Month: March 2018

Railroad Project to Connect Iran With Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan

Posted on by SeeEA

The foreign ministers of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and Iran held the first-ever quadrilateral meeting in Baku to discuss regional cooperation.

At the center of the discussions was the construction of Rasht-Astara railroad, the 180-kilometer-long rail line that will connect the Iranian and Azerbaijani cities. The project is expected to be completed in three years.

“This project will herald the beginning of a new transportation corridor from the south to the west,” said Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov. The railroad will be connected with the already constructed Baku-Tbilisi-Kars line that links Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu expressed hope that the meeting of the four ministers will help boost regional cooperation, particularly the advancement of infrastructure projects in transportation and energy.

“This format will allow us to increase trade, attract investment to our countries. In our next meeting, we will discuss concrete projects,” he added.

According to Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, the project corresponds with the interests of the regional nations.

“The new transportation corridor will bridge two continents. The new corridor serves the interests of our countries and peoples,” he said.

The next meeting of the four ministers is to take place in Georgia.

In their final statement, the ministers expressed support for regional peace and stability based on mutual respect for territorial integrity.
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US Military Discloses Firefight in Niger in December

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U.S. and Niger troops killed 11 Islamist militants from a Boko Haram splinter group in a firefight in December, the U.S. military said on Thursday, publicly acknowledging a previously unreported incident.

The fight took place two months after four American and four local soldiers were killed in Niger, and could prompt further questions about the extent of the little-reported U.S. mission in West Africa.

“During a mission in the Lake Chad Basin region the morning of December 6, a combined force of Nigerien and U.S. military members came under fire from a formation of violent extremists,” United States Africa Command [Africom] said in a statement.

“We assessed 11 enemy killed in action, including two wearing suicide vests, and one weapons cache destroyed during this mission,” it said, adding that “no U.S. or Nigerien forces were killed or wounded during the attack.”

Niger’s defense ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A military source said the decision to issue the statement was taken after the New York Times learned the incident in an unclassified report the White House submitted to Congress this week.

The deaths of the four Americans in an ambush in Niger in October brought international and domestic attention to the U.S. mission to combat Islamist militants in the Sahel, the arid region south of the Sahara.

A regional branch of Islamic State claimed responsibility for that attack, which also led to a political fight between President Donald Trump and a congresswoman who accused him of speaking insensitively to the widow of one of those killed.

Southeastern Niger around Lake Chad, which borders Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon, is an area where militants from Boko Haram have been particularly active. The Islamist group has gradually split into two factions, one of which has pledged allegiance to Syria-based Islamic State.

This faction does not have any known links to Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, the group on the western side of Niger that launched October’s deadly ambush.

After the deaths of the Green Berets, the Pentagon was adamant that operation was not a kill-or-capture mission, but Nigerien officials insisted it was.

Anticipating similar questions about the December mission, Africom said: “there was no aspect of this mission focused on pursuing enemy militants,” adding: “the purpose of this mission was to set the conditions for future partner-led operations against violent extremist organizations.”

The United States has 800 soldiers operating in the largely desert nation, more than France, which has 4,000 in the wider Sahel tackling the Islamist militancy.
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Ethiopian Immigration on Hold After Israeli Budget Passes

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An activist group says the reunification of hundreds of families split between Israel and Ethiopia is on hold after Israel failed to set aside funding for the Ethiopians’ immigration in next year’s budget.

Alisa Bodner, a spokeswoman for the Struggle for Ethiopian Aliyah, called on Israel to resolve the issue without further delay.

 

Nearly 8,000 Ethiopians want Israel to approve their immigration, allowing them to join their families in Israel. Although many are practicing Jews, Israel doesn’t consider them Jewish, meaning their immigration requires special approval.

 

The families see the issue as part of an inconsistent and discriminatory immigration policy.

 

Parliament approved a 2019 budget early Thursday with no allocation for the immigration. Bodner says the issue is expected to come up in a government committee at an unknown date.
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Ukraine Lawmaker: Speaker Was Involved in 2014 Killings

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A former military pilot who became a national icon in Ukraine after spending two years in a Russian prison has accused Ukraine’s parliament speaker of being associated with snipers who fired on the crowds during the country’s 2014 uprising.

Lawmaker Nadiya Savchenko told journalists Thursday that she saw Andriy Parubiy, a key organizer of massive protests that drove Ukraine’s former Russia-friendly president from power, leading snipers into a hotel next to the capital’s main square, the Maidan.

Unidentified snipers killed dozens on the Maidan in February 2014, triggering public anger and leading to the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych.

 

Parubiy made no immediate comment, but Ukraine’s prosecutor responded by accusing Savchenko of plotting to overthrow the government.
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2 Investigative Journalists Released on Bail in Egypt

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Egypt has ordered the release of two freelance journalists who were arrested while preparing a report on a historic tramway in Alexandria.

   

The defense lawyer for May al-Sabbagh and Ahmed Moustafa, arrested on Feb. 28, says prosecutors ordered their release on bail Thursday. Mohammed Hafez says they were charged with possession of visual and audio equipment with the intent to spread false news.

