Month: January 2018

Russian-Linked Twitter Accounts Not Done with the US Government Shutdown

Posted on by SeeUS

The United States government is headed back to work Tuesday, but Russia does not appear to be done trying to capitalize on the nearly three-day-long shutdown.

U.S. President Donald Trump signed a bill late Monday, funding the government through February 8. But even as lawmakers and the White House reached agreement, Twitter accounts linked to Russian influence operations continued to post hashtags seemingly aimed at amplifying the country’s political divisions.

As of 10 p.m. ET Monday night, the hashtag #schumershutdown had been used 535 times in the last 48 hours, according to Hamilton 68, an online site that tracks about 600 Twitter accounts.

Meanwhile, the site reported the top trending hashtag was #schumersellout – it’s use increasing by 4,800 percent over the same period.

Both hashtags refer to Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, who ultimately agreed to compromise with Republican lawmakers after initially refusing to support any spending bills without getting a deal on protecting “Dreamers,” undocumented immigrants brought to America as children, from possible deportation.

Among those using #schumershutdown Monday was U.S. Vice President Mike Pence.

“Thanks to the firm stand taken by @POTUS & Senate & House Republicans, the gov’t shutdown is coming to an end. The #SchumerShutdown failed,” Pence tweeted Monday while visiting Israel.

President Trump’s son, Donald Trump, Jr., also used it late Monday.

“Americans don’t forget that the #SchumerShutdown put illegal immigrants ahead of our military and American children’s insurance,” Trump, Jr. tweeted. “Just remember where you stood in their eyes.”

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Meanwhile, #schumersellout began trending on Twitter Monday, used in 19,700 tweets as of about 10 p.m. ET.

Among the accounts using it was the Michigan Republican Party, which tweeted, “Schumer Sells Out the Resistance #SchumerSellout,” along with a link to an opinion column in The New York Times.

The Hamilton 68 website makes clear that hashtags like #schumershutdown or #schumersellout are often not created by the Russian-linked accounts. Instead, they often take hashtags created by Twitter users who are not necessarily linked to Russia and try to amplify them to help perpetuate existing divides.

The site said other top hashtags being heavily promoted by the Russian-linked accounts included “releasethememo”, “QAnon”, “maga”, “Syria”, “nodaca”, “wethepeople” and “Russia.”

#ReleasetheMemo, which the Russian-linked accounts tweeted 480 times Sunday and Monday, saw their heaviest usage late last week (Thursday and Friday), when the accounts tweeted the hashtag more than 3,000 times.

It also gained popularity among Twitter users, including some in Congress, pushing the House Intelligence Committee to release a confidential report written by the committee’s chairman, Republican Devin Nunes.

They argued the report shed light of bias at the FBI and the Department of Justice, both of which have been investigation possible ties between the Trump presidential campaign and Russia.

U.S. intelligence officials and lawmakers from both parties have warned Russia is continuing to try to meddle in U.S. politics with an eye on the 2018 midterm elections. Russia has denied the allegation.

“They’re trying to undermine Western democracy,” Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told the Aspen Security Forum this past July, admitting Russia’s influence efforts are “quite a bit more sophisticated than they used to be.”

“I think all of my colleagues probably are worried or should be worried about it,” Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Richard Burr warned last month.

“To believe that Russia’s not attempting in the United States to do things potentially for the ’18 cycle I think would be ignorant on our part,” Burr said.
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US Congress Votes to Reopen the Government

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U.S. President Donald Trump has signed a bill reopening the government, ending a 3-day partial shutdown that was triggered in part by a partisan brawl over immigration.

Late Monday, members of the House of Representatives voted to approve the bill the U.S. Senate passed earlier in the day.

The so-called continuing resolution keeps the government funded until February 8 to allow Congress time to reach a longer-term budget agreement.

“It’s good news for the country,” Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio told reporters.

“Today is a day to celebrate,” Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said. “When government shuts down, it represents the ultimate failure to govern.”

“I am pleased that Democrats in Congress have come to their senses and are now willing to fund our great military, border patrol, first responders,” President Donald Trump said in a statement read by Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Trump later tweeted that after a “Big win for Republicans” he wants “a big win for everyone” on those issues.

“Should be able to get there. See you at the negotiating table!” he said.

The White House argues Democrats “caved” after Trump refused to negotiate with them on immigration policy until the government reopened. Democrats had been holding out for a firmer commitment to provide protections for some 700,000 younger immigrants brought illegally to the United States as children.

Earlier, Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky reassured Democrats that the Senate would address a range of immigration topics, including hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants brought to America as children.

“So long as the government remains open, it would be my intention to take up legislation here in the Senate that would address DACA [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals], border security, and related issues as well as disaster relief, defense funding, health care and other important matters,” McConnell said.

Democrats, who banded together to help defeat a funding bill late Friday, signaled a wary acceptance of the Republican offer.

“While this procedure will not satisfy everyone on all sides, it’s a way forward,” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said. “We expect that a bipartisan bill on DACA will receive fair consideration and an up-or-down vote on the [Senate] floor.”

Enacting immigration reform will require more than the Senate, however. Action by the House of Representatives and Trump’s signature will also be required.

The White House has sent conflicting signals on what the president will accept in a final immigration deal. House Republicans, meanwhile, said they are not bound by promises made in the Senate.

“What they do inside their [Senate] chamber is up to them,” Oklahoma Congressman Tom Cole said.

“The Senate’s finally doing the job, but that doesn’t commit us to doing anything other than what we said,” Republican Rep. Chris Collins of New York said. “We will also negotiate [on immigration] in good faith.”

Democrats, who had been hailed by immigrant rights advocates for drawing a line in the sand Friday, were blasted as weak-willed for taking the Republican deal.

“This Congress needs to get a heart and grow a backbone,” the California-based Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights said in a statement. “Democrats need to grow some courage and keep their word. It is a shame the leadership of the Democratic Senate chose to wait one more time to fulfill their promise to the Latino and immigrant community and the country as a whole.”

In a statement Congressman Luis V. Gutiérrez (D-IL) complained, “This simply kicks the can down the road with no assurance that we will protect Dreamers [DACA recipients] from deportation or fight Republican attempts to curtail or eliminate legal immigration.”

President Trump repeatedly accused Democrats of siding with illegal immigrants over the American people, a charge Democrats firmly rejected. On Monday, however, the White House expressed hope for a bipartisan deal on immigration.

“I don’t think there’s a whole lot of daylight between where we are and where the Democrats are,” Sanders said at a press briefing. “We certainly want to negotiate and get to a place [agreement], and we’re hopeful we can do that over the next couple of weeks.”

The U.S. government’s 2018 fiscal year began in October of last year, but Congress has yet to authorize a full year of spending, passing a series of short-term funding measures at 2017 levels, instead. Democrats went along with three extensions but balked at a fourth last week after immigration talks with Republicans and the White House broke down.

VOA’s Peter Heinlein and Katherine Gypson contributed to this report.
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As US Looks to Rein in Turkish Offensive, Manbij is Key

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The key U.S. question about Turkey’s offensive in northwestern Syria is whether Ankara pushes on from Afrin to Manbij, where U.S. forces and their allies against the Islamic State militant group are on the ground, U.S. officials said on Monday.

Turkey shelled targets in northwest Syria on the third day of a campaign by its forces and Syrian rebel allies against Kurdish YPG fighters, which Ankara sees as allies of Kurdish insurgents who have fought the Turkish state for decades.

While the United States does not have forces in the area of Afrin, where the offensive is focused, it does in Manbij to the east, raising the possibility of conflict between forces allied with Turkey and the United States.

Moreover, the United States hopes to use the YPG’s control of the area to give it the diplomatic muscle it needs to revive U.N.-led talks in Geneva on a deal that would end Syria’s civil war and eventually lead to the ouster of President Bashar Assad.

The United States and Turkey, while themselves allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, have diverging interests in the Syrian civil war, with Washington focused on defeating Islamic State and Ankara keen to prevent Syria’s Kurds from gaining autonomy and fueling Kurdish insurgents on its soil.

Preventing Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan from carrying out a threat to drive Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a U.S.-backed umbrella group dominated by the YPG, out of Manbij is central for Washington, U.S. officials said.

“Manbij was liberated by the coalition (fighting Islamic State) and (this) would be looked at differently if Turkey started to go in that direction,” said one U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“The Turks have talked about it but there is no indication that they are going to go further east where we are,” he added.

