Month: August 2017

Slovenia to Hold Presidential Election in October

Posted on by SeeEU

The next presidential election in Slovenia will be held on October 22 and the incumbent is expected to run for a second term.

 

Parliamentary speaker Milan Brglez on Friday formally set the date for the vote which must be held in the autumn. Recent opinion polls predict that President Borut Pahor will likely be re-elected if he chooses to run.

 

The 53-year-old Pahor is a former fashion model who has become known for his use of social media while in office.

 

The Alpine nation of 2 million people is the homeland of U.S. first lady Melania Trump.
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Aid Agencies Warn Displaced Against Premature Returns to Syria

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The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is warning people against returning prematurely to war-torn Syria as the number of displaced going back to their homes reaches a record high.

An IOM report found more than 600,000 displaced Syrians have returned home in the first seven months of this year, nearly as many as the total number of returnees for all of 2016.

IOM spokeswoman Olivia Haedon said most of the returns are spontaneous, but not necessarily voluntary, safe or sustainable.

“As the security situation changes in different parts of the country, displacement can occur again,” she said. “As you noted, in the number of people who were displaced this year, which is over 800,000, some people are being displaced for the second or third time.”

The report said most of the people returning to their homes, 84 percent, are internally displaced, while 16 percent are returning refugees from Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq. It said an estimated two-thirds have returned to Aleppo Governorate. Others have gone mainly to Idleb, Hama, Raqqa, and Rural Damascus Governorates.

Haedon said people cite a variety of reasons for their decision to go home.

“They are going back with the hope that they can stay to protect their property and engage in a better, improved economic situation, or, protect themselves if they are leaving because of the area that they were living was less secure than the place that they originated from,” she said. “So, we do see that the people are hoping that they can stay for a longer term.”

Haedon said humanitarian organizations agree organized returns to Syria are not yet an option. Syria is not safe, she added, and the places to which people return are not equipped to provide essential services.

She said the IOM is not encouraging Syrians to go home.
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UK Opponents of Brexit Mull New Centrist Political Party

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Opponents of Britain’s departure from the European Union are floating the idea of setting up a new anti-Brexit political party.

James Chapman, a former aide to Brexit Secretary David Davis, has become an outspoken critic of Britain’s looming departure from the 28-nation bloc.

He is calling for a new centrist political party because both the governing Conservatives and main opposition Labour parties say they will go through with the decision to leave.

Chapman said Friday “there is an enormous gap in the center now of British politics” that could be filled by an anti-Brexit force.

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair has also called for pro-EU politicians from all parties to unite.

Britain is currently negotiating its divorce from the EU and is due to leave in March 2019.
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Central Italy Quake Survivors Frustrated by Slow Reconstruction Pace

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A year on from when a 6.0 magnitude earthquake struck the mountainous heartland of Italy, killing 300 people and leaving thousands homeless, local mayors of a string of hilltop towns and villages that were left in ruins remain frustrated by the sluggish pace of reconstruction.

Three-quarters of the once postcard-perfect towns of Amatrice and Accumoli remain in ruins. Pescara del Tronto, another medieval hilltop settlement, is a pile of rubble.

The recent opening in Amatrice, which gave its name to the pasta sauce, all’amatriciana, of a food village, an innovative facility built of low-cost timber, has been touted by its private-sector sponsors as marking a post-earthquake turning point.

But for the shattered communities, the fear is that a government promise made quickly after the August 24, 2016, earthquake to rebuild will be as slow in coming as the reconstruction of L’Aquila, which was struck in 2009 by a powerful tremblor. Eight years on, more than 8,000 L’Aquila residents still live in temporary accommodations.

The mayors have been urging the government not to repeat the snail-pace post-quake reconstructions of recent years.

Six-months ago, 400 residents from Illica, Accumoli, Arquata del Tronto and Capodacqua staged a protest demanding quicker recovery efforts. “Bureaucracy kills more than the earthquake,” read one of the banners being waved by protesters.

Hundreds of residents from the affected towns have been placed in hotels in nearby San Benedetto del Tronto, a seaside resort on Italy’s Adriatic coast, among them the mayor of Accumoli, Stefano Petrucci. He travels each day to his flattened town to oversee the slow clearance work, and says rebuilding plans are ensnared in burdensome administrative procedures.

“It is not moving fast enough,” he sighed. “We must begin to return to live as a community.”

Feeling ‘exiled’

The survivors, many of them elderly, say they feel exiled. “We worry that by the time our homes have been rebuilt, we may not be alive,” said Lidia Lombardi, a gray-haired pensioner sitting outside a three-star hotel in San Benedetto.

Other quake survivors remain closer to their devastated homes, living in temporary accommodations, including in trailers.

At least 300 farms in the quake zone were affected by the tremblor, with many farming families living and working in unsafe buildings. In Italy, most homeowners can’t get private insurance cover for quake damage, and the government is responsible for financing rebuilding — although not of holiday or second homes.     

 

Government officials say rebuilding the devastated towns will take at least 10 years, and they estimate the damage cost of last year’s tremblor at 23 billion euros. Local mayors are worried that the young, especially, will give up, move away and never return.

In a bid to keep young families in the area, a prefabricated school has been built on the outskirts of Amatrice, and army engineers have been setting up pre-fabricated homes.

Amatrice’s mayor, Sergio Pirozzi, says the town was rebuilt after another major earthquake in 1639, and must do so again — if for no other reason than as a tribute to those who lost their lives last year. He has been urging youngsters not to give up on the town, arguing that if they they leave, it really will mark the end of a town famous for supplying chefs to the Vatican.

