Month: September 2017

As Africa Warms, Mosquito Carrying Zika, Dengue More Likely to Thrive

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From deadly droughts and destroyed crops to shrinking water sources, communities across sub-Saharan Africa are struggling to withstand the onslaught of global record-breaking temperatures.

But the dangers do not end there. Rising heat poses another threat, one that is far less known and studied but could spark disease epidemics across the continent, scientists say.

Mosquitoes are the menace, and the risk goes beyond malaria.

The Aedes aegypti mosquito, which spreads debilitating and potentially deadly viruses, from Zika and dengue to chikungunya, thrives in warmer climates than its malaria-carrying cousin, known as Anopheles, say researchers at Stanford University.

In sub-Saharan Africa, this means malaria rates could rise in cooler areas as they heat up, but fall in hotter places that now battle the disease. In those areas, malaria, one of the continent’s biggest killers, may be rivaled by other vector-borne diseases as major health crises.

“As temperatures go past 25 degrees Celsius (77 degrees Fahrenheit), you move away from the peak transmission window for malaria, and towards that of diseases such as dengue,” said Erin Mordecai, an assistant professor at Stanford.

“We have this intriguing prospect of the threat of malaria declining in Africa, while Zika, dengue and chikungunya become more of a danger,” she said. 

Besides a warming planet, scientists fear growing urbanization across Africa could also fuel the transmission of diseases carried by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which flourishes in cities and slums, the opposite of the country-loving Anopheles.

Half of Africans are expected to live in cities by 2030, up from 36 percent in 2010, according to World Bank data.

A soaring number may become prey to vector-borne viruses like dengue, which have struck Africa at a record pace in recent years, fuelled by urbanization, population growth, poor sanitation and global warming, the World Health Organization (WHO) says.

“We see poorly planned development in Africa, not just with megacities but smaller settlements … which often lack proper water and sanitation,” said Marianne Comparet, director of the International Society for Neglected Tropical Diseases.

“Climate change, disease and the interaction between man and habitat — it is a crisis going under the radar … a time bomb for public health problems,” she added.

Neglected diseases

Last year was the hottest on record, for the third year in a row, with global temperature rise edging nearer a ceiling set by some 200 nations for limiting global warming, according to the European Union’s climate change service.

Parts of Africa were among the regions suffering from unusual heat.

As temperatures keep rising, mosquitoes in low-latitude regions in East African countries are finding new habitats in higher altitude areas, yet malaria rates are falling in warmer regions, such as northern Senegal in the Sahel, studies show.

So as cooler parts of sub-Saharan Africa gear up for the spread of malaria, hotter areas should prepare for future epidemics like chikungunya and dengue, experts say.

While not as lethal as malaria, chikungunya lasts longer and can lead to people developing long-term joint pain. Dengue causes flulike symptoms and can develop into a deadly hemorrhagic fever.

There is a danger that the global drive to end malaria, which absorbed $2.9 billion in international investment in 2015, has left African countries ill-prepared to deal with other vector-borne diseases, said Larry Slutsker of the international health organization PATH.

“Diseases such as dengue and chikungunya have been neglected and under-funded,” said Slutsker, the leader of PATH’s malaria and neglected tropical diseases programs. “There needs to be much better surveillance and understanding.”

Malaria kills around 430,000 people a year, about 90 percent of them young African children.

Dengue, the world’s fastest-spreading tropical disease, infects about 390 million annually but is often badly recorded and misdiagnosed, health experts say.

Some experts believe the global alarm triggered by Zika, which can cause birth defects such as small brain size, may see more money pumped into fighting neglected tropical diseases in sub-Saharan Africa, especially after outbreaks in Angola, Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau in the last year.

Although 26 African nations, almost half of the continent, have strategies in place to fight vector-borne diseases, most of them only target malaria, according to data from the WHO.

Malaria rates have been slashed in recent decades through the use of bed nets, indoor spraying and drugs. But there are no dedicated treatments or vaccines for chikungunya and dengue.

“The most important preventive and control intervention is vector management, particularly through community engagement,” said Magaran Bagayoko, a team leader for the WHO in Africa.

Disentangling data

However, efforts to beat back mosquitoes are hampered by a lack of quality and affordable climate data that could help predict outbreaks and indicate risks, said Madeleine Thomson of the International Research Institute for Climate and Society.

“What countries really want to know is what they can do to improve their programs, as well as the capacity of their health workers,” said the scientist at the Columbia University-based institute.

But to do that, “climate information must be put into practice,” Thomson added.

African nations also must improve coordination between their health ministries and meteorological agencies, said the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), a new continentwide public health agency launched this year by the African Union.

“They are not linked, or talking to each other,” said Sheila Shawa, a project officer at the Africa CDC headquarters in Ethiopia. “There needs to be better communication in order to model neglected diseases, such as chikungunya, across Africa.”

Yet climate scientists and health experts warn of the difficulty of analyzing the impact of rising temperature on mosquito-borne diseases without looking at other factors.

“We have a major challenge of isolating effects of rising temperatures — which are really variable — from all the other aspects like rainfall patterns, humidity, mobility and migration, as well as socioeconomic factors,” said Stanford’s Mordecai.

“They are all changing at the same time, making individual drivers very difficult to isolate and disentangle for analysis.”
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UN Study Finds Government Action a Main Factor of Extremism in Africa

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Many African leaders used their speeches at the U.N. General Assembly this week to express concerns about the growing threat of violent extremism in Africa.

Several leaders from the continent called upon the international community to help better equip regional anti-terror forces to combat terrorism, especially at a time when jihadists, defeated in Middle East as Islamic State loses strength and territory there, will return to their African home countries.

“We want an Africa in peace and security; an Africa that does not serve as a sanctuary for terrorist groups fought and defeated elsewhere,” President Macky Sall of Senegal told world leaders at the 72nd annual U.N. assembly Wednesday.

But a study conducted by the U.N. Development Program (UNDP) this month has found that measures deployed by African governments to combat terrorism actually impel more people to join violent groups.

“Journey to Extremism,” a two-year study conducted by the UNDP, was based on interviews with more than 700 people, nearly 600 of whom were voluntary or forced recruits of extremist groups in Kenya, Somalia, Nigeria, Sudan, Cameroon and Niger.

The study cited poor family circumstances, lack of education and poverty as factors behind people’s embrace of violence and extremism.

State violence and abuse of power serve as a “final tipping point” for the people to join extremist groups.

“Militarized responses to violent extremism have only served to deepen long-standing mistrust and alienation,” the U.N. report said, adding that many African countries have used counterterror agendas to limit the space for political opposition and suppress civil society and the media.

The study suggested that compared to a solely security-focused approach, good governance by African governments would ultimately be more effective at countering terrorism and extremism in the region.

Religion not a reason

The U.N. study found that religion played a less significant role in attracting people to extremist groups. On the contrary, it said, longer than average religious schooling appeared to be a source of resilience in the face of extremism.

“These findings challenge rising Islamophobic rhetoric that has intensified in response to violent extremism globally,” the report said. “Fostering greater understanding of religion, through methods that enable students to question and engage critically with teachings, is a key resource for [preventing violent extremism].”

The 2016 Global Terrorism Index suggested that sub-Saharan Africa was the region most affected by extremist groups after the Middle East and North Africa. Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM); the Movement for the Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO); Boko Haram in Nigeria; al-Shabab in East Africa; and the Lord’s Resistance Army in Central Africa were the most active extremist groups in the continent.

