Month: February 2018

White House Aide Hope Hicks Faces Lawmakers’ Questions

Posted on by SeeUS

White House communications director Hope Hicks, one of President Donald Trump’s longest-running aides, appeared Tuesday before a congressional panel probing his campaign’s links to Russia, but it is not clear how many questions she was willing to answer.

The House Intelligence Committee is meeting behind closed doors with Hicks, who first worked for the Trump family as a public relations spokeswoman for Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, to promote her clothing business before later joining Trump’s campaign on his successful 2016 run for the White House.

The congressional panel has sparred in recent weeks with former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon over the scope of questions he would answer about the weeks after Trump won the election before taking office and then events that occurred after Trump assumed power 13 months ago.

The White House did not invoke executive privilege against his testimony, but worked to limit the scope of questions he would answer to a prepared list of queries.

It has not been disclosed what line of questions the 29-year-old Hicks will face. Her earlier appearance in January before the same committee was scuttled in a dispute over what questions she would answer.

One point of Tuesday’s inquiry is likely to focus on her role in helping draft a misleading statement on Air Force One last year about a June 2016 meeting that Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and then-campaign manager Paul Manafort held with a Russian lawyer in Trump Tower in the midst of the campaign. The younger Trump set up the meeting believing he would get incriminating information about Democrat Hillary Clinton, Trump’s opponent, but the mid-2017 statement about the gathering said it was about Americans’ adoptions of Russian children.

Congressman Michael Conaway, a Texas Republican who who is running the panel’s Russia investigation, said Monday that he “would not be surprised” if Hicks refuses to answer certain questions on grounds that Trump may eventually want to invoke executive privilege to keep secret conversations he had with her.

Trump almost daily attacks the investigations into Russia’s meddling in the election that was aimed at helping him defeat Clinton, a former U.S. secretary of state.

On Tuesday, hours before Hicks was set for questioning, Trump said on Twitter, “WITCH HUNT,” in all capital letters. He quoted several analysts who say they see no evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia or that he obstructed justice in trying to curb the FBI’s Russia investigation by firing former FBI director James Comey, who at the time was leading the agency’s Russia probe.

Trump’s ouster of Comey last May led to the appointment of another former FBI director, Robert Mueller, as the special counsel to continue the Russia investigation.

Mueller has secured guilty pleas from Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and former foreign affairs adviser George Papadopoulos for lying to investigators about their Russia contacts. One-time Trump campaign aide Rick Gates pleaded guilty last week to financial fraud and lying to investigators in connection with his lobbying efforts for the Moscow-backed government in Ukraine that predated his role in the U.S. political race. 
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Leading Slovak Daily Points to Mafia in Journalist Murder

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A leading Slovak newspaper says organized crime may have been involved in the shooting death of an investigative journalist that shocked Slovakia.

 

The bodies of 27-year-old Jan Kuciak and his girlfriend Martina Kusnirova were found Sunday evening in their house in the town of Velka Maca, east of the capital, Bratislava.

 

In an interview with the Sme daily on Tuesday, Slovakia-based Canadian journalist Tom Nicholson said he was in touch with Kuciak before his death and that he was working on a story about possible Italian mafia involvement in frauds linked to EU subsidies in eastern Slovakia. Nicholson said he was ready to testify.

 

Kuciak’s was the first murder of a journalist in Slovakia. The government is offering 1 million euros ($1.23 million) to anyone who helps the authorities find the people responsible.

 
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Turkey Says Czech Release of Former PYD Leader is ‘Support for Terror’

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The Turkish government said Tuesday the release of the former leader of a Syrian Kurdish political party by a Czech court was “a clear support for terror.”

Prague’s Municipal Court decided Tuesday to release former Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party leader Salih Muslim despite Turkey’s request for his extradition.

Turkey has accused the former PYD leader with disrupting the state and aggravated murder. He was detained in the Czech capital of Prague Saturday following a Turkish request for his arrest.

Turkey considers the PYD a terrorist group associated with outlawed Kurdish rebels fighting within the country’s borders. Earlier this month, the Turkish government placed Muslim on its most-wanted list and announced a $1 million reward for his capture.

Turkish government spokesman Bekir Bozdag said the ruling violated international law and predicted it would adversely affect Turkish-Czech relations.

The PYD is the the most influential political Kurdish force in northern Syria and Muslim has maintained clout within the party, even after resigning as co-chair last year.

Turkey launched a military offensive into northern Syria in late January in an effort to push the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, from the enclave of Afrin. The YPG is a U.S.-supported Syrian Kurdish militia group and the armed unit of the PYD.

 
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Stalinism Resurgent in Russia as Critics Warn Against Whitewashing Soviet History

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Decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, there is fierce debate over the legacy of one of its most brutal dictators.

Josef Stalin, who ruled from the 1930s until his death in 1953, is held responsible for the deaths of millions of his countrymen. Yet, an opinion poll last year crowned him as the country’s most outstanding historical figure.

