Month: September 2017

Togo Postpones Parliament Session on Reforming Constitution

Posted on by SeeAF

Togo’s parliament suspended its session Tuesday as opposition members protested the lack of a promised discussion of constitutional reforms, while anger grew over the 50-year-rule of the Gnassingbe family.

Opposition lawmakers want a discussion on reinstating the country’s 1992 constitution, which included presidential term limits and two rounds of voting to allow the opposition to reassemble behind one candidate.

 

Thousands of people across the small West African nation have been demonstrating for term limits on President Faure Gnassingbe, who has been in power since his father died in 2005. The protests began last month, when security forces killed at least two people and injured several others.

 

The government last week introduced a draft bill on constitutional reform in parliament in an effort to contain the growing anti-government protests that have seen police fire tear gas at a peaceful sit-in as opposition members called for Gnassingbe’s resignation.

 

Main opposition party spokesman Eric Dupuy said the heads of a parliamentary commission are expected to meet Wednesday to review the draft bill. It was not clear when a vote on it might take place.

 

A similar constitutional reform draft bill was rejected two years ago in parliament, where the ruling party holds a majority of seats.

 

Though Gnassingbe has not said he would run again in 2020, the opposition has said it suspects he will not quit power unless compelled to step down.

 

Gnassingbe’s father ruled for 38 years. Before his 2005 death, he modified the constitution to remove the limit of two five-year presidential terms.

 

The unrest in Togo has led to the postponement, at Gnassingbe’s request, of an Israel-Africa summit that was meant to take place there next month, Israel’s foreign ministry said Monday. The summit is part of Israel’s efforts to win the support of African nations on the global stage and especially at the United Nations, where resolutions in the General Assembly regularly criticize Israel on the Palestinian issue.

 

The summit faced boycotts from a number of African countries even before the unrest began. A new date for the summit has not been set.
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Rights Group: Saudi-led Airstrikes Kill Yemeni Children

Posted on by SeeEA

The Saudi-led coalition waging an air campaign against Yemen’s Houthi rebels in the north is killing children in what amounts to war crimes, an international rights group said Tuesday.

Human Rights Watch released a detailed report documenting the deaths of 26 children killed in five airstrikes since June. The group said that despite coalition promises to abide by international law, the airstrikes have failed to do that and it urged the United Nations to place the coalition on its “list of shame,” a blacklist of countries that violate child rights.

HRW also called for an international investigation into possible war crimes.

“Saudi Arabia pledged to minimize civilian harm, yet coalition airstrikes are still wiping out entire families,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director of the New York-based group. “Yemeni civilians should not be asked to wait any longer for (United Nations) Human Rights Council members, including Saudi allies the U.S. and U.K., to support a credible international inquiry.”

In most of its internal investigations, the coalition either admits making mistakes due to technical errors or bad intelligence or denies responsibility. No international investigation has taken place despite repeated calls from rights groups. Meanwhile, the United States and Western countries have continued to support the coalition with intelligence, logistics and billion-dollar arms deals.

The conflict in Yemen pits Shiite Houthi rebels and allied forces of the ousted Yemeni president against the internationally recognized government and its main backers, the Saudi-led coalition.

Airstrikes the past two years have targeted civilian gatherings at weddings, funerals, hospitals, markets and houses. Over 10,000 people have been killed and three million others displaced as the conflict coupled with a naval and air blockade has pushed Yemen to the brink of famine.

The U.N.’s annual report on children and armed conflict showed that 785 children were killed and more than 1,000 others wounded in Yemen in 2015, with 60 percent of the casualties caused by coalition airstrikes.

Peace talks have failed to bridge the gap between warring parties while alliances on both sides appeared to be unraveling, threatening to prolong the conflict.
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Zimbabwe’s First Lady Denies Assault, Says She Was Attacked

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Representatives of Zimbabwe’s first lady say a young woman who accused her of assault was the actual aggressor, allegedly attacking Grace Mugabe with a knife while drunk, according to a court document filed in South Africa.   

 

The court papers denying any wrongdoing by Mugabe were submitted August 17 by Zimbabwean diplomats on behalf of Mugabe, who was granted diplomatic immunity by South Africa despite calls for her prosecution in the alleged attack on the woman in a Johannesburg hotel on August 13. She returned to Zimbabwe a week after the alleged assault with President Robert Mugabe, who had attended a summit of southern African leaders in Pretoria.

 

The Associated Press obtained a copy of the court document on Tuesday from AfriForum, a group representing 20-year-old Gabriella Engels, who said she suffered head wounds while being whipped with an extension cord by 52-year-old Grace Mugabe. AfriForum has said it will challenge the South African government over the immunity issue in an attempt to complicate any effort by the first lady to return to South Africa.

 

Grace Mugabe went to see her sons in a hotel suite because they were “in trouble with a drunken young woman,” says the court document filed by Zimbabwean diplomats.

 

“Upon her arrival Ms. Engels, who was intoxicated, and unhinged, attacked Dr. Grace Mugabe with a knife after she was asked to leave the hotel room. Security was left with no other option but to remove Ms. Engels from the hotel suite,” according to the court filing.

 

Mugabe “reserves the right to press charges of attempted murder” against Engels, the document says.

 

Engels has said she was in a hotel room with mutual friends of Mugabe’s two sons, who live in Johannesburg, when the first lady burst into the room and assaulted her. Photos posted on social media show a bloody gash to Engels’ forehead that she claims was a result of the encounter.

 

In 2009, a photographer accused Mugabe of beating him up in Hong Kong. While the Zimbabwean president’s outspoken wife has been criticized for a fiery temper and lavish shopping expeditions, her rising political profile has some asking whether she is maneuvering to succeed her husband. She recently said that Zimbabwe’s ruling party should restore a constitutional provision stating one of the party’s vice presidents should be a woman, and has publicly challenged her 93-year-old husband to name a successor.
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Houston Students ‘Excited’ to Return to Classes After Harvey

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Students in Houston on their first day of classes following city-wide flooding from Harvey were greeted Monday with hugs from teachers and staff, many coming from school secretary Demitra Cain.

The longtime school district employee said she had probably given out at least 200 hugs as she stood outside Codwell Elementary and greeted students and parents as they began the new school year, which was delayed by two weeks due to Harvey.