Those groups are reportedly spreading their activities across state borders and luring more groups and people to pledge allegiance to their ideology and conduct violent attacks.

The U.N. organization estimates violent extremism has killed more than 33,000 people in Africa in the past six years and caused widespread displacement among civilians.

In northeast Nigeria alone, where Boko Haram has been active, it is estimated that more than 20,000 people have been killed and more than 2.6 million displaced since the terror group emerged in 2009.

Threat to development

The U.N. has warned the terror threat could reverse development gains made in sub-Saharan Africa and undermine prospects for development for decades to come. Insecurity caused by terror groups has already significantly impeded tourism and trade between countries such as Kenya and Nigeria.

The threat has encouraged those countries to increase their counterterrorism efforts at home and cooperate on a regional and global level to tackle the cross-border violence.

Earlier this year, leaders of the G5 Sahel bloc — Mali, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad — established a multinational military force of about 5,000 troops in coordination with France and the United Nations.

Despite the regional efforts and international support, however, extremist groups remain resilient in the region while more civilians become affected by continued conflict and violence.

Human rights organizations have often criticized the heavy-handed measures adopted by authorities to tackle terrorism.

Amnesty International has accused the Nigerian military of committing torture, harsh military detention and forcible eviction of people from their homes in its fight against Boko Haram.

Human Rights Watch has said the extrajudicial killing, disappearances, torture and beating of individuals suspected of links with al-Shabab has worsened in Kenya.
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US Deaths from Drug Overdoses Set Record in 2016

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U.S. deaths from drug overdoses set a record of more than 64,000 in 2016, driven by an intractable opioid crisis, U.S. Attorney General said Thursday, citing preliminary government data.

Provisional data released last month by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) showed that there were 64,070 drug overdose deaths in the United States in 2016, up 21 percent from 52,898 the year before.

The NCHS is an arm of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The 2016 estimate “would be the highest drug death toll and the fastest increase in that death toll in American history,” Sessions said. “And every day this crisis continues to grow, as more than 5,000 Americans abuse painkillers for the first time.”

Opioids such as heroin and the synthetic drug fentanyl were responsible for most of the fatal overdoses, killing more than 33,000 Americans — quadruple the number from 20 years ago.

“More Americans died of drug overdoses than died from car crashes or died from AIDS at the height of the AIDS epidemic,” Sessions said. “For Americans under the age of 50, drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death.”

Sessions spoke at an event in Charleston, West Virginia, a state with the highest drug overdose rate in the country. In 2015, West Virginia reported more than 41 overdose deaths per 100,000 people, compared with a national average of 16 per 100,000, according to NCHS data. 

Sessions said President Donald Trump’s campaign pledge to end the opioid crisis remains a priority for his administration.

“I believe that the department’s new resources and new efforts will bring more criminals to justice, and ultimately save lives,” Sessions said. “And I’m convinced this is a winnable war.”

In March, Trump named New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a former presidential candidate, to head the newly formed President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis.

Last month, the commission urged the administration to declare the opioid crisis a national emergency.

“With approximately 142 Americans dying every day, America is enduring a death toll equal to September 11th every three weeks,” the commission said in an interim report.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said that no declaration was necessary to combat the crisis, but White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders later said Trump was taking the idea “absolutely seriously.”
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New African Art Museum Aims to Provoke, Question

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The new Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa is, in a word, ambitious.

 The museum opens its doors Friday, Sept. 22, 2017. The building is itself a work of art, a century-old grain silo on Cape Town’s historic waterfront that has been slickly overhauled by star British architect Thomas Heatherwick to house the continent’s largest collection of contemporary art — in the case of this museum, all of it made after the year 2000.

The nine-floor museum strives to show that African contemporary art — so long overlooked on the international stage — is worthy of appreciation and attention. It attempts to thrill visitors with its array of exhibits. Some are inventive, some confrontational, some whimsical, and some, puzzling.

But, says curator Mark Coetzee, the museum’s true ambitions are grander still.

“I think the first and foremost gesture of the museum is a political one,” he told VOA. “And that is to say that for a very long time, the narrative of Africa and the representation of Africans has been defined by others, by outsiders. And the museum’s motivation is to say, let’s create an institution where people from Africa, whether we were born here thousands of years or whether we immigrated yesterday, can contribute to the writing of our own history. Let us also define how we want to be represented to the world.”

He says their work gives rise to many pressing issues in the modern world.

“What contemporary art museums do is, basically, they give us the tools to be able to negotiate the time that we are living in,” Coetzee said. “So, artists ask very difficult, complex questions of society: ‘Why is there separation of wealth and power? Why does the ability to represent culture or represent people rely on a few people’s input and  and not a holistic group of people? How do we negotiate difference in society when we have different religions, or different genders, or different orientations?’

“And so what a museum does is, it’s a very safe space to discuss very difficult issues which impact all of us in the 21st century.”

Dragons, Zebras and Cows

But, Coetzee says, if you’re not inclined toward deep thought, the art is pretty cool too. The museum houses the private collection of Jochen Zeitz, a German art collector and philanthropist, and former CEO of athletics brand Puma.

Visitors will be greeted by a massive dragon, made of bicycle inner tubes, with a 100-meter-long tail, the work of South African artist Nicholas Hlobo. They’ll be dazzled by the whimsical, eye-searingly bright images of zebras and balloons and richly costumed figures, composed by South African photographer Athi-Patra Ruga.

They will be dragged into the undertow of “Ten Thousand Waves” — a video exhibition by of British installation artist Isaac Julien that assaults the senses on nine screens. They’ll be able to touch — and take home — prints of the stark, bold images of Angolan photographer Edson Chagas. And they’ll be haunted by room after room of ghostly cow hides, plastered into ethereal shapes by Swaziland’s Nandipha Mntambo.

Time for African Art

What visitors will not be able to do — at least not on opening weekend — is linger. That’s because when the museum offered 24,000 free passes for two-hour blocks during the grand opening, they were snapped up in just nine minutes.

In the last few years, African contemporary art has started to receive its due, says Hannah O’Leary, head of modern and contemporary African art for international auction house Sotheby’s. While the market is still new, she says, and African artists have yet to command top dollar price, the auction house’s first auction earlier this year brought in $3.8 million (2.8 million pounds).

In doing do, it broke multiple records, including the highest sales in a single auction of contemporary African art. While South Africa has always had a vibrant art scene, she says other African countries are on the rise — both in making art, and in consuming it.

“From the results of our first sale, we had buyers from 29 different countries, in six different continents,” she told VOA, from London. “And that’s really very significant. We’re not talking about just selling South African art to South African buyers. We are taking the greatest art from across the continent and we know that that has an international appeal, so we are are selling to collectors in Africa , but also in North America and Europe. Anyone who is a collector and can appreciate great contemporary art should also be looking at Africa.”

Coetzee says visitors should not be intimidated, though, by the museum’s $38-million renovation, its untold millions of dollars worth of art, or its elegant exterior. Nor, he says, should they be scared away by the $13 ticket — citizens of African nations get free admission every Wednesday, and children’s passes are always free. That’s because, he says, art is something everyone needs.

“The thing that separates us from animals, the thing that makes us unique is our identity. It’s the pride in who we are. And I think that if you remove cultural representation, and say it’s not a basic need, where does that leave us? What meaning does that give us in life?”

