The growing presence of Iranian forces in Syria supporting President Bashar al-Assad, and fears that Tehran seeks a permanent base in Syria, were discussed today in the Oval Office where President Donald Trump hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Details from VOA White House Bureau Chief Steve Herman.
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Month: March 2018
Trump Not Backing Down on Steel, Aluminum Tariffs
U.S. President Donald Trump reaffirmed his pledge to impose stiff tariffs on imported steel and aluminum Monday. The plan sparked outcry and criticism from the international community, including from members of Trump’s party. VOA’s Jesusemen Oni has more.
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Democrats Head into US Primaries With Bumper Crop of Candidates
Two years ago, just one Texas Democrat volunteered to run against Republican Rep. John Culberson in a metro Houston congressional district. This year, not even that failed Democrat’s double-digit loss could scare seven Democrats away from jumping in the race.
As primary season opens on Tuesday with the Texas vote, Democrats across the country are enjoying a bumper crop of candidates. It’s the latest sign of enthusiasm — like massive women’s marches and victories in state races around the country — heading into midterm elections that look increasingly hopeful for the opposition party.
But the abundance of volunteers also comes with a reality check: The crowded primaries are giving the party’s ideological divide a full public airing and could give party leaders less control over who carries the mantle in November.
Conversations with more than a dozen Democratic candidates, party officials and strategists found confidence that a glut of crowded primaries won’t damage the party’s overall prospects for a big November. Yet Democrats acknowledged the lively nomination fights could result in victories for candidates with little experience, scant scrutiny or political views that are out of step with general electorate.
That’s largely because it’s the party’s left flank that has provided much of the enthusiasm since President Donald Trump’s election capped nearly a decade of Democrats’ losing more than 1,000 federal and state offices.
“Just any blue won’t do,” says Nina Tuner, a former Ohio legislator who leads Our Revolution, the spinoff of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign. Like Sanders, the group calls for a $15 minimum wage, free public university tuition and a national health insurance plan.
“People are not just voting for people because they are Democrats,” Turner adds. “They want to vote for people who are fighting for their values.”
In Washington, though, there’s a hint of worry about what kinds of candidates can win in Republican-leaning areas Democrats may need to regain majorities on Capitol Hill and dent GOP advantages in some statehouses. Even in Democratic strongholds, where partisan control isn’t at play, the battles will help determine the direction of the party.
The tensions will get their next test in Texas with primaries Tuesday.
The party has candidates in every Texas congressional district — 36 of them — for the first time in 24 years. There are 25 contested Democratic primaries, including in each of the five districts that appear on national Democrats’ target list of 98 GOP-held seats. Democrats need to flip 24 seats to win control of the House.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee raised eyebrows in Culberson’s district when it publicly released a memo calling one of its seven candidates, Laura Moser, a “Washington insider” who’d once declared she’d “rather have my teeth pulled out without anesthesia” than live in Paris, Texas.
Meredith Kelly, a party spokeswoman, explained the move saying the committee wants to “ensure that there’s a competitive Democrat on the ballot” in November, the implication being that Culberson and Republicans would use the same material to make Moser unelectable.
Local members of Our Revolution, Sanders’ political organization, endorsed Moser soon after the party memo surfaced.
For her part, Moser turned the flap into a television ad blasting Washington for meddling.
Meanwhile, in California, the state Democratic Committee ensured an internal fight when it snubbed Sen. Dianne Feinstein after 26 years in office and instead endorsed her more liberal Democratic rival.
Feinstein still leads in the polls and may not be seriously threatened in California’s so-called jungle primary system, which places all candidates, regardless of party, on the same first ballot, with the top two vote-getters advancing to a second round of voting. But the environment within the party still forces Feinstein to withstand a challenge from the left.
The same system that may help Feinstein, however, means a free-for-all among Democrats running for California congressional seats. The party is seriously targeting about a half-dozen Republican-held seats, with multiple Democrats running for each. Five signed up for retiring Republican Rep. Darrell Issa’s seat in San Diego County. Seven are taking on Rep. Mimi Walters in Orange County, while eight want to unseat Republican Dana Rohrbacher in a nearby district.
The same party committee that endorsed Feinstein’s Democratic challenger opted to stay out of the crowded House races.
Tom Perriello, who ran for Virginia governor in 2017 with backing from party liberals, says intense primaries, crowded or otherwise, don’t have to spell doom the winner. “I think people try to impose the 2016 Bernie-Hillary divide” on every matchup, he said, referring to the presidential nominating fight between Hillary Clinton and Sanders.
It’s rarely that simple. Perriello lost the Democratic nomination to Ralph Northam, viewed as the more moderate choice.
“We agreed on 90 percent of things,” Perriello says, remembering “a respectful primary based on ideas.” Afterward, Perriello campaigned for Northam and Virginia legislative hopefuls. Northam won by 9 percentage points, while a slate of liberal nominees changed the direction of the Virginia Assembly.
Periello says the Virginia results show there’s room in the party — even in the same primary — for a range of philosophies and styles.
In the Texas 7th, one of Moser’s opponents agrees.
“Even though it’s a crowded Democratic primary field, I think the upside of that is a lot of people working to turn out the vote and telling people this is a district where people can win,” says Lizzie Pannill Fletcher. “We all agree that our opponent is John Culberson.”
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Plan to Open Drilling Off Pacific Northwest Draws Opposition
The Trump administration’s proposal to expand offshore drilling off the Pacific Northwest coast is drawing vocal opposition in a region where multimillion-dollar fossil fuel projects have been blocked in recent years.
The governors of Washington and Oregon, many in the state’s congressional delegation and other top state officials have criticized Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s plan to open 90 percent of the nation’s offshore reserves to development by private companies.
They say it jeopardizes the environment and the health, safety and economic well-being of coastal communities.
Opponents spoke out Monday at a hearing that a coalition of groups organized in Olympia, Washington, on the same day as an “open house” hosted by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
Attorney General Bob Ferguson told dozens gathered — some wearing yellow hazmat suits and holding “Stop Trump’s Big Oil Giveways” signs — that he will sue if the plan is approved.
“What this administration has done with this proposal is outrageous,” he said.
Oil and gas exploration and drilling is not permitted in state waters.
In announcing the plan to vastly open federal waters to oil and gas drilling, Zinke has said responsible development of offshore energy resources would boost jobs and economic security while providing billions of dollars to fund conservation along U.S. coastlines.
His plan proposes 47 leases off the nation’s coastlines from 2019 to 2024, including one off Washington and Oregon.
Oil industry groups have praised the plan, while environmental groups say it would harm oceans, coastal economies, public health and marine life.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee met with Zinke over the weekend while in D.C. for the National Governors Association conference and again urged him to remove Washington from the plan, Inslee spokeswoman Tara Lee said Monday.
There hasn’t been offshore oil drilling in Washington or Oregon since the 1960s.
There hasn’t been much interest in offshore oil and gas exploration in recent decades though technology has improved, said Washington’s state geologist David Norman.
“It’s a very active place tectonically. We have a really complicated tough geology. It’s got really rough weather,” Norman said.
There’s more potential for natural gas than oil off the Pacific Northwest, said BOEM spokesman John Romero. A 2016 assessment estimates undiscovered recoverable oil at fractions of the U.S. total.
Proponents have backed the idea as a way to provide affordable energy, meet growing demands and to promote the U.S.’s “energy dominance.” Emails to representatives with the Western States Petroleum Association and the American Petroleum Institute were not immediately returned Monday.
Sixteen members of Washington and Oregon’s congressional delegation last month wrote to Zinke to oppose the plan, saying gas drilling off the Northwest coastline poses a risk to the state’s recreational, fishing and maritime economy.
Kyle Deerkop, who manages an oyster farm in Grays Harbor for Oregon-based Pacific Seafood, worried an oil spill would put jobs and the livelihood of people at risk.
