The far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, party has pledged to use its platform in parliament to “reclaim the country and its people.” The AfD won close to 14 percent of the vote in Sunday’s election, giving them 94 seats — the first significant far-right presence in Germany’s parliament since World War II. Henry Ridgwell reports from Berlin.
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Month: September 2017
Iraqi Kurds Vote in Independence Referendum
Iraqi Kurds Monday voted in an independence referendum that is widely expected to yield an overwhelming “yes” vote, even though the poll is facing objections from the government in Baghdad as well as neighboring countries and the United States.
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Contractors Accuse Iraq of Shake Downs to Force Tax Payments
American military contractors operating in Iraq are accusing Baghdad of employing strong-arm tactics to make them pay exorbitant income taxes, a practice they’ve warned the Trump administration is hampering the fight against Islamic State extremists.
To force payment of the taxes, which the companies say are haphazardly calculated and can total millions of dollars, Iraqi authorities have held up — and even threatened to stop altogether — delivery of essential supplies, including food, fuel and water, bound for U.S. and coalition forces, according to interviews and documents obtained by The Associated Press.
Iraqi government officials also have refused to issue, or have delayed, the delivery of work visas to employees of companies that won’t hand over the money.
A senior executive at a U.S. company that supports American troops in Iraq said contractor vehicles are stopped at checkpoints frequently and ordered to produce documents that certify they’ve paid the taxes or prove their company has received an extension from Iraq’s tax commission. The executive spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation from the Iraqi government for speaking out publicly.
He said the Iraqis typically calculate the tax bills by first determining the total value of the contract and then charging 20 percent of what they estimate the company’s gross revenue would be. That can lead to eye-popping yet wildly inaccurate totals as high as $20 million. The big number is really aimed at getting the company to agree on a smaller yet still substantial amount, the executive said.
Najiha Abbas Habib, director general of Iraq’s tax authority, rejected the allegation U.S. contractors are being gouged. American companies working in Iraq are not exempt from taxation, she said, adding that Iraq’s tax rates are actually lower than other Middle East countries.
“Many foreign companies operate in Iraq without paying any taxes at all,” Habib said.
Robert Mearkle, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, denied the tax demands have undercut the counterterrorism mission. “Iraqi enforcement of tax laws has not disrupted U.S. efforts to defeat ISIS,” he said in an emailed statement, using an alternative acronym for the militant group that in 2014 burst into western and northern Iraq from Syria.
But a trade group representing a number of the contractors told Secretary of State Rex Tillerson several months ago that the tactics present a “direct threat to the U.S. government’s mission in Iraq.” The Professional Services Council also said in the previously undisclosed May 1 letter to Tillerson that the arbitrary way the Iraqis are collecting the taxes heightens the potential for fraud and waste in a country that already ranks as one of the most corrupt in the world.
David Berteau, president of the Professional Services Council, estimated in an AP interview that the Pentagon spent about $1 billion in just the last year on contracts with about 20 U.S. companies for support in Iraq. The work ranges from supplying U.S. and coalition bases to construction and weapon system maintenance.
Berteau said the companies either seek reimbursement from the U.S. government for the taxes or build the expense into the price they charge on the contract.
“Either way, U.S. taxpayers eventually foot the bill,” Berteau said.
But the Trump administration hasn’t confronted senior Iraqi officials over the matter. Tillerson, in a brief response he sent the organization in early July, said a diplomatic note between the two countries approved in 2014 during the Obama administration gave U.S. government personnel but not contractors protections from Iraqi law.
Tillerson said the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad routinely engages with the Iraqi government “to ensure fair treatment” of the U.S. contractors working there. But he also said it’s “always important that U.S. companies follow local laws,” which include the payment of taxes.
And Tillerson gave no indication the Trump administration would pursue what U.S. companies with overseas contracts really want: an agreement with the Iraqi government that gives them exemptions from the taxes and other legal protections to shield them from being prosecuted in Iraqi courts.
Iraq’s push for the taxes has coincided with a sustained drop in oil prices. Oil revenue makes up nearly 95 percent of Iraq’s budget, but the country has been reeling under an economic crisis since 2014, when prices began falling from a high of above $100 a barrel.
The seizure of territory across Iraq by the Islamic State group in 2014, including the fall of Mosul, worsened the situation. Badly needed resources have been diverted from productive investment to fight a long and costly insurgency.
U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in Iraq, referred questions to the State Department. The command declined to provide a list of the U.S. companies in Iraq with Defense Department contracts.
Among the companies operating in Iraq are General Dynamics Land Systems and DynCorp International. General Dynamics, which is based in Michigan, received a $65 million contract late last year to support Iraq’s fleet of M1A1 battle tanks. DynCorp, located in McLean, Virginia, won a contract in 2015 with a potential value of $139 million to school Iraqi troops in vehicle maintenance and repair. Neither company responded to requests for comment about whether they’d paid taxes to the Iraqi government.
In its version of the annual defense policy bill, the GOP-led House Armed Services Committee expressed concern over Iraq’s tax collection efforts. The legislation, approved in July, requested a briefing by the Defense and State departments on “tax collection, visa denials, and other issues that are affecting U.S. civilian contractors in Iraq.”
And Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, has thrown his support to the U.S. companies, telling Tillerson and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis that he’s concerned the income tax demands could lead American contractors to avoid Iraq altogether.
Cornyn wrote in early August that Iraq is “the only unstable conflict zone in the world where U.S. contractors and their employees have no legal tax protections.”
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Trump’s New Travel Ban Could be Harder to Fight in Court
President Donald Trump’s announcement on Sunday restricting travelers from an expanded list of countries has already been roundly criticized by immigrant and civil rights groups as no more lawful than his previous travel ban, but it could stand a better chance of holding up in court, legal experts said.
The new presidential proclamation, which Trump said is needed to screen out terrorist or public safety threats, indefinitely restricts travel from Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Chad and North Korea. Certain government officials from Venezuela will also be barred.
Trump’s Mar. 6 temporary travel ban, which replaced another ban from January and expired on Sunday, targeted six Muslim-majority countries. It sparked international outrage and was quickly blocked by federal courts as unconstitutional discrimination or a violation of immigration law.
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed a limited version of the ban to go ahead while the justices examine its legality.
The proclamation, set to go into effect on Oct. 18, could be less vulnerable to legal attack, scholars and other experts said, because it is the result of a months-long analysis of foreign vetting procedures by U.S. officials. It also might be less easily tied to Trump’s campaign-trail statements some courts viewed as biased against Muslims.
“The greater the sense that the policy reflects a considered, expert judgment, the less the temptation [by courts] to second-guess the executive,” said Saikrishna Prakash, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, in an email. “It looks less like a matter of prejudice or a desire to fulfill a campaign promise.”
The government has said the president has broad authority in immigration and national security matters, but challengers to the Mar. 6 ban had argued that it ran afoul of the U.S. Constitution’s bar on favoring one religion over another.
They cited statements Trump made during his 2016 campaign for president, including his call for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”
Within hours of Sunday’s proclamation, representatives for the Hawaii, New York and California attorneys general said their offices were reviewing the new restrictions. Advocacy organizations denounced it as more of the same.
“This is still a Muslim ban — they simply added three additional countries,” said Becca Heller, director of the International Refugee Assistance Project, which previously sued to block Trump’s travel ban executive orders.
