Month: March 2018

WTO Chief Sees No Sign of US Departure

Posted on by SeeUS

There is no sign that the United States is distancing itself from the World Trade Organization, and negotiations are underway to avert a global trade war, WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo said in a BBC interview broadcast Wednesday.

U.S. President Donald Trump has launched a series of tariff-raising moves, upsetting allies and rivals alike.

Trump is also vetoing the appointment of WTO judges, causing a backlog in disputes and threatening to paralyze what is effectively the supreme court of trade. Some trade experts have begun asking whether Trump wants to kill the WTO, whose 164 members force each other to play by the rules.

“I have absolutely no indication that the United Sates is walking away from the WTO. Zero indication,” Azevedo said in an interview on the BBC Hardtalk program, according to excerpts released early by the BBC.

Last month, Trump called the WTO a “catastrophe” and complained the United States had only a minority of its judges.

Correction

The next day, Azevedo gently set him straight, noting that the United States had an unusually good deal, since it had always had one of the seven judges.

Asked whether the WTO should be thinking about a Plan B without the United States, Azevedo told the BBC that he had not heard anything to suggest that such a situation was in the cards.

“Every contact that I have in the U.S. administration assures me that they are engaging,” he said.

The question of whether U.S. tariffs were legal could be settled only by a WTO dispute panel, but the damage from such unilateral actions would be felt much more quickly as other countries retaliated, leading to a global trade war, he said.

“I don’t think we are there yet, but we are seeing the first movements towards it, yes,” he said.

Nobody believed it was a minor problem, including those in the U.S. administration, and people were beginning to understand how serious the situation was and what impact it could have on the global economy, Azevedo said.

“There are still negotiations ongoing. … We want to avoid the war, so everything that we can do to avoid being in that situation, we must be doing at this point,” he said.
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In Niger’s Desert, Europe’s Migration Crackdown Pinches Wallets

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For this ancient town on the southern edge of the Sahara, the flow of desperate migrants trying to reach Europe used to be a boon, not a burden.

Abdoul Ahmed, a 31-year-old mechanic in Agadez, measured the good years in customers. When arrivals in Europe peaked in 2015, dozens of cars came to his workshop each day to get their tires changed before setting off across the desert.

But since the European Union cracked down on migration a year later, his daily clientele has dropped to one or two. That earns him about $4, to be shared with five skinny teenage apprentices.

“Times are bad. There’s no activity,” he said, sitting along one of the few paved roads in Agadez, a mud-brick town where beat-up motorcycles outnumber cars.

For years, the old trading post in Niger has been a key stop for West Africans traveling north — mostly young men fleeing poverty in search of better opportunities abroad.

It is the place where migrants find smugglers to arrange their trip across the desert. Those ferrying the travelers earn hundreds of dollars for each person they cram into the back of a Toyota Hilux.

But smugglers have not been the only ones to benefit from the migrant boom, said Sadou Soloke, the governor of Agadez.

Cash from feeding, housing and transporting migrants fed thousands of people in the area and helped develop the impoverished region, he told Reuters.

That activity began to slow when Niger, under EU pressure, started arresting smugglers and posted soldiers across the desert in 2016. By late last year, the life had been sucked out of the once-bustling town, several residents said.

Now corners once crowded with merchants are quiet, and wide streets are empty even at midday. Men on motorcycles gather in patches of shade, waiting hours for someone to request a ride.

“We worry for the people who used to provide services to the migrants,” Soloke told humanitarian workers last month. “Now they’ve been put in a risky situation too.”

As more people move around the world — spurred by climate extremes, conflict and poverty — migration has developed an economy of its own, one many people rely on for an income.

That reality can make efforts to brake or shift migration harder — and riskier — to achieve, as they affect everything from powerful criminal networks to vulnerable people just trying to get by.

In Agadez, about 6,000 people who were directly employed in the migrant economy are now jobless, the governor said, while countless others — shopkeepers, phone sellers, mechanics — have also seen their earnings fall.

While aid agencies have swooped in to help migrants still stranded in the town, local people feel increasingly marginalized, said Ottilia Maunganidze, a migration analyst at the Africa-based Institute for Security Studies.

“The primary question they ask is … why is the aid going to people who just got here, when in fact we are suffering just as much but we’ve chosen to remain at home?” she told Reuters.

Smugglers’ earnings

Niger is one of the poorest countries in the world, ranking second to last in the latest U.N. Human Development Index.

Agadez used to survive on tourism, with Europeans flocking to see its 16th-century clay mosque and sultan’s palace, until fears of terrorism scared them away, locals said.

Then the Libyan revolution that removed Moammar Gadhafi from power created a security vacuum between Niger and the Mediterranean, and migration surged.

Three years ago, 100 to 200 overloaded pickup trucks would leave Agadez in a convoy every Monday at sundown, kicking up dust as they sped down routes once traveled by salt traders in camel caravans.

Each trip to Libya could earn a smuggler about $5,000, said Giuseppe Loprete, country head of the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Now smugglers charge even more, but overall earnings have plummeted since only a few vehicles make it past the checkpoints, he said.

“Communities are losing their main income,” said Loprete, explaining that migration revenues sustained not only Agadez but other desert villages along the route as well.

His organization is running cash-for-work programs in the region, paying locals to help dig wells or install electricity.

Loprete said such efforts will “buy some time” until people are able to come up with more lasting solutions.

But nothing will replace the level of income they had, he said.

Eager to occupy people with something other than migrant smuggling, the EU is also funding alternative employment programs, offering to buy ex-smugglers equipment to start farms or carpentry shops, for example.

Niger is one of several West African countries where the EU has struck or is seeking deals to cut migration, offering development aid in exchange for tighter borders, and threatening trade consequences if there is a failure to cooperate.

Local government officials said they are counting on the jobs program, which has only just got under way.

Privately, aid workers laughed when asked if they thought it would work. Used to making thousands, smugglers are unlikely to settle for meager profits from a farm stand, several said.

“I think the EU is trying,” said security analyst Maunganidze. “But the obvious challenge is that solutions have to be longer term.”

Many former smugglers will likely take up other criminal activity, such as drug trafficking, to maintain their income, she said. Some may also be drawn to join violent extremist groups in the region, she added.

Niger is warding off violence on several fronts, with Boko Haram insurgents encroaching from the south, al-Qaida-linked groups operating to the west, and various militia fighting in Libya to the north.

Risk of unrest

Conflict has yet to break out between Agadez residents and migrants stuck there, but officials, aid workers and analysts say the risk of tensions is high.

The regional health department complained last month that three dozen local and international aid groups were providing health care to migrants, while none were supporting local people, according to one source who took part in the discussion.

Aid agencies said it was easier to access international funding by working with migrants.

“[NGOs] come with good intentions, but they shouldn’t forget that locals are also in need,” said Ali Bandiare, president of Niger’s Red Cross.

Ignoring them “could create a situation that is unmanageable in terms of security,” he warned.

Off one small street in Agadez, a family sat on a dirt floor in what appeared to serve as a jewelry workshop, convenience store and living room, all at once.

On the wall were faded pictures of the patriarch posing in his turban with smiling tourists, and a certificate received by a son last year for completing a course in traditional jewelry-making organized by the IOM, the U.N. migration agency.