“At this stage in Afrin it’s a very different fight and a very different situation than if they do come further east.”

In Talks With Turkey

Any Turkish operation in Manbij is likely to be met with serious U.S. concerns, with a number of U.S. troops in and around the city. The troops were deployed in March to deter Turkish and U.S.-backed rebels from attacking each other and have also carried out training and advising missions in Manbij.

“That would be a cause for concern and we’re monitoring it closely,” said a second U.S. official on condition of anonymity. “The protection of our forces is a top priority.”

This official added there had not been an impact on U.S. operations from Turkey’s Incirlik air base.

While much of the fighting against Islamic State has moved to small pockets, the United States would still need the YPG to hold territory, ensuring that the Islamist militant group does not reemerge.

Speaking as he arrived in Paris, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the United States was in talks with Turkey and hoped to find a way to create a “security zone” that would meet Turkey’s “legitimate” security interests.

Pentagon officials are currently in Ankara as part of a U.S. delegation to discuss security issues, including in Afrin, Major Adrian Rankine-Galloway, a Pentagon spokesman, told Reuters. He said that “the armed Kurdish groups in Afrin” are not part of the coalition against Islamic State, also known as ISIS.

“Increased violence in Afrin distracts from efforts to ensure the lasting defeat of ISIS,” Rankine-Galloway added. “It also has significant potential to increase civilian displacement, refugee flows, and casualties.”

Gonul Tol, director of the Middle East Institute think tank’s Turkey program, said persuading Erdogan not to move against Manbij could prove extremely difficult.

The Trump administration’s Syria strategy – crushing the remnants of Islamic State and reviving the U.N.-led Geneva talks on ending the Syrian civil war – almost entirely depends on preserving the 30,000-strong YPG as a fighting force.

“The entire U.S. strategy rests on the Kurds. Even if Turkey doesn’t attack Manbij, the fall of Afrin will weaken the Kurds, and that will weaken the U.S. influence with the Kurds, Tol said. “The only leverage the U.S. has (in Syria) is through the Kurds.

“If Manbij falls, Raqqa is going to be threatened and that is key for the U.S.,” Tol continued, referring to the Syrian city that Islamic State declared as its capital and from which it was driven out last year. “The U.S. will do everything to ease the tensions with Turkey. But I don’t know what they will come up (with). They have to be very creative.”
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UN Blames Leadership, Inaction for Peacekeeper Killings

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A U.N. report on the increase in peacekeepers killed in violent attacks blames many of the fatalities on inaction in the field and “a deficit of leadership” from U.N. headquarters to remote locations.

It urges greater initiative, determination, action and use of force when necessary.

“Nobody attacks a stronger opponent,” the authors say.

The report released Monday was authorized by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and funded by China. It was led by retired Brazilian Lt. Gen. Carlos Alberto dos Santo Cruz, a former commander of U.N. peacekeepers in Haiti and Congo, and retired U.S. Army Col. William Phillips, a former chief of staff in the peacekeeping mission in Mali.

“Casualties have spiked” since 2013, the report said, with 135 soldiers, police and civilians in the U.N.’s 15 far-flung peacekeeping missions killed by acts of violence – “more than during any other five-year period in history.”

There were at least 56 fatalities in 2017 – “the highest number since 1994,” it said.

“These numbers go beyond a normal or acceptable level of risk, and they are likely to rise even higher,” the report warned about security for the more than 100,000 U.N. peacekeepers.

The 35-page paper said the U.N. and countries contributing soldiers and police to peacekeeping missions “need to adapt to a new reality: The blue helmet and the United Nations flag no longer offer ‘natural protection.”’

“Peacekeeping environments now feature armed groups, terrorists, organized crime, street gangs, criminal and political exploitation and other threats,” it said.

But, it added, the U.N. and governments participating in such missions are “still gripped” by a mindset that shies from the use of force.

The missions’ mandates, rules of engagement and other documents “should support taking action, and not be used to justify inaction,” the report said.

“Fatalities rarely occur as a result of troops and leadership taking action: The United Nations is most often attacked as a result of inaction,” it said. “In battles and in fights, the United Nations needs to win, or troops, police and civilian personnel will die.”

Peacekeepers “must perform,” the authors said, and the U.N. should not accept conditions from contributing nations on when the troops act because that weakens the missions and “increases the risk of casualties.”

According to the report, in the 69 years since the first peacekeeping mission was deployed in 1948 there have been 943 peacekeeper deaths “due to malicious acts” – with three periods of significant increases in fatalities.

The first was about 1960-62 and included deployments in Suez and Congo. The second in 1992-96 included U.N. missions in Rwanda, Somalia, Cambodia and the Balkans. The third began in 2011, “became critical in 2013” and continued in 2017, the report said.

During the current upsurge, the overwhelming number of fatalities occurred in the joint U.N.-African Union mission in Darfur and the U.N. missions in Mali, South Sudan and Central African Republic, the report said.
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Feds Move to Replace US Border Barriers in New Mexico

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The Trump administration announced Monday it was preparing to replace existing vehicle barriers along a stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border in New Mexico that officials call “an area of high illegal entry.”

The notice published in the Federal Register said the area extends around 20 miles (32 kilometers) west of the Santa Teresa Port of Entry.

According to the notice, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security will replace the existing barriers with bollard walls to deter and prevent illegal crossings. Bollard walls are made up of sturdy, vertical posts that are spaced to provide visibility to the other side but are difficult to walk through.

“There is presently a need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States to deter illegal crossings in the project area,” Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said in the notice.

The targeted area is part of the U.S. Border Patrol’s El Paso Sector that federal officials say remains an active route for human smuggling and drug trafficking. In 2016, officials said the Border Patrol in the sector arrested more than 25,000 immigrants suspected of trying to enter the country illegally and seized around 67,000 pounds of marijuana.

Santa Teresa, New Mexico — a booming industrial border town — is west of El Paso, Texas.

Use of waivers

This marks the third time Homeland Security under President Donald Trump has used broad powers under a 2005 law to waive laws such as the National Environmental Policy Act and Endangered Species Act for the border barriers. In September, it waived reviews for a 3-mile stretch in Calexico, California.

President George W. Bush’s administration issued the previous five waivers in 2008.

But critics said the waivers are an overreach and a threat to the environment.

Brian Segee, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, said federal authorities are waiving more than 30 environmental laws to speed construction of the proposal area around Santa Teresa, New Mexico.

“The Trump administration is stopping at nothing to ram through this destructive border wall,” Segee said. “Trump’s divisive border wall is a humanitarian and environmental disaster, and it won’t do anything to stop illegal drug or human smuggling.”

Funding the wall

The Center for Biological Diversity said it is considering whether to challenge the waiver in court.

The administration has insisted new wall funding be part of any pending immigration reform deal, but Trump has been unclear about how long the wall would be and how it should be designed. The administration has asked for $1.6 billion this year to build or replace 74 miles (118 kilometers) of barriers in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley and San Diego and plans to request another $1.6 billion next year.

A proposal by Customs and Border Protection calls for spending $18 billion over 10 years to extend barriers to cover nearly half the border. Mexico has steadfastly rejected Trump’s demand that it pay for the wall.
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Puerto Rico Moves to Privatize Troubled Power Company

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Puerto Rico’s governor announced Monday that he is moving to privatize the U.S. territory’s public power company after its slow, troubled recovery from Hurricane Maria focused new attention on longstanding accusations of mismanagement and corruption.

Nearly 30 percent of customers on this island of 3 million people remain without power more than four months after Hurricane Maria. Many blame the failings of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, or PREPA.

Its director was forced out in November after the utility failed to immediately call for help from its mainland counterparts after the storm. Instead PREPA granted a power-restoration contract to a little-known company that the utility was later forced to rescind. Most recently, PREPA was blamed for the failure to distribute badly needed parts found in one of its warehouses even as repairs went undone for lack of supplies. 

Founded in 1979 as a public utility run by appointees of the island’s governor, PREPA is roughly $9 billion in debt and years before Maria’s September landfall the company was criticized for political patronage and inefficiency. It was also beset by frequent blackouts, including an island-wide outage in September 2016. 