 

Egypt has regularly detained and prosecuted journalists as part of a broader crackdown since the 2013 military overthrow of an elected Islamist president. The crackdown has escalated ahead of a March 26-28 election in which President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi faces no serious opposition.

 

Egypt’s pro-government media routinely accuse independent and foreign journalists of portraying the country in a negative light and trying to undermine its stability.

 
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Russia to Expel British Envoys in Retaliation for London’s Actions

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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says Moscow will expel British diplomats “soon” in retaliation for British Prime Minister Theresa May’s plan to expel 23 Russian diplomats over the poisoning of a former Russian double spy.

In remarks Thursday in Moscow, Lavrov called May’s actions “boorish” and said it was intended to distract from Britain’s difficult negotiations in leaving the European Union.

Lavrov said Moscow will inform London directly through official channels before going public with its response.

Former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were found unconscious on a park bench in the English town of Salisbury and rushed to the hospital, where they remain in serious condition. Several other individuals, including a police officer, were sickened.

Britain has said it believes Russia was behind the attack and Prime Minister May announced a series of reprisals, including the largest expulsion of Russian diplomats since 1971, at the height of the Cold War. Russia has denied involvement.

The White House issued a statement Wednesday that said the U.S. “stands in solidarity with its closest ally, the United Kingdom” and shares in the assessment “that Russia is responsible for the reckless nerve agent attack on a British citizen and his daughter, and we support Britain’s decision to expel Russian diplomats as a just response.

British officials said the chemical nerve agent known as Novichok was used in the attack. It was developed by the Soviet Union and inherited by Russia.

Skripal, a former agent of Russia’s military intelligence agency, was arrested in 2004 for betraying dozens of Russian agents to Britain. He was freed in 2010 as part of an exchange of spies with the United States, and eventually settled in Britain.

French President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday that his government will take “measures” in the coming days in response to the poisoning of Skripal and his daughter.

Macron told reporters during a visit to central France that information shared by British intelligence services confirms Moscow’s involvement in the attack. He formally backed Prime Minister May’s accusations earlier Thursday after the two leaders spoke by phone. His office issued a statement saying Macron shares the British’s leaders view that “there is no other plausible explanation” for the incident.

A spokesman for Prime Minister May says she will travel to Salisbury later Thursday to speak with residents and officials.

 

 
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Syria Marks 7 Years of War; Hundreds Leave Besieged Enclave

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Hundreds of civilians streamed out of a town in Syria’s besieged, opposition-held enclave of eastern Ghouta on Thursday, crossing on foot to government-held territory near the capital, Damascus, according to footage on state-run Syrian television.

 

Al-Ikhbariya TV showed men, women and children walking out of the town of Hamouria, some carrying their belongings, including clothes and mattresses, over their heads. According to the footage, there were hundreds, if not thousands of civilians.

 

The mass exit came as Syrians marked seven years since the popular uprising that sparked their country’s vicious civil war — and hours after Syrian government forces blanketed the town with airstrikes and rocket fire.

 

Al-Mayadeen TV showed buses waiting to pick up civilians. Al-Ihkbariya said they will be taken to a center for identification and relief.

 

The departure appears to be the largest civilian exodus from eastern Ghouta since the government launched a punishing assault on the rebel-held region more than three weeks ago. More than 1,200 civilians have been killed in government and Russian airstrikes and rocket fire.

Men interviewed to state-TV reporters heaped praise on the army and President Bashar Assad and said armed groups had humiliated them and held them against their will in eastern Ghouta.

 

The government and rebels have traded accusations over who is blocking civilians from leaving.

 

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said government forces targeted a column of civilians fleeing Hamouria before dawn Thursday, wounding several people. It says 26 people were killed in government strikes on the town on Wednesday.

 

The U.N. estimates that close to 400,000 people are trapped inside the government’s siege of eastern Ghouta. They are running out of room to flee as government forces close in on the space.

 

Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross managed to send a joint relief agencies convoy with aid for thousands of displaced into another part of eastern Ghouta, the town of Douma, the ICRC said.

 

According to Syrian Civil Defense, also known as White Helmets, the organization’s first responders were unable to reach the wounded in several other towns in eastern Ghouta because of the intensity of the assault. It said one of its rescue workers was killed in an airstrike on the town of Hazeh.

 

“They are burning Ghouta to the ground,” said Anas al-Dimashqi, a media activist and resident of Kafr Batna, a town also targeted in intense airstrikes Thursday.

 

Dimashqi, the White Helmets and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that government and Russian aircraft were using napalm-like incendiary weapons to spread fires in the towns.

 

Government and Russian forces also targeted a column of civilians trying to flee another town, Hamouria, early Thursday, according to the activists and the Observatory. At least 26 civilians were killed Hamouria on Wednesday, the Observatory said earlier.

 

The Syrian government, backed by its allies Iran and Russia, is determined to retake control of the once farming region just outside the Damascus, after seven years of war and bloodletting that has killed around 450,000 people and displaced millions.

 

More than 1,200 people have been killed since pro-government forces launched their assault on eastern Ghouta more than three weeks ago.

