UN Envoy, in Athens, Says Time to End Macedonia Name Dispute

A U.N. special envoy urged Greece and Macedonia on Tuesday to seize on momentum in talks to resolve a name dispute straining relations for a quarter of a century, saying the two sides now appeared “energized” to reach an accord.

Athens says Skopje’s use of “Macedonia” as its name could imply a territorial claim over the northern Greek province of the same name, and a claim to its national heritage. Skopje counters that Macedonia has been its name dating to the now defunct Yugoslav federation of which it was part.

The 25-year-long dispute has posed an obstacle to Macedonia’s ambition to join both the EU and NATO.

“Everyone knows what the issues are. There is a time for decision-making, and I think we are there,” said Matthew Nimetz, U.N. special envoy on the “Macedonia” dispute since 1999.

“I know the [Greek] government is very sincere and energized to reach a solution to the problem … I think there is a will here, and I think also in Skopje, to try to reach a settlement,” he told reporters in Athens.

The two countries recently agreed to intensify talks. Still, there is mounting public sentiment in Greece against any deal which could include the name Macedonia. Greece has said a compromise could include a compound name with a geographical or chronological qualifier, and be known only by that name.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has so far failed to secure broad backing from political parties for a settlement which would include the contentious name.

“I think waiting, slowing things down doesn’t make any sense. Here it doesn’t make any sense, and in the northern neighbor it doesn’t make any sense [either],” Nimetz said.

Athens may submit an outline of its proposals to Skopje and the United Nations next month, Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias told state television on Monday night.

Until the issue is resolved, Greece has agreed only that its Balkan neighbor be referred to internationally as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), the name under which it was admitted to the United Nations in 1993, two years after Skopje won independence from Yugoslavia.

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Syria Talks in Russia Marred by Boycotts, Heckling

Peace talks aimed at ending Syria’s seven-year war began Tuesday in Russia, despite heckling, boycotts and disputes over who should preside over the event.

Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov’s opening speech at the two-day Syrian Congress of National Dialogue held in the Black Sea resort of Sochi was interrupted by heckling from Syrian delegates and cries of “Long live Russia!” The speech was delayed by two hours due to ongoing negotiations.

Reading a letter from Russian president Vladimir Putin, Lavrov said conditions were ripe for Syria to turn “a tragic page” in its history. Syrian delegates accused Russia of killing innocent civilians in their country. Russian state television footage of the event showed security guards ordering a man in the audience to sit down.

Critics of the Sochi Congress, which is backed by Turkey and Iran, accused Russia of trying to hijack the Syrian peace process from the United Nations and offering a solution that favors the government of Bashar al-Assad.

A Syrian opposition delegation that included members of the armed opposition who had flown in from Turkey refused to leave the airport upon arrival, saying it was boycotting the talks because of broken promises to remove the Syrian government emblem from the premises.

Artyom Kozhin, senior diplomat at the Russian Foreign Ministry, said Lavrov had spoken by phone with his Turkish counterpart prior to the meeting and promised that Syrian flags and emblems would be removed from the airport and the conference venue. Kozhin acknowledged that there had been complications.

The United States, France and Britain declined to attend the conference, deferring to a U.N.-led effort to end the civil war.

VOA’s Victor Beattie contributed to this report.

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Taliban Reacts Sharply to Trump’s ‘No Peace Talks’ Remarks

U.S. President Donald Trump’s rejection of peace talks with the Taliban has provoked a strong reaction from the Islamist insurgency, while lead Afghan clerics advocate against continuation of military action to end the war in Afghanistan.

“We have always maintained, the true authority of war and peace is not with the Kabul regime but with the American invaders, and the recent statement by Trump made this matter brighter than the sun,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said Tuesday.

Trump ruled out talks with the insurgent group and vowed to “finish” them in the wake of a wave of terrorist attacks in the Afghan capital, Kabul, that killed hundreds of people.

“They’re killing people left and right. Innocent people being killed left and right,” Trump told a U.N. Security Council delegation at the White House on Monday.

“So we don’t want to talk with the Taliban. There may be a time, but it’s going to be a long time,” noted the U.S. president, suggesting a stronger military campaign against the Taliban was imminent.

Trump and his “war-mongering supporters” should expect an equal reaction and not “roses” from the Taliban, asserted the insurgent spokesman in a written statement released to media.  

“War will only make the reactionary jihadist waves more violent and increase the human and financial losses of American troops by many folds,” Mujahid said.

Crossing a ‘red line’

A spokesman for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Tuesday stopped short of supporting Trump’s idea of rejecting talks with insurgents. Shah Hussain Murtazawi told VOA the Afghan government will now use all available means to stop the Taliban from conducting terrorist attacks.

“The Taliban have crossed a red line and lost the opportunity for peace…We have to look for peace on the battlefield. They have to be marginalized,” Murtazawi pledged. He said a suicide car bombing last Saturday was the “red line.” The blast killed more than 100 people and wounded 250 others.

On Tuesday, an Afghan council of 100 prominent clerics met in Kabul to denounce the militant violence as un-Islamic.

The council’s spokesman, Mohammad Qasem Halimi, while talking to reporters, declined to directly comment on Trump’s refusal to engage in talks with the Taliban, but maintained that Islamic Afghanistan “faithfully” believes in resolving issues through peace negotiations.

“I want to stress that those [the Taliban] who are not coming to peace talks are against the [Islamic] religion. I am hopeful that discussing peace on the table talks can solve the problems. But we have not yet come to the conclusion that war is the way forward to find peace, particularly in Afghanistan,” Halimi said.

Visiting U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan explained to reporters in Kabul Tuesday night that there was no change in Washington policy and the stepped up U.S. military pressure on the Taliban is meant to push insurgents into peace talks. 

Civilians have borne the brunt of the Afghan conflict in recent years. Observers see the stepped up Taliban attacks as a reaction to recent battlefield setbacks and killings of key Taliban commanders in U.S.-led international airstrikes.

The insurgency has refused to engage in peace talks until all foreign forces leave Afghanistan.

Pakistan complicit?

The United States believes the Haqqani network, a faction within the Taliban, plotted Saturday’s attack. Afghan officials have also long accused Pakistan of supporting and sheltering the Taliban and Haqqanis.

The Pakistani government denies the charges and has condemned the recent series of “heinous attacks” in the neighboring country.

Pakistani authorities also cite stepped up border scrutiny measures in addition to sustained counterterrorism operations on their side.

Earlier in January, about 1,800 Pakistani clerics issued a fatwa, or religious decree, declaring suicide bombings and anti-state acts as un-Islamic. Afghan officials and clerics, however, dismissed the move as insufficient for it being limited to Pakistan only. Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Faisal rejected the criticism as misplaced and declared the religious directive as a “landmark” development for countering religious extremism and terrorism.

“It [the fatwa] goes on to prohibit the use of Pakistani territory for the propagation of any kind of terrorism…Afghanistan may on its part seek a similar fatwa from its ulema [body of religious scholars]. The application of fatwas is universal and not restricted to geographical limits,” Faisal maintained.

Islamabad also alleges that anti-state militants are using bases in Afghan border areas to launch attacks against Pakistan, charges Kabul denies.

An improvement in strained relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan is seen as key to effective regional counterterrorism efforts.

 

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Doctors Arrested as Turkish Crackdown Widens on Dissent

Nine members of Turkey’s medical association have been detained for voicing opposition to the ongoing Turkish-led military incursion into Syria against a Kurdish militia group. The arrests are part of a widening crackdown on dissent over the operation.

