Month: August 2017

Britain ‘Confident’ of New Phase in Brexit Talks by October

Posted on by SeeEU

Britain said on Thursday it was “confident” talks with the European Union would move toward discussing their future relationship by October, in contrast to warnings from the top EU negotiator that the target is receding.

Prime Minister Theresa May’s government wants to push the discussion beyond the divorce settlement soon, to offer companies some assurance of what to expect after Britain leaves the EU in March 2019.

But the bloc has repeated that until there is “sufficient progress” in the first stage of talks on the rights of expatriates, Britain’s border with EU member Ireland and a financial settlement, officials cannot consider future ties.

Last month, the EU’s top Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, said talks on future relations had become less likely to start in October because of a lack of progress on the “divorce.”

“Government officials are working at pace and we are confident we will have made sufficient progress by October to advance the talks to the next phase,” a spokeswoman for Britain’s Department for Exiting the European Union said in a statement Thursday.

“As the Secretary of State [Brexit minister David Davis] has said, it is important that both sides demonstrate a dynamic and flexible approach to each round of the negotiations.”

A spokesperson for the European Commission, the EU’s executive, said the two sides had agreed on the talks’ structure: “The next round will be in the week of 28 August.”

On Wednesday, unidentified sources were quoted by Britain’s Sky News as saying the two sides might have to delay talks on their post-Brexit relationship until December because they would not make the progress required by the EU.

Future certainty

British businesses have demanded more certainty from the government over how a relationship with the EU will work after Brexit, saying they cannot make investment decisions otherwise.

According to a survey of 200 chief financial officers across Britain and other parts of Europe by Reuters, a majority of businesses are yet to change their strategic planning because of Brexit.

While 69 percent of businesses said they had not seen an impact from the vote on their strategic planning, 21 percent of the CFOs reported they had held off from expanding in Britain.

Confidence among CFOs in May’s ability to secure a positive deal for business is 3.5 out of 10, the survey showed.

Possibly responding to criticism that it is not prepared for the talks, May’s government this week published proposals for a future customs arrangement and for the border between Ireland and the British province of Northern Ireland.

Both suggested that Britain wanted to mirror much of what is already in place, to reduce friction at borders, and said there should be no border posts or immigration checks between Ireland and the north.

But this would mean EU citizens wishing to enter Britain could do so by traveling to Ireland and crossing the border unchecked — something that is likely to antagonize many Britons who said that controlling immigration was a major reason for their referendum vote last year in favor of Brexit.

The EU is also likely to balk at the proposal, as it would be unlikely to accept the possibility of a free flow of non-EU standard goods into member state Ireland if Britain left the bloc’s customs union and single market.

An even more difficult part of the talks might be how much Britain should pay the EU when it leaves in March 2019. While saying it will meet its responsibilities on the “Brexit bill,” Britain has questioned suggestions from the EU that it must pay around 60 billion euros.
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With Congo Finances Collapsing, Desperate Government Has Few Options

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As Congo’s government was soliciting urgent help from Western donors and the International Monetary Fund last month to contain an economic crisis, the chairman of the state mining company brought an unusual guest to the prime minister’s office.

It was Raymond O’Leary, a vice president from Russia’s second-largest bank, state-owned VTB, to discuss a Eurobond aiming to raise funds for the cash-strapped government, Congolese and VTB officials confirmed.

The choice of lead manager was striking, given that VTB is under U.S. sanctions. Any deal would have shut the door on IMF and pretty much all Western funding owing to donor objections.

VTB’s press office emphasized, however, that its VTB Capital arm in charge of Eurobond issuances is not under sanctions.

“There are no legislative restrictions on the participation of foreign investment funds in placements organized by Russian investment banks,” it said in a statement.

Nevertheless, the deal fell through, partly because of concerns about the optics of dealing with VTB and also because Congolese officials realized any investors willing to buy the bond would demand a punitive spread.

But the fact that the meeting took place at all revealed just how desperate the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s government has become as it seeks to head off a collapse in national finances.

Inflation is now at 50 percent and the Congolese franc has lost 30 percent, making it one of the world’s worst performers this year, though it recovered slightly this month. In addition, the central bank is so low on foreign exchange it has barely three weeks of import cover left.

Congo’s economic pain is fueling political instability.

Violent street protests against President Joseph Kabila and a surge in militia attacks and prison breaks have stoked fears the Central African giant could slip back to the civil wars of the turn of the century in which millions died.

Kabila took power when his father was assassinated in 2001 and has since won two elections.

The IMF representative in Congo declined to comment, as did the prime minister’s office and finance minister. But in a speech last month, central bank governor Deogratias Mutombo was uncharacteristically blunt: “The economy is in very bad shape.”

‘False promises’

Congo is Africa’s top copper producer and houses a trove of other minerals including oil, cobalt and gold, but low commodity prices have conspired with high deficits and rampant corruption to push its economic indicators into the red.

“Currently there is no possibility — with the current economic situation and political instability — to have … sufficient confidence to sustain a stable exchange rate,” former banking association head Michel Losembe told Reuters.

Earlier this month ratings agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded Congo’s sovereign credit rating, predicting year-end depreciation of the franc of about 35 percent and annual gross domestic product growth of less than 2 percent for the 2017-20 period, down from 7.8 percent for 2011-16.

The government forecasts 2017 GDP growth at 3.1 percent, up from 2.4 percent last year. Standard & Poor’s sees GDP growth this year at 1.5 percent.

Three quarters of Congo’s budget pays civil servant salaries and government operating expenses. Labor unions have launched strikes in recent weeks to demand pay rises.

Labor unrest would worsen Congo’s security crisis, which has seen violence rise in several parts of the country since Kabila refused to step down at the expiration of his mandate in December.

A general strike largely paralyzed economic activity for two days last week.

In June IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde, on Congo’s request, offered to send a delegation in September to discuss possible aid. Yet she warned this would require “a credible trajectory toward political stability.”

A Kinshasa-based diplomat said IMF help was “near impossible” because it would require Kabila to commit to a timeline for stepping down — which he refuses to do — and open the books of Congo’s opaque state-owned miner Gecamines.

On the streets of Kinshasa, patience is wearing thin. In Ngaba district, where cement trucks vie for space with rickshaws on dilapidated, flooded roads, some residents have turned to the only option left: criminality.

“Let the authorities spare us their false promises,” said one 22-year-old gangster in Ngaba who gave only his first name, Yves. He said he had studied at a professional institute but couldn’t find a job after graduating and has now turned to a cellphone theft racket.

“There’s no work,” he said. “That’s why we’re out here fighting like gangsters.”
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Kosovo Journalist’s Beating Called Attack on Media Freedom

Posted on by SeeEU

An international watchdog has condemned the beating of a Kosovo journalist known for his reports on corruption, calling it “an attack against freedom of media.”