Abdoul Afori, 20, found the course interesting, but said there was no one to buy his goods.

“No one has helped us,” said his father, Mohamed.

Around the corner, car mechanic Ahmed scanned the dusty street as his apprentices slouched in boredom.

“With time, it will change again, God willing,” he said.
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Trump to End Deportation Protection for Liberians in the US

Posted on by SeeAF

The Trump administration is ending a program that allows citizens of Liberia living in the United States to avoid deportation.

But the Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) program, which was set to expire Saturday, will be extended for a year as part of a “wind-down” effort.

“Liberia is no longer experiencing armed conflict and has made significant progress in restoring stability and democratic governance,” according to a memorandum signed by Trump and released by the White House.

Started in 1991, in part through a grant of Temporary Protected Status (TPS), certain Liberian nationals were eligible for DED, which allowed them to flee armed conflict and civil war and live and work in the U.S.

“Liberia has also concluded reconstruction from prior conflicts, which has contributed significantly to an environment that is able to handle adequately the return of its nationals,” the memo said.

The Department of Homeland Security said there were about 3,600 Liberians enrolled in a previous TPS program that preceded the DED.

The protections for all Liberian beneficiaries will now end March 31, 2019.
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Ethiopia’s Ruling Coalition Paves Way for Abiy Ahmed as New PM

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Ethiopia’s ruling coalition has elected Abiy Ahmed as its chairman, according to the state-owned Fana Broadcasting Corporation. The move sets the stage for Ahmed to become the country’s third prime minister in 23 years.

The Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) announced its decision late Tuesday evening, after a series of delays and an election process that was largely hidden from public view.

Ahmed will replace Hailemariam Desalegn, who stepped down last month amid civil and political unrest across the country.

Ahmed, 41, has spent less than a decade in politics. Before joining the House of Representatives in 2010, he became a lieutenant colonel in the Ethiopian National Defense Force.

Founded Internet Security Agency

In 2007, Ahmed founded and later directed the Internet Security Agency, a group tasked with advancing Ethiopia’s technological capabilities, but also responsible, in part, for what human rights groups consider mass government surveillance to stifle dissent.

Ahmed studied in the U.S. and England before returning to Ethiopia to pursue a doctorate at Addis Ababa University’s Institute for Peace and Security Studies. In 2015, he became Ethiopia’s minister for science and technology while a Ph.D. candidate in Peace and Security Studies.

Ahmed had been considered a front-runner since Desalegn’s surprise resignation on February 15. As the leader of the Oromo People’s Democratic Organization, the EPRDF Party that represents the country’s largest ethnic group, Ahmed is considered an insider with a decades-long affiliation with the ruling coalition.

On March 1, former U.S. Ambassador Herman Cohen suggested on Twitter that the decision to elect Ahmed had already been made.

Ahmed speaks Amharic, Afan Oromo and Tigrigna, and he was born to a Christian mother and Muslim father, according to freelance journalist Mohammed Ademo.

Growing rifts

Ahmed’s background as a member of Ethiopia’s Oromo ethnic group, a majority that has long felt marginalized, might help him bridge growing rifts across the country.

Ethiopia is currently under its second state of emergency in two years in the wake of unrelenting protests in the Oromia and Amhara regions. One of the protesters’ primary demands is equal representation in government.

Despite holding the most seats in the federal parliament, the OPDO, which represents the Oromo people, holds less power than the dominant Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front, according to activists and human rights groups.

More recently, however, OPDO has gained its voice and expressed solidarity with the Oromo protesters, according to René Lefort, a journalist who has covered the region since the 1970s.

“The main change is that, first of all, OPDO asserted itself more than ever,” Lefort told VOA by phone in November.

The protests have put pressure on the government, resulting in the EPRDF’s decisions to release prisoners and jockey over reforms. But the coalition has also backtracked on promises to allow space for a plurality of voices in the country.

Just this past Sunday, bloggers, journalists and members of opposition groups were rearrested for gathering at a colleague’s home to celebrate their work.

Human Rights Watch’s senior researcher for the Horn of Africa, Felix Horne, criticized the government’s approach on Twitter.

How Ahmed plans to lead, and what steps the EPRDF will take to address growing turmoil, will now shape the country’s future.
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Somali Lawmaker Fatally Shot in Mogadishu

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A Somali regional lawmaker was fatally shot Tuesday in Mogadishu, police said.

Ruqiya Abshir Noor was shot in her home in the city’s Shibis district, according to police. 

Abdiwakil Abdullahi, police commander in the neighboring Bondhere district, who received the report of the killing, told VOA Mogadishu that Noor suffered serious injuries and was transported to Mogadishu’s main hospital, Medina, where she was pronounced dead.

Noor was a member of the Southwest Regional Parliament, in one of the federal member states of the country.

Her colleague in the Southwest Parliament, Bashir Ibrahim, told VOA that Noor went back to Mogadishu last week after the parliament went into recess.

“She was a nice person, very active member of the parliament,” Ibrahim said.

No one has claimed responsibility for the killing, but al-Shabab militants take credit for assassinations of lawmakers, civil servants and other government workers.
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Netanyahu Spokesman Confirms PM Taken to Hospital for Tests

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A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the leader was taken to hospital Tuesday for tests following an illness.

“The prime minister is suffering from a high fever and is coughing,” a spokesman for the 68-year-old Netanyahu said in a text message.

Netanyahu’s personal physician believes the prime minister had not fully recovered from an illness two weeks ago, and therefore decided he should undergo further tests at hospital, the spokesman said.
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US: Failure of UN Syria Cease-Fire Demands ‘Day of Shame’

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U.N. Security Council members are venting frustrations and trading blame over their unheeded demand for a 30-day cease-fire in Syria.

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley said Tuesday `should be a day of shame’ for a council that saw the 30 days elapse with continued bombing, deaths and suffering. The February 24 resolution aimed to enable humanitarian aid as Syria enters its eighth year of civil war.

Haley blamed the Syrian government and key ally Russia, which has lent air support to government forces. She said Russia has used its veto-wielding seat to stop the Security Council from doing more.

Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia argued his country was the only member taking “concrete measures.” Russia ordered daily “humanitarian pauses” and says they’ve allowed over 100,000 people to be evacuated from eastern Ghouta.
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Egyptians Cast Ballots on Day 2 of Presidential Poll

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Egypt’s presidential election went into its second day, with some voters enthusiastic, while in other areas, apathy dominated.

A marching band plays as bystanders crowded along the parade route on day two of Egypt’s three-day presidential election in the town of Qassous in Egypt’s Qaliopiya province. A few hundred people clapped and cheered to show enthusiasm, as voters cast ballots at a nearby polling station.

Egyptian media report a spotty turnout, with local correspondents claiming “heavy participation” in Egypt’s second largest city of Alexandria, and low turnout in the southern tourist locale of Luxor, where a heat wave appeared to be keeping some away from the polls.

In Cairo, voters crowded around some polling stations, while other polling stations appeared to be almost empty.

A precinct chief in Kafr El Sheikh province tells journalists that turnout was lighter Tuesday than a day earlier, although he said he expected more voters to turn out later in the day when temperatures were lower.

Voting began Monday and ends Wednesday. President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi is expected to win. His only rival is Moussa Mustapha Moussa,  leader of the Ghad Party, who previously had endorsed another term for Sissi.