Russia’s recent decision to ban the satirical British film “The Death of Stalin” appears to have fueled divisions over the legacy of the dictator.

The Gulag State Museum in Moscow attempts to convey the scale of the atrocities carried out under Stalin’s rule, alongside the individual tragedies. Anyone deemed “an enemy of the people” — from petty criminals to political prisoners — could be condemned to years of forced labor in concentration camps known as gulags, which were established across the Soviet Union.

“Twenty million people came through the concentration camps. Over a million were shot, and 6 million were deported or re-settled by force,” said museum director Roman Romanov.

Watch Henry Ridgwell’s report:

Stalin is lionized by many Russians for leading the Soviet Union to victory over Nazi Germany. His reign of terror led to the deaths of millions of his countrymen.”This was no natural disaster. This is a well-planned crime by the state against the people. And now, people do not want to accept such an idea, because people do not like thinking this way about their country, about their government,” Nikita Petrov, vice chairman of the human rights group Memorial, told VOA in a recent interview. 

“Every year, resentment against studying this subject [of Stalin’s atrocities] increases, because it hinders the glorification of the Soviet period of history.”

From the dozens of monuments to memorial plaques that are springing up in towns and cities across Russia, critics say Stalin nostalgia is permeating everyday life. In St. Petersburg, young Russian political blogger Victor Loginov organized the funding for a privately run bus emblazoned with a portrait of a smiling Stalin. It has not been universally welcomed — the bus has been vandalized several times, and the portrait painted over.

Loginov denies he’s glorifying Soviet history.

 “While Stalinism was undoubtedly and endlessly cruel, without this repression, and this shocking number of victims, there would have been no transformation of this country’s civilization — its transformation from an agricultural to an industrial nation, from economically backward to developed,” he said.

Romanov said younger generations are not taught the reality of Stalin’s rule.

“There are people still alive who came through the concentration camps, and I felt there is such gap between us. With all the programs we pursue in the museum, we try to make a sort of ‘small bridge’ between the generations.”

Deep divisions remain. During a recent debate on Stalin’s legacy aired on Russia’s Komsomolskaya Pravda radio, two prominent journalists began brawling after one accused his opponent of “spitting on the graves” of Soviet World War II soldiers.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has in the past called Stalin a “complex figure.” The president opened a monument last October to the victims of Stalin-era repression, warning that “this terrible past must not be erased from Russia’s national memory.”

Meanwhile, critics accuse him of cynicism and claim political freedom is once again under attack in modern Russia.
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Stalinism Resurgent in Russia as Critics Warn Against Whitewashing History

Posted on by SeeEU

Russia’s recent decision to ban the satirical film The Death of Stalin has fueled a fierce debate in the country over the legacy of Josef Stalin, who ruled from 1929 until his death in 1953. As Henry Ridgwell reports, some in Russia argue Stalin’s crimes against humanity should be weighed against his achievements for the former Soviet Union.
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Iconic Gondola of Venice Could Disappear in the Future

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The iconic and romantic symbol of Venice, Italy – the gondola – ferries tourists along the city’s scenic waterways. But for how long? The traditional workmanship that have made these gondola’s so unique is in danger of disappearing. But as VOA’s Deborah Block reports, a workshop in the “city of water” has made it its mission to create and preserve gondolas for future generations.
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UN Warns of Hunger Among Refugees in Cameroon

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Hundreds of thousands of people who sought shelter in Cameroon after fleeing violence will go hungry unless funds are made available, the United Nations deputy emergencies chief said.

Ursula Mueller said donors had provided just 5 percent of the $305 million needed for Cameroon this year.

“Given the magnitude of the crisis of displaced people … no country can cope with the influx of so many people,” Mueller told the Thomson Reuters Foundation on Sunday upon her return from Cameroon’s Far North region.

Boko Haram attacks

The refugee crisis in Cameroon stems largely from fighting in the neighboring Central African Republic (CAR).

In addition, tens of thousands of Nigerians have fled into Cameroon to escape attacks by the militant Islamist group Boko Haram, which began an insurgency in 2009 in a bid to create an Islamic state.

Boko Haram has also attacked in Cameroon’s north, worsening the crisis.

Today 3.3 million people need help “an increase of nearly 15 percent compared with 2017, the U.N. said.

Funding a challenge

Funding remains the biggest challenge, Mueller said.

“If the funding is not forthcoming, we can’t provide the services people need and people will go hungry,” she said, adding that it was unclear how long refugees would have to stay.

Cameroon hosts 89,000 Nigerian refugees and 237,000 CAR refugees. Boko Haram violence has displaced a further 236,000 Cameroonians, the U.N. said.

Mueller commended host communities in Cameroon who often act as “the first humanitarians” in providing assistance. 

“I was also really impressed by the humanitarian response in the refugee camp in Minawao,” she said — a camp which is home to over 60,000 Nigerian refugees.

“There’s some community life, there are schools, there are health services, and people are living in dignity to get the assistance and protection they need,” she said.

