Month: April 2018

Syrian Army Captures Villages from US-backed Forces

Posted on by SeeEA

The Syrian army has captured a string of villages east of the Euphrates river from the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, Syrian state television said Sunday.

State media outlet SANA said Sunday that the Russia-backed Syrian army captured four villages previously held by the SDF, largely led by the Kurdish YPG militia near the provincial capital Deir el-Zour.

The province, also called Deir el-Zour near the border with Iraq, had previously been held by Islamic State forces. Over the past year, the Syrian army has largely recaptured areas west of the Euphrates river, while the Syrian Democratic Forces have held areas east of the river.

Clashes between the two forces have been rare, with the Syrian army focused on regaining territory from Islamic State militants West of the river.

Islamic State has lost most of its territory in Syria and was declared defeated in Iraq last December. But its remnants are taking refuge across the vast border region between Iraq and Syria and carry out periodic terror attacks.
…

your ad here

Merkel: Europe Will Push Back If Hit with Trade Tariffs

Posted on by SeeEU

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says she and the leaders of France and Britain are ready to push back if the Trump administration does not permanently exempt the European Union from new import taxes on aluminum and steel imports.

 

Merkel said in a statement that she spoke with President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday and Prime Minister Theresa May on Sunday after returning from Friday talks with U.S. President Donald Trump.

 

Merkel says the three leaders “agreed that the U.S. ought not to take any trade measures against the European Union,” which is “resolved to defend its interests within the multilateral trade framework.” The chancellor’s statement did not outline specific steps the 28-nation EU might take.

 

The EU’s temporary exemption from the tariffs expires Tuesday.
…

your ad here

Pompeo: Trump Will Exit Iran Deal If It’s Not Fixed

Posted on by SeeEA

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made clear Sunday that President Donald Trump plans to abrogate the Iran nuclear deal next month unless it is “fixed” to the U.S. liking.

Pompeo, in the Middle East on his first overseas trip as the top U.S. diplomat, said, “President Trump’s been pretty clear, this deal is very flawed. He’s directed the administration to try and fix it and if we can’t fix it he’s going to withdraw from the deal. It’s pretty straightforward.”

Speaking in Israel, he said that “unlike the past administration, President Trump has a comprehensive Iran strategy that is designed to counter the full array of threats emanating from Tehran.”

En route from Saudi Arabia to Israel, Pompeo told reporters that he had briefed Riyadh’s leaders on U.S. talks with European officials on efforts to end Iranian missile tests and combat Tehran’s military involvement in Syria, Yemen and elsewhere in the Mideast. He said the U.S. and Saudi Arabia have a “common challenge in Iran,” but that “there’s still some work to do” in crafting any changes to the 2015 nuclear deal or in creating a new pact.

For its part, Iran has said it has no intention of altering the deal it agreed to with Germany, France, Britain, China, Russia and the U.S. in any way or agreeing to a new nuclear pact.

Trump faces a May 12 deadline whether to reimpose economic sanctions against Iran, pulling the U.S. out of the deal agreed to by former U.S. President Barack Obama. Trump stands alone among the six signatories to the accord in threatening to abrogate it.

In Tel Aviv, Pompeo, after meeting with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said the U.S. remains “deeply concerned about Iran’s dangerous escalation of threats towards Israel and the region.”

Earlier, in Riyadh, the new secretary of state said, “Iran destabilizes this entire region. It supports proxy militias and terrorist groups. It is an arms dealer to the Houthi rebels in Yemen. It supports the murderous Assad regime [in Syria] as well.”

Pompeo stressed the need for unity among Persian Gulf allies of the U.S. to show support for new sanctions against Iran unless new restrictions are imposed on Iran’s nuclear program.

In Saudi Arabia, Pompeo’s senior policy adviser, Brian Hook, who is accompanying Pompeo, called on European allies and other countries to impose sanctions on Iran to weaken its missile program.

“We are urging nations around the world to sanction any individuals and entities associated with Iran’s missile program, and it has also been a big part of discussions with Europeans,” Hook told reporters in Riyadh.