Deep questions, indeed. And one that the museum hopes to provoke — if not to answer — when it opens its doors.
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US Attorney General Warns Gang Members: ‘We Will Hunt You Down’

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U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions warned gang members on Thursday that they will be hunted down and brought to justice so they can no longer terrorize communities.

 

Sessions told law enforcement officials in Boston that they cannot allow violent street gangs such as MS-13 to turn cities into war zones.

 

“We are coming for you,” Sessions said during a speech at the federal courthouse. “We will hunt you down, we will find you and we will bring you to justice.”

 

MS-13, or La Mara Salvatrucha, is believed to have been founded in Los Angeles in the 1980s by immigrants fleeing El Salvador’s bloody civil war and has grown into one of the largest street gangs in the country, with more than 10,000 members, federal officials say.

 

The gang, whose motto is “kill, rape, control,” is known for its use of gruesome tactics, including hacking and stabbing its victims with machetes. It has been tied to a wave of recent violence on Long Island, just east of New York City, and has been linked to brutal killings in other states.

 

Sessions applauded Massachusetts federal prosecutors’ dedication to dismantling the gang, pointing to a massive roundup of its members in the state last year.

 

More than 50 members of the gang in and around Boston were indicted in January 2016 on federal racketeering charges, including murder, conspiracy to commit murder and attempted murder.

 

Sessions, a Republican, said gangs are exploiting a program for unaccompanied minors found crossing the southern border by sending members over as “wolves in sheep clothing” and recruiting in communities.

 

Gregory Chen, director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, called that assertion “truly baseless.” The program aids children fleeing violence in their home countries, he said.

 

“He’s trying to inflame public opinion against this highly vulnerable population,” Chen said.

A few dozen protesters carrying signs with phrases such as #NotWelcome gathered outside the courthouse before Sessions’ speech to condemn his views on immigration and law enforcement.

 

Sessions’ visit to Boston included a briefing from local officials on MS-13 and a discussion with local police chiefs.
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Catalan Leader Presses On With Banned Vote on Split From Spain

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The Catalan regional leader on Thursday said he would press on with an Oct. 1 referendum on a split from Spain, flouting a court ban, as tens of thousands gathered for a second day on the streets of Barcelona demanding the right to vote.

Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont said he had contingency plans in place to ensure the vote would go ahead, directly defying Madrid and pushing the country closer to political crisis.

Spain’s Constitutional Court banned the vote earlier this month after Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said it violated Spain’s 1978 constitution, which states the country is indivisible. Most opposition parties are also against the vote.

“All the power of the Spanish state is set up to prevent Catalans voting,” Puigdemont said in a televised address.

“We will do it because we have contingency plans in place to ensure it happens, but above all because it has the support of the immense majority of the population, who are sick of the arrogance and abuse of the People’s Party government.”

‘Step back for democracy’

On Thursday, tens of thousands gathered outside the seat of Catalonia’s top court in Barcelona, singing and banging drums, to protest the arrests of senior officials in police raids on regional government offices on Wednesday.

“This is a step back for democracy,” said one of them, 62-year-old pensioner Enric Farro. “This is the kind of thing that happened years ago — it shouldn’t be happening now.”

State police arrested Catalonia’s junior economy minister, Josep Maria Jove, on Wednesday in an unprecedented raid of regional government offices.

Spontaneous protest

Acting on court orders, police have also raided printers, newspaper offices and private delivery companies in a search for campaign literature, instruction manuals for manning voting stations and ballot boxes.

Polls show about 40 percent of Catalans support independence for the wealthy northeastern region and a majority want a referendum on the issue. Puigdemont has said there is no minimum turnout for the vote and he will declare independence within 48 hours of a “yes” result.

A central government’s spokesman said protests in Catalonia were organized by a small group and did not represent the general feeling of the people.

“In those demonstrations, you see the people who go, but you don’t see the people who don’t go, who are way more and are at home because they don’t like what’s happening,” Inigo Mendez de Vigo said.

Mendez de Vigo also said an offer for dialogue from Madrid remained on the table. Repeated attempts to open negotiations between the two camps over issues such as taxes and infrastructure investment have failed over the past five years.

Rajoy said on Wednesday the government’s actions in Catalonia were the result of legal rulings and were to ensure the rule of law. The prime minister called on Catalan leaders to cancel the vote.

Hundreds of National Police and Guardia Civil reinforcements have been brought into Barcelona and are being billeted in two ferries rented by the Spanish government and moored in the harbor. But the central government must tread a fine line in enforcing the law in the region without seeming heavy-handed.

Hardline tactics a concern

The stand-off between Catalonia and the central government resonates beyond Spain. The country’s EU partners publicly support Rajoy but worry that his hardline tactics might backfire.

In Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, who heads the pro-independence devolved government, said she hoped the Catalan and Spanish governments could hold talks to resolve the situation.

In a referendum in 2014, Scots voted to remain within the United Kingdom.

 
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Former US Diplomat: Efforts to Derail Kurdish Referendum Won’t Work

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A former U.S. diplomat says there’s no way to derail Iraqi Kurdistan’s independence referendum next Monday, despite efforts by the U.S. and other countries to have the vote postponed.

“There really is no possibility of calling it off,” said Peter Galbraith, who took a special interest in the Kurdish situation in the late 1980s and early ’90s and helped uncover former Iraq leader Saddam Hussein’s use of poison gas against the minority group. “You can’t call off an election four days before it’s going to take place.

“It’s impossible to think that the leadership would then cancel the referendum,” Galbraith, a former U.S. ambassador to Croatia, told VOA Kurdish by phone from Irbil, the capital of the Kurdish region. “They would have no credibility with their population. It would be very destabilizing.”

He said the Iraqi government’s efforts to delay the vote and start negotiations with Kurdish leaders were somewhat halfhearted, unlike successful campaigns by Britain against independence for Scotland and Canada’s efforts against independence for Quebec.

“Baghdad has stated very clearly and publicly … that they will only accept a solution within the Iraqi constitution, a constitution that they themselves have not honored,” Galbraith said. “You can’t call off a referendum in exchange for negotiations where one side has said the only solution is going to be on their terms and not what you want.”

A clear path

Galbraith, who has been serving as an unpaid adviser to the Kurdistan Regional Government and once worked with the U.N. transitional administration in East Timor after it gained independence, said the path for Kurdistan is clear.

“Once the people vote, and we presume they’ll vote overwhelmingly for independence, that’s going to be the destination,” he said. “The negotiations will have to take place after the referendum, and they will be about independence. Now, it might take a couple of years to get to independence. There might be some interim step — a confederation or something else.”

He also dismissed any suggestion that the U.S. and other countries would not accept a declaration of independence.

“Every time a new country emerges, the United States is against it,” Galbraith said. “They wanted to hold the Soviet Union together, they wanted to hold Bosnia together. I think the pattern is the same. Once Kurdistan votes for independence and moves toward independence, the United States will accept it.”
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Two of Six Suspects in London Bombing Released

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Two people arrested in connection with the bombing on a London Underground train last week have been released without charges, the Scotland Yard announced Thursday.

A 21-year-old man arrested in Hounslow, west London, on Saturday and a 48-year-old man arrested in Newport, south Wales, on Wednesday were both released. Four other men, aged 17 to 30, remain in police custody.

None of the suspects has been charged, and their names haven’t been released.

Thirty people were injured when a homemade bomb, placed inside a bucket wrapped in a shopping bag, partly detonated on a train stopped at London’s Parsons Green station during rush hour September 15.