Mohamed Fayek, head of Egypt’s National Council for Human Rights, told journalists that “voting appeared to be taking place without major glitches,” but that “some voters had expressed uncertainty about where they were registered to vote.”

Supporters of Sissi could be seen in parts of Cairo, waving flags and wearing colorful patriotic garb, encouraging citizens who had not done so to go out and vote.

At a Cairo sporting club in the leafy district of Zamalek, young men dressed in football garb played, apparently oblivious of the election taking place elsewhere.

Security remains tight at polling stations, and police and military personnel stood at alert in various parts of the capital.

A top military officer inspected a polling station in the Giza district of Dokki, discussing security with electoral officials.

In the Giza district of Faisal, an elderly man using a walker told journalists he had come to vote “to show [his] love for [his] country.”

 

 

 
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South Korean President Visits his Troops Training Emiratis

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Wrapping up his first trip to the Mideast, South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Tuesday visited his nation’s special forces training Emirati soldiers and pledged that peace on the Korean Peninsula would bring new business opportunities.

Moon’s trip to the United Arab Emirates helped solidify Seoul’s ties to a nation vital to its fossil fuel supplies. South Korea is also building its first nuclear power plant overseas in the Gulf Arab state, the first such facility on the Arabian Peninsula.

The four-day trip was carefully managed for Moon, who faced no questions from journalists in the UAE, which has a deal with Seoul reportedly guaranteeing the Korean military’s automatic intervention in “an emergency.”

On Tuesday, a statement from the South Korean presidency said Moon visited troops taking part in a program called “Akh,” the Arabic word for “brother.” The program, running since 2011, has Korean commandos train Emirati forces.

“The ‘Akh’ unit is a symbol of the defense cooperation between South Korea and the United Arab Emirates and will also serve as a stepping stone toward further developing relations between the countries so they would see each other as a ‘brother nation,'” Moon said in the statement.

Moon later visited Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, and the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building. While at the tower, he gave a brief speech.

“South Korea is now building peace and prosperity on the Korean Peninsula. Right now is the best time to invest in South Korea,” Moon said. “If we can stabilize peace in the Korean Peninsula, your investment will bear fruit and new business opportunities will arise.”

Neither Moon nor Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha addressed the mysterious armored train that made a round trip from North Korea to Beijing on Tuesday.

Speculation about a visit to Beijing by North Korea’s reclusive leader or another high-level Pyongyang official ran high Tuesday amid talk of preparations for a meeting between Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump. Moon and Kim plan talks in April seeking to defuse tension over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and missile program.
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US Senators Appeal to Poland Over Property Restitution Bill

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Fifty-nine U.S. senators have called on the Polish prime minister to support legislation that would allow Holocaust victims and their heirs to receive compensation for property that was seized by the Germans during World War II and later nationalized by the Communists.

In a letter signed by more than half of the Senate and released Monday, the lawmakers expressed concern about a restitution bill under discussion in Poland that, in its current form, would require that claimants be Polish citizens and limit compensation to spouses, children or grandchildren.

“This draft legislation would adversely affect Holocaust victims and their heirs and is therefore of urgent importance to many of our constituents, millions of Americans, and Holocaust survivors around the world,” the senators wrote in the letter to Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

The letter was authored by Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat from Wisconsin, and Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida.

The restitution of prewar property has proven to be a difficult challenge for Poland, which suffered massive destruction during the war and the changes of its borders in the postwar settlement, followed by the nationalization of property by the Communist regime. Those dispossessed included a swath of prewar Polish citizenry, among them many of the Jews who perished in the Holocaust or who fled Poland after the war.

Since the fall of communism, multiple efforts to pass a law that would offer restitution or partial compensation to prewar owners have all failed, with lawmakers balking at the high cost.

Without a systematic law there have been individual efforts, some of them successful, to regain properties. But the process has been marred by irregularities and fraud, with rightful heirs sometimes cheated out of their rights and tenants evicted by new owners.

With ownership of some properties unclear, especially in Warsaw, some buildings are falling into dilapidation while some plots cannot be developed.

The Polish draft legislation is an attempt to finally settle the matter.

The World Jewish Restitution Organization said it welcomed the call by the senators. Its chair of operations, Gideon Taylor, said: “With fewer and fewer Holocaust survivors alive today, we call on Poland urgently to address this historic wrong.”

The law comes as Poland has also seen its ties with the United States and Israel strained over a recently enacted Polish law that would limit some types of Holocaust speech.
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Poll: Trump Benefiting From Economic Policies

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A growing American economy and passage of a Republican tax overhaul appear to be helping President Donald Trump lift his approval ratings from historic lows, according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Trump remains unpopular with the majority of Americans, 58 percent. But 42 percent say they now approve of the job he’s doing as president, up seven points from a month ago. That’s a welcome change in trajectory for a White House that has been battered by chaos, controversies and internal upheaval.

The poll suggests that at least some of the president’s improving standing is tied to the economy, which has steadily grown and added jobs, continuing a trajectory that began under President Barack Obama. Nearly half of Americans surveyed — 47 percent — say they approve of how Trump is handling the economy, his highest rating on any issue. When it comes to tax policy, 46 percent of Americans back Trump’s moves.

For Republicans, that offers a glimmer of hope as they stare down a difficult midterm election landscape and a surge of Democratic enthusiasm. With few other legislative victories from Trump’s first 14 months in office, GOP lawmakers have largely pinned their hopes for keeping control of Congress on middle-class voters feeling the impact of the tax law.

‘Fortunes will rise and fall’

“Our fortunes will rise and fall with the economy and specifically with the middle-class tax cut this fall,” said Corry Bliss, executive director of the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with House Speaker Paul Ryan. Bliss urged Republican candidates to view the law as “an offensive, not defensive weapon.”

One of the GOP’s challenges, however, will be keeping the economy and tax overhaul in the spotlight through the fall given the crush of other matters roiling the White House and competing for Americans’ attention. At the White House Monday, the daily press briefing was dominated by questions about the president’s alleged affair with adult film star Stormy Daniels, a relationship he denies. Each week has seemed to bring a new departure among the president’s closest advisers. And many days, Trump is more inclined to use his Twitter megaphone to try to discredit the investigation into possible campaign contacts with Russia than promote the tax overhaul. 

Republican operatives acknowledge that even if they can break through the clutter, they still have a ways to go when it comes to explaining the $1.5 trillion tax plan to Americans. Democrats have aggressively cast the measure, which permanently slashes the tax rate for corporations and reduces taxes for the wealthiest Americans, as a boon for the rich that offers comparatively little for the middle class.

The Democratic message does appear to be breaking through with voters. Among those Americans who are familiar with the new law, 77 percent believe it helps large corporations and 73 percent say it benefits the wealthy, while 53 percent say it helps small businesses. Americans are evenly divided on whether the measure helps the middle class.

Republicans argue Democrats risk overreaching by downplaying the impact that even a small windfall from the tax bill can have for a family and individual. According to the AP-NORC poll, nearly half of those who receive a paycheck — 46 percent — say they’ve seen an increase in their take-home pay as a result of the tax law.