Parim Olluri, whose news website Insajderi has become one of the leading online media outlets reporting allegations of corruption among Kosovo’s top officials, was beaten by unknown assailants late Wednesday as he was going home with his fiancée.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, whose Kosovo mission monitors peace and democracy in the country, said: “Journalists should be free to state a different opinion without fear of violence or physical injury.”

Kosovo’s journalists’ association called on authorities to find the attackers.

Hashim Thaci, Kosovo’s president, wrote on his Facebook page: “Journalists should not be discouraged by such criminal acts. On the contrary.”

Editorial on corruption

The attack came days after Olluri wrote an editorial accusing some former commanders of the Kosovo Liberation Army, seen as heroes by many for their role in fighting Serb forces during the 1998-99 war, of corruption.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, nearly a decade after NATO mounted airstrikes to drive out Serb forces and halt the killing and ethnic cleansing of Albanians in a two-year Serb counterinsurgency.

Human rights organization Freedom House said in its 2017 report that the media in Kosovo were “partly free.” Threats against journalists have increased in recent years.

Last year a hand grenade was thrown at the home of the head of Kosovo’s state broadcaster RTK days after another explosive device was thrown into the broadcaster’s courtyard.
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Amid US Racial Divisions, Auschwitz Memorial Issues Warning

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The memorial site of Auschwitz-Birkenau is weighing in on the anti-Semitic and racially charged violence that has erupted in the United States, noting that hatred comes from people who promote it.

The state museum, which preserves the site of the former Nazi German death camp, wrote Thursday on Twitter: “One of the hardest lessons for us today. Perpetrators were people. They accepted an ideology that rationalized and promoted hatred & evil.”

With the words is a photo of Auschwitz officers and guards smiling and having fun.

The message was posted in several languages after U.S. President Donald Trump made comments that appeared to defend the actions of neo-Nazis and white supremacists who marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday. A woman was killed and 19 people were injured in the turmoil.

A museum spokesman told The Associated Press that people are free to interpret the message as they wish.

On Sunday, the museum tweeted: “Auschwitz stands today as a painful reminder of what racist & antisemitic ideologies can lead to, of what may happen when people hate…”

Nazi Germany killed an estimated 1.1 million people at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in German-occupied Poland, most of them Jews, but also Roma, Poles, homosexuals and others.

Today the Polish state institution preserves the physical remains of the site while leading educational efforts to remember the atrocities committed there.
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Simple Concoction Found to Halt Fall Armyworm

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A farmers’ group in South Sudan’s Imotong state says it has found a way to combat the dreaded fall armyworm, which has devastated crops across the state.

Robert Lokang, leader of the Bidaya Farm association, says he regularly sprays his crops with a concoction of tree leaves, ash, powdered soap and water.  The all-natural formula is designed to kill the armyworms while not harming the plants.

It’s not a new invention – Lokang says he learned it decades ago as a child, when his father used the same concoction to ward off pests.  

He says about a year ago, the NGO Care International showed local farmers how to use the mixture as a replacement for pesticides.  He says his group decided to try it on the fall armyworm and it worked.

Fall armyworms, which are native to the Americas, have spread across Africa since 2015, raising alarm among farmers and agriculture officials.  The pests thrive in warm and humid climates, travel great distances quickly, and devour maize, cotton, sorghum, and vegetable crops.

They were first detected in South Sudan in June, although they could have arrived earlier.  

Lokang says he suffered severe financial losses last season after fall armyworms tore into his eggplants, tomatoes, onions and cabbages.

 

“They are eating the leaves and other insects. They also destroy the roots and the ones we transplant when the fruit is ready, they also get rotten,” Lokang told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus.

Lokang’s concoction is fairly simple to make.  “We collect the neem leaves, almost one bucket, then we soften or grind [them] using stone, then we get ashes and some Omo [powdered soap] and mix it in a basin of water, and keep it for two to three days before spraying,” he said.

 

Imatong farmer Mary Peter said mixing the concoction and spraying it manually is tedious, but effective.

 

“This is the fourth planting that I am seeing some changes after we have used neem and red pepper. After [the spraying] they have grown bigger,” she said.

 

United Nations and government officials say regular insecticides do not work on the fall armyworm.

Awello Obale, an official at the state agriculture ministry, said Lokang’s method is cost-effective since there is no other immediate solution to the fall armyworm infestation.

 

“We encourage farmers… to use the cultural practices to control not only armyworm but other insects also,” Obale said.

 

Fortunately, neem trees are plentiful in the area.  Obale says farmers should take advantage of Lokang’s simple method.

 

U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization officials say they will introduce new crop varieties in Imotong State thought to be resistant to armyworms and other pests.  The new crop varieties include maize, rice, cow peas, groundnuts and beans.
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US Says Airstrikes Kill 7 Al-Shabab Fighters

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The U.S. military says seven al-Shabab militants have been killed in a series of airstrikes in southern Somalia.

The military’s Africa Command says U.S. forces conducted three precision airstrikes Wednesday and Thursday in Jilib, a town about 200 kilometers south of Mogadishu.  

It says the strikes were conducted in coordination with Somali forces and killed seven al-Shabab fighters.

The statement Thursday said the U.S. would not disclose the units and assets involved in the attacks to ensure operational security.

Earlier, the Somali government said President Abdullahi Mohamed Farmajo authorized the coordinated operation.  It said one of the militants killed was “a senior al-Shabab leader responsible for multiple bombings in Mogadishu.”

Witnesses in Jilib told VOA’s Somali Service they heard the sound of bombings overnight.

 

U.S. airstrikes in Somalia have killed many al-Shabab leaders over the past decade, including the group’s former emir, Ahmed Abdi Godane.

The al-Qaida-linked group has fought since 2006 to overthrow the Somali government and turn Somalia into a strict Islamic state.  The group is also responsible for attacks in Uganda and Kenya.

The Africa Command statement said, “We continue to work in coordination with our Somali partners and allies to systematically dismantle al-Shabab and help achieve stability and security throughout the region.”

 
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Mass Burials Begin in Sierra Leone After Massive Mudslides

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Mass burials will begin Thursday for victims of mudslides and floods that took place earlier this week, and officials fear more death and destruction is “imminent.”

The death toll from the disaster has risen to at least 300, about a third of whom were children. The mudslides began Monday following heavy rains that collapsed a hillside and washed away homes built precariously atop it.

Citizens were told they need to identify their dead family members at the overcrowded central morgue by Wednesday night, and mass burials were set to begin at 3 p.m.  

President Ernest Bai Koroma, who has been blamed for exacerbating the damage from the mudslide due to his failure to tackle illegal construction in the nation’s capital, is expected to attend the ceremony for those killed.

The mudslide occurred early Monday while many Freetown residents were still sleeping, after hours of heavy rains. Witnesses described a particularly hard-hit area in the Regent district, saying roads became “churning rivers of mud.”  

Photos and video posted by local residents showed people chest deep in mud trying to traverse the roads.

