Month: May 2017

Genetic Testing Underway on Virus Behind New Ebola Outbreak

Posted on by SeeAF

Tests are underway to determine the genetic sequence of the Ebola virus behind an outbreak in central Africa, a U.S. Centers for Disease Control researcher said Friday.

Dr. Barbara Knust, an epidemiologist, told VOA’s Horn of Africa service that scientists are looking for “clues” about where this strain of Ebola originated and how to treat it.

“That could help [us] understand how this virus is related to other viruses that have caused other Ebola outbreaks,” she said.

The latest Ebola outbreak is in northern Democratic Republic of the Congo, in a remote area near the border with the Central African Republic.  The World Health Organization said that as of May 24, Ebola had killed four people in the area and the number of suspected cases stood at 44.

The Ebola virus, which causes a type of hemorrhagic fever, killed more than 11,000 people across the West African countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone in 2014 and 2015.  

Resources ‘mobilized quickly’

Staff from the CDC, the WHO, the Congolese Ministry of Health and other agencies are in Congo’s Bas Uele province, working to contain the spread of the virus. Knust said the international response was going “fine.”  

“The responders involved in this outbreak very certainly are taking it seriously and the resources have been mobilized quickly,” she said. “At least at this point of time [it] appears that it was detected fairly early, although that information is forthcoming. There is some hope it will remain a limited outbreak.”

She said there had been discussion of using experimental treatments used in the West African outbreak, but that the Congolese government had not given its approval.

Dr. Galma Guyo, a disease control specialist in Nairobi, was part of an African Union team that responded to the Ebola outbreak in Liberia.  He warned that the DRC’s location in the center of Africa could allow the virus there to spread across borders.

“There is a possibility that the viruses can easily spread and be hard to detect due to the remoteness of the region, too,” he said.
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Somaliland Says UAE Can Launch Attacks From New Base

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A top official said Friday that forces from the United Arab Emirates could soon be flying fighter jets from a new base in the breakaway republic of Somaliland.

Somaliland Foreign Minister Saad Ali Shire said the UAE could use the base in the town of Berbera for any purpose, including “training, surveillance and military operations.”

Berbera is about 250 kilometers south of Yemen, where a Saudi-led military coalition that includes UAE troops is fighting Houthi rebels.

The base is still under construction, but UAE Navy ships have docked at Berbera’s deep-water port.  

Shire, interviewed by VOA’s Somali service in Washington, defended Somaliland’s naval and air base deal with the UAE, which the parliament approved in February.

“We don’t believe the use of the facility will add to the uncertainty and the conflict in the region, he said. “UAE has already a base in Assab, Eritrea, which is operational, and the use of the base in Berbera is not going to add anything new to the conflict.”

Clarification sought

The deal has generated controversy in Somalia, which considers Somaliland to be part of its territory. The Somali parliament has asked Somalia’s president to clarify the government’s stance on the deal. Dozens of lawmakers have voiced support for a motion opposing the UAE base.

The Somaliland foreign minister said his government sees the deal as an “economic transaction.”

“The agreement is [for] UAE to use Berbera airport and port as a military facility, and in exchange, the UAE will be building roads, a new airport, and funding health, education and water energy,” he said.

Previously, Somaliland signed a multimillion-dollar, 30-year deal with DP World, a Dubai company, to upgrade and manage the Berbera port. Ethiopia gets access to the port under the deal.

Somaliland broke away from Somalia in 1991, but no nation has so far recognized it as an independent state.
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Congo Opposes International Probe of UN Investigators’ Deaths

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Democratic Republic of Congo opposes an international investigation into the deaths of two U.N. investigators, the foreign minister said on Thursday, amid

mounting criticism of the Congolese authorities’ own probe.

Congolese military prosecutors announced last weekend that two suspected militiamen would soon face trial for the March killings of U.N. investigators Zaida Catalan, a Swede, and American Michael Sharp in the insurrection-plagued Kasai region.

Rights groups, however, say they suspect Congolese forces could have been involved in the deaths.

A U.N. spokesman on Tuesday cast doubt on the credibility of the Congolese investigation, saying the world body was “taken aback at the rapidity at which it was done.”

A U.N. board of inquiry is investigating the experts’ deaths but is not expected to assign blame, leading some rights campaigners to call for a formal international investigation.

In a letter to the editor of the New York Times on Thursday, Catalan and Sharp’s families also called for an “independent international criminal investigation team to … help ensure that those responsible face justice”.

Congo’s foreign minister, Leonard She Okitundu, rejected any such investigation in an interview with Radio France Internationale and accused unnamed U.N. Security Council members of trying to discredit the Congolese justice system.

“Congolese expertise in this matter must be respected,” She Okitundu said.

The New York Times had reported on Sunday that Catalan had obtained a recording of a phone call in which ex-development minister Clement Kanku speaks approvingly of violence perpetrated by a local militia to a presumed militia member.

According to the Times, Catalan had informed Kanku she was in possession of the recording. Congo’s attorney general said on Tuesday he had opened an investigation into the former minister’s possible role in militia violence. Kanku has denied any wrongdoing.

Catalan and Sharp disappeared in March in central Congo’s Kasai region, where hundreds have died since last July in an insurrection against the government. Their bodies were found two weeks later in a shallow grave.