Ankara’s prosecutor’s office issued arrest warrants for 11 leading members of the Turkish Medical Association, including its head, Rasit Tukel.

Police raided the homes of the doctors early Tuesday morning. The organization’s offices across the country have also been targeted.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday labeled the association’s members as traitors and “servants of imperialism.” The remarks were in response to the association calling for an end to the ongoing military incursion into Syria, and the doctors raising humanitarian concerns for civilians trapped by fighting.

Nearly two weeks ago, Turkish-led forces entered the Syrian enclave of Afrin to oust the YPG Kurdish militia, which is a key ally of the United States in the fight against Islamic State. Ankara accuses the YPG of supporting a Kurdish insurgency inside Turkey.

Reaction to detentions

The doctors’ detention has drawn swift political condemnation.

Member of parliament Selin Sayek Boke of the opposition CHP, speaking outside the headquarters of the medical association, criticized the government.

“This is an attack on freedom of expression and on those who call for peace and it is an attack done by those who want to kill the culture of living together in this country,” Boke said.

International human rights groups have also criticized the detentions.

The London-based Amnesty International’s Turkey representative, Andrew Gardner, tweeted the government should be protecting the association, rather than detaining doctors from their beds on false propaganda charges.

​Growing crackdown

The medical association is one of the country’s most prominent nongovernmental organizations, with more than 80,000 members. The arrest of its leading members is part of a growing crackdown on dissent over the ongoing Syrian operation.

The Turkish Interior Ministry announced Monday that more than 300 people, including four journalists, have been detained under the country’s anti-terror laws for social media postings criticizing the operation.

Erdogan said last week all dissent would be crushed.

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Afghanistan Calls on Trump to Not Deport Afghans

Afghanistan is asking the U.S. government to stop deporting Afghan nationals, saying it has no repatriation agreement with the United States.

“We did not sign any such agreements with the United States of America,” Ahmad Shekib Mostaghni, spokesperson for the Afghanistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told the VOA Afghanistan Service. If there were such an agreement, Mostaghni said, it would have been made by the nation’s Ministry of Refugees and Repatriations, which he said handles all immigration issues.

“So, since they are not aware of such an agreement, I can officially confirm that we — MoFA — did not ink any deal with the U.S in this regard,” Mostaghni said.

Ministry of Refugees and Repatriations adviser Hafiz Ahmad Miakhel also insisted that his government has not approved a repatriation agreement and said the ministry is asking for a halt to all deportations. “Ongoing war has been forcing people to leave Afghanistan,” he said in an interview. “We are a country still at war, and our people need to be helped rather than deporting.”

The European Union entered into a repatriation agreement with Afghanistan in October 2016 to pave the way for the return of failed Afghan asylum seekers. In addition, Germany, Sweden and Finland have country-to-country agreements.

When VOA asked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement if the United States has such an agreement, spokesman Brendan Raedy provided a written response:

“International law obligates each country to accept the return of its nationals ordered removed from the United States. The United States itself routinely cooperates with foreign governments in documenting and accepting its citizens when asked, as do the majority of countries in the world.”

Afghan deportations

Deportations from the U.S. were down overall in 2017, but an analysis of the data by National Public Radio shows that if the Latin American countries — which make up some 90 percent of repatriations — are not counted, deportations to the rest of the world were up by 24 percent.

“Deportations to Brazil and China jumped,” NPR reported. “Removals of Somalis nearly doubled. Deportations to Ghana and West Africa are up more than two times.”

Afghanistan is no exception. ICE statistics show the number of Afghans deported rose sharply last year from 14 in fiscal year 2016 to 48 in FY 2017.

“Dozens of Afghan immigrants or asylum seekers have been deported to Kabul since [U.S. President Donald] Trump took the power,” Miakhel said. “In April 2017, we received a group of 21 deportees of different ages.”

Miakhel said there was not much clarity about the reasons for the deportations. “We were told that some of the Afghan deportees were not qualified to seek asylum in the U.S.; some of them may have posed a threat to the U.S. national security or may have committed crimes.”

The United States has an estimated 14,000 troops in Afghanistan assisting, training and equipping the Afghan National Security Forces to defeat Taliban, Islamic State and other insurgent groups.

According to the U.N. High Commission for Refugees, more immigrants and refugees hail from Afghanistan than any other country except Syria. Some 2.7 million Afghan immigrants and refugees are under UNCHR protection worldwide, most of them fleeing violence and insecurity.

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State of the Union Speech Guests Showcase Trump’s Key Policies

U.S. President Donald Trump is following a long presidential tradition for his State of the Union address Tuesday, inviting guests to showcase policies most important to him.

Fifteen guests will sit alongside first lady Melania Trump in the gallery of the House of Representatives chamber as Trump delivers his first State of the Union address a year into his presidency.

Their guests include Corey Adams, an Ohio welder who the White House says plans to take money saved from the president’s tax-cut package and set it aside to help finance his two daughters’ education.

His employers will be there as well, Steve Staub and Sandy Keplinger, sibling founders of a manufacturing company who say they were able to grow their business and hand their employees a larger holiday bonus because of the tax overhaul.

Two couples, Elizabeth Alvarado and Robert Mickens, along with Evelyn Rodriguez and Freddy Cuevas, both parents of girls killed by MS-13 gang members, are guests as well, highlighting Trump’s push to keep illegal immigrants bent on committing horrific crimes out of the country.

Another guest is C.J. Martinez , a supervisory special agent for the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s homeland security investigations unit, whose work led to the arrests of more than 100 MS-13 gang members.

The Trumps also invited Ryan Holets, a New Mexico police officer who adopted a baby from parents addicted to opioids, a major drug problem in the U.S.

The military

Guests linked to the U.S. military include Matthew Bradford, a Marine Corps veteran who stepped on an IED in Iraq in 2007, costing him both of his legs and his eyesight. He was the first blind, double-amputee to re-enlist in the Marines.

Another guest is Army staff sergeant Justin Peck, who aided a team member wounded in November by an IED and saved his life. Preston Sharp, creator of the Flag and Flower challenge, will be there. His group honors deceased veterans at military cemeteries by placing an American flag and a red carnation on their grave sites.

Natural disasters

Trump and his wife also invited three guests who played key roles in their communities last year in coping with unprecedented natural disasters in the U.S.

Jon Bridgers was founder of the Cajun Navy, a nonprofit group that led rescue efforts in the southern part of the country, especially during the flooding in Houston that resulted from Hurricane Harvey.

David Dahlberg is a fire prevention technician who saved 62 people, including children and staff members, when a Southern California wildfire erupted. Ashlee Leppert is a Coast Guard aviation electronics technician who engaged in rescue efforts during a string of hurricanes.

Even as Trump invited guests to highlight his tax legislation and prominent issues important to his political fortunes, he already is focusing on his 2020 re-election effort. His campaign is live-streaming his address and promised anyone willing to donate at least $35 that their name will be displayed on screen as a donor while Trump is speaking.

Some Republican lawmakers have invited guests supporting Trump policies, while numerous Democratic lawmakers gave speech tickets to guests showing their opposition to Trump.

Several Democrats have invited undocumented immigrants who years ago were brought illegally to the U.S. by their parents. Their right to stay in the United States, or be returned to their native countries, is at the heart of contentious negotiations between lawmakers and the White House after Trump last year ended a program protecting them against deportation.He gave Congress until March 5 to weigh in on the issue.