“We need to be worried,” he said in an interview, recalling a major 1988 oil spill in Grays Harbor. “It’s too great a risk.”
Tribal members, business owners and environmentalists spoke at the so-called people’s hearing Monday organized by Stand Up To Oil coalition.
The groups wanted to allow people to speak into a microphone before a crowd because the federal agency’s open house didn’t allow that. Instead the open house allowed people to directly talk to staff or submit comments using laptops provided.
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Ethiopia Ruling Coalition to Nominate New PM
Ethiopia’s ruling coalition is expected to meet this week to choose a new prime minister, most likely from the populous Oromo ethnic group to try and dampen the discontent behind recent anti-government demonstrations.
The change in leadership follows the surprise resignation of Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn last month. He is the first ruler in modern Ethiopian history to step down; previous leaders have died in office or been overthrown. He said he wanted to clear the way for reforms.
The international community is closely watching the developments in Africa’s second most-populous nation which has a booming economy and is a staunch Western ally in the fight against Islamist militancy.
The coalition is made up of four region-based parties but is dominated by the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front. The Tigrayans are a much smaller ethnic group than the Oromo who are from Ethiopia’s most populous Oromiya region and have long complained of being sidelined from political power.
Their criticism of a government development plan for the capital Addis Ababa in 2015 sparked wider anti-government protests that spilled over into attacks on foreign-owned businesses in 2016. This plunged the country into an crisis and there are still sporadic protests.
“Our people should take a leadership role because this is a moral question. Our people want this. We want this,” Lemma Megersa, the Oromiya region’s president, said in a speech last month.
Global strategy companies including Teneo Intelligence and Eurasia Group have been predicting an Oromo prime minister as the most likely candidate because it would help tamp down protests.
The government has declared two states of emergencies as it tries to calm the political unrest. Since the first one ended in August, it has introduced a series of conciliatory steps, including the release of more than 6,000 prisoners this year.
The government declared a second state of emergency the day after Hailemariam’s resignation in February and protests started up again. On Friday, parliament voted to ratify the state of emergency, although 88 legislators rejected it. The previous state of emergency passed unanimously.
One frontrunner for the leadership of the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) is Abiye Ahmed, according to the Eurasia Group. He was chosen last week to lead the Oromo People’s Democratic Organization – one of the coalition parties.
The multilingual official holds a doctorate in peace and security from Addis Ababa University and served in the military.
He set up a government intelligence agency that increased online surveillance before serving as cabinet minister for science and technology, government media outlets have reported.
Diplomats will be watching closely.
“The government needs to continue to release detainees and open the political system by allowing more room for civil society and a freer press,” said David Shinn, a former U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia.
More Reforms Needed
Opposition leaders say they want more than prisoner releases. They want the government to reform the strict laws that sent them to jail in the first place.
Those include laws passed in 2008 and 2009, including an anti-terror law with a vague definition of offenses and another that limited foreign funding for pro-democracy groups. Human Rights Watch has said the legislation was being used to criminalize free expression and peaceful dissent.
“There are laws that the government uses to stifle peaceful activity,” said Bekele Gerba, a former Addis Ababa University lecturer and opposition party leader who was among the thousands of prisoners freed this year.
Bekele, who suffered a stroke during his incarceration, told Reuters that he spent two years confined in a small windowless cell with no bed.
“Usually in this country, the tradition is that opposition parties are regarded as against the government. Whatever the opposition parties do, they are regarded as unlawful,” he said.
There are no opposition lawmakers in Ethiopia’s 547-seat parliament.
Ethnic Tensions
Since toppling military leader Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1991, the ruling EPRDF coalition has been dominated by the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front. Tigrayans account for about six percent of the population. Oromos make up 36 percent.
Overseas-based activists have complained for years that Tigrayans secured business contracts without competition and dominated the security sector, said Daniel Berhane, an Addis Ababa-based political analyst.
Tigrayan government officials reject the claims.
This resentment contributed to the anger behind the protests, Daniel said.
“There are legitimate public discontents that fueled the protests. But these protests were … at times accompanied by ethnic attacks, which ranges from physical attacks to arson to eviction,” said Daniel.
The government needs to quell the discontent to avoid further protests that could fan ethnic tensions, said Abdul Mohammed, a political analyst and former government advisor.
“Today, our political discussions are conducted almost entirely in the language of ethnic identity: which group benefits, and which doesn’t,” he wrote in a commentary sent to Reuters.
Former ambassador Shinn said making sure everyone benefits from Ethiopia’s boom would go a long way toward defusing protests.
“The current government deserves high marks for its economic progress,” he said. “But the time has come to ensure this progress improves all parts of society.”
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With Gas and Diplomacy, Russia Embraces Cold War Foe Pakistan
As U.S. influence in Islamabad wanes, Pakistan’s former adversary Russia is building military, diplomatic and economic ties that could upend historic alliances in the region and open up a fast-growing gas market for Moscow’s energy companies.
Russia’s embrace of Pakistan comes at a time when relations between the United States and its historical ally are unravelling over the war in Afghanistan, a remarkable turnaround from the 1980s, when Pakistan helped funnel weapons and U.S. spies across the border to aid Afghan fighters battling Soviet troops.
Though the Moscow-Islamabad rapprochement is in its infancy, and it is neighbor China that is filling the growing void left by the United States in Pakistan, a slew of energy deals and growing military cooperation promise to spark life into the Russia-Pakistan relationship that was dead for many decades.
“It is an opening,” Khurram Dastgir Khan, Pakistan’s defense minister, told Reuters. “Both countries have to work through the past to open the door to the future.”
Watching Islamic State
The cosier diplomatic ties have so far focused on Afghanistan, where Russia has cultivated ties to the Afghan Taliban militants who are fighting U.S. troops and have historic links to Islamabad. Moscow says it is encouraging peace negotiations.
Both Russia and Pakistan are also alarmed by the presence of Islamic State (IS) inside Afghanistan, with Moscow concerned the group’s fighters could spread towards central Asia and closer to home. In Pakistan, IS has already carried out major attacks.
“We have common ground on most issues at diplomatic levels,” Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi told Reuters. “It’s a relationship that will grow substantially in the future.”
During a trip to Moscow last month by Pakistan’s foreign minister, Khawaja Asif, the two countries announced plans to establish a commission on military cooperation to combat the threat of IS in the region.
They also agreed to continue annual military training exercises that began in 2016 and followed the sale of four Russian attack helicopters to Pakistan, as well as the purchase of Russian engines for the Pakistan Air Force’s JF-17 fighter jets that Pakistan’s military assembles on its own soil.
India voices concern
The detente has been watched with suspicion by Pakistan’s neighbor and arch-foe India, which broadly stood in the Soviet camp during the Cold War era. In the last two decades, the close Russia-India relationship has been underpinned by huge arms sales by Moscow to a country it calls a “strategic partner.”
“If the Russians start backing the Pakistanis in a big way at the political level, then it creates a problem for us,” said Sushant Sareen, a leading expert on India’s relations to Pakistan and Afghanistan with New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation.
India’s foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment on Russia’s ties with Pakistan, but has previously said that its own relations with Moscow have stood the test of time, and that the two nations are building up defence and energy relations, including collaboration on nuclear reactors in India.
Pivoting east
Russian overtures to Pakistan offer a badly needed diplomatic lifeline for the South Asian nation as it faces growing friction with Western powers over its alleged links to militants.
At U.S. urging, and with backing from Britain, France and Germany, a global financial watchdog, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), last month decided to place Pakistan back on its watchlist of countries with inadequate terrorist-financing controls, potentially hurting Pakistan’s fragile economy.
The U.S. move, which Islamabad angrily dismissed as an effort to “embarrass” Pakistan, followed Washington’s announcement in January to suspend $2 billion in military assistance.