Last month, the government screened a video for journalists showing their executions by men wearing red headbands characteristic of the local Kamuina Nsapu militia to rebuff suggestions authorities were complicit in the killings.

But many analysts say the grainy and highly edited video raises more questions than it answers, including why the assassins from the Tshiluba-speaking militia gave orders in Lingala, the language of western Congo and the army.

The investigators’ interpreter and three motorcycle taxi drivers who went missing with them have not been found.
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Egypt Bus Attack Targets Coptic Christians

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Masked gunmen attacked a bus of Coptic Christians traveling to a monastery in Egypt, killing at least 26 people, officials said Friday.

As many as 10 assailants in three pickup trucks attacked the bus as it was traveling to the Saint Samuel monastery in the Minya state over 200 miles from Cairo, the interior ministry said.

“They used automatic weapons,” Minya governor Essam el-Bedawi told state television, which showed images of the bus with shattered windows, surrounded by police and ambulances.

Twenty-five people also were wounded in the attack, according to the health ministry.

No claim of responsibility

There has been no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, though it bears the hallmarks of Egypt’s Islamic State affiliate, which has carried out two separate attacks on Copts in the last six months.

On April 10, bomb attacks at two Coptic churches in Egypt killed at least 44 people and injured more than 100 people as worshipers were marking Palm Sunday.

Pope Francis refused to cancel a historic visit to Egypt last month amid security concerns after the attacks, instead visiting one of the bombed churches, among others, and condemning the violence carried out in the name of God.

Egypt’s Copts, the largest Christian community in the Middle East, has long been the target of Islamic extremism, as well as discrimination from the country’s Muslim-majority population.
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Trump: North Korea ‘A Particular Focus’ for G-7 Leaders at Summit

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U.S. President Donald Trump says terrorism and North Korea are top items on the agenda for the leaders’ summit of the Group of Seven nations, which began Friday on Sicily, the largest Mediterranean island.

Sitting alongside Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the U.S. president said the meeting would have a “particular focus on the North Korea problem.”

While terrorism would also be a primary concern for the leaders during their two days of talks on the Italian island, North Korea’s nuclear weapons testing and ballistic missile development comprise “a big problem, it’s a world problem,” said Trump. “It will be solved at some point. It will be solved, you can bet on that.”

Trade is another major topic on the minds of Trump’s counterparts who have gathered in the resort town of Taormina.

They are hoping to soften Trump’s stance on trade and climate change.

“We will have a very robust discussion on trade and we will be talking about what free and open means,” the director of the National Economic Council, Gary Cohn, told reporters on Air Force One on the flight to Sicily from Belgium.

In Brussels, at the opening of a new headquarters for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the U.S. president bluntly confronted other leaders of the alliance, asserting that their failure to meet financial pledges on defense spending is not fair “to the people and taxpayers of the United States.”

Trump is also at odds with other leaders on climate change.

During the G-7 there will be “fairly robust” talks on whether Trump should honor Washington’s commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions under the Paris Agreement signed two years ago, said Cohn, who is the president’s chief economic advisor. 

During his presidential campaign, in which he took numerous controversial stances, Trump referred to man-made global warming as a “hoax.”

The G-7, going back more than a decade, has repeatedly recognized the threat of climate change, but U.S. officials may be pushing to weaken language in the Taormina communique.

“It would be extremely rare for this major set of developed countries to not send a clear signal regarding climate change,” according to Jake Schmidt, the international program director of the National Resources Defense Council.

Along with the United States, the other members of the G-7 are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Britain. The European Union is also represented.

The group of wealthy nations also included Russia between 1997 and 2014 and was known as the G-8. But after Moscow’s invasion of Crimea, Russian participation was suspended.

For Russia to return it would have to adhere to the “Minsk accords, and implementing those, restoring Ukrainian sovereignty,” U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters Wednesday.
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Trade, Climate Change on Agenda for G-7 Summit in Sicily

Posted on by SeeEU

Leaders of the world’s rich nations braced for contentious talks with Donald Trump at a G-7 summit in Sicily Friday after the U.S. president lambasted NATO allies for not spending more on defense and accused Germany of “very bad” trade policies.

Trump’s confrontational remarks in Brussels, on the eve of the two-day summit in the Mediterranean resort town of Taormina, cast a pall over a meeting at which America’s partners had hoped to coax him into softening his stances on trade and climate change.

The summit will kick off with a ceremony at an ancient Greek theater perched on a cliff overlooking the sea, before the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States begin talks on terrorism, Syria, North Korea and the global economy.

Trump said Friday that North Korea was a “big problem,” but assured Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that issues surrounding the secretive Asian state would be resolved.

“It is very much on our minds. … It’s a big problem, it’s a world problem and it will be solved. At some point it will be solved. You can bet on that,” Trump said sitting alongside Abe in a bilateral meeting ahead of a Group of Seven summit.

North Korea’s growing nuclear and missile threat is seen as a major security challenge for Trump, who has vowed to prevent the country from being able to hit the United States with a nuclear missile, a capability experts say Pyongyang could have some time after 2020. 

Global economy

“We will have a very robust discussion on trade and we will be talking about what free and open means,” White House economic adviser Gary Cohn told reporters late Thursday.

