Month: December 2017

Nigerian Air Force Says US Agrees to Sell Fighter Planes to Nigeria

Posted on by SeeAF

The Nigerian air force said on Wednesday the United States had agreed to sell fighter planes to Nigeria, as the West African country continues its eight-year

conflict with Islamist insurgency Boko Haram.

The sale of the 12 A29 Super Tucano aircraft, with weapons and services, is worth $593 million.

The U.S. ambassador to Nigeria presented the letters of offer and acceptance, the official agreement to make the sale, to the country’s air force earlier on Wednesday, the air force statement said.

The agreements are expected to be signed and necessary payments made before Feb. 20, the statement said, adding that the U.S. State Department has already approved the sale.

Reporting by Paul Carsten; Editing by Alison Williams.
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Europe Rides Crises, Regains Confidence In 2017, But Big Challenges Ahead

Posted on by SeeEU

After lurching from one crisis to the next over the past 10 years, the European Union has survived a series of seemingly existential threats – and its leaders claim the bloc is ascendant.

Economic growth in the Eurozone is forecast to be higher than in the United States and Britain, while the migrant influx appears to be easing. But analysts warn that the underlying problems haven’t been solved – and the EU can’t afford to get complacent.

From the 2008 euro debt crisis that nearly bankrupted several European states, to the chaotic arrival of millions of migrants fleeing war and poverty, plus the 2016 Britain’s vote the leave the EU, the European Union has survived a decade of crises.

But in 2017, its leaders claimed Europe is back in business. In his September State of the Union speech, the EU Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker captured the mood.

“The wind is back in Europe’s sails. We have now a window of opportunity but it will not stay open forever,” Juncker said.

As Emmanuel Macron stepped out to give a victory speech in front of Paris’ Louvre gallery in May, he was seen by many as Europe’s savior. Macron won the presidency on an explicitly pro-European ticket, defeating the anti-EU National Front under Marine Le Pen.

Supporters credit Macron with halting the seemingly unstoppable right-wing, populist surge in Europe. But analyst Leopold Traugott of policy group Open Europe says those forces cannot be written off.

“Yes, Macron was elected a pro-European candidate, but in the end mostly because for many voters, he was the lesser evil compared to Marine Le Pen in the second round.”

President Macron even voiced hope in a September speech on Europe’s future that Britain might be lured back into a reformed EU.

Macron said that “In a union refocused on its unwavering values and an efficient market, in a few years, if it wants, the United Kingdom could find its place.”

But Europe should not get complacent, argued analyst Traugott.

“On the one hand the migration crisis is continuing, people are still coming in, and there is no system in place yet that can solve the issue in a sustainable manner, because member states are simply unwilling to agree to it. And on the Eurozone, it currently doesn’t have the necessary stable framework that is needed to keep the union working,” Traugott said. 

Europe will enter 2018 in a far more confident mood than a year ago – with the Eurozone growing, migrant numbers falling and pro-EU leaders in charge.

But from Germany’s struggles to form a new government, to the threat of a so-called hard Brexit, and Catalonia’s bid for independence from Spain – there is no shortage of potential challenges ahead.
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Homelessness to Digital IDs: Five Property Rights Hotspots in 2018

Posted on by SeeEU

The global fight over land and resources is getting increasingly bloody and the race for control of valuable assets is expanding from forests and indigenous territories to the seas, space and databanks.

Here are five hotspots for property rights in 2018:

  1. Rising violence: From Peru to the Philippines, land rights defenders are under increasing threat of harassment and attack from governments and corporations.

At least 208 people have been killed so far this year defending their homes, lands and forests from mining, dams and agricultural projects, advocacy group Frontline Defenders says.

The tally has exceeded that of 2016, which was already the deadliest year on record, and “it is likely that we will see numbers continue to rise”, a spokeswoman told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

  1. Demand for affordable housing: Governments are under increasing pressure to recognize the right to housing, as Smart Cities projects and rapid gentrification push more people on to the streets, from Mumbai to Rio de Janeiro.

India has committed to providing Housing for All by 2022, while Canada’s recognition of housing as a fundamental right could help eliminate homelessness in the country.

“We need our governments to respond to this crisis and recognize that homelessness is a matter of life and death and dignity,” said Leilani Farha, the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to housing.

  1. Takeover of public lands: From the shrinking of wilderness national monuments in Utah to the felling of rainforests for palm plantations in Indonesia, public lands risk being rescinded or resized by governments in favor of business interests.

Governments are also likely to be hit by more lawsuits from indigenous communities fighting to protect their lands, as well as the environment.

  1. Fight over space and sea: A race to explore and extract resources from the moon, asteroids and other celestial bodies is underway, with China, Luxembourg, the United States and others vying for materials ranging from ice to precious metals.

The latest space race targets a multi-trillion dollar industry.

Expect more debate over the 50-year-old U.N. Outer Space Treaty, which declares “the exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries and shall be the province of all mankind.”

On Earth, the fight over the seas is intensifying, particularly in the Arctic. Melting ice caps have triggered a fierce contest between energy companies in the United States, Russia, Canada, and Norway over drilling rights.

  1. Debate over data: As more countries move towards digital citizen IDs, there are growing concerns about privacy and safety of the data, the ethics of biometrics, and the misuse of data for profiling or increased surveillance.

Campaigners are pushing for “informational privacy” to be part of the right to privacy, and for governments to treat the right to data as an inalienable right, like the right to dignity.
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US ‘Maximum Pressure’ N. Korea Policy Yielded Mixed Results in 2017

Posted on by SeeUS

With a tweet in early January saying, “It won’t happen!” Donald Trump, who had not yet been inaugurated president of the United States, set upon a confrontational course to stop North Korea from developing a nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the U.S. 

During the presidential campaign, Trump unnerved allies in Asia with his “America First” threats to withdraw U.S. forces from South Korea and Japan unless they significantly increased defense-sharing payments, and his expressed willingness to negotiate with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un over hamburgers.

But after taking office Trump made ending the North Korean nuclear threat a top national security priority, and he embraced a “maximum pressure” strategy of imposing crippling sanctions on the Kim government, backed by the credible threat of military force.

“He has raised all kinds of expectations about what he’s going to do about North Korea. And if he doesn’t do those things, then it seriously threatens his identity, it undermines him, it undercuts him,” said North Korea analyst John Delury with Yonsei University in Seoul. 

Japan’s support

Meeting with Japanese Prime Minster Shinzo Abe, Trump found strong support for his hard-line North Korea policy from a key Asian ally.

In February, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis traveled to Tokyo and Seoul to reaffirm the U.S. commitment to maintaining a strong military presence in the region, while downplaying the president’s past criticisms of defense costs.