“The Electric Power Authority has become a heavy burden for our people, who today are held hostage by its poor service and high cost,” Gov. Ricardo Rossello said. “The deficient and obsolete system of generation and distribution of energy is one of the great impediments to our economic development.”

Because PREPA is bankrupt, a federal judge will have to approve the sale, in addition to the island’s legislature, economists said. 

In the next couple of days, government officials will begin working with legislators to begin defining how to sell the utility’s assets. Some leaders of Puerto Rico’s Senate said they would support the measure while the body’s president said he still needed to evaluate the plan. House leaders did not immediately respond to the proposal. 

Rossello said privatization would bring more affordable rates and better service to consumers and help attract more business to an island mired in an 11-year-old recession.

But Sen. Juan Dalmau, whose party supports independence for Puerto Rico, said privatization would not necessarily translate into efficiency or savings.

“The message is a manipulation of the justified hopelessness of an island facing a lack of power after the hurricane,” he said. 

Neither union leaders nor a spokesman for the utility immediately returned calls for comment.

Rossello said PREPA’s electrical grid is not designed for Puerto Rico’s current needs, noting that the greatest demand exists in the northern part of the island, while the main generation plants are in the south. Rossello said PREPA’s infrastructure is nearly 30 years older than the industry average. The company has lost 30 percent of its employees in the last five years, 86 percent of whom worked in maintenance, he said.

“With this transformation of PREPA, you will cease being its hostage,” he said. 

 
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Vermont Becomes 9th US State to Legalize Marijuana

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Vermont became the ninth U.S. state and third in the Northeast to legalize recreational marijuana use on Monday when Republican Governor Phil Scott signed a bill passed by the legislature earlier this month.

The law legalizes possession of up to 1 ounce of the drug, two mature plants and up to four immature plants by people 21 and older beginning on July 1. It does not legalize trade in the drug.

“Today, with mixed emotions, I have signed H. 511,” Scott said in a statement, referring to the measure by its legislative number.

He noted that he had vetoed an earlier version of the bill that would have opened up sales of the drug, saying that a state commission would have time for further study before allowing a retail trade in recreational pot.

Neighboring Massachusetts, nearby Maine and six other states have legalized marijuana use as a result of voter initiatives.

New Hampshire’s House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a similar bill to legalize recreational marijuana use. That state’s governor, Republican Chris Sununu, has said he opposes legalization.

Vermont is the first state to take this step by an act of the legislature, rather than as a ballot initiative. While it is one of the most politically liberal states, it is also one of 23 in the nation that do not allow ballot initiatives.

“This is a great step forward for the state and the whole region,” Matt Simon, New England political director for the Marijuana Policy Project said in a statement. “Responsible adults will soon have the freedom to enjoy a safer option legally, and law enforcement will be free to concentrate on serious crimes with actual victims.”

Possession of small amounts of the drug had already been a civil, rather than criminal, violation in Vermont.

“I personally believe that what adults do behind closed doors and on private property is their choice, so long as it does not negatively impact the health and safety of others, especially children,” Scott said.
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Kenyan Women Protest Failure to Implement Gender Rule

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Hundreds of women marched through Nairobi on Monday to protest the president’s failure to name women to at least one-third of government positions, as Kenya’s constitution requires. 

Two weeks ago, President Uhuru Kenyatta unveiled a Cabinet shakeup, naming nine people for high-ranking government positions. Not one of the nominees was a woman. 

The president also dropped all five women from his earlier Cabinet.

Activists — led by Wangeci Wachira, the head of the Center for Rights, Education and Awareness — marched to the president’s office at Harambee House on Monday to present him with a petition, demanding the appointment of at least nine women to the Cabinet.

“The women of Kenya are tired of being treated like second-class citizens, and now stand together to ensure that we take our right to a place at the decision-making table,” Wachira said. “We will continue to agitate and use all means at our disposal to ensure that our demands are met and the right to equal political participation and representation is realized at all levels of decision-making in Kenya.”

The 2010 constitution required that women hold at least one-third of the seats in parliament and one-third of appointed state positions. It also set aside 47 special parliamentary seats for women. 

However, the gender requirements have never been met. In Kenya’s latest election, held last year, just 23 women were elected to regular seats in the National Assembly.

Two Kenyan rights groups have petitioned the High Court to compel the government to follow the constitution, but the court has not said when it might issue a ruling.
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In Gaza, UNRWA Chief Says US Aid Cut Risks More Mideast Instability

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The head of the U.N. agency that helps Palestinian refugees said on Monday that U.S. plans to cut funding to the body were abrupt and harmful and risked destabilizing the Middle East.

Pierre Krähenbühl, commissioner-general of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), visited the Gaza Strip on the same day that U.S. Vice President Mike Pence told the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem that the U.S. would move its embassy there by the end of 2019.

The United States, by far the largest contributor to UNRWA, announced on Jan. 16 that Washington will withhold $65 million of $125 million that it had planned to send to UNRWA this year.

UNRWA is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions from U.N. member states.

U.S. President Donald Trump questioned the value of such funding, and the State Department said the agency needed to make unspecified reforms.

In Gaza to launch a global funding appeal to keep UNRWA’s schools and clinics open through 2018 and beyond, Krähenbühl said the American cuts would cause difficulties for the agency.

“The reduction is a very severe one, it is abrupt and is harmful,” said Krähenbühl. “The world has to ask itself this question: does the Middle East need more instability? Is it reasonable to think that by reducing amounts to UNRWA one is achieving anything else but greater instability in the region?”

More than half of the two million people in Gaza are dependent on support from UNRWA and other humanitarian agencies.

Palestinians say the funding decision could deepen hardship in the Gaza Strip, where the unemployment rate is 46 percent.

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 Israel’s creation.

Around 525,000 boys and girls in 700 UNRWA schools could be affected by the U.S. fund cut, Krähenbühl told Reuters while visiting a girls’ school in Gaza City. Palestinian access to primary health care could also be impacted.

“I can’t imagine to come to this school or to any other school in UNRWA in few weeks and say to the students, ‘Sadly we failed.’ Failing is not an option,” Krähenbühl said.

Washington gave $355 million to UNRWA in the 2017 fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, U.S. officials say.

In a Twitter post on Jan. 2, Trump said that the U.S. gives the Palestinians “HUNDRED OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or respect.” Trump added that “with the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has called for a gradual cut in UNRWA funding and for its responsibilities to be transferred to the U.N. global refugee agency UNHCR, has voiced  measured support for the U.S. fund cut.

But Netanyahu has also appeared to acknowledge that it could leave Israel – which maintains tight restrictions on the movement of people and goods across its border with Gaza – with a potential humanitarian crisis on its doorstep.
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Young Rwandans Seek to Reshape Narrative About Their Country

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Young Rwandan bloggers and filmmakers are working to re-shape the narrative about their country. They want to move away from stories of the 1994 genocide and its aftermath, and toward stories of the new generation in what is now one of Africa’s fastest growing economies. Chika Oduah reports for VOA from Kigali.
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US Asks Turkey to Show Restraint in Syria

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The United States is expressing concern about Turkey’s offensive in northern Syria and top officials are appealing for restraint and fears that the conflict could spread. 

At Monday’s White House briefing, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the U.S. understands Turkey’s “legitimate security concerns” and is “committed to working with Turkey as a NATO ally.”  

“Increased violence in Afrin disrupts a relatively stable area of Syria,” she said. “It distracts from international efforts to ensure the lasting defeat of ISIS, it could be exploited by ISIS and al-Qaida for resupply and safe haven, and it risks exacerbating the humanitarian crisis.”

Sanders also urged Turkey “to exercise restraint in its military actions and rhetoric, ensure that its operations are limited in scope and duration, ensure humanitarian aid continues, and avoid civilian casualties. We want to ensure that Assad’s brutal regime cannot return to Afrin, and we will continue working diplomatically to end the Syrian civil war.”

Tensions between US, Turkey

While Washington wants to preserve its relationship with Turkey. it also has ties to Kurdish and other forces forces targeted by Turkey. 

In a London press conference Monday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said “The U.S. is in Syria to defeat ISIS (the so-called Islamic State), and we’ve done that with a coalition of partners, and the Syrian Democratic Forces in particular, which are comprised of Kurdish and Arab, but also elements of Christian forces. It is truly a multiethnic group of fighters who are defending their home territory. And so we are concerned about the Turkish incident in northern Syria.”