Heather Dilios, a 46-year-old social worker from Topsham, Maine, is among them. Dilios, a Republican, estimates she’s now taking home between $100 to $200 more per paycheck as a result of the new tax law, more than she expected when Trump signed the legislation.

Dilios said it’s more than the dollar amount that’s driving her support for the law.

“It’s more about being able to keep what is rightfully mine rather than giving it to the government,” she said.

Overall, taxes and the economy are the brightest spots for Trump, who gets lower numbers from voters on a range of other issues, including his handling of North Korea (42 percent), trade (41 percent), gun control (39 percent) and the budget deficit (35 percent).

Trump has benefited from an increasingly healthy economy that has boosted consumer and business sentiment. The 4.1 percent unemployment rate is the lowest since 2000 without the same kinds of excesses that fueled that era’s tech bubble.

Continuation of momentum

While Trump attributes the gains to his tax cuts and deregulation efforts, many economists say conditions so far are largely a continuation of the momentum from the gradual expansion that began during the Obama administration.

Trump’s most recent policy moves have also rattled financial markets and raised questions about the prospect of an economic slowdown. He slapped hefty tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, though his administration has issued waivers to several countries. And last week, he moved to slap $60 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods, prompting Beijing to promise swift retaliation.

The full scope and impact of Trump’s proposed tariffs won’t be known for some time, but the initial reaction from Americans is decidedly mixed. The AP-NORC poll finds that 38 percent support the steel and aluminum tariffs and 29 percent are opposed.

The poll also finds that just 32 percent of Americans think the tariffs will lead to an increase in jobs, compared with 36 percent who think it will lead to a decrease. Forty percent think it will lead to an increase in consumer prices, while 39 percent think it will lead to a decrease.

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The AP-NORC poll of 1,122 adults was conducted March 14-19 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.

Respondents were first selected randomly using address-based sampling methods, and later interviewed online or by phone.
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Russia Reacts to Mass Expulsion of Diplomats

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Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday his government will respond to a U.S. order for 60 Russian diplomats accused of being spies to leave the United States within a week.

Twenty-two other countries, including France, Germany and Poland, have also expelled a total of 77 Russian “intelligence personnel,” according to the White House. That list does not include Australia, which announced [Tuesday] it is expelling two “undeclared intelligence officials.”

Lavrov blamed the mass expulsions on “colossal pressure” by the United States.

The U.S. move, along with the closure of a Russian consulate in the country, is in response to Moscow’s to what the State Department called the “outrageous violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention and breach of international law,” involving the nerve agent attack on a former Russian double agent and his daughter in Britain.

Britain, other Western nations and NATO also blame Russia for the March 4 chemical attack in Salisbury.

Moscow denies involvement and has accused “powerful forces” in the U.S. and Britain as being behind the attack.

Russia has been sounding “a drum beat of destabilizing and aggressive actions,” said a senior U.S. official, explaining the White House actions.

The United States is ordering the closure, by April 2, of Russia’s consulate in the Pacific port city of Seattle in the state of Washington, noting its close proximity to the Boeing aircraft plant and the Kitsap Naval Base, the home port for some ballistic nuclear missile submarines.

The consulate is “part of this broader problem of an unacceptably high number of Russian operatives in the United States and “we are prepared to take additional steps, if necessary,” a senior administration official told reporters shortly before Monday’s announcement.

President Donald Trump, who spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin last Tuesday, has been involved in the discussions to expel the diplomats, according to officials.

“This is absolutely his decision,” emphasized a senior U.S. official in the call with reporters.

“The president spoke with many foreign leaders, our European allies and others, and encouraged them to join the United States in this announcement,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Raj Shah told reporters. He added the action is “significant in degrading their intelligence capabilities around the world, not just in the United States.”

Shah repeatedly stated the Trump administration stands ready to build a better relationship with Russia, “but this can only happen with a change in the Russian government’s behavior.”

Some, however, want Trump, considered by his critics to be too soft on Russia, to take a more assertive public role.

The top Democratic Party member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Eliot Engel, says Monday’s strong U.S. response to the attack “makes even more bizarre the administration’s weak response to Russia’s ongoing attack right here in the United States.” He says the administration needs “to stand up for our own democracy.”

Republican Senator John McCain says that while Trump’s decision “sends an important signal to Moscow, the only way to ensure Putin and his cronies feel the consequences of their brazen actions is by punishing them financially.”

Former U.S. ambassador to Russia, Alexander Vershbow, an Atlantic Council distinguished fellow, agrees, telling VOA: “Russian fingerprints were clearly on this attack, and a stiff response was necessary. I personally think an even tougher response is still justified, including some of the targeted sanctions on the big oligarchs that are close to Putin to show that those who support a system that sponsors aggression of this kind will pay an increasing price, if this keeps going.”

The expulsion order covers 48 Russians at embassies and consulates in the United States and 12 assigned to Moscow’s mission at the United Nations in New York City who “abused their privilege of residence,” according to a senior U.S. official.

“When we see these espionage tactics that are taking place right here at the heart of the U.N. we can’t have that,” U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley told reporters. “This is really not just us, but multiple countries saying all these actions have to stop.”

All those being expelled are considered spies who “hide behind the veneer of diplomatic immunity while engaging in espionage activities,” according to a senior administration official.

If Russia retaliates against the United States for the expulsions, Washington could take further action, according to a senior U.S. official, hinting that some of the dozens of other suspected Russian spies allowed to remain in the country could also face banishment.

Former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were found unconscious on a Salisbury park bench. They remain hospitalized in serious condition.

“We assess that more than 130 people in Salisbury could have been potentially exposed to this nerve agent,” British Prime Minister Theresa May said in a statement delivered Monday to parliament.

Stephen Fortescue, an honorary associate professor at the University of New South Wales in Russian politics and economics, told VOA he thinks Russia was responsible for the attack and that it was meant to serve as a message to current and potential defectors that the government could get to them at any time.

“My guess is that the Russians, if they did it, probably didn’t expect this sort of coordinated response,” Fortescue said.

Margaret Besheer at the UN; VOA Russian Service, Victor Beattie contributed to this report.
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US to Add Citizenship Question to 2020 Census

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U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has announced the next count of every resident in the country will include a question about citizenship status.

The U.S. Census Bureau conducts the survey every 10 years, with the next set to come in 2020. The deadline for finalizing the questions is Saturday.

Ross said in a memo late Monday that he chose to add the citizenship question after a request from the Department of Justice, which said the move was necessary to get data to better enforce a law that protects minority voting rights.

The decision brought criticism from those who say the citizenship question will cause people to not participate in the census because of concerns about how the government could use the information, resulting in an undercount of the population.

The census figures determine the number of seats each state is allocated in the U.S. House of Representatives as well as how the federal government distributes hundreds of billions of dollars in funding for various programs.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced the state would file a lawsuit challenging what he called an “illegal” move.

“Innocuous at first blush, its effect would be truly insidious,” he wrote in a joint op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle with the California Secretary of State Alex Padilla.

Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who now serves as chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, said his organization will also challenge the decision in court, calling it “motivated purely by politics.”

“This question will lower the response rate and undermine the accuracy of the count, leading to devastating, decade-long impacts on voting rights and the distribution of billions of dollars in federal funding,” Holder said. “By asking this question, states will not have accurate representation and individuals in impacted communities will lose out on state and federal funding for health care, education, and infrastructure.”