Asif, Pakistan’s foreign minister, said his nation made a historical error by “tilting 100 percent” to the West and was now eager build alliances closer to home with the likes of China, Russia and Turkey.
“We want to correct the imbalance of our foreign policy over 70 years,” Asif told Reuters. “We are not divorcing that relationship (with the West). But we want to have a balance in our relationships, we want to be closer to our friends in our region.”
Defense minister Khan said Pakistan’s military, which has historically been heavily reliant on U.S. weapons and aircraft, may have no choice but to ramp up purchases from the likes of Russia.
Cooling relationship
The cooling relationship with Washington is already pushing Islamabad closer to China, which is investing about $60 billion in infrastructure in Pakistan. But analysts say Pakistan is wary of becoming overly dependent diplomatically on Beijing.
Pakistan is among several nations that have been courted by Moscow after falling out with Washington, including the Philippines and Qatar, but Russia’s long-term aims for the Pakistan relationship are unclear, according to Petr Topychkanov, a senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
“It’s not very transparent, even in Russia,” he said. “There is no serious public debate, there is no detailed explanation to the Russian public about what Russia wants in Pakistan.”
Russia’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Moscow’s increasingly close relations with Pakistan.
Huge power projects
Russia and Pakistan are negotiating potential energy deals worth in excess of $10 billion, according to Pakistani energy officials.
Asif said four to five huge power projects “will cement our relationship further.”
Russia last month appointed an honorary council in the Pakistan’s northern Khyber Pukhtunkhwa province, where its companies are in talks to build an oil refinery and a power station.
But the biggest deals focus on gas supply and infrastructure to Pakistan, one of the world’s fastest growing liquefied natural gas (LNG) import markets.
“On a strategic basis, Russia is coming in very fast on the energy side,” said a senior Pakistani energy official.
In October, Pakistan and Russia signed an inter-governmental agreement (IGA) on energy, paving the way for Russian state-giant Gazprom to enter negotiations to supply LNG to Pakistan.
The talks are expected to conclude within three months and Gazprom is considered “one of the front-runner” to clinch a long-term supply deal, according to the Pakistani official.
$9 billion deal
Based on two monthly LNG cargo deliveries, that deal would be worth about $9 billion over 15 years, he added.
There is also growing confidence that a gas pipeline due to be built by Russia, stretching 1,100 km (680 miles) from Lahore to the port city of Karachi, will go ahead.
U.S. sanctions against Russian state conglomerate Rostec, as well as a dispute over North-South pipeline transport fees, have held up the $2 billion project since it was signed in 2015.
The North-South pipeline would be the biggest infrastructure deal by Russia since early 1970s, when Soviet engineers constructed the Pakistan Steel Mills industrial complex.
A Russian company, according to defense minister Khan, is eying up a deal to take over the disused Soviet-built steel mills.
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Angola’s Isabel dos Santos Denies Allegations of Graft at Oil Firm
Isabel dos Santos, the former head of Angola’s state-owned Sonangol oil company, is denying her successor’s allegations that she engaged in questionable business dealings related to the firm.
In a 13-page typed statement released late Sunday, Dos Santos – Africa’s richest woman, with a net worth that Forbes business magazine estimates at $2.6 billion – denounced what she called “slanderous” and “defamatory campaigns” against her.
Last week, Sonangol chair Carlos Saturnino reported that an internal audit showed a transaction of $38 million to a company based in Dubai; it had been approved by dos Santos shortly after she was removed from her post in November after roughly 16 months.
Dos Santos defended the transaction as a “totally legitimate” payment for consultancy services. She said she was fulfilling her legal obligations until her replacement could be sworn in, according to Reuters news service.
On Friday, Angola’s public prosecutor’s office acknowledged it was looking into Saturnino’s accusations.
Dos Santos had been appointed chair of Sonangol’s board by her father, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, Angola’s president from 1979 until last September. She was dismissed by his successor, President Joao Lourenco, who vowed to clean up Angola’s corruption-tainted economy.
The younger dos Santos’ goal was to restructure Sonangol, Reuters reported last November. In 2016, she had fired Saturnino from his job as the oil company’s production and exploration leader.
The 2014 nosedive in global oil prices rocked Angola, where, according to the World Bank, oil accounts for a third of gross domestic product and more than 95 percent of the country’s exports. As she was leaving office, dos Santos told Sonangol staffers she had rescued the “nearly bankrupt” company by cutting costs, Reuters said.
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Merkel: Germany to Start Work on Trade, China, Syria War
Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday she would work with France to tackle pressing issues such as trade policy, the war in Syria and competition with China after the Social Democrats (SPD) approved joining a coalition with her conservatives.
Merkel welcomed the vote by a clear majority of SPD members that ended more than five months of political deadlock after an inconclusive election, and she said the right-left government must quickly get to work.
“What we’re seeing and hearing every day is that Europe needs to step up and Germany needs to have a strong voice there along with France and other member states [of the European Union],” said Merkel during a brief statement to reporters.
Priorities included international trade policy, on which many jobs in Europe’s largest economy depend, ensuring open competition with China and dealing with the “scary situation” in Syria.
“It is important that we start working as soon as possible,” Merkel said.
U.S. President Donald Trump last week stunned his European allies with plans to put tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, triggering a warning by the European Union that it would retaliate with counter-measures.
Sunday’s SPD vote result brought relief to German businesses and European capitals, which say the euro zone would benefit from Merkel being able to partner with French President Emmanuel Macron on ambitious plans to reform the single currency bloc.
But discord within the coalition could hamper Merkel’s ability to tackle challenges like eurozone reforms, Trump’s protectionist policies, and China’s rising dominance. The war in Syria, which could result in more refugees arriving in Germany, is also a prime concern.
Both Merkel’s conservatives and the SPD are under pressure to appear distinctive to voters in a coalition borne out of necessity rather than choice, making it difficult for Merkel to balance conflicting demands.
More than 6 in 10 Germans said in a poll published Monday they believe the coalition will serve a full four-year term.
And more than 56 percent of Germans believe Merkel will serve the full four years, a separate poll conducted for the Bild newspaper showed.
Former Greens Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer urged the coalition to speed up eurozone reforms and digitalization, saying that Europe risked losing out politically and economically as China accelerated its technology developments.
“I hope they step on the gas pedal, when it comes to Europe. It’s a very un-Green demand, I know, but in this case, it’s warranted,” he told reporters.
‘No opposition in government’
Senior conservative Jens Spahn, seen as one possible successor to Merkel, warned the SPD not to obstruct government policy in a rerun of the coalition that has ruled since 2013.
Spahn, a champion of the right in Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), told Deutschlandfunk radio: “The SPD must decide: Either we rule together or some will try to play opposition within the government.”
SPD leaders, under pressure to revive their party after suffering their worst result in September’s election since Germany became a federal republic in 1949, have vowed to fight the conservatives on major issues.
SPD secretary general Lars Klingbeil said his party wants the government, expected to be in place this month, to make social issues such as pensions, education and family policy and strengthening rural areas, its top priority.
But Volker Kauder, parliamentary leader of the conservatives, said his bloc would focus on curbing immigration.
Despite agreeing on broad policy outlines, the two blocs are divided on how to implement policies on immigration, car emissions, labor rules and welfare.
Merkel also faces the challenge of easing tensions within her own conservative bloc, comprising her CDU party and their Christian Social Union (CSU) Bavaria-based partners.
The CSU on Monday spoiled her election pledge to have a cabinet equally split among men and women by naming three male politicians to the transport, development and interior posts.
Deputy SPD leader Malu Dreyer told the RND newspaper chain the CSU move was “disappointing” 100 years after women gained the right to vote.
The CDU have appointed three men and three women to fill their six cabinet posts under the coalition agreement and the SPD are expected to do the same. This means that the 16-strong cabinet, including Merkel, will have seven women and nine men.
Merkel was weakened by her 2015 decision to welcome hundreds of thousands of people seeking asylum, which helped fuel the rise of a far-right party that stole conservative voters.