He also predicted “fairly robust” talks on whether Trump should honor a U.S. commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions under the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Trump, who dismissed man-made global warming a hoax during his election campaign, is not expected to decide at the summit whether he will stick with the Paris deal, negotiated under his predecessor Barack Obama.

Even if a decision is not forthcoming, European leaders have signaled that they will push Trump hard on the Paris emissions deal, which has comprehensive support across the continent.

‘Very bad’

The summit, being held near Europe’s most active volcano, Mount Etna, is the final leg of a nine-day tour for Trump, his first foreign trip since becoming president, that started in the Middle East.

On Thursday in Brussels, with NATO leaders standing alongside him, he accused members of the military alliance of owing “massive amounts of money” to the United States and NATO, even though allied contributions are voluntary.

According to German media reports, he also condemned Germany for “very bad” trade policies in meetings with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and European Council President Donald Tusk, signaling that he would take steps to limit the sales of German cars in the United States.

Juncker denied the reports Friday.

“He did not say that the Germans were behaving badly,” Juncker said in Sicily before the start of the G-7 summit. Juncker called the media reports exaggerated, saying it was “not true” that Trump had been aggressive towards Germany in the talks.

Trump will not be the only G7 newcomer. French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni and British Prime Minister Theresa May will also be attending the elite club for the first time. 
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Turkish Forces Kill Nearly 30 Kurdish Militants

Posted on by SeeEU

Turkish security forces killed 29 Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants in an operation in a mountainous area of eastern Turkey’s Agri and Van provinces, the Agri governor’s office said Friday.

Turkey’s army said Thursday three Turkish soldiers and a member of the state-sponsored village guard militia had been killed in the operation, launched in the Tendurek mountain area along the border of the two provinces, near the Iranian border.

A ceasefire between the Turkish state and the militants broke down in July 2015 and the southeast subsequently saw some of the worst violence since the PKK insurgency began in 1984.

More than 40,000 people, mostly Kurds, have been killed in the conflict. The PKK is designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.
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‘Houdini’ of Alabama Death Row Executed

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A man once called the “Houdini” of Alabama’s death row for escaping seven execution dates through legal challenges was put to death early Friday for a 1982 murder-for-hire shooting. 

 

Tommy Arthur, 75, was pronounced dead at 12:15 a.m. local time Friday at a southwest Alabama prison after a lethal injection, authorities said. 

 

Arthur was convicted of killing riverboat engineer Troy Wicker, who was fatally shot as he slept in his bed in the north Alabama city of Muscle Shoals. 

Murder for hire

 

Wicker’s wife, Judy, initially told police she came home and was raped by a black man who shot and killed her husband. After her conviction, she changed her story and testified she had discussed killing her husband with Arthur, who came to the house in makeup and an Afro-style wig and shot her husband. She said she paid him $10,000. Arthur was in a prison work-release program at the time for the 1977 slaying of his sister-in-law, a crime he admits to committing. 

 

His first two convictions in the Wicker case were overturned, but the third one was not. Arthur asked jurors to give him the death penalty. The decision was strategic, he said, to open up more avenues of appeal. 

 

The state set seven execution dates for Arthur between 2001 and 2016. All were delayed as a pro bono legal team fought his sentence. In 2016, Arthur came especially close to the death chamber. 

 

“We were fixing to go into the room and they were going to put the needle in my arm,” he said, when the U.S. Supreme Court gave him an unexpected reprieve shortly before the death warrant expired at midnight. 

 

“He’s a Houdini,” said Janette Grantham, director of the Victims of Crime and Leniency. “He always finds a way to escape.” 

 

She called the years of execution delays exceedingly painful for the family of Troy Wicker to bear. 

Lethal injection challenged

 

Arthur’s attorneys filed court papers Wednesday with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, calling the lethal injection procedure cruel and unusual punishment. The lawyers have argued that the opening sedative in Alabama’s execution protocol, midazolam, wouldn’t properly anesthetize him before he’s injected with other drugs to stop his heart and lungs. 

 

In December, inmate Ronald Bert Smith coughed for the first 13 minutes of his execution and moved slightly after two consciousness tests. Arthur’s lawyers argued that Smith was awake during his execution. The state responded that there was no evidence Smith experienced pain. 

 

Both the state of Alabama and Arthur’s lawyers have pointed to his case as an example of what they see wrong in death penalty cases. 

 

The state attorney general said Arthur used perpetual litigation to avoid his sentence for years. 

Innocence maintained

 

“The case of Thomas Arthur is an egregious example of how a convicted murderer can manipulate the legal system to avoid justice,” Attorney General Steve Marshall said recently. 

 

But Arthur’s lawyers have argued that the state has resisted additional DNA testing on the wig in addition to the questions raised with Alabama’s lethal injection procedures. 

 

Arthur, in a round of phone calls to reporters earlier this week, maintained he’s innocent in the Wicker shooting. 

 

“I’m terrified, but there’s nothing I can do,” Arthur told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Monday. “I’ve got hope in my legal team.” 
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Montana Voters Elect GOP’s Gianforte to Congress

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Republican multimillionaire Greg Gianforte won Montana’s only U.S. House seat Thursday despite being charged a day earlier with assault after witnesses said he grabbed a reporter by the neck and threw him to the ground. 