‘Unprecedented’

Adbul Nasir of the International Red Cross told the French Press Agency that several, smaller mudslides have occurred in Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown since Monday and he fears that “more trouble is imminent.”

UNICEF called the scale of damage from the mudslides “unprecedented” and said its teams have been providing safe drinking water and sanitation to the large number of children affected by the disaster.

“Children have been left homeless, vulnerable and terrified. We must do all we can to protect them from disease and exploitation,” said UNICEF Representative Hamid El-Bashir Ibrahim.

According to U.N. estimates, more than 600 people are still unaccounted for following the mudslides, and a representative said Wednesday the organization is losing hope they will be found.

Sunil Saigal, the U.N. Resident Coordinator for Sierra Leone, told British broadcaster Sky News he believes rescue operations will soon cease as “the hope of finding further survivors diminishes.”

“It remains a priority to recover the remains of those who perished in the landslide, but also equally to help survivors and help the community,” Saigal said.

He said the UN is working with the government to provide “physical protection” for those thousands of people displaced or otherwise affected by the landslide.

“We’re working with the authorities to prevent disease outbreaks, cholera. You know we’re in the rainy season, waterborne diseases are rife, mosquitoes, Malaria is a risk,” Saigal said.

The Sierra Leone government has asked for international assistance, and said it’s doing all it can to stem the outbreak of deadly diseases.
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Confederate Statues Explained: Why and When They Rose

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The events in Charlottesville, Virginia, Saturday stirred a long simmering debate about Confederate statues, with many people demanding their removal and many arguing history should not be erased.

The Charlottesville protests centered around Emancipation Park, where there is a statue honoring Confederate general Robert E. Lee. White supremacists say the reason they wanted to hold their rally in that park was to protest efforts to take the statue down.

According to Slate magazine, there are about 13,000 Confederate statues and other commemorative items around the United States, and they’re not solely in the former Confederacy.

Inside the U.S. Capitol in Washington there are statues of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Vice President Alexander Stephens, along with one of Lee and other Confederate military figures. Each of the 50 U.S. states picked two statues to contribute to the Statuary Hall collection.

Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz called Tuesday for lawmakers in her state to replace the statue of a Confederate general. New Jersey Senator Cory Booker said Wednesday he will introduce a bill to get rid of all the Confederate statues in the Capitol.

Confederate statues

About 5 kilometers west of the Capitol, overlooking Washington, D.C., from the Virginia side of the Potomac River and right in the middle of Arlington National Cemetery sits Arlington House, the Robert E. Lee Memorial. Lee, the South’s leading general, owned the plantation there before the Civil War.

In the surrounding Virginia suburbs, there are schools named after southern Civil War figures, such as Stonewall Jackson and J.E.B. Stuart, who were prominent Confederate generals. Local officials recently voted to change the name of J.E.B. Stuart High School.

Just a 90-minute drive from Washington, in Richmond, Va., the former capital of the Confederacy, a major thoroughfare called Monument Avenue, is lined with statues and memorials to Confederate soldiers and politicians.

How did this happen, especially considering the South lost the Civil War?

​The ‘Lost Cause’ movement

Historians told VOA the memorials are the result of an organized effort by some groups in the South, such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) and the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV), which set about revising the history of the Civil War, starting almost immediately after hostilities ended.

The UDC website, says the group seeks to “collect and preserve the material necessary for a truthful history of the War Between the States and to protect, preserve, and mark the places made historic by Confederate valor” and to “assist descendants of worthy Confederates in securing a proper education.”

“The South reversed the dictum that the winners write the history books,” Brian Matthew Jordan, an associate professor of history at Sam Houston State University in Texas and author of the book Marching Home about Union veterans in the postwar era told VOA in 2015. “They won the battle over the peace.”

Called the “Lost Cause” movement, it set out to divorce the Confederacy from slavery and make the war about states’ rights and self-government.

In turn, Confederate soldiers were portrayed as heroes for fighting with honor and courage in the face of overwhelming numbers on the battlefield — ideals that all Americans admire and respect.

Much of that was a revisionist interpretation, but Jordan says there was enough of a kernel of truth in the Lost Cause myths to spur its widespread attraction. And in the North, too, there was a desire to put the war behind the country as quickly as possible.

“The Lost Cause took effect immediately,” Jordan said. “It was a mainstream historical memory for at least the first half century after the war.”

Statues rise years later

It was during this time that many of the statues and memorials went up.

“In the years after the war, there was a concerted effort, made by mostly children of Confederate veterans to try to memorialize the war their fathers had fought, and to valorize and glorify the Confederate cause,” said Carole Emberton, a University at Buffalo history professor and author of the book Beyond Redemption, which is about the early postwar years in the South.

Groups like the SCV and UDC collected money to build memorials and commemorated famous battles, while giving Civil War history a spin more palatable to Southerners.

Reconstruction in the immediate postwar years helped galvanize the Lost Cause movement because it was seen by Southerners as an attempt by the north to destroy their way of life.

Nation wanted to move on

“By and large, Americans couldn’t agree on exactly how treasonous secession was,” Emberton said. Jefferson Davis was never charged with treason and was released from prison after two years. Among those paying his bail were prominent Northerners, including abolitionist Horace Greeley.

In 1870, five years after the war, the funeral of Robert E. Lee was attended by prominent politicians from the north and, according to Emberton, Lee was “talked about like an American hero.”

Now, as the city of Baltimore in Maryland and New Orleans in Louisiana have removed Confederate statues, there are those who say honoring those who fought for the South shouldn’t be seen as offensive or racist. They also argue that removing the statues could have unintended consequences.

“What’s next, burning books with offensive content?” wrote author Cheryl K. Chumley in a recent editorial in the conservative leaning Washington Times newspaper. “Burning books written by those who used to own slaves? At the very least, museums will have to go.

“The problem with revising history based on a standard of ‘feeling offensive,’ as this anti-Confederate craze is rooted, is that someone, somewhere will always take offense at something,” she added.

In a fiery news conference Tuesday, President Donald J. Trump weighed in on the issue.

“So, this week it’s Robert E. Lee,” Trump said. “I notice that Stonewall Jackson is coming down. I wonder is it George Washington next week, and is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You know, you really do have to ask yourself, where does it stop?”
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Republicans Join Democrats in Denouncing Trump Comments on Charlottesville

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President Donald Trump finds himself in a political firestorm this week after his shifting stance on who is responsible for Saturday’s violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, stemming from a protest organized by white nationalist groups. Trump’s remarks Tuesday, blaming both sides for the violence, have drawn condemnation from Democrats and Republicans and come at a time when the president’s poll rating continues to weaken. VOA National correspondent Jim Malone has more from Washington.
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Charlottesville’s Far-right Rally Evokes Europe’s Dark Past

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The deadly violence during a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Saturday has sparked reactions around the world, especially in Europe where such groups evoke memories of the Nazi era atrocities. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has this story.
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Trump Continues to Take Fire for Comments on Violence in Virginia

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U.S. President Donald Trump continues to face a barrage of criticism for his contention that both white supremacists and counterprotesters were to blame for the deadly violence that erupted last weekend. The young woman killed during that protest was buried Wednesday, as VOA’s Bill Gallo reports.
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Chibok Girls: Our Abduction Was a Robbery Gone Bad

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The mass abduction of more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls from Chibok — the biggest publicity coup of Boko Haram’s jihadist insurgency — was the accidental outcome of a botched robbery, say the girls who spent three years in their brutal captivity.