 

Damascus and Moscow have ignored a Feb. 25 U.N. Security Council resolution demanding a cease-fire for the entire country.

 

The eastern Ghouta region was one of the hubs of the uprising against President Bashar Assad in 2011 and was quickly targeted for siege, mass arrests, and extrajudicial killings by security forces.

 

Government forces cleaved the region in two parts earlier this week, and isolated the area’s largest town, Douma, from the rest of the suburbs.

 

Douma has seen four days of relative calm, said local media activist Youssef Boustani.

 

The 25-truck aid convoy organized by the international Red Cross, the Syrian Red Crescent, and the United Nations crossed into eastern Ghouta on Thursday, according to the ICRC, and was expected to deliver aid later in the day.

Damascus routinely blocks the aid agencies from delivering relief to opposition-held areas in the country.

 

The Russian military, meanwhile, said it had extended a “humanitarian pause” to operations targeting Douma through Thursday and Friday. It claimed the pause has allowed growing numbers of civilians to reach safety.

 

Maj. Gen. Yuri Yevtushenko was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying that 131 people left the area through the humanitarian corridor on Wednesday. Maj. Gen. Vladimir Zolotukhin said some 100 people are expected to be evacuated on Thursday.
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Thousands of Syrian Civilians Flee Last Major Rebel Stronghold

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Thousands of civilians fled the rebel-held eastern Ghouta town of Hammouriyeh on Thursday as the Syrian army continued to make inroads into the last major stronghold in the area, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Observatory Director Rami Abdulrahman said it was the largest exodus of people from the besieged area near Damascus since government forces launched a campaign to recapture it last month.

After the Syrian army opened a corridor following a late-night advance, the civilians were seen fleeing to an area held by the Syrian government on foot, in cars and on motorcycles.

Scores of wounded and sick people were evacuated earlier this week from eastern Ghouta, which has been divided into three encircled areas by the government offensive.

Twenty-five trucks hauling humanitarian aid entered the northern rebel-held area and was headed to the town of Douma, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.

The ICRC added the convoy was transporting enough food aid for 26,100 people for one month and other items as well.

The Observatory also said overnight that dozens of air strikes and shelling pounded eastern Ghouta’s southern pocket.

Russia and Syria have said their forces only target armed militants and try to halt insurgent mortar attacks that have killed dozens of people in the area. The two countries have blamed the rebels of using civilians as human shields, an accusation the insurgents have denied.

 
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Kremlin: Spy Scandal Won’t Disrupt Presidential Election

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Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman says a mushrooming diplomatic scandal over the poisoning of an ex-spy in Britain won’t disrupt Russia’s presidential election.

 

Dmitry Peskov told reporters Thursday the nerve agent attack on Sergei Skripal “doesn’t affect” the campaign for Sunday’s election, which he called Russia’s top priority.

 

Peskov strongly denied Russian responsibility in the March 4 attack.

 

The Russian campaign remains lackluster just three days before the vote. Putin is overwhelmingly expected to win another term after 18 years in power, riding in part on his argument that he must stand up to Western aggressors.

 

Opposition candidate and former TV star Ksenia Sobchak is holding a big rally Thursday, after breaking down in tears at the final televised debate Wednesday night. She was the only candidate to criticize Putin.

 
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Man Who Claimed He Buried Natalee Holloway Fatally Stabbed

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A man who once claimed he helped bury the remains of a missing Alabama girl in Aruba has died after police say he was stabbed during a foiled kidnapping in Florida.

 

The Tampa Bay Times reports 32-year-old John Christopher Ludwick tried to kidnap a woman Wednesday as she exited her driveway in North Port.

 

Police said she fought back, and Ludwick was stabbed in the struggle. He ran, but officers found him in a wooded area. He died at a hospital.

 

The Times reports Ludwick was a friend of Joran Van der Sloot, the prime suspect in the 2005 kidnapping of Natalee Holloway. Van der Sloot is in prison now for an unrelated murder. North Port police say they’ve informed authorities involved in the Holloway case of Ludwick’s death.

 

 
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Barron Trump’s School Joins Others in Call for Gun Reforms

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The private school that Barron Trump attends has joined other schools in calling for gun control.

 

St. Andrew’s Episcopal School and more than 100 schools in Maryland and the Washington area on Wednesday signed an open letter calling on Barron Trump’s father, Republican President Donald Trump, and Congress to support gun control measures and to reject arming teachers. The White House has proposed arming educators.

 

The schools support a “robust system of registration and background checks” with an emphasis on assault weapons. They also back stronger mental health services.

The letter was published as tens of thousands of students walked out of their classrooms Wednesday to demand action on gun violence and school safety. The walkout was triggered by the Feb. 14 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

 
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Independent Chefs Exchange Referrals, Constructive Criticism and Support

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Cooking is Chris Spear’s passion. He’s been professionally cooking since he was 16. Over the years, he worked for big restaurants and reached a point where he had almost 100 employees reporting to him. That’s when he missed flexibility and wanted to be more creative. So, he quit working for restaurants and founded his own catering company, Perfect Little Bites in Frederick, Maryland.