But many of the young in Italy’s mountainous heartland already were struggling with diminishing job opportunities, a driver for them to leave the area. The slow pace of reconstruction is hardly encouraging — and continued jolts that have followed last year’s earthquake leaves them even more worried.

​Seeing little future

“The earthquake has left in my heart a sensation of fear and insecurity, and this fact has confirmed my thinking about a future that I can’t see in Italy,” said Laura Sterpino, a 22-year-old student.

Tens of thousands of jolts have been recorded in central Italy in the past 12 months, and there have been 86 quakes. Locals fear that the jolts may not be after-shakes, but could presage another big tremblor.

A sense of foreboding hangs over Italy’s mountainous heartland. In the central regions of Lazio, Umbria and Marche, inhabitants increasingly are fatalistic about their prospects and mistrustful of government. Tourists see the pastures of sunflowers and poppies, abundant vines, rows of ancient olive trees and medieval hilltop stone towns but not the hard-scrabble day-by-day existence to get by.

The inhabitants have battled for years to offset the decline in commercial agriculture, desperately exploring ways to refashion the area as arts venues, tourist destinations and centers of artisanal trades and crafts. The 2008 financial crash sent the regional tourism industry into a tailspin from which it has yet to recover fully, although this year the Marche region recorded a strong year in its seaside resorts.

Away from the coast, the highways and byways running through last year’s quake-affected area are devoid of traffic. The picturesque, winding road that links the Marche town of Ascoli Piceno to the Umbrian city of Spoleto, perched on a foothill of the Apennines, is closed for large sections. Soldiers guard the entrance to Accumoli and turn back the curious.

In Amatrice, some ‘disaster tourists’ have been able to enter parts of the town and have been taking selfies of themselves — to the disgust of locals.
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Nigerian Army Searches UN Compound in City at Center of Boko Haram Conflict

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Nigerian forces conducted an unauthorized search of the main U.N. humanitarian base in the country’s volatile northeast, the United Nations said Friday.

U.N. officials said the Nigerian troops, in a pre-dawn raid, forced their way into the base in Maiduguri, the city where the Boko Haram Islamist insurgency began. The search lasted about three hours, one official said.

The military confirmed the incident in a statement Friday, saying the action was part of its efforts to search for Boko Haram members. It said no suspects were found.

Rumors were circulating in Nigeria that Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau had taken refuge in one of the U.N. camps in Nigeria.

The action was likely to further strain an already tense relationship between Nigeria’s government and aid groups.

“The United Nations is extremely concerned that these actions could be detrimental to the delivery of lifesaving aid to the millions of vulnerable people in the northeast of Nigeria,” said Samantha Newport, a spokeswoman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Key role

The military plays a key role in the northeast, particularly outside Maiduguri in the state of Borno which has been the worst hit by Boko Haram.

Aid agencies mostly rely on the army and its convoys for access to other parts of the state, and in many camps for displaced people it is the military distributing food and medical supplies.

A spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the United Nations had formally complained to the Nigerian government.

“There have been contacts — we understand from the government that this was a mistake. The raid should not have happened,” Stephane Dujarric said Friday at a daily briefing in New York.

News of the raid came as Nigeria’s Vice President Yemi Osinbajo launched a long-planned presidential panel to investigate allegations of human rights abuses by the military. The army has been accused of unlawful detention, sexual abuse and extrajudicial killings.

Since 2009, Nigeria has struggled to stop deadly raids and suicide attacks by the Boko Haram extremist group, which says it wants to create a strict Islamic state in Muslim-majority northern Nigeria.

Most land retaken

Last year, the Nigerian army was able to retake most of the territory captured by Boko Haram,,with the help of neighboring countries. However, Boko Haram has continued to attack markets and public places.

The militant group has killed an estimated 20,000 people overall, and the violence has forced more than 2 million Nigerians from their homes. Tens of thousands live on the brink of famine, and millions more lack secure access to food.

More than $650 million has been given by the international community in response this year, though agencies say more is needed to keep the crisis from worsening.

Some information for this report came from Reuters.
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Somali Military Commander Survives Apparent Assassination Attempt

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The commander of Somalia’s Custodial Corps, General Hussein Hassan Osman, has survived an apparent assassination attempt inside Mogadishu’s central prison, security sources have told VOA Somali.

A suicide bomber detonated a vest midday Friday inside the prison, authorities said, saying that General Osman survived the attack and was rushed out of the prison. VOA Somali later contacted Osman, who said he did not want to comment on the attack.

Witnesses say a man ran after the commander when he stepped out of his car on his way to a mosque inside the prison.

A security guard intercepted the suspect, forcing the attacker to detonate a suicide vest, killing the soldier and wounding three others, according to security sources. 

Security sources say three people were arrested.

It’s unclear how the bomber managed to pass through security checks to make his way to a mosque inside Mogadishu’s biggest central prison.

The mosque also is used by officials from Somalia’s military tribunal, which tries Al-Shabab suspects.

Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the attack.
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China Protests U.S. Ship Sailing Past an Artificial Island in South China Sea

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China expressed “strong dissatisfaction” Friday, after a U.S. warship sailed near an artificial island in the strategic South China Sea.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said in a statement that the USS John S. McCain had violated Chinese and international law, undermined Chinese sovereignty and security, and endangered the safety of frontline personnel.

The Chinese navy “identified the U.S. warship, warned and expelled it,’’ the spokesman said.

The U.S. destroyer sailed 6 nautical miles past Mischief Reef Thursday as part of a freedom of navigation operation in international waters, a U.S. navy official said on condition of anonymity.

