The United States and its European allies Thursday discussed ways to effectively stop Syria’s government from using chemical weapons to kill rebels and civilians opposed to President Bashar al-Assad. French President Emmanuel Macron said he has proof that Assad’s forces used chlorine in last week’s attack on Douma, a suburb of the capital, Damascus. U.S. officials say they believe the banned substance was used, but are looking for definitive evidence. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has more.
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Month: April 2018
US to Hike Fees to $35 at Popular National Parks
The U.S. Interior Department will hike fees at the most popular national parks to $35 a vehicle, backing off a plan that would have cost visitors $70 a vehicle to visit Yellowstone and other well-known parks, the agency said Thursday.
The new plan boosts fees at 117 parks by $5, up from the current $30 but half the figure the Interior Department proposed in October for peak-season visitors at 17 heavily visited parks, it said in a statement.
The fee increase would help finance a $11.6 billion backlog of maintenance and improvements. The proposal generated a wave of protests, and the Interior Department had to extend its comment period by 30 days to accommodate the more than 100,000 responses it received.
“This new fee structure addresses many of the concerns and ideas provided by the public regarding how to best address fee revenue for parks,” the department’s statement said.
The new charges go into effect June 1, and more than two-thirds of national parks will remain free to enter, it said.
Federal law requires that 80 percent of revenue generated at a national park remains where it is collected. The remaining funds can be funneled to other projects within the system.
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Angered by Water Shortages, Iranians March for 3rd Day
Iran’s third-largest city of Isfahan has seen a third consecutive day of street protests against worsening water shortages in the country.
A social media video labeled as filmed Thursday in Isfahan’s eastern district of Khorasgan shows a group of protesters gathered on a street and marching peacefully through an adjacent park. VOA’s Persian service monitored the video as it circulated on the Telegram instant-messaging service.
WATCH: Isfahan, Iran, Water Protest – April 12
In the video, Iranian police stand behind barriers opposite the protesters as a man using a megaphone is heard calling on people not to chant anti-government slogans. Iranian police have made similar appeals to water-shortage protesters in Isfahan in recent days. Later in the clip, as the protesters walk through the park, they chant: “Don’t fear, we are together.”
Social media videos posted earlier this week and monitored by VOA’s sister network RFE/RL showed what activists said were peaceful water protests being staged in Isfahan on Wednesday and Tuesday.
Iranian state media quoted two lawmakers as saying Tuesday that millions of residents of Isfahan province in central Iran would lose access to tap water in the coming months as a water crisis deepened.
Iran’s government also has been diverting river water in Isfahan to the neighboring province of Yazd for industrial use, angering Isfahan’s farmers.
Iranian officials have acknowledged that outdated agricultural and irrigation systems and poor water management policies in the past three decades have contributed to national water shortages. Below-average levels of precipitation in recent months have exacerbated the situation.
VOA Persian’s Shahram Bahraminejad and Mohammad Naficy contributed to this report.
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UN: Nigeria’s Boko Haram Has Abducted More Than 1,000 Children Since 2013
Islamist fighters from Nigeria’s Boko Haram group have abducted more than 1,000 children in the northeast since 2013, the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF said Friday.
The militants regularly took youngsters to spread fear and show power, the agency said on the eve of the fourth anniversary of the abduction of 276 schoolgirls from the town of Chibok, a case that triggered global outrage.
“Children in northeastern Nigeria continue to come under attack at a shocking scale,” said Mohamed Malick Fall, UNICEF’s Nigeria head.
The agency said it had documented more than 1,000 verified cases, the first time it had published an estimated tally. But the actual number could be much larger, it added.
It said it had interviewed one young woman, Khadija, now 17, who was abducted after a Boko Haram attack on her town, then locked in a room, forced to marry one of the fighters and repeatedly raped.
She became pregnant and “now lives with her young son in an IDP [displaced persons] camp, where she has struggled to integrate with the other women due to language barriers and the stigma of being a ‘Boko Haram wife,'” UNICEF said.
At least 2,295 teachers have been killed and more than 1,400 schools have been destroyed in the conflict, it added.
Politically charged
The Boko Haram conflict is in its 10th year, but shows little sign of ending. In February, one faction kidnapped more than 100 schoolgirls from the town of Dapchi, previously untouched by the war.
A month later, the militants returned almost all of those girls. About five died while in Boko Haram hands. One other, Leah Sharibu, remains captive because she refused to convert to Islam, her freed classmates have said.
The government said the release was a prelude to cease-fire talks, though some insurgency experts disagree, saying it violated that faction’s ideology to kidnap Muslims.
Boko Haram remains a charged issue politically. President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015 rose to power on promises to end the insurgency. But his administration has failed to defeat Boko Haram, despite pushing the militants out of many towns in the northeast by 2016.
On Monday, Buhari said he plans to seek re-election in 2019.
Four years since the Chibok abduction, about 100 of the schoolgirls are unaccounted for. Some may be dead, according to testimony from the rescued girls and Boko Haram experts.
Boko Haram in January released a video purporting to show some of the missing Chibok girls, saying they wish to remain with their captors.
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Amnesty Reports Drop in Iran’s Drug-Related Executions in 2017
Human rights group Amnesty International says it has recorded a decrease in executions in Iran, where authorities have suspended the use of the death penalty for drug-related offenses.
In an annual report released Wednesday, the London-based group said Iran executed at least 507 people in 2017, an 11 percent reduction from the year before. It said Iran still had the second-highest number of executions last year after China, whose executions it estimated as being in the thousands.