Later, Tillerson downplayed concerns about rising tensions between Turkey and the United States.

“I don’t think you’re going to find two NATO allies facing off at all,” he said.

Tillerson said Turkey is worried about “terrorists crossing the border into Turkey and carrying out attacks and we appreciate their right to defend themselves, but this is a tough situation where there are a lot of civilians mixed in. So we’ve asked them to just, try to be precise, try to limit your operation, try to show some restraint.”

Advance notification

U.S. Central Command spokesman Lt. Col. Earl Brown told VOA the U.S. has no coalition operations in Afrin. He also said the U.S. has a MOU (memorandum of understanding) with Turkey where they let the U.S. know of operations in Syria and they have kept to that memorandum.  

“Turkey’s actions in Afrin are unilateral and not associated with coalition operations in Syria,” he said. “In accordance with an existing memorandum of understanding, Turkey is providing advance notification of its operations to the Coalition to ensure awareness prior to military actions.”

The French ambassador to the United Nations, Francois Delattre, asked for “the opportunity for an emergency meeting on the wider situation in Syria, the humanitarian situation in particular.”

He added, “our priority is about Eastern Ghouta and Idlib where there is a tragedy happening before our eyes that is totally unacceptable.”

​Tillerson to meet with French

On Tuesday, Tillerson will meet with senior French officials to discuss a range of issues, including Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Libya, the threat from North Korea, and Ukraine. He will also attend the launch of the International Partnership against Impunity for Use of Chemical Weapons. 

State Department officials say Tillerson is set to make remarks in Paris on Syria and chemical weapons.  Tillerson told reporters he would have an exchange of views on stopping the use of chemical weapons.

“Obviously, we know chemical weapons are being used in Syria. We’ve seen it,” he said. 

Asked about new reports that Syria is again using chemical weapons against its own civilians. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, Steve Goldstein, could not confirm the report, but he told reporters in Washington Monday:  

“Civilians are being killed and it is not acceptable,” he said.

U.N. to address use of chemical weapons?

Asked whether the United States would raise the issue at the U.N. Security Council, Goldstein said: “We’ll see tomorrow.” 

Goldstein added that Russia needs to do more to stop the killings. 

“Russia had failed to rid Syria of chemical weapons, and they’ve been blocking chemical weapons organizations. Enough is enough,” he warned.

VOA’s Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb contributed to this report
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Gambia Arrests Top Jammeh Generals After They Return from Exile

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Military authorities in Gambia arrested two of ex-strongman Yahya Jammeh’s generals after they returned unexpectedly from exile over the weekend, the army said in a statement Monday.

Gambia’s current President Adama Barrow was sworn in a year ago as a West African regional intervention force closed in on the capital Banjul forcing Jammeh, who had refused to accept his defeat in elections, to flee to Equatorial Guinea.

Umpa Mendy, Jammeh’s principal protection officer, and the former head of the State Guards Battalion Ansumana Tamba had both accompanied the former leader into exile. But the army statement said they flew back into Gambia on Sunday.

“They were arrested at their respective homes … and are currently detained at the Yundum Military Barracks, where they are helping the military police with their investigations,” the statement said.

It did not say why the two men returned to Gambia or on what charges they had been arrested.

Barrow is seeking to assert control following the end of 22 years of Jammeh’s authoritarian rule under which the military served as a key pillar of a regime notorious for jailing and torturing political opponents.

The new government has replaced or dismissed a number of senior military officers, some of them suspected of being members of a group called the Jungulars, which many Gambians say carried out killings on behalf of the government.

However, the army still contains many former supporters of Jammeh. Barrow’s allies have repeatedly warned of the possibility that exiled officers were working to undermine the new government from abroad.
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US Aid Chief Visits Raqqa Amid Stabilization Push

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The U.S. government’s aid chief, Mark Green, made an unannounced visit to Raqqa in Syria on Monday, the most senior U.S. civilian official from the Trump administration to visit the war-struck northern city months after it was retaken from Islamic State.

Green was accompanied by the head of the U.S. Central Command General Joseph Votel, as the United States ramps up efforts to stabilize areas where Islamic State has been driven out by American-backed Kurdish militia.

Lessons from Libya and Iraq showed that stabilizing liberated areas was crucial to preventing them from falling back into the hands of militants.

“We’re at the point where people really do want to go home so this is the moment to seize,” Green, Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), said in a phone interview with Reuters after his seven-hour visit to Raqqa and the Ain Issa camp for people displaced by fighting.

As he drove through the densely built-up city, Green said he was struck by the devastation to buildings and roads, caused by U.S-led coalition air strikes and militia firing from homes.

“The devastation goes back as far as you can see,” Green said. “It is almost beyond description how deep the damage is.”

Green said he also visited a soccer stadium where the locker rooms had been turned into torture chambers for Islamic State.

“You can see a makeshift metal bed where they laid their torture victims right on the bed. It was just gruesome, gruesome,” he added.

But he said despite the destruction there were also signs of hope with vendors selling fruit on the sidewalks, families walking together, and people trying to clear rubble.

“Despite all of the destruction and all of the damage you still see signs of the human spirit … and it gives you so much hope,” he added.

Green’s visit comes days after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson signaled an open-ended military presence in Syria as part of a broader strategy to prevent Islamic State’s resurgence and pave the way for an eventual departure of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and to curtail Iran’s influence.

U.S. forces in Syria have already faced direct threats from Syrian and Iranian-backed forces, leading to the shoot-down of Iranian drones and a Syrian jet last year.

In the meantime, Turkey opened a new front in Syria at the weekend launching airstrikes against U.S.-backed Kurdish militia in Afrin province.

Green said the civilian mission was not to rebuild areas but to help civilians return home by clearing roadside bombs, removing rubble, and restoring water and electricity.

“The mission for us is stabilization not reconstruction,” Green emphasized. “Our part of it is restoring essential services and there is a lot of work to do,” he added.

Green said he would be traveling to Europe within days to press allies to help with stabilization efforts.

 
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AP Explains Turkey’s ‘Operation Olive Branch’ in Afrin, Syria

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Turkey has launched an air and ground campaign into Afrin, a Kurdish-controlled enclave in northwestern Syria. Codenamed “Operation Olive Branch,” it’s the latest chapter in a decades-long conflict between Turkey and Kurdish militants. Here’s a look at why this is happening now and what’s at stake:

What’s the goal?

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim has said Turkey wants to create a 30-kilometer (20-mile) deep “secure zone” in Afrin. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said the military operation is essential for Turkey’s security and Syria’s territorial integrity.

The Turkish operation aims to oust from Afrin a militia made up of an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 fighters affiliated with the People’s Protection Units or YPG, a Syrian Kurdish group that has controlled territory in northern Syria and proven effective in fighting the Islamic State group.

Turkey considers the YPG to be a terrorist organization and an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party or PKK, which has fought for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey.

The PKK has waged an insurgency in Turkey since 1984 that has claimed some 40,000 lives. A peace process collapsed in 2015 and the conflict resumed, with devastating street battles and major bomb attacks in cities.

The YPG and its political counterpart, the Democratic Union Party, or PYD, say they want regional autonomy within a federalized Syria. They control nearly 25 percent of Syrian territory dubbed Rojava that includes the three “cantons” of Afrin, Kobani and Jazira.

The PKK, YPG and PYD consider as their guide the Kurdish Marxist-nationalist leader Abdullah Ocalan, who is imprisoned on a Turkish island for leading a separatist movement.

While Turkey’s Western allies, including the U.S., consider the PKK a terrorist group, Washington has offered direct military and logistical support for Syrian Kurdish militants, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, to fight IS in Syria. This has infuriated Ankara and strained its relations with Washington even though the two are NATO allies.

The YPG denies accusations of separatism and the YPG-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces said Monday the Turkish offensive “gives IS a space to breathe.”

Why now?

Turkey has long warned it would not allow a “terror corridor” on its border with Syria and launched a cross-border operation with Syrian opposition forces into Jarablus in northern Syria in 2016.

That operation cleared the Turkish border and nearly 2,000 square kilometers of the extremist IS but also aimed to prevent the YPG from linking the Afrin and Kobani cantons.

Turkey is pushing to be a key player in the Syrian conflict on behalf of rebels in peace talks in Kazakhstan, where it has been negotiating with Russia and Iran, who represent the Syrian government.