In power since 2005, she has led Germany and the EU through the financial and debt crises, but her waning authority at home could complicate efforts to deepen integration in the eurozone.
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IS Releases Video of Deadly Ambush in Niger
A propaganda video released by Islamic State appears to show an ambush in Niger that killed four American soldiers last year.
In the video, three American soldiers have few resources to fight off dozens of militants armed with machine guns and grenades. Part of the nine-minute recording appears to be taken from the helmet camera of one of the fallen soldiers. That segment shows two other soldiers shooting and running beside an SUV while taking fire near the village of Tongo Tongo.
The video ends with the soldier wearing the camera falling and being surrounded by militants who shoot at him.
The Pentagon on Monday said it was aware of the video. “The release of these materials demonstrates the depravity of the enemy we are fighting,” it said.
The ambush on Oct. 4, 2017, prompted an investigation by the Pentagon into whether the soldiers were appropriately trained and armed for a mission in the west African nation. The results are expected to be released this month.
A team of 12 soldiers was on a mission with a team of Nigerien troops.
Army Sergeant La David Johnson and Staff Sergeants Bryan Black, Jeremiah Johnson and Dustin Wright were killed in the ambush.
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Italy Migrants Fear Uncertain Future After Election
Ibrahim, a 35-year-old Moroccan who hawks bracelets weaved out of multi-colored fabric in front of Milan’s cathedral, teared up when he spoke of the family he left behind and which relies on the money he sends home.
“I really hope they don’t make it even more horrible to stay in this country,” he said. “I want to stay here.”
Up and down Italy on Monday, migrants, both legal and not, were pondering their future after the anti-immigrant League surged in popularity in elections the day before.
Ibrahim, who declined to give his last name, is one of the lucky ones. He has permission to stay because he once worked in a factory, but it comes up for renewal every two years.
“It often happens that we have problems, that people shout at us ‘go back to your country’,” he said.
That is precisely what the League, which shot up 14 percentage points from the 2013 national election, and its three center-right coalition partners, would like to see happen: immigrants going back where they came from, by force if necessary.
The center-right has vowed to deport hundreds of thousands of migrants if they are able to form a government, even though that promise will be hard to keep.
Surveys show Italians are increasingly uneasy after more than 600,000 migrants reached Italy by boat in four years. Last month, a neo-Nazi wounded six migrants in a shooting spree in central Italy.
‘Pick them up’
“These 600,000 people, we will pick them up using police, law enforcement and the military,” former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, of the Forza Italia (Go Italy!) party, said during the campaign.
League leader Matteo Salvini said irregular migrants would be rounded up and sent home “in 15 minutes” if he and his allies take power.
League supporters were thrilled that they had overtaken Berlusconi’s party as the largest in the center-right bloc for the first time since he entered politics nearly a quarter of a century ago.
“With Salvini in government, the problem of immigration can and must be resolved,” said Severino Damiolini, 43, an office worker from Sellero, near Brescia in northern Italy.
The immigration debate also highlighted splits between immigrants who have been in Italy for years or decades and more recent arrivals, with the former fearing that their reputations are tainted by the newcomers.
“The League should not lump all of us together – Indians, Asians, Africans,” said Kris Sumun, 35, who came from Mauritius when he was five years old and has worked as a concierge in a Milan building for 11 years.
“They have to understand that there are many people like me who have been here for years and are a resource for the country.
People who have a different skin tone are all treated like we are all wretched and poor,” he said. “I think it will get worse now.”
Next to Rome’s Tiburtina train station on Monday, buckets of rain poured onto tents that are home to hundreds of migrants who made their way to the capital after making the perilous crossing of the Mediterranean from North Africa.
“Very few politicians have told the truth about migration,” said Andrea Costa, who oversees the site for a charity.
“There is no invasion in Italy. It’s not a siege. It’s not a crisis. It’s an issue that has to be governed like all other issues,” he said.
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Huge Waves Slam Into Puerto Rico, Force Evacuations
Waves nearly 30 feet (9 meters) high from a U.S. winter storm slammed into Puerto Rico on Monday, forcing authorities to evacuate dozens of families and close roads and schools across the U.S. territory.
Huge waves downed palm trees, knocked over cement benches and forced curious crowds to flee as saltwater flooded streets and homes along Puerto Rico’s northern and western coasts. More than a dozen streets remained closed, along with several beaches and two dozen schools in low-lying areas, a move that affected more than 6,000 students.
The swell is the largest to hit Puerto Rico in more than a decade, and it is generating waves bigger than those produced by Hurricane Maria when it hit nearly six months ago as a Category 4 storm, said Gabriel Lojero, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in San Juan.
“It continues to be very dangerous,” he told The Associated Press.
The U.S. Coast Guard said it rescued an unidentified boogie boarder who apparently broke his wrist while surfing Sunday along Puerto Rico’s northwest coast. Government officials said another three people were rescued from a flooded motel in the northern town of Hatillo.
The heavy swell also destroyed several docks and part of a government-owned boat terminal in Catano that provides ferry service to the historic part of Puerto Rico’s capital known as Old San Juan. Ferry service to the popular nearby islands of Vieques and Culebra also was cancelled.
The ongoing damage comes as Puerto Rico struggles to recover from Hurricane Maria, which caused up to an estimated $94 billion in damage. Forecasters said the swell also is affecting the U.S. Virgin Islands and is expected to last through Wednesday.
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New Wave of Families Flees Post-Islamic State Iraq
“They kicked us out of our home and stole our furniture and valuables,” said Rugya Saleem, a mother of six, plucking at the carpet of the tent in a desert refugee camp.
She said her husband was forced to join Islamic State militants, and then was later killed by victims of the group. “They said our things belonged to IS. But they didn’t. It was all we had.”
Going home again, she added, is not an option. Like many other people across northern Iraq, she fled her home recently, months after Iraq’s battle with IS militants was declared victorious. And while people are returning to their homes in droves, in many camps, the population is growing.
It’s not just the families of captured or killed IS militants being forced to flee their homes. The majority of the newly displaced are fleeing extreme poverty and desolate, destroyed houses without electricity or water, according to Ardalan Maroof, a camp manager for the International Organization for Migration in northern Iraq.
In recent weeks, Maroof said, hundreds of people have been arriving at his camp daily, and, on average, less than half the number of people depart. Other northern camps, he said, have reported similar numbers.
“It’s mostly financial problems, lack of services and security problems,” he explained. “Many families are scared for their lives.”
Children of IS
For the children of IS in camps, the confusion was palatable. All born of dead or gone fathers, they appeared grief-stricken when asked, but seemed genuinely confused as they thought of what to say.
Adults speak only poorly of IS in public and children try to follow suit; yet, they often have very little understanding of what exactly their fathers did, and it is rarely discussed.
“They don’t talk about it,” said Reem, 13, whose father was an IS member killed by local forces. “They tell us that IS was bad and you should never think that way. But we didn’t say it was good.”
She doesn’t know why her father joined IS, or what he did for them. “He didn’t tell me, and I didn’t ask,” she said. What she did know about her dad was that he loved spending time with her and her siblings. “He took us everywhere,” she added, with some reluctance.
The Iraqi government says tens of thousands of IS fighters have been captured or killed in the past year-and-a-half, but the majority of their wives and children committed no crimes.
In a country that has been at war for 15 years, communities often blame entire families for the crimes of individual members who were violent extremists. And aid workers say large-scale recovery programs for children of IS members could create a violent backlash.
Mental health care in Iraq is also lacking professionals and shrouded in stigma, according to Doctors Without Borders.
Some children at the camp defended their fathers, saying they were never extremists like others they saw. Others grew tearful when asked about their fathers, and said nothing.
“Do you want revenge on the security forces who killed your father?” asked Hatam Mohammad, a local community leader, to Ahmed, an 11-year-old, son of an IS member who may be in jail, but is presumed dead by his family.