“Not that having your business is easy, but I want to have the flexibility to say, ‘It’s Valentine’s Day, and it’s more important to me to stay home with my wife,’ or to be home cooking for someone. I really wanted something that I felt was mine,” Spear explained.

Spending long hours in the kitchen doesn’t tire Spear, but he had often been concerned that becoming an independent chef would make him feel lonely. That inspired him to found Chefs Without Restaurants, an online resource for chefs. 

“I’ve been thinking about the Chefs Without Restaurants for about five years now, even before I took Perfect Little Bites full time, because I kept thinking about, ‘Well, when I do this full time, who are going to be my colleagues? Who are going to be the people who I can bounce ideas off? Who am I going to be able to [get to] do things like cater an event that’s maybe outside my range of 30 people? Like, do I have a resource where I can pull in one or two other people?’ ” he said. ” … And what I started to see was other independent chefs were referring customers to me, [and] I started to do that back to them. I kind of thought, ‘There’s got to be an easier way to do this.’ ”

Dozens have joined

Since the group started last January around 100 chefs have joined it.

“We’re caterers,” he said. “We’re personal chefs. We run food trucks. We have awesome food specialty shops.” Spear said he wanted to find an arrangement that would be beneficial to all such groups but didn’t cost them any money. 

So now he has a Facebook group where he can post information about, for instance, a potential customer who wants to arrange a dinner in a given location and within a certain price range, and he can offer interested chefs more information.

Customers can also benefit from this network. Spear said he’s building a website where customers will be able to check out profiles of the Chefs Without Restaurants members, learn about their specialties and see what kinds of events they can cater, large or small.

Lana and Bobby Browner are a wife-and-husband team who own their own catering company, Bent and Bent Events, in Frederick.

“We’ve been doing this for five years, since he graduated from a culinary school,” Lana Browner said.

“We specialize in Creole cuisine, Caribbean cuisine. So we blend flavors and bring a nice flavor, a different flavor in the field of food in Frederick County,” Bobby Browner said.

When the Browners heard about Spear’s group, they decided to become members. 

“I think the biggest hurdle for a lot of chefs is that they don’t really form an alliance because they’re all kind of competing with each other, but you don’t have that in this group,” Lana Browner said. “What we’ve experienced so far is a lot of learning about different chefs in the area. It’s even been interesting to get feedback from chefs that are not in this immediate area.”

Her husband added, “It’s a really competitive field,” but there’s “a lot of camaraderie, a lot of openness and a lot of sharing” within the group.

Shared kitchen

The group is also bringing more business to local facilities, like a shared kitchen called Maryland Bakes where members often meet and work. Terri Rowe, a food entrepreneur and owner of Maryland Bakes, said the group brings more energy to the small food businesses in the area.

“They bring connections,” she said. “They bring a variety of talents and gifts. They bring creative ideas and just the whole network of independent people joining together. So it’s a big community.”

The whole local food community seems to embrace Chefs Without Restaurants.

Oil & Vinegar Frederick is one of the local shops Spear likes. The place often hosts events to introduce cooking ideas and chefs to their customers.

Store owner Sharon Streb said small businesses should help one another succeed. 

When other chefs and businesses come to her store, “they get in front of our customers and hopefully we get in front of their customers. That’s a win-win for both of us,” she said. “It’s tough out there for a small business, and not a lot of small businesses succeed. It’s important that we can work together and be successful, both of us.”

That’s the goal for Spear, who wants to carve out a space for independent chefs on the food map in the area.
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Trump Admits Making up Trade Claim in Trudeau Talk

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President Donald Trump freestyled with the facts when talking trade with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The Republican described the discussion during a fundraising speech in St. Louis on Wednesday.

 

According to audio obtained by The Washington Post, Trump insisted that the United States runs a trade deficit with Canada.

 

Trump said Trudeau told him there was no trade deficit. Trump said he replied, “‘Wrong, Justin, you do.’ I didn’t even know. … I had no idea. I just said, ‘You’re wrong.'”

 

Trump claimed the figures don’t include timber and energy.

 

However, the Office of the United States Trade Representative says the United States has a trade surplus with Canada.
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North Korean Foreign Minister Heads to Sweden

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North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho is heading to Sweden on a mission that could set the stage for a possible summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Ri will arrive in Stockholm Thursday for two days of talks with Margot Wallstrom, his Swedish counterpart. Sweden represents diplomatic interests for the United States, Canada and Australia through its embassy in North Korea.

​Sweden’s Foreign Ministry says the purpose of Ri’s visit “is to contribute to the effective implementation” of the resolutions by the U.N. Security Council condemning Pyongyang over its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs. 

President Trump unexpectedly announced last week that he will meet face-to-face with Kim Jong Un by the end of May, but a date and location have not been announced.
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With Tillerson Out, Turkish Foreign Minister Delays US Visit

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Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu’s planned visit to Washington Monday has been postponed, his spokesman said Thursday, following the U.S. decision to replace Rex Tillerson as secretary of state.