Students “are excited to be back. Parents are excited to get students out of the house, to get them back to something normal, to be with their friends,” Cain said.

 

Students at 202 of the Houston school district’s 284 campuses started classes on Monday. Houston has the nation’s seventh-largest school system, with about 215,000 students.

 

The remaining campuses will start classes on Sept. 18 and Sept. 25 due to ongoing clean up and repairs from Harvey, which last month dumped more than 50 inches of rain in some areas around Houston.

 

None of the district’s more than 300 schools and facilities escaped without some impact from the tropical storm, said Superintendent Richard Carranza. The district estimates Harvey caused at least $700 million in damage to schools and other buildings.

 

Nine campuses were so severely damaged that their students will have to be temporarily relocated to vacant district buildings or transferred to nearby schools and three of these campuses likely will be closed for repairs the entire school year. These nine campuses served about 6,500 students last year.

 

“We are working hard to make sure that we’re going to be as normal as normal can be, given the circumstance. We know the quicker we can get students into a routine, it allows mom and dad to get into a routine. It allows the healing to begin,” said Carranza after visiting with students at Codwell Elementary and helping serve some of them breakfast. “So we’ve burned the midnight oil for the last two weeks to make sure we can get as many schools up and running today.”

 

The district planned to pick up students who were still staying at shelters because their homes and apartments were flooded during Harvey and take them to campuses.

 

For students who didn’t start on Monday or who have been staying in shelters, teachers and community groups have been working with them to ensure they get organized instructional activity until they return to the classroom, Carranza said.

 

Chitiquita Myers, who dropped off her 9-year-old son James at Codwell Elementary, said the start of the new school year will give all her seven children a chance to focus on something good and forget about the fear they felt during the tropical storm. Myers said her home did not flood but her kids were scared and “slept in their closets” during the torrential rainfall.

 

“They’re doing good now. All night [Sunday] they were talking about going to school,” said Myers, 33.

 

Other school districts in the Houston area have also had to make adjustments due to damage from Harvey.

 

In the Houston suburb of Humble, Summer Creek High School will share its building for the entire school year with students from Kingwood High School, which was severely damaged. In the Katy school district, students at Creech Elementary will attend classes at an unused satellite location belonging to the University of Houston until repairs to their campus can be completed.
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Macron’s Big Test: France-Wide Protests Over Labor Overhaul

Posted on by SeeEU

Eiffel Tower employees planned a walkout, angry carnival workers snarled traffic around Paris’ Arc de Triomphe, and Paris police girded for potential violence as unions and others hold nationwide protests Tuesday against changes to labor laws they fear corrode job security.

 

The protests are the first big public display of discontent with President Emmanuel Macron’s presidency, which kicked off in May amid enthusiasm over his promises of reviving up the French economy but is now foundering amid anger over the labor decrees and other domestic troubles.

 

The prominent CGT union is leading Tuesday’s protests, calling for strikes and organizing some 180 demonstrations against last labor decrees unveiled last month by Macron’s government.

 

At the Eiffel Tower, CGT union representative Denis Vavassori told The Associated Press that workers plan a walkout Tuesday afternoon, but it is unclear so far whether the monument will be forced to close or will stay partially open for tourists.

 

Horn-tooting funfair workers held a separate protest movement Tuesday against legal changes they say favor big corporations and could wipe out their centuries-old industry.

 

Dozens of big rigs drove at a snail’s pace around the Arc de Triomphe, causing rush-hour traffic snarls as protesters danced and waved flags on a flat-bed truck with a severed plastic head from a funfair ride.

 

The workers said they timed their protest to coincide with Tuesday’s broader labor demonstrations, since both movements are about workers fearing their jobs are at threat.

 

Bumper car worker Sam Frechon said, “everybody likes funfairs. Everybody has been to a funfair one time in his life … Funfair is France.”

 

Meanwhile, thousands of union activists marched Tuesday morning in the Mediterranean city of Marseille, in Le Havre on the English Channel and other cities.

 

An afternoon march is planned in Paris, where police announced extra deployments. While union marches are usually peaceful, troublemakers on the margins often clash with police. A broad movement against similar labor reforms last year saw several weeks of scattered violence.

 

The protests come amid anger at a comment last week by Macron suggesting that opponents of labor reform are “lazy.” Government spokesman Christophe Castaner said on RTL radio Tuesday that Macron didn’t mean workers themselves but politicians who failed to update French labor rules for a globalized age.

 

Macron’s labor decrees — which reduce the power of unions and give companies more authority to fire workers and influence workplace rules — are the first step in what he hopes are deep economic changes. The decrees are to be finalized this month.

 

Critics say they dismantle hard-fought worker protections and accuse the government of being undemocratic for using a special method to push the decrees through parliament.

 

Companies argue that existing rules prevent them from hiring and contribute to France’s high unemployment rate, currently around 10 percent.

 

Some unions refused to join the protests, preferring to negotiate with the government over upcoming changes to unemployment and retirement rules instead of taking their grievances to the street.

 

Macron himself chose Tuesday to go to the French Caribbean to bring aid and meet with victims of Hurricane Irma.
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Know Your Enemy: Russian War Games Expected to Yield Valuable Insight for Western Watchers

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When thousands of Russian troops wheeled and maneuvered through the steppes of southern Siberia two years ago, as part of massive military exercises known as Tsentr, Western experts spotted something unusual.

Amid Defense Ministry orders for tank brigades, paratrooper battalions, motorized rifle divisions, and railroad cars carrying howitzers, there were orders for the federal fisheries agency.

“And I wondered, ‘What the hell is the fisheries ministry doing?'” recalls Johan Norberg, senior military analyst at the Swedish Defense Research Agency. The eventual conclusion, he says, was that the Russian fisheries fleet was seen by military planners as an intelligence asset, playing a small role in national defense.

It’s an example offering a small window into not only how Russian commanders approach large-scale military games. It’s also the kind of insight that Western analysts hope to gain beginning next week when one of the largest exercises Moscow has conducted on its western borders since the Cold War get under way: a real-world, real-time glimpse at what Russia’s military is truly capable of, after years of institutional reforms.

The Zapad drills, taking place in Belarus and the regions east of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania and formally kicking off on September 14, are the first to be held in close proximity to NATO member countries since Russia seized Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014.