The three-day trip also includes a stop in Jordan.

In Brussels on Friday, Pompeo said he had discussed the nuclear deal with his NATO counterparts.

Pompeo is said to be more “hawkish” on the Iranian government than his predecessor, Rex Tillerson, who wanted the U.S. to stay in the Iran nuclear agreement.

 

Tillerson was abruptly fired by Trump last month, just hours after returning from a trip to Africa. Trump said he and Pompeo are much more “on the same wavelength” on Iran and other issues.

 

 
…

your ad here

Iran Confirms Arrest of British-Iranian Professor

Posted on by SeeEA

Iran’s judiciary has confirmed the arrest of a British-Iranian university professor on security charges.

Abbas Edalat, a computer scientist and mathematician at Imperial College London, was reportedly arrested earlier this month by the Revolutionary Guard, which has detained several dual-nationals in recent years.

Iran’s official IRNA news agency on Sunday quoted judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejehi as saying Edalat had been detained on “security charges,” without elaborating. It was the first official confirmation of his arrest.

On Thursday, the semi-official Fars news agency said Edalat was one of several people arrested by the Guard over accusations of being part of a “network affiliated with Britain.”

Edalat had actively campaigned against Western military action targeting Iran.
…

your ad here

Trump Threatens Shutown over Border Wall Funding

Posted on by SeeUS

U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to shut down the government later this year if Congress does not approve enough funding for border security, including money to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico.

Last month, Trump signed a $1.3 trillion spending bill that keeps the government open until the end of September.

Speaking at a campaign rally Saturday in Washington Township, Michigan, the president said the Congressional spending bill vote will come up again on September 28, but if it does not include money for the wall he will not sign the bill.

“We need the wall. We’re going to have it all,” he told the crowd.” And again, that wall has started. We got 1.6 billion. We come up again on September 28th and if we don’t get border security, we’ll have no choice. We’ll close down the country because we need border security.”

Promising to build the border wall was a major component of Trump’s presidential campaign platform.

However, his fellow Republicans would probably not support Trump is he tries to shut down the government before the mid-term elections in November.

But Trump warned the Michigan crowd that “A vote for a Democrat in November is a vote for open borders and crime.” He said, “The open border policies of the Democratic Party are not just wrong, they’re dangerous and they’re in fact deadly.”
…

your ad here

N. Korea to Invite US, S. Korean Experts & Journalists to Nuclear Shutdown

Posted on by SeeUS

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un plans to invite experts and journalists from Seoul and the United States to observe when North Korea shuts down its nuclear test site in May, South Korean officials said Sunday.

South Korean presidential press secretary Yoon Young-chan, also quoted Kim as saying: “The United States, though inherently hostile to North Korea, will get to know once our talk begins that I am not the kind of person who will use nuclear weapons against the South or the United States across the Pacific.”

Kim has also promised to adjust North Korea’s time zone, bringing it up 30 minutes and synchronizing it with the South.

U.S. President Donald Trump expressed optimism about a planned meeting with Kim, following conversations Saturday with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Trump tweeted he had a “very good talk” with Moon and updated Abe on plans for his anticipated summit with Kim.

Trump told a political rally in Michigan Saturday night that he expected the summit would take place in three to four weeks.

Key U.S. leaders are expressing growing optimism that decades of hostility on the Korean Peninsula are closer than ever to coming to an end.

Trump said at a White House news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel Friday “I don’t think he’s playing” when asked about the historic summit between North and South Korea.

Trump said up to three possible sites are being considered for the much-anticipated summit.

 

Friday, Kim became the first North Korean leader to set foot in South Korea, when he crossed the border to shake the hand of South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

 

The two leaders agreed to work toward removing all nuclear weapons from the Korean peninsula and vowed to pursue talks that would bring a formal end to the Korean War.

North Korea has in the past made similar commitments about its nuclear program, but failed to follow through. Asked whether Pyongyang’s commitment is real this time, Trump said “we’re not going to get played.”

 

“This isn’t like past administrations. We don’t play games,” said Trump, adding that previous administrations had been “played like a fiddle.”