The attack sparked a manhunt for the perpetrators and prompted officials to briefly raise the national terrorism threat to the highest level.

Police said they are continuing their investigations and are searching several properties across the country.
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UN Team to Collect Evidence of Islamic State War Crimes in Iraq

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The United Nations Security Council has voted unanimously to establish an investigative team to help Iraq secure evidence of atrocities committed by Islamic State militants “that may amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.”

Britain, which drafted the resolution, said the team would bring some justice to those who had experienced atrocities at the hands of IS, variously known as ISIS, ISIL and Daesh.

The U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley, called the resolution “a landmark” that would “provide an indispensable record of the scope and scale” of IS atrocities.

“This means justice for those people who have been victimized by ISIS,” Nadia Murad, a former IS captive in Iraq, said in a Facebook Live video after attending the council vote with well-known international human rights lawyer Amal Clooney.

Clooney represents women of Iraq’s Yazidi minority who were kidnapped and held as sex slaves by IS militants after the terrorist organization conquered large swaths of Iraq in mid-2014.

“It’s a huge milestone for all of those who’ve been fighting for justice for victims of crimes committed by ISIS,” Clooney said in the Facebook Live video. “It says to victims that their voices will be heard and they may finally get their day in court.”

Since then, U.S.-backed Iraqi forces have driven IS from most of the land it had seized in Iraq, retaking all the major urban areas, although the group still controls some pockets in Iraq as well as territory in Syria. 

IS fighters have been on the run in Iraq since U.S.-backed Iraqi forces recaptured Mosul, Iraq’s second city and the Islamic State’s former stronghold capital, in July.

Tens of thousands of Yazidis fled the August 2014 massacre in Sinjar, and U.N. rights investigations have documented horrific accounts of abuse suffered by women and girls, such as Murad. About 3,000 women are believed to remain in IS captivity.

But Human Rights Watch criticized the resolution as a missed opportunity by the council “to address war crimes and rights abuses by all sides to the conflict in Iraq.”

“No one denies the importance of tackling the widespread atrocities by ISIS in Iraq, but ignoring abuses by Iraqi and international forces is not only flawed, it’s shortsighted,” said Balkees Jarrah, senior international justice counsel at Human Rights Watch. “The pursuit of justice is essential to all victims who saw their loved ones tortured and killed, or houses burned and bombed, regardless of who is responsible.”
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US Hopes New, Tougher Sanctions Will Stop N. Korea Weapons Development

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The United States on Thursday further clamped down on North Korea’s ties to the outside world, moving to sever any links between Pyongyang and banks outside the reclusive state.

“Foreign financial institutions are now on notice that going forward they can choose to do business with the United States or with North Korea, but not both,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin told reporters in New York.

“This new executive order enables Treasury to freeze assets of anyone conducting significant trade in goods, services or technology with North Korea. It also allows us to freeze assets of actors supporting North Korea’s textiles, fishing, IT and manufacturing industries,” Mnuchin said.

Echoing the words of President Donald Trump earlier in the day, Mnuchin said Pyongyang has for too long “evaded sanctions and used the international financial system to facilitate funding for its weapons and mass destruction and ballistic missile programs.”

Shipping, trade networks

The Trump administration is also specifically targeting North Korea’s shipping and trade networks. Any plane or ship that has visited North Korea is prohibited from arriving in the United States for 180 days, according to a text of a notification letter Trump sent to the speaker of the House of Representatives.

WATCH: Trump Announces Executive Order Targeting Those Financing North Korea

“This is the right decision by the Trump administration,” former U.S. Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns told VOA.

“The U.S. and others need to increase the economic costs to Pyongyang for its illegal and destabilizing nuclear program,” added Burns, a Harvard University professor and director of the Kennedy School’s Future of Diplomacy Project.

“Today’s action follows the approach used against Iran where countries, banks and individuals had to choose between Iran and the United States,” said Anthony Ruggerio, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

“North Korea relies on its international commercial and financial networks to procure items for its weapons programs, luxury goods for the elites and other items, and sanctions can restrict North Korea’s revenue available for those purposes,” Ruggiero, a former U.S. government specialist on targeted financial measures, told VOA.

In an exchange with reporters, Mnuchin said: “I’m not going to comment on what I expect North Korea to do. Obviously … the objective is for them to stop their missile tests and give up their nuclear weapons.”

China’s central bank has also reportedly ordered the country’s financial institutions to stop doing business with North Korea, action Trump called “a tremendous move” that was “somewhat unexpected.”

Trump expressed thanks to Chinese President Xi Jinping for the move, saying “that was a great thing he did today.”

EU eyes sanctions

The European Union has also reportedly agreed to impose tougher sanctions on Pyongyang, in addition to the latest round recently imposed by the U.N. Security Council.

Trump said tougher measures were being taken and it “is unacceptable that others financially support this criminal, rogue regime.”

The comment was made as Trump had lunch in New York with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

Abe praised Trump for taking tougher action.

“Together with Donald, we’ve been successfully demonstrating our strong will to exercise pressure against North Korea, and that actually led to the unification of the international community to address this challenge,” he said.

The prime minister later told reporters that at the meetings today with American and South Korean officials, “all agreed to apply utmost pressure so as to change North Korea’s policies.”

The United States helps provide for the defense of both Japan and South Korea. Strategic cooperation between the United States and its two key Asian allies has been further enhanced this year amid the rising threat from North Korea.

That has made China nervous, and it has called on all parties in the region to exercise restraint.

‘Dangerous direction’

Addressing the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that Pyongyang should not continue in a “dangerous direction” with its nuclear program and that international negotiations are “the only way out.”

Wang called on the parties to “meet each other halfway by addressing each other’s legitimate concerns.”

North Korea has justified its nuclear and ballistic missile development as a way to defend itself against a hostile United States.

Several years of warfare on the Korean Peninsula in the early 1950s, prompted by the North’s invasion of the South, pitted China and the United States against each other in support of their respective allies.

There has been no immediate response from Pyongyang to the fresh actions taken by Washington and Beijing.

Following Trump’s speech this week to the General Assembly, in which he singled out Kim Jong Un for criticism, North Korea’s foreign minister, Ri Yong Ho, said if the U.S. president “was thinking he could scare us with the sound of a dog barking, that’s really a dog dream.”
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Philanthropists Pledge Millions for Better UN Data on Women

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Philanthropists pledged millions of dollars Thursday to fund U.N. data gathering, saying it was vital to learn more about the world’s women to tackle the poverty that disproportionately affects them.

Pledges totaling $34 million were unveiled during a side event of the United Nations’ annual General Assembly, a weeklong meeting in New York of world leaders and diplomats.

U.N. Women, the U.N. arm dedicated to gender equality, has programs in 107 countries through which it seeks to give women who are disenfranchised the same opportunities as men.

Recent research by consultancy McKinsey estimates that if women’s economic participation were to match men’s, $28 trillion could be added to the global economy by 2025.

The largest commitment to be announced came from Melinda Gates, who co-chairs the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She promised $10 million to help U.N. Women collect data on gender.

The Gates Foundation, co-founded by Gates and her husband, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, is one of the largest private charities in the world. The group has made its mark battling diseases such as AIDS and malaria.

Pressing need

Gates said she had become increasingly aware in recent years of the need for health, income and other kinds of data on women to better fund her foundation’s public health efforts in the developing world.

“When Bill and I think about running a business, we would have never thought about working at Microsoft without having data,” she told company and foundation representatives.