“Of those countries, Chad is majority Muslim, travel from North Korea is already basically frozen and the restrictions on Venezuela only affect government officials on certain visas,” Heller said.
But the worldwide review, and the new restrictions tailored by country, could weaken such arguments in court.
While the previous ban targeted Muslim-majority nations Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia and Sudan, the restrictions announced on Sunday include North Korea and Venezuela and omit Sudan altogether. It also allows some travelers from Somalia and Iran to enter the U.S.
The review also examined each country’s ability to issue reliable electronic passports and share security risk data with the U.S. Overall, 47 countries had problems, and 40 made improvements, including 11 that agreed to share information on known or suspected terrorists, Trump’s proclamation said.
The review “at least arguably attenuates the link between the president’s alleged bias and the policy,” said Margo Schlanger, a University of Michigan Law School professor.
Openings for challengers
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments over the original travel ban on Oct. 10, including whether it discriminated against Muslims. Sunday’s proclamation could lead the high court to skip deciding the case altogether.
While new claims of religious discrimination might be harder to press, experts said challengers could potentially argue that the expanded ban violates the federal Immigration and Nationality Act, which forbids the government from discriminating based on an individual’s nationality when issuing visas. “Congress decided that it didn’t want an immigration system that played favorites among countries,” Schlanger said.
Jeffrey Gorsky, the former chief of the legal advisory division at the U.S. State Department’s Visa Office, said the new ban could be viewed as overly broad in whom it applies to, keeping out all manner of people from those countries “with no evidence of adverse affect on U.S. interests.”
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African First Ladies: Private Sector Trailing Gender Equality
African first ladies and activists hailed progress that some governments on the continent are making on gender equality. They met on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
“We used to have 23 percent female representation in parliament but, with the stroke of a pen it went up to 48 percent. So, we managed to double our female representation with that decision,” said Namibia’s first lady Monica Geingos at a roundtable invitation-only event co-hosted by the Global First Ladies Alliance (GFLA) and Facebook.
Geingos credited the quota enacted by the ruling SWAPO party of her husband, President Hage Geingob. But she said a similar quota might be needed for Namibia’s private sector, where only 10 to 15 percent of executives are women.
“The private sector has to do more, they have to do it faster, and there needs to be targets,” Geingos said during a panel discussion broadcast live on Facebook. “It’s not only about representation at the top. It’s also about hiring female talent so female talent is around when decisions are being made on leadership and key positions within an organization.”
But government help is still needed in providing better access to capital for female entrepreneurs and prioritizing government procurement from female-owned or represented businesses, Geingos said.
“We should make it wrong to procure from businesses that are all male. Because, they’re not inclusive of our societies,” she added.
South Africa’s first lady Tobeka Madiba Zuma agreed and underscored the importance of providing equitable access to education for girls.
“They then become economically empowered. And, when they’re economically empowered that will guarantee their success in future that they will not be dependent on men,” Zuma said. “We just need to ensure that we encourage our youth and harness entrepreneurship,” she added.
Empowering women
The Elman Peace and Human Rights Center for Somalia has for been working for decades to break down stereotypes in gender roles by teaching young women to become electricians, mechanics, and learn to repair mobile phones.
“Women in my country are often viewed as victims of war, spoils of war. At the very best, beneficiaries receiving the impact of these various resolutions, declarations, and treaties that are meant to build peace,” said Somali peace activist Ilwad Elman, who was a refugee in Kenya as a child before her family moved to Canada. “But rarely are they engaged in creating peace in the country. And, that’s incredibly diminutive of their ability and their capacity.”
Elman noted while Somalia has been in a state of war for a quarter century, half the population — women — have been sidelined from government.
“The role of Somali women in society, if I was to sum it up, the easiest way to say it is that they do everything. They are the breadwinners, they are the economic powerhouses, they are the decision-makers, the influencers. However, their role has never been institutionalized,” Elman said. “And, for my country to transition out of this period of conflict that we’ve been in, and we are seeing progress now, is that we have to engage women. And, not just see them as beneficiaries but assets.”
Somalia has a new government in place this year considered to be the peoples’ choice, Elman said.
“It’s not a perfect system. However, it did yield a huge spike in representation of women parliamentarians, women that are in ministerial roles. And, that is how real change happens,” she said.
Role of technology
Women in Africa need positive leadership examples to follow and give them the confidence and courage to feel they belong in sectors dominated by men, said model Grace Mahary.
“I need my sisters and younger sisters to go on social media and see this every day and not just see, I’m not going to say names, male leaders of the world. Because, that’s all that you do see,” Mahary said. “And, I need to see the first ladies’ work on social media.”
The Victoria’s Secret model, who founded Project Tsehigh to bring solar lighting to homes in Eritrea, said social media provided a unique opportunity for female leaders such as First Ladies to connect with younger women across the African continent.
“We’re here on Facebook Live panel. Do you know how important that is? Growing up, I didn’t have Facebook Live. I didn’t see the first lady of Nigeria or the first lady of the Congo or any of these first ladies because I didn’t know they existed, I didn’t know what they were doing,” Mahary said.
First ladies have an important responsibility because of their proximity to power and influence, Geingos said.
“To me, the role of a first lady, and any powerful woman for that matter, in helping the generation beneath us to come up, is not to stand in the way, it’s not to compete, it’s to facilitate, it’s to provide a bridge.”
But Geingos said their role should not be to underscore their successes as female leaders but to show young African women the challenges they will face and the importance of learning from their failures.
“I think we have a responsibility to sit on panels like this and talk about what we have failed at,” she said.
Geingos went on to say that their success as first ladies would be measured by the gradual elimination of the institution itself.
“If we succeed, and we have a society that’s equal and we have a society where we have many female heads of state, the institution of first ladyism is likely to fall away.So, we must actually fight for the institution of first ladyism to fall away,” she said.
But progress on female heads of state in Africa has a long way to go.
Despite the improvements in representation of women parliamentarians in Africa, Geingos noted the continent currently has only one female president, Liberia’s Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who is about to leave office.
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Catalan Police Say Independence Vote Divides Their Loyalties
A referendum on whether Catalonia should secede from Spain is putting intense pressure on the region’s police officers, who feel caught between their oath to the nation’s constitution and loyalty to local leaders who have vowed to create a new European state.
Francesc Vidal, a 16-year veteran of the force known as the Mossos d’Esquadra, described the referendum planned for October 1 as a “train collision” between Spanish authorities desperate to stop what they consider an illegal vote and Catalan separatists who insist that the balloting go forward.
“We only ask that they don’t put us in the middle of it,” Vidal, a leader of the USPAC police union, told The Associated Press. “We don’t know how to act. We receive orders from both sides.”
The power struggle is the most serious constitutional crisis Spain has faced in nearly four decades.
Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont has pledged to declare independence within 48 hours should secessionists manage to stage the secession referendum and win it. The move would push the country into uncharted waters and set off a national political emergency.
But if police impede polling stations from opening at schools and other government buildings, it will be a victory for Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy in a long battle against the separatists.
On Saturday, Spain’s Interior Ministry announced that it would begin coordinating all police efforts in the region related to the vote, including the operations of the 17,000-strong Mossos.
That was rejected by Catalonia’s regional interior chief Joaquim Forn, who said the Mossos police chief has told Spanish authorities that regional leaders would not cede command of the force.
“The Mossos will never give up the exercise of the powers that are its own,” Forn said in a statement broadcast on Catalan public television.