The freedom of navigation operation was the third that the United States has carried out since President Donald Trump took office in January. U.S. officials say the military will continue to sail, fly and operate wherever permitted by international law.

China, which claims virtually the entire South China Sea, routinely protests such operations.
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US Special Counsel Mueller Probes Trump Finances

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What does President Donald Trump’s 2008 sale of a Florida mansion to a Russian billionaire have to do with collusion during the 2016 election?

On the surface, not a whole lot.

“You know the closest I came to Russia, I bought a house a number of years ago in Palm Beach … for $40 million, and I sold it to a Russian for $100 million,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in 2015.

Two years later, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators are taking a closer look at the lucrative sale — as well as a host of other deals involving Trump’s businesses — as they search for clues into whether Trump’s campaign coordinated with Moscow to influence last year’s election.

Questions raised

The expansion of Mueller’s investigation into Trump’s finances has raised questions about how far the special counsel can go in chasing down leads before the probe devolves into a fishing expedition beyond its intended scope.

While following the money trail can uncover critical clues in any white-collar crime investigation, Trump recently warned that any digging into his finances would be a violation of Mueller’s mandate. White-collar crime typically is nonviolent and done for financial gain.

The special counsel authority given to Mueller by the Justice Department on May 17 is relatively broad but has room for interpretation. While it explicitly authorized him to investigate “any links and/or coordination” between the Trump campaign and Moscow during the election, it also mandated Mueller to examine “any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation.”

Grand jury rules

Thomas Zeno, a former federal prosecutor now with the Squire Patton Boggs law firm, said examining Trump’s business dealings does not necessarily fall outside the special counsel’s mandate.

“Just hearing the president’s investments are being looked at is not enough,” Zeno said. “We need to know why. We don’t know why because that’s what Mr. Mueller is doing behind a grand jury.”

Muller’s team operates under grand jury secrecy rules and does not comment on the investigation.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller in May and supervises his investigation, said that Mueller was operating within his mandate.

“We don’t engage in fishing expeditions,” Rosenstein told Fox Sunday, using a phrase for an investigation that doesn’t stick to a stated purpose but hopes to uncover incriminating information.

Rosenstein said Mueller would have to seek his permission to investigate matters that fall outside his mandate.

Eric Jaso, a former associate independent counsel for the Whitewater investigation who is now a partner with the Spiro Harrison law firm, said Mueller’s mandate gives him “a fair amount of wiggle room” to probe matters related to the investigation.

However, there is no requirement to publicize any additional authorities given to the special counsel, Jaso said.

A spokesman for Mueller did not respond to a request for comment.

Trump’s Russia ties

Trump has long de-emphasized his financial ties to Russia. In February, he told reporters, “Speaking for myself, I own nothing in Russia. I have no loans in Russia. I have no deals in Russia.”

To demonstrate his limited Russian dealings, the president’s lawyers released a letter in March showing income from two Russian deals: $95 million from the 2008 sale of the Palm Beach mansion to Russian fertilizer tycoon Dmitry Rybolovlev, and nearly $12 million from a partnership with oligarch Aras Agalarov to bring the Miss Universe pageant to Moscow in 2013.

But in 2008, Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, told investors in Moscow, “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”

Seva Gunitsky, a University of Toronto professor who has researched Trump’s Russian business interests, said the president’s financial connections to Russia run deeper than he has admitted. Since the 1990s, he said, Trump has done “hundreds of millions of dollars” worth of business with Russian investors “if not more.”

The Florida mansion sale and the Miss Universe pageant are among an array of financial transactions Mueller’s investigators are examining, Bloomberg reported last month.

Investigators are also looking at Trump’s partnership with Russian investors in a controversial New York condo-hotel project and purchases of Trump condos by Russian investors.

As part of their investigation, Mueller’s team is delving into the finances of Trump associates, including former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, son-in-law Jared Kushner and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who has deep financial ties to Russia and Ukraine. Last month, FBI agents raided Manafort’s home outside Washington to seize documents and other material, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.

To conduct the investigation, Mueller has assembled a high-caliber team of lawyers, including three with extensive experience in the financial fraud section of Department of Justice’s Criminal Division.

“If you want to get to the roots of collusion, to the roots of Trump’s relationship with Russia, they don’t start with Putin, and certainly don’t start with the 2016 campaign,” Gunitsky said. “They start with lots and lots of Russian oligarch money coming into Trump’s real estate businesses, into his casino businesses, since the 1990s and even earlier.”

The president’s refusal to release his tax returns makes it difficult to know the exact extent of his Russian financial interests, Gunitsky said.

Andrew Kent, a Fordham University law professor, said the expansion of Mueller’s investigation has put Trump and the special counsel on a collision course.

“If the investigation gets hot for Trump personally, for his son or son-in-law, I’d not be at all surprised if President Trump took steps to try to fire Mueller or otherwise rein in the investigation,” Kent said.