For that and many other reasons, they are giving heartburn to NATO allies from the Baltic to the Black Sea, with some observers predicting that the number of participating personnel could exceed 100,000, along with tanks, artillery units, aircraft, and other equipment.

Midterm exam

Though few, if any, Western planners anticipate any outbreak of hostilities with Russia, NATO states have taken steps to reassure their populaces and to show they are taking the Russians seriously. U.S. Air Force fighter jets are now patrolling Baltic airspace; Poland is closing its airspace near Russia’s Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad; and four NATO battle groups, featuring 4,500 troops, are on alert in the Baltics and Poland.

That said, as much as anything, the Zapad exercises serve as a midterm exam for Russian armed forces and military planners, a measure of reforms made over the past decade.

“The exercise is actually a very good opportunity for us to…get a better sense of what the Russian military is actually capable of: how it can handle logistics, move different units, or, in an operation, exercise command and control over combined armed formations in the Baltic theater, which is the one we’re principally concerned with, right?” says Michael Kofman, a senior research scientist at CNA Corporation and a fellow at the Kennan Institute in Washington.

“This one is a lot more interesting to us because we don’t plan on fighting Russia in Central Asia,” Kofman says.

​Preparations have been ongoing for weeks, with large numbers of railroad cars shipping heavy weaponry and vehicles into Belarus and civilians mobilized at some large state-owned enterprises in Kaliningrad and elsewhere.

“As we’ve seen before, Russians train exactly as they intend to fight,” Kristjan Prikk, undersecretary for policy at the Estonian Defense Ministry, said during a July event at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank. “Thus, Zapad will give ample information on their military development and certainly on their political thinking, as it is right now.”

Structural reforms

In 2008, when Russia invaded its former Soviet neighbor Georgia, its armed forces easily overcame Georgia’s defenses and some of its U.S.-trained personnel, but the five-day war showcased significant weaknesses. For example, some Russian officers were reportedly unable to communicate with others over existing radio frequencies and were forced to use regular mobile phones. Russian surveillance drones performed poorly.

Other reforms already under way at the time included a shift from the Soviet military structure, organized around divisions, to a smaller brigade structure and the increased use of contract, rather than conscripted, soldiers.

Russian President Vladimir Putin (front left) speaks with his Belarusian counterpart Alyaksandr Lukashenka during the closing stages of the Zapad war games in 2013.

Reforms also included a substantial increase in defense budgets, something made possible by high world oil prices that stuffed Russia’s coffers. A 10-year plan to upgrade weaponry and other equipment originally called for Russia to spend $650 billion between 2011 and 2020, according to NATO figures, though Western sanctions, plummeting oil prices, and the economic downturn in 2015-16 are believed to have slowed some purchases.

“They’ve had now, say, eight or nine years with plenty of money and the willingness to train, and they have a new organization that they want to test,” Norberg says.

While the Defense Ministry conducts a cycle of exercises roughly every year, alternating among four of the country’s primary military districts, Western analysts got a surprise lesson in early 2014 when Russian special forces helped lead a stealth invasion of Crimea and paved the way for the Black Sea region’s illegal annexation by Moscow in March.

Real-world laboratory

That, plus the outbreak of fighting in eastern Ukraine in the following months, offered a real-world laboratory for testing new tactics and equipment for Russian forces, including new drones, some manufactured with help from Israeli firms.

The Crimea invasion was preceded by the months of civil unrest in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, which culminated in deadly violence and the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych.

Russian military forces during Moscow’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014.

For many Kremlin and defense thinkers, that was just the latest in a series of popular uprisings, fomented by Western governments, that toppled regimes and governments stretching back to Georgia in 2003 and lasting through the Arab Spring beginning in 2010.

The scenario that Russian and Belarusian commanders have announced ahead of Zapad 2017 hints at that thinking: The theoretical adversary is one seeking to undermine the government in Minsk and set up a separatist government in western Belarus.

Inside Russia, the thinking that NATO and Western governments used the popular uprisings as a strategy led to the reorganization of internal security forces, such as riot police and Interior Ministry special troops into a specialized National Guard under the command of President Vladimir Putin’s former bodyguard. Some parts of that force, whose overall numbers are estimated at 180,000, are expected to participate in the Zapad exercises.

That, Kofman says, should yield insight into “how Russia will mobilize and deploy internal security forces to suppress protest and instability…basically how the regime will protect itself and defend itself against popular unrest.”
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EU Anti-Terror Chief: IS Still Has 2,500 European Fighters

Posted on by SeeEU

The European Union’s counter-terrorism coordinator says the Islamic State group still has about 2,500 fighters from Europe among its dwindling ranks.

 

Gilles de Kerchove told German daily Welt in an interview published Tuesday that the extremist group used to have about 5,000 European fighters in Iraq and Syria.

 

De Kerchove says about 1,500 fighters have since returned home and 1,000 have been killed. He says many of those remaining are likely to die fighting or at the hands of IS if they desert, while some may move to other conflict areas such as Somalia or Yemen.

 

According to official U.S. estimates, IS has up to 13,000 fighters overall left in Syria and Iraq.

 

De Kerchove says the loss of territory won’t end the terror threat posed by IS.

 

 
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Is US Losing a Key Part of the War on Terror?

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Sixteen years after the United States launched its war on terror, there are nagging concerns that aspects of the war have not gone well. And when it comes to the battle of ideas, some experts and officials fear the U.S. may be losing. 

“There is an element to killing the jihadists, so they can’t kill us,” said Congressman Michael McCaul, the chair of the House Homeland Security Committee. “We have been able to stop and prevent a lot of [terror] plots from happening in the United States.” 

“But there’s also an element that drone strikes alone can’t win a war of ideology,” McCaul added.

Current and former U.S. officials say the failure to counter narratives that help fuel groups like al-Qaida and Islamic State is not due to a lack of effort. But so far, they admit, the results have not been good.

“I’m alarmed at the spreading of the ideology,” White House homeland security adviser Tom Bossert said last week at a security summit in Washington.

“We’ve got upwards of 17 or 18 nation states that might be failed, or viewed as close to failing, and they have a strong presence of either ISIS or al-Qaida or other groups,” he said. “That is a troubling development.”