A planned visit Monday to Washington by Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has been postponed. No reason was given but Cavusoglu had earlier described the meeting as key to resolving ongoing differences between the countries over Washington’s support of the Syrian Kurdish militia, the YPG, in its war against the Islamic State.

Ankara considers the militia terrorists linked to a Kurdish insurgency inside Turkey.

Turkey has been angered by Washington’s support for the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia in the fight against Islamic State. Turkey sees the YPG as a terrorist group and an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

There had been signs of an easing in strains between the NATO allies after a recent visit to Turkey by Tillerson, whom U.S. President Donald Trump sacked Tuesday as secretary of state.

But Turkish media has seized on a tweet purportedly made by Pompeo after a failed coup in July 2016, and before he became CIA director, which referred to Turkey as a “totalitarian Islamist dictatorship.” The tweet was later removed.

Turkey has been angered by the U.S. failure to extradite the Pennsylvania-based cleric whom Ankara blames for orchestrating that attempted putsch and by the conviction of a Turkish banker in an Iran sanctions-busting case.
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US Military Official: Iran Naval Forces Halt ‘Provocations’

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Iranian naval forces appear to have deliberately halted their provocations of U.S. Navy ships in the Persian Gulf in recent months, a U.S. military official said Thursday. 

According to Navy Cmdr. William Urban, spokesman for U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, there have been no “unsafe and unprofessional” actions by Iranian naval forces in the Gulf since August 2017.

Prior to that, Iranian vessels had periodically made high-speed approaches to U.S. ships that were considered dangerous provocations.

Urban declined to speculate on the reason for the change.

“It seems like they’ve absolutely made a conscious decision to give us more space,” he said. “That is definitely a change in their behavior.”

Urban spoke to reporters traveling with U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who stopped in Bahrain to meet with senior government officials and U.S. military leaders on his way back from Afghanistan. 

The last tense encounter between the U.S. Navy and Iranian forces in the Persian Gulf was recorded on Aug. 14, 2017, when an unarmed Iranian drone shadowed the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier at night and came close enough to F-18 fighter jets to put the lives of American pilots at risk, the Navy said at the time.

The drone did not respond to repeated radio calls and came within 1,000 feet (300 meters) of U.S. fighters. In a similar encounter Aug. 8, the Navy said an Iranian drone came within 100 feet (30 meters) of an F-18 preparing to land on the Nimitz. 

For the first eight months of 2017, the Navy recorded 14 instances of what it describes as “unsafe and/or unprofessional” interactions with Iranians forces. It recorded 35 in 2016 and 23 in 2015.

The incidents at sea almost always involved the Revolutionary Guard, a paramilitary force that reports only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Some analysts believe the incidents are meant in part to squeeze moderate President Hassan Rouhani’s administration after the 2015 nuclear deal.

Of the incidents at sea last year, the worst involved Iranian forces capturing and holding overnight 10 U.S. sailors who strayed into the Islamic Republic’s territorial waters.

Iranian forces in turn accuse the U.S. Navy of unprofessional behavior, especially in the Strait of Hormuz, the mouth of the Persian Gulf, through which a third of all oil traded by sea passes.

Bahrain, where Mattis stopped on Thursday, is a tiny island kingdom off the coast of Saudi Arabia and the home of U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet. Of Bahrain’s approximately 1.4 million people, about half are Bahraini citizens, the majority of them Shiite.

The island has been ruled since 1783 by the Sunni Al Khalifa family. King Hamad, who took the throne in 1999, initially took steps to move the country from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional one. The first parliamentary elections since 1973 were held in 2002. 

However, the Shiite majority accused the government of treating them like second-class citizens. They joined pro-democracy activists in demanding more political freedoms in 2011, as Arab Spring protests swept the wider Middle East. Saudi and Emirati troops ultimately helped violently put down the demonstrations.
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Poverty Drives Syrian Refugees in Lebanon to Marry Girls Off Early

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As 17-year-old Aziza sat in her dark tent in a refugee camp, she rocked her baby while her tiny hands adjusted his pacifier, looking down at all she had left from two broken marriages.

Aziza’s parents arranged for her to marry her cousin when she was 14. Her mother, Rashida, said it was normal for girls her age to become brides in their Syrian tribe because it protected them from harassment and reduced pressure on the family budget.

“I regret that I got married,” Aziza, who declined to give her full name, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation as her eyes welled up with tears. “The girls that are my age are now studying. They have ambition. I have nothing. I am totally destroyed.”

​No minimum age to wed

A growing number of girls among the 1.5 million Syrian refugees who have fled to Lebanon since 2011 are becoming wives amid rising poverty, aid groups said on the eighth anniversary of the conflict.

Around 1 in 5 Syrian girls ages 15 to 19 in Lebanon is married, according to the United Nations children’s agency (UNICEF), which fears more young girls will be married off by families that cannot afford food, rent and medicines.

More than three-quarters of the refugees in Lebanon are living below the poverty line and struggling to survive on less than $4 per day, UNICEF said.

Kafa, a local rights group, is calling on Lebanon to pass a law to make 18 the minimum age for marriage.