Official to visit Chad

Mueller visited the CAR last week. This week she will go to Chad to meet more of those affected by Boko Haram’s attacks.

“The purpose of my visit is to tell them ‘you’re not forgotten,’” she said.
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Trump Org. Donates Foreign Profits, But Won’t Say How Much

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The Trump Organization said Monday it has made good on the president’s promise to donate profits from foreign government spending at its hotels to the U.S. Treasury, but neither the company nor the government disclosed the amount or how it was calculated.

 

Watchdog groups seized on the lack of detail as another example of the secrecy surrounding President Donald Trump’s pledges to separate his administration from his business empire.

 

“There is no independent oversight or accountability. We’re being asked to take their word for it,” said Noah Bookbinder, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “Most importantly, even if they had given every dime they made from foreign governments to the Treasury, the taking of those payments would still be a problem under the Constitution.”

 

Trump Organization Executive Vice President and Chief Compliance Counsel George Sorial said in a statement to The Associated Press that the donation was made on Feb. 22 and includes profits from Jan. 20 through Dec. 31, 2017. The company declined to provide a sum or breakdown of the amounts by country.

 

Sorial said the profits were calculated using “our policy and the Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry” but did not elaborate. The U.S. Treasury did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

 

Watchdog group Public Citizen questioned the spirit of the pledge in a letter to the Trump Organization earlier this month since the methodology used for donations would seemingly not require any donation from unprofitable properties receiving foreign government revenue.

 

Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, said that the lack of disclosure was unsurprising given that the Trump’s family businesses have “a penchant for secrecy and a readiness to violate their promises.”

 

“Did they pay with Monopoly money? If the Trump Organization won’t say how much they paid, let alone how they calculated it at each property, why in the world should we believe they actually have delivered on their promise?” Weissman said.

 

Ethics experts had already found problems with the pledge Trump made at a news conference held days before his inauguration because it didn’t include all his properties, such as his resorts, and left it up to Trump to define “profit.” The pledge was supposedly made to ameliorate the worry that Trump was violating the Constitution’s emoluments clause, which bans the president’s acceptance of foreign gifts and money without Congress’ permission.

 

Several lawsuits have challenged Trump’s ties to his business ventures and his refusal to divest from them. The suits allege that foreign governments’ use of Trump’s hotels and other properties violates the emoluments clause.

 

Trump’s attorneys have challenged the premise that a hotel room is an “emolument” but announced the pledge to “do more than what the Constitution requires” by donating foreign profits at the news conference. Later, questions emerged about exactly what this would entail.

 

An eight-page pamphlet provided by the Trump Organization to the House Oversight Committee in May said that the company planned to send the Treasury only profits obviously tied to foreign governments, and not ask guests questions about the source of their money because that would “impede upon personal privacy and diminish the guest experience of our brand.”

 

“It’s bad that Trump won’t divest himself and establish a truly blind trust, and it’s worse that he won’t be transparent,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Maryland, ranking member on the House Oversight Committee. He called the Republicans refusal to do oversight, such as subpoena documents, that would shed light on Trump’s conflicts of interest “unconscionable.”
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First Openly Transgender Recruit Joins US Military

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The first openly transgender recruit has passed both the physical and medical exams and signed a contract to join the U.S. military, the Pentagon confirmed.

“[The Pentagon] confirms that as of Feb. 23, 2018, there is one transgender individual under contract for service in the U.S. military,” said Maj. David Eastburn, a Pentagon spokesman.

The recruit was not immediately identified by gender or service.

Such a contract was made possible after a federal judge ruled in January that the military must accept transgender recruits. The ruling came after President Donald Trump announced in a tweet his desire to prevent transgender people from serving.

In July 2017, Trump surprised military leaders by tweeting, “After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military,” Trump said. “Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.”

A number of federal judges — in Baltimore, Washington, Seattle and Riverside, California — issued rulings blocking Trump’s ban. The judges said the ban would likely violate the right under the U.S. Constitution to equal protection under the law.

The Pentagon began allowing transgender recruits to seek enlistment on Jan. 1.

Advocates have said they believe dozens, if not hundreds, of transgender people will seek to join an estimated 4,000 already serving.
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Statement: New US Sanctions Aim to Block Libyan Oil Smuggling

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The United States has issued a new round of sanctions targeting oil smugglers in Libya aimed at blocking exploitation of natural resources that is driving instability, the U.S. Treasury Department said Monday.

In a statement, Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said it was sanctioning six people, 24 companies and seven vessels in a move that prohibits Americans from engaging with those targeted and freezes any related property under U.S. jurisdictions.

The sanctions target people from Libya, Malta and Egypt, according to the statement. Issued under the authority of a 2016 executive order by then U.S. President Barack Obama, companies based in Italy, Libya and Malta are also targets, the statement said.

The United Nations Security Council has condemned illicit exploitation of oil from Libya, which has been mired in conflict since an uprising in 2011 that overthrew Moammar Gadhafi, who led the country for more than 40 years.