Initially, U.S. officials placed much of their hope on a military victory against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, reasoning that once the terror group’s self-declared caliphate crumbled, so would the group’s appeal.

However, Islamic State’s ongoing losses on the battlefield have failed to dampen the appeal of its jihadist ideology.

“We’re putting a stake in the heart of ISIS, who is the main perpetrator of all this,” Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told an audience this past July. “But it’s like putting a stake in an octopus, with all the tentacles moving out to different places.”

Other U.S. efforts to directly counter IS messaging and other jihadist ideology quickly faltered. Some early State Department initiatives, like the “Think Again, Turn Away” Twitter feed, even were ridiculed for lacking meaningful engagement. 

Since then, U.S. efforts have been focused on empowering partner organizations to help beat back the IS narrative.

Progress has been slow, but some former officials say President Donald Trump needs to give these efforts more time. 

“It seems to me there’s actually been a stepping back, in particular from some of the structures that were built specifically to deal with the ideological dimension,” said Joshua Geltzer, a former senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council.

Geltzer and other former officials have voiced concerns about the Trump administration’s plans to cut funding for such programs, after freezing grants to partner organizations.

Even with more time, though, some current and former officials say there may be limits to what the U.S. can do.

“Truly altering the environment that gives rise to the terrorist threat we face, that’s a much more formidable task,” Nicholas Rasmussen, director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, said earlier this year. “More resources are required, more time is required, and more patience is required.”

So, too, there are signs that the U.S. is struggling with defining what it wants to do and what it hopes to accomplish. 

“We have a very militarized view of what this battle is,” said Jasmine El-Gamal, who was a translator and cultural adviser for the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division in the early days of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

“When we say ‘countering violent extremism’ it’s really counterterrorism. It’s really that we use bombs, we use drones, we use armies,” said El-Gamal, now senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.

“There seems to be some conceptual confusion in the U.S. government about what ‘countering violent extremism’ programs are attempting to do,” according to a report released Monday by New America’s International Security program. 

“Counter-radicalization – turning many millions of Muslims around the world away from radical ideas – seems both a nebulous mission and one that may not be achievable,” the report stated.

Some experts also say U.S. allies in the Middle East could be doing much more to help counter extremists’ ideology.

“Most Arab states are not interested in uprooting the tree, but just taking the poisonous fruits when convenient,” said New America Fellow Nadia Oweidat. 

“As long as there are blasphemy laws, you don’t even dream about countering terrorism, because the very people who can take on these ideas from within – who know the Quran by heart, people who went to school all their lives in the Middle East – are people who would be blasted as blasphemous,” she said. 
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Washington Resident Strives to Break Cycle of Poverty in Africa

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Seventy-five dollars will fill up a gas tank in a big sports utility vehicle or pay for a family’s casual dinner in the United States. But in a typical African village $75 can help a village break out of the cycle of poverty.

“Seventy-five dollars is enough capital for someone in a village in Nigeria to start a local business,” says Chris Egbulem, founder of the volunteer organization, Action Africa. “This woman who has received the $75 is able to employ a second person, maybe a third, and, by saving some money, to compensate them enough for them to start their own business across the town.”

Egbulem, who grew up in Nigeria, was a long time graduate school professor in Louisiana. But now, he devotes himself to creating sustainable solutions for impoverished people in sub-Saharan Africa, one village at a time. Action Africa focuses primarily in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, and Sierra Leone, one of the poorest countries in the world.

Sierra Leone mudslides

Recently, Egbulem received news that heavy rains had created mudslides outside of Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, burying homes and people.

“We have heard about 500 bodies recovered, 600 bodies,” Egbulem says. “But we know from experience that when things like this happen, you have to multiply that number by two or three because a lot of people are still unaccounted for so that maybe 1,000 people have perished in this disaster.”

Egbulem was right about the numbers. The mudslide death toll did rise to about 1,000. But he did not wait to be proven right to take action. Egbulem and Action Africa quickly rallied to help the survivors of the disaster, collecting medical supplies and clothing for victims.

But emergency relief is only part of what Action Africa does. 

Helping immigrants

Egbulem founded the Washington, D.C.-baed non-profit organization in 2000  to help new African immigrants assimilate into American society. At first he worked out of his home, but later moved to devote the entire house to Action Africa.

The organization provides food to newly arrived African families and helps them with school scholarships.

Egbulem has an ulterior motive in helping immigrants: he wants to inspire them to reach back to their African roots and help villagers in Africa become self-sufficient.

“We want to start with the health program so that people are able to rise to their feet, be well enough to have a voice,” he says. “Then we go into the educational part so that the children and their parents will know a little bit better to pursue their goals. And we want to empower the adults with a micro-enterprise support program.”

The group especially focuses on empowering women.

“Women are very grounded, hard-working entrepreneurs, and we know that when we work with them, they tend to pull the community up much faster,” Egbulem says.

‘Happiness in my heart’

Before coming to the United States from Nigeria to earn his masters and doctoral degrees in culture studies and theology, Egbulem traveled across Africa, visiting 42 different countries.

“It’s remembering what I had seen, and encountered, lived through my visit through so much of Africa that led me to think that there is more to me (to) succeed in here,” he says.

Egbulem plans to take his programs in Nigeria and Sierra Leone and expand them to other African countries. He says it is not necessary to go out there with some grandiose plan but rather to be ready to make a small but meaningful difference.

“When I see people given a fresh life because of the energy that we put in, that for me is the glory,” he says. “The joy on my neighbor’s face is the happiness in my heart.”
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Florida Deals With Irma’s Aftermath as Flooding Rains Move North

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More people in the U.S. state of Florida will get to see Tuesday the damage left by Hurricane Irma, while half of the state’s population remains without power and roads in many areas are covered by flood waters or debris.

Monroe County was set to allow entry to people living in the uppermost part of the Florida Keys, while the rest of the island chain remains closed with damage to its main highway.Officials said inspections were complete on most of the 42 bridges that connect the many islands in the Keys, with those examined so far all deemed safe.

The Keys were the first part of Florida slammed by the powerful hurricane Sunday morning.The U.S. Navy has sent three ships to help with rescue and recovery efforts, which will include searches of damaged homes that may contain the remains of storm victims. 

