Month: February 2018

US Missile Defense Test Fails

Posted on by SeeUS

The Pentagon says the military conducted an unsuccessful missile defense test over Hawaii on Wednesday. 

Pentagon chief spokeswoman Dana White confirmed the test on Thursday.

“It did not meet our objectives, but we learn something all the time from these tests, and we learned something from this one,” White said.

The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) said a Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block IIA that was launched from a facility in Hawaii attempted to intercept an intermediate-range ballistic missile target during the test.

This was the first test where an SM-3 Block IIA missile was launched from land using the Aegis Ashore testing complex, according to the MDA. The agency is investigating what caused the test to be unsuccessful.

Japan is planning to buy the Aegis Ashore land-based system to boost its own defenses against North Korea, and the missile used in the test is still in development.

The missile defense system tested on Wednesday could be used in the Western Pacific region. However, it would not be the weapon used to protect the continental United States against potential intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that North Korea is working to develop.

“The primary system that would be used to protect against a North Korean ICBM against the continental United States would be is the ground-based interceptors, of which they are located in Fort Greely, Alaska, as well down in California,” Lt. Gen Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie told reporters Thursday. “That is not the missile that was tested.” 

The United States did successfully intercept a medium-range ballistic missile from the USS John Paul Jones destroyer off the coast of Hawaii in an August 2017 test.

About a month prior to that success, however, a SM-3 missile test failed after a mistaken input by a sailor on the destroyer caused the missile to self-destruct before reaching the target, according to the MDA.
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Seven Years After Egyptian Uprising, Democracy Seems Distant Hope

Posted on by SeeEA

Seven years ago, thousands of Egyptians took to the streets in protest against the government led by President Hosni Mubarak. When Mubarak was forced out of office, and democratic elections put the country’s first civilian leader in decades in office, there was hope for lasting political change.

This week, however, Egypt’s current president sternly warned the opposition that he won’t tolerate their plans to organize a boycott of national elections, after independent candidates dropped out of the race. Now, political analysts say hope is fading.

General Abdel Fattah el-Ssisi won the presidency in the 2014 election, after leading a military coup that ousted his predecessor, Mohamed Morsi – Egypt’s first freely elected civilian president.

Since then, critics say Sissi’s government has engaged in human rights violations, imprisoning journalists and members of the opposition.

“As long as the current regime is not willing to open up the political space, I think we are going to see a continuation of a status quo which is a high level of repression and a kind of parliamentary façade but is really only a façade,” says Shadi Hamid, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

Opposition boycott

This week, several opposition groups joined in calling for a boycott of the March 26-28 election. They called it a charade, after six candidates dropped out. Sissi’s only opponent now is Mousa Mustapha Mousa, the leader of the Ghad political party, which earlier endorsed Sissi’s candidacy.

Amy Hawthorne is the deputy director of research with the Project on Middle East Democracy in Washington. She says that although Sissi said he wanted a true election, he didn’t really want competition.

“The fact that several of these would-be candidates came from the military was even more apparently threatening to him, and so using a variety of measures, and tricks and means, the Egyptian authorities have managed to either disqualify on very shaky grounds these would-be candidates, or has intimidated, threatened and pressured them, their families, their supporters, leading them to pull out,” Hawthorne said.

She says the effort to suppress the opposition is a waste, because many people think it likely that Sissi would win a fair election.

The opposition parties say Mousa is simply running to give the impression of a fair election. Mousa has said he is running to help the country and that he is acting independently of Sissi.

Other regional analysts say Sissi’s control of the government is complete. They say parliament has introduced laws that impede freedom of expression and criminalize civic society activities. 

In addition, the Egyptian judiciary has abandoned the rule of law, said Sahar Aziz, a law professor at Rutgers University in the U.S. state of New Jersey.

“By rule of law I mean open and fair hearings by unbiased and qualified judges, a degree of predictability and limitation of arbitrariness of government actions and a level of individual rights and freedoms in accordance with international norms,” Aziz said.

Tolerating Sissi’s government

Dalia Fahmy, an associate professor of political science at Long Island University, in New York state, said the military has tightened its grip over political and social life, and the media. Under these conditions, she thinks it will be very difficult to promote democracy.

“From within it has to be a level of political openness, there has to be the ability for dissidents to congregate, form political parties, a level of political contestation, but more so there has to be a free and vibrant media,” Fahmy said.

Part of the problem, Fahmy said, is that many regional and Western governments tolerate Sissi.

“The international community really needs to hold the repressive regime accountable. We can’t continue this signaling game that you signal one thing to the people and something else to the regime,” she says.

Shadi Hamid said the U.S. administration has shown little public interest in promoting Middle East democracy. 

Some in the administration of President Donald Trump say security for Egypt and the region is their primary concern, given the threat of attacks from Palestinian or Islamic State militants.Some advocates of U.S. policy say the administration does support human rights, although discreetly. 

“I think that is problematic because terrorism does not fall from the sky; terrorism, extremism and political violence arise from a particular context and if there is a very repressive and closed context, that is actually a more conducive environment for extremism,” Hamid said. 

Hawthorne said part of the problem is that many Western countries are exhausted by years of tumult in the Middle East. 

She also said that since dictatorships can create temporary stability, many Western governments tolerate them as they focus on short-term solutions. Ultimately, she said, repressive governments fall.

“We can be sure that another wave of change and popular unrest will be coming,” Hawthorne said. 

And, she said, it is likely the international community will be unprepared.
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Egypt Starts Radar Scans for Secret Rooms Behind Tut’s Tomb

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Egypt’s Antiquities Ministry says archaeologists are starting radar scans of the tomb of famed pharaoh Tutankhamun in the southern city of Luxor.

 

The ministry said Thursday the scans will be carried out over a week to check for the existence of any hidden chambers behind the tomb.

 

Egypt carried out previous scans as part of the quest but the findings were inconclusive.

The tomb of King Tut, who ruled Egypt more than 3,000 years ago, was discovered in 1922 in the Valley of the Kings, located on the west bank of the Nile river in Luxor.

For many, Tut embodies ancient Egypt’s glory because his tomb was packed with the glittering wealth of the rich 18th Dynasty from 1569 to 1315 B.C.