“We will come up with a solution, and if we don’t we will leave the room,” he said.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis also expressed hope Friday that talks with North Korea will bear fruit.

“I can tell you that we are optimistic right now that there’s opportunity here that we have never enjoyed since 1950,” Mattis said before a meeting at the Pentagon with the Polish defense minister.

“I don’t have a crystal ball,” he added. ”So, we’re going to have to see what they produce.”

The White House and the Pentagon see the diplomatic progress as the result of Washington’s “maximum pressure” campaign, which included heavy sanctions and frequent threats of military force. Trump had said he was prepared to “totally destroy” North Korea if necessary.

 

“Things have changed very rapidly from a few months ago – you know, the name calling and a lot of other things,” Trump said Friday.

 

For now, the threats have faded. But it’s not clear how much North Korea is willing to offer at the talks or what it will demand in return. Nor is it clear how much the U.S. is willing to give.

Mattis Friday did not rule out the possibility U.S. troops could come home from South Korea if a Seoul and Pyongyang are able to reach an agreement.

“That’s part of the issues we’ll be discussing in the negotiations with our allies first and, of course, with North Korea,” he told reporters. “Right now we have to go along with the process, have the negotiations, not try to make preconditions or presumptions of how it’s going to go.”

 

“I think the responsibility has fallen on the shoulders of the president of the United States,” Trump said alongside Merkel. “I think I have a responsibility to see if I can do it.”

William Gallo contributed to this report.

 

 
…

your ad here

A Unique Window on Being Queer in Nigeria

Posted on by SeeAF

“Whenever I was with her, I was open. I could talk … my sexuality does not define who I am.” 

These words are from a new book, “She Called Me Woman: Nigeria’s Queer Women Speak.”

The new book, released this week, is a collection of interviews with two dozen women. It offers an unprecedented window into what it means to be a queer woman in Nigeria, where homosexuality is illegal.

Intimate interviews

The book recounts a series of intimate interviews with 25 lesbian Nigerian women of various religious and socioeconomic backgrounds.

“I’m really nervous and I’m also nervous about the reception of Nigerians to the book,” Woman A, as she asked to be referred to, told VOA.

Woman A, one of the women featured in the book, said most queer Nigerian women are like her, living in the closet.

In 2014, Nigeria banned same-sex marriage. The law is far-reaching. It also bans any cohabitation or public displays of affection, like kissing or hand holding, between same-sex partners. Anyone who breaks the law could face up to 14 years in prison. 

There is also a 10-year prison sentence for anyone who registers, operates or participates in gay clubs or organizations.

Human Rights Watch said with the law, Nigeria effectively criminalized being LGBTQ — lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer.

That’s what makes this book so groundbreaking.

One woman reveals she lives with her partner in Abuja, which is illegal. She says it’s nice to wake up in the morning and have a cup of tea ready for her. Another woman speaks with anguish about the religious dilemma she faces being queer and Christian in Nigeria. 

Azeenarh Mohammed, one of the book’s editors, helped capture the one-on-one interviews. She said discussions of homosexuality in Africa focus on men. Lesbians have been excluded.

“There was an erasure of them. We said they really need to be heard and the reason why they hadn’t been heard is because the mic had not been passed to them. So we tried to do that with the book to let them be heard in their own voice with their own words,” Mohammed told VOA.

Bracing for a backlash

The book has garnered buzz on social media. Many people say they’re worried that homosexual lifestyles may become normalized in Nigerian society. Others say they have already pre-ordered the book in anticipation.

The book was published and released in the U.K., but the book’s editors say it will soon be available in Nigeria. They are bracing for backlash. In the past, the Nigerian government has banned controversial art, including books.

“Personally I’m curious, and I’m definitely going to read this book. To hear that there’s women talking about the fact that they’re queer and what they want to do is get with other women I think, to even be talking about it, I’m excited that we’re talking about it. I think this book is needed,” said Rosemary Ajuka, a feminist and media professional based in the Nigeria’s business hub of Lagos.