“Oil smuggling undermines Libya’s sovereignty, fuels the black market and contributes to further instability in the region while robbing the population of resources that are rightly theirs,” OFAC’s statement said.

Libya’s oil production has steadied but is still well below the 1.6 million barrels per day it was pumping before the insurgency seven years ago and is suffering from theft, abduction and other security threats.

Production from at least one Libyan oil field has also been disrupted by a dispute over security guards’ pay.
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Saudi Envoy Invites Lebanon’s PM Hariri to Kingdom

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Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri has been invited to Saudi Arabia, his office said on Monday, setting the stage for his first visit since he abruptly resigned there in November.

Hariri received the invitation from Saudi envoy Nizar al-Aloula on Monday and would go as soon as possible, the press office said without elaborating.

The premier last travelled to the kingdom on Nov. 3 and resigned in a televised statement a day later. Lebanese officials accused Saudi Arabia of forcing Hariri, its long-time ally, to quit and putting him under effective house arrest until France intervened. Riyadh has denied this.

He returned home weeks later and withdrew his resignation, drawing a line under the crisis that had raised fears for Lebanon’s economic and political stability.

The crisis thrust Lebanon onto the frontline of a Middle East contest for power pitting a Saudi-led bloc against Iran and its allies, including the Lebanese Shi’ite Hezbollah movement.

“Saudi Arabia’s main goal is for Lebanon to be its own master, and it is keen on Lebanon’s full independence,” Hariri said after meeting Saudi envoy Nizar al-Aloula in Beirut on Monday.

After his return, Hariri’s coalition government, which includes Hezbollah, reaffirmed a state policy of staying out of conflicts in the Arab world. Saudi Arabia accuses the heavily armed Hezbollah of waging war across the Middle East as agents of Iran.

Lebanon declared its policy of “dissociation” in 2012 to keep the deeply divided state out of regional conflicts such as the war in neighbouring Syria. Still, Hezbollah has sent thousands of its fighters across the border to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
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Greece Enters Final Round of Reform Talks With Creditors

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Greece entered a last round of reform talks with creditors Monday, just five months before the country’s massive rescue program ends — and with the government and central bank publicly disagreeing on how to finance the nation after the bailout.

 

Government officials said the talks with representatives of Greece’s European partners and the International Monetary Fund in Athens would cover privatizations and energy.

 

But the negotiations were upstaged by a continued spat between Greece’s central bank governor, Yannis Stournaras, and the government over financing policies after the bailout runs out in August. The country will then have to raise money from international investors in bond markets — at a much higher rate than bailout creditors charge.

 

Stournaras repeated his argument that the government should consider setting up a precautionary credit line from the bailout rescuers that would secure the country — and its banks — cheap funding if needed, particularly as the country’s bonds are still rated well below investment grade. The finance ministry countered that this would create market jitters as to Greece’s ability to finance itself.

 

“Regardless of intentions, (Stournaras’) position … creates objective doubts regarding the prospects of the Greek economy, increases uncertainty and impedes Greece’s smooth exit from the bailout,” said Franciscos Koutentakis, the ministry’s general secretary for fiscal policy.

 

Greece signed the first of its three multi-billion euro bailouts in 2010, after it admitted its budget deficit was much higher than initially reported and investors stopped buying Greek bonds.

 

To secure the funds that kept it solvent, the country has slashed spending and public sector incomes, hiked taxes and extensively reformed its economy.

 

But the measures worsened a recession that wiped out more than a quarter of the economy and sent unemployment spiraling up by 16 percentage points between 2008 and 2016. The third bailout runs out in August.

 

Over the past eight months, the country has raised money from bond markets on three occasions through issues that were amply oversubscribed but offered high interest rates to attract investors.

 

Stournaras argued Monday that the possibility of an official credit line, to be used if needed, “should not be dramatized” as it would lower borrowing costs and “offer security as to state and bank access to financing after the end of the bailout.”

 

He also warned that the economy would remain under supervision from its European creditors until 75 percent of its debts have been repaid. Presenting the Bank of Greece’s annual report for 2017, Stournaras said economic growth is expected to accelerate to 2.4 percent this year, mostly on the wings of higher tourism receipts and exports.

Also Monday, some 2,000 municipal employees marched through central Athens to protest planned changes in school policy that unions say would threaten jobs in municipally-run kindergartens. Minor scuffles with police broke out outside parliament, but no arrests or injuries were reported.
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UN Security Council Renews Yemen Sanctions

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Russia has blocked a U.N. Security Council resolution that would have called out Iran for violating an arms embargo against Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

 

During a vote Monday, Russia wielded its veto against the British-drafted text. Bolivia joined Russia in voting against the measure, and China and Kazakhstan abstained.

 

The council instead unanimously adopted a Russian-written resolution that called for a simple one-year extension of the sanctions regime against Yemen and a renewal of the work of the panel of experts.

 

The Americans, British and French had led a widely supported effort in the council to hold Iran accountable for alleged weapons transfers to the Houthis, which have resulted in attacks against targets in neighboring Saudi Arabia.