 
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Lebanon Blasts Israel Over Oil Exploration Near Border

Posted on by SeeEA

Lebanon’s energy minister vowed Thursday that Beirut will go ahead with oil and gas exploration near its maritime border with Israel, despite Israeli claims to the field that provoked wide condemnation in the tiny Arab country.

Cesar Abi Khalil’s comments to The Associated Press came a day after Israel’s defense minister described as “very provocative” Lebanon’s offshore oil and gas exploration on the countries’ maritime border and suggested that Lebanon had sought bids from international companies for a gas field “which is by all accounts ours.”

The Israeli official’s comments drew sharp condemnation from the militant Hezbollah group and Lebanese officials, including Prime Minister Saad Hariri, a Western ally, who described Lieberman’s comments as a “blatant provocation that Lebanon rejects.”

In December, the Lebanese Cabinet approved licenses for three international companies to carry out exploratory drilling off the Lebanese coast. The licenses will allow Italy’s Eni, France’s Total and Russia’s Novatek, who bid for two of Lebanon’s 10 offshore blocks, to determine whether oil and gas exist.

“We consider this statement as an aggression on Lebanon’s sovereignty to practice its natural right to explore our oil resources,” Abi Khalil said in his office.He added that the block that is on the border with Israel is “inside Lebanese territorial waters and Lebanon demarcated maritime borders in accordance with international laws.”

Abi Khalil said Beirut had informed the United Nations by giving locations of its border after it was demarcated. Abi Khalil said the three companies will begin drilling in 2019 and depending on what they find, the country will put forward more blocks for oil companies to bid for.

A major find in Lebanon’s southernmost waters could raise the possibility of a dispute with Israel, which is developing a number of offshore gas deposits, with one large field, Tamar, already producing gas, and the larger Leviathan field set to go online next year.

There are over 800 square kilometers (300 square miles) of waters claimed by the two countries, which are technically in a state of conflict. Israel and Hezbollah fought a month-long war in 2006.

“We will use all available means to protect our rights in our Lebanese waters,” Abi Khalil said.
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Turkish Forces Advance in Kurdish-controlled Afrin, Syria

Posted on by SeeEU

As fighting in Syria’s Afrin region nears the end of its second week, soldiers say the battle is moving slowly, with both sides heavily armed and civilian casualties occurring in and around the war zone. VOA’s Heather Murdock is with Turkish and Syrian opposition forces in Soran, in northern Syria.
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Turkey Judiciary Draws Fire for Continued Incarceration of Rights Activist

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Turkey’s judiciary is facing growing international condemnation for the ongoing imprisonment of the local head of Amnesty International.

Thursday, an Istanbul court reversed an earlier decision to release Taner Kilic from pre-trial detention, ruling he should remain in jail for the duration of his case.  In a rare move, the prosecutor had turned to a second court to overturn Wednesday’s release order.

The dramatic succession of events has provoked international condemnation.  “A disgrace and an outrageous travesty of justice,” Amnesty International Secretary General Salil Shetty declared in a statement.  In a similar vein, Rebecca Harms, a member of the European Parliament wrote, “We deeply regret this situation and call for an immediate review of the decision.”

Kilic has been held for eight months on charges of being a member of a terrorist organization. Prosecutors claim an encryption software found on his phone linked him to followers of U.S.-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, who is blamed of being behind a 2016 failed coup attempt in Turkey. Gulen denies the charge.

Kilic is also accused, along with 10 other human rights activists, including two foreign nationals, of being part of a new conspiracy to overthrow the Turkish government. The 10 other defendants have all been released from pre-trial detention following an international campaign and intense diplomatic pressure.

Kilic’s imprisonment has made him a focal point of growing concern about the treatment of human rights defenders. In a sign of the importance of the case, the Istanbul court Wednesday was packed with European diplomats and international human rights representatives.

Playing the system

“We’re witnessing unusual legal maneuvers which are a reflection of the current dire state of the Turkish judicial system, as well as the erosion of the rule of law,” tweeted Kati Piri the European Parliament’s Turkey rapporteur.

But the Kilic case is also putting the spotlight on the EU stance towards Ankara, “It’s totally useless, to send tweets and sorry messages and raise concerns and more concerns about what is happening in Turkey.  They should really think of something, else, for instance Turkey is still a candidate and negotiates its membership with the European Union, it’s a totally weird situation,” points out political scientist Cengiz Aktar, “the tolerance the regime enjoys in the West, this appeasement, is intimately linked to what is happening to the rule of law in Turkey.”

Since Turkey’s declared a state of emergency following the 2016 failed coup, concerns have been growing over the impartiality and functioning of its judiciary. More than 1,000 judges and prosecutors, including two members of the Constitutional Court, are among the 60,000 people arrested in the post-coup crackdown.  Many more members of the judiciary have been fired.  The government claims large parts of the judiciary had been infiltrated by supporters of the coup attempt.

Legal order challenged

The very structure of the judiciary is also in question.  Last month, an Istanbul court ignored the judgment of the Constitutional Court to release journalists Mehmet Altan and Sahin Alpay, who have been in pre-trial detention for more than a year, accused of seeking to overthrow the government.  Prime Minister Binali Yildirim backed the Istanbul court’s stance insisting it knew more about the case.

The move has caused alarm among legal experts, “If this trend continues, any government can use this as a “judicial” basis for not recognizing the decisions of the Constitutional Court.  This means chaos.  This chaos, unfortunately, has been encouraged by the politicians,” warns law professor Osman Can of Istanbul’s Marmara University and member of the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe.  

The European Court of Human Rights, of which Turkey is a member, is set to become embroiled in the ongoing controversy.  The European Court remains the last legal means of redress for Turkish citizens.  “There are so many violations of the European convention of human rights, if the court accepts all these cases, it will be overwhelming, it can virtually stop the work of the court.  This is why the court is very cautious taking these cases,” claims political scientist Aktar.