The book’s release comes as authorities in Kenya ban the new film by celebrated Kenyan director Waniru Kahiu. The film, called “Rafiki,” is a coming-of-age story about two girls falling in love. It will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May, the first feature-length Kenyan film ever to do so.

“Inxeba,” another controversial film won six South African Film and Television Awards in March, despite campaigns to ban it by community groups and political leaders. The film portrays two boys developing a sexual attraction for each other while participating in a cultural rite of passage ceremony for young men from the Xhosa ethnic group. The film was removed from some cinemas in the South Africa.

Optimistic but cautious

An oft-repeated sentiment is that homosexuality is un-African.

“Which is ridiculous, before just look at Nigeria for instance,” Mohammed said. “Homosexuality and queer identity is portrayed in the cultures of many ethnic groups and even across Africa, there is evidence that pre-dates colonialism that people were involved in same-sex romantic relationships.”

She said she’s hopeful that attitudes will change.

Asked what impact their book may have in Nigeria, Woman A is cautious.

“I wish someday I will be able to live openly, but until then…”

Until then, she said, she will keep living “in the closet.” 
…

your ad here

Islamic State Offshoot Stakes Lake Chad Territory

Posted on by SeeAF

From the shores of Lake Chad, Islamic State’s West African ally is on a mission: winning over the local people.

Digging wells, giving out seeds and fertilizer and providing safe pasture for herders are among the inducements offered by Islamic State in West Africa (ISWA), which split from Nigeria’s Boko Haram in 2016.

“If you are a herder, driver or trader, they won’t touch you — just follow their rules and regulations governing the territory,” said a herder, who moves cattle in and out of ISWA territory and whose identity Reuters is withholding for his safety. “They don’t touch civilians, just security personnel.”

The campaign, which has created an economy for ISWA to tax, is part of the armed insurgent group’s push to control territory in northeastern Nigeria and in Niger.

Territory stretches 100 miles

ISWA stretches farther and is more entrenched than officials have acknowledged, according to witnesses, people familiar with the insurgency, researchers and Western diplomats who have for the first time provided details of the group’s growing efforts to establish a form of administration in the Lake Chad area.

A map produced by the U.S. development agency in February and seen by Reuters shows ISWA territory extending more than 100 miles into the northeastern Nigerian states of Borno and Yobe, where government has in many areas all but vanished after a decade of conflict.

The Islamists have not been defeated, as Nigeria says, and researchers say ISWA, less extreme than Boko Haram, has evolved into the dominant group. The U.S. map paints a similar picture, with ISWA operating in much of Borno.

“Islamic State has a terrible reputation for being so brutal around the world, and people can’t imagine an Islamic State faction could be more moderate (than Boko Haram),” said Jacob Zenn, of The Jamestown Foundation in Washington, D.C.

Greater threat than Boko Haram

The Lake Chad countries — Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon — have long neglected the region, allowing ISWA to create a stronghold from which to launch attacks. Its gains contrast with setbacks for Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

It makes sense for ISWA to organize the local economy and raise taxes, said Vincent Foucher, who studies Boko Haram at the French National Centre for Science Research.

“It opens the longer game of trying to create a connection to people,” he said, adding that if ISWA succeeds it may become a greater threat than Boko Haram.

In 2015, Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari pledged to finish off Boko Haram. Officials maintain this has been achieved, although the conflict continues into its 10th year. A presidency spokesman declined to comment for this story.

​‘They are not a government’

Analysts estimate that ISWA has 3,000-5,000 fighters, about double Boko Haram’s strength. But ISWA’s territory is not completely secure. The Nigerian air force often bombs, and troops from Lake Chad countries attack the insurgents’ domain around its shores and islands.

Nigeria’s armed forces “just see them as Boko Haram,” said Brigadier General John Agim, spokesman for the Nigerian military, at a briefing. “We are not interested in the faction, what has that got to do with it?”

“They are not a government, they kidnap girls from schools,” Agim told Reuters in a separate interview.

The military has announced an operation “to totally destroy Boko Haram locations in the Lake Chad Basin” — ISWA’s domain — and end the insurgency within four months.