The Chibok girls made the surprise revelation in secret diaries they kept while held prisoner, and a copy of which has been exclusively obtained by the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Recalling the night of their kidnapping in April 2014, Naomi Adamu described in the diaries how Boko Haram had not come to the school in Chibok to abduct the girls, but rather to steal machinery for house building.

Unable to find what they were looking for, the militants were unsure what to do with the girls.

Arguments swiftly ensued.

“One boy said they should burn us all, and they (some of the other fighters) said: ‘No, let us take them with us to Sambisa (Boko Haram’s remote forest base) … if we take them to Shekau (the group’s leader), he will know what to do,’” Adamu wrote.

She was one of about 220 girls who were stolen from their school in the northeastern town of Chibok one night in April 2014, a raid that sparked an international outcry and a viral campaign on social media with the hashtag #bringbackourgirls.

Championed by former U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama, along with a diverse cast of media celebrities, the campaign won international infamy for Boko Haram and helped galvanize the Nigerian government into negotiating for the girls’ release.

Adamu was among 82 of the Chibok girls released by Boko Haram in May, part of a second wave after 21 of them were freed in October. They are being held in a secret location in Abuja for what the government has called a “restoration process.”

A few others have escaped or been rescued, but about 113 of the girls are believed to be held by the militant group.

The authenticity of the diaries, written by Adamu and her friend Sarah Samuel, cannot be verified as the government negotiates with Boko Haram for more releases.

Clandestine chronicles

The diaries shed light not only on the horrors the girls endured under Boko Haram, but their acts of resistance, and their staunch belief that they would one day go home.

The girls said they started documenting their ordeal a few months after the abduction, when Boko Haram, whose name loosely means ‘Western education is sinful’ in the local Hausa language, gave them exercise books to use during Koranic lessons.

To hide the diaries from their captors, the girls would bury the notebooks in the ground, or carry them in their underwear.

Three of the other Chibok girls also contributed to the undated chronicles, which were written mainly in passable English, with some parts scribbled in less coherent Hausa.

“We wrote it together. When one person got tired, she would give it to another person to continue,” Adamu, 24, said from the state safe house in the capital, where the girls are being kept for assessment, rehabilitation and debriefing by the government.

‘Convert or burn’

Life in the Sambisa involved regular beatings, Koranic lessons, domestic drudgery and pressure to marry and convert.

The girls’ spirits remained intact, as they devised amusing and mocking nicknames for the fighters, the diaries show.

Yet cruelty and brutality were ever present.

When five girls tried to escape, the militants tied them up, dug a hole in the ground, and turned to one of their classmates.

The jihadists handed her a blade and issued a chilling ultimatum: ‘cut off the girls’ heads, or lose your own.’

“We are begging them. We are crying. They said if next we ran away, they are going to cut off our necks,” Adamu wrote.

On another occasion, the militants gathered those girls to douse them in petrol then burn them alive.

“They said: ‘You want to die. You don’t want to be Muslim, (so) we are going to burn you,” read the diary entry.

As fear set in, the militants cracked into laughter — the cans contained nothing but water, the girls wrote.

Fear does their bidding

One of the most striking excerpts illustrates the pervasive fear spread by Boko Haram in northeast Nigeria, where the group has killed 20,000 people and uprooted at least 2 million in a brutal campaign that shows no signs of ending soon.

During their captivity in the Sambisa forest, some of the Chibok girls escaped and ended up in a nearby shop where they asked the owners for help, as well as food and water.

“The girls said: ‘We are those that Boko Haram kidnapped from (the school) in Chibok,’” Adamu wrote. “One of the people (in the shop) said: ‘Are these not Shekau’s children?’” The shop owners let the girls stay the night.

But the next day they took them back to Boko Haram’s base, where the girls were whipped and threatened with decapitation.

Despite being flushed with relief at her own freedom, Adamu worries about her closest friend and co-author, Samuel, who is still with the group, having married one of its militants.

“She got married because of no food, no water,” Adamu said from the government safe house in Abuja.

“Not everybody can survive that kind of thing,” she added. “I feel pained … so pained. I’m still thinking about her.”
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Trump Strategist: No Military Solution in North Korea

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President Donald Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon says there’s no military solution to the threat posed by North Korea and its nuclear ambitions, despite the president’s recent pledge to answer further aggression with “fire and fury.”

In an interview with The American Prospect posted online Wednesday, Bannon tells the liberal publication that the U.S. is losing the economic race against China. He also talks about purging his rivals from the Defense and State departments.

The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

“There’s no military solution (to North Korea’s nuclear threats), forget it,” Bannon said. “Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that 10 million people in Seoul don’t die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don’t know what you’re talking about, there’s no military solution here, they got us.”

Trump tweeted earlier Wednesday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “made a very wise and well-reasoned decision” by backing down after heightening fears of nuclear conflict in a series of combative threats, including against the U.S. territory of Guam.

China trade

Bannon also outlined his push for the U.S. to adopt a tougher stance on China trade, without waiting to see whether Beijing will help restrain Kim, as Trump has pressed China’s leader to do. Trump also has lamented U.S. trade deficits with China.

“The economic war with China is everything,” Bannon said. “And we have to be maniacally focused on that. If we continue to lose it, we’re five years away, I think, 10 years at the most, of hitting an inflection point from which we’ll never be able to recover.”

Bannon was a key general election campaign adviser and has been a forceful but contentious presence in a divided White House. The former leader of conservative Breitbart News, Bannon has drawn fire from some of Trump’s closest advisers, including son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Pressure to fire Bannon

The president is under renewed pressure to fire Bannon, who has survived earlier rounds of having fallen out of favor with Trump.

Earlier this week, the president passed up an opportunity to offer a public vote of confidence in Bannon. Trump said he’s a “good person” and not a racist, adding that “we’ll see what happens with Mr. Bannon.”

The latest anti-Bannon campaign comes as Trump faces mounting criticism for insisting that white supremacist groups and those who opposed them were both at fault for deadly violence last weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia.

In the interview, Bannon muses about getting rid of administration officials who disagree with his strategy toward China and North Korea and replacing them with “hawks.”

“We gotta do this. The president’s default position is to do it, but the apparatus is going crazy,” Bannon says. “Don’t get me wrong. It’s like, every day.”
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UN: Finding Survivors in Sierra Leone Mudslide Unlikely

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A United Nations representative in Sierra Leone said Wednesday he is losing hope that rescuers will find survivors after deadly mudslides in Sierra Leone’s capital killed more than 300 people.