The parties have agreed on “de-escalation zones,” which has allowed Turkey to send troops to rebel-held Idlib province in October as a monitor. But once again, Turkey’s other goal has been to check the YPG’s westward expansion, and Turkey amassed troops and armored vehicles between Idlib and Afrin.

The latest development leading up to the Afrin operation was an announcement by the U.S. military earlier this month that it was going to create a 30,000-member border force with the Kurdish fighters to secure northern Syria.

This has incensed Turkish leaders who claim that U.S. arms provided to the Syrian Kurds are and will be used against Turkey.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has tried to walk back the U.S. position, saying it was misrepresented. The U.S. also is discussing with Turkey and others the possibility of setting up a security zone on the Syria border to address Turkey’s concerns about a Kurdish enclave there, Tillerson said Monday. The buffer zone Turkey has been pushing for since 2012 may be closer than ever, with one already established around Jarablus.

What’s at stake?

The Afrin operation poses considerable military and political risks for Turkey. Erdogan has slammed critics who describe the operation as an “invasion” and said Turkish troops would leave after fulfilling their mission.

The Afrin district houses an estimated 800,000 civilians, including displaced people from earlier years of the Syrian war. Airstrikes could lead to another humanitarian crisis.

If Turkey’s campaign proves successful, it could continue on to Manbij, where U.S.-backed Kurdish militants are in control since pushing IS out. Turkey has long accused the U.S. of going back on a promise that the militants would withdraw from the town.

The operation risks destabilizing a relatively peaceful area in Syria where civilians have found refuge and could further complicate the seven-year civil war.

The U.S. has urged Turkey to exercise restraint and said it would maintain a military presence with the Kurds for the foreseeable future. This continued support angers Turkish leaders, who expressed dismay that the U.S. chose to work with Syrian Kurds rather than Turkey in the fight against IS.

The European Union also warned Turkey that its offensive could undermine the Geneva peace talks.

Russia has pulled back troops from Afrin but has recently firmed up its ties with the YPG, while Turkey has struck defense and trade deals with Russia, raising questions about its NATO membership.

Syria’s government in Damascus says it will shoot down any Turkish jets on raids in the country. The two governments have been at odds for years.

The operation could also spread along the Turkish-Syrian border. Skirmishes in the east already have been reported. It risks intensifying the conflict within Turkey, further polarizing a divided nation where pro-Kurdish lawmakers and many others have been arrested on alleged terror charges.
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Sudanese Authorities Release Reuters, AFP Journalists

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Sudanese authorities on Monday released a Reuters journalist and an Agence France-Presse (AFP) reporter who were detained while covering protests in Khartoum on Wednesday last week.

Reuters regained contact with its Sudanese reporter, Khalid Abdelaziz, on Monday evening for the first time since before his arrest. He said he had not been mistreated, and was released alongside the AFP reporter and another local journalist.

No charges were filed against the reporters, who were detained in Khartoum’s Kobar prison.

“We are extremely relieved that Reuters reporter Khalid Abdelaziz has been released from detention in Khartoum,” a Reuters spokesperson said. “He has been reunited with his family and will return to the important work of reporting on events in Sudan in due course.”

AFP published a news story confirming the release of its reporter.

The journalists were detained while covering protests and clashes with security forces which broke out across Sudan early this month after Khartoum imposed tough economic measures in line with recommendations by the International Monetary Fund.
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Schumer’s Moment: Shutdown Puts Spotlight on Dem Leader

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For Republicans, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is the face of the government shutdown. For immigration advocates, he’s their best hope.

Perhaps the most powerful Democrat in Washington, Schumer has so far succeeded in keeping his party unified in a bid to use the government funding fight to push for protections for some 700,000 young immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children. But he has little margin for error in this first major test of his muscle and maneuvering as leader. The pragmatist is balancing the demands of a liberal base eager for a fight with President Donald Trump and the political realities of red-state senators anxious about their re-election prospects this fall.

Some of those senators met with Schumer Sunday morning and urged a compromise to end the shutdown.

“The question is, how do we get out of here in a way that reflects what the majority of the body wants to do,” said Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, who is among the Democrats on the ballot in November. She added: “It is critically important that we get this done today.”

Yet the weekend closed without a deal, meaning thousands of federal employees will wake up Monday either being told to stay home or work without pay. The Senate scheduled a vote Monday to advance a bill that would extend government funding through Feb. 8. In a bid to win over a few holdouts, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also pledged to take up legislation on immigration and other top Democratic priorities if they weren’t already addressed by the time that spending bill would expire.

It’s unclear whether McConnell’s pledge will be enough to sway the handful of Democrats he needs to pass a spending bill. Democratic aides said that while Schumer, who spent the weekend calling members on his flip phone, appears to be holding the party together for now, some senators were eagerly searching for a way out of the shutdown.

Despite controlling the White House and both chambers of Congress, Republicans have pinned the blame for the shutdown squarely on Schumer, accusing him of being captive to liberals and advocacy groups who oppose any spending package that doesn’t result in a solution for the young immigrants. The White House and GOP officials have branded the funding gap the “Schumer Shutdown,” spreading the phrase as a hashtag on social media.

Immigration advocates are hoping Schumer will see that as badge of honor, but there is anxiety about his resolve.

“He went to the mats,” said Frank Sharry, the executive director of the immigration advocacy group America’s Voice. “He had the backbone to lead his caucus into a high-stakes, high risk battle. It thrilled progressives. But if the shutdown ends because Democrats blink first, the era of good feeling quickly will be replaced by anger and disappointment.”

Schumer isn’t the most natural fit for the role of champion of the left.

The energetic, four-term senator is viewed as more of a pragmatist than an ideologue. He has long faced skepticism from some liberals, thanks, in part, to his Wall Street ties. He frustrated many Democrats with his opposition to the Iran nuclear deal championed by President Barack Obama.

In 2013, Schumer was part of a bipartisan group of senators who worked on a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s fractured immigration laws. The package, which would have created a pathway to citizenship for millions of people in the U.S. illegally, was narrowly approved in the Senate but never taken up by the House

Just last month, immigration advocates, including members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, were furious with Schumer and Democratic leaders for not forcing a fight over the young immigrants. Democratic aides said that despite the pressure from some of his party’s most energized forces, Schumer knew his caucus would not hold together at that point. Indeed, 18 Democratic senators ultimately voted for a short-term spending bill that kicked both the budget battle and the immigration fight into the new year.

The dynamic shifted in January. Democrats began the year hopeful that Trump, who has expressed sympathy for the young immigrants, would be willing to make a big deal. When those plans collapsed, Schumer found more enthusiasm even among moderate Democrat senators to withhold support for a spending bill that didn’t address immigration, even if it meant forcing a shutdown.

He was helped along, according to multiple Democratic aides, by revelations that Trump had told lawmakers during a private meeting that he wanted less immigration from “shithole” countries in Africa and more from places like Norway.

Schumer experienced a sea change after the remarks, according to one aide, who like other Democrats and Trump advisers, insisted on anonymity in order to describe private deliberations.

Still, Schumer entertained one last opportunity to make a deal with Trump on Friday, when the president summoned him to the White House for a cheeseburger lunch. The two New Yorkers have a long history with each other and both have entertained the idea that they could be negotiating partners, though they’ve so far had little success.

Schumer arrived at the White House with the outlines of a deal he believed his caucus would support. One Democratic aide said the agreement included “significant appropriations” for spending on Trump’s proposed border wall. The White House has since disputed that characterization, with Trump budget director Mick Mulvaney saying Sunday that what Schumer offered Trump was “authorization for funding, not an appropriation” — meaning no guarantee of money.

Schumer started spreading word of a possible agreement to his members. But within hours, White House chief of staff John Kelly called Schumer to say that the deal he’d discussed with the president was too liberal for the White House to accept.

As of Sunday night, it was the last discussion Schumer has had with the White House.

White House officials say Trump feels burned by Schumer after the immigration negotiations and they don’t view him as an honest broker. Spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the senator’s “memory is hazy” and his recollection of Friday’s meeting is “false.”
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UK’s Princess Eugenie Engaged

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Princess Eugenie is engaged to be married later this year, several months after her cousin Prince Harry takes a bride.

 

Buckingham Palace said Monday the daughter of Prince Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson will marry Jack Brooksbank in the fall.