Ahmed ducked his head, but appeared to already have thought about this question.
“I want my father back,” he said. “But I don’t want revenge on the Iraqi forces. Only on the person who killed him.”
Priority is closure
In December 2017, families displaced by the IS battle began to leave camps en masse.
During the course of the three-year battle, nearly 6 million people fled their homes in Iraq, and now 3.3 million have returned, according to a report published last week by the Danish Refugee Council, the International Rescue Committee and the Norwegian Refugee Council.
Some families leave camps because of poor living conditions or incentives, the report said.
“Others are not allowed to choose,” it reads. “They have been coerced or forced to return against their will. Some have been blocked from returning, or evicted and displaced once more when they finally return to their areas of origin.”
Nearly 9,000 people in northern Iraq were evicted from camps in western Iraq in November and December 2017, according to the report.
And some relatives of IS fighters in northern camps said they would never return to their homes by choice. “This is the only safe place,” said Faiza Ahmed Khalef, a mother of five, who believes her husband, an IS fighter, is in jail. “Here, no one harasses us.”
Aid workers say the government has made planning the closure of the camps a high priority since the war ended. If cities, towns and villages were provided more services and humanitarian aid, it would go a long way to encouraging some families to return, added Maroof, the camp manager.
“We will stay as long as the people stay,” he said. “But we need a plan to facilitate the people’s return.”
your ad hereNative Americans Delight as Veteran Actor Speaks Cherokee at Oscars
Native Americans took to social media to express gratitude to Hostiles star Wes Studi, Cherokee, who, during the 90th Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles last night, spoke Tsalagi, the language of the Cherokee people.
The Cherokee Nation itself took to Twitter to express gratitude.
“As a veteran, I am always appreciative when filmmakers bring to the screen stories of those who have served,” Studi said, introducing a filmed tribute to Hollywood’s portrayal of the military. “Over 90 years of the Academy Awards, a number of movies with military themes have been honored at the Oscars. Let’s take a moment to pay tribute to these powerful films that shine a great spotlight on those who have fought for freedom around the world.”
Studi has enjoyed a long career in movies, appearing in such classic movies as Dances With Wolves and The Last of the Mohicans, and most recently, he played Chief Yellow Hawk, co-starring with Christian Bale in Scott Cooper’s new western Hostiles.
Studi is affiliated with the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, based in Tahlequah, the largest of three federally-recognized Cherokee tribes. The other two are the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, also headquartered in Tahlequah, and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in Cherokee, North Carolina.
Between 1836 and 1839, the U.S. military removed the Cherokee Nation from their lands in Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Texas and forced them west into Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) in the Western U.S.
Native Americans have served in every branch of the U.S. military and in every war and conflict since the Revolutionary War.
Studi is a veteran himself. Born in Nofire Hollow in rural Oklahoma, he joined the National Guard during his senior year at the now-defunct Chilocco Indian School, a boarding school in north-central Oklahoma. He later volunteered for the U.S. Army and served 18 months in Vietnam.
“Amongst themselves, Native Americans are treated with a lot more honor for having served the people,” he told the Military Times in January. “Our culture values the fact that our young men are willing and ready and able to put their lives on the line to protect others.”
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AI Has a Dirty Little Secret: It’s Powered by People
There’s a dirty little secret about artificial intelligence: It’s powered by an army of real people.
From makeup artists in Venezuela to women in conservative parts of India, people around the world are doing the digital equivalent of needlework -drawing boxes around cars in street photos, tagging images, and transcribing snatches of speech that computers can’t quite make out.
Such data feeds directly into “machine learning” algorithms that help self-driving cars wind through traffic and let Alexa figure out that you want the lights on. Many such technologies wouldn’t work without massive quantities of this human-labeled data.
These repetitive tasks pay pennies apiece. But in bulk, this work can offer a decent wage in many parts of the world – even in the U.S. And it underpins a technology that could change humanity forever: AI that will drive us around, execute verbal commands without flaw, and – possibly – one day think on its own.
For more than a decade, Google has used people to rate the accuracy of its search results. More recently, investors have poured tens of millions of dollars into startups like Mighty AI and CrowdFlower, which are developing software that makes it easier to label photos and other data, even on smartphones.
Venture capitalist S. “Soma” Somasegar says he sees “billions of dollars of opportunity” in servicing the needs of machine learning algorithms. His firm, Madrona Venture Group, invested in Mighty AI. Humans will be in the loop “for a long, long, long time to come,” he says.
Accurate labeling could make the difference between a self-driving car distinguishing between the sky and the side of a truck – a distinction Tesla’s Model S failed in the first known fatality involving self-driving systems in 2016.
“We’re not building a system to play a game, we’re building a system to save lives,” says Mighty AI CEO Daryn Nakhuda.
Marjorie Aguilar, a 31-year-old freelance makeup artist in Maracaibo, Venezuela, spends four to six hours a day drawing boxes around traffic objects to help train self-driving systems for Mighty AI.
She earns about 50 cents an hour, but in a crisis-wracked country with runaway inflation, just a few hours’ work can pay a month’s rent in bolivars.
“It doesn’t sound like a lot of money, but for me it’s pretty decent,” she says. “You can imagine how important it is for me getting paid in U.S. dollars.”
Aria Khrisna, a 36-year-old father of three in Tegal, Indonesia, says that adding word tags to clothing pictures on websites such as eBay and Amazon pays him about $100 a month, roughly half his income.
And for 25-year-old Shamima Khatoon, her job annotating cars, lane markers and traffic lights at an all-female outpost of data-labeling company iMerit in Metiabruz, India, represents the only chance she has to work outside the home in her conservative Muslim community.
“It’s a good platform to increase your skills and support your family,” she says.
The benefits of greater accuracy can be immediate. At InterContinental Hotels Group, every call that its digital assistant Amelia can take from a human saves $5 to $10, says information technology director Scot Whigham.
When Amelia fails, the program listens while a call is rerouted to one of about 60 service desk workers. It learns from their response and tries the technique out on the next call, freeing up human employees to do other things.
When a computer can’t make out a customer call to the Hyatt Hotels chain, an audio snippet is sent to AI-powered call center Interactions in an old brick building in Franklin, Massachusetts. There, while the customer waits on the phone, one of a roomful of headphone-wearing “intent analysts” transcribes everything from misheard numbers to profanity and quickly directs the computer how to respond.
That information feeds back into the system. “Next time through, we’ve got a better chance of being successful,” says Robert Nagle, Interactions’ chief technology officer.
Researchers have tried to find workarounds to human-labeled data, often without success.
In a project that used Google Street View images of parked cars to estimate the demographic makeup of neighborhoods, then-Stanford researcher Timnit Gebru tried to train her AI by scraping Craigslist photos of cars for sale that were labeled by their owners.
But the product shots didn’t look anything like the car images in Street View, and the program couldn’t recognize them. In the end, she says, she spent $35,000 to hire auto dealer experts to label her data.
Trevor Darrell, a machine learning expert at the University of California Berkeley, says he expects it will be five to 10 years before computer algorithms can learn to perform without the need for human labeling. His group alone spends hundreds of thousands of dollars a year paying people to annotate images.
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Netanyahu Tells Trump Israel, US Have Common Challenge to Stop Iran
“Iran must be stopped; that is our common challenge,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday.
The two leaders, sitting alongside each other in the Oval Office, discussed how to thwart Iran’s military advances in the Middle East and the 2015 international accord designed to curb Tehran’s nuclear weapons development. Both Trump and Netanyahu have deemed it inadequate.
Trump has been unsuccessful in winning support from the pact’s other signatories – Britain, France, Germany, the European Union, China and Russia – to renegotiate the deal.