In April, on the same day Trump dined at his Florida Mar-a-Lago resort with Chinese President Xi Jinping, he ordered a unilateral missile strike on Syria for allegedly using chemical weapons against civilians.

Trump’s demonstration of military force, his supporters said, sent a message to Xi that if China did not act to curtail North Korean provocations, the U.S. would.

Both Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Vice President Mike Pence also went to the region, warning that the U.S. would not rule out preemptive military action to eliminate the growing North Korean nuclear threat to the U.S. mainland.

However, South Korea, after the impeachment of conservative President Park Geun-hye, elected the liberal Moon Jae-in, who strongly opposes the use of offensive military force on the Korean Peninsula.

“President Moon has been quite clear that he believes that war on the Korean Peninsula should never be considered an option, unless the North Koreans start it first, of course,” said David Straub, a North Korea analyst with the Sejong Institute.

Moon, though, has also aligned closely with the U.S. on deterrence and sanctions as his efforts to reduce regional tensions through engagement and dialogue have been rejected by the North.

​Strategic confusion

Proponents of military intervention, like Republican U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, argue that it would be justifiable to use force to prevent a North Korean nuclear attack on the U.S. mainland. But even Mattis acknowledged a military conflict with North Korea would be “tragic on an unbelievable scale” and most likely trigger attacks against South Korea or Japan that could quickly escalate into widespread war.

During the year, Tillerson seemed to soften his hard-line position, moving to support unconditional talks with leaders in Pyongyang and dropping any demand that they first agree to give up their nuclear program.

“We have said, from the diplomatic side, we are ready to talk anytime North Korea would like to talk, and we are ready to have the first meeting without preconditions.” Tillerson said in December.

But Trump has repeatedly rebuked his top diplomat, publicly tweeting in October that Tillerson was “wasting his time” trying to restart talks with North Korea.

Tillerson later clarified that North Korea must earn its way to the negotiations table by suspending further missile and nuclear tests.

Trump’s critics have dubbed the mixed messages coming from the White House as a policy of “strategic confusion.”

Brutal nature

Undeterred by Washington’s threats and increasing economic sanctions, Pyongyang continued to test ballistic missiles throughout the year, steadily improving their range and technical capability.

In February, the brutal nature of the repressive regime was again exposed when alleged North Korean agents using poison were charged with assassinating Kim Jong Nam, the half brother of leader Kim Jong Un, at the Kuala Lumpur airport in Malaysia.

And in June, Americans reacted with outrage when North Korea released American student Otto Warmbier in comatose state. Warmbier was arrested in 2016 for allegedly stealing a propaganda poster from his hotel and soon fell into a coma from which he never awoke. He died soon after returning home.

In response, Congress passed a bill banning most U.S. travel to North Korea.

War of words

In August, tensions escalated to the brink of conflict when Trump warned that North Korea would face “fire and fury” if it threatened the U.S. Pyongyang responded by saying it was considering test-firing an ICBM into waters near the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam.

Pyongyang would back down from this threat, but soon launched two long-range missiles over Japan, and in September it conducted its sixth nuclear test.

The U.S. and its allies did not respond with military strikes, but did persuade China and Russia to support stronger international sanctions that banned the North’s lucrative coal and mineral exports and cut off one-third of oil imports.

Trump escalated a war of words with Kim during his address to the Untied Nations in September. The president referred to the North Korean leader as a “Rocket Man” on a suicide mission.

Kim responded in a statement calling Trump a “dotard” — an old person, especially one who might be weak or senile — and described his behavior as “mentally deranged.”

​Provocation pause

After conducting a successful test in November of a long-range Hwasong-15 missile that has the potential to reach the U.S. mainland, North Korea announced it had reached its goal of developing operational ICBM capability. Some U.S. and South Korean experts said the North was still a year or so away from having an “operational” ICBM armed with a miniaturized nuclear weapon.

Few expect diplomatic breakthroughs anytime soon, but with South Korea hosting the upcoming Winter Olympics, there may be a new opportunity to reduce the potential for conflict in the region. Seoul is encouraging North Korea to participate in the Olympics, and there is talk that the U.S. and South Korea may postpone joint military exercises until after the games. These developments could bring a needed pause to the provocations.

Youmi Kim in Seoul contributed to this report.
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For Mideast in 2018, Threats and Opportunities Reign

Posted on by SeeEA

Will 2018 dampen the fires that rage across the Middle East? Although skepticism is understandable, there is a glimmer of change.

The fight against the Islamic State group is mostly over, and the war in Syria may finally be winding down. The region is transitioning from fighting those wars to dealing with their aftermath — the destruction and dispersal of populations they wrought and the political fallout. Iran’s influence has grown after its proxies were generally successful, and even its nuclear deal with the West remains in place. In rival Saudi Arabia, a youthful new leader is promising long-delayed modernization at home and greater confrontation with Iran in the region. Donald Trump in the White House adds a mercurial element to an exceedingly combustible brew.

If pessimism reigns, much can be traced to the failure of the 2010-11 Arab Spring revolts against despotism. Instead of the democratic tsunami many envisaged, a string of wars has followed. Libya seems doomed to chaos and the war in Yemen is a genuine humanitarian crisis. In many places, the old guard remains in place. So spectacular is the wreckage that almost no one refers to the Arab Spring without irony any more.

Egypt, which gripped the world’s attention when street demonstrations — and the military — toppled Hosni Mubarak seven years ago, may be the best example of the scaled-down ambition. After several years of mayhem it seems more stable now, the economy starting to grow and tourism up. Jihadi terrorism remains a problem, though, especially in the Sinai Peninsula and against Christians, and freedoms have been curtailed. Still, there is little sense of foment in the streets — where protests are severely restricted — and barring a surprise, President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi can expect to win re-election in a few months.

Across the border in Israel, there is more prospect for change as long-serving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces corruption investigations that could lead to his removal or early elections. Netanyahu, albeit bellicose, has been cautious — but he also seems wedded to a ruinous status quo with the Palestinians. He could be replaced by a greater firebrand or by the moderate center-left, which would create new opportunities.

Here’s a look at some possible inflection points for 2018:

All quiet on the Syrian front?

Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad has been embattled since war erupted in his country almost seven years ago, when his demise was widely predicted in the early going. But it looks like he’ll survive, for now, as the war appears to be drawing to a close.

Major military operations have tapered off, with Assad in control of key areas and the war against the Islamic State group mostly concluded with the recapture of the cities it controlled. Bloodshed still lies ahead if Assad tries to seize areas still under rebel control, including some near the capital and in Idlib province to the north. But local cease-fires brokered by Russia, Iran and Turkey have significantly reduced the daily carnage that kept Syria in the news.