 

The palace says the wedding will take place at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor.

 

The 27-year-old princess was the second child born to Andrew and Sarah. She holds a full-time job in the art world.

 

Prince Harry and his American fiancee Meghan Markle are to marry in Windsor in May.

 

 
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Mattis in Southeast Asia, Amid Fresh US Focus on China

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Just days after unveiling a new Pentagon strategy that prioritizes the U.S. geopolitical rivalry with China, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is getting a chance to start implementing it.

Mattis is in Jakarta, Indonesia, the first stop on a week-long trip that will also take him to Vietnam.  Both countries are modernizing their militaries and have pushed back on China’s expansive territorial claims.  

On Friday, Mattis unveiled a National Defense Strategy that outlines a fresh attempt to redirect attention from terrorism toward what it termed “great power competition” with China and Russia.

“What we’re looking for is a world where we solve problems and we don’t shred trust, we don’t militarize features in the middle of international waters, we don’t invade other countries, in Russia’s case,” Mattis told reporters on his flight to Jakarta.

Distracted attention

The Obama administration also tried to rebalance military and economic engagement toward the Pacific, ostensibly to respond to a more powerful and assertive China.  

But that shift was complicated by the rise of Islamic State and the continued threat from North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, many of the same global challenges remain.

North Korea will come up in his talks in Vietnam and Indonesia, Mattis acknowledged.

Counterterrorism and Islamic State are also likely to be a focus in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country.  The country must deal with the possible return of hundreds of Indonesians who fought with IS in Syria and Iraq.

South China Sea

A major focus of the trip will be the South China Sea, where Beijing has built up military and other facilities, overriding the territorial claims of its smaller neighbors.

“Small nations (should) get the same respect, the same regard, as larger nations.  Every nation matters and there should not be any bullying or shredding of trust toward others,” Mattis said.

The United States insists it does not take official positions on the territorial disputes.  But Mattis said his very presence in Indonesia and Vietnam means “we respect these countries and we respect their sovereign decisions.”

“What we want out here [is] … a peaceful, prosperous, and free Asia, with a free and open regional order defined by the rule of law,” he added.

Vietnam is perhaps the most vocal opponent of China’s territorial claims.  It has clashed repeatedly with Chinese boats in recent years.

Though Indonesia has been less vocal and does not consider itself a claimant nation, it too has pushed back.  Last year, Jakarta renamed a portion of the South China Sea, angering Beijing.

“We applaud any country’s efforts to enforce its sovereignty and its exclusive economic zone and to fly, sail and operate wherever international law will allow them,” says Joseph Felter, the top U.S. defense official for Southeast Asia.

Long-term strategy

The South China Sea has not made the headlines as much in the past year, thanks to a combination of factors: a new government in the Philippines appears less assertive about standing up to Beijing, the United States has focused on getting China’s cooperation in averting a major crisis in Korea, and there has been a slow-down in Chinese island-building – although that may be because Beijing has already finished construction, says Felter.

“They’ve got a long-term strategy in the region, and we need to develop one to demonstrate our sincerity in being a credible partner and to give countries options,” Felter says.

One option is reviving the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or “Quad”, an informal alliance between the United States, India, Australia, and Japan formed in 2007.   The arrangement quickly lost momentum, in part due to Chinese fears it was aimed at containing Beijing’s rise, but the group met in November for the first time since its creation, and some commentators have questioned whether something like an “Asian NATO” is in the works.

Alexander Vuving, professor at Hawaii’s Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, says, “The biggest nightmare for China is a coalition between the United States and Japan and India and Australia.  And a big question is how do these four countries connect their efforts with some emerging local partners, like Vietnam and Indonesia.”

The Quad hasn’t been a major focus, but that may be by design, says Vuving.

“You don’t want to alert China – to make sort of a false alarm in Beijing about a new containment strategy,” he says.  “So I think the idea is to keep the Quad under the radar, to keep it informal.”

But speaking last week alongside his Quadrilateral counterparts at a forum in New Delhi, U.S. Pacific Commander Admiral Harry Harris bluntly chastised China as a “disruptive, transitional force in the Indo-Pacific.”

“We must be willing to take the tough decisions in 2018 against unilateral ways to change the use of the global commons with rules-based freedom of navigation,” Harris added.

 
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Trump to Face Mixed Welcome at Elite Davos Gathering

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In Davos this week, participants can experience “a day in the life of a refugee.” Or hear about ways to uphold the Paris climate accord and promote free trade. Or rub elbows with any number of leaders of African countries.

 

Enter Donald Trump.

 

The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, is meant — pretentiously perhaps — to be a place for the world’s decision-makers to put their power to good use. The theme this year is “Creating a Shared Future in Fractured World,” an ambition not likely to turn up on the U.S. president’s Twitter feed.

Instead, Trump will bring his zero-sum message of “America First,” and will speak last among the parade of world leaders — from places like India, France and Canada — who are gathering from Tuesday to Friday in the Swiss snows.

 

As with most things Trump, there are stark contrasts between how attendees view his visit. Some are happy and hope for dialogue. Others unabashedly say they wish he would stay away and accuse him of a lack of compassion and vision for the world that are out of place in Davos.

 

“I find it quite sad he’s coming to the WEF, but I imagine nothing can be done about it,” said Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard, a longtime disciple of the Dalai Lama.

 

While his trip — which was still on schedule despite the U.S. government shutdown — may seem incongruous, unwelcome or unexpected, he will be sticking to one key aspect of the WEF’s original ambition in starting the annual forum in Davos 47 years ago: Business. An array of Cabinet officials is also due to tag along, suggesting the U.S. is preparing a big economic and diplomatic push.

Some have suggested it’s ironic that Trump, a self-styled populist despite his penchant for the penthouse, is attending the elite Alpine event. Others speculated he could have felt a need to regain the Davos spotlight for the United States a year after Chinese President Xi Jinping stole the show by casting China as a champion of free trade and stability — and many companies responded by turning greater attention toward it.

 

An administration official said Trump is expected to tout the booming U.S. economy and measures like his recent tax overhaul, while again criticizing trade practices that he sees as unfair toward the U.S. The official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity to discuss internal plans, said Trump made the decision to go because he thinks he has a positive economic message.

 

With Wall Street surging, Trump has some cheerleaders on the economic front — even if they hope he’ll be more accommodating.

 

“I think it’s really good that he’s going,” said Bill Thomas, chairman of business services KPMG International. “The American economy is dependent on global engagement, and I think he’s in Davos because he knows that.”

 

Some wonder whether Trump can win over the Davos set, or whether they might succeed in turning his ear — and give him a chance to reboot his administration’s image abroad.

 

“Corporate America, in terms of economic policies, is very pleased with the way the administration is going,” said Andy Baldwin, a regional managing partner for financial services firm EY. But he acknowledged that Trump controversies elsewhere had “overshadowed some of the policies.”

 

Outside of business, though — whether among human rights advocates, environmentalists, peaceniks or free-trade proponents — Trump is shunned.

 

“Despite its formal name, Davos is about more than economics,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, in an e-mail. “So while Trump undoubtedly intends to trumpet U.S. economic progress, many Davos participants will question his racist, misogynistic, and xenophobic rhetoric and policies.”

 

“Unless he plans an unexpected apology and reversal, he will face a far colder reception than he probably anticipates,” he said.

 

Parts of the jet-set have it in for Trump. Elton John, whose song title “Rocket Man” Trump used to deride North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, will be in Davos, as will actress Cate Blanchett, who shaped chewing gum into a phallus on late-night TV to mock Trump just days after he took office. So will several African leaders whose countries Trump allegedly dismissed with a vulgarity earlier this month.

 

Small protests have started, and others are expected in Zurich on Tuesday and possibly in Davos on Thursday. A Swiss anti-Trump petition has garnered more than 16,000 supporters online, calling on him to stay away. Authorities are boosting security for only the second visit by a serving U.S. president to Davos, after Bill Clinton in 2000.

 

Some might even see a snub in French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to not stick around to see Trump even though the White House initially had announced a face-to-face meeting in Davos.

 

In his speech Wednesday, Macron is expected to offer a “lucid” diagnosis about globalization, and raise environmental concerns, an adviser said. Macron’s speech could shape up as a counter narrative, and though he wasn’t expected to mention Trump by name “you can read between the lines,” the adviser said, on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.