But ISWA has so far proved intractable in its Lake Chad bases, where troops have been unable to make effective inroads, according to a Western diplomat who follows the group. The Nigerian military had “completely lost the initiative against the insurgency,” they said.

The diplomat said ISWA was ready to cede less important areas because the military cannot hold them. “However, they maintain absolute control over the islands and immediate areas near them where they train, live, etc.”

The U.S., British and French militaries are helping regional governments with intelligence and training. Western officials declined, or did not respond to, requests for comment.

Protection from Boko Haram

ISWA protects locals from Boko Haram, something Nigeria’s army cannot always do. That, according to one of the people with knowledge of the insurgency, has won the group local backing and eroded support for the military.

ISWA is led by Abu Musab al-Barnawi, the son of Boko Haram’s founder, Muhammed Yusuf, whose killing by police in 2009 sparked an Islamist insurgency in Nigeria that, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, has so far cost more than 34,000 lives.

ISWA’s leaders keep a low profile, not appearing in videos or claiming responsibility for attacks, possibly to avoid the international media, and the ire of regional governments. Reuters was unable to contact the group for comment.

This contrasts with the wholesale violence of Boko Haram under the publicity-hungry Abubakar Shekau, who has executed even close lieutenants. His group has strapped suicide bombs to women and children to attack civilians in mosques, markets and refugee camps.

Spies everywhere

Boko Haram and ISWA are bloody rivals, but some travelers in ISWA territory feel safer than elsewhere in Nigeria’s northeast.

“They have checkpoints for stop and search, and if you are a regular visitor they know you,” said a second herder, adding that ISWA has spies everywhere, including informers who alert them to military attacks.

He described seeing Islamic State’s black flags and said preachers were used to win people over.

Under ISWA, men must wear long beards, nighttime movements are restricted, and prayers are compulsory, the herder said. Offenders can get 40 lashes.

The herders said ISWA provides safe grazing for about 2,500 naira ($8) a cow and 1,500 naira ($5) for smaller animals. ISWA also runs slaughterhouses for the cattle, taking a cut for each animal, as well as from other activities like gathering firewood.

Supply and demand

Maiduguri is the biggest city in Nigeria’s northeast, the center of the military’s fight against Boko Haram.

But rural areas largely remain no-go zones for the authorities. It is there that ISWA is making its mark, offering people protection, particularly from Boko Haram.

“Al-Barnawi is sending people into IDP (displaced persons) camps to encourage people to return and farm, and the people are,” said a person with knowledge of ISWA’s activities.

The person said Nigeria’s military plays into the insurgents’ hands by shutting down markets to deny supplies to the group, while ISWA encourages business.

“They are friendly and nice to those who come to the area, while they indoctrinate other people and sometimes they bring motorcycles for those who want to join them,” a charcoal maker said.

Distant relations

Despite its name, experts believe ISWA’s ties to Islamic State in the Middle East are limited.

“What’s clear from ISWA primary source documents is that ISWA has asked IS for theological guidance on who it is lawful to attack,” said Zenn. Daily activities, including military operations, are left to its leaders, he said.

Others say the insurgency lacks the broader appeal of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

“ISWA is the largest IS affiliate, but it’s very much a Nigerian organization. It doesn’t have foreign fighters coming, it’s hard to get to this place,” said the Western diplomat.

What fighters it does have can carry out targeted attacks, including the February kidnapping of 100 schoolgirls from the town of Dapchi, most later released without explanation, and a deadly raid on a Nigerian military base in March.

But ISWA faces a dilemma: while wooing the population, it has harshly punished those who resist it, for example massacring dozens of fishermen last August, and this could hurt its standing with local people.

“It’s important not to paint too rosy a picture,” said Foucher, the researcher.
…

your ad here

Power Outage Disrupts Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport

Posted on by SeeEU

Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport was temporarily closed early Sunday as a large power outage hit all operations at one of Europe’s busiest airports.