There is no minimum age of marriage in Lebanon. Religious communities’ personal status laws can allow girls younger than 15 to marry, according to Human Rights Watch.

The rights group said Lebanon is behind many other countries in the region that have set 18 as the minimum marriage age, including Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates.

“It is escalating … because they are living in a very closed community,” said Salwa Al Homsi, a spokeswoman for Kafa. “The parents, they cannot afford to support their children.”

Gossip

Aziza lives with her mother, father and five siblings in a small tent covered in plastic sheets in eastern Lebanon’s fertile Bekaa Valley, home to more than 300,000 refugees, the most densely populated area of refugees in Lebanon.

They escaped their hometown of Aleppo five years ago.

“My life in Syria was beautiful,” said Aziza, whose small-frame and adolescent features make her look younger than her years — a striking image of a child holding a child.

“I used to go to school … and wanted to be a doctor,” said Aziza whose favorite subject was Arabic.

Her father and two of her sisters earn about 6,000 Lebanese Pounds ($4) a day, picking grapes and potatoes seasonally.

“I have four daughters, I can’t give them everything they need,” said Rashida, adding that poverty was one reason they decided that Aziza should marry her 17-year-old cousin.

Aziza said she did not oppose the marriage at first, but she divorced after one year because of troubles with her mother-in-law and moved back into her parents’ tent.

When other refugees in her community started to “gossip” about her because she was divorced, she said the shame drove her into a second marriage, at age 16, to a 30-year-old Syrian man.

“I didn’t like him. I only married him because people were talking,” she said from inside her family’s tent.

Aziza said she left the man after about a year because he physically abused her.

“The younger a girl gets married, the more at risk she is of domestic violence,” said Jihane Latrous, a UNICEF child protection specialist. “It is an extremely worrying factor because they aren’t able to deal with such situations.”

Nearly 35 percent of women ages 20 to 24 in Western Bekaa surveyed in 2016 were married before reaching 18, according to the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA).

Beyond setting a minimum age for marriage, education of girls is key to break the cycle of poverty, Latrous said.

“The less this young generation is educated, the less they are able, themselves, to bring up their children in a way that will empower their children,” she said.

As the oldest girl in her family, Aziza was adamant that her sisters learn from how she suffered and do not marry until they are 20 or older.

“Don’t get married, and finish school,” is her message to fellow Syrian refugee girls.

As Aziza looked down at her 5-month-old son, she imagined a better life for him.

“When he gets older, I want him to be educated and not be like me, not knowing how to read and write. I want him to know Arabic and English,” she said with a smile.

Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, property rights, and climate change.

 
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U.N. Climate Projects in Congo Leave Locals Worse Off, Report Says

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A large-scale United Nations program to halt deforestation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, home to the world’s second-largest rainforest, is harming local communities and failing to protect forests, land rights researchers said on Wednesday.

The U.S.-based group Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) called on the World Bank to withhold funding from 20 current or pending projects in the province of Mai-Ndombe, which has been a test case for a U.N.-backed conservation scheme known as REDD+.

In an area rife with land conflict, an RRI report said the forest protection projects in this western province threatened the rights and incomes of rural women and indigenous groups, including about 73,000 pygmies.

“REDD+ was created to both halt deforestation and benefit local communities — yet the current projects in Mai-Ndombe fail to address both objectives,” said Marine Gauthier, the report’s author.

A spokesman for the U.N.’s REDD+ program did not respond to requests for comment.

One of the focal cases involves U.S. company Wildlife Works Carbon (WWC), which denied the accusations.

The company obtained a large land concession in order to protect a forest from loggers, and uses a share of the money earned from selling carbon credits to benefit people living there, said president Mike Korchinsky.

“Millions of dollars of benefits have gone to the communities,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. He said WWC had built schools, invested in medical clinics, and provided years of agricultural support.

But Gauthier said local communities, which signed agreements with the company, were not properly consulted, and claimed the project had hindered their farming and other activities.

“These communities actually bear the burden of reducing deforestation,” she said.

The World Bank said the funding provided by REDD+ and its partners supported some of the poorest Congolese citizens, while contributing to meeting climate goals.

“We will review the report’s findings and have no plans to withhold funding at this time,” a World Bank spokesperson said in emailed comments.

“The work improves livelihoods, lessens pressure on native forests and reduces emissions of greenhouse gases from deforestation and forest degradation,” the World Bank said. RRI said women and minorities had been worst affected by the REDD+ projects that were up and running, because they often lack formal land rights and are not consulted about decisions.

REDD+, or reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation, was one of the solutions to climate change laid out in the 2015 Paris accord. It offers monetary incentives to scale back deforestation.

Congo could become the first country to sign a REDD+ deal with the World Bank this year, setting an example for more than 50 developing countries that plan to follow suit, said RRI.

However, it warned that deal could exacerbate conflict and set a dangerous global precedent if changes were not made. RRI said it had shared the results and that discussions with donors were underway.
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Moroccan Protesters, Police Clash in Poor Mining Town

Posted on by SeeAF

Moroccan protesters clashed Wednesday with security forces in a poor mining town where residents have been demanding government help to tackle poverty, officials and activists said.