In a move that has drawn criticism domestically and internationally, the European Court has refused to hear most cases in relation to the post-coup crackdown, arguing the defendants have to exhaust all judicial avenues in Turkey.  That stance is predicted to be increasingly challenged with the power of Turkey’s Constitutional Court in question.  “This can be interpreted as the loss of the effectiveness … of the entire legal order, which in turn can cause very serious consequences for Turkey.  In such a case, the problem becomes, now, one of international relations,” warns professor Can.

 
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Too Many Calls, Too Much Harassment: France Shuts Helpline

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A support group for victims of sexual harassment in France said it was forced to shut its helpline after receiving a deluge of calls in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein sex scandal.

Paris-based AVFT, a national association helping women who have experienced violence at work, said it was “overwhelmed” with a backlog of cases that had piled up over the past two years so could take no more calls.

“For several months we have been submerged by requests, which has forced us to take a break in order to respond,” a voicemail message told people phoning the line on Thursday.

A slew of allegations of sexual misconduct against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein last year sparked the #MeToo campaign, with women and men using social media to talk about their experiences of harassment at work.

The scandal prompted a rethink of attitudes toward harassment in France, a country that cherishes its image as the land of seduction and romance.

Last month, French actress Catherine Deneuve sparked an outcry by saying the #Metoo campaign had gone too far and amounted to puritanism.

French women have meanwhile been sharing their stories on social media under the name-and-shame hashtag #BalanceTonPorc – or ‘expose your pig.’

AVFT, which has given legal help to victims since 1985, said the heightened focus on how men treat and mistreat women at work had resulted in a higher number of women seeking its services.

More than 220 got in touch in 2017, a two-fold increase on 2015 – leaving its five staff overwhelmed, the group said in a statement on Wednesday.

It called for an increase in government support, saying subsidies had not increased in 13 years.

Clemence Joz, a legal advisor for AVFT, said the group was hoping to re-open its line as soon as possible.

“I cannot say how long it’s going to be,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone. In November, French President Emmanuel Macron unveiled measures aimed at educating the public and schoolchildren about sexism and violence against women and improving police support for victims. He also proposed criminalizing street harassment.

 
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In New EU Sea Mission, Ships not Obliged to Bring Migrants to Italy

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The European Union’s border agency Frontex launched a new Mediterranean operation called Themis on Thursday, removing the obligation of the previous mission to bring rescued migrants only to Italy.

Italy has repeatedly lamented a lack of EU solidarity in managing immigration. The previous Frontex operation, called Triton, required all those rescued at sea to be brought to Italy even if another EU country, such as Malta, was closer.

“Triton said that whomever rescued would be taken to Italy,” said Izabella Cooper, a spokeswoman for Frontex. “Themis leaves the decision on disembarkation to the [country] coordinating a particular rescue.”

Triton was a Greek god and the messenger of the sea, while Themis was the goddess of divine law and order.

Since Italy coordinates the vast majority of sea rescues between North Africa and its southern coast, the new rule is unlikely have a large impact on arrivals, though it does send a political message to Mediterranean neighbors like Malta.

Maltese authorities had no immediate comment.

With more than 600,000 migrants landing on Italian shores in the last four years, a popular backlash is building ahead of a March 4 national election, and the center-left government is under pressure to show it has the situation in hand.

The new Frontex operation will put more focus on law enforcement.

“Operation Themis will better reflect the changing patterns of migration, as well as cross border crime,” Frontex Executive Director Fabrice Leggeri said in a statement. “Frontex will also assist Italy in tracking down criminal activities, such as drug smuggling across the Adriatic.”

The one-year mission will be re-evaluated every three months and will, unlike Triton, include Italy’s southern Adriatic coast. While the operational area of Triton extended about 30 miles from the Italian coast, Themis vessels typically will not patrol further than 24 miles from the coast.

While Triton was not a search-and-rescue operation, it has assisted in the rescue of 38,000 people since 2014. Themis vessels, of which there will be more than 10 operating in the summer, will also carry out rescues if asked, Cooper said.

No rescued migrants will be taken to non-EU countries, like Libya or Tunisia, she said.

Italian newspapers suggested on Thursday that migrants would be taken to the “closest port”, but Cooper said international maritime law, which foresees they be taken to the nearest “place of safety”, would continue to be followed.

In January, 4,256 migrants reached Italy by sea, a 6 percent decline on the same month last year. Arrivals from Libya, where most people smugglers operate, were down almost 26 percent.

Italy sealed a deal a year ago with the United Nations-backed government in Tripoli to provide aid, equipment and training to help Libya fight smuggling.

Arrivals plummeted by two thirds during the second half of last year as armed groups cracked down on trafficking from Sabratha, a smuggling hub, and as the Libyan coast guard intercepted an increasing number of boats.
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Man Convicted of Murder Over Van Attack on Muslims in London

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A man who drove a van into a crowd of worshippers near a north London mosque after expressing far-right and anti-Muslim opinions was convicted Thursday of murder and attempted murder.

A jury at London’s Woolwich Crown Court deliberated for about an hour before finding 48-year-old Darren Osborne guilty of the June 2017 attack in the city’s Finsbury Park neighborhood.

A 51-year-old man, Makram Ali, was killed and nine people were injured when a rented van ploughed into worshippers gathering to break their fast during Ramadan.

Prosecutors said Osborne was motivated by a hatred of Muslims, whom he saw as extremists or rapists in pedophile gangs. Osborne, of Cardiff, Wales, had pleaded not guilty.

Several men who witnessed the attack pinned Osborne to the ground until police arrived. He was heard to say “I want to kill more Muslims,” prosecutor Jonathan Rees told the jury during the 10-day trial.

Osborne claimed a man named Dave was driving the van when it struck the crowd. Prosecutors argued that Dave did not exist, and no witnesses or video evidence was produced to indicate a second person in the van.

Prosecutors said Osborne was radicalized over a short period of time, in part through online far-right propaganda. Searches for two prominent extreme-right figures – English Defense League founder Tommy Robinson and Britain First leader Paul Golding – were found on Osborne’s computer.

Osborne’s partner, Sarah Andrews, told prosecutors he had become “brainwashed” and was a “ticking time bomb.”
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NFL Thursday Night Football Moves to Fox for Five Years

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Fox and the NFL have agreed to a five-year deal for Thursday night football games.