“Iran has not given up its nuclear ambitions” said Netanyahu, adding that Tehran “came out of this nuclear deal emboldened, enriched. It’s practicing aggression everywhere, including on our own borders”
The growing presence of Iranian forces in Syria to support President Bashar al-Assad is of particular concern for the Israeli leader, who has accused Tehran of seeking a permanent base in Syria.
Trump, in his remarks, did not mention Iran by name but said the United States and Israel “are very, very close on military and terrorism and all of the things that we have to work together on. The relationship has never been better.”
Jerusalem Embassy
Trump said he may travel to Jerusalem to open the U.S. embassy there, prior to the 70th anniversary of the State of Israel’s May 14, 1948 independence declaration.
“We’re looking at coming” Trump replied to a question from a reporter. “If I can, I will.”
Netanyahu effusively praised Trump for making the controversial decision to move the embassy from coastal Tel Aviv to the hilly ancient city which most countries consider disputed territory, subject to negotiations with the Palestinians.
“This was a historic proclamation followed by your bold decision,” said Netanyahu, noting, “The Jewish people have a long memory” and Trump’s action to move the embassy “will be remembered by our people throughout the ages.”
Mideast peace
The U.S. president expressed optimism about the chance for a Middle East peace deal.
“It would be a great achievement — and even from a humanitarian standpoint — what better if we could make peace between Israel and the Palestinians?” He added, “And I can tell you, we are working very hard on doing that.”
The president said he thinks the Palestinians want to come back to the table, but, “if they don’t, you don’t have peace” he added, noting that any breakthrough to reach what he called “the hardest deal” would come after “years and years of opposition and, frankly, hatred.”
Trump made the remarks as he took a few questions from a small media group before the two leaders met. Reporters, however, will not have an opportunity to formally question Trump and Netanyahu as no joint news conference was scheduled, unlike when the two met at the White House in February of last year.
Corruption investigation
This trip by Netanyahu is somewhat of a respite from his troubles at home, where he faces a string of corruption investigations.
Israel’s justice ministry announced Monday that the prime minister’s former spokesman signed a state’s witness deal in one of the corruption cases swirling around Netanyahu.
Israeli investigators questioned the prime minister and his wife, Sara, for hours Friday in one of the probes.
In two of the cases, police have recommended that Netanyahu be charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Netanyahu is suspected of accepting lavish gifts from billionaire friends, and promising to promote legislation to help a major Israeli newspaper against its free rival in exchange for favorable coverage. The country’s attorney general is to make that determination, a decision that could be weeks or months away.
There is speculation that the Israeli leader could call a snap election to attempt to renew the mandate for his Likud party and as a way to delay the legal proceedings against him.
Netanyahu has denied wrongdoing, calling the allegations a “witch hunt” and “fake news,” the same terms Trump has often employed in describing the months-long investigations into allegations his campaign colluded with Russia to help him win the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
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Elizabeth Warren Seeks to Neutralize ‘Pocahontas’ Barbs
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren is hoping to defuse an issue that has dogged her for years, her claims of Native American heritage, ahead of a possible run for president in 2020.
Last month, Warren addressed the National Congress of American Indians, trying to cast her family’s story in the larger context of challenges facing native peoples. The prominent Democrat has also met with tribal leaders, signed on to legislation supported by Native American activists, and called on Republican President Donald Trump to nominate a director for the Indian Health Service.
The push is in part a rebuttal to Trump, who has repeatedly referred to Warren as “Pocahontas” to try to discredit a potential rival in 2020 by calling into question her claims of heritage.
“Every time someone brings up my family’s story, I’m going to use it to lift up the story of your families and your communities,” Warren told those gathered for the Washington event.
The story is largely consistent with what the Oklahoma native has said for years, including during a 2012 interview with The Associated Press, when she said she and her brothers were told her paternal grandparents didn’t want her father to marry her mother because she “was part Cherokee and part Delaware.”
In the speech, Warren, who doesn’t claim citizenship in a tribe, said “my mother’s family was part Native American. And my daddy’s parents were bitterly opposed to their relationship. So, in 1932, when Mother was 19 and Daddy had just turned 20, they eloped.”
Many Native Americans have welcomed Warren’s advocacy.
Cheryl Andrews-Maltais, chairwoman of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), introduced Warren at the gathering as “a formidable force and an Indian country ally.”
“She truly understands Indian country and what sovereignty really means,” Andrews-Maltais said.
Cedric Cromwell is tribal council chairman for the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, which has tried for years to persuade federal officials that it qualifies to have more than 300 acres of land in Massachusetts taken into trust.
“We especially appreciate her remarks about how this government owes its native citizens ‘a fighting chance to build stronger communities and a brighter future — starting with a more prosperous economic future on tribal lands,’” Cromwell said.
Not all Native American advocates embrace Warren’s story.
Rebecca Nagle, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation living in Oklahoma, has said Warren needs to apologize for her “false claims,” saying there’s no evidence the former Harvard Law School faculty member has Native American heritage.
“How can a former law professor at the most prestigious university in the country examine the mountain of evidence about her own family and not come to the only logical conclusion?” Nagle wrote in an opinion piece in The Boston Globe following Warren’s speech.
Warren’s public embrace of her family story could carry political risks — but not necessarily from Trump. Rob Gray, a Republican political analyst, said the criticism could hurt Warren more if it came from a rival Democrat.
“Her Indian heritage claims have the potential to be a wildfire, but it will take one of her primary opponents raising it to strike the match,” Gray said. “It comes down to authenticity and whether she’s believable and trustworthy.”
Warren has been discussed as a possible 2020 presidential candidate but has said she is focused on winning re-election in November.
But Warren is also maintaining a national profile, butting heads with Trump on issues from health care to immigration, while stockpiling more than $14 million in her campaign account and donating hundreds of thousands to Democratic state committees and candidates through her PAC for a Level Playing Field.
Warren’s playbook has precedent. Think Mitt Romney’s 2007 speech to quell concerns about his Mormon faith or Obama’s 2008 address about race.
For her critics, Warren’s speech did little to quell suspicions she used claims of Native American heritage to give herself a leg up early in her academic career.
“Only Elizabeth Warren can answer why she assumed a Native American identity as she was climbing the career ladder in academia,” said Beth Lindstrom, a Republican hoping to unseat Warren.
Warren has acknowledged telling Harvard and her previous employer, the University of Pennsylvania, of her Native American heritage, but only after she had been hired.
Harvard Law School professor Charles Fried, who helped recruit Warren, has called any suggestion she enjoyed an affirmative-action benefit “nonsense.”
Jeffrey Berry, a professor of American politics and political behavior at Tufts University, said no speech will make the narrative go away, in part because conservative groups and Trump enjoy taunting her.
In the end, he said, voters are more interested in fundamentals like the economy.
“Side issues may be fun to talk about for ideologues, but by and large the public isn’t paying attention,” he said.
Gabby Archilla, a 26-year-old law student in Boston, said taking a DNA test might help Warren, but probably wouldn’t silence her critics.
“It could maybe put that issue to rest,” Archilla said, “but I think a lot of people just have issues with Elizabeth Warren in general.”
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Storm Leaves More than 1 Million Without Power in Northeast US
More than 1 million people remain without power across northeastern United States Sunday as work crews raced to repair the damage caused by a powerful storm two days earlier.
Skies were clear Sunday over much off the Northeast hit by the storm, which was blamed for nine deaths, including two children struck by trees. But many communities faced major challenges restoring power and cleaning up debris.
Tens of thousands of utility workers were working over the weekend after the storm — known as a “bomb cyclone” for undergoing a rapid pressure drop — battered neighborhoods from Virginia to Maine.
Snow showers and coastal flooding were expected in parts of upstate New York and New England on Sunday as another, much weaker storm arrives.
As of mid-afternoon Sunday, more than 180,000 people remained without power in Massachusetts. More than 230,000 were powerless in Pennsylvania, and large-scale outages also continued in New York, New Jersey, Virginia and Maryland.