He also said that in his experience leading the Department of Justice, asking the citizenship question on the census “is not critical to enforcing the Voting Rights Act.”

The census has included a citizenship question in the past. Ross said in his memo the last time it was included was in 1950, but that other surveys by the Census Bureau do currently ask the question.

Ross noted the concerns about lower response rates, including from the Census Bureau itself, but said his department’s own review “found that limited empirical evidence exists about whether adding a citizenship question would decrease response rates materially.”

The Census Bureau plans to allow people to respond to the survey on a paper form, through the internet or by telephone. When people do not respond, teams attempt to follow-up with those households.

Ross said the higher cost of having to do more follow-ups in the case of a lower response rate was a factor he considered, but that “the need for accurate citizenship data” outweighs concerns about the potential for fewer responses.
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Linda Brown, Whose Case Ended Segregation in US Schools, Dies

Posted on by SeeUS

Linda Brown, who as a girl in the 1950s was at the center of the lawsuit that struck down racial segregation in U.S. schools, died Sunday at the age of 76.

“Linda Brown is one of that special brand of heroic young people who, along with her family, courageously fought to end the ultimate symbol of white supremacy — racial segregation in public schools,” said Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “The life of every American has been touched by Linda Brown. This country is indebted to her, the Brown family, and the many other families involved in the cases that successfully challenged school segregation.”

Brown was nine years old when her father, the Rev. Oliver Brown, sued the school board in Topeka, Kansas, to allow his daughter to attend an all-white elementary school close to her home. 

Theirs was one of several similar cases that resulted from recruiting efforts by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) aimed at challenging the city’s school system. The cases were combined and made it to the Supreme Court collectively known as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.

Many schools had long been segregated as part of a wider system of discrimination known as the Jim Crow laws that persisted largely across the southern United States. They enforced separate public drinking fountains for blacks and whites, as well as extreme rules and taxes imposed on blacks who tried to vote, keeping most from participating in elections and helping white leaders remain in power.

An 1896 Supreme Court decision gave those laws a strong legal footing on the basis that as long as the separate facilities were equal, then they were permissible.

In Linda Brown’s case, the school her family wanted her to go to was both a better school and closer to her home than the one she had been attending.

“Obviously Sumner is a better school than Monroe; a more up-to-date school, a newer school, as I have indicated,” James Buchanan, the acting head of the state’s board of education, told a lower federal court.

The judges at the lower court went on to rule that Topeka’s system was acceptable, saying the schools were substantially equal in their facilities and teachers. 

The Supreme Court rejected that view, delivering a unanimous decision in 1954 that remains one of the most famous cases in the court’s history.

“We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal,” Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote.

He highlighted the importance of the issue, saying education is perhaps the most important function carried out by state governments and that the circumstances of a child’s schooling have a profound effect on their life.

“To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone,” Warren wrote.

Paying tribute

Brown’s death Sunday brought tributes from leaders celebrating the legacy of her case.

“Sixty-four years ago a young girl from Topeka brought a case that ended segregation in public schools in America,” Kansas Governor Jeff Colyer said on Twitter. “Linda Brown’s life reminds us that sometimes the most unlikely people can have an incredible impact and that by serving our community we can truly change the world.”

Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia said as a child Brown’s “courage and bravery inspired us.”

“Students all around our nation are forever in your debt for the sacrifices you made in the fight for equality in education,” he said.

But they also acknowledged the work that remains in bringing equality to American schools.

“We send our thoughts and prayers to Linda Brown’s loved ones. May she rest in power,” said the Congressional Black Caucus. “The struggle to end ‘separate but equal’ continues as our schools are becoming increasingly more segregated.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California said the Supreme Court decision “loudly proclaimed” that separate is not equal, and that today “we remember how far we’ve come in one lifetime and how far we have to go.”

Compliance with the Supreme Court’s decision was not immediate, with several states resisting the order to desegregate.

In 1957 in Little Rock, the capital city of Arkansas, the state’s governor ordered national guard troops to surround a high school in order to prevent a group of black students from attending classes, saying if they did, “blood will run in the streets.”

By 1958, seven states still had laws segregating public schools, and three states did in 1961.

Schools had several options for integration, including redrawing school district boundaries or busing students to different schools to change the racial balance.

Cities such as Boston had controversial busing programs for decades with parents complaining about kids being sent far from home and questioning whether the efforts were still necessary. Many of those programs have been abandoned, but segregation still persists in U.S. schools.

According to the Civil Rights Project at UCLA, the number of schools where black students make up at least 90 percent of the population rose from about six percent to 19 percent between 1988 and 2013. At the same time, schools with 90 percent white student populations fell from 39 percent to 18 percent. 

Part of the change can be attributed to the United States becoming increasingly less white.

The Civil Rights Project says persistent segregation is worst in northern and western states, and that the 17 states with a history of explicit segregation laws have not led the list since 1970.

“The ironic historic reality is that the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court supported very demanding desegregation standards for the South while the interpretation of Supreme Court decisions and federal legislation limited the impact of Brown in the North and West,” it said in a report.
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Arab, Jewish Population Close to Parity in Holy Land

Posted on by SeeEA

Israeli officials say that the number of Jews and Arabs in the Holy Land, a territory roughly located between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, is at or near parity. The population statistics were cited in an Israeli parliamentary statement on Monday. Demography is studied closely by Israelis, as well as the Palestinians, because of its possible political implications. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has more.
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Catholic Church Plays Leading Role in Congo Protests

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The Catholic Church has played a central role in the effort to make Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila step down and hold elections. Twice in recent months clergy have organized mass protests. The marches have sparked violence and casualties, but protesters say more demonstrations are coming. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from Kinshasa.
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Egyptians in Sinai Queue for Bread, Not Ballots

Posted on by SeeEA

As some voters in mainland Egypt chanted praise for President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi outside polling stations on their way to re-elect him, residents of the restive northern Sinai Peninsula lined up for a different reason — bread handouts.

A military campaign in North Sinai that aims to crush Islamic State militants has blocked most access to the peninsula as forces carry out air raids, deploy patrols and impose curfews, creating a stranglehold that has led to a shortage of food and supplies, locals say.

With many people afraid to leave their homes amid the fighting against militants, barely any voters cast their ballots in parts of North Sinai on the first day of the three-day election, local officials and residents said.

“I went to vote because I was waiting in line to pick up bread” being handed out by the army, school teacher Selim Ahmed told Reuters by phone from his town of Sheikh Zuweid.

“The polling station happened to be nearby so I voted. People here are waiting for food baskets, of which there are few. They’re not queueing up to vote,” he said.

Ahmed Raouf, an official overseeing voting in another area in Sheikh Zuweid, near the border with the Gaza Strip, said only one person had been into the polling station he was supervising.

“That’s out of an electorate of 6,000 people in this area. People are scared to come out because of the ongoing military operations and threats of targeting polling stations,” Raouf said.

Islamic State in the weeks before the election warned Egyptians not to vote in an apparent threat. Egypt’s election commission said late Monday that turnout in parts of North Sinai had been “very good.”

The election, in which polls are open from Monday to Wednesday, is set to hand former military commander Sissi a second term as he faces one barely known challenger after serious opposition pulled out under pressure.