Those games previously were televised by CBS and NBC, two of the league’s other network partners. Fox announced Wednesday that it will televise 11 games between Weeks 4 and 15, with simulcasts on NFL Network and Fox Deportes.

Fox, which has the Sunday afternoon NFC package, will produce all of the games under the deal, which is worth a little more than $3 billion, according to a person with direct knowledge of the terms of the deal who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the league didn’t announce its value.

“This is a single partner deal, we are not splitting the package,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a conference call. “We had tremendous amount of interest from all the broadcast partners, all of whom wanted it exclusively. We felt this was the best opportunity for the NFL to grow the Thursday night package.”

Digital partners

Goodell added that the league is exploring partnerships with digital outlets, also in conjunction with Fox.

The NFL has broadcast deals “five years out” with its other partners, ESPN has the Monday night package, so five years on this agreement made sense.

“Fundamentally, Fox was built on football,” said Peter Rice, president of 21st Century Fox, noting that 25 years ago, the NFC package “helped launch a fledgling network into what it is today.”

“These opportunities come along very, very infrequently,” he added. “You either have the rights to the most-watched content in media or you don’t. If you don’t take the opportunity, this won’t come up again for five years. We believe in buying the very best rights, and the best rights are the NFL.”

CBS and NBC each paid $450 million for the previous two-year package.

“We explored a responsible bid for Thursday Night Football but in the end are very pleased to return to entertainment programming on television’s biggest night,” CBS said in a statement. “At the same time, we look forward to continuing our terrific long-term partnership with the NFL on Sunday afternoons, with more than 100 games per season including next year’s Super Bowl 53.”

Fox could have a conflict if weather causes a World Series game to be postponed from Wednesday to Thursday. In recent years, Series Game 2 and 6 have been scheduled for Wednesday.

“In that hypothetical kind of a scenario, the World Series game would stay on Fox and our Thursday night game would become an FS1/NFL Network simulcast,” Fox spokesman Eddie Motl said.

Innovation space

Goodell noted that the Thursday night games are a place for innovation.

“One of the things we’ve taken into consideration with Thursday night in general is to evolve this package, to use it as an opportunity to learn, to understand where these various platforms are going, and what we can do to make it a more attractive experience for our fans,” he said. “We will look at that in that context, and the term will be consistent with what it will take to make sure that we continue to evolve that platform as well as the experience for our fans.”

That means streaming outlets, of course.

“We have accepted bids for digital partners,” Goodell said. “We have very healthy competition. In fact, I would say it’s unprecedented competition from a number of digital partners.

“As I say, we put our focus on the broadcast package first. … We are not required to go coterminous with the broadcasts. We can do any length of deal that we get to an agreement on with that digital partner. As I mentioned earlier, we will be doing this in cooperation with our Fox partners.”
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House Intel Committee’s Top Democrat Says Republicans Altered Memo

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The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee said Wednesday the committee’s Republicans altered a classified memo before sending it to the White House instead of sending the version they had shown to lawmakers and approved for release in a party-line vote.

The document, which the White House could decide to publicly release as early as Thursday, allegedly shows bias at the Justice Department against President Donald Trump.

Rep. Adam Schiff said in a letter to committee Chairman Devin Nunes that Democrats had discovered Wednesday evening that the memo had undergone “material changes” that committee members had not been able to review or approve, and that the situation was “deeply troubling.”

“While the Majority’s changes do not correct the profound distortions and inaccuracies in your document, they are nonetheless substantive,” Schiff said.

A Nunes spokesman responded with a statement saying the version sent to the White House had only “minor edits” and that Democrats were trying to distract from the “abuses detailed in the memo.”

“In its increasingly strange attempt to thwart publication of the memo, the Committee Minority is now complaining about minor edits to the memo, including grammatical fixes and two edits requested by the FBI and by the Minority themselves,” the spokesman said.

Earlier Wednesday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said it has “grave concerns” about the accuracy of the memo and had “a limited opportunity” to review the four-page document before the committee voted to approve its release.

Nunes called the FBI’s objections “spurious.”

“The FBI is intimately familiar with ‘material omissions’ with respect to their presentations to both Congress and the courts, and they are welcome to make public, to the greatest extent possible, all the information they have on these abuses. Regardless, it’s clear that top officials used unverified information in a court document to fuel a counterintelligence investigation during an American political campaign. Once the truth gets out, we can begin taking steps to ensure our intelligence agencies and courts are never misused like this again,” Nunes said in a statement.

Before issuing his letter Wednesday night, Schiff said in an op-ed article Wednesday in The Washington Post that the decision to release the document crossed a “dangerous line.”

“Doing so without even allowing the Justice Department or the FBI to vet the information for accuracy, the impact of its release on sources and methods, and other concerns was, as the Justice Department attested, “extraordinarily reckless,” he wrote. “But it also increases the risk of a constitutional crisis by setting the stage for subsequent actions by the White House to fire Mueller or, as now seems more likely, Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein — an act that would echo the 1973 Saturday Night Massacre.”

The memo concerns an application by U.S. law enforcement authorities to the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court to monitor contacts Trump campaign adviser Carter Page may have had with Russian operatives leading up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Some Republicans say the surveillance request may have been mishandled and could undermine special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian meddling in the election.

The FBI said in a statement that earlier this week it told the Intelligence panel before it voted that the bureau had “grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.” The FBI declined to comment to VOA Wednesday on the document’s content.

Two Justice Department officials — Rosenstein and Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd — have both raised concerns about the memo’s content.

In a letter to Nunes, Boyd said the Republican push to release a memo would be “extraordinarily reckless.”

Rosenstein warned White House chief of staff John Kelly that releasing the memo put classified information at risk and beseeched Trump to withdraw his support for making it public. According to The Washington Post, FBI director Christopher Wray was with Rosenstein at the White House meeting earlier this week.

Rosenstein, who oversees Mueller’s Russia probe, reportedly told the White House his department was not convinced the memo accurately describes how the FBI conducts investigations. He warned that making the document public could set a dangerous precedent.