In New Jersey, officials said some areas might not have their electricity restored until Tuesday or Wednesday.
The Coast Guard warned of navigational hazards off Oregon Inlet in North Carolina’s Outer Banks after high winds and heavy seas swept about 70 containers off the cargo ship Maersk Shanghai late Saturday. The Liberian-registered ship had departed from Norfolk, Virginia, earlier in the day.
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Hague Tribunal Remains Deeply Controversial After 20 Years
The International Criminal Court’s March calendar illustrates why the Hague-based tribunal remains a deeply polarizing institution, two decades after its conception.
Three appeals judgements next week deal with atrocities in Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, and attacks against cultural treasures in Timbuktu, Mali. Later this month, trial hearings continue against Dominic Ongwen, a former child soldier and senior commander of Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army rebel movement.
For years, the ICC has weathered accusations of being excessively and unfairly focused on Africa, and a painfully slow, inefficient and expensive institution. Some of the world’s biggest heavyweights, including the United States, China and Russia, are not ICC members, weakening its credibility. More recently, the tribunal opened an internal probe into questionable dealings between court employees and its former prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo.
But as is marks the 20th anniversary of the Rome Statute that created it, there are signs the ICC is broadening its scope, even if the controversy surrounding it has not diminished.
New directions?
In February, court prosecutor Fatou Bensouda opened preliminary investigations into alleged crimes by governments in the Philippines and Venezuela. And late last year she requested court approval to turn a decade-long initial inquiry into the war in Afghanistan into a formal investigation, which might include alleged torture by American forces and the Central Intelligence Agency. If granted, the only formal investigations pursued against a non-African country, after Georgia.
“The ICC has been working where it can work, and now it’s starting to work in other regions of the world and that is positive,” says Elizabeth Evenson, associate international justice director for Human Rights Watch. “But we still have a long way to go to make sure the court has the political support and space to address atrocities in more places around the world.”
Court supporters argue the Hague-based tribunal’s existence and mandate, covering some of the most heinous crimes on the planet, committed in countries without the means or will to offer justice, makes it an inevitable lightening rod, and that its budget, in fact, cannot cover it’s daunting mandate.
The ICC has scored a few victories, including a groundbreaking case treating the destruction of cultural heritage as a war crime. Its 2016 conviction of former Congolese vice-president and warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba drew jubilation and fueled hopes of justice in places with little history of it. Some also argue the ICC gives victims a powerful voice and serves as a deterrent against more heinous crimes.
Yet the 40 or so indictments the ICC has issued since opening its doors in 2002 have led to just four convictions. And at every step in the judicial process, African cases dominate, accounting for all the convictions and, until recently, almost all the preliminary and formal investigations.
“Africa does not count for 100 percent of the world’s population, but not a soul outside of Africa has been indicted after 20 years,” says J. Peter Pham, vice-president of Washington DC research group, the Atlantic Council.
Anger over Africa bias’
The perception of bias has nurtured mounting resentment and outright rebellion among some African governments, depriving the court of the political legitimacy it needs, Pham says.
[[Sudan’s President Omar Bashir has made dozens of trips around the world since the ICC’s 2009 arrest warrant against him. Last October, Burundi became the first member state to withdraw from the ICC, complicating a formal investigation the ICC opened days later into killings and disappearances in the country between 2015-2017.
In one of its biggest setbacks, the ICC was also forced to drop cases against Kenya’s president and vice-president for lack of sufficient evidence, amid accusations of witness harassment and lack of cooperation from the Kenyan government.
Analyst Pham says, the ICC not only took on a “democratically elected president” in Uhuru Kenyatta, albeit following a disputed vote, but also refused to give him time to manage a terrorist attack in Nairobi that took place during the proceedings.
“I’m not a cheerleader for President Kenyatta,” Pham adds. “But it’s precisely this full-speed-ahead, torpedoes-be-damned approach that gets the court into trouble, and enables those, for less-than-honorable reasons, to discredit it.”
The ICC does not always choose its targets, a number come at the request of the U.N. Security Council and African nations.
New challenges beyond Africa
In the Philippines, where the court is looking into the government’s deadly war on drugs, President Rodrigo Duterte has called the tribunal “useless” and threatened to withdraw. Analysts say the court will be challenged to protect witnesses, get government cooperation and manage expectations in what may be a years-long effort.
In Venezuela, where the prosecution is examining arrests and allegations of excessive force during anti-government protests from 2017 or earlier, the attorney general claimed the prosecution is basing its investigation on “biased” information.
Afghanistan may be most formidable challenge. If the court grants a formal investigation, after an 11-year preliminary investigation, it could lead to groundbreaking war-crime indictments against Americans for alleged atrocities committed in Afghanistan, and also at alleged CIA detention centers in Eastern European countries where the he court has jurisdiction.
Some critics consider such a move foolhardy, joining broader calls for the ICC to take on cases it stands a chance to win.
“The problem is that none of the target authorities is likely to cooperate,” professor and author Thierry Cruvellier wrote in the New York Times, referring to the United States, the Afghan government, and Taliban. “The ICC will be able to claim it no longer targets only Africans … but it will keep showing its own powerlessness.”
But Katherine Gallagher, a senior lawyer at the New York-based the Center for Constitutional Rights, called a formal probe into Afghanistan’s war and holding U.S. officials accountable “long overdue.”
“It will demonstrate,” she wrote, “that no-one is above the law.”
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Roger Bannister, First to Run a 4-Minute Mile, Dies
Roger Bannister, the first man to run a mile in under four minutes, has died. He was 88.
Bannister’s family said that he died on Saturday in Oxford, the English city where the runner cracked the feat many had thought humanly impossible.
On a windy late afternoon in Oxford on May 6, 1954, Bannister ran four laps on a cinder track in 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds.
When timekeeper Norris McWhirter tried to announce the time of “Three…”, the rest of his words were drowned out by cheers.
Only when he read the newspapers the following day, did Bannister fully appreciate the scale of his success.
“It had become rather like Everest, a challenge for the human spirit,” Bannister said, reflecting on the significance of his own achievement.
His record lasted just 46 days. Australian John Landy ran 3: 57.4 in Finland to set up a much-anticipated showdown between Bannister and Landy at the Empire Games, now called the Commonwealth Games, in Vancouver, British Columbia, on Aug. 9, 1954.
In a race billed The Miracle Mile, Landy led until the final bend, when he made the mistake of looking back for his rival. Bannister burst through the tape in 3:58.8. Landy was second in 3:59. It was the first time two men had run under 4 minutes in the same race.
Bannister was also the first person to win the Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year award when he earned the honor in 1954.
Bannister gave up running to pursue a long and distinguished medical career.
“None of my athletics was the greatest achievement,” he said. “My medical work has been my achievement, and my family with 14 grandchildren. Those are real achievements.”
your ad hereSlovakia’s President Calls for Government Change or Snap Elections
Slovakia’s President Andrej Kiska called Sunday for either substantial changes in the government or snap elections in the wake of the murder of an investigative journalist and his fiancee.
“There’s a huge public distrust of the state,” Kiska said in a televised speech Sunday. “And many don’t trust law enforcement authorities. This distrust is justified. We crossed the line, things went too far, and there’s no way back.”
Kiska also said that he would pursue talks with the country’s leaders in the coming days on how to rebuild the trust of the people of Slovakia, who were shocked by the murder of Jan Kuciak and concerned about media freedom and corruption.
Kiska’s political rival, Prime Minister Robert Fico, dismissed the president’s proposals.
Kuciak and his girlfriend, Martina Kusnirova, were found dead last week in their home east of Bratislava. Investigators said Kuciak’s death was “most likely” linked to his reporting — marking the first time a journalist’s death in Slovakia was linked to his or her work.
Kuciak’s story, which his organization published after his death last week, describes the alleged connection between a suspected member of the Italian ‘Ndrangheta organized crime family in Slovakia and two senior aides to Fico.