Voters went to polls in Cairo and other mainland cities Monday, with the vote focused mainly on turnout. Sissi supporters hope he can bring stability and improve Egypt’s ailing economy.

Islamists have waged an insurgency in North Sinai which intensified after Sissi led the military ousting of President Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013. A year later, Islamic State set up its Sinai branch and has killed hundreds of soldiers and police and expanded targets to include civilians.

An attack on a mosque near the North Sinai capital of Al-Arish in November killed more than 300 people, Egypt’s deadliest such incident, prompting Sissi to order the military to use “brute force” to crush insurgents.

Food sometimes arrives

The tactics the military is using, which some analysts say are too heavy-handed to defeat a guerrilla-style insurgency, have made it difficult for civilians to move and have choked supplies, locals say.

“We often wait for more than five hours for trucks to come carrying food parcels. Sometimes they get here, sometimes they don’t,” Yousef Ali from Al-Arish said last week.

“If only they’d let us move freely in the city or go to another province — but we’re not allowed to leave,” he said.

Curfews were imposed earlier this year in areas where military operations are focused and security forces are patrolling the length of the Suez Canal that separates Sinai from the mainland, the military says.

The military says it is distributing plenty of food and compensating families for material damage sustained to homes during fighting.

One of the few areas in North Sinai that witnessed a higher turnout was the town where militants killed Muslim worshippers in November. An official said tribal leaders there had mobilized people to vote en masse.

Elsewhere, the tense security situation prevented many from leaving their homes, Ali said Monday.

“Security forces are searching voters, and there are roadblocks up,” he said.
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Islamic State Regrouping in Iraqi, Kurdish Disputed Territories   

Posted on by SeeEA

Taking advantage of the rivalry between the central government and the Kurdistan Regional Government, Islamic State is regrouping and increasing deadly attacks in disputed territories across northern Iraq, Kurdish and Iraqi officials warned.

The Iraqi government declared a final victory over IS last December after Iraqi forces drove its last remnants from the country.

IS militants have since reverted to guerrilla warfare tactics, particularly in Kirkuk, northern Saladin and eastern Diyala, where both the Iraqi central government and the Kurdistan Regional Government claim control.

Ali al-Husaini, the spokesman of the Shiite Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) in northern Iraq, accused IS of attempting to turn the territories into a hotbed by fueling tensions between Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen.

Rich with abundant natural resources, the disputed territories have been the core of decades-long conflict between the Iraqi government and the Kurds. 

Displacing Kurds

The Kurds say the former Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein changed the demographics of the area by displacing Kurds and Assyrians and settling Arab tribes.  Article 140 of the current Iraqi constitution requires that measures have to be taken to reverse the changes before people of the areas hold a referendum to decide their fate.

The referendum was supposed to take place on November 2007 but has been repeatedly delayed, and the area remains contested.

“IS terrorists want to create chaos by resorting to attacks in the form of gang militancy,” al-Husaini told VOA. “They want to create divisions among the components of this area and prove they still have power in Iraq.”

He said IS fighters have increased their hit-and-run attacks in towns and villages to obstruct the upcoming Iraqi parliamentary elections scheduled for May.

In recent weeks, Iraqi security forces have blamed suspected IS insurgents for several deadly attacks carried out in the disputed areas.

Last week, IS propaganda Amaq News Agency said its militants in Kirkuk have killed and injured 103 Iraqi forces and destroyed several armored vehicles since Feb. 19.

On Saturday, the Iraqi federal police announced eight of its members were killed after being abducted on the Kirkuk road to Baghdad.  IS social media accounts shared photos of what they claimed to be federal police personnel lined up before being shot by masked militants.

That attack follows another deadly assault last month when IS militants killed 27 members on the Popular Mobilization Forces during an ambush in Hawija, south of Kirkuk.

Isolated cells

Azad Hamid Shafi, head of the Mandali town council in eastern Diyala province, told VOA that most IS attacks are conducted by isolated cells who disguise themselves in Iraqi army uniforms and set up fake checkpoints.

Shafi said IS also uses those checkpoints to make money by kidnapping people and asking for large sums of ransom. 

“Those fighters have created terror among people and limited movement in isolated towns and villages, especially at night,” he said.

He added that IS fighters earlier this month killed five Iraqi troops and took all their belongings after ambushing them in a bogus checkpoint south of Mandali.

In a separate incident, a spokesman of Khurmatu municipality in Saladin province, Muhammad Fayaq, told VOA that IS last week killed 21 members of two families, including their children, after stopping them at a fake checkpoint on Daquq-Tuz Khurmatu Road.

Kurdish officials said the recent increase of IS activity in the disputed territories is due to the security gap created by the withdrawal in October of 2017 of Kurdish fighters, known as Peshmerga forces. 

“Kurdistan’s Peshmerga was spread out across 30 kilometers of Kirkuk-Baghdad Road. This road now remains mostly unprotected, because  Iraqi government forces only have a few checkpoints on the main highway,” Edris Adil, head of the Kurdish Patriotic Union Party in Daquq, told VOA.

“IS fighters are freely moving across villages and plains,” he said.

The Peshmerga took control of most of these territories in June 2014, when the Iraqi forces left their bases following a large-scale push by the IS. 

The Kurdish leaders said they were not willing to withdraw after the IS defeat because “Article 140 has been implemented.”

Iraqi government forces and allied PMF regained control in mid-October 2017, following the Kurdish Regional Government’s controversial independence referendum and the inclusion of those territories in the vote.

VOA’s Dilshad Anwar contributed to this report from Kirkuk, Iraq. 
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With First Death in Riyadh, Saudi-led War in Yemen Hits Home

Posted on by SeeEA

Khattab Jalal, 27, was asleep on Sunday night in the home in eastern Riyadh that he shared with 15 other Egyptian construction workers when the sound of explosions jolted him awake.

An enormous hole had opened in the peeling green-painted ceiling of their home, which was filled with smoke and debris.

He and the others ran outside, but realized that one of their housemates was not with them. Thirty-eight-year-old Abdul Muntaleb Ali, sleeping on a thin blue mattress on the floor beside three others, had been killed when debris from a ballistic missile fired by Yemen’s Houthi militia group crashed through their roof shortly before midnight on Sunday.

With that, he became the first person to die in the Saudi capital as a result of a Saudi-led coalition’s three-year military campaign against the Houthis and their allies — a war that has already claimed at least 10,000 lives in Yemen and left around 22 million people in need of humanitarian aid.

Three of Ali’s roommates, one of whom was his brother, were wounded in the attack, Jalal told Reuters the following morning.

“For three years he didn’t leave [Saudi Arabia]. He hasn’t seen his kids,” Jalal said. “You’re with your friend and you’re having dinner together — and a few hours later, you wake up and find him dead.”

Saudi forces destroyed three missiles over northeastern Riyadh late on Sunday, as well as four others fired simultaneously at the southern cities of Najran, Jizan and Khamis Mushait, the coalition said in a statement.

The attacks, which coincided with the third anniversary of the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen, marked a sharp escalation in the conflict and stripped away the sense of calm in a city that, until recent months, had never quite felt at war.

A new kind of fear

Haila Zayed, a 27-year-old Saudi, clutched her infant son in a panic when she heard the explosions overhead. She could feel the car shaking as her husband drove.