Forn has promised that the Mossos will ensure that the referendum happens. He told Catalan newspaper El Punt-Avui: “Not only will we not stop the referendum, we will do the exact opposite: We will facilitate that the referendum takes place.”
The tensions are driving fault lines in Catalonia: polls suggest roughly half of its 7.5 million residents want to break century-old ties with Spain, with the rest wishing to remain a part of the larger nation. Fissures have also formed within the Mossos, which was created in the early 1980s as part of self-governance granted to the northeastern region.
Serious doubts for many Mossos started in July, when the top two regional officials in charge of the police resigned. The regional government replaced them with Forn and Pere Soler, men with spotless pro-independence credentials.
While rank-and-file officers are concerned that police leadership may not pass down orders from a Spanish judge to stop the vote, a small group of hard-core pro-independence Mossos has promised not to stop the vote under any circumstances.
‘Anything can happen’
Jordi Costa, a Mosso stationed in the town of Vilafranca and general secretary of the 3,000-member strong CAT police union, said the unprecedented situation meant “anything can happen” – but his loyalty to Spain’s constitution came first.
“This is exceptional because there is a government that against all odds has declared that it will rebel against the law. I think that is an error,” Costa said. “I swore to the Spanish Constitution just like every single one of us Mossos. If something is unconstitutional, it cannot be done.”
Just last month, the Mossos were widely praised for their quick capture and killing of jihadist-inspired extremists who carried out deadly vehicle attacks in Barcelona and a nearby town. Now the same force feels trapped by the tense political climate.
“Our image will be damaged for one side or the other,” said David Miquel, a 25-year veteran of the Mossos in Barcelona and spokesman for the SPC union representing 5,000 officers. “Some who saw us as heroes for finishing off the terrorists will now see us as villains. For others, we will be heroes for having upheld the law.”
Last week a huge crowd of angry protesters took to Barcelona’s streets after the Civil Guard, a national police force with a much smaller presence in Catalonia, carried out raids on an office of the Catalan government. The protesters trashed the Civil Guard’s vehicles and scuffled with the officers, but Miquel said it took hours until the Mossos was ordered to step in and help restore order.
“My fellow Mossos tell me that they could have done more to help, but they were not ordered to,” Miquel said. “When you see people destroying the patrol cars of your fellow policeman, it’s a feeling of impotence. What we want is to receive orders that are not coming. They need to give us a detailed guide on how to act. Don’t leave it in our hands. Give us instructions.”
Albert Donaire is a Mosso from a small town of la Cellera de Ter, where pro-secession sentiment runs deep. He heads a group of 200 to 300 like-minded police officers called “Mossos for Independence.”
“My personal decision is not to confiscate any ballot boxes nor close any polling stations,” Donaire said. “I am not afraid that I will end up in prison for defending democracy.”
Like many separatists, Donaire justifies his disobedience of Spanish law by citing two acts passed by separatist lawmakers in Catalonia’s regional parliament. Those measures called for the referendum and established a roadmap for independence if the “yes” votes prevail.
Even though those acts have been suspended by Spain’s Constitutional Court, Donaire believes the laws are valid because they are protected by international law and the right of people to self-determination.
Faced with the challenge of stopping the vote in the nearly 800 municipalities, many of them tiny villages, the Interior Ministry has rushed more agents of the Civil Guard and the National Police to Catalonia.
“It’s an exceptional situation, and we have to prepare for the worst-case scenario. There could be a part of the Mossos that won’t respond,” said Luis Mansilla, general secretary in Catalonia of the National Police union SUP.
The extra manpower on the ground in Catalonia will be enough to quash the referendum should the Catalan police waver, said Juan Fernandez, the spokesman for the Civil Guard’s AUGC union.
“We understand it must not be easy” for the Mossos, Fernandez said.
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A Year on From Odessa ‘Pogrom,’ Ukraine’s Roma Face Rise in Mob Justice
In the hours after the mutilated body of a 9-year-old girl was found in a forest near the Ukrainian port city of Odessa, rumors spread quickly that a local Roma man had been arrested — and violent retribution followed.
A meeting of local leaders the same day in August last year denounced nearby Roma as criminals and demanded evictions, while a mob circled homes, pelting buildings with rocks and trashing a community where many Roma had lived for a decade, said rights groups.
By early September, all two dozen Roma targeted, including 17 children, had fled.
A year on, they remain in temporary housing in Izmail, southwest Ukraine, and say they are unable to return home to their village of Loshchinovka for fear of further violence, according to the Roma Human Rights Center (RHRC).
Rights groups say the attack follows a pattern of xenophobic “pogroms” across Ukraine against the Roma, also known as gypsies, to which the state has turned a blind eye.
With ancestral roots in India, the Roma migrated to eastern Europe in the 10th century and have a history marked by persecution.
Since Ukraine’s “Euromaiden” revolution of 2014, government agencies — bogged down in a series of economic and political crises and a conflict with Russian-backed forces in the east — have failed to guarantee the safety of Roma, said Volodymyr Kondur, head of Odessa RHRC.
“The situation has become more complicated throughout Ukraine: Roma are not protected, the state is not able to provide security,” Kondur, who works to represent the affected communities in Izmail, told Reuters.
There are between 120,000 and 400,000 Roma in Ukraine who face poverty and discrimination, with limited access to justice and their property rights barely protected, according to the European Roma Rights Centre.
In the year since the Odessa riot, there have been at least eight mass attacks on Roma, in the metropolitan regions of Kyiv, Kharkiv and Lviv as well as the rural areas of Transcarpathi and Chernigov, said Kondur.
Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said 20 police officers in Odessa had undergone training since the attacks to teach them how to deal with hate crimes and investigate Roma communities without discrimination.
A spokesman said police and local authorities have planned further training exercises to encourage cooperation with Roma communities, including a series of classes for Roma participants on legal rights.
Ukraine’s ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’
In Odessa, 22-year-old Roma man, Mykhaylo Chebotar, accused of the young girl’s rape and murder, is in custody and is scheduled to go on trial October 19, according to the Ukrainian Human Rights Information Center.
But campaigners said an entire community has been collectively punished with exile.
Oleg Shynkarenko, a writer and activist at the advocacy group the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union (UHHRU) likens the story to a Ukrainian retelling of To Kill a Mockingbird, the novel about a lawyer defending a black man against murder charges, amid racial hatred in the American South.
“Nobody knows if that gypsy man is the real murderer, because the trial is not finished, but the locals have destroyed Roma’s buildings and state officials did not stop it or even condemn it,” Shynkarenko told Reuters.
Odessa State Regional Administration did not respond to written questions or phone calls.
Mikheil Saakashvili, the former Georgian president who was then governor of Odessa State, singled out Chebotar for blame in the murder case in a news conference the day after the attack.
Saakashvili said he understood the anger directed at the Roma, claiming Chebotar was among “anti-social elements” in the village that he said were involved in “massive drug dealing.”
Such sweeping charges are “indicative of the treatment that many Roma in Ukraine experience on a regular basis,” said Neil Clarke, European Managing Director of Minority Rights Group International.
Justice soon?
Kondur said authorities have offered no answers about when the Roma families can return to Loshchinovka or why police did not intervene to stop the vigilante attacks.
Rights groups’ demands for alternative housing for the Roma have not been met, with authorities blaming the war and the country’s economic troubles for their inability to provide homes, he added.