The damage, with half the population displaced and almost a half million killed, is huge. Tens of thousands are missing, many believed held in government detention centers. Syrian Kurds in the north hold nearly 25 percent of the country; Turkey, Russia, the U.S., Iran and Lebanese troops all maintain bases they are likely to keep for now.

The fate of Assad, whose heavy-handed, decades-old family rule sparked the rebellion, remains a toxic issue that has scuttled all diplomatic efforts at peace. Backed by Russia and Iran, it may seem like Assad has won the war: too many of his frustrated opponents turned to extremist groups such as al-Qaida and IS for the United States and the West to jump in and risk conflict with Russia. But the endgame remains open.

A phoenix on the Tigris

The war against the Islamic State group has been declared over after four years of savagery. The group’s epic abuses — enslaving women, massacring whole populations, grisly killings, mass terrorism — inspired a furious reaction that has left large parts of Iraq in smoldering ruins. The fight by the U.S.-led coalition was grueling in Fallujah, Ramadi, Hawija, Tal Afar and, finally, Mosul. Whether Iraq can rebuild is a key question for 2018, for only then will Baghdad regain the authority to govern the whole country.

The cash-strapped government estimates $100 billion is needed nationwide — while leaders in Mosul say that amount is needed for their city alone. Funding is unclear, and the United States — whose coalition dropped approximately 27,700 munitions around Mosul from October 2016 to July 2017 — seems to be washing its hands.

While 2.7 million Iraqis have returned to lands retaken from IS, more than 3 million others cannot — including some 600,000 from Mosul. Thousands of civilians were killed. More than 70 percent of Ramadi remains damaged or destroyed, according to authorities there.

At the heart of the matter are the sectarian divisions that bedevil not only Iraq but Syria, Lebanon, and other parts of the region whose borders were mostly drawn by Europeans. The destroyed areas are largely Sunni, while the Baghdad government is Shiite-dominated. If rebuilding efforts fail, the Sunni areas will likely become restive again.

Promise and peril in Saudi Arabia

The monarchies of the region — from Morocco to Jordan to the Gulf — were the least affected by the Arab Spring. Perhaps most ossified was Saudi Arabia, a U.S. ally and key oil power whose strict Wahhabi interpretation of Islam is blamed by critics for abetting the spread of jihadism worldwide.

Now change appears to be coming, symbolized by the ubiquitous acronym MBS — the widely used nickname for 32-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who many expect will take over the throne from his father officially in 2018. He has been stumping for a more moderate view of religion and is widely credited with the recent decisions to end the highly contentious, decades-old bans on women driving and cinemas operating.

The crown prince is also widely seen as the driving force behind the arrests of dozens of his fellow princes on corruption charges. Few are surprised by the corruption allegations, but critics sensed a power grab. Many of the detainees continue to fester, albeit in style, in the luxury Riyadh hotel that has become their improbable prison. 

Saudi Arabia has also led a political and economic assault by Gulf nations on small but scrappy Qatar, accusing it of supporting terrorism and being too close to Iran. A series of demands, such as the closure of its state-owned Al-Jazeera television network, have been summarily rejected, and the gambit seems mired in stalemate.  

The Syria war is, to a degree, a proxy fight between the two regional powers, with Tehran supporting Assad and Riyadh many of the rebels. That also drove the seemingly Saudi-inspired and ultimately abortive resignation of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, who was seen as too easy on the Iranian-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah, which is fighting in Syria. In Yemen, where the Saudis have backed the government with airstrikes against Iran-backed Houthi rebels, many thousands of civilians have died, the rebels still control key parts of the country, and there is starvation and cholera on a historic scale.

So great is the antipathy toward Iran by Saudi Arabia and other Sunnis powers that some observers think it exceeds their opposition to Zionism. In Jerusalem, officials giddily whisper of an emerging Sunni-Israeli axis against the Islamic Republic.

A penultimate deal?

Perhaps inspired by the high-profile failures of his recent predecessors to coax the Israelis and Palestinians into a final peace, Trump speaks repeatedly of the “ultimate deal.” But it is difficult to envision even a more moderate Israeli leader meeting the Palestinians’ terms, which include dividing or sharing Jerusalem and its Old City, holy to three religions. Even if they somehow agree to share, Israel and a future Palestine will likely need a border snaking through the city to keep peace rejectionists apart. And the Palestinians demand recognition of at least a theoretical “right of return” for millions of descendants of refugees, which few Israelis contemplate. Two decades of failed negotiations attest to the quagmire.

With this unpromising backdrop, many Palestinians are talking about ditching the two-state strategy and demanding annexation and equal rights instead. That would make Israel an evenly divided binational state, something its government can be expected to resist, even as they face potential accusations of apartheid. With Israel having already settled 600,000 Jews in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, extricating itself will be difficult.

Some expect Trump’s team to try to forge a partial deal instead: A Palestinian state on only some of the land they seek, with Jerusalem and refugees left for later negotiations. Washington may be hoping for help from Riyadh and, perhaps, Cairo in pressuring the Palestinians. But that never came in the past, even with offers on the table far more likely to entice.
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 Emergency Medical Evacuations Begin in Syria

Posted on by SeeEA

Humanitarian groups have begun evacuating sick people from a rebel-held suburb of the Syrian capital, Damascus.

The United Nations had called for an emergency evacuation of nearly 500 patients stranded in Eastern Ghouta, home to 400,000 residents, which has been cut off from food and medical aid since 2013.  Many of them are children. 

On Tuesday, the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS)  said four patients, from a group of 29 critical cases approved for evacuation, have been transferred to hospitals in Damascus. The rest will be moved in the coming days.

The list of 29 includes 18 children and 4 women suffering from heart disease, cancer, kidney failure and blood diseases, in addition to cases requiring surgery not available in the besieged area.

SAMS said some 17 patients have died in recent months because of the ongoing siege and lack of medical care. 

The International Committee of the Red Cross late Tuesday published pictures of ambulances brought in to carry out the evacuations. But it provided no details about how many people would be moved out of the area.

UNICEF said its aid workers described seeing one of the worst health situations since the conflict began in 2011 during a rare international aid convoy to a neighborhood in the Eastern Ghouta district at the end of November.  

UNICEF said at the time that 137 children, aged between seven months to 17 years, required immediate evacuation for conditions that include kidney failure, severe malnutrition and conflict wounds. 

Last week Jan Egeland, the United Nations humanitarian adviser for Syria, said 494 people were on the priority list for medical evacuations.

“That number is going down, not because we are evacuating people but because they are dying,” he said. “We have tried now every single week for many months to get medical evacuations out, and food and other supplies in.”
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Romanian Ruling Lawmakers Propose Looser Anti-graft Rules

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Romania’s ruling Social Democrats have filed a slew of new changes to the criminal code that would decriminalize several graft offenses, including some abuse of office crimes, their second attempt this year to weaken a crackdown on corruption.