 

Gianforte, a technology entrepreneur, defeated Democrat Rob Quist to continue the GOP’s two-decade stronghold on the congressional seat. Democrats had hoped Quist, a musician and first-time candidate, could have capitalized on a wave of activism following President Donald Trump’s election. 

Quist told supporters that he called Gianforte to congratulate him on his win and to urge him to represent all Montanans.

“I know that Montanans will hold Mr. Gianforte accountable,” Quist said Thursday night. 

 

The win reaffirmed Montana’s voters support for Trump’s young presidency in a conservative-leaning state that voted overwhelmingly for him in November. ​

Strong favorite

Gianforte was a strong favorite throughout the campaign and that continued even after authorities charged him with misdemeanor assault Wednesday. Witnesses said he grabbed Ben Jacobs, a reporter for the Guardian newspaper, and slammed him to the ground after being asked about the Republican health care bill. 

 

Gianforte dropped out of sight after he was cited by police and ignored calls Thursday by national Republicans for him to apologize to the reporter. 

 

He emerged only at his victory celebration Thursday night, where he said he accepted responsibility for the incident. 

“Last night I made a mistake and I took an action I can’t take back and I am not proud of what happened,” Gianforte told the crowd. “I should not have responded the way I did and for that I am sorry.”

 

The last-minute controversy unnerved Republicans, who also faced close calls this year in the traditionally Republican congressional districts in Kansas and Georgia. A runoff election is scheduled for next month in Georgia between Democrat Jon Ossoff and Republican Karen Handel after Ossoff fell just short of winning outright. 

Support for Trump increased

 

Gianforte showed lukewarm support for Trump during his unsuccessful run for governor in Montana last fall but did an about-face and turned into an ebullient Trump supporter after he started campaigning for the congressional seat vacated by Republican Ryan Zinke, when he was tapped by Trump to serve as Interior Department secretary. 

 

Gianforte urged Montana voters to send him to help Trump “drain the swamp,” brought in Vice President Mike Pence and first son Donald Trump Jr. to campaign for him and was supported by millions of dollars of ads and mailers paid for by Republican groups. 

 

But the theme of the election shifted Wednesday night when Jacobs walked into Gianforte’s office as he was preparing for an interview with Fox News. 

 

Jacobs began asking the candidate about the health care bill passed by the House when the crew and Jacobs say Gianforte slammed him to the floor, yelling “Get out of here!” 

 

Gianforte’s campaign issued a statement Wednesday blaming the incident on Jacobs. But on Thursday night, Gianforte apologized both to Jacobs and to the Fox News crew for having to witness the attack. 

“I should not have treated that reporter that way and for that I’m sorry, Mr. Jacobs,” he said.

 

It had been unclear if Gianforte’s assault charge would impact the race. About a third of eligible voters in Montana had cast their ballots in early voting, and others said it didn’t influence their vote. 
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Trump Rebukes NATO Leaders to Their Faces

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On his first NATO summit as U.S. president, Donald Trump lectured NATO leaders for spending what he sees as insufficient money on defense, and said the group should be more focused on terrorism. The president’s remarks came Thursday at a meeting of European leaders in Brussels, as VOA’s Steve Herman reports.
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Aid Agencies Reach Somalia IDP’s With Cash Relief Programs

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A key innovation since the 2011 famine in Somalia is the growing use of cash assistance programs for people affected by current drought-induced crisis. The mobile money transfers enhance accountability, sidestep security challenges and enable recipients, many of whom are displaced, to get help no matter where they go. For VOA, Mohammed Yusuf has the story from Baidoa, Somalia.
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Illinois Company Among Hundreds Supporting NASA Mission to Mars

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A budget proposal by the Trump administration in March outlines a commitment to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) effort to send astronauts to Mars. About $3.7 billion is earmarked for development of the Space Launch System and the Orion capsule, crucial parts of NASA’s effort to send humans deeper into space. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh explores the effort of contractors working on the project, united by the commitment to “boldly go” further into the final frontier.
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Africa Day Call to Action on South Sudan

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On Africa Day Thursday, about 300 young African leaders appealed to African heads of state to rescue South Sudan’s 2015 peace agreement.

The Archbishop Tutu fellows said in a letter to the leaders that the conflict in South Sudan poses serious national security threats to neighboring countries.

“We, the Archbishop Tutu Fellows [‘Tutu Fellows’], have been following the events unfolding in South Sudan with great dismay. We felt it incumbent upon ourselves to write and urge you, as neighbors and key members of regional blocs, to leverage your relationships with political and military leaders on all sides of the conflict in South Sudan to revive a political process and chart a way forward for the implementation of the August 2015 peace agreement,” reads the letter addressed to “Your Excellencies,” the presidents of Uganda, Kenya, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Rwanda, Nigeria, Namibia and Sudan.

Problem for all of Africa

Jackie Chimhanzi, chief executive officer for the African Leadership Institute in Johannesburg, South Africa, said South Sudan’s conflict has become an Africa-wide problem.

“We felt that we needed to compel our leaders to act because we can talk about a peaceful Africa in 2063, yet we are not acting on South Sudan now, today,” Chimhanzi said.