“I always enjoyed the safety and security in my country. For the first time I felt the kind of fear that people have at war,” she said. “May God protect our country and keep it safe.”

For its part, the Saudi-led coalition has carried out thousands of air strikes in Yemen since launching operations after the Houthis, allied with Iran, seized the capital Sanaa and forced President Abd Rabbu Mansour al-Hadi to flee.

Discussion of Sunday’s missile attack flooded Twitter on Monday, with pleas to keep Saudi Arabia secure and condolences for Ali topping the list of trending hashtags in the kingdom.

Many prominent Saudis, including newspaper columnists, clerics and members of the advisory Shura Council, urged people not to share videos and photos of the attacks, saying they would feed into Houthi propaganda.

In malls, cafes and supermarkets around Riyadh, Saudis digested the escalation in their own ways.

For Abdulrahman al-Sari, who lives in Riyadh but hails from the frequently targeted southern province of Najran, the situation was too familiar to faze him. “For me it was normal,” he said with a shrug. “We’re used to it.”

Others emerged from the experience chastened and defiant.

“I want to pick up a gun, put on a uniform and go join the brave Saudi soldiers stationed on the border,” said Fahad Matar al-Shelahy, a student at a technical college in Riyadh. “If they give orders for people to join the soldiers, I will be the first. We all wish to be martyrs defending our country.”
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Federal Trade Commission Confirms Facebook Probe

Posted on by SeeUS

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission said Monday it is investigating the privacy controls of social media giant Facebook in the aftermath of reports that the personal data of tens of millions of Facebook users was compromised by the British voter profiling firm Cambridge Analytica.

The consumer agency’s announcement sent Facebook’s stock price down another 2 percent, after a 14 percent plunge last week cut the company’s market value by $90 billion.

The FTC normally does not announce its investigations, but confirmed the probe after numerous news accounts last week said it had been opened.

Acting consumer protection chief Tom Pahl said the FTC “is firmly and fully committed to using all of its tools to protect the privacy of consumers. Foremost among these tools is enforcement action against companies that fail to honor their privacy promises,” including adherence to a joint U.S.-European privacy accord, “or that engage in unfair acts that cause substantial injury to consumers in violation” of U.S. consumer protections.

Facebook’s privacy practices are being questioned on both sides of the Atlantic after revelations that Cambridge Analytica got the cache of information about Facebook users from British researcher Alexsandr Kogan, who had been authorized by Facebook to collect the data as part of an academic study.

Kogan developed an app on which 270,000 Facebook users supplied information about themselves. In all, because of extensive links of friends and associates to the 270,000 Facebook users, 50 million Facebook users may have had their personal data compromised.

Britain has opened an investigation of Cambridge Analytica and seized data from its London headquarters.

German Justice Minister Katarina Barley met Monday with Facebook officials, later calling for stricter regulation and tougher penalties for companies like Facebook.

“Facebook admitted abuses and excesses in the past and gave assurances that measures since taken mean they can’t happen again,” she said. “But promises aren’t enough. In the future we will have to regulate companies like Facebook much more strictly.”

Facebook said Monday it remains “strongly committed” to protecting people’s information and would answer the FTC’s questions.

Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg on Sunday apologized to Facebook users in full-page ads in nine British and U.S. for the massive “breach of trust” by the company.

Zuckerberg did not mention Cambridge Analytica, which was paid $6 million by U.S. President Donald Trump’s successful 2016 presidential campaign for the White House to develop voter profiles.

Zuckerberg said in the ads, “This was a breach of trust, and I’m sorry we didn’t do more at the time” when Kogan passed on the Facebook data to Cambridge Analytica.”We’re now taking steps to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

“We have a responsibility to protect your information,” Zuckerberg said. “If we can’t, we don’t deserve it.”
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US Frontier Gun Maker Remington Seeks Bankruptcy Protection

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Remington, a company that began making flintlock rifles when there were only 19 United States, has filed for bankruptcy protection.

Mounting debts at the arms manufacturer have snowballed, ironically, since the election of Donald Trump, who has called himself a “true friend” to the gun industry.

Remington, which as roots dating to 1816, has lined up $100 million with lenders to continue operations. It remains unclear what will happen to its 3,500 or so employees as it reorganizes.

Panic sales that drove revenue for gun makers ever higher evaporated with Trump’s arrival in the White House. Fading sales and Remington’s production of one of the most well-known weapons in the world, the Bushmaster AR-15, have overwhelmed the Madison, North Carolina, company.

Late Sunday, according to records from the bankruptcy court of the district of Delaware, Remington Outdoor Co. agreed to a prepackaged deal that would give holders of the company’s $550 million term loan an 82.5 percent stake, according to a release.

Third-lien noteholders will take 17.5 percent of Remington and four-year warrants get a 15 percent stake.

The Bushmaster AR-15 rifle was used in the Sandy Hook shooting in Connecticut in which 20 first-graders and six educators were killed in 2012.

The same type of gun was used to kill 17 in a Parkland, Florida, high school, a massacre that lead to drew hundreds of thousands of anti-gun violence protesters to the capital and to the streets in cities across the nation this past weekend.

The company was cleared of wrongdoing in the Sandy Hook shooting, but investors wanted nothing to do with it. Cerberus Capital Management, which had acquired the company in 2007 as gun sales began to boom, tried to sell it less than a week after the shooting.

There were no takers.

But it was larger trends already underway that doomed Remington.

Arms manufacturers had for years ramped up production as gun ownership became a red-hot social, and political flashpoint. Some gun-rights advocates have binged on guns on the misguided belief that a Democratic administration would harshly restrict gun sales.

Those misperceptions became moot with Trump’s rise to the White House.

Trump was the first sitting president to address the National Rifle Association in three decades, telling members at their annual meeting last spring that “You have a true friend and champion in the White House.”

Any belief that more restrictive regulation was on the way faded quickly.

In 2017, firearm background checks, a good barometer of sales, declined faster than in any year since 1998, when the FBI first began compiling that data.

But there were clear signs that gun sales, even as production increased, were already in decline. That is partially because a larger percentage of guns in the U.S. are owned by an increasingly small group of people.

According to a recent study by Harvard University and Northeastern University, the number of privately-owned guns in America grew by more than 70 million-to approximately 265 million-between 1994 and 2015. But half of those guns are owned by only 3 percent of the population.

That smaller base of what are sometimes referred to as super-owners has made the industry more unstable.

In 2015 Colt Holdings Co., another storied gun maker, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Profit growth at Sturm, Ruger & Co. is under severe pressure and the company’s shares are down 18 percent this year.

Some of Wall Street’s heaviest hitters are stepping into the national debate on guns as investment firms ask firearms makers what they are doing about gun violence.

BlackRock is a major shareholder in gun makers Sturm Ruger, American Outdoor Brands, and Vista Outdoor Brands. About a week after the shooting in Parkland, BlackRock said it wanted to speak with the three firearms makers about their responses to the tragedy.

It’s also looking into creating new investment funds for investors that exclude firearms makers and retailers.
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Unresolved Issues Overshadow Congo’s Vital December Poll

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Jean-Pierre Kalamba waved his hand over a map of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African nation that has delayed elections for two years since the president, Joseph Kabila, refused to resign after his term ended in 2016.