“My heart goes out to the people in the Keys,” Florida Governor Rick Scott said Monday after flying over the islands. “There’s devastation. … I just hope everybody, you know, survived. It’s horrible what we saw.”

Scott said recovering from Irma will be a “long road” for the state.He told reporters 23,000 electrical utility workers from Florida and thousands more who came to help from other states were working to restore service, but that some people should be prepared to be without power for weeks.

Hurricane Irma has been blamed for at least five deaths in Florida, two in the state of Georgia and two in South Carolina.It killed at least 35 people as it tore through islands in the Caribbean last week.

Storm weakening; still bringing rain

The storm has weakened to a tropical depression, but was still dropping heavy rains in parts of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky on Tuesday.

Jacksonville, Florida’s largest city by population and the biggest city in the country by area, is dealing with its worst flooding since 1964.Mayor Lenny Curry had ordered more than 250,000 people to evacuate their homes and said Monday emergency crews were in “rescue mode.”He warned the serious flooding could be a week-long event.

Dutch King Willem-Alexander flew to St. Maarten, the Netherlands’ tiny Caribbean territory, and French President Emmanuel Macron is heading to his country’s adjoining St. Martin territory. Prime Minister Gaston Browne of Antigua and Barbuda said 95 percent of Barbuda’s buildings were destroyed or severely damaged. 

The State Department said Monday that U.S. embassies and consulates have reopened in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, the Bahamas, Barbados and Curaçao, although services were limited. 

The power grid in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico was so badly damaged that repairs could take months, authorities on the island said. More than one million residents have no power.
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Republicans Jumping Ship Amid Dissatisfaction in Trump Era

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Veteran Republicans are bailing on Congress in growing numbers, as GOP control of Washington fails to produce the unity or legislative successes party leaders wish for. With President Donald Trump willing, if not eager, to buck fellow Republicans and even directly attack them, a number of lawmakers no longer wish to be involved.

The latest was two-term Rep. Dave Trott of Michigan, who said in a statement Monday that he’d decided after careful consideration that the best course for him was to spend more time with his family and return to the private sector.

In contrast to those diplomatic words was Trott’s most recent tweet, sent in mid-August: “I think America needs more unity and less divisiveness…meaning @realDonaldTrump should focus more on golf & have less press conferences.”

Trott joins a string of moderate Republicans, including Reps. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania, Dave Reichert of Washington state and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, who are not seeking re-election.

Each of these seats will be heavily contested by Democrats eager to take back control of the House, and rumors abound of other GOP retirements still to come. New Jersey’s Leonard Lance is weighing retirement, while another Michigan Republican, Rep. Fred Upton, is mulling a campaign for U.S. Senate, according to party operatives who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

Also Monday a senior GOP senator, Bob Corker of Tennessee, issued a statement indicating indecision about his future following a CNN report stating that the influential chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee had not yet decided whether to seek re-election next year.

“It’s not an automatic for me. It just isn’t,” Corker told reporters, although he added that as chairman he has “a lot of impact without passing legislation. I can influence things. This is more about just what I believe to be the right thing to do.”

Although Republicans are hopeful Corker ultimately will decide to run – he already has $7.5 million in his campaign account – the senator was in Trump’s Twitter cross-hairs in August after criticizing the president’s response to the racially motivated protests in Charlottesville.

“Tennessee not happy!” the president declared after claiming that Corker was “constantly” asking him whether or not he should run again next year.

The developments have alarmed GOP operatives concerned that the trickle of retirements could turn into a flood unless congressional Republicans and Trump can come together and produce on their promises, particularly by overhauling the tax code. And, with Trump bypassing Republicans to make deals with Democrats, and encouraging primary challenges against sitting GOP senators, the retirement decisions also reflect concerns among some about whether they will get party support when they need it, especially with former Trump adviser Steve Bannon threatening all-out war on congressional leadership.

“There are some stability concerns in the party about whose team everyone is on,” said Josh Holmes, a GOP consultant and former chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. “Concerns about whether your party is really with you.”

It all illustrates that, far from producing unity within the Republican Party, the Trump era appears to be exacerbating existing GOP divisions while creating new ones. The familiar divide between pragmatic and ideologically driven Republicans has been heightened, while Trump’s deal-making with top Democrats last week is forcing elected Republicans to choose sides between Trump and GOP leaders McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan.

“The party never united around Trump as it would another nominee, let alone president, and Trump is not a limited government conservative,” said Alex Conant, a former top aide to Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. “And so he is not a traditional Republican and as a result is going to clash with the traditional Republicans that fill the ranks of Congress.”

The chaos and uncertainty produced by Trump and his orbit would be more acceptable to congressional Republicans if the party was achieving legislative success. Instead, its long-standing promise to repeal and replace Barack Obama’s health care law collapsed on the Senate floor in July, while other priorities are moving slowly. As a result, a number of Republicans on and off Capitol Hill have come to view tax reform of some kind as a must-pass priority, without which the dam would likely break on retirements and Republicans would be in serious jeopardy of losing control of the House.

“Republicans need to put points on the board, to deliver and show they are getting something done,” said Tom Reynolds, a former New York congressman who once chaired the National Republican Congressional Committee and is now a lobbyist.

Yet despite enthusiasm among Republicans, any final tax plan is a long way off, and many analysts are already predicting that Republicans will end up settling for some tax cuts that add to the deficit rather than full-blown reform.

For their part, Democrats are projecting increased confidence about their prospects in next year’s midterms, especially in the House, where they must gain 24 seats to win the majority. Republicans have a 240-194 edge, with one vacancy. Democrats have their highest hopes pinned on the 23 districts where GOP House candidates won last year, as did Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi pointed to Trump’s overall approval rating nationally, which has dipped below 40 percent.

“There’s probably nothing more dispositive of who wins next year’s elections than where the president stands a year before,” Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters Friday. “The year is fraught with meaning because that’s when people decide whether to run or not, and that really is a timetable that’s very important to us, and very positive for us right now.”
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After Financial Pledges, France Urges Chad to Hold Elections

Posted on by SeeEU

France on Monday urged Chadian authorities to press ahead with parliamentary elections after securing billions of dollars in pledges from donor countries aimed at helping to revive the country’s struggling economy.