The Gates Foundation’s pledge deepens its involvement in collecting gender-focused data, coming a year after it promised $80 million to “close gender data gaps.”

Others who announced pledges toward U.N. Women included fashion company Chanel’s foundation and consumer goods giant Unilever Plc. Each promised $1 million.

With Thursday’s pledges, U.N. Women has raised more than $34 million, said Lakshmi Puri, the body’s assistant secretary-general, in a Facebook broadcast of the event.

“This is a step towards bridging the chronic investment gap in gender equality,” she said.
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Trump Praises Erdogan Despite Incidents of Violence Against Protesters

Posted on by SeeEU

U.S. President Donald Trump praised Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as a friend who gets “high marks” for “running a very difficult part of the world.”

Trump’s effusive praise for the Turkish leader came on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday despite tensions between the two countries over the conduct of Turkish security officials toward American protesters.

Hours before Trump met Erdogan for talks, Erdogan supporters punched and kicked three protesters who interrupted his speech at a New York hotel.

Erdogan was addressing several hundred people at an event organized by a business group, the Turkish-American National Steering Committee, when one man stood and began shouting, “Terrorist! Terrorist!”

Voice of America TV footage shows audience members pummeling him as U.S. security officers tried to hustle him to safety. Soon after he was gone, a second man followed suit and also was repeatedly punched and hit over the head with Turkish flags as he was led outside by U.S. security.

Erdogan tried to calm the crowd, saying: “Let’s not sacrifice the whole meeting for a couple of terrorists.”

Then a third protester started heckling the president from a different part of the crowd. Although that incident occurred off-camera, a VOA reporter who was nearby said he, too, was beaten.

This was the second time this year that protesters in America have been assaulted by Erdogan supporters.

In past months, 21 people — many of whom were members of the Turkish ambassador’s security detail — were indicted for allegedly attacking protesters outside the Turkish embassy in Washington in May. All were charged with conspiracy to commit a crime of violence, a felony punishable by a maximum of 15 years in prison. Several face additional charges of assault with a deadly weapon.

WATCH: Erdogan Watched Violent Clash Near Embassy in May

The brawl erupted outside the residence of Turkey’s ambassador to Washington shortly after Trump met with Erdogan at the White House. Video of the protest recorded by VOA’s Turkish service, showing what appear to be security guards and some Erdogan supporters attacking a small group of demonstrators, went viral.

Erdogan said in a PBS interview that he was “very sorry” for the violence in May. Erdogan also claimed U.S. President Donald Trump called him a week ago about what happened in May to say he, too, was sorry, and that “he was going to follow up about this issue when [Erdogan and his people] come to the United States within the framework of an official visit.”

The White House has since strongly denied Erdogan’s account of the phone conversation with Trump.

On Thursday, during his appearance with Erdogan, Trump was asked about the conversation with the Turkish leader regarding the violence against peaceful protesters. Trump did not respond.

VOA’s Turkish service, Peter Heinlein and Paul Alexander contributed to this report.
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Iraqis Track Abandoned Homes With Digital Tools

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In camps across northern Iraq, people forced from their homes by Islamic State militants are using their phones to track what is happening to their properties, according to researchers who say returning home is crucial for building a safe future in the war-torn nation.

More than three million Iraqis have been driven from their homes, land and farms, according to the United Nations, many of them by armed groups like Islamic State (IS).

As pro-government forces intensify the fight against IS, clearing militants from much of Mosul and other cities they once held, displaced people are hoping to return home soon.

Before leaving the camps, they are keeping a close eye on Facebook and digital messaging services to better understand what they will be returning to or who might be occupying their homes, said Nadia Siddiqui from Social Inquiry, a research group based in northern Iraq.

With conflicting land claims and weak property rights in parts of Iraq due to years of violence, establishing who rightfully owns what is crucial for reducing violence and building social trust, Siddiqui said.

Digital tools are helping establish ownership by allowing them to build dossiers of what belongs to them with photographic evidence, title deeds and other data which could be used in court to prove their claims.

“In the long-term, land and property issues are some of the root causes (of strife),” Siddiqui told the Thomson Reuters Foundation from Erbil, Iraq.

Disputes over property exacerbate communal or religious tensions, she said, and lingering issues over unclear ownership can fester for generations, making it difficult to build the economy and move past a history of violence.

“People remember these kinds of things,” Siddiqui said of land disputes.

Clearing up ownership conflicts and creating arbitration processes for competing land claims can help ease social tensions, she said.

Evidence

More than 60 percent of displaced people use digital tools like Facebook, camera phones and messaging apps to actively monitor the status of their properties, according to a July survey in Erbil supported by Social Inquiry.

The average household of displaced people has three mobile phones, the small survey said, meaning tools to collect data on properties are accessible even to those who fled their lands in the dead of night.

Thirty-two percent of displaced people surveyed share information about the status of their properties on social media.

“What is so exciting about the process is that people have this evidence already on their phones or on their Facebook page,” said Emily Frank, an anthropologist turned marketing executive in Montreal, Canada, who has monitored property rights in countries facing conflict.

Many people, however, do not realize these digital documents and photos of the land where they once lived can be used as evidence in court or a property restitution process once it is safe enough to return home, said Frank.

Along with helping individuals claim their homes from armed groups or others who have been occupying them, photos, videos and other digital data become increasingly powerful as more displaced people collect them, she said.

“If more people can submit evidence, it becomes more widely corroborated,” Frank told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “It will be a more just and transparent process.”

Domino effect

Jon Unruh, a professor at McGill University in Montreal who studies land rights, has watched the process happen in Iraq first hand.

Unruh interviewed a 76-year-old man in Erbil who, after fleeing an IS-controlled area, asked a relative still living near his home to walk around the property and take pictures to see who was living inside.

IS and its supporters had occupied homes in the area, and the militant group even issued its own property title deeds, so the displaced man used digital tools and family networks to try and gather information about his home to claim it upon return.

This kind of data could be presented before a government arbitration panel or via a transitional justice plan from the U.N. or a similar international agency when the man attempts to reclaim his property, Unruh said.

Iraqi government officials working on property restitution could not be reached for comment.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Iraq, a U.N.-linked body working with the government on property restitution for refugees, was unavailable for comment.

Officials in Kurdistan, the northern semi-autonomous region of Iraq of which Erbil is the capital, are planning a referendum vote on independence for Sept. 25.

The move, opposed by Iraq’s central government, could complicate efforts for displaced people living in the region to claim properties in other parts of Iraq once it is safe enough to leave camps in the Kurdish region.

It is unclear what moves Iraq’s government will make on property rights in areas once controlled by IS based on digital data, Unruh said.

But officials in the capital Baghdad who he met recently understand the importance of property rights in reducing violence.

“The Iraqi government is most concerned people returning home to ISIS-held areas are going to default to armed kin to resolve their property disputes,” Unruh told the Thomson Reuters

Foundation.

“That returnee who finds their property destroyed moves into someone else’s house. When that person returns there is a conflict —It creates a domino effect.”
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Ukraine President Says Trump Shares Vision on ‘New Level’ of Defense Cooperation

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Ukraine’s Petro Poroshenko met U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday and said afterwards that they had a shared vision on a “new level” of defense cooperation, but not whether this included the U.S. provision of defensive weapons to Ukraine.

The United States is reviewing whether to send weapons to Ukraine to help it defend itself, an option that previous U.S. president Barack Obama vetoed and which is opposed by Russia.