Asked if he’d thought about or considered firing Mueller, Trump told reporters Thursday, “I haven’t given it any thought. … No, I’m not dismissing anybody. I want them to get on with the task.”
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U.S. Considering Lethal Defensive Arms to Ukraine

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U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration is considering arming Ukraine with lethal defensive weapons that Kyiv could use against Russia-backed separatists. Opponents argue arming Ukraine risks escalating the conflict while supporters say better weapons would act as a deterrence to Russian aggression and give a psychological and political boost to Kyiv. The debate comes as Trump’s new envoy on Ukraine, Kurt Volker, is to visit Russia soon. VOA’s Daniel Schearf reports from Washington.
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Trump Faces Crisis on North Korea Amid Backdrop of Sliding Polls

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President Donald Trump is facing his greatest foreign policy challenge in dealing with a nuclear-potent North Korea. But the test comes in the wake of recent polls that show the president’s political standing at home has weakened because of doubts about his leadership and his stalled domestic agenda. VOA National correspondent Jim Malone has more from Washington.
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Trump Doubles Down on His Promise to Curb North Korea

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U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday escalated his rhetoric regarding North Korea’s nuclear threat. Pyongyang Wednesday announced it is working on a plan to attack the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam. That came after Trump vowed the U.S. would unleash “fire and fury like the world has never seen” if North Korea continues its provocations. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports Trump said a response to a North Korean attack on a U.S. territory or its allies would see unprecedented consequences.
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Suspected of Corruption, Israel’s Netanyahu Blames Media

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Directly addressing his nationalist base, a beleaguered leader accuses the news media of obsessively promoting a liberal agenda, conducting a “witch hunt against me and my family,” and trying to overturn unpalatable electoral outcomes through sinister legal machinations.

This is the case Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu made to his supporters Wednesday night.

Netanyahu has always had a thorny relationship with Israel’s prominent media outlets, where top writers, broadcasters and editors are generally more open to peace-seeking concessions to the Palestinians than the prime minister’s nationalist Likud Party is. But his comments at a Likud Party rally Wednesday evening — days after police revealed he is a suspect in several corruption cases — were an escalation.

Corruption investigations

With hundreds of adoring supporters cheering wildly, Netanyahu launched into a tirade, accusing the media and political opposition of conspiring to topple him when he cannot be defeated at the ballot box. He carefully avoided any mention of the police and prosecutors who are conducting the actual investigation.

“The thought police in the media work full-time to set the agenda, and woe to anyone who veers away from it,” Netanyahu said. “We know that the left and the media — and we know that it’s the same thing — is on an obsessive witch hunt against me and my family with the goal of achieving a coup against the government.”

The crowd chanted “Down with the Media,” and one member held a large placard with a vulgar English expression against the media in front of the TV cameras. A reporter from the Times of Israel news site said Netanyahu supporters hurled insults and epithets at him, while a Channel 10 TV reporter was surrounded by a group of people who taunted him.

Other leaders attack media 

The tactic of attacking the media to deflect attention from political and legal trouble also seems part of an emerging zeitgeist in authoritarian-leaning countries these days.

In Vladimir Putin’s Russia, independent media have been taken over by Kremlin-friendly figures and muckraking reporters have faced dismissals and even death. In Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey, scores of journalists are in jail, and in Viktor Orban’s Hungary, the independent media is regularly vilified.

But the most striking parallel, of course, is with US President Donald Trump, who has constantly attacked the media, especially after he won the Republican nomination about a year ago and many American media outlets began in earnest to fact-check his statements and frequently conclude he has a penchant for uttering provable falsehoods.

The New York Times now keeps a running tally of “Trump’s Lies,” and Politifact, a fact-checking project operated by the Tampa Bay Times, has classified 69 percent of Trump’s statements as either “mostly false,” “false,” or “pants on fire.”

Trump, in turn, has cast journalists in general as his opposition, taken to broad statements accusing the mainstream media of peddling “fake news,” called reporters “dishonest” and repeatedly accused journalists of “making up” stories.

His White House has engaged in an extraordinarily combative relationship with the media, restricted access to certain briefings and, for a while, blocked video from the daily press briefings, which traditionally had been broadcast live.

Netanyahu media support

Netanyahu has employed some similar tactics. He rarely gives interviews or holds press conferences, preferring instead staged photo opportunities, handout videos or statements delivered on Facebook and WhatsApp. His government is pushing to close the Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera, accusing it of incitement. And like Trump, Netanyahu has feuded with several prominent TV journalists over their coverage. When Trump visited Israel in May, Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, commiserated with Trump and his wife, Melania, about the perceived unfairness of the media.

The situation is not clear-cut. Just as Trump has the support of some right-leaning newspapers, and conservative radio and TV outlets, there are equivalents in Israel, including newspapers and websites allied with the religious and nationalist camps that support Likud. One newspaper, Israel Hayom, was founded by Netanyahu’s billionaire supporter Sheldon Adelson and often serves as a virtual mouthpiece for the prime minister.

But when Netanyahu attacks the media, he is referring to Israel’s venerable established publications and the main private broadcast channels.

The main boogeyman for his supporters is probably the liberal Haaretz newspaper, which is generally critical of Netanyahu. Its editorial line staunchly backs a liberal world order, and it supports far-reaching efforts to reach a deal establishing a Palestinian state and ending Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.

Us versus them

Part of the equation may relate to societal divisions. As in other countries, Israeli journalists disproportionately hail from parts of society — more secular, more educated, more urban and attuned to other cultures — than the base that supports insular policies and autocratic leaders, which can lean toward rural, uneducated and religious.

Netanyahu’s base, for example, is heavily populated with Israel’s less-privileged: Jews of Middle Eastern descent living in poorer provincial towns alienated from the European-descended “elites” who remain predominant in academia, the legal system, the security establishment and the media.

Netanyahu’s own background — the secular, European-descended, American-educated millionaire son of a professor — seems to bother his base no more than Trump’s wealth and Ivy League background disturbs his voters in rural America and the Rust Belt.

It has all added up to an effective “us versus them” approach that has repeatedly worked for Netanyahu throughout his three-decade political career.