Amnesty’s Iran researcher, Raha Bahreini, speaking from London to VOA’s Persian service on Thursday, said there had been a notable decline in the number of people executed by Iran for drug offenses, with 205 executions in that category last year, compared with 240 people executed for murder. “It is the first time in many years that executions for murder exceeded those for drug offenses,” she said.
Bahreini attributed the decline in drug-related executions to Iran’s recent changes in its drug-trafficking laws. “We welcome those changes, and if implemented properly, they will lead to a further drop in such executions,” she said. “But we still urge Iran to abolish the death penalty for all drug-related crimes.”
Changes in October
Iran’s parliament amended the nation’s drug-trafficking laws last October to restrict death sentences to traffickers convicted of carrying weapons, acting as a ringleader, or using mentally ill people and minors under age 18 in a drug crime. It also raised the minimum amounts of illegal drugs that would subject convicted traffickers to the death penalty.
The changes took effect in November and were made retroactive, prompting the Iranian government to suspend executions for thousands of convicted drug offenders on death row pending a review of their sentences for potential commutation to prison time.
International rights groups had called on Iran for years to curtail executions for drug crimes. Bahreini said the recent reforms were a response to that pressure. But she said Iran shows no sign of reforming its policy of permitting executions for murder cases.
Iran’s Islamist system entitles family members of a murder victim to retribution by deciding whether a convicted murderer is executed or allowed to live in return for a payment of blood money.
Kaveh Adib and Mohammad Naficy of VOA’s Persian service contributed to this report.
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Federal Jury Finds Ex-Congressman Guilty of Fraud
A federal jury in Washington on Thursday convicted former Texas Republican Congressman Stephen Stockman of numerous counts of fraud, including stealing charitable contributions for campaign and personal expenses.
U.S. attorneys said Stockman used his position as a public servant to defraud donors and break federal law.
They say his conviction shows no one is above the law.
Stockman was charged with 23 counts, including money laundering, mail and wire fraud, and lying to federal election officials.
Among the charges, Stockman solicited more than $1 million in charitable contributions on false pretenses and used much of the money to pay for his election campaign and other personal expenses.
He also spent some of the funds to illegally spy on a political opponent in his failed 2014 campaign for the U.S. Senate.
Two former Stockman aides already had pleaded guilty in their roles in the scheme.
Stockman, a Republican, served two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas, from 1995 to 1997 and again from 2013 to 2015.
He is to be sentenced August 17.
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Year-Round Sales of E15 Fuel Possible, Trump Says
U.S. President Donald Trump said Thursday that his administration might allow the sale of gasoline containing 15 percent ethanol year-round, which could help farmers by firing up corn demand but faces opposition from oil companies.
The proposal marked the latest move by the Trump administration to navigate the rival oil and corn constituencies as they clash over the nation’s biofuels policy. Oil refiners say the Renewable Fuel Standard requiring them to add biofuels into gasoline is costly and displaces petroleum, while the farm sector says the law provides critical support to growers.
The Environmental Protection Agency currently bans the higher ethanol blend, called E15, during summer because of concerns it contributes to smog on hot days — a worry biofuels advocates say is unfounded.
Gasoline typically contains just 10 percent ethanol.
“We’re going to be going probably, probably to 15, and we’re going to be going to a 12-month period,” Trump told reporters during a White House meeting. “We’re going to work out something during the transition period, which is not easy, very complicated.”
Earlier Thursday, EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman said the agency had been “assessing the legal validity of granting an E15 waiver since last summer” and was awaiting an outcome from discussions with the White House, the Department of Agriculture and Congress before making any final decisions.
Monte Shaw, executive director of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, said the proposed shift to year-round E15 sales would be “very exciting news.”
“It would be a great morale boost for rural America, and more importantly a real demand boost if it can be moved forward quickly,” he said in an interview.
Annual biofuels figure
Under the RFS, the EPA sets the volume of ethanol and other biofuels that must be mixed into the nation’s fuel supply on a yearly basis — and a move to expand E15 sales could encourage the EPA to set those volumes higher in coming years.
Currently, refiners are required to blend around 15 billion gallons of ethanol into the nation’s fuel annually.
Shares of major biofuels producers rose slightly after the announcement. Archer Daniels Midland Co shares gained 2.7 percent to close at $45.30.
It was unclear, however, whether the move would help the refining sector — which has been lobbying hard instead for a cap on the price of blending credits that refiners must acquire to prove compliance with the RFS.
Greater blending of ethanol through year-round E15 sales would theoretically increase supplies of the tradable credits, and thus reduce prices. But at the same time, more ethanol translates to a smaller share of petroleum-based fuel in American gas tanks, which would hurt refiner sales.
The American Petroleum Institute, which represents big oil companies, issued a statement opposing Trump’s proposal to expand E15 sales, arguing that high-ethanol fuel can damage engines and is incompatible with certain boats, motorcycles and lawn mowers.
“The industry plans to consider all options to prevent such a waiver. The RFS is broken and we continue to believe the best solution is comprehensive legislation,” API Downstream Group Director Frank Macchiarola said in the statement.
Refiners’ shares were mixed after Trump’s comments, with Andeavor closing down 2.6 percent at $110.13 and Valero Energy Corp. up 0.2 percent at $100.53.