Attempts by the community to pursue justice in courts have moved slowly but, in April, UHHRU lawyer Yulia Lisova secured a hearing in Ukraine’s administrative courts that will consider whether Roma’s rights were violated by the authorities’ failure to protect them from attack.
“If we get the result in defense of the Roma, the community will understand that there will always be a punishment for crimes. Then people will think about their actions before they commit,” Kondur said.
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From Dishwasher to Millionaire, Ethiopian Refugee Achieves American Dream
When Tashitaa Tufaa first arrived in Minneapolis from Ethiopia in 1992, he remembers craning his head skyward in disbelief. Looking up at the tallest skyscraper he had ever seen, he began counting the stories until he couldn’t count anymore. Eventually, he found out the building had 55 floors.
It was a long way from Negele Arsi district in the Oromia region of Ethiopia where he grew up. As a child, he worked alongside his 13 siblings on the family farm.
Now he’d have to do other types of work. He thought he had a fluent command of English that would open doors in the job market.
“But I found out that I didn’t after I came to Minneapolis,” he said.
So he began as a dishwasher at the Hilton Hotel, earning $5.65 an hour. Eventually, he held as many as three jobs at once, including ones at manufacturing companies and another as a security guard.
The small paychecks of those days are long gone for Tufaa, who is now president of a successful bus company.
Each day, Metropolitan Transportation Network carries more than 15,000 children to schools, field trips and other destinations in Minneapolis and other Minnesota cities. The multimillion-dollar transportation company has more than 300 employees and recently moved to a new, larger operations center.
‘I do not believe in giving up’
The road to success hasn’t been easy, but Tufaa believes his experience shows that for those willing to work hard, anything is possible.
“I do not believe in giving up,” he told VOA.
Tufaa came to the U.S. as a refugee. He had been a school teacher in Ethiopia and was also active in politics. Following the fall of Ethiopia’s communist Derg regime in 1991, he helped campaign for the Oromo Liberation Front in his native Oromia region.
When his party withdrew from the transitional government after a fallout with the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, Tufaa no longer felt safe in the country and decided to leave.
“I was a political asylee. I didn’t like or agree with the Ethiopian government,” he said.
While working his menial jobs in the U.S. he also earned his master’s degree in political science and international relations from the University of Minnesota. After obtaining the degree, he worked for the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority.
Dishwashing and factory work were not enough to provide for his family, so he took an evening and weekend job as a shuttle driver, transporting senior citizens and people with disabilities to and from work.
“As a result I fell in love with transportation and I call myself an addicted driver,” he said with a chuckle.
He left his city job after a conflict with a supervisor and began driving taxis. But other drivers complained that he worked long hours and favored shorter trips to avoid long queues at the airport.
Eventually the taxi company fired him and, with no other options, he decided to strike out on his own.
“To do a business, you need to face a challenge. You can’t start business if there is luxury,” Tufaa said.
Starting with one van
After sketching out their idea for a transportation company in 2003, Tufaa and his brother began delivering handwritten letters to public school districts seeking contracts. He started with his wife’s single minivan transporting homeless children.
Tufaa — who had once aspired to be a diplomat — says his negotiation and bargaining skills paid off. Their service was rated as excellent by public school districts and the business grew.
The business has steadily grown and now includes a fleet of nearly 300 buses and vans that take children to schools across the state. In 2012 Tufaa was named Entrepreneur of the Year by the Metropolitan Economic Development Association in Minneapolis.
Since the beginning, Tufaa says, he prioritized the safety and punctuality of the children his company serves.
“I will not accept for my kids to arrive in school one minute late,” the father of five said. “I make sure that is the case for all the children we serve.”
Minnesota has long, snowy winters. Although buses typically drop off kids and leave, MTN pays its drivers to wait until the children get inside their homes or are met by an adult.
Employees marvel at his ability to grow the business without sacrificing his values.
“When I joined everything all I was hearing was, ‘We want to be more like a family,’” said Charles Marks, an assistant transportation manager at the company. “We kept that tradition and that makes the drivers come back every year. I always keep an empty chair next to my desk for anyone who wants to come and talk.”
Tufaa believes in building and empowering communities to be self-sufficient. He is active in the local Oromo community.
Estimated at 40,000 by the Minnesota Historical Society, Minnesota is home to the largest Oromo population outside of Ethiopia in the U.S.
Tufaa advises and mentors employees interested in starting their own business. In fact, since 2012, three former employees have started their own successful transportation companies.
“The greatest gift I think you can give people like you is that it can be done and I feel like I’ve done that,” Tufaa said.
This, he says, is a lesson for all African immigrants pursuing their American dream.
“When a person is free, you can do anything,” he said. “So appreciate what you have, work so very hard, and get rid of the wrong pride we have back home that if you have a college degree you have to be in a professional line [of work] and you can’t dig the potatoes or do the dishes. Work is work and go out there and do what is available. Be proud of it.”
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French Unions Block Fuel Depots in Protest Against Labor Reforms
French trade unionists blocked access on Monday to several fuel depots in protest against an overhaul of employment laws, seeking to test the government’s will to reform the economy.
In southern France, protesters’ unions set up a road-block in front of Total’s La Mede refinery, while in western France fuel depots were blocked near Bordeaux and the coastal city of La Rochelle. Union members also held go-slow operations on highways near Paris and in northern France.
“We’re determined. We’re going to stay as long as possible while hoping that other blockades take place elsewhere, maybe that’ll make Mr. Macron move,” Force Ouvriere union official Pascal Favre told Reuters.
Eager to avoid fuel shortages, centrist President Emmanuel Macron’s government deployed police at some sites before dawn to ensure by force that protesters could not block access.
“It’s not in blockading the country’s economy and by preventing people from working, that one best defends one’s cause,” junior economy minister Benjamin Griveaux told RTL radio.
The labor reform is due to become law in the coming days after Macron formally signed five labor form decrees on Friday, in the first major economic reforms since he took power in May.
The new rules, discussed at length in advance with unions, will cap payouts on dismissals that are judged unfair, while also giving companies greater freedom to hire and fire employees and to agree working conditions.
While unions have failed to derail the reform, the considerable political capital Macron had after his landslide election victory in May is quickly evaporating.
Macron suffered his first electoral setback on Sunday when his Republic on the Move (LREM) party won fewer seats than expected in elections for the French Senate.
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Kenya Bans Plastic Bags, Joining Other Nations
Last month, Kenya joined ten other African countries that are trying to control an avalanche of plastic waste. It’s part of a growing international trend to tax, or even ban the plastic bags that are a big part of the worldwide explosion of trash. It’s a good environmental move, though many argue it will cost money and jobs. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Ethnically Divided Iraqi Town Fears Fresh Conflict After Kurds’ Independence Vote
On the eve of the historic referendum on independence, Kurds across the region were celebrating. Young people honked their horns and shot celebratory gunfire into the air of major cities.
But not in Tuz Khurmatu, an Iraqi town of more than 100,000 that is violently split among Kurds and Shi’ite Turkmen, who oppose Monday’s referendum.
“I hope the referendum will be canceled,” said Luay, a Turkman shopkeeper in Tuz. “If they don’t, the Kurds will take over by force and there won’t be any Turkmen or Arabs left.”
The town is part of the disputed territories, ethnically mixed areas in northern Iraq claimed by both the central government in Baghdad and the autonomous Kurdish government in the north. Each side has tried to consolidate their power over the town since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Kurdish officials have insisted throughout the referendum campaign that all residents of the disputed territories — including Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen and other minorities — would be allowed to vote.