CNN reported Wednesday that Rosenstein visited the White House in December seeking Trump’s support in fighting off document demands from Nunes. But the president had other priorities ahead of a key appearance by Rosenstein on Capitol Hill, CNN reported, citing sources familiar with the meeting. Trump wanted to know where the special counsel’s Russia investigation was heading, and he wanted to know whether Rosenstein was “on my team.”

Ryan responds

On Tuesday, House speaker Paul Ryan defended release of the memo.

“There are legitimate questions about whether an American’s civil liberties were violated,” he said. “There may have been malfeasance at the FBI by certain individuals.”

But even as he called for release of the memo, Ryan warned his Republican colleagues in the House not to oversell the information in the memo as a means to derail Mueller’s ongoing investigation. Mueller is also probing whether Trump obstructed justice by firing James Comey, the former FBI director who was heading the agency’s Russia investigation before Mueller — over Trump’s objections — was appointed to take over the probe.

Ryan said the need for “transparency” dictates the need to release the memo. But Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee say the Republican-drafted document is misleading. 

The memo has become a flashpoint in politically divided Washington, with some Republicans increasingly voicing complaints about Mueller’s months-long investigation and claiming that some Justice Department officials have worked to undermine Trump’s presidency.

Trump has repeatedly said there was “no collusion” between his campaign and Russia. Last week, he said there also was “no obstruction” of the Russia investigation.

Potential fallout

Fallout from the memo’s publication could be severe. Any allegations of misconduct could give the president reason to demand the removal of senior FBI and Justice Department officials. Among potential casualties: Rosenstein and Mueller.

“I think this is part of a campaign to try and fire the deputy attorney general,” Paul Rosenzweig, a senior fellow at the R Street Institute, said. “We’ll see how it plays out, but I hope that’s not the final result.”

Bennett Gershman, a former prosecutor and a professor at Pace Law School, said the memo could lead to Mueller’s dismissal. Trump has said he has no intention of firing either official.

But the memo’s more lasting damage could be an erosion of public trust in the FBI and the Justice Department, institutions that closely guard their reputation as nonpartisan law enforcement agencies.

“To just excoriate these people (at the FBI and Justice Department) and suggest that they’re all acting for political motives, to me, what it does is it undermines the public’s confidence in law enforcement,” Gershman said.

Jeff Seldin and Masood Farivar contributed to this report.
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US Concerned by Poland’s Proposed Holocaust Law

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The Trump administration says it is concerned Poland’s proposed Holocaust law could impact free speech and Polish relations with the United States and Israel.

The law would make it a crime to call the Nazi genocide of Jews a Polish crime, or the Nazi death camps Polish death camps, even though some of the most brutal Nazi atrocities took place on Polish soil.

“We understand that phrases such as ‘Polish death camps’ are inaccurate, misleading, and hurtful,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement Wednesday. “We all must be careful not to inhibit discussion and commentary on the Holocaust. We believe open debate, scholarship, and education are the best means of countering inaccurate and hurtful speech.”

Israel, others concerned

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel will not tolerate “distortion of the truth, rewriting history, and denial of the Holocaust.”

Some experts fear the new Polish law could also mean jail for Holocaust survivors when talking about their ordeals.

President’s remarks

Polish President Andrzej Duda said this week there was no institutional participation by Poland in the Holocaust, but it did recognize criminal actions toward Jews by some individual Poles.

“There were wicked people who sold their neighbors for money. But it was not the Polish nation, it was not an organized action,” Duda said.

He pointed out that some Poles sacrificed their lives to save Jews from the Nazis, and that the Polish underground and government in exile resisted efforts to wipe out European Jewry.

Poland was home to one of the world’s most thriving Jewish populations before Nazi Germany invaded in 1939.

Holocaust survivors who returned to Poland after the war found themselves victims of further anti-Semitism. Some historians say many Poles collaborated with the Nazis in persecuting Jews.

Poland regards itself as having been a victim of Nazi terror. It resents being blamed for crimes carried out by Hitler and his gang of murderers.
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Southern Yemeni Separatists Seize Large Parts of Aden

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Southern Yemeni separatists control large chunks of the southern interim capital of Aden and continue to lay siege to the presidential palace. 

Amateur video shown Wednesday on Arab TV showed forces loyal to internationally recognized President Abd Rabu Mansour Hadi moving troops from the coastal port of Mukha to the southern capital of Aden to reinforce garrisons that remain loyal to the government.

Southern separatists captured large parts of Aden over the past 72 hours, amid scattered fighting that left dozens dead or wounded.

Yemeni analyst Ahmed Salah, who heads the Aden Center for International Relations, told Al Hurra TV that forces loyal to Hadi had defected to the separatist movement in many places and that some southerners were angry that Hadi’s men had killed civilians with field artillery and mortars, in addition to damaging the city’s water infrastructure.

Good news, bad news

Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV reported that forces loyal to Hadi had recaptured the Yemeni Army’s Fourth Brigade military garrison in Aden, which had recently fallen to the separatists. Other Arab media indicated that Hadi’s prime minister remained besieged inside the Maisheeq Presidential Palace, although Arabiya TV said “he and his ministers continue to exercise their functions.”

Arab analysts said that the Saudi-led coalition’s junior partner, the United Arab Emirates, which has a strong military presence in and around Aden, was supporting the southern Yemeni separatists under the command of Aiderous al Zubeidi.

Zubeidi told Arab media the residents of southern Yemen were unhappy with the government of Prime Minister Ahmed Ben Dagher and wanted him replaced.

He said that living conditions had deteriorated in southern Yemen because of the poor performance of the government, and he added that he had asked Hadi to replace Dagher and his ministers with a new Cabinet of technocrats.

Zubeidi went on to say that he would negotiate his movement’s demands with Hadi and other Yemeni political forces.  British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has reportedly proposed giving the southern separatists 50 percent representation in a joint confederation with the north of the country. Aden was a British crown colony until 1967.

Unstable situation

University of Paris political science professor Khattar Abou Diab told VOA that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have differing views about Aden, but the situation could be unstable for some time to come.

He pointed out that some influential Saudi power brokers had floated the idea of having a Yemeni government in the south of the country and another government in the north of the country, under the aegis of Hadi. He noted that Saudi Arabia was concerned about being bogged down in Yemen for a long time to come, because of the conflict in the north with the Houthi militia (backed by Iran), and might be looking for a simple resolution to the conflict.