One Democrat, Congresswoman Debbie Dingell of Michigan, invited as her guest Cindy Garcia, whose husband, Jorge Garcia, was recently deported to Mexico by the Trump administration after living in the U.S. for 30 years.

Congressman Joe Kennedy of Massachusetts, who is giving a Democratic rebuttal speech after Trump finishes his address, invited a transgender soldier, Patricia King, to focus on Trump’s plan to ban transgender people from serving in the military.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York invited San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz, a sharp critic of the Trump administration’s response to Hurricane Maria’s devastation of Puerto Rico, the Caribbean island that is a U.S. territory.

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As Trade Tensions Rise With US, China Prepares to Retaliate

As trade tensions grow between the United States and China, there is concern among foreign companies in China that a possible trade war between the two countries could leave them caught in the crossfire.

 

President Donald Trump has been ratcheting up trade pressure on China, and a senior administration official has said the U.S. leader would be “emphasizing the fair and reciprocal nature of trade” in his State of the Union speech Tuesday.

 

Already, Trump has issued what some believe could be the opening salvo in a more intense showdown over trade, recently slapping stiff import tariffs on solar panel imports and washing machines. More trade actions could be announced soon.

 

“If that does go forward, I have been told by certain officials [in China] that yes, definitely, there will be retaliation,” said William Zarit, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, or AmCham China. “And what we’ve been telling our interlocutors is that if there is some kind of tariff and if the Chinese do want to retaliate, they do so maturely and with precision so as to not actually adversely affect their own economy.”

 

Zarit spoke on Tuesday at the launch of AmCham China’s annual survey on the business climate in the world’s second-largest economy. The survey for 2017 was conducted at the time of Trump’s visit late last year and cited growing optimism among members about the outlook for growth and investment in China.

 

Seventy-eight percent of the respondents said that positive relations between the U.S. and China are extremely important or very important, compared with 64 percent in 2015.

Three out of every four companies surveyed, however, said they still feel unwelcome in China. One key driver of that perception – regulatory barriers for foreign companies and unfair treatment relative to local ones, the survey found.

 

While no one wants a trade war, the survey found that more than 60 percent are advocating for the U.S. government to take actions to help correct trade imbalances.

 

Zarit said some have grown weary of years of negotiations on trade and investment issues between the governments and think Washington should use pressure.

 

“Strictly just dialogue has not really brought much in terms of progress. So, perhaps some pressure will help get us more progress to a more balanced economic and commercial relationship,” he said.

 

Seeking ‘level playing field’

According to the survey, 27 percent of its business members “advocate more strongly for a level playing field” for U.S. businesses in China. Another 19 percent want the U.S. government to “apply investment reciprocity as an approach to improve market access in China.”

 

A third group comprising 14 percent of AmCham members wants Washington to pursue a new multilateral trade agreement that would include the U.S. replacing the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP.

 

One of Trump’s first actions in office was to pull the United States out of the TPP, but last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, he hinted at a possible path back toward the TPP or something similar to the trade agreement.

Lester Ross, head of AmCham China’s policy committee, said American companies should be ready to deal with harsh measures and other forms of retaliation from Beijing.

“I don’t think any company wants to absorb or make a sacrifice for trade relations, but I think some companies will inevitably suffer some repercussions if there are trade frictions between the two countries,” he said. “They [U.S. companies] have to consider that possibility.”

 

Ross said retaliation from the Chinese government could include measures targeting the airline and agriculture sectors, and possibly affecting industries and communities where support for Trump was strong during the elections.

 

“It would be likely that they [Chinese] will target sectors that have political resonance in the United States, and particular products or commodities,” he said.

Rising friction over trade is not the only way companies doing business in China could be caught in the middle.

 

As part of Trump’s efforts to exert more pressure on North Korea, he previously has complained that China is not doing enough and used the threat of possible trade actions as a carrot and stick to try to get Beijing to do more.

Some analysts said the Trump administration might go slowly on trade remedies against China if Beijing does more to help Washington in resolving the North Korea problem.

But that, in turn, could distract Washington from its plans to deal with what the U.S. sees as Beijing’s unfair trade practices.

Zarit said AmCham members also want the North Korea issue to be resolved as peacefully as possible.

 

“We also hope that our needs for addressing the structural imbalances in the relationship are not sacrificed in the process,” he said.

 

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Putin: US Took ‘Hostile Step’ in Publishing List of Influential Russians

Russian President Vladimir Putin says the United States has taken a ‘hostile step” by releasing a list detailing the wealth and political connections of 210 people with close Kremlin connections. But he said there would be no immediate move to retaliate.

The U.S. Treasury Department published the list Monday, as required by a law passed by Congress last August aimed at punishing Russia for meddling in the 2016 presidential election, a charge Russia denies.   

 

U.S. President Donald Trump reluctantly signed the law, and administration officials said Monday there are no immediate plans to impose new sanctions on the Kremlin.

 

In a written statement, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the measure already was hitting Russian companies.

 

“Today, we have informed Congress that this legislation and its implementation are deterring Russian defense sales,” Nauert wrote. “Since the enactment of the … legislation, we estimate that foreign governments have abandoned planned or announced purchases of several billion dollars in Russian defense acquisitions.”

Several Kremlin officials reacted angrily to the U.S. report. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said it would “poison relations for a long time.”

 

But Putin was more reserved. Speaking at a campaign event Tuesday in Moscow, he said that while he was dismayed at publication of the list, he would hold off on retaliatory actions, apparently in view of the lack of accompanying U.S. sanctions.

 

“We were waiting for this list to come out, and I’m not going to hide it: we were going to take steps in response, and, mind you, serious steps, that could push our relations to the nadir. But we’re going to refrain from taking these steps for now,” Putin said.

 

He joked, however that he was disappointed that he was not included on the list.

The report details the finances and political connections of 114 Russian politicians and 96 so-called “oligarchs” who have prospered under Putin. Officials noted that the list of oligarchs appears to be the same as Forbes’ ranking of Russian billionaires.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who is among those on the list, said Russia would study the information in the U.S. report before deciding on a response.

 

‘Crooks and thieves’

Opposition leader Alexei Navalny hailed the publication of the list, tweeting Tuesday that he was “glad to see these [people] have been officially recognized at the international level as crooks and thieves.”

 

Trump criticized the congressionally-mandated list when he signed the “Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act,” saying it “improperly encroaches on executive power, disadvantages American companies and hurts the interests of our European allies.”

 

The measure gave the Trump administration 180 days to produce the list, which includes Prime Minister Medvedev, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and top spy agency officials. Among the business figures are aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, Sberbank CEO German Gref and Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller.

 

The law ordered the Trump administration to impose sanctions on anyone who engages in a “significant transaction” with the defense or intelligence sectors of the Russian government.

 

House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer criticized the administration’s decision not to impose new sanctions or “put forth a plan for how it plans to deter further Russian aggression.”

“Sanctions are a deterrent only if countries believe the U.S. will impose them. The anemic announcements today, with no statements from senior administration officials, do not give me confidence that is the case,” Hoyer said in a statement.

 

Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi also criticized the White House decision.

 

“Congress passed sanctions on Russia overwhelmingly to send a message on Russian interference in our democracy. The president doesn’t appear to want to send that message,” he wrote on Twitter.