She said they purposely wrote the letter to the heads of neighboring countries because they have more at stake, adding, “the atrocities, and the war, actually those things threaten to spill over into neighboring countries.”

Chimhanzi pointed out a number of Kenyan banks have had to shut down branches in South Sudan due to the insecurity, saying it’s in their interest to work for peace in South Sudan.

The fellows urge the heads of state to deny South Sudan’s political leaders access to amenities in their countries until they adhere to the peace deal.

Next generation of leaders

Chimhanzi said the Tutu fellows see themselves as Africa’s next generation of leaders and therefore believe it’s not right that “our current leaders continue to not hold each other to account, to support behavior that they know are not correct.”

“It’s time to be honest,” Chimhanzi said, and to “speak to power, because such behavior is really not progressing the continent.

“We are watching 3.9 [million] people being killed, 4.9 [million] people are food insecure right now, there’s famine, women and children are being raped; it cannot be right.”

Chimhanzi calls the letter to the heads of state “a call to action.”

 
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Greece: Ex-PM Injured in Car Blast

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Former Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos was injured Thursday when a bomb exploded inside his vehicle in Athens, officials said.

Two Bank of Greece employees in the car were also injured. All three were conscious and hospitalized in stable condition, government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos said, calling the blast an “attack.”

“With all out heart, we wish Mr. Papademos and his companions a speedy recovery. The prime minister has been updated about all the events by the minister of public order and he will continue to receive updates,” Tzanakopoulos said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

Papademos, 69,served as Greece’s prime minister for six months in 2011 and 2012 after socialist George Papandreou resigned during the debt crisis to make way for a national unity government.

A respected economist and former European Central Bank deputy governor, Papademos steered the country through tough austerity measures and was credited with preventing the collapse of the country’s international bailout at the time.
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Appeals Court Upholds Stay on Trump Travel Order

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A federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, has declined to reinstate U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order limiting travel from six predominantly Muslim countries for three months.

In a ruling Thursday, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals said the order did amount to a Muslim ban. “Laid bare, this Executive Order is no more than what the President promised before and after his election: naked invidious discrimination against Muslims,” the appeals court judges said in their 205-page ruling.

A majority of the panel of 13 judges ruling in the case cited Trump’s tweets, television interviews and statements posted on his campaign website as evidence of his intent.

Three judges dissented on the grounds that the executive order did not mention religion. “Far from containing the sort of religious advocacy or disparagement that can violate the Establishment Clause, the Order contains no reference to religion whatsoever. Nor is there any trace of discriminatory animus,” the dissenting judges wrote.

They also criticized the use of campaign material as evidence: “If a court, dredging through the myriad remarks of a campaign, fails to find material to produce the desired outcome, what stops it from probing deeper to find statements from a previous campaign, or from a previous business conference, or from college?”

On to the Supreme Court

In March, a federal judge in Maryland blocked the travel ban, which itself was a revised version of one initially issued in January that was tweaked after encountering legal roadblocks. The appeals court majority did not think the second version was an improvement: “Significantly, in revising the order, the executive branch did not attempt to walk away from its previous discriminatory order. Instead, it simply attempted to effectuate the same discrimination through a slightly different vehicle — the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

The Trump administration’s next recourse is to take the case to the Supreme Court. Appeals court documents say the administration has 90 days to file an appeal.

A second appeals court, the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, is also considering an appeal of a stay against the travel order, this one issued by a judge in Hawaii; but, any ruling from that court has been rendered moot by Thursday’s Fourth Circuit ruling.

Karen Tumlin, legal director of the National Immigration Law Center, said the ruling upholds “our most sacred and cherished constitutional principles…that our government may not favor or disfavor one religion over another.”

 
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Senate Panel Backs New Sanctions on Iran

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A Senate panel has overwhelmingly approved new U.S. sanctions targeting Iran’s support for international terrorism and its ballistic missile program, the first move to punish Tehran since a landmark nuclear accord went into effect.

Thursday’s 18-3 vote by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee came days after President Donald Trump pledged common cause with Israel and Sunni Arab states to counter Iranian influence in the region.

“The bill passed overwhelmingly today [in committee] and I believe will pass overwhelmingly on the Senate floor,” said the committee’s chairman, Republican Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee.

“If you think about what just happened with the [president’s] trip to Saudi Arabia, this begins to coordinate a Middle Eastern strategy that counters Iran’s aggression in the region. There is a move to push back against the many nefarious activities that Iran has been engaged in,” Corker added.

Eight of the committee’s 10 Democrats backed the bill, including Chris Coons of Delaware, who, in 2015, supported the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran nuclear deal.

“This bill shows a continuing determination by the American Congress to stand up to Iran’s continued, even expanded malign activities around the world: their ongoing ballistic missile launches, their support for terrorism, their human rights violations,” Coons said. “All of these are areas that are specifically called out in the JCPOA as areas where it is appropriate and possible for the United States, if necessary, to impose additional sanctions.”

Ahead of the vote, a central figure in nuclear negotiations with Iran, former secretary of state John Kerry, took to Twitter to warn against new sanctions, writing: “There are many tools to up the pressure already in place and at our disposal. We need to weigh/consider risk to JCPOA.”