President Idriss Deby, who was re-elected in 2016 after gaining power in 1990 at the head of an armed rebellion, said in February that lack of financial resources meant Chad’s parliamentary elections would be postponed indefinitely.

“The legislative elections are an important moment in democratic life,” French foreign ministry spokeswoman Agnes Romatet-Espagne told reporters in a daily briefing. “We hope in this regard that the Chadian authorities … will be in a position to announce a calendar [for elections] soon.”

In a statement on Friday, Chad’s government said it had secured about $18.5 billion in pledges for a 2017-2021 national development program, double its original expectations.

Romatet-Espagne said France would contribute 223 million euros ($267.27 million).

The former French colony, one of the poorest nations in the world, has been rocked by humanitarian crises over the past decade, including conflicts in the east and south, drought in the arid Sahel region and flooding.

That has been compounded since 2012 by instability on its borders with Libya, Nigeria and Central African Republic, forcing Chad to increase its security budget to handle thousands of refugees and counter a growing cross-border threat.

Its economy has especially been hit by a more than 50 percent drop in the price of oil, which represent three-quarters of its revenues. However, critics say too much of its revenues goes to the army.

“Military spending has helped Chad intervene in the Central African Republic, Mali, in neighboring countries threatened by Boko Haram and as far afield as the Saudi Arabia-led coalition to fight Houthi combatants in Yemen,” International Crisis Group analyst Richard Moncrieff said in a note on Sept. 8.

“This engagement has strengthened relations with Western powers and brought substantial financial and political support.

The EU, France and the U.S. in particular today consider Deby as their principal partner in the fight against terrorism in the Sahel. For Deby it is win-win: tackle domestic armed opposition, pay his troops and gain significant leverage over donors.”

The headquarters of France’s 4,000-strong counter-terrorism Barkhane force is in the Chadian capital N’djamena.

Asked at Science Po university on Sept. 6 whether France’s policy in West Africa was still based on “Francafrique,” Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian sought to play down that perception.

“We no longer talk about Francafrique but AfricaFrance,”  Le Drian said. “France does not support corrupt [leaders], but on the contrary there are presidents who have been elected by universal suffrage – you mentioned some of them [Deby and Niger President Mahamadou Issoufou] – and whose elections were not contested, and that is the reality.”

Franceafrique describes an informal web of relationships Paris has maintained with its former African colonies and its support, sometimes in the form of military backing, for politicians who favor French business interests.

($1 = 0.8344 euros)
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Turkish Court Rules Opposition Newspaper Journalists Must Remain in Custody

Posted on by SeeEU

A Turkish court remanded five prominent staff from the opposition Cumhuriyet newspaper in custody on Monday in a trial which President Tayyip Erdogan’s critics have condemned as an attack on free speech.

The court said the newspaper correspondents and executives, some of whom have already been detained for 10 months, should remain in detention until more evidence was presented.

“The court has decided to keep the arrested until witnesses are heard,” chief judge Abdurrahman Orkun Dag said after a 13-hour session, adjourning the case for two weeks. “After hearing the witnesses, we think a more healthy decision could be

reached.”

Prosecutors say Cumhuriyet was effectively taken over by supporters of Fethullah Gulen, a U.S.-based cleric blamed by the government for last year’s failed coup attempt, and that the paper was used to target Erdogan and “veil the actions of terrorist groups.”

The newspaper has denied the charges and a defense attorney said on Monday that the court was ignoring evidence being put forward.

“As this is a political trial, material evidence is not taken into account,” said Tora Pekin.

The court remanded in custody editor in chief Murat Sabuncu, executive committee member and attorney Akin Atalay and three other staff. The rest of the 17 defendants are either free until the next hearing or are being tried in absentia.

Atala’s wife Adalet Dinamit said the charges against her husband were politically motivated: “This is not a trial held within bounds of law,” she told reporters outside the court.

Previous hearings in the case had taken place in Istanbul but Monday’s session was moved to Silivri, the site of a large prison about 60 km (40 miles) west of the city.

“Contradicting EU Values”

Prosecutors are seeking up to 43 years in jail for the newspaper staff, who stand accused of targeting Erdogan through “asymmetric war methods.”

Social media posts comprised the bulk of evidence in the indictment, along with allegations that staff had been in contact with users of Bylock, an encrypted messaging app the government says was used by Gulen’s followers.

Rights groups and Turkey’s Western allies have complained of deteriorating human rights under Erdogan. In the crackdown since last July’s failed coup, 50,000 people have been jailed pending trial and some 150,000 detained or dismissed from their jobs.

Around 150 media outlets have been shut down and 160 journalists jailed, the Turkish Journalists Association says.

“The charges are ridiculous, the case does not make sense,” said Steven Ellis of the International Press Institute, who attended Monday’s hearing.

Ellis said the future of Turkey’s stalled European Union accession process could be decided by the outcome of the Cumhuriyet case. German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for the first time this month for the talks to be ended, saying Turkey was moving away from Europe.

“As long as they keep on trials like this, I don’t know how accession process may go forward,” Ellis said. “The case contradicts values that the EU puts forward.”

Turkish authorities say the crackdown is justified by the gravity of the coup attempt, in which rogue soldiers tried to overthrow the government, killing 250 people, mostly civilians.

Cumhuriyet’s former chief editor Can Dundar, who is living in Germany, is being tried in absentia. An arrest warrant for Dundar remains in force.
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JFK’s Granddaughter Tatiana Schlossberg Gets Married

Posted on by SeeUS

President John F. Kennedy’s granddaughter and Caroline Kennedy’s daughter Tatiana Schlossberg has gotten married at the family’s Martha’s Vineyard home.

The New York Times reports the 27-year-old Schlossberg married 28-year-old George Moran on Saturday with former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick officiating. The couple met in college at Yale. Schlossberg was an environmental reporter for the Times until July. Moran is a medical student at Columbia University.

Schlossberg is Caroline Kennedy’s second child. She has an older sister, Rose, and a younger brother, Jack. They are President Kennedy’s only grandchildren. He was assassinated just before Caroline Kennedy’s sixth birthday in November 1963.

Kennedy served as ambassador to Japan under former President Barack Obama until earlier this year.
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Pence: Flight 93 Passengers Might Have Saved His Life on 9/11

Posted on by SeeUS

Vice President Mike Pence told the family and friends of the victims of United Flight 93 attending the 16th anniversary ceremony in Pennsylvania that the passengers might well have saved his life.