 

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Kenya Opposition Leader Takes Oath in Mock Inauguration

Kenya’s Interior Ministry has declared the opposition alliance known as the National Resistance Movement a criminal organization after the group’s leader, Raila Odinga, in front of thousands of his supporters, symbolically took the oath of “president” in defiance of last year’s controversial election and of authorities, who said such an act would be considered treason. It’s not clear what comes next for Kenya, given the political situation.

Opposition leader Raila Odinga was greeted by thousands of frenzied supporters at Nairobi’s Uhuru Park Tuesday afternoon, despite a seven-hour delay. As the 73-year-old and his entourage drove through the crowd, his supporters jostled, and some scuffled, to see him inaugurated as the so-called “people’s president.”  

After swearing an oath of office on a bible, Odinga called it a “historic day for the people of Kenya.” 

“Today’s step is one step towards doing away with electoral autocracy. And, establishing full-fledged democracy in our country,” he said. 

Meanwhile, the Interior Ministry wasted no time issuing a statement after the ceremony declaring Odinga’s coalition, the National Resistance Movement, an “organized criminal group” under Kenya’s Prevention of Organized Crimes Act.

Odinga boycotted the rerun of last year’s presidential run-off election and has refused to accept the victory of President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Kenya’s attorney general said that Odinga declaring himself president would be considered an act of high treason, an offense punishable by death.  

President Kenyatta’s office last week warned Odinga that any actions would be subject to Kenyan law.  

Although authorities used tear gas on supporters in an area near the event, an expected heavy police presence did not materialize.  Opposition concerns that their leaders could be arrested before the event did not come to pass either.

Odinga briefly led the packed crowd in a chant, saying, “A people united can never be defeated,” before slowly driving through the crowd and out of the park.

Odinga’s National Super Alliance (NASA) contests the results of October’s re-run election, which it boycotted after Kenya’s Supreme Court took the rare step of annulling the August election due to failures by the electoral commission.

Odinga says he won that August vote and accuses authorities loyal to President Kenyatta of covering it up. Election authorities have dismissed the claim and the Supreme Court has backed Kenyatta’s October win. 

Although there is no legal backing for Odinga’s “inauguration,” many supporters like Peter Musyoka are optimistic.

He says after the swearing in, he is expecting their president to lead them and give them a way forward. He says he believes that Kenya will completely change, their democracy will change, and Kenyans will fully understand their rights.

In an exclusive interview with VOA’s Swahili service earlier in January, Odinga raised the possibility of forming a rival government, either inside or outside of Kenya.  

After Odinga’s “swearing-in” Tuesday afternoon, he promptly changed his Twitter handle to “President of the Republic of Kenya.”

 

 

 

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Cape Town Residents Urged to Reduce Water Consumption; Some Protest

Residents protest as their daily water ration will be reduced to 50 liters starting Feb. 1 in an effort to conserve the supply. Three years with very little rain mean reservoirs around Cape Town are about to run dry. Mariama Diallo reports.

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Cameroon Jails Separatists After They Were Extradited from Nigeria

Cameroon has jailed 47 seccessionists including Ayuk Tabe Julius, head of a group from Cameroon’s Angolphone region pushing for a breakaway from French-dominant Cameroon.

Cameroon government spokesperson Issa Tchiroma Bakari says Ayuk Tabe Julius and his nine cabinet members were arrested in Nigeria on January 5. They were brought to Yaounde and handed over to the government of Cameroon Monday.

He says the collaboration of the governments of Cameroon and Nigeria worked together to arrest the armed separatists.

“The government of Cameroon takes this opportunity to commend the excellent cooperation existing between Nigeria and Cameroon particularly with regards to security. The government of Cameroon reaffirms the determination of both countries never to tolerate that their territories be used as base for destabilizing activities directed against one of them.”

Since Ayuk Tabe and his group were arrested, they have never been seen in public either in Cameroon or in Nigeria. Armed separatists said on social media that they had been detained in a police cell in Abuja and were refused access to their lawyers.

In December 2017, Nigerian local newspapers reported that a group of 37 English-speaking Cameroonians had been arrested near Gembu in Taraba state while they were receiving military training to return and fight for the independence of a state they call Ambazonia.

After their arrests, simultaneous attacks were reported in two English-speaking regions with the government reporting that at least 18 policemen and soldiers had been killed. Several dozens of the attackers also died and at least six villages were burned.

Last week, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees announced that tens of thousands of Cameroonians had fled across the border to Nigeria as a result of the violence.

Fonki Samuel, moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon, says the arrests of the suspected separatists may lead to further violence and killing. 

“What is the option and the way out is the proper, well-staged and organized dialogue. You can not have unity and peace without justice.”

Cameroon has not said where those arrested persons will be tried. Its 2014 anti-terrorism law says that any one who uses weapons against the government will face a military tribunal. If convicted on such charges, they could face the death sentence.

The unrest in Cameroon began in November, when English-speaking teachers and lawyers in the northwest and southwest regions, frustrated with having to work in French, took to the streets calling for reforms and greater autonomy.

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36 Dead, 185 Wounded in Fighting in Southern Yemen

Fighting between separatists and government forces in southern Yemen has killed at least 36 people, the Red Cross says, while the president accuses the fighters of a coup.

About 185 people have been wounded.

President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi is calling for a cease-fire, saying “rebellion and weapons won’t achieve peace or build a state.”

He said the real enemy is the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, and anything else distracts from that fight.

Fighting broke out when Hadi ignored separatists’ demands to fire Prime Minister Ahmed Obaid bin Dagher, accusing him of corruption.

A spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition that backs Hadi is calling for restraint by the separatists and for the government to listen to their “political and social” demands.

The separatists are backed by the United Arab Emirates. They want to bring back the independent country of South Yemen. The fighters have seized several government buildings in the port city of Aden, which is serving as the capital of Hadi’s internationally-recognized Yemeni government.

South Yemen was an independent state before its unification with North Yemen in 1990.

All of Yemen has been in turmoil since Houthi rebels seized the capital of Sana’a in 2014, forcing Hadi to flee to exile in Saudi Arabia. Hadi has remained there while his government operates out of Aden.

Saudi-led coalition airstrikes looking to oust the Houthis have obliterated entire civilian neighborhoods, including schools and hospitals. Yemen is also battling a deadly cholera outbreak and a possible famine. The U.N. estimates about 80 percent of Yemenis are in desperate need of food, medicine and clean water.

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US Rejects Proposals to Unblock NAFTA, But Will Stay in Talks

U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade chief on Monday dismissed Canadian proposals for unblocking NAFTA modernization talks but pledged to stay at the table, easing concerns about a potentially imminent U.S. withdrawal from the trilateral pact.

Trump, who described the 1994 pact as a disaster that has drained manufacturing jobs to Mexico, has frequently threatened abandon it unless it can be renegotiated to bring back jobs to the United States.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said after a sixth round of NAFTA modernization talks in Montreal that Trump’s views on the pact are unchanged, and cautioned that talks are still moving too slowly on U.S. priorities.

“We finally began to discuss the core issues, so this round was a step forward,” Lighthizer said. “But we are progressing very slowly. We owe it to our citizens, who are operating in a state of uncertainty, to move much faster.”

But Lighthizer’s Mexican and Canadian counterparts said that enough progress was made in Montreal to be optimistic about concluding the pact “soon,” with nine days of talks in Mexico City scheduled to start Feb. 26.