Authorities closed roads to Schiphol and stopped train traffic to the airport around 0300 GMT to “ensure the safety of travelers,” the airport said, as check-in procedures had become impossible and the airport’s main halls overflowed with waiting passengers.

Roads to the airport were reopened around 0430 GMT, as power was restored, but the disruption of services would have “severe consequences for air traffic during the day,” airport spokesman Jacco Bartels said.

This would also affect flights to Amsterdam at other airports, as Schiphol would be able to handle only 10 arriving planes per hour on Sunday morning, with priority given to the large number of flights waiting to leave the airport, Bartels said.

Schiphol is the third-busiest airport in Europe in numbers of travelers, after London Heathrow and Paris Charles de Gaulle.
…

your ad here

‘Caravan’ Migrants Weigh Risks of US vs. Life in Mexico

Posted on by SeeUS

Hondurans, Guatemalans and Salvadorans who drew the wrath of President Donald Trump in a monthlong caravan to the U.S. border will make hard decisions Sunday: Risk being deported all the way home by trying to cross in the U.S., or to build a life in Mexico.

After angry tweets from Trump, U.S. border authorities said some people associated with the caravan had been caught trying to slip through the fence, and encouraged the rest to hand themselves in to authorities.

“We are a very welcoming country but just like your own house, we expect everyone to enter through our front door, and answer questions honestly,” San Diego Chief Patrol Agent Rodney S. Scott said in a statement.

​Sober advice, mood

Most of the group of about 400 travelers who arrived in border city of Tijuana on buses over the past couple of days said they intended to legally seek asylum in San Diego on Sunday, but lawyers advising the group gave them stark advice: Not everyone will be successful.

After the grueling journey, a somber mood took hold as the reality sank in that many of them would be separated from their families. Lovers and parents with slightly older sons and daughters could be forced to split up.

At venues around the city, U.S. immigration lawyers working pro bono Saturday listened to harrowing tales of life in the immigrants’ home countries.

Death threats from local gangs, the murder of family members, retaliatory rape, and political persecution back home prompted them to flee, the migrants and lawyers say.

Many of the immigrants who spoke at length with Reuters at various points during their trip through Mexico had been short on knowledge of their legal rights, but at least 24 recounted detailed stories of facing death threats.

As poor migrants from Central America on a perilous route through Mexico, they feared they could be robbed, raped, arrested and assaulted, so traveling by caravan offered their only protection, they said.

The lawyers advised which cases had higher chances of passing the “credible fear” test required to enter the long and often difficult U.S. asylum process, said immigrant rights organization Al Otro Lado, Spanish for On the Other Side.

“A lot will depend on how well they can articulate their case,” said one of the pro bono lawyers, who preferred to remain anonymous.

Some advised to stay in Mexico

The rest were advised to stay put in Mexico, which would remove the risk that U.S. authorities fly them the more than 2,000 miles (3,600 km) back home.

“We’ll wait and see,” said Bryan Garcia, from Honduras, seated beside 4-year-old Nicole, who was eating a strawberry biscuit as they waited for her mother to come out of a meeting with a lawyer.

Nicole and her mother are from El Salvador. They befriended Garcia along the caravan’s journey and the adults had fallen for each other.

But Garcia would not be asking for asylum. He would stay in Tijuana, having already been deported once from the U.S.

“We’ll just have to try to stay connected,” he said as Nicole paused from eating her biscuit and blinked up at him.

Pressure on Mexico

Trump has been pressuring Mexico to stop the migrants before they reached the border, linking the future of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to Mexican efforts to stem the flow of Central Americans.

The friction has coincided with high intensity efforts by U.S., Canadian and Mexican teams to renegotiate NAFTA on Trump’s bidding, with officials saying a deal could be just a few weeks away after months of talks.