However, by Sunday afternoon, the ballot boxes had yet to be distributed throughout the rundown town, which local Kurdish officials attributed to a lack of security forces able to help deploy them safely.
Plans had been made to have polling stations in all neighborhoods, said Arslan Ali, a local representative of Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), which has been pushing for the referendum.
“We will make it happen,” Ali said.
This was unlikely, since Tuz Khurmatu is unmistakably split: while Kurdish Peshmerga forces control a Kurdish half, Iran-backed Shi’ite paramilitary groups (PMF) control the Turkmen neighborhoods.
“We will not let them approach the Turkmen areas,” said Mohammed Mahdi al-Bayati, a senior leader in the Badr Organization, the preeminent PMF force in the area. “They want to seize the disputed territories, but we will not let them.”
A decision by Kurdish President Massoud Barzani to include these ethnically mixed areas in the plebiscite was widely interpreted as a unilateral move to consolidate Kurdish control.
When Islamic State militants overran about one third of Iraq in 2014, the Kurds seized the moment and took over vast areas in northern Iraq, left vulnerable by a fleeing Iraqi army.
Peshmerga fighters moved deeper into the disputed territories, including Tuz Khurmatu, which they defended against the militants.
But this ignited the Shi’ite Turkmen’s fears of being subjected to Kurdish rule. Though PMF-led Turkmen worked together to push Islamic State militants out of Tuz Khurmatu, ultimately the fragile coalition fell apart and led to open hostilities.
“The referendum will be the start of a crisis in the disputed territories,” al-Bayati said, at a his organization’s base in Tuz Khurmatu, where it has been based since 2014.
Asked whether his forces would move to prevent such a crisis, al-Bayati made only veiled reference to looming violence: “There will be conflict for sure within 24 hours of the referendum.”
Memories of Mixed Neighborhood
Walking through the Turkmen neighborhood of Aksu, solid-black flags flutter alongside banners with Shi’ite iconography, a reminder of the somber month of Muharram.
The area used to house the main market, where both ethnic groups used to trade. It is now encased in blast walls and guarded by PMF fighters. According to Turkmen residents and shopkeepers, Kurdish shops and houses were burned down, forcing Kurds to move out.
“I used to like that it was mixed neighborhood,” said Luay, the Turkman shopkeeper. “But then the Kurds killed my brother on this street.”
A five-minute drive away is the rival Kurdish market, where tri-color Kurdish flags were flying high. It was established by Kurds afraid of the old market.
“I used to have lots of Turkmen and Arab friends,” said Shalaw, a Kurdish toyshop owner. “Many of the Turkmen have since joined [the PMF], and I’m afraid to cross the city border to go and see them. I’ll be killed.”
Like other Kurds interviewed in the market in al-Jumhuriyah, Shalaw lamented Tuz Khurmatu’s split, which he blamed on the PM’s arrival. But he said he will vote for independence on Monday.
Badr leader Al-Bayati cynically said the referendum suited his group’s interests.
“Iraq is against the Kurds, so are the Turks, the Iranians, the whole Arab region and Europe. They are going to live in a cage.”
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Lawyer: Kushner Used Personal Email for Some White House Messages
President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, occasionally used his personal email account to communicate with colleagues in the White House, his lawyer said Sunday.
Between January and August, Kushner sent or responded to fewer than 100 emails from White House officials from his private account, attorney Abbe Lowell said in a statement.
“These usually forwarded news articles or political commentary and most often occurred when someone initiated the exchange by sending an email to his personal, rather than his White House, address,” Lowell said.
The attorney said Kushner, a key aide to Trump, uses his White House address to discuss White House and that any non-personal emails have been forwarded to his official account and preserved.
Politico first reported Kushner’s use of a private email account.
The use of personal email to discuss government business is a politically freighted issue that factored prominently in last year’s presidential election.
Hillary Clinton faced an FBI investigation for much of her unsuccessful White House bid over her use of a private email server as secretary of state. Former FBI Director James Comey said that though Clinton and her aides were “extremely careless” in their handling of classified information, there was no evidence that anyone intended to break the law. He recommended against prosecution.
Trump argued during the campaign that Clinton deserved to be prosecuted and has continued to suggest that even after being elected president. At a political event in Alabama on Sunday, he responded to supporter chants of “lock her up” by saying, “You’ve got to speak to [Attorney General] Jeff Sessions about that.”
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Senior Somali General Gunned Down in Mogadishu
A senior Somali military officer was gunned down in Mogadishu Sunday evening, security sources told VOA’s Somali service.
Gunmen armed with pistols fatally shot General Abdullahi Mohamed Sheikh Qururuh and a bodyguard as the two men were walking home from a mosque in the Somali capital, witnesses said.
The attackers walked past General Qururuh and the bodyguard, then turned and shot them from behind, the sources quoted the witnesses as saying.
Both victims died on the spot.
Qururuh was a senior army officer at Somalia’s command and control headquarters in Mogadishu. He served previously as deputy commander of logistics for the Somali army.
There no immediate claim of responsibility for the assassinations. Al-Shabab militants are believed to be involved in most such attacks on government officials.
One week ago a similar shooting in southern Mogadishu killed a senior Somali intelligence officer and his bodyguard. The attackers in that case were in a vehicle that fired on Mohamud Moallim Hassan Qoley and his bodyguard in the capital’s Dharkaynlay district. Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for those killings.
In a separate incident late Sunday, two government soldiers and a civilian were killed in an Al-Shabab ambush in Somalia’s Puntland region, witnesses said.
Hospital officials in Bosaso confirmed to VOA Somali that they had received the bodies of two soldiers and one woman following the attack in Galgala Highlands, 40 kilometers south of Bosaso, a regional commercial center. Sources said five other soldiers were wounded.
Al-Shabab militants said they carried out the attack, targeting a military vehicle carrying soldiers to the Puntland base in Galgala Highlands.
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Trump Expands Ban on Travel to US From 8 Countries
Travelers to the United States from eight countries will face new restrictions under a revised travel ban order signed by U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday.
The new rules, which take effect on Oct. 18, affect citizens of Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen.
U.S. officials said these countries have refused to share information about terrorism and other issues with the United States.
The announcement late Sunday came as Trump’s previous temporary ban on visitors from six Muslim-majority countries was expiring, 90 days after it went into effect. The earlier order had barred citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the U.S. unless they had a “credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.”
Reaction to the president’s order from human-rights organizations and other groups that work with immigrants was swift, and largely negative.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, said the latest version of the “Muslim ban” that Trump tried to introduce on taking office earlier this year was part of the administration’s “ugly white supremacist agenda.”
Trump said in the new proclamation: “As president, I must act to protect the security and interests of the United States and its people. The restrictions announced are tough and tailored, and they send a message to foreign governments that they must work with us to enhance security.”
The new ban drops Sudan from the list but adds Chad, Venezuela and North Korea to the original six Muslim-majority countries.
“North Korea does not cooperate with the United States government in any respect and fails to satisfy all information-sharing requirements,” the presidential declaration said.
Venezuela was cited for failing to cooperate “in verifying whether its citizens pose national security or public-safety threats. “U.S. officials also said the Caracas government does not willingly receive Venezuelans deported by the United States.
Chad, a “valuable and important” counter-terrorism partner, failed to share terrorism-related and other public safety information, the proclamation said.
Amnesty International lashed out at the new ban.