After meeting Trump in New York, President Poroshenko told a televised briefing: “It’s very important that there is a shared vision on a new level of cooperation in the defense sphere.”

“We discussed all areas of this cooperation, including cooperation with the defense ministry and other institutions,” he added, without saying whether there had been any progress on the defensive weapons initiative.

No comment from leaders on Russia

The two leaders skirted around the topic of Russia when they spoke to reporters at the beginning of their private meeting.

Instead, they chose to emphasize economic cooperation when they appeared before reporters at their meeting on the fringes of the U.N. General Assembly.

Relations between Kyiv and Moscow are at their lowest ebb since Russia annexed Crimea more than three years ago and Russian-backed separatist fighters took up arms against Ukrainian government forces in the east of the country.

Ukraine ‘getting better and better’

Before holding private talks, Trump praised Poroshenko, telling him that “I wouldn’t say it’s (Ukraine) the easiest place to live” but “it’s getting better and better on a daily basis.”

Speaking in English, Poroshenko said he believed that the two countries had improved security and economic cooperation with many U.S. companies doing business in Ukraine.

“That’s a story that’s pretty untold,” said Trump.

“Companies are going very strongly right now into the Ukraine, they see a tremendous potential there.”

It was not immediately clear if they spoke privately about relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who did not attend the U.N. General Assembly.

The war in eastern Ukraine between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian government forces has killed more than 10,000 people in three years. Kyiv accuses Moscow of sending troops and heavy weapons to the region, which Russia denies.

Support of UN peacekeepers

Poroshenko said Trump had supported Ukraine’s proposal to deploy U.N peacekeepers “including on the uncontrolled part of the Ukraine-Russia border, which would prevent the possibility of penetration by Russian troops or Russian weapons.”

Putin this month also suggested U.N. peacekeepers be deployed to eastern Ukraine.

But Russia has balked at Ukraine’s proposal that would ban any Russian nationals from taking part in the peacekeeping mission which Kiev wants deployed along the part of its border with Russia it does not control.

Poroshenko said the meeting with Trump lasted an hour and was also attended by U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and other senior U.S. officials.

 
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US, Russian Generals Meet to Discuss Deir El-Zour Tensions

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American and Russia military leaders held an unprecedented, face-to-face meeting in recent days to discuss the increasing tensions around the Islamic State stronghold of Deir el-Zour, Syria, a coalition spokesman said Thursday.

U.S. Army Col. Ryan Dillon, the spokesman for the U.S.-led counter-Islamic State coalition, told reporters via video conference from Baghdad that the discussion between generals from both countries lasted more than an hour.

Dillon added that the coalition and Russian officers shared maps and other data on where their forces were battling in the area. The coalition has maintained that it is “deconflicting” with Russian forces to prevent unintended mishaps in the fight against Islamic State in Syria. However, the latest meeting left many reporters wondering how the exchange was not considered cooperation between the two countries’ forces.

Russian forces are helping Syrian government forces battling to take Deir el-Zour province from Islamic State, while the coalition is backing Syrian Democratic Forces also trying to remove the terror group from the oil-rich province.

“Our partners have also made significant gains across northern Syria and are not ready to give that up” and allow IS to potentially come back in the area, Dillon said.

He added that Syrian government forces are in Deir el-Zour city proper, while SDF forces are in the surrounding province.

“There is a separation between the locations where they are fighting and where our partner forces are fighting,” he said.

U.S. and Russian forces share at least three channels of communication, according to Dillon. U.S. and Russian air forces share a telephone communication line, U.S. and Russian ground forces share a telephone communication line, and U.S. and Russian commanders share a third line.

On Thursday, Russia admitted that it had deployed special forces with pro-government forces in the province and accused the SDF of firing on Syrian government forces in the area.  

Russia’s Defense Ministry warned that it would retaliate against any future strikes in the area.

“The firing positions in those areas will be immediately destroyed with all the arsenal at our disposal,” Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said in a statement.

An SDF commander denied Russian accusations, saying at least 7 kilometers of IS-held territory separates them from the Syrian government troops.

The United Nations said the civil war in Syria has killed about 400,000 people in the country since fighting began nearly six years ago.
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Thousands Gather to Protest Arrests Over Catalonian Vote

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Thousands gathered Thursday at the gates of Catalonia’s judicial body in Barcelona to demand the release of a dozen officials arrested in connection with a vote on independence that Spanish authorities are challenging as illegal.

The demonstrators answered a call by pro-independence civic groups to stage long-term street protests against the police surprise crackdown one day earlier.

Acting on a judge’s orders, police seized 10 million ballot papers and arrested at least 12 people, mostly Catalan government officials, suspected of coordinating the referendum. The arrests were the first involving Catalan officials since the campaign to hold an independence vote began in earnest in 2011.

The Catalan National Assembly, a driving force behind the secession movement, urged people to gather at noon Thursday outside the region’s justice tribunal and bring tents if needed.

By midday, the protesting crowds filled a square the size of two soccer fields and erupted in slogans chanting “We will vote!” and “Hello democracy.” Many wrapped themselves in the “estelada” flag, which has become a symbol of those in favor of an independent Catalan republic, and some climbed lampposts to get a better view.

“We will be here, peacefully but present, until all of the arrested walk out free,” the Assembly’s president Jordi Sanchez told the cheering crowds.

The regional police force cordoned off the area, and live video streaming from the ground showed people angrily whistling and jeering at a police officer who became entangled with a protester. There were no immediate reports of other major incidents, but the atmosphere was a mixture of the festive and the tense.

“Our motto is that we are not afraid,” said Malena Palau, a 21 year-old student participating in Thursday’s gathering. “We want to vote because we have the right to decide, regardless of what we vote.”

The protesters’ response had begun on Wednesday as news of the police raids on Catalan government offices and the arrests spread through social media. Some people camped out overnight at the gates of the regional department of economy, where civil guard investigators conducted a search and arrested two officials in charge of finances and taxation.

Various vehicles belonging to the Civil Guard force were vandalized and the officers had to be escorted away in the early hours of Thursday by regional police amid some scuffles.

Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has warned Catalan leaders of “greater harm” if they don’t call off the referendum bid, but the regional government has vowed to go ahead.

Catalonia represents a fifth of Spain’s 1.1-trillion-euro ($1.32 trillion) economy and enjoys wide self-government, although key areas such as infrastructure and taxes are in the hands of central authorities.

The region has about 5.5 million eligible voters. Polls consistently show the region’s inhabitants favor holding a referendum but are roughly evenly divided over independence from Spain.
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Mutti Knows Best: A Cautious Chancellor for a Cautious Germany

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By the standards of this year’s raucous French vote, and Britain’s rowdy one last year, Germany’s federal election campaign has been staid and predictable. With two days left before polls open, Angela Merkel appears to be cruising to her fourth term as the country’s chancellor.

Aghast at the Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s election in the United States, Germans are in no mood to gamble. Pre-vote surveys show they yearn for things to remain as they are — stable and, for most Germans, affluent.

Merkel’s official campaign slogan could easily have been, “Mutti weiß es am besten” (mom knows best). As it is she has been campaigning on the hardly more revolutionary, “For a Germany in which we live well and happily.”

The cautious chancellor has played to her strengths — and to the mood of an electorate adverse to upsets. Her main center-left challengers, the Social Democrats, are already preparing themselves for a dismal showing, possibly heading to secure their lowest share of the national vote since 2009.