Sunil Saigal, the U.N. Resident Coordinator for Sierra Leone, told British broadcaster Sky News he believes rescue operations will soon cease as “the hope of finding further survivors diminishes.”

“It remains a priority to recover the remains of those who perished in the landslide, but also equally to help survivors and help the community,” Saigal said.

He said the U.N. is working with the government to provide “physical protection” for those thousands of people displaced or otherwise affected by the landslide.

“We’re working with the authorities to prevent disease outbreaks, cholera. You know we’re in the rainy season, waterborne diseases are rife, mosquitoes, malaria is a risk,” Saigal said.

Searchers told VOA’s English to Africa service there is little hope of finding more survivors.

A Freetown mortuary is overwhelmed with bodies. While some families have identified some of the dead, officials are planning to begin mass burials Thursday.

A spokesman for the Red Cross told the French News Agency that the group had accounted for at least 312 dead. Officials say thousands of others have been left homeless.

The mudslide occurred early Monday while many Freetown residents were sleeping, after hours of heavy rains. Witnesses described a particularly hard-hit area in the Regent district, saying roads became “churning rivers of mud.” 

Photos and video posted by local residents showed people chest deep in mud trying to traverse the roads.

Officials expect corpses to pop up in unexpected places for months to come, as many bodies were carried away from the Regent area by floodwaters.

Freetown is often hit by heavy rain and flooding for several months a year.
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US-backed Syrian Group Pardons 96 IS Members in Raqqa

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A U.S.-backed Syrian group known as Civil Council of Raqqa granted amnesty to 96 alleged members of the Islamic State (IS) on Wednesday in what it said was an attempt to dissuade low-ranking IS members from allegiance to the terror group.

The council, which is expected to rule Raqqa after IS is removed from its self-proclaimed capital, said the release included only local IS members who have not engaged in crimes and militant activities.  

“We made that decision to encourage trust between our community and [help] return tolerance between its groups,” Ibrahim al-Issa, head of the Civil Council of Raqqa, told VOA.

Al-Issa said the pardoned people were all men, of different ages, who were residents of Raqqa and its countryside and held no posts with IS.

“Those people were somehow involved with IS or had close ties to IS members,” he said, adding that no foreign IS members were among those granted amnesty, and that the council’s decision was welcomed by tribal leaders of Raqqa and the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Council makeup

The Civil Council of Raqqa was formed by the SDF on April 18, several weeks before their major operation in the IS stronghold Raqqa. It consists of roughly 120 members who are mostly from the Arab tribes of Raqqa, but Kurds and Christians also have representation in the council.

The U.S.-led coalition against IS has commended the interim council for its “great work” in assisting displaced residents and has expressed its willingness to support the council to secure gains made by U.S.-backed forces in Raqqa.

The council’s decision comes as the SDF group, supported by the U.S.-led coalition airstrikes, has made significant gains against besieged IS fighters in their grueling and fierce offensive to seize the terrorist stronghold.

The council members told VOA that most of the pardoned IS men had surrendered to the SDF during its recent advances.

A VOA reporter who was present said the alleged IS prisoners were transported to the headquarters of the council in the village of Ain Issa, a town about 45 kilometers (30 miles) north of Raqqa. Hundreds of family members gathered around the council’s building in the early morning to celebrate the men’s release.

‘New beginning’ in Raqqa

Before they were allowed to join their families, the men lined up neatly in front of the council building as council members addressed the crowd, speaking about a “chance for a new beginning” in Raqqa after IS.

The pardoned men, who said they had been forced to pledge allegiance to IS, denounced the group and promised to help rebuild the city after its recapture.

“Those young men have joined Daesh [IS] because of its brutal control or because of hunger,” Rashid Ahmed, who was among the released men, told VOA, using an Arabic acronym for IS. “I was forced to join Daesh to study Sharia.”

Ahmed said he surrendered to the SDF last month after refusing to fight with the IS militants. “I was imprisoned by [SDF] friends for 15 days,” Ahmed said.  

It is not the first time that the Civil Council of Raqqa has released alleged members of the jihadi group. In June, the council pardoned 83 men in a similar fashion. The youngest of those pardoned prisoners was 14 years old, Reuters news agency reported at the time.

Ibrahim Al-Assil, a Syria expert with the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C., told VOA that pardoning alleged IS members is an attempt by the council to gain sympathy of local residents as the SDF offensive enters more crowded neighborhoods of Raqqa.

“To win the fight against ISIS, the SDF needs to win the civilians over,” Al-Assil told VOA.

IS has tried to retain support in Raqqa by scaring residents that U.S.-backed forces may seek revenge from the civilians upon their arrival.  

He said the process of justice and accountability for local residents who lived under IS can be a complicated task, adding that many Raqqa residents have complained about the arrest of civilians who had no ties to IS.

“It’s a fine balance,” Al-Assil said. “The SDF should make sure it doesn’t arbitrarily detain people, doesn’t release criminals, and builds a good relationship with civilians to make the fight to liberate the city less difficult.”
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Israel Says Will Revoke Press Credentials of Al Jazeera Reporter

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Israel intends to cancel an Al Jazeera journalist’s press accreditation on the grounds that he is biased in favor of Palestinians, the director of the government press office said on Wednesday.

Nitzan Chen said Al Jazeera correspondent Elias Karram’s press card would be revoked, pending a hearing, because he told television station Dar al-Iman last year that he was actively siding with the Palestinians in his work as a reporter.

Karram is an Israeli Arab citizen from Nazareth, Chen’s office said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last month he would work to close down Qatar-based Al Jazeera, accusing it of inciting violence in Jerusalem.

“These remarks call into question the ability of Karram, the representative of a foreign network, to cover – as a professional journalist – the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in which, according to his own words, he is taking an active part,” Chen wrote in a statement.

Walid al-Omary, Al Jazeera’s bureau chief in Jerusalem, declined to comment.

A clip from the interview Karram gave to the little-known TV station shows him saying: “A Palestinian journalist working in occupied territory … is no different to a politician or a teacher [resisting Israel’s occupation]. The journalist is doing his part … with the pen, radio, voice or camera. You are part of this nation and you resist in your own way.”

Earlier this month, Israeli Communications Minister Ayoub Kara said plans were afoot to revoke the media credentials of Al Jazeera’s journalists, close its Jerusalem bureau and remove the station’s broadcasts from local cable and satellite providers’ bouquets.

Such a closure does not appear imminent, however, and an Israeli official said a legal process was still required to implement most of the proposed steps.

The move adds further pressure on Qatar, which has been involved in a dispute with a number of Arab countries over alleged support for Islamist militant groups, which it denies.

Al Jazeera said in July that Israel was aligning itself with the four Arab states – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain – that have severed diplomatic and commercial ties with Qatar.