Transparency International ranks Romania as one of the European Union’s most corrupt states and Brussels keeps its justice system under special monitoring, although it has praised magistrates for their efforts to root out high-level graft.

A draft bill released on Tuesday showed a group of Social Democrat lawmakers are proposing that abuse of office offenses that cause financial damage of less than 200,000 euros ($237,100) should no longer be punishable.

Other changes include serving prison sentences of less than three years at home, lower sentences for bribe taking and other graft crimes, as well as decriminalizing taking a bribe for someone other than the accused. Another proposal would make using one’s position to obtain sexual favours no longer a crime.

Changes could end trial

If approved, the changes would put an end to an ongoing trial of Social Democrat Party leader and lower house speaker Liviu Dragnea, who is accused of abuse of office.

Dozens of lawmakers and mayors across all parties stand to benefit from the changes. Romania’s anti-corruption prosecution unit has sent 72 members of parliament to trial since 2006.

A similar attempt to decriminalize some abuse of office crimes triggered the country’s largest street protests in decades at the start of 2017. The ruling coalition backed down at the time but has revived the proposals.

Earlier this month, the ruling coalition has used its overwhelming parliament majority to approve a judicial overhaul that puts magistrates under political control.

They have also filed a different set of proposals to change the criminal code that could derail law and order.

Bills, proposals criticized

Thousands of magistrates, centrist President Klaus Iohannis, the European Commission, the U.S. State Department and seven EU states have all criticized both the approved bills and the criminal code proposals.

The Social Democrats and their junior coalition partner ALDE have denied the changes would affect the independence of the judiciary and have stressed that parliament has the right to legislate however it sees fit.

The proposed changes place Romania alongside its eastern European peers Hungary and Poland, where populist leaders are also trying to control the judiciary, in defying EU concerns over the rule of law.
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Families Chased From Libyan Town in 2011 Can Go Home, Government Says

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Libyan families displaced from a town ransacked after the toppling of Moammar Gadhafi in 2011 will be allowed to return home in February, the U.N.-backed government said Tuesday after more than a year of negotiations.

The deal, if implemented, would be a step toward reconciliation in the North African oil-producing country, which has been divided among competing factions, communities, tribes and governments since 2011.

Residents of the town of Tawergha were expelled by former anti-Gadhafi rebels in 2011 in retaliation for the strongman having used their settlement as a launch pad for attacks on the western city of Misrata during the uprising.

They have been living in camps and makeshift settlements in poverty across Libya and were banned from returning home. They faced abuse and arbitrary arrest since videos surfaced purportedly showing some of them joining Gadhafi forces in 2011.

“Within the frame of achieving the national reconciliation … as well as to develop the basics of state of law and institutions, I declare today the beginning of return of Tawergha families to their town on the first of February,” Tripoli-based Prime Minister Fayez Seraj said in a statement.

The town, east of Misrata, has been a ghost town since it was looted by Misrata forces in 2011. Human Rights Watch’s website says 40,000 people were displaced.

The government will pay compensation to the relatives of those who were killed and to those who had been detained or wounded or whose homes were destroyed in the conflict, it said.

A spokesman for the Misrata city council confirmed the deal, saying it was up to the government to implement it.
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8 Eastern US States Sue EPA Over Air Pollution

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Eight Eastern U.S. states are suing the Environmental Protection Agency, demanding that it order tougher controls on some Midwestern states over air pollution blowing eastward.

New York state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is leading the lawsuit, saying the Trump administration had failed to impose congressionally mandated anti-pollution standards on parts of the Midwest. 

“Millions of New Yorkers are breathing unhealthy air as smog pollution continues to pour in from other states,” Schneiderman said.

The other that are part of the lawsuit are Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont. They want the courts to overturn the EPA’s decision to exclude nine mostly Midwestern states from what is called the Ozone Transport Region.

States within the region, established under the Clean Air Act, are required to control emissions from coal plants and other sources.

EPA chief Scott Pruitt declined to add those states to the region by an October deadline.

The EPA said it could not comment on outstanding legal matters. 
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Oldest Tree on White House Grounds to Be Cut Down

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If trees could talk, this one would have a million stories to tell — eavesdropping on the conversations of 39 U.S. presidents, watching over state visits and Easter egg rolls, witnessing joy and sorrow, war and peace, and even surviving being hit by an airplane.

But experts say the huge magnolia tree President Andrew Jackson planted as a seedling in 1835 is sick and a safety hazard. A large portion will have to be cut down.

Hovering over the South Lawn near the second story South Portico, it is the oldest tree on the White House grounds. Its portrait can be seen on the back of the U.S. $20 bill.

The tree has been propped up by cables and steel pole, but arborists say its wood is too delicate to withstand any efforts to hold it up. A bad storm, strong winds, or even gusts from the presidential helicopter could bring it down, with perhaps deadly results.

A White House spokeswoman says first lady Melania Trump has asked that parts of the tree be preserved and possibly re-planted in the same spot.
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US Appeals Court Rejects Challenge to Trump Voter Fraud Panel

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A U.S. appeals court in Washington on Tuesday upheld a lower court’s decision to allow President Donald Trump’s commission investigating voter fraud to request data on voter rolls from U.S. states.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) watchdog group, which filed the lawsuit, did not have legal standing to seek to force the presidential commission to review privacy concerns before collecting individuals’ voter data.

EPIC had argued that under federal law, the commission was required to conduct a privacy-impact assessment before gathering personal data. But the three-judge appeals court panel ruled unanimously that the privacy law at issue was intended to protect individuals, not groups like EPIC.

“EPIC is not a voter,” Judge Karen Henderson wrote in the ruling.

Washington-based U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly first denied EPIC’s injunction request in July, in part because the collection of data by the commission was not technically an action by a government agency and thus was not bound by laws that govern what such entities can do.

Kollar-Kotelly noted that the commission, headed by Vice President Mike Pence, was an advisory body that lacks legal authority to compel states to hand over the data.

Not thought to be common

Most state officials who oversee elections and election law experts say that voter fraud is rare in the United States.

Trump, a Republican, set up the commission in May after charging, without evidence, that millions of people voted unlawfully in the 2016 presidential election in which he defeated Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton despite losing the popular vote.

The commission’s vice chair, Kris Kobach, the Republican secretary of state for Kansas and an advocate of tougher laws on immigration and voter identification, asked states in June to turn over voter information.

The data requested by Kobach included names, the last four digits of Social Security numbers, addresses, birth dates, political affiliation, felony convictions and voting histories.

More than 20 states refused outright and others said they needed to study whether they could provide the data.

Civil rights groups and Democratic lawmakers have said the commission’s eventual findings could lead to new ID requirements and other measures making it harder for groups that tend to favor Democratic candidates to cast ballots.