“For the next round, we will still have substantial challenges to overcome. Yet the progress made so far puts us on the right track to create landing zones to conclude the negotiation soon,” said Mexico’s Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo.

Officials are now openly speculating that the bid to salvage the $1.2-trillion free trade pact will continue well beyond an end-March deadline set to avoid Mexican presidential elections.

Canadian proposals dismissed

Heading into Montreal last week, some officials had feared the United States might be prepared to pull the plug on the pact amid frustration over slow progress.

The mood lightened after Canada presented a series of suggested compromises to address U.S. demands for reform.

But Lighthizer criticized Canadian proposals to meet U.S. demands for higher North American content in autos, saying it would in fact reduce regional autos jobs and allow more Chinese-made parts into vehicles made in the region.

He also dismissed a suggestion on settling disputes between investors and member states as “unacceptable” and “a poison pill” and said a recent Canadian challenge against U.S. trade practices at the World Trade Organization “constitutes a massive attack on all of our trade laws.”

Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, who stood stony faced as Lighthizer made his remarks, later told reporters that “the negotiating process is … always dramatic.”

A Canadian government source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, noted Lighthizer had not speculated about withdrawal and said the U.S. official had been more positive in private than during previous rounds.

Officials said the negotiating teams had closed a chapter on anti-corruption measures and were close to wrapping up sections on telecommunications, sanitary measures for the agriculture industry and technical barriers to trade.

Challenging demands

But the three sides are still far apart over U.S. demands to boost regional auto content requirements to 85 percent from the current 62.5 percent and require 50 percent U.S. content in North American-built vehicles.

Other challenges are Washington’s demands that NAFTA largely eliminate trade and investment dispute-settlement systems and contain a “sunset” clause to force renegotiations every five years.

Critical comments by Trump, Lighthizer and others have unsettled markets that fret about the potential damage to a highly integrated North American economy if the United States gives six months’ notice it is leaving.

The Mexican round next month is an extra set of talks that officials added to help tackle the many remaining challenges.

Negotiators are supposed to finish in Washington in March with the eighth and final round.

Although some officials have privately speculated about freezing the talks at the start of April, Guajardo told reporters that “we cannot afford to suspend this process.”

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Kurds: Turkish Airstrikes Damaging Historic, Civilian Sites

Kurdish officials said Monday that Turkish air raids have seriously damaged an Iron Age temple in the northern Syria town of Afrin. 

The temple of Ain Dara is located near a village by the same name in the southern countryside of the Kurdish enclave of Afrin, and was built by the Arameans from around 1300 to 700 BC. Globally noted for its similarities to Solomon’s Temple, the ancient sanctuary consists of large carved stones and wall reliefs, sculptures depicting lions and sphinxes, and giant footprints carved into the floor.

“The center of the temple, all the way to its right gate, has seriously been damaged,” Salah Sino, a member of the Afrin antiquities committee, told VOA. “The ballast blocks at the right gate have been smashed into pieces and spread as far as 100 meters around the temple.”

Sino said at least 50 percent of the neo-Hittite temple has been destroyed by Turkish shelling. He said the site came under attack twice last week.

A statement from the Syrian government’s directorate general of antiquities and museums of the ministry of culture called for international pressure on Turkey “to prevent the targeting of archaeological and cultural sites.”

A VOA reporter in northern Syria who visited the site Sunday confirmed that the relics were harmed, and said apparent shell craters could be seen inside the temple. VOA could not independently confirm if the damage was done by Turkish actions.

Turkey is currently engaged in an air and ground offensive in northwestern Syria’s city of Afrin against a Kurdish group known as the People’s Protection Units, or YPG.

Turkey considers the YPG a terrorist organization, alleging the group is an extension of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which has been fighting for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey for decades.

But the U.S. denies those connections and sees the YPG as a key ally in the battle against the Islamic State. Washington has urged Turkey to show restraint and focus on fighting IS.

Meanwhile, YPG has claimed that Turkish war jets have targeted Midanki Dam — also known as the 17th of Nisan Dam — located on the Afrin River, threatening the surrounding villages and towns with flooding if the dam collapses.

“Turkish warplanes have targeted Midanki Dam with several air raids, putting hundreds of villages in peril,” according to the statement issued Sunday.

Turkey’s response

But Turkey maintains that its only targets in Syria are YPG.

“The operation concerns terrorists and terror organizations within the Afrin district,” said deputy prime minister Bekir Bozdag, as reported by state-run Anadolu Agency on Jan. 29.

Bozdag said some quarters were spreading reports that Turkey was attacking civilians and the Kurdish population in the region.

“This is all false news. Turkey is a state for our Kurdish brothers, as well,” he said.

But according to U.K.-based watchdog Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, fierce clashes and intensive Turkish aerial and artillery raids on Afrin have left about 220 people dead, including 55 civilians.

Moreover, the head of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said the world cannot remain silent while children are killed in Syria. About 23 children have been killed in Afrin, Idlib, Saraqab, Khan Shaykhoun and Damascus in the past few days.

“In Afrin, violence is reported to be so intense that families are confined to the basements of their buildings, after reportedly being prevented from leaving the area,” the UNICEF official said.

Newroz Rasho, Salih Damiger and VOA Turkish Service contributed to this report.

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US House Intel Committee Votes to Release Classified Memo

Brushing aside opposition from the Department of Justice, Republicans on the House intelligence committee voted Monday to release a classified memo that purports to show improper use of surveillance by the FBI and the Justice Department in the Russia investigation.

 

The memo has become a political flashpoint, with President Donald Trump and many Republicans pushing for its release and suggesting that some in the Justice Department and FBI have conspired against the president.

 

Privately, Trump has been fuming over the Justice Department’s opposition to releasing the memo, according to an administration official not authorized to discuss private conversations and speaking on condition of anonymity.

 

At the behest of Trump, White House chief of staff John Kelly and other White House officials have been in contact with Justice Department officials in the past week to convey the president’s displeasure with the department’s leadership on the issue specifically, the official said. In a series of calls last week, Kelly urged the Justice officials to do more within the bounds of the law to get the memo out, the official said.

 

In the hours before Monday’s vote, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders underscored the administration’s position, saying Trump favors “full transparency.”

 

Trump now has five days to decide whether he wants the information released. The panel could release the information five days after the vote if Trump doesn’t object.

 

Democrats are livid about the memo, which they say omits crucial facts and should not be selectively released. They have pushed back on Republican criticism of the FBI, saying it is an attempt to discredit special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and whether Trump’s campaign was involved. The probe has already resulted in charges against four of Trump’s former campaign advisers and has recently moved closer to Trump’s inner circle.

 

The top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, California Rep. Adam Schiff, said last week that Democrats on the panel had put together their own memo.

 

On Monday, the committee voted to make the Democratic memo available to all House members — but not the public. Texas Rep. Mike Conaway of Texas, who’s leading the House’s Russia investigation, said he was open to making it public after House members have a chance to review it.

 

While Trump’s White House signaled he would likely support the memo’s release, his Justice Department has voiced concerns. In a letter to House intelligence committee Chairman Devin Nunes last week, Justice officials said releasing the classified memo could be “extraordinarily reckless” and asked to review it.

 

Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd wrote Nunes that given the panel’s role in overseeing the nation’s intelligence community, “you well understand the damaging impact that the release of classified material could have on our national security and our ability to share and receive sensitive information from friendly foreign governments.”