 

“The wording advanced in the British draft is liable to have dangerous, destabilizing ramifications,” Russia’s ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told council members. “This will inevitably escalate regional tensions and lead to conflict amongst key regional players,” he warned.

 

“Russia’s veto today serves only to protect Iran’s efforts to destabilize the region and spread its malign influence,” U.S. envoy Kelley Currie said of the defeat of the British text.

 

The independent panel of experts who monitor the implementation of sanctions concluded in its most recent report that Iran had failed to prevent weapons transfers to the Houthis. But it also found that the Saudi-led coalition had obstructed delivery of humanitarian aid with its air and sea blockade, and that some of its airstrikes violated international humanitarian law.

 

The war in Yemen enters its fourth year in March. The council will hear an update on Tuesday about the resulting humanitarian crisis.

 

More than 22 million Yemenis require humanitarian assistance, including over 8 million who are a step away from famine.

 

The United Nations has called repeatedly for the parties to stop fighting and give safe and unrestricted access to aid workers. Efforts to find a political solution are stalled.
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Amid Fresh Trump Tension, Negotiators Seek Progress on NAFTA

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U.S., Mexican and Canadian negotiators met on Monday seeking to narrow disagreements on how to overhaul the NAFTA trade deal despite renewed signs of tension between Mexico and U.S. President Donald Trump over his planned border wall.

The trade teams began a seventh round of talks on Sunday aiming to finish reworking less contentious chapters of the North American Free Trade Agreement in order to create space to broker agreement on the trickiest subjects.

Still, with a presidential election looming in Mexico in July and U.S. mid-term congressional elections in November, the talks increasingly run the risk of getting entangled in domestic political considerations.

Negotiators are confident that the lesser hurdles will gradually be cleared. But the discussions have again been clouded by the proposed wall along the U.S. southern border that Trump has long touted as a necessity to curb illegal immigration and that he says Mexico must pay for.

Mexico has consistently rejected paying for the wall, and its government had hoped to arrange a meeting between President Enrique Pena Nieto and Trump in the next few weeks. However, a senior U.S. official said at the weekend that plan had been postponed after a phone call between the two soured over the wall earlier this month.

Used to distractions

The trade negotiators have become used to such distractions, but the talks are increasingly centering on U.S. demands that officials say can be resolved only at the top political level.

Mexico’s government has not commented officially on the derailment of the planned meeting, but Juan Pablo Castanon, head of the powerful CCE business lobby, was less reticent as he took stock of the unfolding NAFTA negotiations in Mexico City.

“Obviously, the cancellation of the Mexican president’s trip to the United States is an important element in the negotiations: it’s politics that can help us resolve the technical issues we’re moving forward on.”  Castanon said.

The NAFTA talks were launched last year after Trump said the 1994 agreement should be overhauled to better favor American interests or Washington would quit the accord.

Phone call fallout

One former Mexican official still familiar with the process said the government was concerned that the fallout from the Trump-Pena Nieto phone call could weigh on the atmosphere at the talks, in spite of hopes that several chapters may be finished. 

Castanon of the CCE said measures on e-commerce, telecommunications and sanitary standards for agricultural products were almost completed, and others close to the talks believe the energy chapter could also conclude.

Officials do not anticipate major breakthroughs on the most intractable proposals during the latest round of talks in Mexico City, which are due to run until March 5.

U.S. demands range from changes to automotive content origin rules and dispute resolution mechanisms, to imposing a clause that could automatically kill NAFTA after five years.

Agriculture, rules of origin, labor and regulatory practices were among the issues due to be discussed on Monday, one day before chief negotiators return to the fray.

Auto components 

The Trump administration wants NAFTA rules of origin changed to make automakers source more parts from the region and specifically the United States, a major sticking point that the industry itself opposes.

The government is concerned that a lack of progress on the issue could hurt the renegotiation, the former official said.

In a sign of movement, the U.S. official leading the auto content negotiations was called back to Washington from Mexico for consultations on Monday, U.S. and Mexican officials said.

One official said the negotiator went back to talk to U.S. automakers and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer Seeking to break the deadlock, the Mexican government has said it would put forward a proposal on rules of origin at this round, but a Mexican official said on Monday no new ideas had been presented so far.

Supply management

There was little sign of compromise on other thorny issues early on, with a senior Canadian agriculture official pushing back against U.S. demands to dismantle Canadian protections for the dairy and poultry sectors known as supply management.

“When it comes to supply management, we believe there can be no concession,” said Jeff Leal, the minister of agriculture, food and rural affairs for the province of Ontario.
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Investigation Targets Michigan State’s Response to Reports of Abuse by Team Doctor

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The U.S. Department of Education has opened an investigation into Michigan State University’s handling of reports of sexual abuse by disgraced former school doctor Larry Nassar.