Abou Diab warned that such a solution, involving a Yemeni confederation, could open the door to other latent conflicts over influence in the various regions of the country. 

Neighboring Oman as well as the United Arab Emirates, which supports the southern separatists, are reported to have competing economic interests in different parts of the south.   
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SpaceX Launches Satellite With More Cyber Protection

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A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Florida on Wednesday carrying into orbit a Luxembourg-made communications satellite designed in part to expand NATO’s surveillance reach and its capability to deter cyber attacks on alliance members.

The liftoff at 4:25 p.m. EST (2125 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station followed a technical glitch that prompted a 24-hour flight delay. It marked the second rocket launch this year for billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk and his privately owned Space Exploration Technologies.

It comes a week before the California-based company is slated to conduct its highly anticipated first test flight of the much larger and more powerful Falcon Heavy rocket, which packs three times the thrust of the Falcon 9.

Communications satellite

Wednesday’s payload was a communications satellite built for LuxGovSat S.A., a public-private joint venture between the Luxembourg government and Luxembourg-based telecommunications company SES, in part to fulfill that nation’s growing defense obligations to NATO.

The so-called GovSat-1 satellite will provide, among other things, greater cyber protection for Luxembourg’s European Union partners and NATO allies, including the United States, Luxembourg Defense Minister Etienne Schneider told a news conference Tuesday.

GovSat-1 also will serve civilian telecommunications security functions.

Thirty-four minutes after liftoff, the satellite was successfully released into a highly elliptical “parking” orbit, according to SpaceX. It will eventually settle into a round orbit 22,370 miles (36,000 km) high, where it will circle the Earth for 15 years.

A spokesman for Schneider said the $279 million satellite, which weighs about 4½ tons, is part of a broader policy of doubling the country’s contributions to NATO.

Citing new security threats, a senior NATO official told Reuters in March that the alliance planned to spend more than $3 billion on defense technology, a third of which would go toward satellite communications.

Rocket retrieved

Unlike many recent SpaceX launches, the company had not initially planned on retrieving the rocket’s reusable main-stage because the payload had to be carried to such a high orbit that the booster was left without sufficient fuel to fly back to Earth for a return landing.

However, the booster “amazingly” survived its ocean splashdown intact, Musk said in a Twitter message posted later with a photograph of the vehicle floating at sea. “We will try to tow it back to shore,” he said.

The same Falcon 9 booster was used last year in a mission to launch a top-secret payload into space for the U.S. government.
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Trump Meets With Workers Benefiting From Tax Reform Law

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U.S. President Donald Trump held a meeting in the White House Wednesday to showcase American small businesses that say they have benefited from the tax reform bill passed by Congress late last year.

The meeting Wednesday was a follow-up to the president’s State of the Union speech on Tuesday night, in which he noted that last year’s tax reform plan cut the business tax rate from 35 to 21 percent, so, he said, “American companies can compete and win against anyone in the world.”

Among his guests on Wednesday were employees of companies that gave out bonuses in anticipation of their lowered tax rate.

White House deputy press secretary Lindsay Walters said in a statement before the meeting that since the tax reform was signed into law in December, “more than 275 companies nationwide have announced bonuses, raises, expanded benefits, or new jobs as a result of the bill.”

Among Wednesday’s visitors were representatives of a small farm store in Woodbury, Iowa; a credit card processing company in Muscogee County, Georgia; a manufacturer of machining components in Cleveland, Ohio; an insurance company in Columbus, Georgia; and three banking companies, based in Independence, Missouri, Arapahoe County, Colorado, and Fort Collins, Colorado.

Two of the banking companies were linked: Bank Midwest of Missouri is a member of a banking network owned by National Bank Holdings Corporation, based in Colorado.

Patrick Sobers, who represents National Bank Holdings Corporation, said his company awarded $1,000 bonuses to all of its noncommissioned associates earning a base salary of less than $50,000 per year. He said NBHC is also planning a tuition reimbursement plan. “This is having an impact not only on our associates,” he said, “but also on our business clients.”

Trump commented, “That’s a big group, and there were a lot of happy people, right?”

Sobers answered, “Yes, there were.”

John Anfinson of Anfinson’s Farm Store said, “When I heard the bill was passed, I heard somebody was giving out bonuses, I decided to do it immediately. I felt like the kid who just got the keys to the new car.” He said in addition to giving out bonuses to his seven employees, he ordered new farm equipment for the century-old family business.

China Edwards, an associate at Bank Midwest, called her bonus “a very unexpected surprise.” The bank gave all full-time associates $500 bonuses and gave $250 to part-time employees.

“It was a gift, all of a sudden, for somebody that works very hard,” Trump said. To William Harmon, who works for the credit card processing company Total Systems Services, he said, “You have a lot of happy friends, right?”

Critics of the new law say all is not as rosy as the president says: Democratic Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island said on the Senate floor in December that the law does more to aid real estate businesses more than it does individual American workers.

Steven Rosenthal, senior fellow at the nonpartisan think tank Tax Policy Center, agreed, telling Reuters news agency in December that the plan “seems ideally suited for commercial property businesses, where there aren’t a lot of workers, but there is a lot of valuable property around.”

And the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, another nonpartisan think tank, said in a November policy analysis that the new law will have more negative effects on “upper-middle-class families in major metropolitan areas, particularly in Democratic-leaning states where taxes, and usually property values, are higher.”
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US Allows Some Syrians to Stay 18 More Months

Posted on by SeeEA

The Trump administration said Wednesday it would allow about 7,000 Syrians to remain in the United States for at least another 18 months under protected status as civil war rages in their native country.

The decision was a relief for the Syrians, who would have faced the prospect of returning to a fractured country racked with violence if the administration had rescinded their temporary protected status (TPS) when it ran out in March. Instead, they are allowed to stay through Sept. 30, 2019.

“After carefully considering conditions on the ground, I have determined that it is necessary to extend the Temporary Protected Status designation for Syria,” said Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in a statement.