That concern was shared by the bill’s opponents in the Senate, including Democrat Tom Udall of New Mexico.

“Let’s remember, the Iranians have just had an election, re-elected [President Hassan] Rouhani, who was a supporter of this agreement and he was re-elected by a big margin,” Udall said. “So the first move of our government with this legislation is going to be to threaten the [nuclear] agreement. I think that’s a very bad posture for us.”

Such concerns are unwarranted, according to backers of the sanctions.

“We know that this in no way touches the nuclear deal,” Corker said.

“Tehran can argue all they want that these areas for additional sanctions are not permitted under the JCPOA,” Coons said. “The plain text of the agreement allows additional sanctions in these three areas [support for terrorism, missile development, and human rights].”

The committee’s lone Republican to oppose bill, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, argued that punishing Iranian missile development makes no sense after President Trump inked a major arms deal with Iran’s arch-rival, Saudi Arabia.

“If we want Iran to stop or lessen their development of ballistic weapons, we need to address the cause: the arms race in the Middle East,” Paul said.

Between Trump’s actions and the sanctions bill, no one is disputing that a shift has occurred away from the former Obama administration’s handling of Iran.

“Some chose to believe that the regime in Tehran would respond to the JCPOA and the opportunity it gave the Iranian government to change their behavior, to engage with the West, to demonstrate that it wants to become part of the community of nations,” Coons said. “In the last year their [Iran’s] actions have proven the opposite, and I think it’s now appropriate for us to take these steps [impose sanctions].”

Many will be watching Iran’s reaction if the sanctions become law. Asked by VOA if he is concerned about how the bill will be viewed in Tehran, Corker shrugged.

“Are you talking about the people, [or] are you talking about this revolutionary leadership that is carrying out terrorism throughout the Middle East?” Corker responded. “I can’t answer for both.”
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US Concludes IS Explosives Led to 100+ Civilian Deaths in March Airstrike

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A U.S. military investigation into a deadly March airstrike has found that a secondary explosion caused the deaths of more than 100 civilians in Mosul, Iraq.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Middle East, said Thursday the investigation determined that Islamic State fighters had placed “large amounts” of explosives in a building that housed civilians and then began attacking Iraqi forces from that building.

When the coalition targeted snipers on the roof, the explosives detonated, killing at least 101 civilians sheltering in the bottom floors and four civilians in a neighboring structure.

U.S. Central Command said Thursday “weapons and structural experts concluded, based on extensive modeling, (that) the structural damage to the building was in a different location” than where the airstrike hit and was “in excess” of what could have been caused by the single GBU-38 munition used in the March 17 strike.

Neither the U.S.-led coalition nor Iraqi forces who called in the strike knew that civilians were sheltered in the building, Central Command said.

“Our condolences go out to all those that were affected,” said Maj. Gen. Joe Martin, Commanding General of the Combined Joint Forces Land Component Command in Iraq and Syria.

The U.S. military looked at more than 700 separate video feeds covering 10 days of airstrikes in Mosul to determine the credibility of the civilian casualty reports.

The Pentagon has called the death of civilians in Iraq’s northern city of Mosul a terrible tragedy.

“There is no military force in the world that has proven more sensitive to civilian casualties,” U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said shortly after the strike. “We go out of our way to always do everything humanly possible to reduce the loss of life or injury among innocent people. The same cannot be said for our adversaries.”

At the time of the strike, the Iraqi military cited evidence it said showed that Islamic State fighters placed explosives at the site.

“All of [the building’s] walls were rigged with bombs, and there is no hole or signs that it was an airstrike target,” the Iraqi military’s Joint Command said.

U.S. officials have stressed to VOA that the U.S. military is fully capable of striking one building while leaving its surroundings unscathed.
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Reports: US Job Market Remains Strong; Merchandise Trade Deficit Gets Worse

Posted on by SeeUS

New data Thursday paint a mixed picture of the U.S. economy.

A report on the job market shows a slight increase in the number of people signing up for unemployment assistance last week. But the data also show that the number of people laid off remains at a low level consistent with a strong job market, where it has been for well over two years.

Economists say strong employment data will encourage the U.S. central bank to raise interest rates at its next meeting in June. The U.S. unemployment rate will be updated late next week.

A separate report shows the United States buys more merchandise abroad than it sells to foreigners. April’s trade gap was the second-worst in two years.

The trade data could mean slower economic growth. Friday, experts will publish an update to the U.S. GDP for the first few months of this year. A survey of economists shows they expect it to decline slightly from the disappointing seven-tenths of a percent annual rate reported earlier.

 
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British Social Media Celebrity Among Dead from Concert Blast

Posted on by SeeEU

It was not just family and friends mourning Martyn Hett this week. Even Mariah Carey was shocked by his death in the Ariana Grande concert bombing.

Carey posted a picture of Hett — one of 22 people killed in Monday night’s bombing at the Manchester Arena — on Instagram wearing a T-shirt bearing her image.

 

“Devastated to learn that one of the victims in Manchester was part of the (hash)Lambily,” Carey wrote in the post, using the name she has given to her legion of fans. “RIP Martyn Hett. We will cherish your memory forever. His family and all the families affected are in my thoughts and prayers.”