Nassar served as the team doctor for USA Gymnastics and for several sports teams on MSU’s campus. During his tenure, he sexually abused more than 260 young girls and women under the guise of medical treatment. He recently received three concurrent prison sentences — 60 years, 40 to 125 years and 40 to 175 years — for child sexual abuse and child pornography.

The Education Department is reviewing separate complaints about the school’s compliance with Title IX, the law that requires schools to prevent and respond to reports of sexual violence, and compliance with requirements about providing campus crime and security information.

Several of Nassar’s victims said they reported the abuse to MSU coaches and trainers over the course of two decades, but their accusations were continually disregarded or swept under the rug.

USA Gymnastics reported Nassar to the FBI in July 2015, but he continued to see patients at MSU until a newspaper exposed him in September 2016.

The New York Times reported that at least 40 more women and girls were molested during that time.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said investigators will look at “systemic issues” with how the school has dealt with such complaints. In a statement, she called Nassar’s actions “unimaginable.”

During Nassar’s sentencing hearings earlier this year, 265 survivors and family members read impact statements in court.
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Poland Considers Educating Refugee Children Apart from Public Schools

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Poland could start educating children of refugees at the centers where they live rather than in public schools under a plan the government says will help all students but a newspaper said it would create educational ghettos.

Children who live in refugee centers attend local public schools but under the plan announced on the interior ministry’s website local governments could decide whether to maintain the status quo or send teachers to conduct classes in refugee centers.

The plan is consistent with policies outlined by the nationalist ruling party, Law and Justice (PiS), which has refused to accept a quota of refugees relocated from other European Union countries despite pressure from Brussels.

The party ran its 2015 election campaign partly on its opposition to accepting refugees from Muslim countries and at the time PiS head Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who has no formal role in government, said refugees could spread disease and parasites.

There are 1,450 people in Polish refugee centers and 890 are children, according to the spokesman for the Office for Foreigners, Jakub Dudziak. Most people applying for international protection in Poland are from the Russian republic of Chechnya, he said. Islam is the republic’s main religion.

“Some foreign children do not learn despite attending school because they have educational gaps compared to their Polish peer and so struggle to catch up with school material,” said the proposal.

“These factors may have a negative and demotivating effect not only on foreign children, who are reluctant to go to school, but also on Polish children,” it said.

Critics say PiS has stoked popular hostility towards foreigners for electoral reasons ahead of local elections this year and a general election next year. The ruling party has 40 percent support, according to opinion polls.

The migrant issue is just one of several over which Poland is at odds with the European Union.

The government this month introduced a bill imposing jail terms of up to three years for anyone who says Poland was complicit in Nazi crimes. The government says the bill protects national honor but it has angered Israel and the United States.

Polish newspaper Dziennik Gazeta Prawna called the school plan an “Educational ghetto for refugees” and quoted a leading educator Krystyna Starczewska who said the idea was horrific.

The Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights told Reuters in an email: “Separation of both groups can make integration difficult.”

The ministry said in a statement the proposal would be amended. Its aim: “is not to exclude the children of foreigners … but only to provide support during the preparatory phase of education before children enter school.”

The Dziennik Gazeta Prawna headline is “absurd and unfair”, it said.
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Back from the Dead, Hungary Opposition Renews Bid to Oust Orban

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Hungarian opposition parties said Monday they will double down on their efforts to beat Prime Minister Viktor Orban at elections in April because of a shock defeat for his right-wing Fidesz party in a by-election Sunday.

The main leftist opposition party, the Socialists, said they would seek to work more closely with other parties but did not want a structured alliance with Jobbik, a former far-right party that is projecting a more moderate image.

Instead, Jobbik should withdraw its candidates from constituencies where independent candidates stood a stronger chance, the Socialists’ candidate for prime minister, Gergely Karacsony, told a news conference.

“Our task is to widen the alliance,” Karacsony said. Jobbik’s leader, Gabor Vona, said Sunday was a turning point.

“This sends the message that Fidesz can be defeated in every part of the country,” he said in a video on Jobbik’s website.

The green liberal LMP party last week started talks with the Socialists and Jobbik on putting forward single candidates in constituencies where each party was strongest, said party co-chairman Akos Hadhazy.

“LMP is ready for compromise as long as our principles are upheld. The result [on Sunday] … shows what we have held for a long time: Only a credible candidate is worth our support,” he said.

Orban, 54, is Hungary’s longest-serving premier since the collapse of Communism. He presents himself as a savior for Europe’s Christian nations and his party has an anti-immigration platform at odds with many of its European Union peers.

Fidesz is on 32 percent ahead of the April 8 vote, with Jobbik on 11 and the Socialists on nine, according to a poll in February by the Zavech Research institute, which showed 34 percent of voters are undecided.

Rural bastion

But the race has been jolted by the by-election, in which an opposition-backed political novice easily beat the Fidesz candidate for mayor in Hodmezovasarhely, a rural Fidesz bastion.

The city by the Serbian border is near a steel fence built to keep out migrants, a hallmark of Orban’s policy.