“It is clear that the conditions upon which Syria’s designation was based continue to exist, therefore an extension is warranted under the statute,” she added.

The administration stopped short of redesignating Syria’s status, which means that it will continue to benefit only Syrians who have been in the United States since 2016 or earlier.

“It fell short that they didn’t redesignate it, but I think it’s a positive action nonetheless that should be praised,” said Monzer Shakally, 21, a Syrian student at the University of Iowa with the temporary status. “I’m happy this decision came out now and I don’t have to worry about this for another 18 months at least.”

The Obama administration granted Syrians temporary protected status in 2012, the year after the war in Syria began, and extended it through the end of March. The Obama administration redesignated Syria’s protected status several times so that waves of Syrians who had arrived in later years of the conflict could qualify.

There is no end in sight to the Syria conflict. A peace conference in Russia ended Tuesday with a call for democratic elections, but key opposition demands were ignored after squabbles and heckling of the Russian foreign minister.

The Trump administration has shown a deep skepticism toward the protected status program, announcing its end for immigrants from El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Sudan since President Donald Trump took office last year. Some of those countries were granted the protections more than a decade ago, and the administration argued that their crises had since been resolved.

Refugee advocates criticized the Trump administration’s decision not to re-designate Syria’s status, saying it ignored the fact that Syria’s conflict continues to produce new refugees.

“The Trump administration’s decision means that many Syrians who are already here in the U.S. will not be able to apply for TPS status,” said Lia Lindsey, Oxfam America’s senior humanitarian policy advisor.

Some groups that favor immigration restrictions had opposed an 18-month extension of the humanitarian benefits for Syrians, saying six months would be more appropriate.
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Minorities in Syria’s Afrin Fear Persecution as Turkey Escalates Offensive

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As Turkey continues its military offensive and air campaign in Afrin, a city under the control of Syrian Kurds, minorities in the region fear that the conflict could make them a target of hostile militant groups still operating in the region.

“We fear that the factors that contributed to the Sinjar massacre would combine and produce a similar atrocity in Afrin,” Şêkh Ali Reşo, a board member of Central Council of Yazidis in Germany, told VOA.

In 2014, the Islamic State terror group perpetrated genocide against the Yazidis in the Sinjar region of Iraq. Tens of thousands of men, women and children fled to Mount Sinjar, where they were under siege for several days. IS massacred hundreds of them.

The fighting in Afrin has generated fears that religious minorities will again be targeted by extremist groups like IS that still operate in pockets of the region.

“These are not just our fears, but also the fears of Druze [a religious minority], Christians and Mandaens [a religious minority]. Religious minorities are the most vulnerable because they are targeted first and they can’t defend themselves,” Reşo said.

Reşo added that the world must understand that Yazidi fears are legitimate because the Turkish offensive created a very complex situation in the region and the distraction of the offensive could make minorities a target.

“We cannot foresee the future and we don’t know what will happen to our brothers and sisters in Afrin,” Reşo said.

According the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based rights group that monitors developments in Syria, IS still has a presence in parts of Aleppo and Idlib provinces. There are also reports that IS still has hideouts in northern Hama.

Members of the Yazidi community in Afrin are concerned about the potential return of IS to parts of Afrin.

IS “was chased out of Manbij, Aleppo, Raqqa and other areas, but they are still around and this operation might bring” them back, Pir Shammo, a Yazidi religious leader in Afrin, told VOA.

Shammo added that his village, Basoufane, a Yazidi village in Afrin, was shelled many times in the past few months by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an al-Qaida-affiliated terror group, which last year claimed it had severed ties with al-Qaida and operates in the region independently.

There is no official data as to how many Yazidis live in Afrin, but Yazidi and Kurdish sources say there were an estimated 25,000 Yazidis living in Afrin in 2011. In the aftermath of the Syrian war and the subsequent emergence of terror groups, because of fears of persecution, thousands of them left the region and migrated to Europe for asylum.

​Diverse city

Afrin is very diverse and home to various ethnic and religious groups. Thousands of refugees poured into the city in 2011 from different parts of Syria, mainly from Aleppo and its countryside, as the Syrian crisis was unfolding.

In 2012, Syrian regime forces withdrew from Afrin and the city fell under the control of Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), the main fighting force in the U.S. backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Turkey charges that its offensive in Afrin is justified because it targets the YPG, which Turkey accuses of having ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S, European Union and Turkey.

However, U.S officials maintain that Turkey’s offensive in Afrin distracts the global coalition against IS from doing the more important work of eliminating the Islamic State terror group in the region.

​Civilian casualties

Continued Turkish shelling and airstrikes reportedly killed dozens of civilians in the city since it began this month, sparking criticism and calls for international intervention.

“We are unable to protect ourselves or our families from these attacks. We are also unable to offer a shelter for the innocent people,” a statement issued by the Kurdish Churches in Afrin and Kobane said.

Isa Berekat, a local Kurdish Christian in Afrin and a member of Good Shepherd Church, told VOA that Afrin is full of civilians and they are under attack.

“Christians in Afrin condemn these brutal attacks on the city. Many people were displaced. We call on human rights organizations to help us. Afrin needs aid and we pray to our Lord for protection of all innocent people in Afrin,” Berekat told VOA.

“Kurds, Muslims, Yazidis and others are living in Afrin, we call all human rights organizations to help us,” Berekat said.
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Kenyan Government Warns of Arrests Over Odinga’s ‘Inauguration’

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Kenya’s interior minister warns that arrests may be in store in relation to opposition leader Raila Odinga’s self-inauguration ceremony Tuesday as “the people’s president.” Meanwhile, authorities say local media stations prevented from broadcasting Tuesday’s event live will remain off the air pending the results of an investigation. 

Interior Minister Fred Matiang’i said Raila Odinga’s inauguration was, in his words, “a well-choreographed attempt to subvert or overthrow” the government. 

“We’ve commenced wide-scale investigations targeting individuals and organizations who include but may not be limited to certain media houses,” Matiang’i said. “We will act decisively but strictly according to the law.”

One arrest reported

On Tuesday, before thousands of supporters gathered at a Nairobi public park, Odinga took a symbolic oath of office as the so-called “people’s president,” an act the government has termed illegal and potentially amounting to treason. 