 

Some senators have expressed concern about the release as well. But John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Senate Republican and a member of that chamber’s intelligence committee, said last week that Nunes and the Justice Department need to work out their differences. On Sunday, Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina both said they don’t think the memo should be released.

 

“No, I don’t want it released yet,” Graham said on ABC’s “This Week.” “I don’t. I want somebody who is without a political bias to come in and look at the allegations that I have seen.”

 

The fate of the memo is the latest flashpoint in the contentious relationship between Trump and the Justice Department.

 

Trump has frequently raged at the head of the department, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, for recusing himself from the Russia probe, a move the president believes led to the appointment of Mueller. Trump has bemoaned, both privately and publicly, that Sessions and his department have not shown him the “loyalty” that former attorneys general Eric Holder and Robert Kennedy showed their presidents.

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Romania’s Legislators Approve New Government; EU Ministry in Spotlight

Romania’s parliament overwhelmingly endorsed a new Social Democrat-led government Monday, giving Prime Minister Viorica Dancila a mandate that will be scrutinized closely by the country’s foreign partners and investors.

Dancila was named prime minister earlier this month to replace Mihai Tudose, who quit after a falling out with the powerful leader of the Social Democrats, Liviu Dragnea. Tudose himself became prime minister when Dragnea forced out his predecessor, Sorin Grindeanu, last summer.

Dancila had to be approved in a vote of confidence, which she won easily Monday — 282 legislators backed her, including some junior opposition groups. The new cabinet retains around a third of the former government’s ministers.

“This government, as a whole, does not bode well for the rule of law in Romania and its relations with the West, particularly with the European Union,” said independent political commentator Cristian Patrasconiu.

Dancila has set up a new ministry to handle European Union funds and nominated as its head Social Democrat lawmaker Rovana Plumb, whom anti-corruption prosecutors wanted to investigate. Her appointment has fueled renewed concerns about Romania’s commitment to seriously tackling graft.

Parliament rejected the prosecutors’ attempt to investigate Plumb, who denied any wrongdoing. But then-Prime Minister Tudose sacked her and two other ministers, saying graft allegations were damaging Romania’s relations with the EU.

On Monday, Prime Minister Dancila said her cabinet reflected the 2016 general elections. “Together with my colleagues, I do represent the political will of the ruling coalition,” she said.

“Today, you do not vote for persons but back Romanian citizens’ desire revealed by democracy. We will govern with pride and respect for Romanians, having the government program in front of us,” Dancila told parliament.

The revised governing program includes plans to further increase pensions and the minimum wage, and cut value-added tax by one percentage point to 18 percent from 2019. It also aims to set up a sovereign wealth fund and boost the absorption of EU funds.

But leftist legislators aim to change the criminal code that would decriminalize several graft offenses, their second attempt in a year to fight off a crackdown on corruption.

Last week, Brussels urged parliament to reconsider earlier judicial reforms, which critics say weaken judicial independence.

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Facing a ‘Broke’ Country, Liberia’s Weah Cuts His Own Salary

Liberia’s newly sworn-in President George Weah pledged to cut his own salary by a quarter Monday, in a nationwide address in which he warned of tough times ahead for a “broke” country.

“The state of the economy that my administration inherited leaves a lot to do and to be decided,” the former international soccer star said in an address apparently aimed at lowering high expectations following his election victory at the end of last year to replace Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

“Our economy is broken; our government is broke. Our currency is in free fall; inflation is rising,” Weah said. “Unemployment is at an unprecedented high and our foreign reserves are at an all-time low.”

Weah had promised a crackdown on endemic corruption as he was sworn in a week ago to the cheers of thousands of exuberant supporters crammed into a stadium in the capital, Monrovia.

But since winning the poll in the poor, coastal West African nation, the award-winning former AC Milan and Paris St. Germain striker has been at pains to show just how daunting he understands the task ahead to be.

“In view of the very rapidly deteriorating situation of the economy, I am informing you today, with immediate effect, that I will reduce my salary and benefits by 25 percent,” Weah said, pledging the savings to a development fund for Liberia.

The announcement of a pay cut for himself is likely go down well on a continent long used to officials in high office awarding themselves with fabulous pay rises and perks.

Liberia suffered civil wars from 1989 to 2003 that killed hundreds of thousands of people. Then, as it was recovering in the past decade, it was hit by low prices for its chief exports, iron ore and rubber, and a 2014-16 Ebola outbreak.

Race

Africa’s oldest republic was established by freed slaves from the United States and declared independent in 1847. As a quirk of that history, only “people of color” are constitutionally allowed to become Liberian and only Liberians can own property.

Weah described these clauses as “unnecessary, racist and inappropriate” for a Liberia in the 21st century. He said he would push to allow all races to apply for Liberian citizenship and for foreigners to be allowed to own property.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Johnson Sirleaf, barred from running again, was applauded for shoring up peace but criticized for failing to tackle graft or do much to spread economic gain beyond her elite circle to millions living in poverty.

Despite his avowedly grim outlook on the economy, Weah pledged a $3 billion coastal road project that would link the capital to its remote southeast.

“This is going to be very challenging,” he said. “But I am convinced that with the assistance of friendly governments and institutions this can be achieved before the end of my tenure.”

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US Army Leader Tells Germany: Meet NATO Spending Goal or Weaken NATO

Failure by the next German government to fulfill a pledge to boost military spending to two percent of its economic output will weaken the NATO alliance, a senior U.S. military official said on Monday.

Army secretary Mark Esper told reporters during a visit to U.S. troops in Wiesbaden, Germany, that NATO members had recommitted to meeting the NATO 2-percent target in 2017, and he would take the German government at its word that it would stick to that pledge.

“It’s important for all of our NATO allies to live up to their commitments,” Esper said during a teleconference on Monday. “If not, it weakens the alliance, clearly, and Germany is such a critical member of NATO.”

Esper said Germany had a particularly important role in NATO given its economic strength in Europe and its leadership within NATO.

“I take the German government at their word that they’re going to get to the 2 percent and live up to that,” he said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives and the center-left Social Democrats are locked in negotiations about renewing the coalition government that ruled since 2013.

A negotiating blueprint hammered out by the two political blocs did not mention the NATO target specifically – dodging an issue that continues to divide the parties.

The BDI industry association this month estimated that Germany spent just 1.13 percent of its economic output on the military in 2017, well below NATO’s projection of 1.22 percent due to stronger-than-expected economic growth.

BDI expert Matthias Wachter said the percentage could drop further in coming years if the economy’s expansion outpaced planned increases in military spending.

Esper said NATO’s efforts to reassure Poland and the Baltic States remained a key priority to guard against any Russian “adventurism” given Russia’s actions in Georgia and Ukraine.

“We all wish that Russia was on a different trajectory, but after what we’ve seen in Georgia and Ukraine, we have to hope for the best and prepare for the worst,” he said, referring to the Russian military incursion into Georgia in 2008 and the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

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UN Employees in Gaza Demonstrate Against US Aid Cut

Schools, clinics and food distribution centers in the Gaza Strip were closed most of Monday by a demonstration by thousands of employees of the United Nations agency that serves Palestinian refugees.

Palestinians have been angered by a U.S. decision to cut aid to the United Nations Relief and Welfare Agency (UNRWA), saying it will cause worse hardship in Gaza. More than half the enclave’s two million residents depend on support from UNRWA and other humanitarian agencies.