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Ukraine Rejects Russian Gas Offer
Ukraine this week dismissed as unacceptable a natural gas transit proposal by Russian energy giant Gazprom. Kyiv’s move will further complicate efforts by Western European governments to persuade their Central European counterparts to withdraw objections to Nord Stream 2, a Kremlin-favored pipeline being built under the Baltic Sea to deliver gas from Russia to Germany without transiting Ukraine and Poland.
The politics of Nord Stream 2 have become increasingly tangled amid heightened tensions between Europe and Russia. Suspicions are growing that the Kremlin wants to develop the new pipeline to reduce the importance of the one running through Ukraine — more for political reasons than commercial ones.
On Monday, Ukrainian leader Petro Poroshenko dubbed Russia “an extremely unreliable partner” in energy provision. In an interview with a German newspaper, he also said Nord Stream 2 would provide the Kremlin with the opportunity to switch off at will the gas to Ukraine without disrupting supplies to Western Europe. Most of the natural gas Western Europe buys from Russia currently flows through Ukraine.
Nord Stream 2 would replace an older pipeline under the Baltic Sea, and double by next year the amount of Russian gas delivered to Germany, the European Union’s most powerful economy.
German authorities have dismissed in the past Ukrainian and Polish objections to Nord Stream 2, and last month they issued the final permits needed for pipeline construction on German territory and in its territorial waters. Finland also has issued construction permits.
Merkel’s stance
But after weeks of lobbying by Kyiv, and with growing pressure from within Germany’s newly formed governing coalition, Chancellor Angela Merkel has started to harden her language about the proposed pipeline. It will cost billions of dollars to build and is planned to run 1,200 kilometers from Vyborg in Russia to Lubmin in Germany.
Russia currently supplies more than one-third of the natural gas Europe uses, though with demand increasing that could reach closer to 50 percent next decade.
In the past, Merkel hasn’t acknowledged a geopolitical dimension when it comes to debating the benefits and drawbacks of Nord Stream 2. She brushed away Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki’s objections at a Berlin press conference in February. He warned of the dangers of Europe becoming too dependent on Russian energy and said Russia must “not be allowed to have a monopoly and force its prices on the European Union” or use the gas to blackmail EU governments.
But after a meeting Tuesday with Poroshenko, Merkel acknowledged for the first time allies’ concerns over the “political” and “strategic” aspects of the proposed pipeline, saying Nord Stream 2 could proceed only if Ukraine’s role as a transit country for Russian gas also was protected.
She said the earnings Ukraine receives for gas transit rights are of strategic importance. “That is why I have made it very clear that the Nord Stream 2 project is not possible without clarity regarding the transit role of Ukraine,” she said.
Ukraine and Poland aren’t the only European countries objecting to Nord Stream 2. Baltic nations and Slovakia, as well as Sweden and Denmark, have expressed doubts about the project, both out of solidarity with Ukraine, which would lose about $3 billion a year in revenue once the new pipeline was complete, and over fears about Europe’s growing dependence on natural gas supplies from Russia.
That dependency, they fear, could make Europe vulnerable to geopolitical blackmail by Russia. It is a view shared by the U.S., which has urged Germany to be cautious about signing up to Nord Stream 2 and has promised to offer more U.S. gas to Europe.
Pipeline critics
NATO’s former head, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, has described Nord Stream 2 as a “geopolitical mistake” for the EU, saying it would make a mockery of EU sanctions on Russia for its annexation of Crimea.
Last week, the Trump administration included Alexei Miller, the CEO of Gazprom, which is 50 percent owned by the Russian state, on an expanded economic sanctions list.
On Tuesday, Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics said that the Baltic states, Nordic countries and Visegrad countries had formed a bloc on Nord Stream 2 inside the EU. “We have always been united in our position regarding Nord Stream 2, and we believe that this is not an economic and business but a political project,” he said.
Authorities in Sweden and Denmark are still mulling whether to agree to construction permits. Last year, Denmark’s parliament passed legislation that would allow the Danish government to ban the pipeline from going through the country’s territorial waters.
Gazprom said in March that it would terminate its gas contracts with Ukraine after a European court ordered the Russian giant to pay more than $2.5 billion to Ukrainian energy firm Naftogaz, concluding a long legal battle about prices and obligations.
Gazprom transit
But in a statement this week seemingly aimed at assuaging European doubts about the project, Miller, the Gazprom CEO, said his company had never envisaged stopping all transit through Ukraine and would maintain volumes of 10 billion to 15 billion cubic meters per year.
Ukrainian Energy Minister Igor Nasalyk said Wednesday that those amounts were too small to make Russian gas transit economically viable. “Our country will not accept such volumes,” he said.
Ukrainian energy officials say Russia needs to pump at least 40 billion cubic meters of gas per year to make the transit route through Ukraine “economically profitable” for Kyiv. Last year, 93.5 billion cubic meters of Russian gas transited Ukraine to the rest of Europe — about half of the EU bloc’s total purchases from Gazprom.
Merkel’s shift in language about Nord Stream 2 followed a series of highly critical remarks about Russia from Heiko Maas, Germany’s new foreign minister. Ukraine argues the whole project is political, and Poroshenko said this week that his country’s transit pipeline could be modernized more cheaply than the cost of building Nord Stream 2.
Russian officials counter that it is European foes who are trying to turn natural gas into a political weapon by throwing up objections to the new pipeline project. They also contend that Europe will face gas shortages and price spikes next decade if the Russian energy giant isn’t allowed to boost capacity.