Lost in the debate seems to be that the media had nothing to do with the investigations into possible bribery, fraud and penchant for expensive gifts by the prime minister. The scandals were compounded last week with the announcement that a longtime Netanyahu aid, Ari Harow, had agreed to testify against his former boss.
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UNICEF: 550,000 Children in Libya Need Aid

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United Nations children agency UNICEF warned Wednesday that more than half a million children in Libya need help and called on warring parties to end the violence and negotiate a political solution to the crisis.

Libya has spiraled into turmoil after a civil war ousted longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. Rival brigades of former rebels backed by competing political factions have turned against each other in a fight for control.

A U.N.-backed government in Tripoli is trying to extend its influence, though it is facing resistance from armed rivals.

UNICEF Regional Director Geert Cappelaere said that 550,000 children need assistance because of the political instability, on-going conflict, displacement, and economic collapse.

“The well-being of girls and boys in Libya should be a priority for authorities, civil society and the international community,” Cappelaere said in a statement after visiting the country.

UNICEF said nearly 200,000 children in Libya need safe drinking water, while 315,000 need educational support with more than 550 schools in the country either destroyed, damaged or used as shelters.

Cappelaere warned that more than 80,000 children are internally displaced and migrant children in Libya are particularly vulnerable to abuse and exploitation, including in detention centers.

In a report in May, UNICEF said that thousands of unaccompanied children attempting to make it across the Mediterranean from Libya to Italy can become easy prey for traffickers who often sell them into exploitation, sometimes akin to contemporary forms of slavery.
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Human Rights Watch: 27 Killed in Congo Protest 

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At least 27 people, including three police officers, were killed in clashes between protesters and police in Democratic Republic of Congo earlier this week, Human Rights Watch said Thursday.

The majority of the deaths were in the capital, Kinshasa, where members of the separatist sect Bundu dia Kongo (BDK) marched against President Joseph Kabila and attacked a prison Monday.

BDK is just one of many sources of opposition to Kabila that have threatened to plunge the vast, mineral-rich central African country into chaos since the president refused to step down when his mandate expired in December.

“Prompt and impartial investigations are needed to determine who is responsible for the deaths. … Violence by protesters or excessive use of force by security forces should not be tolerated and those responsible should be held accountable,” HRW Central Africa director Ida Sawyer said.

Congo security forces shot into crowds to disperse the protesters in Kinshasa, killing 11 BDK members and 10 bystanders, Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

Others were killed in similar clashes in the southwestern cities of Matadi and Muanda, it added.

Congo’s police spokesman said Wednesday that 19 people had been killed in total, including 17 BDK members and two police.
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Thousands Shelter in Hospital After Militants Burn CAR Refugee Camp

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Thousands of people uprooted by violence in the Central African Republic are taking refuge in a hospital after armed groups looted and burned a camp for the displaced, medical charity Doctors Without Borders said Thursday.

At least 10,000 people are staying on the grounds of the hospital in Batangafo — 400 kilometers (250 miles) north of the capital, Bangui — nearly two weeks after fighting broke out between rival groups, according to the charity, known by its French initialism of MSF.

The camp for the displaced was attacked and several aid groups were looted during two waves of violence that left 24 people dead and 17 injured as of the start of August, MSF said.

“The people taking refuge in the hospital … are still unable to rebuild their shelters in the camp,” MSF project coordinator Carlos Francisco said in a statement.

The medical charity said it was providing basic water and sanitation services for the displaced, and that health services were running as normal after having been disrupted by the fighting.

“Much of the general population is in a state of complete helplessness,” Francisco added. “Imagine what the situation must be like when people think that the only safe option left to them is a hospital … knowing that not even hospitals are safe.”

Patients abducted, baby slain

Hospitals in the southeastern towns of Bangassou and Zemio have been targeted by militant groups in recent months — with armed men abducting two patients who were later found dead, and shooting and killing a baby being held by its mother, MSF said.

Six Red Cross volunteers were killed last week in an attack on a health center in southeastern Gambo, the aid group said, adding that civilians and health workers might have also died.

Thousands have died and a fifth of Central Africans — nearly 1 million — have fled their homes in an ethnic and religious conflict that broke out after mainly Muslim Seleka rebels seized power in 2013, provoking a backlash from Christian militias.

Militia violence has intensified across the Central African Republic this year as splinter groups clash over control of land and resources, sparking fears of a return to the large-scale chaos that gripped the country at the peak of a 2013 civil war.

U.N. aid chief Stephen O’Brien on Monday told a U.N. briefing that the “warning signs of genocide are there.”

O’Brien last month told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that the country has “the worst level of humanitarian needs per capita,” as about one in two people — 2.2 million — need aid.
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UN Secretary-General ‘Heartbroken’ Over Drowning of Migrants Off Yemen

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U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says he is heartbroken over the drowning of dozens of migrants off the coast of Yemen.

Smugglers forced nearly 300 migrants from Ethiopia and Somalia overboard from two separate boats Wednesday and Thursday.

The International Organization for Migration says at least 56 migrants drowned, with many of them buried in shallow graves on the beach in Yemen’s southern Shabwa province by survivors.

At least 65 are missing, and those who survived and chose not to remain on the beach have disappeared.

Pathways to legal migration

A Guterres spokesman said Thursday the U.N. chief stresses that the international community must make it a priority to prevent such crises that cause the mass movement of people and exposes them to danger.

“We must also increase legal pathways for regular migration and other credible alternatives to these dangerous crossings for people in need of international protection,” the spokesman said.

U.N. migration officials are providing emergency food, shelter and medical aid to those who survived and stayed on the Yemeni beach.

They say they are shocked to find that the average age of those who drowned was 16.