After Kara’s announcement, the Foreign Press Association in Israel criticized the planned moves.

“Changing the law in order to shut down a media organization for political reasons is a slippery slope,” association executive secretary Glenys Sugarman said.

Al Jazeera has also faced government censure in Egypt. In 2014, Egypt jailed three of the network’s staffers for seven years and closed its offices. Two staffers have been released but a third remains imprisoned.
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Security Risk Seen in Foreign Recruits Fighting for Kurds in Syria

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An influential London think tank is urging the British government to stop Britons from enlisting with a Western-backed Kurdish militia in Syria that’s battling the Islamic State terror group on the ground that it, too, is a terrorist organization.

The Henry Jackson Society warns in a study released Thursday that the militia, known as the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, is a “subsidiary” of Turkey’s outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a separatist movement designated a terrorist organization by both the European Union and the United States.

YPG leaders have insisted they are not connected to the PKK or guided by its leaders, who are based mainly in the Qandil Mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan. But the think tank argues, “It is clear that the YPG leadership answers, in matters large and small, to the PKK leaders.”

That was the official assessment of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, too, until Washington forged an alliance with the YPG in 2015 as part of the anti-IS operation.

‘Forgotten’ fighters

In The Forgotten Foreign Fighters: The PKK in Syria, analyst Kyle Orton argues the PKK has engaged in “deceptive propaganda” to mask the real “nature to its [separatist] project in Syria” — a spinoff has seen hundreds of foreign fighters enlisting with the militia to fight IS. The think tank maintains they could pose risks to the West upon their return.

Turkish officials are likely to cite the study in their continued efforts to persuade the West, particularly the U.S., to drop its support of the YPG, and to cease using the militia as the international coalition’s main ground ally in northern Syria. Turkish leaders have long argued that the YPG is just the PKK, which has maintained an insurgency in Turkey for more than three decades — a separatist agitation that’s been met with a ferocious Turkish response.

The PKK has engaged in terrorism against Westerners in the past when it has served the organization’s purposes, kidnapping and killing tourists in Turkey. It also has built a moneymaking apparatus in Europe centered on organized crime and narcotics trafficking, as well as extortion from Kurdish expatriates, the think tank said.

The study profiles 60 foreign fighters from 12 countries who joined the YPG to fight IS in Syria and analyzes their reasons for enlisting. Twenty-eight of those profiled have been killed in action.

Orton argues the foreign fighters could present risks when they return.

“The potential use of these individuals in the PKK’s vast criminal-terrorist apparatus in Europe is a serious cause for concern,” he says in the study.

“Though the YPG has been lionized in much of the Western press and political discourse since it became the West’s primary ground force against IS, there are important questions — moral, legal, political and diplomatic — about how the YPG/PKK fighters are handled by Western governments,” he adds.

According to Orton, many of the Western volunteers, who probably number about 500, are unaware of the YPG’s link with PKK, although some are, and they revel in the links.

Most of the YPG’s foreign recruits come from English-speaking countries. Orton believes that most likely reflects the YPG’s earmarking of those countries for its propaganda and social media efforts.

Volunteer categories

In the study, Orton says that foreign volunteers fall into four broad categories, and their reasons for joining are varied.

“Military veterans formed a clear majority of the recruits in 2014, though that number has declined every year since as the YPG has altered its outreach strategy, focusing on the political far left,” he says. Many of the former soldiers enlisted because they missed the military life and had difficulty adapting to civilian life.

“Other former soldiers who had served in the post-9/11 wars, specifically Iraq, felt a responsibility to finish the job and/or not to let the sacrifices made go to waste,” he says.

The study lists another category of volunteers — before the YPG established a systematic screening process — as motivated by “self-serving considerations, notably avarice — sometimes directly pecuniary and sometimes in terms of reputation or fame.”

Among their number are some eager to satisfy an impulse to kill, although most of them now have been combed out of the YPG’s ranks, according to the study.

Other categories are defined as adventurers, including those seeking redemption for past crimes or drug addiction, and hard-left ideologues, including communists and anarchists.

The think tank recommends that the British government screen returning Britons to “assess if they require any further state attention, either from the criminal justice system or social services.”

British intelligence officials have told VOA there are worries that some YPG volunteers may return suffering from trauma-related mental issues or that their warlike urges could be exploited by other ideological groups.

Last month, Turkey’s National Security Council accused the United States of allowing weapons it provided to the YPG to be passed on to the PKK. “This shows that both are the same organization,” the council claimed.

A spokesman for U.S. Central Command, which oversees American military operations in Syria and Iraq, told VOA after the Turkish claims that the weapons the United States has supplied the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces “will be returned to the coalition on completion of the mission” against IS.

Shortly afterward, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency published the locations of nearly a dozen U.S. military bases across a 200-kilometer stretch of northern Syria. The bases listed by Anadolu are where American military advisers and special forces oversee the assault on Raqqa.
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South Sudan’s Parliament Suspends Debate on Budget

Posted on by SeeAF

South Sudan’s parliament have suspended debate on a $451 million budget as questions linger over how government agencies will be financed and how money was spent during the past fiscal year.

Oil production and other sources of revenue for the government have plunged since the start of the war between supporters of President Salva Kiir and opponents in late 2013.

Members of parliament refused to further discuss the 2017-18 budget Monday after most members of the Cabinet failed to appear, making it impossible for MPs to question them.

Speaker Anthony Lino Makana, who called off the discussion, demanded that all ministers be present during the next session.

Last month, Finance Minister Stephen Dhieu Dau presented an annual budget, but after further review, the parliament’s committee on finance proposed adding $141 million to the proposal.

Several lawmakers, including Maridi state’s Mary Nawai, asked why certain agencies were allocated tens of thousands of pounds despite not performing their duties or providing financial reports.

Electricity ministry

Nawai focused on the Ministry of Electricity and Dams, which was found to have overpaid its budget for wages by 49 percent.

“What were the activities that they used the budget for?” she asked. “We have not seen any sign in this country of electricity. What people are using are generators in their houses and solar? … We have not seen any construction going on or any dam. Why do we need to add money for the Ministry of Electricity?”

Economic analyst Marial Awou Yol said government institutions must be disciplined and use national resources for their intended purposes.  Otherwise, he said, South Sudan will never recover from its economic crisis.

He said economists have been calling for a single treasury account system in which the Ministry of Finance controls the flow of money. Currently, he said, some government institutions have several banking accounts.  

“You don’t know in which account they deposited money,” Awou told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus.
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Opposition to Contest Kenyan Presidential Election in Court

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Since Friday, when Kenya’s electoral commission announced President Uhuru Kenyatta had been re-elected, opposition candidate Raila Odinga has been telling supporters to stay tuned for his NASA coalition’s next steps.

He ended the suspense Wednesday when he announced the coalition will take its case of what he called a “stolen election” to the Supreme Court, despite previous statements to the contrary.