The town of Jerada in the remote northeast has seen protests since two miners were killed in an accident in December, but demonstrations calling for state aid and alternative jobs had remained peaceful until now.

On Wednesday, protesters set five police cars on fire and clashed with police, a local official said. An unspecified number of policemen were wounded and brought to a hospital in Oujda, the main city in the northeast, a statement said. 

Nine people had been detained, officials said.

Sit-in turns violent

An activist in Jerada said residents had staged a sit-in against a statement by the interior ministry Tuesday that had warned it was ready to act decisively unless the protests stopped.

Security forces fired teargas, according to a video posted on social media purportedly showing the clashes.

Some 500 security personnel had surrounded the protest, which had led to the violence, the activist said by phone, asking not to be named.

Residents say the town has been neglected since the mines closed some 20 years ago, part of growing public dissatisfaction in some poor areas at a time when the government is implementing currency reforms and cutting subsidies to drive economic growth.

Dissent across the north

The Jerada protests have found common cause with dissent that has rumbled since 2016 in the Rif, also in the north and making economic and political demands.

They are a far cry from the mass protests that rocked the North African country in 2011 when uprisings ousted rulers in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, but pose a challenge to a constitutional monarchy in which the king has far-reaching powers.

Stability in Morocco is important for Western governments because it is the only country in North Africa where jihadist groups have failed to gain a foothold. Rabat is also a key intelligence-sharing partner on Islamist militancy.
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UN Set to Threaten Arms Embargo on South Sudan

Posted on by SeeAF

The U.N. Security Council is expected to adopt on Thursday a U.S.-drafted resolution that threatens to impose an arms embargo on South Sudan and sanctions against those blocking efforts to end one of Africa’s worst wars.

The strongly-worded text is aimed at piling pressure on South Sudan’s warring sides as they head into a new round of peace talks in Ethiopia next month to end the four-year war.

The council “expresses its intention to consider all measures, including an arms embargo, as appropriate, to deprive the parties of the means to continue fighting,” according to a final draft resolution.

Demanding an end to the fighting, the council will “consider all appropriate measures … against those who take actions that undermine the peace, stability, and security of South Sudan,” said the text seen by AFP on Wednesday.

Peacekeeping mission

The draft resolution would also renew the mandate of the U.N. peacekeeping mission for a year and maintain a regional force in Juba that was deployed after fierce fighting broke out in the capital in July 2016.

The United Nations has 12,500 troops and 1,500 police in its UNMISS mission, which is tasked with protecting civilians caught up in a brutal war between President Salva Kiir’s forces and rebels.

Negotiations on the U.S.-drafted text began last week with Russia, China and Ethiopia raising objections to the threat of an arms embargo, diplomats said.

That stance was in line with the African Union, which has backed sanctions as a way to pressure the parties but has not endorsed an arms embargo.

The United States failed in late 2016 to garner enough support for a ban on weapons sales after eight countries including Russia, China, Angola, Egypt and Senegal abstained.

Nine votes are required to adopt a resolution in the 15-member council.

Despite the defeat, the United States has continued to call for an arms embargo, with the support of Britain and France.

Time for action?

Human Rights Watch’s U.N. deputy director Akshaya Kumar said an arms embargo and sanctions are the “missing pieces of the puzzle” to shore up peace efforts in South Sudan.

“It’s good that the Security Council is threatening these steps but they have made these threats many times before, and what we are waiting for is action,” she said.

The measure would push the council closer to action but another draft resolution would have to be approved for the actual arms embargo to be imposed.

The war in the world’s youngest nation has killed tens of thousands of people, uprooted four million — roughly a third of the population — and raised the risk of famine.

Critical backing from US 

South Sudan won independence from Sudan in 2011, with critical backing from the United States, which remains Juba’s biggest aid donor.

With the war now in its fifth year, Ethiopia is leading a regional peace effort, hosting talks between the government and rebel groups that have yet to produce a breakthrough.

A ceasefire deal agreed to in December has not taken hold, even though the level of violence has decreased.

The Ethiopia-led diplomatic effort has been billed as a last chance for peace as frustration grows over the ongoing war that has seen horrific levels of brutality. 

Extraordinary cruelty

A U.N. rights commission last month said there was sufficient evidence to charge at least 41 senior officers and officials with war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The commission’s report documented extraordinary cruelty. Some victims were beheaded, burned alive or had their throats cut, others had their eyes gouged out or were tortured.

Addressing a recent African Union summit, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres dropped his usual reluctance to criticize leaders and bluntly said of South Sudan’s leaders that he “had never seen a political elite with so little interest in the well-being of its own people.” 
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Stigma Adds to Harm of Child Sex Abuse in Nigeria

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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Lawmakers Ponder Steps to Curb Gun Violence as Students Protest Outside Capitol    

Posted on by SeeUS

 As students staged a coordinated school walkout in districts across America, U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday grilled federal officials on the failure to act on repeated warnings about Nikolas Cruz, the alleged gunman who killed 17 people at a Florida high school last month.

“It appears that the FBI did not communicate with local law enforcement,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, said.