Since the last ban was “implemented 10 months ago, we have seen families torn apart and whole nations of people demonized for the crimes of a few,” the human-rights group said in a statement Sunday. “The order was a catastrophe not just for those seeking safety but for those who simply want to travel, work or study in the United States. Today’s action neither relieves this tension nor keeps anyone safe.”
Trump last week called for a “tougher” travel ban after a bomb partially exploded on a London subway.
“The travel ban into the United States should be far larger, tougher and more specific – but stupidly, that would not be politically correct!” Trump wrote in a post on Twitter.
your ad hereBlack Lawmakers Ponder Trump Agenda at Annual Gathering
On the campaign trail last year, then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump sought the support of black voters by asking them, “What the hell do you have to lose?”
An answer came during the Congressional Black Caucus’ annual legislative conference this past week: Everything.
“We are losing essential freedoms,” said Brittany Packnett, who became an advocate for criminal justice reform after the 2014 police killing of Michael Brown and subsequent protests in Ferguson, Missouri. “The mood is resolute. No one is confused about the amount of work that lies ahead of us.”
Those who flocked to the nation’s capital for the gathering of black lawmakers, leaders and policy experts identified multiple ways that black Americans are losing ground under President Trump’s watch.
The conference, which ended Sunday, took place against the backdrop of yet another attempt by the GOP-controlled Congress to undo a signature domestic achievement of the country’s first black president, the Affordable Care Act. Over the past eight months, black Americans have also been alarmed by the administration’s attempt to undo federal housing programs, a lack of funding for historically black colleges, and a retreat from discussion of disparities in policing of minority communities.
The conference also happened as Trump attacked NFL players who kneel in protest during the national anthem. Since last season, several players have knelt or raised fists when the anthem is played to protest police treatment of blacks and social injustice.
This year’s CBC conference was the first since president Barack Obama left office, shifting the national black political leadership mantle from the White House back to Capitol Hill. The heavily Democratic caucus – currently boasting its largest-ever membership with 49 representatives and senators – so far has had a testy relationship with Trump, who got only 8 percent of the black vote when he was elected last November.
Concerns falling on ‘deaf ears’
Trump met with CBC leadership in March. But in June, the caucus turned down an invitation to meet again, saying their concerns have fallen on “deaf ears” at the White House, and that Trump’s policies are harmful to black Americans.
Trump’s claim that “many sides” were responsible for racial violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August, and that there were “very fine people” among the white nationalists in attendance protesting the possible removal of a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee, generated controversy.
Trump has rejected the persistent condemnation of his words and actions on matters involving race. Speaking from the White House amid overwhelming criticism of his statements, he declared, “Racism is evil,” and said he condemned white supremacists and other hate groups. He declared himself to be “the least racist person that you have ever met” in a December 2015 interview with CNN.
At a raucous town hall meeting on Thursday, Reps. John Lewis of Georgia and Maxine Waters of California urged attendees to push back against Trump’s agenda and the newly emboldened neo-Nazis and white supremacists who have wholeheartedly embraced it.
“Racism is still deeply embedded in American society,” said Lewis, a veteran civil rights activist. “We have to call it what it is at all levels, whether it’s at the White House or the poor house. Don’t try to sweep it under the rug like it doesn’t still exist.”
Waters, who has been a staunch and vocal critic of Trump, was cheered when she called Attorney General Jeff Sessions “a racist.”
“He’s a throwback,” Waters said. She noted Sessions’ reversal of ex-Attorney General Eric Holder’s stance on mandatory minimums for crack-cocaine prison sentences, which have disproportionately affected African-Americans, and his review of federal consent decrees for local law enforcement agencies.
Sessions saw his nomination to be a federal judge turned away in 1986 because of allegations he had made racially charged comments. He said then, “I am not a racist,” and during his confirmation this year rejected “the caricature that was created of me,” saying, “It wasn’t accurate then, and it’s not accurate now.”
Put off during campaign
During the campaign, many black voters were put off by Trump’s references to blacks “living in hell” and his promises to restore “law and order” to cities like Philadelphia, Chicago and Baltimore. This summer, Trump suggested that police officers be more rough with suspects when taking them into custody.
Philadelphia city councilman Derrick Green said Trump’s budget proposals are harmful to cities because they eliminate programs like the community development block grant.
“It is really questionable how he can really say that he wants to help cities like Philadelphia,” said Green, noting that Philadelphia remains the poorest big city in America, with a poverty rate double that of the national average at more than 25 percent.
Economist Julianne Malveaux, who attended the conference, called Trump’s characterization of urban centers “stereotypical and stupid.” Malveaux, former president of the all-black women’s Bennett College in North Carolina, cited Trump’s lack of support for historically black colleges in the budget, as among the examples of his lack of urgency to address concerns in the black community.
“What he seems to have done is reverse the entirety of the Obama legacy, literally department by department,” said Malveaux. “What do we have to lose? Everything. The message is, ‘You don’t count.’”
Princeton African-American Studies professor Eddie Glaude said those who caution that Trump’s tenure is young are “naive.”
“What are we waiting to see?” Glaude asked. “The economic philosophy is not going to benefit us.”
your ad hereIraqi Government Asks Foreign Countries to Stop Oil Trade With Kurdistan
Iraq on Sunday urged foreign countries to stop importing crude directly from its autonomous Kurdistan region and to restrict oil trading to the central government.
The call, published in statement from Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s office, came in retaliation for the Kurdistan Regional Government’s plan to hold a referendum on independence on Monday.
The central government’s statement seems to be directed primarily at Turkey, the transit country for all the crude produced in Kurdistan. The crude is taken by pipeline to the Turkish Mediterranean coast for export.
Baghdad “asks the neighboring countries and the countries of the world to deal exclusively with the federal government of Iraq in regards to entry posts and oil,” the statement said.
The Iraqi government has always opposed independent sales of crude by the KRG, and tried on many occasions to block Kurdish oil shipments.
Long-standing disputes over land and oil resources are among the main reasons cited by the KRG to ask for independence.
Iraqi Kurdistan produces around 650,000 barrels per day of crude from its fields, including around 150,000 from the disputed areas of Kirkuk.
The region’s production volumes represent 15 percent of total Iraqi output and around 0.7 percent of global oil production. The KRG aspires to raise production to over 1 million barrels per day by the end of this decade.
Kurdish oil production has been dominated by mid-sized oil companies such as Genel, DNO, Gulf Keystone and Dana Gas. Major oil companies such as Chevron, Exxon Mobil and Rosneft also have projects in Kurdistan but they are mostly at an exploration stage.
However, Rosneft, Russia’s state oil major, has lent over $1 billion to the KRG guaranteed by oil sales and committed a total of $4 billion to various projects in Kurdistan.
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Alabama Voters to Decide Close Senate Race, Focus of National Political Attention
Washington’s gaze shifts southward this week to the state of Alabama, where a Republican primary contest for a U.S. Senate seat will be decided Tuesday. VOA’s Michael Bowman reports, President Donald Trump put his prestige on the line by campaigning for incumbent Luther Strange, who has trailed in the polls against a firebrand conservative challenger loathed by the Republican establishment.
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Immigrants in US, Touched by Mexico Quake, Try to Help From Afar
When Luis Ramirez finally reached his mother after the powerful Mexico earthquake, he learned her home was so badly damaged that it had to be demolished.