“Our opposition has been dead and now has awakened,” Fidesz founding member Zsolt Bayer wrote in the pro-government Magyar Idok. He said it was Fidesz’s first serious defeat in a decade.

“We have never won an election by accident, for luck or the weakness of others,” Orban said in a video on the website of the weekly HVG. “If we want to win, our community has to make twice or three times the effort than our opponents.”

Orban has clashed with the European Commission over migration policy and over reforms to the judiciary and media, which his critics say put Hungary on an authoritarian path.

Strong message

Peter Kreko, director of think tank Political Capital, said Sunday sent a strong message to both the opposition and Fidesz.

“This came in time for the opposition to cooperate if they want to … and also came in time for Fidesz to tweak its campaign,” he said. “It showed that there is not only a mathematical, but also a political chance to beat Fidesz.”

A broad opposition alliance could redraw the pre-election map in Hungary’s 106 constituencies, though it will be hard for the opposition to take advantage because it is fragmented, with leftist parties and Jobbik vying for supremacy.

“The opposition … is no longer playing an old game where it stands no chance of winning, but a new game starts where its situation is not hopeless, provided it pursues smart tactics,” political analyst Gabor Torok wrote on his blog.
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EU, Arab League Affirm Jerusalem Must Be Joint Capital

Posted on by SeeEA

European Union and Arab League countries insist that Jerusalem must be the joint capital of Israel and a future Palestinian state, as the U.S. prepares to move its embassy there in a step angering the Arab world.

Speaking after talks Monday between EU and Arab League foreign ministers, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said that the “special status and character of the city must be preserved.”

She said the two blocs also “see eye to eye” that there can only be a two-state solution to the conflict, with Israel and the Palestinians living side by side in peace.

The talks come as Washington prepares to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to a scaled-down, temporary facility that will open in Jerusalem in May.
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Tunisia, Spain Vow Cooperation on Security, Women’s Rights

Posted on by SeeEU

Spain and Tunisia are reviving ties after a decade-long freeze, pledging notably to work together on security and women’s rights.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and Tunisian counterpart Youssef Chahed signed eight accords Monday in Tunis.

Rajoy announced a 25-million-euro ($30.8 million) credit line for small and medium businesses in Tunisia, and urged Spanish businesses to invest in Tunisia. Rajoy pledged cooperation in fighting organized crime and support for Tunisia’s democracy.

Chahed stressed their joint determination to “fight the plagues of terrorism and extremism, in reinforcing coordination in the security and military domains” and in training programs.

Relations were on hold for nearly 10 years as Spain faced an economic crisis and Tunisia grappled with a revolution and rocky transition to democracy.
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EU’s Juncker: Serbia Must Solve Dispute with Kosovo

Posted on by SeeEU

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said Monday that Serbia must solve its dispute with Kosovo and implement a series of reforms before it can join the European Union.

Juncker said following talks with Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic that the Balkan country is on the right path, but that the EU cannot accept any new members with unresolved territorial issues.

“Serbia has already covered an impressive part of the (EU) path,” Juncker said, before adding that a number of problems “still have to be solved.”

 

He singled out the need for judicial reforms and improvements in the rule of law before Serbia and others can join the EU.

Juncker is visiting Serbia as part of a tour of the Western Balkans nations aspiring to join the bloc at a time Russia is looking to bolster its influence in the region, particularly in Serbia.

 

The visit comes after the EU drafted a new expansion strategy that envisages Serbia and Montenegro could be the next to join the bloc in 2025.

 

Vucic said he’s urging compromise with predominantly-ethnic Albanian Kosovo, whose 2008 declaration of independence following a 1998-99 war Belgrade does not recognize.

 

“We need a compromise or we will continue to live in the past,” Vucic said.

Juncker said the EU is seeking a “legally-binding” agreement between Serbia and Kosovo, but that the scope of the deal is up to the two nations. The EU is helping out in the talks on normalizing ties between the two.

Juncker has already visited Macedonia and Albania. He will travel to Montenegro before proceeding to Kosovo and Bosnia. His trip ends with an EU summit with regional leaders in Sofia, Bulgaria, on March 1.

 
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Congress Returns With Gun Violence an Unexpected Issue

Posted on by SeeUS

After a 10-day break, members of Congress are returning to work under hefty pressure to respond to the outcry over gun violence. But no plan appears ready to take off despite a long list of proposals, including many from President Donald Trump.

Republican leaders have kept quiet for days as Trump tossed out ideas, including raising the minimum age to purchase assault-style weapons and arming teachers, though on Saturday the president tweeted that the latter was “Up to states.”

Their silence has left little indication whether they are ready to rally their ranks behind any one of the president’s ideas, dust off another proposal or do nothing. The most likely legislative option is bolstering the federal background check system for gun purchases, but it’s bogged down after being linked with a less popular measure to expand gun rights.

The halting start reflects firm GOP opposition to any bill that would curb access to guns and risk antagonizing gun advocates in their party. Before the Feb. 14 shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, that killed 17 people, Republicans had no intention of reviving the polarizing and politically risky gun debate during an already difficult election year that could endanger their congressional majority.