The smugglers, often heavily armed, are afraid to get too close to land because they believe authorities are waiting for them, so they force the migrants into the sea.

“So the migrants had a choice. They would either be harmed more than they probably had been on the journey, shot, or go jump into the sea. Some were actually physically pushed as well,” IOM spokeswoman Olivia Headon told VOA.

Headon said it is unlikely the smugglers would ever be caught.

Thousands flee to Yemen

About 55,000 migrants have arrived in Yemen from the Horn of Africa this year, hoping to find work somewhere in the oil-rich Persian Gulf.

After arriving they try to move on quickly from Yemen, one of the world’s poorest countries, which also is wracked by violence, including airstrikes by a Saudi-led coalition fighting Houthi rebels.

About 80 percent of Yemen’s people are in desperate need of food and medical care, and the country also in the midst of a cholera outbreak.

Lisa Schlein, Salem Solomon and Margaret Besheer contributed to this report.
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US-Africa Trade Talks End With No Decision, Waning Enthusiasm

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Talks between African and U.S. officials to review the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) free-trade deal ended Thursday with no decision and a feeling on all sides that it has achieved little since it was set up.

President Donald Trump’s top trade negotiator, Robert E. Lighthizer, and other U.S. officials have been in the tiny West African nation of Togo over the past two days to discuss the Clinton-era trade pact with sub-Saharan Africa.

Trump’s “America First” campaign has seen him withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, threaten to tear up the North American Free Trade Agreement and seek to renegotiate the U.S.-South Korea free-trade deal. But his administration has said little about Africa, and had not previously mentioned the 2000 AGOA trade agreement.

It is not clear whether the U.S. wants to change the deal before it expires in 2025 or extend it. No decision was made on either count.

AGOA allows tariff-free access for thousands of goods from 38 African nations to U.S. markets.

“The number of countries benefiting from AGOA is very limited, as is the number of sectors,” Peter Barlerin, deputy assistant secretary in the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs, said at the forum Wednesday. “We will see if the situation improves in the coming years, but it is also up to the beneficiary countries to enhance their business climate.”

‘Constraints’ on some

Bernadette Legzim-Balouki, Togo’s trade minister, who presided over the meeting, was equally lukewarm on AGOA.

“Not all the countries eligible have benefited from the law,” she said. “We are trying to examine the constraints that prevent some African countries from profiting.”

Legzim-Balouki added that the United States and the nations eligible for AGOA had agreed on some loose aims, including: development of a better plan to take full advantage of the pact; bilateral talks between the U.S. and each eligible country; development of a mechanism to protect African producers from price volatility.

The U.S. trade deficit with the AGOA countries shrank to about $7.9 billion last year from a peak of $64 billion in 2008, as U.S. shale oil production increases have lessened the need for oil imports from major exporters Nigeria and Angola.

“AGOA is an excellent opportunity but we aren’t making the most of it, mainly due to a lack of knowledge about it,” Beninois agribusinessman Sylvain Adewoussi told Reuters.
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German Foreign Minister Urges Peaceful End to Conflict in Juba Visit

Posted on by SeeAF

German Foreign Affairs Minister Sigmar Gabriel met Thursday with South Sudan President Salva Kiir and other government officials during a one-day visit to Juba, a day after meeting dozens of South Sudanese refugees in neighboring Uganda, which hosts the largest refugee camp on the continent.

Gabriel urged the country’s leaders to use peaceful means to resolve South Sudan’s ongoing conflict, saying both sides should be included in efforts to restore peace and stability across the nation.                   

He said he was happy that Kiir had pardoned rebel prisoners, adding it was “an important sign for the political reconciliation process of the country.”

Germany has contributed $90 million in humanitarian aid to South Sudan to protect civilians and help build a durable peace in the war-ravaged country.

The humanitarian situation in the country is dire, with 4 million people displaced by the conflict, severe levels of food insecurity, extreme poverty and disease, including an ongoing cholera outbreak with 18,000 cases resulting in 328 deaths in the past year.

Gabriel said there was no alternative to a peaceful solution for ending the violence in South Sudan, saying the warring parties could not win the conflict militarily.

South Sudan Minister for Foreign Affairs Deng Alor said the president and his ministers discussed a number of issues with Gabriel, including “the issue of war and peace,” as well as humanitarian efforts and revitalization of the peace process.

Homegrown solutions

Gabriel stressed the importance of finding homegrown solutions to South Sudan’s conflict to complement regional efforts aimed at achieving peace in the country.   

“It is a good thing that the international community and also the neighboring countries like Uganda support the peace process. However, the peace process can only be successful when it comes from South Sudan itself,” Gabriel said.

The German foreign minister’s Juba visit came amid reports of recent fighting between government and opposition forces in Pagak, a rebel stronghold. Over the past week, both sides have claimed to be in control of Pagak. Those reports have not been independently verified on the ground, as the fighting continued off and on this week.

Earlier this week, when Gabriel traveled to the Ugandan district of Arua, he met South Sudanese refugees who told him about the horrors of war they witnessed before fleeing to Uganda.

“Yesterday, in Uganda, we saw how many people fled from South Sudan to Uganda, because they don’t see any other opportunity to secure their survival and that of their children,” Gabriel said.

Nearly 1 million refugees from South Sudan have crossed into Uganda since the conflict began in late 2013.
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Officials: Rwandan Refugee in Uganda Kidnapped in Capital

Posted on by SeeAF

Ugandan officials say a Rwandan refugee has been kidnapped by unknown people in the capital, Kampala.