“By going to court, we are not legitimizing misplaced calls of some [electoral] observers for us to concede, but are seeking to give those who braved the long lines and the morning chill, and out all afternoon on Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2017 — mothers with their children tied on their backs, the sick, people with disabilities, old and young — a chance to be heard,” said Odinga.

Odinga asserts the voting system was hacked. These allegations led him to begin his announcement Wednesday by giving the title of his statement, “Kenyans Say No to Computer-Generated Leaders.”

The best move

University of Nairobi lecturer Herman Manyora believes going to court is the best move for Odinga and NASA.

“I think this will be the best option because first of all, it deals with the anxiety within the country, the tension it will ease, and you, 14 or so days when he’s in the court is enough for people to heal, for people to act out of thinking and not out of emotions, so it’s like you buy time even for grief. You know, for you to go through grief. But it’s also much better because then you put your case forward in an environment that allows you to do so systematically,” said Manyora.

Odinga justified his previous refusals to consider court action by referencing what he called the government’s “determination to silence all voices” by attempting to shut down two Kenyan rights groups in recent days, and said NASA would now be laying out their evidence before the whole world via the court process.

Legal action suspended

The acting secretary for the interior, Fred Matiangi, has ordered a 90-day suspension of legal action against the rights groups.

The action came after police and revenue officials attempted to raid the African Center for Open Governance offices early Wednesday, and the NGO coordination board de-registered the Kenya Human Rights Commission on Tuesday.

Odinga also left the door open to future demonstrations.

“We will preach peace, as we have done so. And we will uphold our rights to assemble and protest. We shall hold vigils, moments of silence, beat drums, and do everything else to peacefully draw attention to the gross electoral injustices being meted on our country, and demand redress,” said Odinga.

The electoral commission says Kenyatta won the election with 54.3 percent of the vote, beating Odinga’s 44.8 percent.
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UN Inquiry Finds Congolese Militia Likely Killed UN Monitors

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A United Nations inquiry found that two U.N. investigators were murdered by a group of Congolese, likely militia members from central Democratic Republic of Congo, but an absence of evidence “does not preclude the possibility that others are involved.”

Michael Sharp, an American who was coordinator of an independent sanctions monitoring group, and Zaida Catalan, a Swede, were killed in central Congo on March 12 while carrying out investigations for a report to the U.N. Security Council.

The bodies of Sharp and Catalan were found in a shallow grave two weeks later. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres set up an internal board of inquiry and gave an executive summary of the findings to the Security Council on Tuesday.

“Without further investigation and the necessary judicial processes, the identity, affiliations, and motives of the group that participated in killing Mr. Sharp and Ms. Catalan cannot be fully established,” read the inquiry’s executive summary, seen by Reuters on Wednesday.

The Congolese government screened a film to reporters in Kinshasa on April 24, which they said showed members of the anti-government Kamuina Nsapu militia killing the U.N experts.

The pair were shot and Catalan was subsequently beheaded.

More than 3,300 people have been killed and 1.4 million forced to flee their homes in Kasai since the start of an insurrection nearly a year ago by the Kamuina Nsapu militia, which wants the withdrawal of military forces from the area.

Many analysts say the grainy video of the murders raises more questions than it answers, such as why one of the assassins from the Tshiluba-speaking militia gave orders in Lingala, which is the language of western Congo and the army.

“It is the judgment of the Board that information circulating regarding the possible involvement of various government individuals or organizations does not provide proof of intent or motive,” the U.N. inquiry said.

“An absence of evidence however does not preclude the possibility that others are involved,” it said.

A Congolese military prosecutor has said there was no evidence Congolese forces were involved in the murders.

The Board of Inquiry recommended the Congolese government conduct a criminal investigation with the support of other member states. The inquiry said Congolese authorities had arrested a dozen people and would try them in a military court.

“It’s naturally my intention to do everything … with the Congolese government and with the Security Council for the criminals to be punished,” Guterres told reporters on Wednesday.

The remaining members of Sharp and Catalan’s monitoring group recommended last month that the Security Council ask Guterres to establish an independent international investigation. The United States has also called for Guterres to establish a special investigation.

 
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US-backed Syrian Civil Council Pardons Dozens of Islamic State Members

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In an attempt to stabilize Raqqa after the Islamic State, the U.S.-backed Raqqa Civil Council on Wednesday announced it has pardoned 96 local members of IS who reportedly did not engage in crimes. VOA’s Mahmoud Bali reports.
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Iraq Asks World’s Help in Investigating IS Crimes

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Iraq asked for international help Wednesday to collect and preserve evidence of crimes by Islamic State militants and said it was working with Britain to draft a U.N. Security Council resolution to establish the investigation.

Britain, international human rights lawyer Amal Clooney and Nadia Murad, a woman from the Yazidi religious minority who was enslaved and raped by IS fighters in Mosul, have been pushing Iraq to allow a U.N. inquiry.

The 15-member Security Council could have established an inquiry without Iraq’s consent, but Britain wanted Iraq’s approval in a letter formally making the request. Iraq sent the letter, seen by Reuters, on Monday.

“We request assistance of the international community to get benefited from international expertise to criminalize Daesh terrorist entity,” Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari wrote in the letter, which was translated from Arabic.

Daesh is another name for Islamic State, as is ISIS.

Britain’s mission to the United Nations said on Twitter that it was working with Iraq on a draft resolution. It was not immediately clear when it could be put to a vote in the council.

Caliphate collapsed

IS’s self-proclaimed caliphate effectively collapsed last month, when U.S.-backed Iraqi forces completed the recapture of Mosul, the militants’ capital in northern Iraq, after a nine-month campaign.

Parts of Iraq and Syria remain under IS control, especially along the border.

“I hope that the Iraqi government’s letter will mark the beginning of the end of impunity for genocide and other crimes that ISIS is committing in Iraq and around the world,” Clooney said in a statement.

“Yazidis and other ISIS victims want justice in a court of law, and they deserve nothing less,” Clooney said.

The Yazidis’ beliefs combine elements of several ancient Middle Eastern religions. IS militants consider the Yazidis to be devil worshippers.

U.N. experts said in June last year that IS was committing genocide against the Yazidis in Syria and Iraq to destroy them through killings, sexual slavery and other crimes.

The Iraqi government said in the letter that it was important to bring IS militants to justice in Iraqi courts.
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Ukraine Scrambles to Quash Fallout From North Korea Allegations

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Ukrainian officials and analysts were quick to deny allegations that the Soviet-era Yuzhmash arms factory was a likely source of engine technology used in North Korea’s missiles and to redirect suspicions to Russia.  

“It is a complex and bulky piece of equipment. It is simply not possible to supply it by bypassing export procedures,” said Mykola Sunhurovskyi, director of military programs at the Razumkov Center, a Kyiv think tank, to VOA’s Ukrainian Service. “What is possible, is for North Korea to obtain engines left behind after rocket dismantling in Russia. That could be possible. Meaning Russia could have kept the engines after it had taken apart the rockets, which had been slated for dismantling. Those could have been supplied.”