Their lackluster campaign, in which they were never able to differentiate themselves from their senior partner in the governing coalition, Merkel’s Christian Democrats, never had much of a chance against a deft chancellor at the peak of her sure-footed political game.

Large appeal

Merkel offered something for everyone and has appealed right across the political spectrum, befitting for a politician who distrusts ideology and once remarked, “I’m a bit of a liberal, a bit Christian-social, a bit conservative.”

Nonetheless the rest of Europe will be watching closely as the Germans head to the polls Sunday.

First, it remains unclear what kind of coalition Merkel will set about trying to form after the votes have been counted.

The final make-up will have major implications for the kind of far-reaching reforms French President Emmanuel Macron is advocating for the European Union. Especially if she has to include the revived pro-market Free Democrats, who have rebranded under their charismatic leader, the 38-year-old Christian Lindner, and are now opposed to greater EU political integration and centralization.

Lindner has made it clear that for the Free Democrats there will be red line in coalition talks. His party will refuse to endorse a common budget for the eurozone as advocated by the French president.

“We don’t begrudge Mr. Macron and all European partners their success,” Lindner said in a newspaper interview this week. “But [a eurozone budget] would be a sort of permanent fiscal equalization scheme and a transfer union that would endanger the future of Europe,” he added. “If we can’t make a difference then it is our responsibility to go into the opposition.”

AfD gaining ground

And, second, Europeans will be watching to see how Germany’s far-right right Alternative for Germany (AfD) fares, trying to work out whether the continent has reached high tide when it comes to anti-immigrant, anti-EU populist insurgencies or is still in the middle of an unsettling storm.

All the signs are that AfD will do well and break the vote threshold required to be awarded seats in the Bundestag. It could end up with 60 to 85 lawmakers and become Germany’s third largest party after the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats. It would mark the first time reactionary nationalists have sat in Germany’s parliament since the Nazis razed the Reichstag in 1933.

AfD’s arrival from the fringes of German politics to the heart of power in Europe’s most powerful capital will revive the spirits of European populists, who had high hopes this year of seeing a populist somewhere returned to power in western Europe.

Marine Le Pen’s defeat to Emmanuel Macron in the French presidential election, and Geert Wilders low 13 per cent score in the Dutch polls in March shattered those hopes. AfD lawmakers sitting in the Bundestag would be a substantial consolation prize and a remarkable accomplishment for a party formed only four years ago in protest at the EU bailout of the bankrupt Greece.

Merkel has tried to blunt the AfD’s appeal. She launched her campaign in June using the black, red and gold colors of the national flag as a backdrop — an unusual move for a mainstream leader in a country still haunted by its Nazi past and nervous about open expressions of patriotism.

After the voting results, Merkel may elect to try to form a governing coalition without the Social Democrats, say party insiders, in order to stymie the populists.

If the Social Democrats are in the coalition, the AfD, which began life as an eccentric, slightly whacky free-market party and transformed itself into a muscular populist anti-immigrant group, would become formally the largest opposition group in the Bundestag, entitling it to some significant parliamentary powers, including chairing the influential budget committee and opening budget debates.

Having such powerful perks in the Bundestag would give the AfD a platform most established parties want to deny them.

‘Mutti’ image

The oddest aspect of the three-month election campaign has been the contrast between the party leaders. The dour, homely Merkel has lived up to her nickname Mutti.

On Sunday she fielded questions from children and revealed she likes nothing more than to wear a “nice cardigan” and “very comfortable shoes,” likes “hedgehogs, elephants and hares,” and that her favorite hobby is “growing potatoes.”

In August she went into great detail about how she likes to make potato soup. “I always pound the potatoes with a potato masher, not a blender. Then there’ll always be a few lumps left,” she said.

One of the two AfD leaders, Alice Weidel, is hardly as down-home as Merkel and appears more like a member of the global elite she lambasts. A former investment banker, she is a lesbian, lives in Switzerland — for tax reasons — with a partner from Sri Lanka and has been accused of illegally hiring a Syrian refugee as a house cleaner.
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EU Official Raises Doubts About Brexit Talks Progress

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A senior European Union official is doubtful that Britain’s talks on leaving the EU can advance to a new phase next month, fueling concern that a Brexit deal might not be found by the 2019 deadline.

 

EU leaders meet Oct. 19-20 and were expected to assess whether negotiations have made “sufficient progress” on Britain’s departure for talks on future relations and trade to begin.

 

But a senior EU official said Thursday that “it’s too early to tell” whether the leaders can decide. The official briefed reporters only on condition that she not be named.

 

She affirmed that the October summit is not a deadline, saying “we all know that negotiations don’t usually go according to our time plan, so we will take all the time needed.”

 

 

 
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Iraq Launches Offensive to Recapture Hawija

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Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced Thursday his forces have begun an offensive to retake control of the town of Hawija, one of the last areas in Iraq held by Islamic State militants.

Hawija is located 240 kilometers north of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, and just west of the oil city of Kirkuk.

Islamic State militants have been in control of Hawija since 2014 when the group swept through large areas of northern and western Iraq.

The United Nations says more than 100,000 civilians have fled the area during the past three years, and that an estimated 85,000 who remain are “likely to be heavily affected” by the fighting in the coming weeks.  

The U.N. humanitarian office said it is working with local authorities and aid groups in order to be ready to help an increasing number of people who flee.

Iraqi forces earlier this week launched a separate operation to go after the remaining Islamic State fighters in parts of western Anbar province.  Those militants are mainly located in the area along the border across from Islamic State territory in the Euphrates River valley that stretches up through Deir el-Zour and the group’s de facto capital in Raqqa.  Both Syrian cities are the sites of offensives to oust Islamic State as well.

“The rapid, recent success of the Iraqi Security Forces points to the ISF’s momentum in the campaign to destroy ISIS in Iraq,” said Col. Ryan Dillon, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition.

Ahead of the offensive in Hawija, Dillon said the Iraqi Air Force dropped millions of leaflets urging Islamic State fighters to surrender.

For more than a week, coalition warplanes have carried out airstrikes in the Hawija area targeting Islamic State tunnels, vehicles, weapons, fighting positions and a bomb-making facility.

“The liberation of Hawija will be yet another major achievement in the ISF’s relentless drive to liberate civilians trapped by ISIS,” said Maj. Gen. Felix Gedney, the coalition’s deputy commander for strategy and support.
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Russia: Special Forces Helping Syria Win Key City

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Russian special forces are helping Syrian government troops fight Islamic State militants in the battle for the strategic city of Deir el-Zour in eastern Syria, the defense ministry in Moscow said Thursday.

Russia began its operation to support President Bashar Assad’s offensive against the IS in Syria in 2015 but has mostly focused on providing air cover to government troops on the ground.

The campaign for Deir el-Zour, Syria’s largest eastern city, is caught up in a race between government troops and the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces.

Russian-backed troops advance

In the past two weeks, the pro-government forces, backed by Russian air cover and Iranian-allied militiamen, gained control of most of the city and crossed the Euphrates River to the area of SDF operations.

Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, the Russian defense ministry’s spokesman, said in a statement that Russian special forces have been deployed to help Syrian government forces fighting the IS militants outside Deir el-Zour.

A Syrian government offensive late Wednesday captured two villages on the Euphrates’ western bank, liberating about 16 square kilometers (6 square miles) of land, Konashenkov said.

Konashenkov also said the Syrian Democratic Forces shelled government positions outside Deir el-Zour twice in recent days and warned the U.S.-led coalition that Moscow would have to retaliate if the Russian troops in the area were to come under fire.