 

It was a tribute that surely would have touched the 29-year-old public relations worker who listed the singer’s name as his religious view on Facebook and said on Twitter that,”My life peaked when I met Mariah Carey.”

 

Hett’s irreverent sense of humor was made for social media and he embraced many different platforms, with more than 12,000 Twitter followers and a half million views on a YouTube film he posted four years ago in which he spliced together scenes featuring one of the stars of iconic Manchester-based soap opera “Coronation Street.”

 

The video showed fleeting scenes of Sue Nicholls, the actress who plays character Audrey Roberts, and a habit she has of saying “Hmm” at the end of sentences.

 

Britain’s ITV network, which airs the long-running soap affectionately known as “Corrie,” said on its website that it would dedicate a bench on the set to victims of the bombing.

 

“The dedication will be planned in the coming weeks following an outpouring of affection for 29-year-old `Corrie’ super-fan Martyn and all those who lost their lives and have been injured following the Manchester Arena bombing,” ITV said.

 

Calling Hett a super-fan was no overstatement. He had a tattoo of one of the show’s best-known characters, Deirdre Barlow, inked onto his left calf in the British television show “Tattoo Fixers.” He also appeared on another show, “Come Dine With Me.”

 

Hett’s family could not be reached for comment Thursday, but in a statement released by Manchester police, they called him “the icon of all our lives.”

 

“His infectious laugh and his niche sense of humor will stay with us forever,” the family said.

 

Hett’s sense of humor rang out from the final tweet on his Twitter feed, apparently made during Monday night’s concert.

 

“When you sneak out for a toilet break on the Macy Gray song and the entire arena had the same idea (hash)DangerousWomanTour,” he tweeted.

 

The managing director of Rumpus PR, where Hett worked, paid tribute to him in a statement.

 

“Martyn loved life and I hope his lasting legacy is that people — in these dreadful times — choose to live their lives with joy not hate, just like he did,” Paul Evans said.

 

 
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Attorneys: Salvadoran Colonel’s Health Declining in New Jail

Posted on by SeeUS

Defense attorneys say medical care for a former Salvadoran colonel accused of helping to plot five killings is declining since his transfer to a new facility to await a final decision on his extradition.

 

A lawyer for Inocente Orlando Montano Morales says in a filing that routine blood sugar checks were missed and he has had a fever and other symptoms indicating that he could have a new infection.

 

Judge Terrence Boyle had tried to send Montano to a federal prison hospital because of concerns about his health, but the transfer wasn’t possible. Instead, he was sent from a North Carolina lockup to a Virginia jail.

 

The U.S. Marshals Service said it was following procedures for reviewing Montano’s complaints but couldn’t provide details.

 

 

 
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Congress, Paul Ryan Condemn Turkish Embassy Clashes

Posted on by SeeUS

The U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee Thursday officially condemned the violent crackdown on protests outside the Turkish embassy in Washington last week.

“This timely resolution sends a clear signal to the Turkish government that we will not allow any foreign government to stifle the rights of our citizens,” the committee said in a statement following the passage of House Resolution 354, which condemned the violence against what it deemed peaceful protests.

U.S. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan thanked the committee, echoing concerns over the incident that have been expressed by U.S. lawmakers and diplomats for days.

“The violent crackdown on peaceful protesters by Turkish security forces was completely indefensible, and the [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan government’s response was wholly inadequate,” he said in a statement. “I want to thank Chairman [Ed] Royce, Ranking Member [Eliot] Engel, and all members of the Foreign Affairs Committee for taking swift action on this issue.”

The committee was expected to hold a hearing discussing the right to peaceful protest later Thursday.

The clash broke out between Turkish security personnel and protesters outside the Turkish ambassador’s residence during Erdogan’s visit to Washington.

Protesters say they were attacked by Turkish security forces as they demonstrated peacefully. Turkey blamed the clash on the demonstrators, claiming they aggressively provoked people who had gathered to see Erdogan.

 
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Insecurity, Underfunding Hamper Nigeria Hunger Relief

Posted on by SeeAF

Aid agencies warn that humanitarian efforts against hunger in northeastern Nigeria are dangerously underfunded and some communities remain cut off from aid and their farms as the military continues to battle Boko Haram.

Communities in northeastern Nigeria are facing the dual threats of hunger and the terrorist group known as Boko Haram. The zone has been identified by aid agencies as one of four conflict-torn parts of the world at risk of famine this year.

The United Nations Children’s Fund estimates that the number of children suffering from severe acute malnutrition will reach 450,000 this year in the states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe.

Scott Paul, a senior humanitarian policy advisor for the international charity organization Oxfam America, was recently in northeastern Nigeria. He said the biggest driver for the humanitarian emergency is the inability for residents to access their farmlands, fishing sites and the markets.

“I spoke with people who had to flee villages that were captured by Boko Haram and they’ve since come back but they can’t go a kilometer out of town to farm. Right now people are coming home sometimes under false pretenses,” he said.

“They’re being told that their homeland and home areas are safe and they’re coming home to find that the towns themselves might be safe but the farmlands outside aren’t safe. The markets aren’t safe. The roads aren’t safe. And in some areas that we’re working in there isn’t even clean and safe water to be procured.”

Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency says people internally displaced by the conflict can voluntarily go back to liberated areas as long as they feel safe. The Nigerian army provides road escorts several times a week from Maiduguri to certain communities.

But aid groups say many communities are simply not prepared for the large numbers of people coming back.

The Norwegian Refugee Council noted more than one million people have returned to northeast Nigeria since October 2015, and they are returning to towns that have no basic services or infrastructure. Nearly one million homes were destroyed or damaged by years of fighting, according to Borno State Governor Kashim Shettima.

Earlier this month, Shettima told reporters it is still not safe for many internally displaced people to return to their homes. The governor said the IDP camps will remain open indefinitely, but that he hopes Borno state will be safe enough for full rehabilitation very soon.

 

The state capital, Maiduguri, is home to more than a dozen camps for those displaced by Boko Haram. Those camps have repeatedly been targeted by suicide bombings.

Recently, four IDPs who had ventured outside one of the largest camps in Maiduguri to go hunting were killed by Boko Haram, an official from a state-sanctioned vigilante group told VOA. Their decapitated bodies were found along a major road. Two weeks ago, Boko Haram insurgents killed at least six villagers who were working on their farmlands in a community just about 16 kilometers outside of Maiduguri. The fighters attacked the farmers as they prepared their fields for the rainy season.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said in December Boko Haram had been crushed. But the military said mop-up operations are still underway.

The unpredictability of the security situation is hampering food aid. The U.N. World Food Program is delivering food to communities by road under military escort but says there are still areas it cannot access due to active fighting.

And humanitarian response efforts remain critically underfunded. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says it has only received 23 percent of the $1.1 billion needed this year for Nigeria.

The World Food Program warns that the lean season has begun with the next harvest not expected until September. The WFP says inadequate funding means it will not be able to reach about a quarter of the nearly two million people in northeast Nigeria that it had planned to assist in June.

In its latest report, the International Crisis Group says failure to respond to the growing food emergency could have long-term security implications. VOA spoke to ICG’s Nigeria researcher, Nnamdi Obasi.

“If the crisis is prolonged, the frustration within the young people could make them vulnerable to all kinds of criminal engagements. Some of them could join bandit groups and just prey on communities trying to steal food,” said Obasi.

Aid agencies are calling for urgent donor support and for the government to ensure that communities are safe enough for returnees to resume farming, fishing and market activities before the IDP’s go home.
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Report: Drought Insurance ‘An Experiment That Failed’ in Malawi

Posted on by SeeAF

Taking out insurance to protect against climate risks is the “wrong model” for improving countries’ ability to cope and may even be worsening inequality and vulnerability, a leading development charity said on Wednesday.

A policy taken out by Malawi cost the drought-ridden southern African country $5 million but failed to deliver timely assistance to more than 6.5 million people affected in 2016 and shows that insurance is “poor value for money”, ActionAid said.

Insurance is viewed by some as a solution for developing countries to cushion farmers against extreme weather that can worsen poverty and threatens to roll back development gains.

ActionAid said in a report there had been major defects in the model, data and process used by insurers African Risk Capacity Insurance Company Limited (ARC Ltd.) to determine a payout to Malawi.

“Insurance is not a quick fix for broken development, adaptation and humanitarian finance systems,” Jonathan Reeves, the report’s author, said in a statement.

ARC Ltd. did not automatically trigger a payout on the policy, citing “the model indicated a low number of people affected by drought,” the insurer said in an email to the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

ARC Ltd. rejected the findings in the report and said it had worked closely with technical experts in Malawi to customize the insurance model.

Malawi took out insurance based on a crop – long-cycle maize – that, as it turned out, most farmers did not grow in the 2015/2016 season. Long-cycle maize survived the drought, while the short-cycle maize most farmers grew did not.

After investigating the discrepancy, ARC Ltd. made a payment of $8.1 million to Malawi in January 2017, which ActionAid deemed “too little, too late”.

The total cost of responding to the drought cost Malawi, where more than 80 percent of the population are smallholder farmers, an estimated $395 million, according to the report.

No quick fix

Last year, southern African states appealed for $2.9 billion in aid when the region was hit with its worst drought in 35 years, affecting 39 million people. Now, drought in the continent’s east is pushing millions into hunger.

Insurance can be triggered more quickly than international aid, which can take months to fund.

ARC Ltd.’s cover is based on a pre-agreed plan for how the government will use the payout.

The index-based insurance offers maximum coverage of $30 million per country per season for drought events that occur with a frequency of one in five years or less.

Twenty-five percent of land-locked Malawi has experienced drought more than seven times in the last decade, according to the United Nations’ World Food Programme.

As of November 2016 around 6.7 million people, about a third of the population, were in need of urgent food or cash support.

Recent droughts have been exacerbated by the El Niño weather phenomenon and an infestation of armyworms, an invasive Latin American pest that has decimated maize fields, a staple crop in the country.
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Africa Day 2017: Harnessing Demographic Dividend Through Investment in Youth

Posted on by SeeAF

Africa is now the continent with the largest percentage of people under 35 years-old. Experts say that presents both opportunities and challenges. Harnessing the demographic dividend through investments in youth is the theme of this year’s Africa Day celebrations. VOA’s Mariama Diallo has more.
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