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Debate Looms in Congress Over Legality of Trump’s Syria Strikes
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis promised Thursday the Pentagon will “notify” Congress before any possible military action in Syria, where the U.S. is considering responding to a suspected chemical weapons attack.
“There will be notification to leadership, of course, prior to the attack,” Mattis said in his testimony at the House Armed Services Committee. “We will report to Congress. We will keep open lines of communication.”
But notably, Mattis did not indicate the Trump administration would seek congressional approval before the strike, which presumably would target the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Trump says the U.S. will soon launch “nice and new and smart” missiles in response to last week’s suspected poison gas attack, which left scores dead in a rebel-held area. Trump blames Assad for the attack.
A U.S. attack is likely to upset a small but growing number of U.S. lawmakers who demand President Donald Trump first ask Congress to authorize any hostilities, citing the War Powers Resolution of 1973, a federal law intended to check the president’s ability to wage war.
Executive power
U.S. presidents, both Republican and Democrat, have long argued they have legal authority to order airstrikes and other short-term military campaigns if those engagements fall short of the “hostilities” mentioned in the War Powers Resolution.
Additionally, U.S. presidents have cited a pair of authorizations by Congress following the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks as justification for the near-constant U.S. strikes on Islamic militants around the world.
The Trump administration has used those authorizations as justification for its current war in Syria. The U.S. has 2,000 troops in Syria, and helps lead an international coalition against Islamic State in Syria and neighboring Iraq.
The overwhelming majority of U.S. lawmakers have not publicly objected to the administration’s legal rationale for those missions. But as Trump considers expanding the U.S. war to include attacks on Syrian government targets, some in Congress are speaking up.
‘War by tweet’
“President Trump has no legal authority for broadening the war in Syria,” Senator Bernie Sanders said in a statement. “It is Congress, not the president, who determines whether our country goes to war, and Congress must not abdicate that responsibility.
“Trump is a president, not a king — he needs to come to Congress if he wants to initiate military action,” said Democratic Senator Tim Kaine. “If he strikes Syria without our approval, what’s to stop him from bombing North Korea or Iran?”
Several members of Trump’s Republican Party also have criticized a possible attack.
“Promising war by tweet, insults not only the Constitution but every soldier who puts their life on the line,” said Republican Senator Rand Paul, a prominent anti-war voice, in a Wednesday tweet.
“The use of chemical weapons absolutely requires a response from the United States,” said Republican Senator Mike Lee. “But if that response is going to include military force, the President of the United States should come to Congress and ask for authorization before military force is used.”
The issue came up briefly last year when the Trump administration launched Tomahawk cruise missiles at a Syrian air base. But Trump officials said that attack was an isolated incident, and did not need congressional approval.
“Obviously, the administration will follow whatever laws and regulations are necessary for any actions that we take,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said Wednesday. “Because we haven’t laid out any specific actions that we plan to take, I can’t tell you exactly what needs we would have to go to Congress with.”
Trump’s past comments
Trump himself has in the past argued that U.S. presidents need to seek Congress’ permission before military action, tweeting this in 2013, as former President Barack Obama considered attacks against the Assad government:
“What will we get for bombing Syria besides more debt and a possible long term conflict? Obama needs Congressional approval.” Trump said in another tweet at the time.
Obama eventually decided against the attacks, instead striking a deal to remove some of the Syrian government’s chemical weapons. That deal failed to stop poison gas attacks in Syria, as evidenced by the repeated use of chlorine and other chemical agents.
U.N. deadlock
An attack on the Syrian government, supporters of the U.S.-led airstrikes say, would serve as a message to Assad that he cannot continue to violate international law by using chemical weapons on his people.
But Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, says a U.S. attack on Assad would itself violate international law unless the U.S. coalition first gets approval from the United Nations.
“Of course it is. Even the threat of a use of force is a violation of the U.N. Charter, let alone a strike itself,” Nebenzia told reporters Thursday.
The U.N. charter, which the U.S. has ratified, states that countries can only use force on another nation’s soil in self-defense or if the U.N. Security Council has authorized action through a resolution.
One state can also request the military assistance of another, as Assad’s government did with Moscow, which sent troops to Syria in 2015. That support means Russia would almost certainly veto any Security Council resolution authorizing force against Assad.
That may not stop Trump, however. The president is a frequent critic of the U.N. His recently appointed national security adviser, John Bolton, has argued that the U.S. should not be prevented from unilateral military action.
VOA’s Margaret Besheer contributed to this story
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Study: Holocaust Fading from American Memory
As people around the world marked Holocaust Remembrance Day, once again promising to “never forget” the genocide that killed 6 million Jews during World War II, a new study shows Americans appear to be doing just that.
The study released Thursday by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, found two-thirds of American millennials cannot identify what Auschwitz is. Twenty-two percent of millennials said they haven’t heard of the Holocaust or are not sure whether they’ve heard of it.
The study found that there were significant age gaps in knowledge about the Holocaust, with 22 percent of millennials saying they haven’t heard or were not sure if they have heard of the Holocaust, compared to 11 percent for all U.S. adults.
But even among those who knew about the holocaust, many were fuzzy about the facts of a systematic campaign of murder that killed 12 million people, 6 million of them Jews in Europe. According to the survey, one-third of Americans — the number rises to 41 percent for millennials — think that two million or fewer people died.
With the youngest survivors now in their mid-seventies, the chance of hearing firsthand stories is rapidly dwindling. Two-thirds of Americans do not personally know or know of a Holocaust survivor.