EPIC executive director Marc Rotenberg could not immediately be reached for comment.
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US Pressure on North Korea Yielded Mixed Results in 2017

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Early on in his presidency, Donald Trump set upon a confrontational course to stop North Korea from developing a nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the U.S. VOA’s Brian Padden reports.
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Syrian Army, Iranian Proxies Demand Surrender of Rebels Near Israel Border

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Syrian rebels pinned down in a strategic area where the Israeli and Lebanese borders meet with Syria were handed an ultimatum by the Syrian army and its militia allies to either surrender or face certain military defeat, rebels said Tuesday.

The Syrian army, local militias financed and equipped by Iran, and Druze fighters from the area have been escalating a fierce assault against Sunni rebels in an enclave in the foothills of Mount Hermon.

“They were given 72 hours to surrender with fighters to go to Idlib, or those who want to stay have to reach a settlement,” said Ibrahim al-Jebawi, a Free Syrian Army (FSA) official familiar with the situation on the ground.

Another rebel official who asked not to be named said they were told either to surrender or accept a “military solution.”

After more than two months of near daily shelling and aerial strikes, the rebels have been left encircled in Beit Jin, their main stronghold, after losing strategic hills and farms around it this week.

The media unit of Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group, said that insurgents had agreed to negotiate surrender terms and that negotiations had already begun over their evacuation in the next few days to rebel-held Idlib.

The Syrian army has used similar tactics of pushing opponents to rebel areas further from the Syrian capital after a twin tactic of siege and months of strikes on residential areas.

There were also more than 8,000 civilians who have been trapped in the remaining enclaves, with their plight worsening, according to rebel spokesman Sohaib Alraheel.

​Israel alarmed

Israel is alarmed at the growing Iranian military influence in the Golan Heights and has stepped up its strikes against pro-Iranian targets inside Syria.

Israel has been lobbying major powers to deny Iran, Hezbollah and other Shiite militias any permanent bases in Syria, and to keep them away from the Golan, as they gain ground while helping Damascus beat back Sunni-led rebels.

Early this month, there was an Israeli strike on a base near Kiswah, south of Damascus, that was widely believed to be an Iranian military compound, a Western intelligence source said.

Hezbollah’s bastion in southern Lebanon is only a few kilometers from the rebel enclave, and securing a supply line from its stronghold into Syria’s Quneitra province was a major strategic gain, rebels and defense analysts say.

“Now Hezbollah will have a bigger foothold on the Syrian side of the Golan and it is desperate to link this area with southern Lebanon,” al-Jebawi added.

Israel had warned Hezbollah against trying to open a front in the Golan Heights and was believed to be behind the killing of a prominent commander in an airstrike in 2015 whom the group later admitted had overseen a local Hezbollah presence in the area.

“This is an effort by Iran and its proxy Hezbollah to expand the lines of engagement with Israel. The question is: Will Israel allow that?” said Fayez al Dweiri, a retired Jordanian general who follows Syria closely.
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Congo Watches for Rebels Among South Sudan Refugees

Posted on by SeeAF

Since South Sudan’s government captured a rebel base last week in the country’s southwest, hundreds of refugees have poured into Democratic Republic of Congo.

Among them may be rebels, and the Congolese army, wary of conflict spilling into their nation, is arresting any suspected fighters.

Refugees, however, say innocent young men are being caught up in the crackdown, too.

Grace Gaba, speaking from the border of town of Aba where some 30,000 refugees have taken shelter, said her brother, Joseph Moro, was arrested by Congolese troops at a checkpoint last week and has been held ever since.

The two of them registered as refugees in January of this year. Gaba said they both stayed in Aba since then, and only went back to South Sudan during last week’s fighting to rescue family members.

“Among us eight, only my brother was arrested,” she said. “Maybe they may think my brother is a soldier, but he is not a soldier.”

It is hard to say how many suspected rebels have been arrested so far. A Congolese government source not authorized to speak to media said nine suspected rebels were in army custody as of last week. Local refugee leaders put the number at 17.

Alexi Kabambi, who leads Congo’s National Refugee Commission in Aba, said those whom the army deems to be rebels are sent to a military base in the town of Dungu, where they may be extradited to South Sudan.

Kabambi said even if rebels enter Congo unarmed and renounce their military allegiances, they cannot be granted refugee status.

“Once you’ve carried a weapon you cannot be accorded refugee status as a civilian,” he said. “Even if you’re granted refugee status, if it is revealed you engaged in military activities in the past, your status can be revoked.”

Liwa Morris Taban, chairman of Aba’s South Sudanese refugee community, said anyone who enters Congo as a civilian should be allowed to register as a refugee, even if that person was previously a combatant.

“According to me, if he’s not a rebel, if he’s not even a soldier, he’s a normal civilian,” he said. “He has a right to be together with the rest in the site.”

Congo has struggled with an influx of South Sudanese combatants since war broke out along the mutual border in 2016.

In October of this year, nine suspected rebels were handed over to Congo’s army in Ituri province, east of Aba, the United Nations’ refugee agency, UNHCR, said.

Three more South Sudanese men are being held in the Dungu military base after being arrested in Aba earlier this year with military equipment, according to two South Sudanese men recently released from the prison.

And last year, hundreds of fighters from both the government and rebels crossed into Congo, according to a report by the Small Arms Survey research group. Many of those rebels are now housed in a U.N. camp in the eastern Congolese city of Goma.

Researcher Alan Boswell, who wrote the Small Arms Survey report, said  South Sudanese government soldiers who enter Congo can usually be sent home, but dealing with rebel fighters who cross the border is trickier.

“Some want to be demobilized and be settled as refugees, but others will later want to return back and fight,” he said. “It is essentially not possible to distinguish between who is ready to quit fighting and who is only there to recoup, recover, and return to combat.”

The army is also not capable of holding detainees for long periods of time in humane conditions, says the Refugee Commission’s Kabambi.

“They don’t have the capacity to do this,” he said. “They don’t have the resources. But what can you do?”

Along with the crackdown on suspected rebels, Congo’s army has attempted to seal the border with South Sudan near Aba, including by deploying more troops to border crossings. They have severely restricted trade and banned refugees from moving toward the border.

This is a sharp change from earlier in the conflict, when people and goods moved more freely between Aba and the former rebel base in South Sudan.

One South Sudanese opposition official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said wounded rebels were previously brought to Aba’s hospital for treatment, but this changed after South Sudan’s ambassador to Congo visited Aba earlier this year.
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Social Media is Latest Tool Against Gender Violence in Nigeria

Posted on by SeeAF

Amadi Onyekachi says she was sexually assaulted by a Nigerian police officer in mid-October.  Initially, she felt she would never get justice because there was “no way” she would report the incident to local police.