 

“It’s good to have the president here, if the snow conditions and the situation in Washington allow us,” WEF founder Klaus Schwab told The Associated Press on Monday, alluding to the U.S. government shutdown that could spoil Trump’s plans to attend. The White House has said it’s monitoring the situation day to day, and Schwab said: “At the moment we cannot make a comment on that [Trump’s attendance].”

 

Trump has, in a way, already been on hand in Davos. During last year’s event, which coincided with his inauguration, many attendees gawked at TV sets as Trump declared “America First” from the Capitol steps.

 

When he arrives this year, discretion may be the order of the day: Zurich airport, the closest big hub, has announced a lockdown on press access for the arrival of Air Force One.

 

Switzerland’s Young Socialists party is revving up to protest to register pent-up anger about how Trump lost the popular vote in 2016, but won the election, and suspicions of Russian meddling in that contest.

 

“He’s sexist, he’s racist,” said Tamara Funiciello, the group’s president. “And I don’t think it’s responsible to speak with him.”

 

 

 
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Dismissive Words on Abuse Scandal Cast Pall Over Pope’s Trip

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Pope Francis ventured into the Amazon to demand rights for indigenous groups, decried the scourge of corruption afflicting the region’s politics and denounced a culture of “machismo” in which violence against women is too often tolerated.

 

Yet his latest visit to South America is likely to be remembered most for 27 dismissive words that sparked outrage among Chileans already angry over a notorious clerical abuse scandal and haunted the rest of his trip.

 

“That is the enigma of Pope Francis,” Anne Barrett Doyle of the online abuse database BishopAccountability.org said Sunday. “He is so bold and compassionate on many issues but he is an old school defensive bishop when it comes to the sex abuse crisis.”

 

Even before Francis landed in Chile for the first leg of his two-country trip, the pontiff’s visit seemed ripe for contention. Vandals fire-bombed three churches in the capital of Santiago, warning in a leaflet that “the next bombs will be in your cassock,” and an angry group protesting the high cost of hosting him briefly occupied the Nunciature where he would sleep.

 

Also looming over his visit to both Chile and Peru were damaging clerical sex abuse scandals and growing apathy over the Catholic Church. In a Latinobarometro annual poll last year, 45 percent of Chileans identified as Roman Catholic, a sharp drop from the mid-60s a decade ago. Even in deeply religious Peru, where nearly three-quarters of the population calls itself Catholic, the number of faithful has dipped notably from a generation ago.

 

As Francis drove through the streets of Santiago in a popemobile after arriving the crowds standing by to greet him were comparably thin when compared to other papal visits.

 

“Love live the pope!” some yelled. But others weren’t welcoming. “Stop the abuse, Francis!” one person’s sign said. “You can so you must.”

 

Francis almost immediately dove into the thorny topic of the abuse scandal, meeting on his first full day with survivors of priests who had sexually abused them and apologizing for the “irreparable damage” they suffered.

 

He proceeded to take on equally contentious concerns throughout the rest of his stay in Chile. He called on the government and indigenous Mapuche to find ways to peacefully resolve differences that have seen a surge of violence. And he urged Chileans to remain welcoming to a surge of new immigrants.

 

All the while, signs that Francis himself was unwanted continued to emerge. Police shot tear gas and detained dozens of protesters outside a Mass in the capital and there were more church burnings. Aerial photographs taken by local newspapers of all three of Francis’ outdoor Masses showed swaths of empty spaces

 

Then came the 27 words that stunned the nation.

 

Questioned by local journalists about Chilean Bishop Juan Barros, who abuse survivors say was present when the Rev. Fernando Karadima molested them decades ago, Francis responded that there was no proof against the bishop he appointed in 2015 and characterized the accusations as slander.

 

“The day they bring me proof against Bishop Barros, then I’ll speak,” he said. “There is not one shred of proof against him. It’s all calumny. Is that clear?”

 

The comment, combined with Barros’ presence at several activities during the week, cast a pall over the entire trip.

 

“The pope’s visit in Chile turned into the worst of his five years as pontiff,” read a headline in Clarin, a major newspaper in Francis’ native Argentina.

 

“The principal legacy of this trip will be negative because of Francis’ support of Barros,” said German Silva, a political scientist at the Universidad Mayor in Santiago.

 

The remark followed him into Peru. Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the pope’s top adviser on abuse, and the Chilean government publicly rebuked the pope in a remarkable correction. And near a church where the pope prayed on his final day, a banner hung from a building with the words “Francis, here there is proof” and accompanied by the photo of the disgraced founder of a Peru-based Catholic lay movement.

 

The banner was a reference to Peru’s biggest clerical abuse scandal, involving Luis Figari, the former leader of Sodalitium Christianae Vitae. An independent investigation found Figari sodomized recruits and forced them to fondle him and one another.

 

Still, despite the outrage that case has stirred in Peru, the pope received a warmer reception here. Thousands waited to greet him each night as he retired to the papal embassy in Lima and people lined the streets wherever he went. Peruvians largely praised his comments condemning corruption in a nation that has been embroiled in Latin America’s largest graft scandal. They also welcomed his call to protect the Amazon and stop crimes like sex trafficking and femicide that plague much of the region.

 

Andrew Chesnut, the Catholic Studies chair at Virginia Commonwealth University, said Francis likely deepened wounds in Chile. But in Peru, “he has helped alleviate the pain of a polarized society, though the medicine won’t last long.”

 

Juan Rivera, 31, who attended a final papal Mass that drew 1.3 million people, said the abuse scandals certainly stain the church’s reputation. But, he added, “Faith itself can’t be stained.”
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Tourism Booming in Cuba Despite Tougher New Trump Policy

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On a sweltering early summer afternoon in Miami’s Little Havana, President Donald Trump told a cheering Cuban-American crowd that he was rolling back some of Barack Obama’s opening to Cuba in order to starve the island’s military-run economy of U.S. tourism dollars and ratchet up pressure for regime change.

 

That doesn’t appear to be happening. Travel to Cuba is booming from dozens of countries, including the U.S. And the tourism dollars from big-spending Americans seem to be heading into Cuba’s state sector and away from private business, according to Cuban state figures, experts and private business people themselves.

 

The government figures show that 2017 was a record year for tourism, with 4.7 million visitors pumping more than $3 billion into the island’s otherwise struggling economy. The number of American travelers rose to 619,000, more than six times the pre-Obama level. But amid the boom — an 18 percent increase over 2016 — owners of private restaurants and bed-and-breakfasts are reporting a sharp drop-off.

 

“There was an explosion of tourists in the months after President Obama’s detente announcement. They were everywhere!” said Rodolfo Morales, a retired government worker who rents two rooms in his home for about $30 a night. “Since then, it’s fallen off.”

The ultimate destination of American tourism spending in Cuba seems an obscure data point, but it’s highly relevant to a decades-old goal of American foreign policy — encouraging change in Cuba’s single-party, centrally planned system. For more than 50 years, Washington sought to strangle nearly all trade with the island in hopes of spurring economic collapse. Obama changed that policy to one of promoting engagement as a way of strengthening a Cuban private sector that could grow into a middle class empowered to demand reform.

 

Cuba’s tourism boom began shortly after Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro announced in December 2014 that their countries would re-establish diplomatic relations and move toward normalization. U.S. cruise ships began docking in the Bay of Havana and U.S. airlines started regular flights to cities across the island. Overall tourism last year was up 56 percent over Cuba’s roughly 3 million visitors in 2014.

While the U.S. prohibits tourism to Cuba, Americans can travel here for specially designated purposes like religious activity or the vaguely defined category of “people-to-people” cultural interaction.

 

Obama allowed individuals to participate in “people-to-people” activities outside official tour groups. Hundreds of thousands of Americans responded by designing their own Cuban vacations without fear of government penalties.

Since Cuba largely steers tour groups to government-run facilities, Americans traveling on their own became a vital market for the island’s private entrepreneurs, hotly desired for their free spending, heavy tipping and a desire to see a “real” Cuba beyond all-inclusive beach resorts and quick stops on tour buses. The surge helped travel-related businesses maintain their role as by far the most successful players in Cuba’s small but growing private sector.

 

Trump’s new policy re-imposed the required for “people-to-people” travel to take place only in tour groups, which depend largely on Cuban government transportation and guides.