Despite the lack of historical knowledge, the survey found a desire for Holocaust education — 93 percent said that all students should learn about the Holocaust in school.
The survey also found that most people believe there is still strong anti-Semitic sentiment in the United States today, more than 70 years after the Holocaust. Sixty-eight percent of U.S. adults said anti-Semitism exists today, and 34 percent said there are many neo-Nazis currently present in the U.S.
Fifty-eight percent said they believe something like the Holocaust could happen again.
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European Official Sees Progress on Trump’s Iran Deal Concerns
Senior British, French and German officials believe they are making headway toward an agreement that would address U.S. President Donald Trump’s concerns about the Iran nuclear deal, a European diplomat said on Thursday.
“We came out feeling like we are making good progress towards addressing the president’s concerns and coming [up] to an agreement,” the diplomat told a small group of reporters on condition of anonymity.
Senior diplomats from the three European nations met Brian Hook, the U.S. State Department’s director of policy planning, in Washington on Wednesday to try to find a way to salvage the arms control pact.
The crux of the 2015 agreement between Iran and six major powers — Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States — was that Iran would restrict its nuclear program in return for relief from sanctions that have crippled its economy.
On January 12, Trump delivered an ultimatum to Britain, France and Germany, saying they must agree to “fix the terrible flaws of the Iran nuclear deal” or he would refuse to extend the U.S. sanctions relief on Iran that it calls for. U.S. sanctions will resume unless Trump issues new “waivers” to suspend them on May 12, although it is unclear how fast they would go into effect.
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Pompeo: No Reward for N. Korea Without Irreversible Denuclearization
North Korea should not expect rewards from talks with the United States until it takes irreversible steps to give up its nuclear weapons, Mike Pompeo, U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, said Thursday.
Pompeo, who is the current CIA director, said the historical analysis was “not optimistic,” when asked at his Senate confirmation hearing whether he believed North Korea would agree to dismantle its nuclear program. But he said that in past negotiations, the United States and the world had relaxed sanctions too quickly.
“It is the intention of the president and the administration not to do that this time, to make sure that … before we provide rewards, we get the outcome permanently, irreversibly, that it is that we hope to achieve.
“It is a tall order, but I am hopeful that President Trump can achieve that through sound diplomacy.”
Meeting with Kim
Trump has said he plans to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in May or early June and hopes the discussions will lead to an end of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.
On Thursday, Trump said meetings were being set up between him and Kim, and that the United States would go into those with “a lot of respect.”
He thanked China for its help in trying to resolve the crisis over North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons capable of hitting the United States, saying, “they’ve been really terrific at helping us get to some kind of settlement.”
“Meetings are being set up right now between myself and Kim Jong Un. I think it will be terrific. I think we’ll go in with a lot of respect and we’ll see what happens,” he said.
Trump also said trade “negotiations” between Washington and Beijing were going well, conflicting with China’s statements since the president’s announcements of plans to impose tariffs on billions of dollars’ worth of Chinese goods, which have fed fears of an all-out trade war.
“We are getting along very well, think we’re going to do some great things,” Trump said, adding that getting rid of nuclear weapons was “very good for them, good for everybody.”
No illusions
Pompeo said he was optimistic a course could be set at the Trump-Kim summit for a diplomatic outcome with North Korea but added that no one was under any illusion that a comprehensive deal could be reached at that meeting.
He brushed aside concerns that the administration’s moves to modify a nuclear deal with Iran could make an agreement with North Korea more difficult. He argued that Kim would be looking to his own interests, including his country’s economy and the “sustainment of his regime,” not other historical agreements.
Pompeo stressed that the aim of a Trump-Kim summit was to get North Korea to “step away.” Under questioning, he would not take any option off the table, including military ones.
At the same time, he said he was not advocating regime change for North Korea and had never done so.
Last year, North Korea accused Pompeo of favoring such a policy after he told a forum in July it was important to separate the country’s nuclear weapons from the “character who holds the control over them.”
In May, North Korea accused the CIA and South Korea’s intelligence service of a failed plot to assassinate Kim at a military parade in Pyongyang.
Bolton, counterparts confer
On Thursday, Trump’s new national security adviser, John Bolton, met separately with South Korea’s National Security Office Director Chung Eui-yong, who led a South Korean delegation that met Kim Jong Un last month, and his Japanese counterpart, Shotaro Yachi.
“The national security advisers committed to continue coordinating closely,” a White House official said.
Bolton, who took up his post on Monday, has called for North Korea regime change in the past and has previously been rejected as a negotiating partner by Pyongyang.
At a separate congressional hearing, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said the aim was for a negotiated solution to the North Korean crisis.
“We’re all cautiously optimistic that we may be on the right path for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” he told the House Armed Services Committee.
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US Notes Release of 54 Political Detainees in Sudan
The United States on Thursday noted the release of a group of Sudanese political prisoners, following an order by Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir earlier this week.
“Some 54 political detainees were released from prison by an order of President Bashir the evening of April 10, according to a statement issued by the committee of the detainees’ families,” a State Department official told VOA.
State news agency SUNA reported Bashir’s order is part of an effort to promote “reconciliation, national harmony and peace” weeks after mass arrests were made to suppress anti-government protests.
In January, demonstrations erupted in Sudan over the high price of bread and tough economic conditions. The protests, fueled in part by the opposition Communist Party, led to the arrests of the political prisoners.