Raqqa battle nearly won

The development comes as the battle for the IS stronghold of Raqqa, north of Deir el-Zour, is reaching its final stages, the SDF said Wednesday, four months after the offensive began.

The Kurdish-led SDF said it captured Raqqa’s last grain silos from the militants in a surprise offensive on the city’s northern neighborhoods. Less than 300 militants remain holed up in the city, which has witnessed an intense bombing campaign, particularly in the last few days, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights that monitors the war.

The campaign to take Raqqa began in June in a quick advance after a breach of the wall of the Old City, a major fortification for the militants. But it has since slowed down as the forces faced mounting resistance from the militants.

The Russian defense ministry, however, claimed Thursday that its intelligence shows the coalition’s operation in Raqqa had stopped, and that SDF fighters have been redeployed from there to Deir el-Zour.
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Ugandan Police Fire Tear Gas at ‘Life Presidency’ Protesters

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Ugandan police on Thursday fired tear gas to disperse protesters opposed to plans to introduce legislation that could allow the longtime president to rule for life.

The bill is likely to be introduced in the national assembly later Thursday despite growing opposition from religious leaders, civic groups and opposition leaders.

Ugandan police had warned on Wednesday that no protests – in support of or against the president – would be allowed. But some opposition figures have vowed to mobilize mass support against a bill they believe is intended to enable President Yoweri Museveni to remain in power for the rest of his life despite having already ruled the East African country for more than three decades. 

Uganda’s constitution bars anyone over the age of 75 from seeking the presidency. Museveni is 73 and ineligible to run again in 2021 if the age hurdle remains.

His critics accuse him of using the security forces to harass the opposition, but Museveni’s supporters say he enjoys wide support across the country.

On Thursday, amid heavy police and military deployment across the normally calm capital Kampala, police fired tear gas at Makerere University students who were planning to stage a walk to the precincts of parliament.

Ugandan police also besieged the offices of two NGOs that the authorities accuse of supporting anti-government protests. ActionAid and the Great Lakes Institute for Strategic Studies are suspected of “receiving funding” from unnamed sources to incite protests against the government, said police spokesman Asan Kasingye.

Police are searching the offices of the NGOs for incriminating evidence, he said Thursday.

It was not immediately possible to get a comment from the NGOs.

Museveni’s party has an overwhelming majority in the national assembly – the reason legislation to remove the age limit is expected to pass when the procedural process starts.

Museveni, a U.S. ally on regional security over the years, took power by force 1986 following a bush war. He won re-election last year in a poll marred by allegations of vote fraud and intimidation by the security forces. 

Although Museveni has warned in the past that Africa’s problem was leaders “who want to overstay in power,” he has since said he was speaking about leaders who are not elected.
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UN Mission in Congo Forces Reckoning Over Sex Abuse Scandal

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The Congolese orphan girl haunts the U.N.’s top human rights official, even though more than a decade has passed since he heard her story.

It was a big day in this town in northeastern Congo: A top U.N. delegation was paying a high-profile visit. But it was also the day, the girl said, that a Pakistani peacekeeper raped her in front of her younger siblings.

“What on earth would it take for this soldier not to do it — to have all the heads of the U.N. together, and he still does it?” asked Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein, a member of the delegation that heard the girl’s testimony in 2004.

One year later, he helped write a landmark report to curb sexual abuse and exploitation within the U.N. system. Yet neither Zeid’s outrage nor his report helped the girl.

Her case is grimly emblematic of the underbelly of U.N. peacekeeping, and the organization as a whole: In a year-long investigation, the AP found that despite promises of reform for more than a decade, the U.N. failed to meet many of its pledges to stop the abuse or help victims, some of whom have been lost to a sprawling bureaucracy. Cases have disappeared, or have been handed off to the peacekeepers’ home countries, which often do nothing.

Congo

If the U.N. sexual abuse crisis has an epicenter, it is Congo, where the overall scale of the scandal first emerged 13 years ago, and where the promised reforms have most clearly fallen short. Of the 2,000 sexual abuse and exploitation complaints made against the U.N. worldwide over the past 12 years, more than 700 occurred in Congo, where the U.N.’s largest peacekeeping force costs a staggering $1 billion a year.

The AP even found a girl who was raped by two peacekeepers; she gave birth to two babies by the time she was 14.

With rare exception, the victims interviewed by the AP got no help. Instead, many are banished from their families for having mixed-race children, who also are shunned.

To this day, the sexual violence continues: Congo already accounts for nearly one-third of the 43 allegations made worldwide so far in 2017.

A call for action

At the General Assembly on Monday, the U.N.’s new leader, Antonio Guterres, called on member states to take responsibility for peacekeepers who commit abuse and exploitation.

The U.N. had no record of the 14-year-old orphan who was raped on the day the top U.N. delegation visited. Officials did find another case with similar details, but said it was “unsubstantiated” at the time because the girl identified the wrong foreigner in a photo lineup. They did not know what became of the orphan.

But in just three days last month, the AP found a woman whose story closely matched Zeid’s version of events. She was inebriated and living in poverty, the daughter born as a result of the assault now cared for by relatives. The victim, now 27, said she received no help from the U.N. after her child was born.

The adoptive mother of that child, Dorcas Zawadi, refuses to allow the girl near U.N. bases.

“The peacekeepers try to distract the girls with cookies, candy and milk to rape them,” she told the AP.

Peter Gallo, a former investigator at the U.N.’s Office of Internal Oversight, blames a bureaucratic, inefficient system for the enduring crisis.

“The U.N. system is essentially protecting the perpetrators of these crimes, and what is happening is that the U.N. is exploiting and is complicit in the exploitation of the very people that the organization was set up to protect.”

Even as the U.N. promises more reforms, that’s too little, too late for many young women in Congo like Bora, who was raped by two peacekeepers and bore their babies while she was still a child herself. Like the other women interviewed by AP, she asked that only her first name be used because of what she has endured.

Her first attacker approached her when she was an 11-year-old leaving primary school. He offered her bread and a banana, and then raped her.

“It was the first man who ever touched me,” she recalled. The rape left her pregnant, and she gave birth to a son.

Two years later, at 13, another peacekeeper took advantage of her. She once again got pregnant.

“I’ll never forget what happened to me,” Bora said. “It is lodged in my heart.”

The 14-year-old orphan who said she was raped in the camp in Bunia soon began turning to alcohol to numb her pain, friends and relatives say.

When the rape victim’s child was still a baby, a relative whisked her away out of fear her biological mother would harm her.

When the woman rescued the child, she gave the girl a new name, a name she prayed would give the girl a better life despite the circumstances of how she came into the world.

She called her Hope.
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President Rouhani: Iran Deal Not Renegotiable

Posted on by SeeUS

The future of the 2015 Iran deal is being widely discussed by leaders at the U.N. General Assembly in New York. VOA’s Margaret Besheer reports from the gathering that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is adamant that it is not renegotiable, while President Donald Trump said Wednesday he has decided whether to pull the U.S. out of the multilateral agreement.
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Governments Paying Terror Kidnap Ransoms Put All Citizens At Risk, Warns Report

Posted on by SeeEU

The lack of a unified approach by world governments to paying kidnap ransoms is putting the lives of citizens of all nationalities at greater risk and is providing terror groups with a big source of finance, warns a new report by a prominent British defense policy institute. Henry Ridgwell has more from London.
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