He considered getting on a plane from New York to help her find a new home, but it was too risky now that the program that has been shielding him from deportation is being phased out. He tried to send money, but the usual courier that he uses shut down because of the damage from the 7.1-magnitude quake in his home state of Morelos.
“The situation is eating me alive because you can’t do anything,” he said about sending help to his mother from New York City.
The earthquake that killed nearly 300 people and destroyed dozens of buildings in Mexico set off a frantic response in communities around the U.S. as people desperately try to connect with their loved ones, figure out ways to send emergency help, money and goods as well as raise funds for smaller towns around the capital they say are receiving less help from the government. Those in the country illegally wish they could travel to help their loved ones cope with the aftermath but are afraid they wouldn’t be able to return.
“We saw people desperately trying to connect with their families. Lines were down. They couldn’t think of other ways to find their relatives,” said Ana Flores, who heads an office for the Mexican state of Puebla in Passaic, New Jersey. “We have gone through all of the feelings from anxiety, to anguish and now trying to find all the support we can.”
Traditionally a month of parties for Mexicans who celebrate the country’s independence from Spain, September has dealt one blow after another. It started with the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in Houston, which has the third-largest population of Mexicans in the U.S. Then on Sept. 5, President Donald Trump announced his decision to phase out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that shielded from deportation nearly 800,000 immigrants — the great majority from Mexico — brought to the U.S. as children. Another earthquake struck in Mexico’s southern coast on Sept. 7, killing at least 90 people.
Tuesday’s earthquake has Mexicans in the U.S. glued to their televisions and their phones trying to get specific news from their local towns to help their families.
Monica Dominguez, who lives in Huntington Beach, California, had been calling childhood friends who now work for Mexico’s Civil Protection trying to pull strings to move the construction rubble from her grandparents’ home in the town of Yautepec south of Mexico City so her family can go out to the street. The old house where she lived when she was 5 collapsed when the wooden beams cracked, leaving it in ruins.
“All they were able to get out of there were some couches where they have been sleeping in the back. They have power but they are running out of food,” she said. “There are so many of us with similar stories of suffering.”
In Las Vegas, Luis Ramon Corona-Rizo is helping collect funds among friends and hosting a car wash to raise money to send back home. Corona-Rizo says his parents and sister survived the quake and offered to use the money he sends to buy medicines and take them to a collection center.
“A lot of people don’t trust the government in Mexico, so I’m going to send the money to my family,” he said.
A grocery store chain in Las Vegas that caters to the area’s Hispanic community is also hosting a fundraiser this weekend at one of its shops where it will have local bands and sell tacos and donate proceeds to the Mexican Red Cross. In Miami, a group is hosting a Day of the Dead arts and crafts event for families and sending money from ticket sales to the Topos, a group of rescue workers who emerged after the 1985 earthquake killed thousands in Mexico.
In San Diego, the chambers of commerce in the San Ysidro and Otay Mesa border communities launched a drive to collect donated goods and fly them to Mexico City on a private plane. The Mexican customs agency is waiving duties.
“Many of our employees have relatives and friends who were affected by the earthquake,” said Ruben Anaya, chief operations officer of Mariana’s Supermarkets in Las Vegas. “It is our duty as human beings to help when tragedies like the one that just happened in Mexico occur. Many of the videos we’ve watched are horrible.”
The quake happened around the same time as Hurricane Maria ravaged Puerto Rico, and Mexican immigrants are joining efforts in places such as New York City where Puerto Ricans are also in distress.
Both Univision and Telemundo broadcasters are also producing television specials this weekend with actors, singers and news anchors to help raise funds for those affected by the earthquake and hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria in Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico.
For immigrants like Ramirez, sending money is a race against time. His mother is confined to a room on her property that — unlike her home — the authorities have not condemned. Her poor health makes it impossible for her to wait in line for relief services, so Ramirez is hoping to send her money via wire transfer from his savings so she can get food and supplies at the store and find a new place to live, but so far it hasn’t been easy.
“She waited five hours at this place with so many other people waiting for money transfers to help them get by, only to hear that the funds could not go through,” he said. “She went back home empty-handed and crying.”
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Swiss Voters Reject Raising Women’s Retirement Age
Swiss voters rejected raising women’s retirement age to 65 in a referendum on Sunday on shoring up the wealthy nation’s pension system as a wave of Baby Boomers stops working.
Authorities pushing the first serious reform of the pension system in two decades had warned that old-age benefits were increasingly at risk as life expectancy rises and interest rates remain exceptionally low, cutting investment yields.
But it fell by a margin of 53-47 percent, sending the government back to the drawing board on the thorny social issue.
The package turned down under the Swiss system of direct democracy included making retirement between the ages of 62 and 70 more flexible and raising the standard value-added tax (VAT) rate from 2021 to help finance the stretched pension system.
It sought to secure the level of pensions through 2030 by cutting costs and raising additional revenue.
Minimum pay-out rates would have gradually fallen and workers’ contributions would rise, while public pensions for all new recipients would go up by 70 Swiss francs ($72.25) a month.
The retirement age for women would have gradually risen by a year to 65, the same as for men.
“That is no life,” complained one 49-year-old kiosk cashier, who identified herself only as Angie. “You go straight from work to the graveyard.”
Some critics had complained that the higher retirement age for women and higher VAT rates were unfair, while others opposed expanding public benefits and said the reforms only postponed for a decade rather than solved the system’s financial woes.
Opinion polls had shown the reforms just squeaking by, but support had been waning.
The standard VAT rate would have gone up by 0.3 point from 2021 to 8.3 percent — helping generate 2.1 billion francs a year for pensions by 2030 — but the rejection means the standard VAT rate will now fall to 7.7 percent next year as a levy earmarked for disability insurance ends.
A 2014 OECD survey found Switzerland, where a worker earns over $91,000 on average, spends a relatively low 6.6 percent of economic output on public pensions. Life expectancy at birth was 82.5 years. More than 18 percent of the population was older than 65.
($1 = 0.9690 Swiss francs)
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Cameroon Council Silences Journalists, Media Outlets
Cameroon’s National Communication Council, the government media regulator, has suspended 30 journalists or radio and TV programs for what it calls biased reporting.
Among the more than 30 media organizations and journalists the NCC has suspended or warned are newspapers La Nouvelle Expression, La Meteo, L’Anecdote and the capital city radio station Amplitude FM.
NCC president Peter Essoka said the media organizations and journalists were suspended from one to six months because of unprofessional conduct and refusal to respect norms and ethics of journalism.
“When a journalist comes up with a newspaper article and says a certain minister is known to be running with the prime minister’s wife, how do you take that? It is indecent. It is indecent. And then he lists out that this minister is sleeping with this other minister, how does that help the society? It does not in any way. The media are supposed to play a very, very important role in its development, but then when we take on trivial things and say rubbish about lots and lots and lots of things, it hurts the heart,” Essoka said.
Ministers, directors general, a lawmaker and a former army general had written to the NCC complaining their rights were abused by the journalists’ reports.
But Journalist and IPS correspondent Mbom Sixtus said since its creation the NCC has been used as a tool to punish journalists.
“I have the impression that the National Communication Council was created to serve government officials or influential citizens. The Communication Council will hardly prove a minister wrong, so I do not think the council was created to regulate or bring order in the practice of journalism in Cameroon,” Sixtus said.
Cameroon has about 600 newspapers, 200 radio, TV and online stations, and 15 news websites, according to the Ministry of Communication.