 

As a result, many private business people are seeing so many fewer Americans that it feels like their numbers are dropping, even though the statistics say otherwise.

 

“Tourism has grown in Cuba, with the exception of American tourism,” said Nelson Lopez, a private tour guide. “But I’m sure that sometime soon they’ll be back.”

 

While Trump’s new rules didn’t take effect until November, their announcement in June led to an almost immediate slackening in business from individual Americans, many Cuban entrepreneurs say.

The situation was worsened by Hurricane Irma striking Cuba’s northern coast in September and by a Cuban government freeze on new licenses for businesses including restaurants and bed-and-breakfasts. Cuban officials say the freeze was needed to control tax evasion, purchase of stolen state goods and other illegality in the private sector, but it’s had the effect of further restricting private-sector activity in the wake of Trump’s policy change.

 

Cuban state tourism officials did not respond to requests for comment.

 

Trump’s policy changes did not touch flights or cruise ships. Jose Luis Perello, a tourism expert at the University of Havana, said more than 541,000 cruise ship passengers visited Cuba in 2017, compared with 184,000 the previous year. Even as entrepreneurs see fewer American clients, many of those cruise passengers are coming from the United States, he said.

 

Yunaika Estanque, who runs a three-room bed-and-breakfast overlooking the Bay of Havana, says she has been able to weather a sharp drop in American guests because a British tour agency still sends her clients, but things still aren’t good.

 

“Without a doubt our best year was 2016, before the Trump presidency,” she said. “I’ve been talking with other bed-and-breakfast owners and they’re in bad shape.”
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Madrid Requests Reactivation of Arrest Warrant for Former Catalan Leader

Posted on by SeeEU

Spain’s state prosecutors asked the country’s Supreme Court Monday to reactivate an international arrest warrant for former Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont.

Puigdemont is in Denmark to take part in a debate on Catalonia at the University of Copenhagen Monday and meet Danish lawmakers on Tuesday.

It is not clear whether the Spanish Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena, who is handling the case, will grant it.

Madrid had threatened to issue a warrant for Puigdemont’s arrest if he left Belgium, where he fled to avoid prosecution over his role in Catalonia’s independence vote in October.

This is the first time that Puigdemont has traveled outside Belgium. He has been living in Brussels since he was fired by Spain’s central government, immediately after his regional administration declared independence from Spain.

Puigdemont and four members of his ousted government have been fighting return to Spain to face rebellion, sedition and embezzlement, charges that can be punished with decades in prison under Spanish law.
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Turkey Steps Up Offensive Against Syrian Kurdish Militia

Posted on by SeeEA

Turkish forces shelled northern Syria on Monday, pressing a campaign to push Kurdish militia out of the Afrin area, while officials said the operation will be over quickly.

The Kurdish militia YPG also reported clashes Monday with Turkish forces northwest of Afrin.

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek said in addition to being brief, the military offensive would serve to reduce Turkey’s terror risk.

Ankara accuses YPG, which controls Afrin, of being linked to an insurgency inside Turkey. The militia is a key ally of Turkey’s U.S. NATO partner in its war against the Islamic State group. Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim says the objective of the operation, called Olive Branch, is to establish a 30-kilometer security cordon inside the Afrin area to protect Turkish towns from attacks. 

Yildirim claimed a rocket attack Saturday on the Turkish border town of Kilis underscored the need for the cordon. During the attack, two houses and a workplace were hit, and one person was slightly wounded.

On Sunday, another border town — Reyhanli — was reportedly hit by rockets. Turkish media also reported that Turkish soldiers had clashed with Kurdish militia forces three kilometers inside Syria. The YPG claimed it had repelled a Turkish attack. No casualty figures have been released. 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaking to thousands of supporters in the city of Bursa Sunday, claimed the operation was proceeding successfully.

“Our jets took off and started bombing. And now, the ground operation is under way. Now, we see how the YPG … are fleeing in Afrin,” Erdogan said. “We will chase them. God willing, we will complete this operation very quickly.”

The operation

Ankara appears to be expediting the operation as it faces growing diplomatic pushback. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged Turkey to “exercise restraint” and avoid killing or injuring civilians. His comments came in phone conversations with his Russian and Turkish counterparts on Saturday. He said Turkey’s “legitimate security concerns” must be addressed and urged officials to remain focused on the goal of defeating IS. 

On Sunday, Paris announced it was calling for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council. 

“Ghouta, Idlib, Afrin — France asks for an urgent meeting of the Security Council,” wrote French Foreign Minister Yves Le Drian on Twitter. He also said he had spoken Sunday with his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu. 

“This fighting … must stop,” said French Defense Minister Florence Parly on France 3 television Sunday, warning that the Turkish offensive could interfere in the war against IS. 

The pushback by France may have surprised Ankara, according to political columnist Semih Idiz of the Al Monitor website. He noted French President Emmanuel Macron recently hosted his Turkish counterpart in Paris in a meeting heralded in Ankara as the defining of new relationship with France.

Macron is again establishing himself as a world leader, said political columnist Cengiz Aktar. He said if the Security Council views these actions as a threat to peace, it could put Turkey “in a very difficult position and unsustainable position.” Aktar says with France being likely viewed as neutral by the other security members, it would enhance the chances of the success in any vote.

But other analyst played down the significance of any U.N. Security Council meeting.

“There will be a balanced approach. I don’t think there will be direct targeting of Turkey by name,” says Idiz. “Even if the pressure is applied, the juggernaut has started rolling. You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube.”

France’s move comes amid growing numbers of images purportedly of civilian casualties from Turkish fire. 

“As always, the PKK/YPG terrorists continue to deceive the world with nonsense propaganda and baseless lies by showing neutralized terrorists as civilians,” Cavusoglu tweeted.

Erdogan is continuing to rally support within Turkey for the operation, touring the country and addressing large public rallies. The speeches condemn the YPG Kurdish militia and describe the operation in heavy nationalist rhetoric as a battle for the future of the nation. Erdogan also criticizes Washington. Analysts say both play well with his nationalist sentiments but also mark a key point in relations between NATO allies.

“The vast population is behind him. He is openly challenging the United States. He has “crossed the Rubicon” and “won’t be able to go back now [past U.S.-Turkish relations),” warned Aktar. He adds, “there is a kind of national pride, which is very, very strong.” Because of that, Aktar says “we can safely say Mr. Erdogan will win all the coming elections.”

Future elections

In 2019, Turkey faces local, general and presidential elections. Speculation is growing the polls might be brought forward to 2018. The CHP Party, the country’s main opposition, has strongly backed the military operation.

“We wish that this operation achieves success and reaches its goal as soon as possible,” said Bulent Tezcan, CHP deputy chairman. … We hope the Turkish Armed Forces will reach its target without any injury or loss and return home safely. May God help our army and our soldiers.” 

The country’s second-largest opposition party, the pro-Kurdish HDP, finds itself as the only mainstream party opposing the operation — a stance that is putting the party under growing pressure. 

At a rally Sunday, Erdogan warned: “HDP calls for demonstrations against the Afrin campaign. Do not go out to the square. Those who come out of the square will pay a heavy price.” 

The party’s co-leaders are already in jail on terrorism charges, along with thousands of its officials.

There have been few demonstrations against the Afrin military operation in Turkey. An attempted protest in central Istanbul was quickly broken up by police Sunday with a series of arrests, and journalists were warned not to film the incident. 

VOA Kurdish Service stringer Newroz Resho contributed to this report.
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Germany’s CDU and SPD to Start Formal Coalition Talks

Posted on by SeeEU

German conservatives are preparing for formal coalition talks with Social Democrats (SPD) Monday shortly after the center-left party voted to break the months of political deadlock.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Union bloc (CDU) and SPD of Martin Schultz are expected to open formal negotiation this week on extending their coalition of the past four years. 

Conservatives are warning, however, that they are not prepared to renegotiate preliminary agreements on such issues as migration.

Julia Kloeckner (Klöckner), a deputy leader of CDU, told ARD television Monday that the upcoming negotiations will focus on advancing of what was already agreed “but not bring up something that was already rejected.”

An SPD congress voted Sunday to pursue coalition talks with CDU, endorsing a plan agreed to earlier this month to compromise on issues such as health policy and the right of migrants’ families to join them in Germany.
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