Apollo Kazungu, a government commissioner in charge of refugees, says Rene Rutagungira was known to refugee officials before the incident this week.

 

Ugandan police and U.N. officials did not immediately comment.

 

Over the years, some Rwandan exiles and refugees in Uganda have complained about the risk of abduction by Rwandan agents.

 

Douglas Asiimwe, a refugee officer, says it is not possible to give bodyguards to Rwandan refugees despite the threats.
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Syrian Army Gains Ground on Jordan Border in Southwest

Posted on by SeeEA

The Syrian army and its allies seized control of at least 30 km (19 miles) of Syria’s border with Jordan from rebels in an attack on Thursday, two rebel groups and a Syrian military source said.

A military media unit run by Hezbollah, a close ally of the Syrian government, said the army and its allies had gained control over all checkpoints and border posts on the border in Sweida, one of four Syrian provinces that border Jordan.

Rebel groups, some of them backed by Western and Arab

states, still control much of Syria’s southwestern frontier with Jordan and Israel.

Sweida province was not included in a U.S.-Russian brokered cease-fire that took effect in nearby areas of the southwest in July.

Said Saef, spokesman for the Western-backed rebel group Martyr Ahmed Abdo brigade, said Thursday’s attack came from two sides in Sweida’s east countryside. “Most of the eastern Sweida countryside is now in the hands of the regime,” he added.

The army had advanced to the border and retaken posts it abandoned in the early years of the conflict when rebels took over large parts of southwestern Syria.

“They are now on the Jordanian border and back to outposts they had evacuated early in the conflict,” said Saef.

Another rebel spokesman said the army gains were helped by a sudden pull-back by Jaish al-Ashair rebel group, which is backed by Jordan and had been responsible for patrolling that stretch of the border.

The Syrian military source said the army and its allies had taken more than 30 km of the border, and described the advance as a “big success.”
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Distrust, Suspicion Harbored By Both Sides in Brexit Talks

Posted on by SeeEU

Brexit talks are laced with distrust and suspicion as British and European Union negotiators ready to identify even apparently trivial oversights as ways to gain the upper hand. 

According to a British government worker writing anonymously for a London political magazine, the failure of European negotiators to ensure water was available at a recent Brussels meeting was later viewed by the British team as evidence of “unsporting tactics.” 

‘Blood on the floor’

For weeks now, EU and British officials have been warning that already complex talks on Britain’s exit from the European Union are being hampered by deep-rooted mistrust. 

British lawmakers accuse their erstwhile European partners of wanting to extract revenge for last year’s referendum; their European counterparts and officials say the British must agree to a divorce bill of upwards of $50 billion before Brussels will negotiate on a possible trade deal for post-Brexit Britain.

In an interview this week with a British newspaper, former European Commission president Roman Prodi warned that talks between Britain’s Brexit minister, David Davis and Michel Barnier, the EU chief negotiator, had started badly with “blood on the floor.” 

He urged both sides to make compromises — especially over Britain’s future trade arrangements with Europe — saying there was an imprecise grasp of the real economic consequences of Brexit. “The weight of damage is probably heavier on the UK side, but there is damage on both sides,” said Prodi.

And a former top British diplomat, Simon Fraser, says the formal talks, which began only two months ago, hadn’t started well. Speaking on BBC Radio, Fraser, who campaigned in the run-up to last year’s Brexit referendum for the country to retain EU membership, said, “I don’t think they have begun particularly promisingly, frankly, on the British side.” 

“We haven’t put forward a lot because, as we know, there are differences within the [British] Cabinet about the sort of Brexit that we are heading for and until those differences are further resolved, I think it’s very difficult for us to have a clear position.” 

Fraser’s comments were rejected by a spokesman for British Prime Minister Theresa May, who said talks were moving quickly. He said Downing Street believed the Brexit bill Brussels says Britain will owe in outstanding financial obligations, as well as the future status of Britons living in Europe and Europeans living in Britain, would be settled by October, opening the way for talks to begin about a future trade deal.

That, however, is not the view of Brussels negotiators. And Ireland’s prime minister, Leo Varadkar, has warned even if the Brexit bill is settled, he will veto moving on to trade talks if he is unsatisfied with the cross-border arrangements between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. 

Dublin and politicians in Northern Ireland, which voted against Brexit, oppose the return of a hard border between the north and south of the island, Britain’s only land frontier with the EU.

EU officials say the British government is not being clear about what it wants in terms of future relations with Europe. “The United Kingdom still has to come to terms with its negotiating mandate,” warned the EU commissioner for agriculture, Phil Hogan.

Britain’s Cabinet is sharply divided over whether the country should remain a member of the EU’s single market and customs union after Brexit. The increasingly powerful chancellor of the exchequer, (finance minister) Phil Hammond, backed by some of the country’s top business people, is trying to maneuver the ruling Conservatives away from a so-called ‘hard Brexit.’ 

Economic danger to Britain

On Wednesday, the deputy governor of the Bank of England, Sam Woods, issued a warning about the economic danger to Britain of leaving the EU without any trade deal. Even a transitional one, would cause “significant issues” for Britain’s private banks and could threaten the country’s financial stability, he said.

Hardline Brexiters in the Cabinet want a sharp break with the EU, arguing single market membership would prevent them from negotiating bilateral trade deals with non-EU states, stop Britain from ending free movement of Europeans into the country and force London to abide by the rulings of EU courts. 

 

British voters appear to be increasingly worried about Brexit negotiations. In an opinion poll this week, 60 percent said they disapproved of the government’s handling of Brexit, up 17 percent from April.