The U.S. Embassy in Khartoum expressed its deep concerns in February over “the continued arrests and detentions of hundreds of political leaders, activists and ordinary citizens. Many of whom are being held in inhumane and degrading conditions, and without access to lawyers or family,” the embassy said.
The SUNA report did not say how many prisoners would be released, nor did it identify any of them.
Sudan is grappling with a currency crisis and very high rates of inflation that have fueled unrest, although public demonstrations are effectively banned and routinely quelled by security forces.
Bashir ordered the release of 80 political detainees in February. Opposition groups have said about 50 remain in jail, including prominent politician and Sudanese communist party leader Mohamed Mokhtar al-Khatib.
The United States and European embassies in Sudan had requested that all detainees be released.
Last October, the United States lifted long-standing economic sanctions on the north African country, citing the country’s progress in human rights, after what State Department officials said was “a careful review” of Sudan’s positive actions and a focused, diplomatic effort between the two countries.
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Russian UN Envoy: First Priority Is to Avert Wider Syrian War
Russia’s U.N. ambassador urged the United States and its allies Thursday to avoid a military strike on Syria, saying the goal was to avert a wider war.
Security Council members met privately to discuss the escalating rhetoric and threats of military reprisals after the United States, Britain and France blamed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces for a suspected chlorine gas attack April 7 on the rebel enclave of Douma in eastern Ghouta.
The attack killed at least 40 people and sickened hundreds more. Damascus has denied using chemical weapons.
Russian envoy Vassily Nebenzia told reporters after Thursday’s meeting that “aggressive policies” and “preparations” by the three countries were a violation of the U.N. Charter and a threat to international peace and security.
“The immediate priority,” he said, “is to avert the danger of war.”
When asked whether he meant a war between Russia and the United States, Nebenzia said, “We cannot exclude any possibilities, unfortunately, because we saw the messages coming from Washington. They were very bellicose.”
Nebenzia said Moscow was very concerned with the “dangerous escalation” in Syria.
“We hope that there will be no point of no return — that the U.S. and their allies will refrain from military action against a sovereign state,” he said.
Russia’s military is present in Syria, where it is supporting the Assad government.
President Donald Trump has said a U.S. response to the alleged chemical attack will come “fairly soon.” On Wednesday, he warned that “missiles will be coming to Syria.”
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Aid Groups Seek to Raise $1.7B for DRC, Over Congo’s Objections
As donors prepare to gather Friday in Geneva for a major aid conference to raise $1.7 billion for humanitarian needs in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the government of the central African nation is standing firm on its refusal to attend or cooperate.
The United Nations says more than 13 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance in the sprawling Central African nation, which is full of mineral wealth, but substantially lacking in critical infrastructure and basic government services.
Aid agencies said it is crucial to intervene to alleviate crises in parts of the country the United Nations has put on par with Syria and Yemen.
The United Nations has declared three conflict-ridden regions in Congo, the Kasai, Tanganyika and South Kivu, as Level 3 emergencies, the most severe category. The United Nations says more than two million children are at risk of dying from severe acute malnutrition.
The Congolese government pushed back, saying the emergency classification was “based on facts that are not real.”Presidential adviser Patrick Nkanga told VOA the government disagrees with how the conference was organized and must safeguard national sovereignty.
“The government takes issue with how organizers have characterized the situation in the country in such a way that deliberately tarnishes the country’s image,” he said from Kinshasa. “The government’s conditions were not met, and the entire basis for the conference, as it has been presented by the organizers, is not conducive to clear collaboration.”
Crisis behind the crisis
But analyst Stephanie Wolters of the Institute for Security Studies said there is more to this situation than meets the eye. Congo has delayed elections for two years after President Joseph Kabila failed to step down in time for a scheduled 2016 poll. That act has been met with increasingly violent protests against his administration.
“It has not only said it’s not participating in this conference, but it has in fact sent what really amounts to threatening letters to donor countries that do want to participate, and basically saying, ‘Look, you’re having a donor conference without our even being involved. We’re a sovereign country. What is this?'” she said.
“The context for this,” she added, “is of course the ongoing electoral crisis and the increasingly difficult relationship between the Kabila government and the international community about the electoral delays, about the crackdowns on political freedoms, about the strong security service’s responses to protests, about the ban on political marches, and the entire repressive political context in which the country now finds itself.”
The electoral delay has been met with protests organized by the powerful Catholic Church, which is demanding Kabila’s resignation.Last week, the church voiced its opinion of the aid-conference boycott, with Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya of Kinshasa saying to his congregation, “We can’t refuse help when we have empty hands.”
A silly move
Wolters says the government’s move is self-defeating if it wants to win over the population in time for promised December elections.
“What you’ve really done is you’ve just put yourself out there and said, ‘We don’t want international support to help our population,'” she said, “It’s a silly move, and I don’t think it’s going to win the government any points.”
She said that doesn’t mean donors will stop giving aid to the DRC, “but if you have a hostile government … they can then make it very difficult for those organizations to operate in the Congo.”
And that, aid officials say, would be a tragedy.
“The stakes are incredibly high in DR Congo,” Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council said this week. “Continued inaction would be measured in loss of civilian lives … There are 13 million reasons to care about DR Congo.Those lives are just as important and just as worthy as the lives anywhere else in the world.”
VOA visited the troubled Kasai region last month with the World Food Program and the U.N. Children’s Emergency Fund. The impoverished community has for decades been living on a razor-thin edge, where half the children were malnourished before the beginning of the 2016 conflict that forced one million residents to flee their homes, leave their crops behind, and to hide in the jungle where food is scarce.