Instead Onyekachi took to Instagram to express her thoughts and went to bed, albeit tired and traumatized.

While she slept, her post, which detailed the alleged assault, went viral across Nigeria, generating hundreds of likes and comments and thousands of reposts.

In her post, Onyekachi said a Special Anti-Robbery Squad officer ordered her out of her taxi and accused her of being a “Yahoo [scammer] girl” and a prostitute.  She said he then accused her of being a drug dealer and needed to search her body.

“This bastard put his hands inside my bra,” she wrote on October 16. “While I was shouting and trying to get out, he said he was going to beat me up if he heard another sound.”

“He forcibly put his hands in my pants and put his hands inside my body,” Onyekachi tells VOA.

The post attracted the attention of the deputy commissioner of police and a public relations officer in Kwara State, where the incident took place.  Onyekachi was called in to provide a formal statement and identify her attacker, which she said was easy because the officer had a noticeable limp.

The officer in question was charged and is now awaiting trial.

Onyekachi says if she “hadn’t posted on social media the arrest would never have happened.”

Now, she is urging other women to come forward if they are assaulted. “I want to let people know they should speak up, otherwise [attackers] won’t be corrected or punished — not just police officers but people generally,” she says.

Fighting ignorance of the law

The United Nations Women Global Database on Violence Against Women says that 16 percent of Nigerian women have experienced “lifetime physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence.”  

However, veteran women’s rights advocate Bose Ironsi, the founder and director of the Lagos-based Women’s Rights and Health Project, said such violence is greatly underreported in Nigeria.

Until 2015, when former president Goodluck Jonathan signed the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Bill into law, there wasn’t any federal law in Nigeria to protect women against domestic violence.  Only a few states had such laws, such one that Lagos state passed in 2007.

Ironsi says until recently, many Nigerian women weren’t aware of such laws and often accepted violence dished out by abusive partners.

In fact, a 2013 health survey found that 35 percent of Nigerian women said wife beating was justified in one of the following situations — if “the wife burns the food, argues with him, goes out without telling him, neglects the children, or refuses sexual intercourse with him.”

Apart from dealing with 10 cases per day of “battery, rape, threats to life, abduction and child abuse,” Ironsi says her main focus is to “build the capacity of people [through knowledge of the law] to demand justice”.

“We might not be on social media but community pressure is relevant,” she said.  “I would rather do this than be a Facebook activist.”

Through her NGO, Ironsi trains “community advocates” who educate people about gender based violence. They also mediate between victims and abusers and communicate with local police.

Adejoke Oyewale, 52, has been grinding peppers at a market stall in Ejigbo for more than 20 years. She’s also one of Ironsi’s community advocates.

“We had many cases of domestic violence and rape but after the [program] people started to speak out. Most women didn’t know how to speak out because they were afraid,” Oyewale tells VOA.

“Many women have died in silence [but] after the awareness, people were like, ‘Oh, so women can get their rights too.'”

“The problem is knowing how to go about it when you’re a victim. Before you will see women crying and shaking and not knowing what to do.  But now they know there is a law against gender based violence and it’s not something [the perpetrator] will get off scot-free.”

There is some evidence the campaign is having an impact. In 2017, Lagos saw a 100 percent increase in the number of domestic and sexual violence cases compared to the previous year.

According to Ironsi, Alimosho, an area in the outer reaches of Lagos, recorded the highest number of cases, which she said indicated more women were choosing to speak out.

Udemo Eno, who runs a market stall around the corner from Oyewale, said her husband used to beat her every day, leaving her with “bruises everywhere.”

But since Eno went to Oyewale for help, she said her husband had stopped beating her.

“When you see violence in the community you say something and we’ll do something about it,” Oyewale said.

Long road to justice

Although more cases of domestic and sexual violence are being reported, when it comes to getting justice in the courts, the road is often long and like traffic in Lagos, slow.

Itoro Eze-Anaba, founder of Nigeria’s first rape and sexual violence center in Lagos, the Mirabel Centre, says court costs and lengthy delays discourage many survivors from following through with prosecution.

Recent figures from the Mirabel Centre show just 18 convictions were recorded out of 2,250 reported cases of rape in Lagos within a two and half year period.

She says while the conviction rate was low, there has been an improvement in 2017, which she attributed, in part, to social media and the response of the Lagos state government.

“They’re doing a lot more than [they] used to do for cases of domestic and sexual violence and there is a willingness to want to help more and understand the economic cost of domestic violence,” Eze-Anaba says.

In September, the Lagos state government approved a Domestic and Sexual Violence Fund to help victims with the costs associated with getting justice as well as immediate needs like transportation, clothes and shelter.

Mirabel provides a safe space for rape and sexual assault survivors, of which 85 percent are minors.  It also provides medical services, counseling, legal advice and forensic medical examinations for the police to use in court free of charge.

But Eze-Anaba said because of funding cuts this year, the Mirabel Centre had to slash staff salaries by 50 percent just “to keep the doors open and continue to provide free services.”

Last month Mirabel dealt with 111 cases, its highest since it opened in 2013.

“It’s a long journey but we’re on the road,” she said.
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‘Every Day Africa’ Project Aims to Undermine Stereotypes

Posted on by SeeAF

When schoolchildren in Washington, D.C. are asked to say the first thing that comes to mind about Africa, they use words like hot, desert, sand, poverty, hunger, war and Ebola.

 

These are all accurate things to say about that part or the world — but they reflect an “incomplete” picture, says writer Austin Merrill, who together with photojournalist Peter DiCampo has set out to document African reality beyond common stereotypes.

 

They are the founders of Every Day Africa, an Instagram community of photographers who strive to capture ordinary moments of life, such as children picking flowers in a field, or girlfriends chatting at a coffee shop. Their Instagram following has topped 370,000.

In addition to the Instagram feed, the book “Every Day Africa, 30 Photographers Re-Picturing the Continent,” recently hit bookstores in Europe, the United States and certain countries on the African continent. The book is filled with images documenting life in Africa that aim to shatter misconceptions often found in Western media.

 

Readers see a teenager rollerblading in the streets of Dakar, a DJ playing music in Lagos, a couple looking at the Atlantic Ocean in Cape Town. The book displays the full diversity and visual richness of African life.

 

Both DiCampo and Merrill invited a diverse “community of photographers” from all over the continent to contribute to the Instagram project and the book. Some are professionals, while others are skilled amateurs.

Ethiopian-American writer Maaza Mengiste prologues the book in an essay focusing on the power of the ordinary. “We sometimes forget that no matter what is happening in our lives, ordinary moments find a way to move forward,” Mengiste writes.