“There was a catastrophic failure at every single level (of law enforcement) that occurred here which made this shooting possible, and we have to find a way to plug those holes,” Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas said.

The Senate panel met as throngs of students and activists converged outside the Capitol and in other locations nationwide to demand restrictions on firearms.

Democrats backed their call. Senator Dianne Feinstein of California noted that the United States has suffered more than 200 school shootings in the last five years.

“This averages out to five school shootings per month. This is outrageous,” Feinstein said. “This Congress cannot continue to do nothing, because (doing) nothing means more lives are lost, including the youngest and the most vulnerable among us.”

Most Democrats favor establishing universal background checks for all gun purchases as well as reestablishing a ban on the sale of  semi-automatic rifles.

“It’s common sense to get the assault rifles and banana (high capacity) clips off the streets,” Florida Senator Bill Nelson said. “Universal background checks are common sense.”

By contrast, most Republicans back measures to boost law enforcement’s capability to detect dangerous individuals and prevent gun sales to those deemed a security risk, rather than banning entire classifications of firearms or subjecting every gun sale to a background check.

In addition, President Donald Trump has directed the Justice Department to craft regulations banning the sale of so-called “bump stocks” that dramatically increase the number of rounds a semi-automatic rifle can fire in a given time period. He has also voiced support for allowing trained teachers to carry firearms in schools.

Weeks ago, Trump appeared to endorse universal background checks as well as raising the minimum purchase age for assault weapons, but reversed himself days later.

“There are things we (Republicans and Democrats) agree on. We should pass those things,” Florida Senator Marco Rubio said.

“We must rally around consensus,” Grassley said. 

Democrats countered that limiting congressional action to the lowest common denominator of measures palatable to majorities of members in both parties will not prevent future mass shooting incidents.

“Guns and assault weapons continue to flood our streets by the millions,” Feinstein said, adding that gun deaths in America rose sharply after a previous assault weapons ban expired in 2004. “We have seen more and more children, families, communities victimized by mass shootings from military-style assault weapons.”

On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, announced his support for a bipartisan proposal to provide federal funding to train school districts and local and state police forces to identify security threats, form crisis intervention teams, and boost security infrastructure at schools nationwide.

“We use a variety of security measures to protect workplaces and government buildings across America. We ought to be able to do the same to protect our children,” McConnell said in a statement.

Democrat Sherrod Brown of Ohio called the proposal an initial step to boost school safety, adding that further steps “must also include gun safety measures.”
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US Pursues WTO Action on Indian Export Subsidies 

Posted on by SeeUS

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said Wednesday that the United States would challenge Indian government export subsidies because they hurt American workers and manufacturers.

Lighthizer said he had requested “dispute settlement consultations” with the Indian government at the World Trade Organization because the subsidies allow India to sell goods at lower prices.

He said his office “will continue to hold our trading partners accountable by vigorously enforcing U.S. rights under our trade agreements and by promoting fair and reciprocal trade through all available tools, including the WTO.”

The announcement is the latest step in President Donald Trump’s trade offensive.The White House has announced tariffs on imported steel and aluminum as well as on imports of solar panels and washing machines.

Lighthizer’s office said India offers benefits valued at $7 billion annually to domestic exporters, such as duty, tax and fee exemptions. Producers of steel, information technology and textiles are among the recipients.

Consultations are the first step in WTO’s dispute settlement process, but Trump has said he does not favor resorting to dispute resolutions at the WTO, where he contends the United States is at a disadvantage.

The administration has instead concentrated efforts on tariffs and remedies as allowed under domestic U.S. law.
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Trump Picks Conservative Economist as New White House Adviser

Posted on by SeeUS

U.S. President Donald Trump is naming Larry Kudlow, a longtime conservative economic analyst and television business show commentator, as his new top White House economic adviser.

The 70-year-old Kudlow told news media he accepted Trump’s offer Wednesday to become director of the White House’s National Economic Council. Reports say a formal announcement could come Thursday.

He will replace former Wall Street financier Gary Cohn, who resigned last week after breaking with President Trump on trade policy. Cohn had lost an internal debate, among Trump advisers, aimed at convincing the president not to impose steep new tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

 

Kudlow, who was an informal economic adviser to Trump during the first year of his presidency, also opposed Trump’s imposition of the 25 percent levy on steel and 10 percent tax on aluminum. Kudlow, however, was also an adviser to Trump during his successful 2016 White House run and worked with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in designing the tax cut plan Trump pushed through Congress in December.

Kudlow worked decades ago in the White House of President Ronald Reagan, but has spent much of the time since then as a television show host, much like Trump, who served as executive producer of The Apprentice reality television show before turning to politics.

One of Kudlow’s first White House efforts is likely to involve the ongoing renegotiation of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, the U.S. pact with Canada and Mexico.

Kudlow has said that it would be a “calamitously bad decision” to end the accord, but Trump has said NAFTA has left the United States at a disadvantage in trade deals with the two countries. The president has said he wants better terms for American farmers in their exports to Canada and wants Mexico to step up its border security at the U.S. line to keep undocumented immigrants from crossing into the United States.

 
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