Those joining Monday’s protest feared job losses among UNRWA’s 13,000 employees and cuts to services. They marched to the U.N. headquarters in Gaza City waving Palestinian flags and brandishing banners that read “Dignity is priceless.”

“I have a family of nine and I have never felt afraid for my job like today. U.S. aid cuts will affect the entire community,” said 59-year-old English teacher Ahmed Abu Suleiman.

UNRWA, which runs 278 schools in Gaza attended by some 300,000 students, has made an international appeal for funds.

“We don’t know how to pay for the food we are currently distributing,” said UNRWA’s Gaza director, Matthias Schmale, who accompanied the marchers. “My biggest worry at the moment is will I be able to distribute food in April at all.”

UNRWA is funded mainly by voluntary contributions from U.N. member states, with the United States by far the largest donor.

U.S. officials have demanded UNRWA make unspecified reforms.

Washington said on Jan. 16 that it will hold back $65 million of a $125 million aid instalment to the agency. UNRWA received $355 million from the United States in the 2017 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, U.S. officials say.

“We have received $60 million from the U.S. There is no certainty over whether they will give us any more,” UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness said in an e-mail to Reuters.

The protest comes amid Palestinian anger over U.S. President Donald Trump’s Dec. 6 decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, Trump criticized the Palestinian leadership for refusing to meet Vice President Mike Pence during his visit to the region and suggested such behavior provided grounds for cutting aid.

“When they disrespected us a week ago by not allowing our great vice president to see them, and we give them hundreds of millions of dollars in aid and support, tremendous numbers, numbers that nobody understands — that money is on the table and that money is not going to them unless they sit down and negotiate peace,” Trump said.

UNRWA was established by the U.N. General Assembly in 1949 after hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes in the 1948 war that followed the creation of the state of Israel.

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Many Puerto Ricans Adrift in US Hotels After Hurricane Maria

After they lost their home in Puerto Rico to flooding during Hurricane Maria, Enghie Melendez fled with her family to the U.S. mainland with three suitcases and the hope it wouldn’t take long to rebuild their lives. It hasn’t worked out that way.

More than four months later, the family of five is squeezed into two rooms in a hotel in Brooklyn. While her husband looks for work, they are stuck in limbo, eating off paper plates and stepping over clothes in cramped quarters as they try to get settled in an unfamiliar city.

“After the hurricane hit we told the kids that every day was going to be an adventure, but not like this,” said the 43-year-old Melendez. “This is turning out to be really hard.”

Around the U.S., many Puerto Ricans are similarly adrift in hotels because of the Sept. 20 hurricane. The move north spared them from the misery of the storm’s aftermath on the island. But the transition has often proved to be difficult, disruptive and expensive as people try to find housing, jobs, schools and even furniture and clothes to start fresh on the mainland.

Melendez and her family shuffled between staying with relatives to a homeless shelter to a small hotel in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, forcing her to change schools for her three daughters in the middle of the semester.

“The instability is terrible,” she said as her husband, who worked as a cook at an Army base near San Juan, used a glass bottle to mash plantains to make a traditional Puerto Rican dish.

Adding to the worries for large numbers of Puerto Ricans is that hotel reimbursements from the Federal Emergency Management Agency have started to run out and many say they can’t afford temporary housing without assistance.

“It’s stressful,” said Yalitza Rodriguez, a 35-year-old from the southern Puerto Rico town of Yauco who has been staying at a hotel in Queens with her elderly mother and husband while he looks for work. “If we don’t get an extension we will have nowhere to live.”

Maria destroyed between 70,000 and 75,000 homes and damaged an additional 300,000, said Leticia Jover, a spokeswoman for Puerto Rico’s Housing Department. The effects of the storm included the widespread loss of power, which is still not restored in some places. Many businesses closed. The result has been an exodus to the mainland. 

The Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College estimated in an October study that between 114,000 and 213,000 Puerto Ricans would move to the U.S. mainland over the next 12 months. Most were expected to settle in Florida, followed by Pennsylvania, Texas and New York. 

FEMA says there are nearly 4,000 families, more than 10,000 people, receiving hotel assistance from the agency in 42 states because their homes in Puerto Rico are too damaged to occupy. The agency extended the expiration for the program from Jan. 13 to March 20 at the request of the island’s governor, but all cases are reviewed for eligibility every 30 days and the payments could end for some people sooner. It’s impossible to know how many are in temporary housing without any aid or staying with families. 

Leslie Rivera, from the central town of Caguas, has been shuffling among hotels in Tampa, Florida, since December with her three kids, ages 13, 10 and 2.  She was approved for subsidized housing and expects to be settled soon but it has been difficult.  

“I feel like I am on the streets because I have no clothes. I have nothing for my kids,” the 35-year-old said with tears in her eyes.

Marytza Sanz, president of Latino Leadership Orlando, which has been helping displaced families, said many don’t know where they will go after FEMA stops paying for their rooms. 

“There are people with five dollars in their pockets,” she said. “They can’t buy detergent, deodorant, medicine.”

In Kissimmee, in central Florida, Desiree Torres feels nervous. She has spent more than two months in a hotel with her three children. She says she can’t find a job and several local shelters have told her there is no space for her and her children.

“I can’t sleep at night,” said the 30-year-old Torres, who lost her home in Las Piedras, a southeastern town near where the eye of the storm first crossed the island. “I’m worried about my kids.”

After the hurricane, Melendez and her family were forced to sleep for more than three weeks in their garage because of flooding and sewage that entered the home. They left their four dogs with a friend and managed to get on a humanitarian flight. They spent 10 days at Melendez’s father-in-law’s Manhattan apartment and a month and a half in a Brooklyn shelter. A Puerto Rican activist helped them enter the hotel. 

“My kids were in a Manhattan school. We would wake up before 5 a.m. at the shelter to take them there. Now they are in a Brooklyn school,” she said. “Where will they be tomorrow?”

For now, they survive on a $1,700 monthly disability payment that Melendez receives along with about $300 a month in food stamps. 

Her 16-year-old daughter, Enghiemar, does her homework on the floor of the hotel room and tries to keep in touch with friends back home by text. 

“I always wanted to come and live here,” she said. “But not like this.”

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EU Calls on Czech President Zeman to Cooperate

Senior European Union officials on Monday urged the eurosceptic but pro-Russian Czech President Milos Zeman to pursue cooperation within the bloc following his re-election.

Zeman won a second term in a presidential election in the Czech Republic last weekend after campaigning on a tough stance against immigration and touting his courtship of Russia and China.

In a message of congratulations, European Council President Donald Tusk wrote: “I trust that your country will continue to play an active and constructive role within the European Union.”

The former Polish prime minister, who has tried to calm mounting frictions between the wealthier governments in the west and the formerly-communist EU states in the east, highlighted his own efforts to get the bloc to “better respond to European citizens’ concerns” — a nod to popular worries over issues such as immigration.

The head of the EU’s executive European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, echoed Tusk’s appeal for cooperation.

“In an increasingly polarized and complex world, we need to build bridges within and between countries,” he wrote.

Later on Monday, Juncker was due to host Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis, who has support from Zeman as he struggles to form a government following a parliamentary election in October.

While Babis is expected to reassure Juncker that Prague remains dedicated to the EU, he will also make clear he would not help other countries in the bloc by agreeing to host any refugees, sources said.

The migration dispute, which has split the eastern members of the bloc from their western and southern peers, has caused bad blood in the EU, weakening member states’ trust in each other.