Reporters Without Borders in 2014 reported that Cameroon’s Communication Council had taken a clearly tougher line towards journalists and media, which was reflected in the number of summonses it issued and the suspensions it had ordered.
Cameroon is ranked 126th out of 180 countries in the Reporters Without Borders’ 2016 World Press Freedom Index.
Last week, the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists reported Cameroon has been using its 2014 anti-terror law to “silence critics and suppress dissent.”
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After German Vote, Europe Can Turn to Patching Euro’s Flaws
Sunday’s national election in Germany will sound the starting gun for a renewed debate on fixing flaws in Europe’s shared currency to prevent future crises.
France’s new president Emmanuel Macron has made it clear he is willing to push for change to strengthen the euro and is expected to make proposals in a major speech Tuesday. He is pushing for, among other things, a finance minister for the eurozone to oversee a central fiscal pot of money that could even out recessions in individual members.
Even pro-euro policymakers concede their 19-nation currency union contains weaknesses that fed its debt crisis — and leave it exposed to new trouble. But action on fixes has slowed.
Macron’s ideas are not new but several of them have faced resistance from Germany, always allergic to the idea of being handed the bill for other members’ troubles. For example, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, have pushed back against the idea of EU-wide insurance on bank deposits meant to keep bank troubles from hitting government finances.
Now there are signs that after its own elections are out of the way, Germany might be more open to change or at a minimum speeding up steps — like the deposit insurance idea — that have stalled. Polls suggest Merkel will win a fourth term. What’s not clear is which party her center right Christian Democratic Union will form a coalition.
“In several ways, the coming 12-18 months represent an exceptional opportunity for European reform,” says Nicolas Veron, senior fellow at the Bruegel think tank in Brussels and at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. Reasons for that, he said, include:
The two biggest EU countries, France and Germany, will now have new governments with fresh mandates from voters.
Europe’s banks are in better shape and the economy is growing, meaning leaders are not preoccupied with fighting a crisis.
Anti-euro populists have been turned back at the polls this year in France and the Netherlands, giving pro-EU forces a fresh shot of confidence.
Memories of the debt crisis that threatened to break up the eurozone at its peak in 2011-2012 may still be vivid enough to overcome complacency.
Merkel has expressed cautious openness to tweaking the setup of the euro.
“I have made clear that I don’t have anything against the title of a European finance minister per se — we would just have to clear up, and we are not yet that far along in talks with France — what this finance minister could do,” she said in August.
“I could imagine an economy and finance minister … so that we achieve a higher degree of harmonization of competitiveness.”
The euro, currently worth about $1.20, was created in 1999, and 19 of the 28 EU members use it.
European officials concede that the debt crisis, which exploded when Greece revealed in October 2009 that it was bankrupt, exposed serious flaws. Once financial trouble hit, member countries such as Greece, Ireland and Portugal lacked typical crisis safety valves such as letting their national currency devalue, which can help a country’s exports and attract investment. Without their own currencies, this was no longer possible. The countries wound up needing bailouts from the other member countries led by Germany and from the International Monetary Fund.
Additionally, the cost of rescuing failing banks threatened to bankrupt entire eurozone governments. And the euro lacks a central fiscal budget that could even out recessions in member countries by investing more in economies in need.
German resistance will likely remain strong to the bolder ideas, such as a well-stocked central fiscal pot worth several percentage points of EU gross domestic product. Currently, the EU’s budget is 1 percent of GDP, spent on things like support for farmers and infrastructure to help development in the poorest members.
More modest, politically realistic steps could include:
Pushing ahead with EU-wide deposit insurance, to be implemented over a period of years.
Regulations limiting the widespread practice of European banks buying their own governments’ bonds. That would increase pressure on governments to shape up their economies and finances.
A modest additional pot of money that could be used as targeted stimulus for eurozone countries that fall into serious recessions, with the condition that they implement economic reforms.
EU governments led by Germany, the bloc’s most influential member, have already taken some significant steps since the crisis days. They created a fund that can give bailout loans to states in need. They tightened banking oversight by moving it to the EU level at the European Central Bank, and they took steps to stick bank creditors — not taxpayers — with any losses in case of a rescue.
The new system proved its mettle in June, when the ECB pulled the plug on Spain’s troubled Banco Popular, the country’s sixth-largest bank, and then orchestrated a sale to Banco Santander for one euro. Shareholders and junior bondholders took the losses, while taxpayers and depositors were spared. It’s a step away from crisis times when the financial burden of rescuing banks drove Ireland and Spain to seek bailout help.
Carsten Brzeski, chief economist at ING Germany, says that reforms like a small central fund and deposit insurance are feasible.
“The opportunity in 2018 would be more a natural evolution of the process that has been ongoing now for the past couple of years, rather than being a revolution,” he said.
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Russian General Killed in Syria
The Russian Defense Ministry has announced one of its generals was killed while fighting Islamic State in Syria.
“Division general Valeri Assapov was killed when a shell exploded during shelling by IS fighters,” the ministry was quoted as saying by local media.
He was serving as an advisor to Syrian government troops “in the operation for the liberation of the city of Deir el-Zour,” it said.
Deir el-Zour province, on Syria’s eastern border with Iraq, is rich with oil and gas fields that served as a key revenue stream for IS at the peak of its power.
Meanwhile, Syrian media reported that government and allied troops have seized Maadan, a town north of Deir el-Zour city and south of Raqqa, which has been a scene of intense fighting with Islamic State militants.
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3 Peacekeepers Killed in Mali
At least three U.N. peacekeepers were killed in Mali’s troubled north, the U.N. mission to the country said Sunday.
MINUSMA said its vehicle hit an explosive device on the road between the city of Gao and the village of Anefis. The attack wounded another five peacekeepers.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but it resembles attacks carried out by al-Qaida in the region. Clashes between rival armed groups in northern Mali, which is also a haven for jihadist activity, are frequent.
More than 100 peacekeepers have been killed in Mali, making it the most deadly of the 16 United Nations global peacekeeping operations.
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Zimbabwe Police Arrests Pastor Calling for Anti-government Protests
Zimbabwe police have arrested activist and pastor Evan Mawarire for broadcasting a message on social media calling for Zimbabweans to demonstrate against the current shortage of fuel and the sudden price hikes of commodities in shops.
As he was leading a church service Sunday, Zimbabwe police were waiting for Mawarire outside. The leader of His Generation Church had broadcast a video Saturday calling for Zimbabweans to protest against fuel shortages and recent price increases of most commodities.
Attorney Harrison Nkomo of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights is representing of the clergyman who is also the leader of #thisflag movement that last year led several anti-government protests.
“Evan was arrested and he is facing a charge of subverting a constitutionally elected government. It is emanating from a video he published yesterday concerning fuel queues and price hikes in the shops,” he said.
Pastor Mawarire is expected to appear in court Monday. Saturday, the U.S. government issued a statement asking Harare to allow a fair trial for Mawarire who is facing a separate charge of trying to subvert President Robert Mugabe’s government.
Mawarire was defiant before he was arrested Sunday.
“Zimbabwe, God loves you. Zimbabwe, you will be free,” he said. “There is [no] bondage or operation [that] will hold you back. We will not fear anybody. They [police] are outside here. They are waiting. I will not be afraid. I will not be put into fear. I will go outside now and see where this will lead us. I do not know what will happen.”
In Zimbabwe, the charge of trying to topple the president carries a 20 year prison term.
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