothers or babies.

Dr. Nike Bello, a consultant obstetrician and gynecologist in Nigeria, said that “if a drug can prevent hysterectomies, a drug can prevent death, a drug can minimize the amount of blood we need, then that is a good thing, all over the world.”

Refinements needed

But there are challenges to getting the drug where it is needed. First, the doctors must know about its effectiveness, said professor Ian Roberts of the London tropical medicine school, who led the latest research.

“We want everyone to hear about the results,” he said. “But then there are the nitty-gritty issues. Is the treatment available in the hospital? Do doctors and midwives know how to use it? It is heat stable, so it does not have to be kept in the fridge. It is relatively inexpensive — it is about a dollar.  And no child should grow up without a mother for lack of a treatment that costs a dollar.”

In the trial, tranexamic acid was given via a drip. Researchers say the next step is to find an easier way to administer the drug so it can be used in clinics and rural settings across the world.
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Trump Seeks Reduction in Federal Education Rules

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President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the U.S. Department of Education to identify federal rules that he says interfere with state and local government control of public schools. As VOA’s Greg Flakus reports from Washington, the move is part of an overall effort to reduce the size, cost and reach of the U.S. central government.
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Trump Orders Review of National Monuments

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President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to review the protected status of federal lands known as national monuments. Trump says the move returns the lands to the people. As Mike O’Sullivan reports, critics say it could open dozens of protected natural areas to potential development.
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Experts Worry About a Lack of New US Ambassadors Around the World

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Three months into his administration, President Donald Trump has yet to nominate candidates to fill a large number of senior State Department positions in Washington and to serve as ambassadors at U.S. embassies around the world. As VOA State Department Correspondent Cindy Saine reports, the process is going slower than usual this time, with 181 of 188 ambassadorships awaiting nominations.
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Global Press Freedom at Tipping Point, Report Warns

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A media rights watchdog group is warning that over the past year, global press freedom has, it its words, “never been so threatened.” VOA’s Bill Gallo has the details.
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