Monday’s somber service began at 9:45 a.m., the time that federal investigators determined passengers decided to revolt against their four al-Qaida hijackers, who ended up crashing the plane in a field 60 miles (96 kilometers) southeast of Pittsburgh.

 

The Republican said he was in Washington, as a member of Congress, on 9/11, and learned that the Capitol was a possible target of the hijacked plane, which was only 12 minutes away.

 

“It was the longest 12 minutes of my life,” he said, adding they soon learned the plane went down in a field in Pennsylvania.

 

Thirty-three passengers and seven crew members were killed.

 

“Without regard to personal safety, they rushed forward to save lives,” he said. “I will always believe that I and many others in our nation’s capital were able to go home that day and hug our families because of the courage and sacrifice of the heroes of Flight 93.”

 

About 1,000 spectators, including dignitaries and the victims’ friends and families, gathered on a breezy, cool and cloudless morning as bells were tolled and the victims’ names were read. Pennsylvania’s Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf and U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke spoke before Pence.

 

The ceremony marked the beginning of the end of a $46 million effort to transform the rural Pennsylvania crash site into a national memorial park.

 

Ground was broken Sunday on the final element of the Flight 93 National Memorial – a 93-foot (28.4-meter) tall Tower of Voices. The tower, to be built near the park’s entrance, will feature 40 tubular metal wind chimes, one each for the victims.

 

Bill Adderly, the father of flight attendant CeeCee Ross Lyles, said the Tower of Voices is an apt ending to the memorial site.

 

“We were here two days after the crash, and never in our imagination did we believe it would be this beautiful,” said Adderly, of Fort Pierce, Florida.

 

Adderly and his wife, Shirley, were among the family and friends of the victims present for Sunday’s tower groundbreaking. At the ceremony, officials played a simulation of what the 40 tubular chimes will sound like when the wind blows through them at the mountaintop memorial.

 

“The bells, the ringing, I could hear our daughter’s voice in it. She loved to sing. She loved to praise the Lord.”

 

Actual construction on the tower will begin later this month. It should be completed in time to dedicate the tower for the 17th anniversary ceremony next year.

 

 
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Scientists Say DNA Tests Show Viking Warrior Was Female

Posted on by SeeEU

Scientists say DNA tests on a skeleton found in a lavish Viking warrior’s grave in Sweden show the remains are those of a woman in her 30s.

While bone experts had long suspected the remains belong to a woman, the idea had previously been dismissed despite other accounts supporting the existence of female Viking warriors.

Swedish researchers used new methods to analyze genetic material from the 1,000-year-old bones at a Viking-era site known as Birka, near Stockholm.

 

Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson of Uppsala University said Monday the tests show “it is definitely a woman.”

 

Hedenstierna-Jonson said the grave is particularly well-furnished, with a sword, shields, various other weapons and horses.

 

Writing in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, the researchers say it’s the first confirmed remains of a high-ranking female Viking warrior.

 

 
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Access to White House Restored After Items Thrown Over Fence

Posted on by SeeUS

The U.S. Secret Service has restored access to the White House and surrounding areas after objects were thrown over the fence.

 

The agency – which is responsible for security at the White House – tweeted late Monday morning that a male subject has been arrested and turned over to the local police department for throwing a sign and a notebook over the Pennsylvania Avenue fence.

The incident prompted a temporary “lockdown” of the White House, meaning no one could enter or leave the area. Pedestrian access to Pennsylvania Avenue and Lafayette Park directly opposite the executive mansion also was halted for more than an hour.

 

President Donald Trump was attending a 9/11 ceremony at the Pentagon. He returned to the White House during the lockdown.
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Poland Drops Passport Plan That Angered Ukraine, Lithuania

Posted on by SeeEU

The Polish government is abandoning a plan to include in Polish passports images of landmarks that are today within the borders of Ukraine and Lithuania.

Poland’s Interior Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said Monday his ministry has picked other images to include in place of the two disputed ones.

 

The plan had angered both of the neighboring countries, with the Ukrainian government calling it an “unfriendly step.”

 

The disputed images were of a Polish military cemetery in Lviv, Ukraine, and the Gate of Dawn in Vilnius, Lithuania.

 

The government’s proposal appeared to break a longstanding practice of not making any claim, even symbolic, to territories Poland lost in the redrawing of borders during the 20th century.
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‘War is Being Won,’ Says Head of Regional Force Battling Boko Haram

Posted on by SeeAF

The head of the multinational task force fighting Boko Haram says the war against the militants is being won, but warned that suicide bombings remain a threat, killing close to 400 people in Nigeria and Cameroon since April.

Soldiers from the 7,800-person task force have been stationed in several towns and villages along the Nigeria-Cameroon border since those communities were liberated from Boko Haram a little over a year ago. 

The force’s commander, Nigerian-born General Lucky Irabor, visited four communities along the border on Saturday to reassure local residents and rally the troops.

“Boko Haram and other criminal gangs, their end has come. Boko Haram is on the downward trend,” Irabor told the soldiers. “That alone should motivate you to know that the war is being won, and for you to give in the last of your energy and your commitment so that they would be completely defeated.”

Irabor ordered the soldiers to focus on stopping suicide bombers, and to work more closely with local self-defense groups. He urged civilians to report anything or anyone suspicious.

The Boko Haram conflict has displaced over two million people in four countries, but the governments of Nigeria and Cameroon are urging people to go home.

Irabor said the soldiers’ presence in villages will keep Boko Haram from taking them back.

However, security is not the only challenge the returnees face.

Aboubakar Bouba, an elder of Budua village on Cameroon’s northern border with Nigeria, returned home in August. He fled Budua after a Boko Haram attack in 2014.

The 75-year-old says the loud sounds of bombs that destroyed their village mosque, killing several people including their imam, also ruptured his eardrums.

A soldier asked Bouba how life has been in his village since he returned. Bouba said he is poor and lives on food aid from well-wishers and neighbors. He says he hasn’t seen his children since 2014, when they also fled.

The village, once home to 200 people, is now inhabited by approximately 70. The residents say they are hungry, but the fighting has devastated farmland, leaving farmers unable to cultivate crops or take care of livestock.