Jitters about the possible economic fallout from Brexit appear to also be impacting Britain’s property market, which bounced back quickly from the 2008 financial crash.

On Thursday, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said the growth of home prices and market activity had stalled in London and the southeast and that there was a lack of momentum, with low levels of buyer inquiries.
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Controversial Film About Russian Czar Cleared for Release

Posted on by SeeEU

A historical film about the last Russian czar’s affair with a ballerina has been cleared for release, the Culture Ministry said Thursday, despite passionate calls for its ban.

“Matilda,” which describes Nicholas II’s relationship with Matilda Kshesinskaya has drawn virulent criticism from some Orthodox believers and hard-line nationalists, who see it as blasphemy against the emperor, glorified as a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church.

Russian lawmaker Natalya Poklonskaya, who previously had served as the chief regional prosecutor in Crimea following its 2014 annexation by Moscow, spearheaded the campaign for banning the film. She even asked the Prosecutor General’s office to carry out an inquiry into “Matilda,” which is set to be released on the centennial of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution.

The lavish production, filmed in historic imperial palaces and featuring sumptuous costumes, loosely follows the story of Nicholas II’s infatuation with Kshesinskaya that began when he was heir-apparent and ended at his marriage in 1894.

The czar and his family were executed by a Bolshevik firing squad in July 1918. The Russian Orthodox Church made them saints in 2000.

“Matilda” opponents have gathered signatures against the film, and earlier this month several hundred people gathered to pray outside a Moscow church for the movie to be banned.

The film’s critics were recently joined by Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed regional leader of Chechnya, and authorities in the neighboring province of Dagestan, who argued that “Matilda” should be barred from theaters in the mostly Muslim regions in Russia’s North Caucasus.

Director Alexei Uchitel has rejected the accusations and prominent Russian filmmakers have come to his defense. The film’s critics and its defenders both have appealed to the Kremlin, but it has refrained from publicly entering the fray.

On Thursday, the Russian Culture Ministry finally announced that the film has received official clearance.

Vyasheslav Telnov, the head of the ministry’s film department, said it checked “Matilda” and found it in full compliance with legal norms.

Asked to comment on statements from Chechnya and Dagestan, Telnov said that the film has been cleared for release nationwide, but the law allows regional authorities to make their own decisions.

“There is no censorship in Russia, and the Ministry of Culture stays away from any ideological views of beliefs,” he said. “A feature film can’t be banned for political or ideological motives.”

Disputes over the movie reflect the rising influence of the Russian Orthodox Church and the increasing assertiveness of radical religious activists.

Russia’s growing conservative streak has worried many in the country’s artistic community. A Moscow art gallery recently shut down an exhibition of nude photos by an American photographer after a raid by vigilantes, and a theater in the Siberian city of Omsk canceled a performance of the musical “Jesus Christ Superstar” following a petition by devout Orthodox believers.
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Kenyan Officials Say Attempted Hack of Election System Failed

Posted on by SeeAF

The chairman of Kenya’s election commission said Thursday its voting system was attacked one week before Tuesday’s presidential election but was not compromised.

“Hacking was attempted but did not succeed,” Commission Chairman Wafula Chebukati told reporters at a news conference in the capital of Nairobi. Chebukati did not provide details.

Kenyans, meanwhile, continue to anxiously await the final vote count from the election amid claims it was rigged and election protests that have resulted in the deaths of several people.

Kenyatta leads, Odinga claims fraud

The commission said as of late Wednesday, President Uhuru Kenyatta had a commanding 54 percent to 44.8 percent lead over Raila Odinga, who has charged the election was tainted by massive fraud. 

Odinga’s claims sparked isolated protests Wednesday in several areas of Nairobi, the western city of Kisumu and in the Tana River region, leaving four people dead in clashes with police.

Rafael Tuju, secretary general of Kenyatta’s Jubilee Party, dismissed Odinga’s accusations as “disingenuous” and appealed for calm.

“These results are not coming from out of the blue, they are marked by facts, and you cannot claim that results are fake with respect to presidential and you welcome the areas where your governors and your members of parliament have won convincingly,” Tuju said.

Kenyatta and Odinga have a deep rivalry. They ran against each other in the 2007 and 2013 presidential elections. Odinga alleged vote-tampering after losing in 2013 and challenged the result in court. The 2007 election was followed by violence fueled by ethnic divisions that killed more than 1,000 people.

In addition to choosing a president, voters also decided on senators, governors, women’s representatives of the national assembly, members of the national assembly, and members of the county assemblies. 

Former U.S. secretary of state John Kerry is part of the international election observation mission. He said the long lines he saw at polling stations Tuesday are a sign Kenyan voters are committed.

“It’s too early for us to draw any kinds of conclusions, so we’re not. But, obviously, given what’s happened in the past and given the stakes for the future, this is a very, very important election, and clearly the citizens of Kenya are taking it very, very seriously,” Kerry said.
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Egypt Inflation Surges to 33 Percent After Fuel Subsidy Cuts

Posted on by SeeEA

Egypt’s official statistics agency says the country’s inflation rate has jumped to 33 percent in July – up from 29.8 percent in June.

The announcement comes as Egyptians struggle in the face of steep price hikes as part of the government’s economic reform plan.

 

The Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics made the announcement Thursday.

 

Economists believe the hike is driven by an increase in fuel prices. They expect inflation to remain above 30 percent over the next two months, especially after an increase in electricity, transportation and drinking water prices.

 

Egypt raised fuel prices in June by 55 percent for the commonly used 80-octane gasoline and diesel. It also doubled the price of the butane gas canisters, used in the majority of Egyptian households for cooking.
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