Michael Elleman, the author of a research report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, says Pyongyang probably got illicit help from inside Ukraine. But Elleman acknowledges that help also could have come from Russia.  

“There’s a lot of uncertainty as exactly how it could have been transferred. But, I think the likelihood is that the source is either in Russia or Ukraine,” Elleman told VOA’s Ukrainian Service.  

Elleman says he first became aware of the possibility of Ukrainian technology when he noticed similarities in photos of North Korea’s September 2016 ground test.

“Well, according to two sources that I’ve spoken with, the modifications that we’ve seen in North Korea – that modified engine has actually been seen in Ukraine. That doesn’t mean it was done by Yuzhnoye [Yuzhmash’s design bureau], it could have been done by others or simultaneously. This was a product that was made long ago and it’s just been leveraged by unsavory types who were able to extract it from either Ukraine or Russia.”

‘Completely untrue’

Yuzhmash, the Ukrainian factory, called the claims “completely untrue” and said it had not produced military-grade ballistic missiles since Ukraine’s 1991 independence from the Soviet Union.  

“There is such a high level of confidentiality at the factory and in general it is ensured by a multi-level system of security, which includes not only Yuzhmash services, but also municipal and state services,” Yuzhmash Deputy Director Oleh Lebedev told Reuters TV.

Elleman was first quoted in The New York Times, which cited its own intelligence sources, saying that Ukraine was a likely source. 

But Elleman says that even if Ukraine was a source, he sees no indication Ukrainian authorities would have been involved.

“I don’t believe the Ukrainian government was responsible in any way,” he said. “And I suspect if it did occur in Ukraine, they may not have known. It’s likely they would not have known.”

Other analysts argue that North Korea can build its own engines and would not need help. But all agree it would be a good idea for Ukraine to allow an investigation.  

“I believe in this situation, the MFA [Ministry of Foreign Affairs] of Ukraine needs to invite the international community, with the first invitation to be extended to the USA, to conduct an investigation here in Ukraine, as well as globally to study exactly how North Korea was able to develop its missile program, whether there is a Chinese connection or a Russian connection,” said the director of Ukraine’s National Institute for Strategic Studies and former head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, Volodymyr Horbulin.  

“These are the two countries which maintain close relations with the DPRK [North Korea]. The proposal from Ukraine for such an investigation should put an end to constant attacks on our country by those who suggest that it is constantly trading in something banned by international accords or agreements,” said Horbulin.  

Possible implications for U.S.-Ukraine cooperation

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Tuesday ordered an official inquiry into whether any missile engine technology could have been supplied to North Korea. Some experts in Ukraine worry that the allegations could affect any U.S. decision on whether to provide Ukraine with defensive weapons to fend off Russia-backed separatists.

“There’s ongoing discussion about the possibility to transfer lethal weapons to Ukraine,” noted the Ukrainian Center for Army’s Ihor Fedyk. “This story may have a negative impact on the process,” he told VOA’s Ukrainian Service.  

There are concerns that other areas of bilateral cooperation, such as space programs, could be affected.  

“America is our strategic partner, a very serious strategic partner, in space programs,” said the acting head of Ukraine’s State Space Agency, Yurii Radchenko. “It is not in our interests to harm relations with U.S. official agencies.”

U.S. State Department Spokeswoman Heather Nauert commented Tuesday, saying “We’re certainly aware of those reports that have come out. That’s an issue that we would take very seriously if that were to be the case.”  

“As a general matter, we don’t comment on intelligence reports. Ukraine, though, we have to say, has a very strong nonproliferation record. And that includes specifically with respect to the DPRK,” Nauert added.

The allegations surfaced as North Korea threatens to send missiles near the U.S. island territory of Guam.  

While Elleman’s allegations are investigated, the North Korean government appears to have stepped back from its threat to Guam, saying it will wait to see what further actions the United States takes.
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UK Vows Brexit Won’t Mean the Return of Irish Border Posts

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The British government has vowed repeatedly to end the free movement of people from the European Union when the U.K. leaves the bloc in 2019. But on Wednesday it acknowledged that, in one area of the country, it won’t.

Britain said there must be no border posts or electronic checks between Northern Ireland and the Irish republic after Brexit, and it committed itself to maintaining the longstanding, border-free Common Travel Area covering the U.K. and Ireland.

“There should be no physical border infrastructure of any kind on either side of the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland,” Conservative British Prime Minister Theresa May said.

That means free movement across the border for British, Irish — and EU —  citizens. After Britain leaves the bloc, EU nationals will be able to move without checks from Ireland to Northern Ireland, and onto other parts of the U.K.

Free movement among member states is a key EU principle, and has seen hundreds of thousands of people move to Britain and get jobs there since the bloc expanded into eastern Europe more than a decade ago.

Many Britons who voted last year to leave the EU cited a desire to regain control of immigration as a key reason.

In a paper outlining proposals for the Northern Ireland-Ireland border after Brexit, the British government insisted it will be able to control who can settle in the U.K. through work permits and other measures.

It said “immigration controls are not, and never have been, solely about the ability to prevent and control entry at the U.K.’s physical border.” Control of access to the labor market and social welfare are also “an integral part” of the immigration system, the paper added.

Northern Ireland is an especially thorny issue in Brexit talks, because it has the U.K.’s only land border with the EU — and because an open border has helped build the economic prosperity that underpins the peace process in Northern Ireland.

Since the 1998 Good Friday peace accord, British military checkpoints along the Ireland-Northern Ireland border have been dismantled, rendering it all but invisible. Thousands of people cross the 300-mile (500-kilometer) border every day.

Britain said it was determined that “nothing agreed as part of the U.K.’s exit in any way undermines” the Northern Ireland peace agreement.

The government’s Department for Exiting the European Union acknowledged that “unprecedented” solutions would be needed to preserve the peace process and maintain the benefits of an open border after Britain leaves the EU, its single market in goods and services and its tariff-free customs union.

It suggested a future “customs partnership” between Britain and the EU could eliminate the need for checks on goods crossing the border.

For agricultural and food products, Britain said one option could be “regulatory equivalence,” where the U.K. and EU agree to maintain the same standards. But it’s unclear what that would mean for Britain’s ability to trade with countries that do not always meet EU standards, such as the United States.

The Northern Ireland proposals came in a series of papers covering aspects of Brexit negotiations, which are due to resume in Brussels at the end of this month.

Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney said the document “brings some clarity and is certainly helpful to move this process forward.” But, he said, “there are still significant questions that are unanswered.”

European Commission spokeswoman Annika Breidthardt said Britain’s position papers — which come after allegations from EU officials that the U.K. is underprepared for the EU divorce negotiations — are “a positive step.”

 

“The clock is ticking and this will allow us to make progress,” she said.

 

Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed to this story.
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