Kalamba, an election official, said the government is struggling to raise the $1.8 billion the electoral commission says it needs to run the next poll, set for December 23. The commission’s budget goes through the legislature, controlled by Kabila’s party — the same people the opposition accuses of delaying the elections.

He added, mistrust between politicians is at fever pitch, nearly every step the commission takes is scrutinized and criticized.

Kalamba said bogging down the process is that Congo is the size of Western Europe, has few paved roads, low literacy levels, and chronic insecurity. He said thousands of candidates are vying for a slice of power, and the 2011 ballot was 53 pages and weighed more than 300 grams.

Anger against the current administration recently bubbled up in city streets, and the government’s harsh response, which left at least six protesters dead, has further inflamed tensions.

“We encourage the political process to be open to all and call for citizens to be allowed to assemble without fear of violence or arrest,” U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said earlier this year.

But even with election officials saying they’re confident they can hold the poll on time, it is likely to be complicated and contentious.

Young, angry voters

Kabila won the 2011 poll, which was criticized by international observers for alleged rigging and violence.

This time about eight million people are first-time voters. Young people have been a visible component of anti-Kabila protests, and in the capital, every young voter VOA encountered spoke of change.

But Kabila’s People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy says it’s confident of winning the youth vote.

“It’s a party that empowers youth, and it’s a party that has a rather clear vision of the role youth should play in the development of our country,”  presidential aide Patrick Nkanga told VOA.

Pressure from the parishes

About of half of Congo’s population is Catholic, and the recent Church decision to throw its support behind anti-Kabila protests has ratcheted up tensions.

The church has long provided services the state often fails to provide, like schools and medical care.Church leaders mediated a 2016 political agreement that called for Kabila’s resignation and elections in late 2017.

And so, Priest Come Tshamala said he is telling churchgoers Kabila needs to go.

Parishioners have embraced the message. At Saint Francois de Sales parish, congregant Paul Buka says political leaders violated the people’s trust by reneging on the church-mediated agreement, giving the faithful no recourse but to protest.

But that has come at a price.At his parish, choir director Manu Bakutu said he watched as his friend, 24-year-old trainee nun Therese Kapangala, was shot by police and died on the street outside the church “in a pool of blood.”

Her death, he said, has turned her into a symbol of non-violent resistance.

Suspicions and hopes

Opposition parties are gearing up to draw votes, but cynicism shines through their rhetoric.

“We are the party of hope,” Vital Kamerhe, leader of Union for the Congolese Nation told supporters at a Kinshasa rally. But he told VOA afterwards, that hope doesn’t extend to faith that the poll will be fair.He noted the electoral commission’s Korean-made electronic voting machines are plagued with malfunctions.

Top opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi told VOA at his Kinshasa home, “The voting machines, for us, are cheating machines. These implements are designed to let the candidate who is chosen by Kabila or by the legislature to fabricate a fake majority like they did in 2011.”

Who’s on top?

Much of the drama also centers around Kabila’s next move.

Last month, the nation’s communications minister told VOA’s French service Kabila would not seek another term. Instead, Lambert Mende said Kabila will announce the name of his chosen successor in July.

But it’s that very style of top-down leadership the opposition says needs to end.

Nkanga, the president’s aide, says it won’t play out like that.

“The next president will be chosen by the people,” he said.”So we can’t say who it might be, right now.”

But as Kalamba, the fatigued election official said, mistrust overshadows every step of the elections. When asked whether he thought Kabila might make an appearance on the 2018 ballot limits, Kalamba grew quiet and sighed.

“No comment,” he said.
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Andrew Garfield on Why ‘Angels in America’ Still Resonates

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A bitter optimism is felt at the end of the marathon, two-part AIDS play “Angels in America” and one of its stars, Andrew Garfield, shares some of that hope, especially with so many young people in the #NeverAgain movement demanding gun law changes and begging not to be cut down by bullets.

Garfield said the Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning work resonates as much today as it did when it first premiered more than 25 years ago, citing Saturday’s March for Our Lives in Washington, D.C., and around the country.

“These incredibly inspiring, beautiful young people organized the March for Our Lives,” he said Sunday at an opening night party. “You have teenagers who are wiser than the elders of our population, teenagers who are wiser and smarter and who are being forced to fight for simply being alive.”

He added:”Thank God they are doing what they are doing, and we need to stand with them and follow them and help them lead.”

The former Spider-Man actor, who has been on Broadway before in “Death of a Salesman,” has transferred Tony Kushner’s seven-hour masterpiece from London to Broadway. “Angels in America” dramatizes the early days of the AIDS crisis in 1980s and the effects of Reaganism.

In his final monologue, Garfield’s character says: “The dead will be commemorated. And we’ll struggle on with the living. And we are not going away. We won’t die secret deaths anymore. The world only spins forward.”

Kushner has said that all his plays, and this one in particular, seem to thrive under Republican administrations. But he said Sunday the current Donald Trump administration is like none that he has ever seen.

“There have been many bad Republican administrations. I would argue that, with the possible exception of some parts of the Eisenhower administration, it’s all been pretty terrible. This is indescribably worse than anything we’ve had before, so maybe this is the moment when the play will really hit big,” Kushner said.

The play also stars Nathan Lane, Lee Pace, Denise Gough, and Nathan Stewart-Jarrett. It is directed by Tony- and Olivier-winner Marianne Elliott.

Garfield said Kushner’s dogged optimism for a broken-down world and craving for life itself makes his words so appealing in 2018.

“It does feel like we are dreaming of a better future. I think that is what Tony is trying to do with the play. He’s giving us a very accurate depiction of the hell we are in, and then he is giving us a way out, which is through community, empathy, remembering about the sacredness of life — all life — and the mystery of longing for more life,” Garfield said.
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Sierra Leone Seeks to Postpone Runoff Vote Until Saturday

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Sierra Leone’s election commission applied to delay Tuesday’s runoff presidential vote until the weekend, after a court on Monday lifted an interim injunction that had stalled preparations.

The commission applied to the Constitutional Supreme Court for more time shortly after the decision by the West African nation’s high court. The injunction had been granted Saturday after a member of the ruling All Peoples Congress party filed a petition citing irregularities in the first round on March 7. The opposition called that move a delay tactic.

The National Election Commission asked that the second round be held Saturday, according to spokesman Albert Massaquoi.

Tensions have risen in the nation of 7 million people after neither the ruling party candidate nor the leading opposition candidate won the first round outright. The opposition Sierra Leone Peoples Party, which took 43.3 percent to the ruling party’s 42.7 in the first round, has not held the presidency since 2007.

Opposition candidate Julius Maada Bio, a former military leader, on Sunday said his party would not accept a delay in the vote. He also accused President Ernest Bai Koroma and the ruling party of “pushing us to the point of chaos in the country.” Koroma has served two terms and is barred by the constitution from running again.

Bio, who is making his second bid for the presidency after losing in 2012, stands to pick up votes from the 14 candidates eliminated in the first round.

The winner of the runoff will be tasked with helping the country continue to rebuild after the devastating 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic, as well as a deadly mudslide in August that claimed some 1,000 lives in the capital, Freetown.

The election is the fourth since Sierra Leone’s brutal civil war ended in 2002, and the previous vote in 2012 was largely peaceful.
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