“There’s no magic bill that’s going to stop the next thing from happening when so many laws are already on the books that weren’t being enforced, that were broken,” said Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., the third-ranking House GOP leader, when asked about solutions. “The breakdowns that happen, this is what drives people nuts,” said Scalise, who suffered life-threatening injuries when a gunman opened fire on lawmakers’ baseball team practice last year.

Under tough public questioning from shooting survivors, Trump has set high expectations for action.

“I think we’re going to have a great bill put forward very soon having to do with background checks, having to do with getting rid of certain things and keeping other things, and perhaps we’ll do something on age,” Trump said in a Fox News Channel interview Saturday night. He added: “We are drawing up strong legislation right now having to do with background checks, mental illness. I think you will have tremendous support. It’s time. It’s time.”

Trump’s early ideas were met with mixed reactions from his party. His talk of allowing teachers to carry concealed weapons into classrooms was rejected by at least one Republican, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., both spoke to Trump on Friday. Their offices declined comment on the conversations or legislative strategy.

Some Republicans backed up Trump’s apparent endorsement of raising the age minimum for buying some weapons.

Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said he would support raising the age limit to buy a semi-automatic weapon like the one used in Florida. Rubio also supports lifting the age for rifle purchases. Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., a longtime NRA member, wrote in The New York Times that he now supports an assault-weapons ban.

Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., said he expects to talk soon with Trump, who has said he wants tougher background checks, as Toomey revives the bill he proposed earlier with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., to expand presale checks for firearms purchases online and at gun shows.

First introduced after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012 in Connecticut, the measure has twice been rejected by the Senate. Some Democrats in GOP-leaning states joined with Republicans to defeat the measure. Toomey’s office said he is seeking to build bipartisan support after the latest shooting.

“Our president can play a huge and, in fact, probably decisive role in this. So I intend to give this another shot,” Toomey said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

The Senate more likely will turn to a bipartisan bill from Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas and Chris Murphy, D-Conn., to strengthen FBI background checks — a response to a shooting last November in which a gunman killed more than two dozen people at a Texas church.

That bill would penalize federal agencies that don’t properly report required records and reward states that comply by providing them with federal grant preferences. It was drafted after the Air Force acknowledged that it failed to report the Texas gunman’s domestic violence conviction to the National Criminal Information Center database.

The House passed it last year, but only after GOP leaders added an unrelated measure pushed by the National Rifle Association. That measure expands gun rights by making it easier for gun owners to carry concealed weapons across state lines.

The package also included a provision directing the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to review “bump-stock” devices like the one used during the shooting at a Las Vegas music festival that left 58 people dead and hundreds injured.

Murphy told The Associated Press he was invited to discuss gun issues with the White House and he was interested in hearing the president’s ideas. He said he did not expect the Florida shooting to lead to a major breakthrough in Congress for those who’ve long pushed for tighter gun laws.

“There’s not going to be a turning point politically,” he said. Rather, it’s about “slowly and methodically” building a political movement.

Senate Democrats say any attempt to combine the background checks and concealed-carry measures is doomed to fail.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he was skeptical Trump would follow through on proposals such as comprehensive background checks that the NRA opposes.

“The real test of President Trump and the Republican Congress is not words and empathy, but action,” Schumer said in a statement. He noted that Trump has a tendency to change his mind on this and other issues, reminding that the president has called for tougher gun laws only to back away when confronted by resistance from gun owners. The NRA’s independent expenditure arm poured tens of millions into Trump’s 2016 campaign.

“Will President Trump and the Republicans finally buck the NRA and get something done?” Schumer asked. “I hope this time will be different.”
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New Fighting Breaks Out in Syria, Despite UN Cease-fire

Posted on by SeeEA

New clashes broke out Sunday in Syria’s rebel-held region of Eastern Ghouta. The latest airstrikes have intensified, despite a U.N. resolution over the weekend calling for a 30-day cease-fire. VOA’s Elizabeth Cherneff has the latest on the conflict.
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Facing Stigma, Nigerians Demand Justice in Child Sex Cases

Posted on by SeeAF

Activists in northern Nigeria are campaigning for tougher laws to punish those convicted of child sex abuse, as more families of young victims step forward to break the culture of silence surrounding the issue and demand justice. For VOA, Chika Oduah reports from Kaduna.
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Trump to Attend Rev. Billy Graham’s Funeral Friday

Posted on by SeeUS

The White House says President Donald Trump will attend Friday’s funeral for the Rev. Billy Graham.

The evangelist and spiritual adviser to numerous presidents died last week at his North Carolina home. Graham was 99.

Before the funeral, Graham will be afforded the rare tribute of lying in honor in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda on Wednesday and Thursday.

He is to be buried Friday on the grounds of his namesake library in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Trump said last week that Graham was a “great man” who had a “great family” and was “for us” — meaning Trump’s campaign — from the beginning.
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