Following the interior minister’s press conference Wednesday, local media were already reporting at least one arrest — a lawyer and opposition lawmaker who stood prominently on stage with Odinga on Tuesday, administering the oath.

Legal analysts tell VOA it may be difficult for authorities to arrest Odinga, because in the ceremony he did not claim the title of “President of the Republic of Kenya.” His Twitter account currently identifies him as simply “His Excellency.”

Tuesday’s oath discounted

James Mwamu, a Kenyan lawyer and former chairman of the East Africa Law Society, says Tuesday’s oath by the opposition National Super Alliance, or NASA, carried no legal weight. 

“Going on forward, however, I think what NASA is intending to do is perhaps legitimize this by passing people’s assemblies,” Mwamu said. “So at the end of the day, when people’s assemblies would resolve that this is the way they want to go, then at that particular point it will obtain some legal meaning, but for now we can safely say regarding legal interpretation, there is absolutely no effect about the swearing.”

NASA is Odinga’s opposition coalition. After an October rerun of the August presidential election, Odinga then created the National Resistance Movement, or NRM.

Kenyan authorities accused the NRM of planning to incite large-scale violence. 

The interior minister cited that accusation as the ground upon which the government cut transmission Tuesday for four local TV and radio outlets that had planned to broadcast Odinga’s swearing-in live. 

Deputy ​opposition leader attacked

Odinga boycotted the rerun of the presidential election and has refused to accept President Uhuru Kenyatta’s victory, which was certified by the Kenyan Supreme Court. 

In a sign of the continued political tensions, unidentified gunmen attacked the home of deputy opposition leader Kalonzo Muyoka with a grenade Tuesday night. 

Police spokesman Charles Owino says an investigation has been opened.

“Fortunately, the hand grenade that exploded is a stun hand grenade. So a stun hand grenade is a grenade that gives you a very loud bang,” Owino said. “It’s meant to scare. It’s not meant to harm or to kill.”

More than three months after the controversial presidential election rerun, Kenya’s political scene certainly shows no sign of cooling down. 
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Egypt’s Leader Issues Tough Warning After Election Criticism

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Egypt’s president on Wednesday angrily threatened to take strong action against anyone trying to disrupt the country’s stability in a warning that followed calls by opposition politicians for a boycott of upcoming presidential elections.

The sharp warning by a visibly furious President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi was a signal that authorities will tolerate no questioning of the legitimacy of the March 26-28 vote. The general-turned-president said he would not allow a repeat of the 2011 uprising.

Those calling for a boycott have called the election a farce after a string of would-be candidates were arrested, forced out of the race or dropped out in protest. It had appeared el-Sissi might be the only one to run until at the last minute on Monday a little-known politician stepped forward to enter the race as a face-saver.

That prevented the embarrassment of a one-candidate election, but also sparked considerable mockery on social media. Criticism of the vote could taint what is seen as el-Sissi’s inevitable victory and open the door to wider dissent, which his government has largely shut down over the past four years.

The boycott call came Tuesday from a coalition of opposition parties and public figures. Earlier this week, five opposition figures, including a 2012 presidential candidate and two top campaign aides for a now-arrested presidential hopeful, also called for a boycott and urged Egyptians not to recognize the vote’s outcome.

One would-be candidate forced out of the race, former lawmaker Mohammed Anwar Sadat, called on the opposition to stage a peaceful march on the presidential palace to present el-Sissi with “demands” pertaining to the country’s political future. Sadat is a nephew of assassinated Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat. 

El-Sissi did not directly mention the boycott calls during his speech at a ceremony marking the launch of a giant offshore gas field. But the timing a day after the calls suggested he was referring to them — and his vehemence appeared to suggest that any questioning of the election was considered equivalent to destabilizing the country.

Grim-faced and at times shouting, el-Sissi implied he would launch an intensified crackdown. “There will be other measures against anyone who believes he can mess with (Egypt’s) security … I fear no one but God.” he said.

“Whoever wants to mess with Egypt’s security and wreck it must get rid of me first because by God Almighty I will not allow it. I would die so that 100 million can live,” he added.

He said that if attempts to destabilize the nation continue, he would call on Egyptians to give him “another mandate” to counter what he called the “evil people.” 

That was a reference to the “popular mandate” that el-Sissi asked for to fight terrorism in July 2013, just after he led the military’s ouster of Islamist Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected president whose one year in office proved divisive.

Millions took to the streets in response to his call, and el-Sissi then launched Egypt’s largest and harshest crackdown on dissent in decades, arresting thousands, mostly Islamists but also secular pro-democracy activists.

In his warnings Wednesday, el-Sissi also made a rare reference to the 2011 uprising that forced autocrat Hosni Mubarak to step down.

“Be warned, what happened seven or eight years ago will not be repeated. … You seem not to know me well enough. No, by God, the price of Egypt’s stability and security is my life and the life of the army,” he said, directing an intense gaze at Defense Minister Sidki Sobhi, seated to his left.  “I am not a politician who just talks,” he added.

His reference to the uprising had echoes of the line that is presented almost daily in pro-government media demonizing the 2011 “revolution” as a foreign plot to destabilize Egypt carried out by paid agents. Many of the uprising’s key figures are either in jail, live in exile or quietly moved to the sidelines.

Khaled Dawoud, leader of one of the parties calling for a boycott of the vote, defiantly rejected el-Sissi’s threats. 

“No one can prevent a repeat of the January (2011) revolution if oppression continues,” Dawoud told The Associated Press. “We are not inventing the wheel here; justice and respect for the law and are the basis of governance and the conditions for the continuation of any state. Egyptians are not afraid to demand their rights.” 

El-Sissi has consistently cited security and economic recovery as taking precedence over freedoms. He often complains of the political turmoil after 2011 that wrecked the economy. 

In office, el-Sissi has pursued mega infrastructure projects and painful austerity measures to repair the economy, stopping a slide in bankruptcy but also sending prices soaring beyond the reach of a majority of Egyptians.

“Stability and security means where we are now, anything else is doom. Please, don’t let anyone lead (the nation) to doom,” he warned.   
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