Thousands attended candlelit anti-corruption protests and memorials held across Slovakia on Friday in reaction to Kuciak’s murder.
Organizers estimated that about 25,000 people gathered in Bratislava, while thousands more paid tribute to Kuciak in other cities and towns across the EU country of 5.4 million people.
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Washington Braces for Possible Trump-Induced Trade War
Washington is bracing for the start of a possible trade war between the United States and its closest allies and biggest commercial partners and a radical departure from America’s trading posture of the last seven decades. VOA’s Michael Bowman reports, the Trump administration is not backing down from last week’s announcement of looming tariffs on foreign-made steel and aluminum, with further details expected in coming days
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After Parkland, Even Idle School Threats Get Tough Response
Fifteen students in one Florida school district are facing felony charges and prison time for making alleged threats since the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre. Meanwhile, an autistic Minnesota high school student whose alleged threat led to a six-hour lockdown is in juvenile court and has received an outpouring of sympathy.
The Feb. 14 killings of 17 people in Parkland, Florida, have ignited a wave of copycat threats, as happens after nearly every high-profile school shooting. Most prove unfounded, but cause big disruptions to schools while tying up police for hours or even days.
Experts say authorities’ swift responses are underscoring a climate in which even idle threats will result in serious consequences.
“Kids make bad decisions and I think that in decades past those decisions would have been addressed behind closed doors with the principal and parents,” said Ken Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services, a Cleveland-based consulting company. “Now they’re being addressed behind closed doors in the police station and the courtroom.”
The Volusia County Schools system in east-central Florida isn’t taking chances. Sheriff Michael Chitwood made it clear he had a zero-tolerance policy as threats began after Parkland. On Thursday, he went further, saying students or their families would have to pay the costs of the investigations – at least $1,000 and sometimes much more.
District spokeswoman Nancy Wait said the message is clear: We’re not joking around.
“Unfortunately that word didn’t get to the students and we started seeing more students making threats in the classroom, and that was frightening to their classmates,” she said. “Most of the time these students didn’t have access to weapons, but they were still making threats to shoot up their schools.”
Don Bridges, president of the National Association of School Resource Officers and a veteran of 16 years on duty at Franklin High School in suburban Baltimore, said the number of threats goes down when districts send a strong message that they won’t be tolerated.
The Educator’s School Safety Network, which tracks reports of school threats and violent incidents across the country, has documented a spike since Parkland. The Ohio group counted 797 as of Sunday. Most (743) were for threats of various kinds, including gun and bomb threats. The threats were made mostly via social media (331) and verbally (119).
That amounts to about a sevenfold increase in the usual rate, director of programs Amy Klinger said.
“The mentality has shifted in a very short period of time from kids being kids to this is very serious stuff,” she said. She expects consequences of post-Parkland threats to be harsher than before.
“They almost have to be,” she said. “Do we want to do this for the rest of the school year? Do we want to have this constant chaos and fear, and people being upset? How much learning is going on?”
Tom Clark, a defense attorney in Santa Fe, New Mexico, represents a 14-year-old boy whose threat preceded Parkland but who faced tough consequences.
Clark said the boy had been having a bad day and wrote a list of people he wanted to shoot. After someone found the list in November, the boy, who had never been in trouble before, was jailed, facing hefty charges and a lifetime expulsion. He eventually was sentenced to probation.
“After the initial harsh reaction, at least the district attorney stepped back and the superintendent of schools stepped back and looked at it in a more compassionate light,” Clark said.
Probation officers worked with the boy to find an alternative program where he could attend school at night.
“No one wants to be the judge or the police officer or the security guard who doesn’t take action and something awful happens,” Clark said. “So the initial reactions are swift and harsh and then ultimately people are able to get a better handle on what’s going on with these children individually.”
It’s not clear yet what the consequences will be for an autistic boy whose social media threat to shoot up Orono High School in suburban Minneapolis prompted a lockdown Feb. 21 that kept students confined to classrooms for nearly six hours. Prosecutors won’t say what the charges are because it’s a juvenile case.
The community’s reaction was unusually sympathetic. Another student’s mother set up a GoFundMe campaign with the boy’s family’s permission that by Sunday was near its $40,000 goal to help cover the family’s legal and treatment expenses. Claire Wnuk Berrett wrote on the fundraising page that some kids on the autism spectrum don’t have the language or social skills to adequately express their needs.
“When verbal or written threats are made, they are usually an attempt to express the severity of the adolescent’s distress,” Berrett wrote. “It is not necessarily a true indication of a desire to hurt themselves or others. They do not have the social awareness to recognize this is the wrong thing to say.”
Principal David Benson said the outpouring shows, “We have a caring and supportive community for sure.”
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Trump, May Blame Syria, Russia for Eastern Ghouta Humanitarian Woes
U.S. President Donald Trump and British leader Theresa May agreed Sunday that Russia and Syria are responsible for the “heart-breaking human suffering” in the rebel-held enclave of Eastern Ghouta outside Damascus, the prime minister’s office said.
The two leaders discussed in a telephone call what May’s office described as the “appalling humanitarian situation” near the Syrian capital, even as the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Syrian forces had seized control of more than a quarter of Eastern Ghouta.
“They agreed it was a humanitarian catastrophe, and that the overwhelming responsibility for the heart-breaking human suffering lay with the Syrian regime and Russia, as the regime’s main backer,” May’s office said. There was no immediate White House statement on the phone call.
“Russia and others with influence over the Syrian regime must act now to cease their campaign of violence and to protect civilians,” May and Trump agreed, her office said.
The Syrian advance has come after 15 days of airstrikes on the rebels, along with artillery fire and rocket attacks, with more than 640 civilians killed in the fighting.
A demand by the United Nations Security Council for a 30-day truce, which Russia voted for, has been widely ignored, even as Moscow initiated a daily five-hour “humanitarian pause” for civilians to escape and aid to be delivered. The U.N. said it would deliver humanitarian aid to the Eastern Ghouta enclave on Monday.
In another phone call, French President Emmanuel Macron urged Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to exert “necessary pressure” on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to halt “indiscriminate” attacks on civilians in Eastern Ghouta.
Macron’s office said Tehran bore “particular responsibility for Iran, because of its ties to the [Syrian] regime, regarding the implementation of the humanitarian truce” sought by the U.N.
“The two presidents expressed their agreement to work together in the coming days along with the U.N., in conjunction with the Damascus regime and the main countries involved in Syria, to secure results on the ground, supply necessary aid to civilians and implement an effective cease-fire,” Macron’s office said.
The Syrian Observatory monitoring group said Syrian troops had advanced to within three kilometers of Douma, the main town in Eastern Ghouta, retaking “more than 25 percent” of the region in operations mostly run through farmlands.
The Observatory said at least 12 regime fighters had been killed in overnight clashes. But on Saturday, it said that 18 civilians, including three children, had been killed in regime bombardment of the region.
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Pro-Unity Spaniards March with Facetious Movement in Barcelona
Thousands of Spaniards for unity marched Sunday in Barcelona in support of a grassroots group that mocks Catalonia’s separatist movement.
The group, “Platform for Tabarnia,” facetiously calls for the secession of the cities of Barcelona and Tarragona from Catalonia – allowing them to remain in Spain as the rest of Catalonia calls for secession.
Under the slogan “the joke is over — long live Tabarnia,” as many as 15,000 pro-unity Spaniards waving flags of Spain and the fictitious Tabarnia took to Barcelona streets.
The group also employs the slogan, “Barcelona is not Catalonia,” a twist on the state’s secessionist slogan, “Catalonia is not Spain.”
Political unrest has rocked Catalonia since it unsuccessfully tried to secede from Spain in September.Independence parties maintained a slim majority in the state following December elections, but leader Carles Puigdemont is exiled in Brussels, while other former leaders are in jail.
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