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Egyptian Politician Emerges as Sole Election Challenger to Sissi

An Egyptian politician emerged just ahead of a deadline Monday as the sole challenger to President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi in an election in March the incumbent is set to win after other candidates withdrew citing repression.

Mousa Mostafa Mousa leads the Ghad party that has endorsed Sissi for a second term and even organized events to help nominate the former military commander as recently as last week.

Sissi was elected in 2014, a year after leading the army to oust President Mohamed Morsi, an Islamist. It is the third election since protests in 2011 unseated long-time ruler Hosni Mubarak.

Several leading opposition figures called for an election boycott Sunday, blaming repression that has cleared the field of challengers and left Sissi’s top opponent in jail.

At the time of Mousa’s registration, his personal Facebook page included a cover photo with Sissi’s face and “we support you as president of Egypt” written beneath it.

“We were supporting President Sissi before the decision to participate was taken,” deputy head of the Ghad party Mahmoud Mousa told Reuters.

“We have a respectable program that we are offering to the Egyptian people and we are presenting ourselves just like any other candidate would,” he said.

Mousa said he registered his candidacy at the electoral commission after having collected the required number of nomination pledges, submitting his official paperwork just minutes before the final deadline.

Would-be candidates were required to register by 2 p.m. (1200 GMT) Monday after clinching at least 20 nominations from parliament or 25,000 pledges from citizens across the country.

Mousa said he had netted 47,000 pledges and the backing of 27 lawmakers. The electoral commission said last week that Sissi had earned more than 1 million pledges. Over 500 of parliament’s 595 lawmakers had already pledged support for Sissi.

Intimidation, arrests

The vote, slated for March 26-28, has come under heavy criticism from the United Nations, rights groups, and opposition figures who say its environment has been compromised by intimidation of opposition supporters, arrests, and a nomination process stacked in favor of the incumbent.

The electoral commission has said that it will ensure the vote is fair and transparent.

The last-minute bid comes days after Hisham Genena, a former anti-corruption watchdog chief who had been working to elect former military chief of staff Sami Anan, was attacked and badly wounded outside his home Saturday.

Anan’s campaign was abruptly halted after he was arrested last week and accused of running for office without military permission.

Following the attack, a group of prominent figures including members of Anan’s campaign, former Islamist presidential candidate Abdel Moneim Abol Foutoh, and Mohamed Anwar Sadat, who halted his own presidential bid out of concern for the safety of his campaigners, called for a boycott.

They said the state’s policies were paving the way for extended limits to presidential terms and were “removing any opportunity for the peaceful transfer of power.”

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France Sees Worst Rains in 50 Years, Floods Peak in Paris

Floodwaters reached a peak in Paris on Monday and were threatening towns downstream along the rain-engorged Seine River as it winds through Normandy toward the English Channel.

Rivers swollen by France’s heaviest rains in 50 years have engulfed romantic quays in Paris, swallowed up gardens and roads, halted riverboat cruises — and raised concerns about climate change.

The national weather service Meteo France said Monday that January has seen nearly double normal rainfall nationwide, and that the rains in the past two months are the highest measured for the period in 50 years.

“I’m amazed. I’ve come to Paris since 1965, most years, and I’ve never seen the Seine as high,” said Terry Friberg, visiting from Boston. “I love Paris with all my heart but I’m very worried about the level of the river.”

Flood monitoring agency Vigicrues said the water levels in Paris hit a maximum height of 5.84 meters (19 feet, 2 inches) on the Austerlitz scale early Monday.

That’s below initial fears last week, and well below record levels of 8.62 meters in 1910, but still several meters above normal levels of about 1.5 meters on the Austerlitz scale.

And the waters are expected to stay unusually high for days or weeks.

That’s bad news for tourists hoping to cruise past Paris sites on the famed “bateaux mouches” riverboats, or visit the bottom floor of the Louvre Museum, closed since last week as a precaution. Riverside train stations along the line that serves Versailles are also closed, and will remain that way for several more days.

 Water laps the underside of historic bridges, and treetops and lampposts poke out of the brown, swirling Seine.

 South African tourist Michael Jelatis, visiting Notre Dame Cathedral on an island in central Paris, was among many people linking the floods to global warming, blamed for increasing instances of extreme weather.

 “Around the world we’re all aware that things like this, unusual weather, are happening. I mean back home we are in a serious drought at the moment as well,” he told The Associated Press.

 Overall, Paris is better prepared than when it was last hit by heavy flooding in 2016, and Parisians have largely taken disruptions in stride this time.

 Other towns on the surging Seine have seen it much worse.

 The floods have caused damage in 242 towns along the river and tributaries already and more warnings are in place as the high waters move downstream.

 In Lagny-sur-Marne south of Paris, Serge Pinon now has to walk on a makeshift footbridge to reach his home and its flooded surroundings.

 His basement is submerged in water, as are the plants he was trying to grow in a backyard greenhouse tent. He lost a freezer, a refrigerator, a washing machine and dryer to flood waters.

“We’re up to the maximum, maximum and now we’re just waiting for it to go down,” he said. “This year the flood has risen more rapidly than usual. Here it usually rises in a regular fashion and we have the time to see it coming we can save things. But this time it rose too quickly.”

Elsewhere in the town, street signs stick out of the water and a lonely boat floats in the Marne River, once accessible from the riverbank but now unreachable on foot.

Mayor Jean-Paul Michel said that residents are used to seasonal floods, but this one is exceptionally long-lasting, now in its third week. “So it goes on and on, and we think it’s going to carry on for [another] long week before the flood starts subsiding,” he said.

Angela Charlton contributed.

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TPS Decision for Syrians in US Imminent

Syrians living under Temporary Protected Status in the United States will know by Tuesday whether the Trump administration is extending those protections or canceling them, as it has done with three other countries in recent months.

The decision, due by January 30, will affect some 6,000 Syrians.

The TPS designation allows some nationals of countries facing natural disasters or extreme violence to remain in the U.S. and work legally.

Since it does not lead to permanent residency or citizenship, TPS beneficiaries who lose the status are subject to deportation — in this case, back to Syria, where civil war rages into a seventh year.

In 2016, the last time TPS was redesignated for Syria, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services cited the continuing armed conflict, which meant that “the return of Syrian nationals to Syria would pose a serious threat to their personal safety.”

Syria is one of the more recent additions to the list of TPS countries. The country was designated worthy of TPS in 2012, before the rise of Islamic State violence. With the extremist group forced out of its de facto capital last year, “the country will now enter a new dangerous and pivotal phase, as the government continues to wage war to retake the country from opposition forces,” according to a January report by the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, a non-profit group that provides legal services to immigrants.

“In all, Syria remains unstable, destroyed and wholly unsafe for the return of Syrian TPS holders at this time.”

More than 50 national security and foreign policy experts signed a letter last week, asking Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to extend TPS for Syria. The signers argued that it is not just a humanitarian matter, but also one of national security.

“Our allies look to the United States for leadership,” their letter said. “We have an opportunity to demonstrate that the safety and security of the people of Syria remains a primary objective of the U.S. approach. Ensuring those currently out of harm’s way can safely remain in the United States, rather than face imminent danger, is critical to showing our allies we embrace this mission.”

The Trump administration has cancelled TPS for four countries, most recently El Salvador, affecting almost 200,000 people. Announcements for Honduras, Nepal, Somalia and Yemen are expected later this year.

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