 

Normality

 

Peter DiCampo and Austin Merrill, both Americans, met while serving with the Peace Corps in Ivory Coast. In 2012, they received a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting in Washington to cover the aftermath of Ivory Coast’s civil war.

While they were interviewing refugees and soldiers, Merrill remembers that around them “the vast majority of life was pretty normal, but that wasn’t coming through in the story that we were trying to put together.”

 

“We were seeing all these other moments, that were much sort of truer to our daily life experience in that part of the world,” says DiCampo.

 

So, they took their cellphones and started to photograph what was around them. They felt, says Merrill, that the normal, everyday scenes of life “might be the most important thing we had to tell about that place, about that moment, instead of the crisis story.”

 

Media organizations tend to focus on breaking news, often triggered by an evolving crisis. Africa has many of those; but, as Di Campo puts it, “It’s quite difficult to have a global understanding when all you see of other parts of the world are really extreme stories.”

This is the gap that the “Everyday Africa” book is trying to fill; to look at the continent from the inside and from different perspectives.

 

DiCampo and Merrill, with the support of the Pulitzer Center, have also created media workshops that train elementary school students in the United States on how to document their lives and recognize stereotypes.

 

“We use the story of how we we created Every Day Africa,” said DiCampo, “to engage the students in a discussion of how media representation affects them, their lives and their communities and we use our photography to teach basic photography lessons, so that by the end of the workshop, they have an everyday project for their own school or community.”

 

This social media model has hit a nerve. “The Every Africa platform on Instagram may very well be the biggest visual library of the continent,” writes Ghanaian photographer Nana Kofi Acquah.

 

“To task African photographers with the burden of changing how the continent is perceived, might be overwhelming,” writes Acquah; but, he adds, “a picture of the real Africa” is slowly emerging.
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Bahraini Military Court Sentences 6 to Death on Terror Charges

Posted on by SeeEA

A Bahraini military court sentenced six men to death and revoked their citizenship after they were convicted on charges of forming a terrorist cell and plotting to assassinate a military official, Bahrain news agency BNA reported on Monday.

The men, including one soldier, were accused of several “terrorist crimes” and of attempting to assassinate a commander of the Bahraini army, BNA said.

The court sentenced seven other people linked to the case to seven years in jail and revoked their citizenship, while five others were acquitted, BNA added, quoting a state prosecution statement.

BNA said the 18 men involved in the case include eight who were convicted in absentia, having fled to Iraq and Iran. It was not clear which of the absent eight were sentenced to death and which to jail.

Bahrain accuses mainly Shi‘ite Iran of stoking militancy in the kingdom, a strategic island where the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet is based, charges Tehran denies. Bahrain has a Shi‘ite Muslim majority population but is ruled by a Sunni royal family.

The rulings are subject to appeal, the statement said.

Bahrain in January executed three Shi‘ite men convicted of killing three policemen, including an officer from the United Arab Emirates, in a 2014 bomb attack. They were the first such executions in over two decades and sparked protests.

Bahrain had seen occasional unrest since 2011 when authorities crushed protests mainly by the Shi‘ite majority demanding a bigger role in running the country.
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Syria Rebels, Opposition Reject Russia-Proposed Talks

Posted on by SeeEU

Syrian rebel fighters and opposition groups on Tuesday rejected Russia’s proposed peace talks, accusing Moscow of failing to pressure its ally, President Bashar Assad, to end the conflict.

In a series of statements, 40 rebel groups, including some of Syria’s most prominent, as well as political opposition umbrella groups, said the talks expected next month are an attempt to “circumvent” the U.N.-led process, which has made virtually no progress since it began in 2014.

 

The rebel groups said Moscow has asked them to give up their demand for Assad to step down.

 

“We reject this, and we affirm that Russia is an aggressor that has committed war crimes against Syrians,” the statement signed by 40 rebel groups said. “Russia has not contributed with a single move to alleviate the suffering of the Syrian people and it has not pressured the regime it claims it guarantees to move an inch toward any real path toward a resolution.”

 

The rebel groups, including Ahrar al-Sham, Army of Islam, and a number of Free Syrian Army groups, said they are committed to the U.N.-led Geneva process, and called on the international community to end the bloodshed, now in its seventh year. Political opposition groups and governing bodies in rebel-held areas have also rejected Russia’s proposed talks.

 

The talks are scheduled for Jan. 29-30 in Sochi, and were announced after talks among Russia and Iran, which back the government, and Turkey, which supports the opposition.

 

Syria’s government said it would attend the talks. Assad told reporters recently that the Sochi talks have a clear agenda of discussing new elections and possibly amending the constitution.

 

The fate of Assad has been the main point of contention in all previous rounds of talks. The opposition has long called for a transitional period in which Assad would have no role, something the government refuses to even consider.

 

The Sochi talks would open up a fourth track of talks between parties to the complex conflict. The U.N.’s own Geneva program has been supplemented by “technical” talks in Astana brokered by Russia, Iran and Turkey.

 

Russia periodically opens a third track through Cairo. Egypt has provided a base for Syrian reformists seen as acceptable to the Damascus government.

 

Highlighting its close ties to the Syrian government, Russia on Tuesday moved ahead with plans to lease a naval base in Syria for an additional 49 years.

 

The upper chamber of the Russian parliament voted to extend Russia’s lease of the Mediterranean base at Tartus, the last step before President Vladimir Putin’s expected signature.

 

Russia’s air campaign in Syria, which began in September 2015, helped turn the tide of the civil war in favor of Assad. Earlier this month, Putin announced a partial pullout of troops from Syria, but Russia is determined to maintain its military presence there.

 

 
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British Woman Sentenced in Egypt for Smuggling Painkillers

Posted on by SeeEU

A British woman has been convicted in Egypt of trying to smuggle a banned prescription painkiller into the country.

A court sentenced 33-year-old Laura Plummer to a three-year prison term Tuesday. Plummer was arrested in October when she arrived in Hurghada, a resort city along the Red Sea, and customs officers found hundreds of Tramadol pills in her luggage.  

Tramadol is banned in Egypt because it can be used as a recreational drug. Plummer has maintained the drugs were for her Egyptian boyfriend who suffers from chronic back pain.  

The verdict can be appealed.
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Children in Eastern Ukraine Face Death, Injury from Landmines

Posted on by SeeEU

The U.N. children’s fund warns that 220,000 children in the area of eastern Ukraine controlled by Russian-backed rebels are at risk of being killed or maimed by landmines and other explosive remnants of war.

Eastern Ukraine is one of the most mine-contaminated places on earth. Well into its fourth year of war, the Donetsk and Luhansk regions are riddled with deadly explosives that are taking a heavy toll on the lives and well-being of its children.