Nurse Marie Louise Misenga worked at a UNICEF-supported clinic in Kasai that was filled with dozens of desperate mothers and their severely malnourished babies. She was asked what one message she would want to give to the world.
“If the international community brings us some support,” she said, “it would make us happy and be a good help.”
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Blast Kills 4, Injures 13 at Somalia Soccer Match
A bomb exploded during a local soccer (football) game in southern Somalia’s restive Lower-Shabelle province on Thursday, killing at least four people, security officials said.
“An improvised explosive device went off during the semifinal of a local soccer team’s cup” in Barawe town, Bashir Mohamed Yusuf, the town’s deputy commissioner for security, told VOA.
Yusuf and hospital sources said at least 13 people were also wounded in Barawe, which is about 220 kilometers southwest of the Somali capital, Mogadishu.
“The bomb was planted in the VIP section of the soccer stadium with the intention of harming the local authorities,” said Yusuf. “But since we tactically sat at a different location today, it hit some of the football players and spectators.”
A spectator who was at the soccer field at the time and asked to remain anonymous said the bomb exploded at the start of the second half of the game between locally popular teams Elmen and SYL, and “it seems it was detonated remotely from the nearby areas.”
Barawe is a strategic port town and major base for African Union troops in the region. It is remembered for being a key stronghold of al-Shabab Islamists, but the Somali National Army captured it in 2014 with the backing of African Union forces.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. But al-Shabab militants have carried out a string of deadly bombings in the region and elsewhere in the country.
At the beginning of the month, they launched coordinated attacks on five military camps in the region.
Two of the attacks targeted a military camp for African Union peacekeepers in nearby Bula Marer, a town 110 kilometers south of Mogadishu and one of the main towns in the region. This was followed by an al-Shabab infantry attack on the camp. Eight Ugandan soldiers were killed, according to Somali government officials.
Over its 11-year existence, al-Shabab has often moved to shut down non-Islamic schools and replace them with those with a strongly religious curriculum.
The group, which wants to impose a strict version of Sharia in Somalia, has also banned the watching of movies and playing of soccer.
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Amnesty Says Executions Fell, But China Still Tops List
Amnesty International reports the number of executions around the world continued to fall last year, with a 4 percent drop in executions and a significant decline in the number of new death sentences.
In an annual report on executions and the death penalty released on Thursday, the human rights organization said there were at least 993 executions in 23 countries last year, down 4 percent from 1,032 in 2016 and down 39 percent from 1,634 in 2015.
The vast majority of global executions recorded last year took place in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Pakistan, according to the report.
China
China remained the world’s top executioner, the rights group said. Though the precise number of executions in China remains unknown, Amnesty said “thousands of executions [are] believed to have been carried out” in the country last year.
Four countries — Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Pakistan — accounted for 84 percent of the reported executions. Iran had at least 507 executions, Saudi Arabia at least 146, Iraq at least 125 and Pakistan at least 60, Amnesty said.
Five other countries — Botswana, Indonesia, Nigeria, Sudan and Taiwan reported no executions.
Amnesty International said the drop in executions was driven by growing aversion to the death penalty around the world, in particular in sub-Saharan Africa where 20 countries have abolished the practice and others are taking steps to repeal it.
“Developments across sub-Saharan Africa in 2017 exemplified the positive trend recorded globally, with Amnesty International’s research pointing to a further decrease in the global use of the death penalty in 2017,” said the report.
USA
In the United States, the only Western country with the death penalty, there were 23 executions and 42 death sentences. Though slightly higher than 2016, both figures are in line with historically low trends seen in recent years, Amnesty said.
In Europe and Central Asia, Belarus was the only country to execute people, with at least two executions and at least four death sentences, Amnesty said.
The global trend toward abolishing the death penalty continued.
Executions eliminated
Guinea and Mongolia expunged the death penalty for all crimes. Guinea became the 20th sub-Saharan country to abolish the punishment for all crimes. Kenya ended mandatory death penalty for murder while Burkina Faso and Chad took steps to repeal the practice.
“The progress in sub-Saharan Africa reinforced its position as a beacon of hope for abolition,” Amnesty International’s Secretary-General Salil Shetty said in a statement. “The leadership of countries in this region gives fresh hope that the abolition of the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment is within reach.”
At the end of 2017, 106 countries had abolished the death penalty in law for all crimes and 142 countries had abolished the death penalty in law or practice, according to Amnesty.
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Saudi Prince Visits Spain Amid Criticism Over Defense Sales
The crown prince of Saudi Arabia was on an official visit Thursday to longtime commercial ally Spain, where activists are criticizing past and possible future sales of military equipment to the kingdom.
Mohammed bin Salman was due to attend a banquet with Spain’s King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia before meeting with Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and with Defense Minister Maria Dolores de Cospedal.
The 32-year-old heir to the Saudi throne and Rajoy were scheduled to preside over the signing of bilateral agreements, according to the visit’s official agenda, which provided no further details.
Amnesty International, Greenpeace, Oxfam and Spain’s FundiPau have criticized a possible contract to build and sell five Navy corvettes, valued at 2 billion euros ($2.47 billion), that Spain is seeking to sign with Saudi Arabia.