Cameroon’s government has announced plans to provide seeds to farmers and financial aid to unemployed youths to start small businesses, but the people of the village say they are still waiting.
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Dutch Government Extends Military Missions into 2018

Posted on by SeeEU

The Dutch government says it will continue contributing to the fight against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Mali and NATO’s force in Afghanistan.

The Cabinet on Monday informed Parliament about the extension into next year of Dutch participation in the military missions.

The foreign ministry said in a statement that the fragile international security situation means that “the Netherlands will continue to take its responsibility.” It says that the priority in the missions is “fighting terrorism and preventing irregular migration.”

About 250 Dutch troops will take part in the Mali mission in 2018, about 100 in NATO’s Afghanistan force, and four F-16 fighter jets will carry out missions against IS in Iraq and eastern Syria from January.
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Lebanese Director Ziad Doueiri Briefly Detained for Israel Film Ties

Posted on by SeeEA

Renowned French-Lebanese film director Ziad Doueiri appeared before a military court in Beirut Monday to face questions about his role in a past movie project in neighboring Israel. Lebanon bans its citizens from travel to Israel or having business dealings with Israelis as the two nations are in a state of war.

Doueiri was briefly detained at Beirut’s Rafic Hariri airport late Sunday and his passports confiscated after arriving in Lebanon to promote a new movie that received critical acclaim at the Venice Film Festival recently.  Following his release, Doueiri’s lawyer reportedly told media assembled outside the court that Doueiri had been freed following several hours of investigation and given back his travel documents.

At issue was the earlier film, The Attack, which was released in 2012.  The Attack, about a suicide bombing in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, was filmed in part in Israel and banned in Lebanon.

Profoundly hurt

In a statement to the French news agency before his appearance in court, Doueiri said, “I am profoundly hurt.  I came back to Lebanon with a prize from Venice.  The Lebanese police have authorized the broadcast of my film (The Insult).  I have no idea who is responsible for what has happened.”

Doueiri had flown from the Venice Film Festival, where The Insult, his fourth film, had won the Coppa Volpi best actor prize for Palestinian actor Kamel El Basha.  The Insult is set in Beirut and focuses on the escalation of a minor argument between a Palestinian refugee and a Lebanese Christian.

Doueiri was offered the support of Lebanon’s culture minister, Ghattas Khoury, following the brief detention.  “Ziad Doueiri is a great Lebanese director and that has been honored across the world,” Khoury tweeted, before adding, “Respecting and honoring him is a duty.”

Doueiri, however, angered many Lebanese when the earlier movie, The Attack, was released.

Unpredictable approach

According to Ayman Mhanna, director of Lebanon-based free speech NGO SKeyes, Doueiri’s appearance in court was symptomatic of an unpredictable approach within the government regarding the director’s time in Israel.

Although Mhanna “did not question” the laws preventing Lebanese visits to Israel, he told VOA that Doueiri had visited Lebanon numerous times without repercussion.

The government’s response was “chaotic” and “destabilizing,” he added, with one part of it endorsing Doueiri and another seeking to detain him. Mhanna noted that the Ministry of Culture recently backed Doueiri’s latest film, The Insult, to represent Lebanon in the foreign film category at next year’s Academy Awards in the United States.

Meanwhile, the trying of civilians in military courts has also attracted criticism.

A report by Human Rights Watch earlier this year highlighted the use of such courts to try civilians involved in protests against the Lebanese government’s handling of the country’s waste crisis.

Bassam Khawaja, of Human Rights Watch, told VOA, “Regardless of detentions being brought, Doueiri should not be tried in a military court.

“Unfortunately military courts are still used in Lebanon to try civilians on a broad range of charges, in violation of their due process rights and international law.

“These trials largely take place behind closed doors, with limited grounds for appeal, and it is difficult to see how he would get a fair trial there.”

Long history

There is a a long history of perceived moments of Israeli acknowledgment or collaboration drawing swift rebuke in Lebanon, which was first invaded by its southern neighbor in 1978.

In May, global box office hit Wonder Woman was barred from Lebanese theaters because it starred former Israeli army soldier Gal Gadot.  Last month, Swedish-Lebanese dual citizen Amanda Hanna was stripped of her title Miss Lebanon Emigrant after those behind the event discovered she had visited Israel using her Swedish passport in 2016.

Doueiri is one of the most acclaimed Lebanese directors of his generation.  He first made a name for himself with Lebanese civil war classic West Beirut, which was released in 1998.

He began his career as first camera assistant for Quentin Tarantino on the director’s films Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Jackie Brown.
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In Photos: Aftermath of Hurricane Irma

Posted on by SeeUS

Irma devastated parts of Florida, the third most populous U.S. state, although early reports Monday indicate damage left behind may not have been as much as originally feared.  But rescue teams are still pulling people out of their homes in some communities as floodwaters rose.
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French Hurricane Rescues Raise Anger, Racial Questions

Posted on by SeeEU

Some black and mixed-race residents of the hurricane-devastated French territory of St. Martin have expressed anger at a perception that white tourists were given priority during the evacuation of the island that France acquired during colonial times.

 

The anger over perceived discrimination — whether or not based on fact — is exposing underlying racial tensions that have long plagued France’s far-flung former colonies, especially its Caribbean islands.

 

St. Martin resident Johana Soudiagom told local television Guadeloupe 1ere that mainly white people were selected for evacuation on Friday following Hurricane Irma above mixed-race islanders on a boat from the French island of La Desirade.

 

On Monday, France’s Representative Council of Black Associations (CRAN) wrote to the French government asking for a parliamentary inquiry into the handling of the Irma catastrophe.

 
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Crane Set to Remove Lee Statue in Dallas Involved in Crash

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Officials say the driver of a semitrailer died after it collided with a crane hired to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Dallas.

Assistant City Manager Jon Fortune says the crane was headed to Lee Park when the collision happened Sunday night near downtown Dallas.

A city news release says that a witness said the crane was turning left on a green arrow. The release says the semitrailer’s driver “was traveling … at a very high rate of speed and failed to yield the right of way, colliding into the crane.”

Officials hoped to remove the statue immediately following a vote Wednesday by the City Council. However, several events led to delays, including trouble finding a crane.

Fortune says the accident badly damaged the crane.
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