The U.N. children’s fund estimates landmines and other explosive weapons kill or maim one child a week along eastern Ukraine’s contact line. This is a 500-kilometer strip of land that divides government and rebel-controlled areas where fighting is most intense.

UNICEF warns children, especially very young children, are at great risk of death and injury from these lethal weapons. The agency says most casualties occur when children pick up these explosive devices, which look like toys.

During mine awareness demonstrations, educators teach children how to protect themselves from landmines, unexploded ordnance and other deadly remnants of war.

Since 2015, UNICEF and partners have reached more than half a million children in eastern Ukraine with this message through entertaining theatrical skits and interactive shows.

While these weapons pose an ever-present danger to children, UNICEF says they also can damage crucial infrastructure, such as water, electricity and gas facilities.

In one incident earlier this month, UNICEF says, unexploded ordnance was found at the Donetsk Filter Station, a facility that provides water to nearly 350,000 people in the region.

 

 
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2017 Saw Limited Progress on Trump’s Legislative Agenda

Posted on by SeeUS

At the end of President Donald Trump’s first year in office, congressional Republicans head into 2018, a midterm election year, with one major bicameral legislative achievement to tout: an overhaul of the U.S tax code that polled poorly in most opinion surveys.

Even so, Republicans have expressed confidence that Americans will value permanent tax cuts for corporations and temporary ones for wage earners once they go into effect next month.

“Results are going to make this popular,” House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin said.

“If we can’t sell this to the American people, we ought to go into another line of work,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said.

Democrats predicted the tax bill will haunt Republicans in the 2018 elections.

“Our Republican colleagues, with this tax bill, have done us [Democrats] a major favor,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said. “The American people will have their chance, in 2018, to reject this philosophy and move our country in a dramatically different direction.”

In his first address to Congress in February, Trump laid out an ambitious agenda for majority Republicans to tackle, including tax cuts, health care reform, infrastructure spending, border wall construction, immigration reform, and expanded educational opportunities.

“If you think of legislation, they [Republicans] have much less to show for unified party control,” Brookings Institution political analyst Molly Reynolds said. “They spent about seven months of the year on a failed effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act [Obamacare]. They are going to have something to show for themselves on taxes, but that process also didn’t go as smoothly as they would have liked.”

Senate Republicans may have more to show their conservative political base than their House counterparts by virtue of the fact that that the Constitution tasks the Senate with confirming presidential nominations. 2017 saw the Senate confirm a record number of right-leaning Trump nominees at every level of the federal judiciary, most notably Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch.

“This has been a year of extraordinary accomplishment,” McConnell said. “We’ve cemented the Supreme Court right-of-center for a generation.”

What Republicans see as an accomplishment, however, progressives see as motivation to elect left-of-center candidates in November.

“We have seen time and time again that the anti-choice [anti-abortion] GOP [Republican Party] is all too willing to throw women and families under the bus,” NARAL Pro-Choice America, an advocacy group for abortion rights, said in a recent statement. “We’ll keep organizing and mobilizing to hold them accountable in 2018.”

Economic performance is often a key factor in election outcomes. U.S. economic growth accelerated modestly during Trump’s first year in office, and Republicans are predicting even brisker expansion when tax cuts, combined with an aggressive dismantling of federal regulations, take effect.

“America is ready to take off,” McConnell said. “We’ve had two quarters in a row of three percent growth. The stock market is up. Optimism is high. Coupled with this tax reform, America is ready to start performing.”

Some analysts disagree.

“I could see this [Republican tax bill] backfiring,” American University economist Even Kraft said. “I don’t see it stimulating our economy very much in the short term. In the long term, I see it as being quite negative because it hits at a number of things –higher education, health — that are crucial ultimately to our long term economic growth.”

President Trump has indicated he expects more action from Congress in 2018, tweeting, “Our team will go onto many more VICTORIES!”

But if Trump’s agenda was largely stymied on Capitol Hill in 2017, history suggests 2018 will be no better.

“We rarely expect Congress to get a lot of things done after the middle of an election year,” Reynolds said. “This is shaping up to be a particularly competitive election in 2018 — there just isn’t that much time available to Congress to get a lot done, and members will be even more wary of casting difficult votes that will be used against them in their reelection campaigns in November.”
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Putin Spokesman: Calls for Election Boycott May Be Illegal

Posted on by SeeEU

A Kremlin spokesman suggested Tuesday that a call by Russian opposition leader Alexi Navalny to boycott next year’s presidential election may be illegal.

Navalny urged supporters to boycott the March 18 vote after election officials on Monday barred him from running.

Russia’s Central Election Commission (CEC) voted to ban the anti-corruption blogger from running because of his conviction on criminal charges. Navalny and his followers say those charges were politically motivated.

Following the CEC decision, Navalny released a video declaring a “voter’s strike,” because — according to Navalny — the March contest would not really be an election.

Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Tuesday that efforts by Navalny and his supporters to organize the boycott “ought to be carefully studied to see if they are breaking the law.”

Putin announced earlier this month that he will run for reelection, and it is widely assumed he will win a fourth term as Russian head of state.
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Liberians Voting in Presidential Runoff Election

Posted on by SeeAF

Liberians voted in a runoff election Tuesday to choose the West African country’s next president.

Former soccer star George Weah and Vice President Joseph Boakai are competing to replace President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who is stepping down after two terms, the maximum allowed under Liberia’s constitution.

Boakai and Weah were the top vote-getters in the October 10 election, with Weah getting 38.4 percent and Boakai coming in second with 28.8 percent. Since neither received a majority, a runoff election was triggered, but court challenges delayed the vote, which was originally set for November 7.

Weah’s running mate is senator Jewel Howard-Taylor. She is the ex-wife of former rebel leader and president Charles Taylor, who sparked Liberia’s civil war in 1989 and is serving a 50-year prison sentence in Britain for his role in atrocities in Sierra Leone.

Taylor still has supporters in Liberia, and his ex-wife is credited with helping Weah win key counties in the first round of voting.

Both Weah and Boakai have built their campaigns around job creation, education and building infrastructure.

Critics of Boakai, 73, have accused him of doing little as Johnson Sirleaf’s vice president. Critics of Weah, 51, say he has almost no real political or governing experience.  

Pollsters say Tuesday’s election is too close to call, and official results aren’t expected for a few days.

If all goes smoothly, Liberia will see its first peaceful and democratic transfer of power in more than 70 years.

WATCH: Liberia votes

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Kremlin: Russia Ready to Mediate North Korea-US Talks, if Both Sides Willing

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The Kremlin said on Tuesday that Russia stands ready to act as a mediator between North Korea and the United States in talks aimed at reducing tensions, if both parties are willing for Moscow to take on this role.

“Russia’s readiness to clear the way for de-escalation is obvious,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a phone call with reporters.
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