In a statement sent by Arms Under Control, which is a coalition of the four nongovernmental organizations, they urged Spain to stop exporting weapons that could be used by the Saudi-led coalition fighting Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, where the United Nations says thousands of civilians have died.
Now at the center of the Saudi kingdom’s power structure, the crown prince has instigated reforms to shed its austere image, though human rights organizations have called the changes “cosmetic.”
Prince Mohammed’s arrival in Spain came after visits to the United States, Britain and France. Those three countries are the main exporters of military equipment and weapons to Saudi Arabia, according to the independent global security database of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
The fourth position is held by Spain, which according to data drawn by the four NGOs from official sources, exported to Saudi Arabia 728 million euros’ ($901 million) worth of defense-related equipment between 2015, when airstrikes in Yemen began, and mid-2017, the most recent date for which was available.
A consortium of Spanish companies has also built a high-speed railway between Medina and Mecca as part of strong and growing economic ties between the two countries and their royal families.
Since ascending to the throne in 2014, King Felipe VI has continued the frequent visits to Saudi Arabia that his father, Juan Carlos, made during the reign of King Fahd and his brother King Salman.
your ad hereRussian Embassy Casts Doubt on Skripal Statement
The international chemical watchdog is preparing to release its report on the nerve agent used to poison a former spy and his daughter in southwestern England as Russia continues to deny suggestions that it was behind the attack.
Britain’s Foreign Office said it has asked the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to publish a summary of its findings at midday Thursday.
Britain has blamed Russia for the March 4 poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, with a nerve agent developed by the Soviet Union. Russia denies any involvement, saying Britain hasn’t provided evidence to support its assertion.
The findings come after Yulia Skripal on Wednesday rejected Russian Embassy assistance as she recovers at an undisclosed location. Yulia, 33, was released from the hospital earlier this week, but her father is recovering more slowly.
“I am not yet strong enough to give a full interview to the media, as I one day hope to do,” Yulia Skripal said in a statement released by London’s Metropolitan Police. “Until that time, I want to stress that no one speaks for me, or for my father, but ourselves.”
The comment came after Yulia’s cousin Viktoria gave a series of interviews about a telephone conversation between the two, leading the British government to claim that Russia was using Viktoria Skripal as a “pawn” in the dispute between the two sides.
Russia’s Embassy in London questioned the authenticity of Yulia’s statement, saying it was crafted to support Britain’s version of events and increases suspicions that the young woman is being held against her will.
British authorities “must urgently provide tangible evidence that Yulia is alright and not deprived of her freedom,” the embassy said in a statement.
“The text has been composed in a special way so as to support official statements made by British authorities and at the same time to exclude every possibility of Yulia’s contacts with the outer world _ consuls, journalists and even relatives,” the embassy said. “The document only strengthens suspicions that we are dealing with a forcible isolation of the Russian citizen.”
your ad hereEU Seeks to Protect Farmers From Unfair Trade Practices
The European Union executive is seeking to protect farmers by imposing fines on retailers and supermarket chains using unfair trade practices.
EU Farm Commissioner Phil Hogan said Thursday the plan was “about giving voice to the voiceless” as small-scale farmers across the EU have struggled to eke out a living when faced with the negotiating power of major food conglomerates. He didn’t give details.
In recent years milk farmers and others have complained about having to sell below production costs, threatening their livelihood. The EU Commission said farmers are also faced with late payments, last-minute cancellations and unilateral contract changes.
The Copa-Cogeca farm union said that of the value of farm products, farmers now only get 21 percent, with the rest going to processors and retailers.
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Gunmen Kidnap German Humanitarian Worker in Western Niger
An aid organization says one of its German workers has been kidnapped by armed men in Niger’s western Tillaberi region near the border with Mali.
German news agency dpa cites Help organization’s deputy manager Bianca Kaltschmitt as saying a colleague in Niger was kidnapped on Wednesday.
An organization staffer in Niger’s capital, Niamey, says the attackers came on motorcycles and seized the worker, burning the vehicle in which he was traveling. The staffer spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not permitted to speak to the press.
The staffer says the aid worker and his Nigerien colleagues did not have a military escort.
Several extremist groups are active in the region where four U.S. soldiers and five Nigerien ones were killed in October.
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Georgia Coffee Shop Place People ‘Want to Reach Out to Each Other’
Operating in one of the most culturally diverse communities in the United States, Refuge Coffee is a nonprofit business founded on a simple premise: improving the lives of refugees living in the U.S. Not only has it become a meeting place for people from all cultures, Refuge Coffee in Clarkston, Georgia, helps refugees improve their job skills and earn a living, while adapting to their new lives in a new country. VOA Kurdish Service reporter Saleh Damiger has more.
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Experts Explore the Way Forward after Facebook Data Leak
A data leak that enabled political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica to access personal information from about 87 million Facebook users has generated an uproar and concerns over online privacy and the power of the major internet platforms. On VOA’s Plugged In with Greta Van Susteren experts explore the issue and next steps to better protect user privacy while also preserving internet openness. VOA’s Jesusemen Oni has more.
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Trump’s Nominee to Lead State Department to Face Questioning
U.S. lawmakers are about to get a glimpse into the world view of the man tapped by President Donald Trump to shape U.S. foreign policy. Trump’s nominee for Secretary of State, CIA Director Mike Pompeo, will be on Capitol Hill Thursday for confirmation hearings. Pompeo’s attitudes on perceived global threats posed by North Korea, Iran and Russia are certain to topics of discussion, as VOA’s Robert Raffaele explains.
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