Mexico deports tens of thousands of Central Americans every year back across its southern border with Guatemala.
…

your ad here

America’s Best Crafts Spotlighted at Smithsonian Show

Posted on by SeeUS

The Smithsonian Craft Show is wrapping up this weekend, highlighting works from artists across the United States. From Washington, VOA’s Jill Craig has more.
…

your ad here

In Mideast, Pompeo Talks Iran Sanctions, Gulf Dispute

Posted on by SeeUS

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is using the Middle East leg of his first trip abroad as America’s top diplomat to call for concerted international action to punish Iran for its missile programs. He’s also urging Saudi Arabia and its neighbors to resolve a long-festering dispute with Qatar that U.S. officials say Iran is exploiting to boost its influence in the region, including in Yemen and Syria.

Pompeo was meeting Sunday with Saudi King Salman, whose country along with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates is embroiled in a row with Qatar that has hobbled Gulf Arab unity and frustrated the U.S. as it seeks to blunt growing Iranian assertiveness.

The ex-CIA chief arrived in Riyadh a day earlier, shortly after Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen fired missiles at Saudi Arabia’s southern city of Jizan, killing one person and underscoring what U.S. officials said is a growing threat emanating from Iran.

Iran’s missiles

Senior U.S. officials traveling with Pompeo blamed Iran for smuggling the missiles into Yemen. They said the incident highlighted the importance of the Trump administration’s push to counter Iranian-supported aggression in the region. Iran has backed the Houthi rebellion in Yemen and is helping Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government fight rebels there.

The officials, who were not authorized to preview Pompeo’s discussions with the Saudi leadership and spoke on condition of anonymity, said Iran’s long- and medium-range missile programs had to be countered as part of efforts to strengthen the Iran nuclear deal, from which President Donald Trump has threatened to withdraw by mid-May.

The officials said Pompeo would call on other nations to impose tougher sanctions against Iranian people, businesses and government agencies involved in missile development.

They said he’d also stress the U.S. commitment to the defense of Saudi Arabia, Israel and other friends and partners in the region. Pompeo will also press the Saudis on contributing more to stabilization efforts in territory in Syria recently liberated from the Islamic State group, the officials said.

Qatar dispute

As part of the anti-Iran push, the officials said Pompeo would make it clear to the Saudis that the dispute with Qatar must end. The crisis erupted last summer, when Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE blocked the country, accusing it of supporting terrorism. Mediation efforts led by Kuwait and supported by the U.S., including former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who Trump fired last month, have proved unsuccessful. 

The split gives Iran “room to play” and hampers cooperation on a wide array of other issues, including combating violent extremism from the Islamic State and other groups, the officials said.

Pompeo’s meetings in Saudi Arabia, which will be followed by discussions in Israel and Jordan, come just weeks ahead of several key dates that have potential to further roil the volatile region.

Key dates in the region

Trump has set a May 12 deadline to decide whether to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal, something he appears likely to do despite heavy pressure to stay in from European and other parties.

Two days later, the U.S. plans to open its new embassy in Jerusalem. That will mark a significant shift in decades of American policy toward Israel and the Palestinians, who also claim the holy city as their capital.

The embassy move is deeply opposed by the Palestinians, who on May 15 will mark the anniversary of what they term the “nabka,” or catastrophe, when they fled or were driven from their homes during the 1948 Palestine war. Dozens of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire during recent violent protests along border between Israel and Gaza.

Also looming over the trip is uncertainty over Trump’s policy on Syria, which has shifted between a speedy all-out withdrawal of American forces from the country and leaving a lasting footprint to deter Iran from completing a land bridge from Tehran to Beirut.
…

your ad here

Egypt Jails Policemen in 2015 Strike for Better Pay

Posted on by SeeEA

An Egyptian court has sentenced 13 policemen to three to five years in prison for taking part in a 2015 strike demanding higher pay and better working conditions.

Eleven were sentenced to three years in prison and two were sentenced to five on charges of illegal assembly, inciting against the Interior Ministry, which is in charge of law enforcement, and belonging to an outlawed group.

The Cairo Criminal Court’s verdict on Saturday was reported by the state-run Al-Ahram website. The verdict can be appealed.

In 2015, hundreds of policemen went on strike in the northeastern province of Sharqiya.

Egypt outlawed all unauthorized protests in 2013, after the military overthrew an elected Islamist president amid mass protests calling for his resignation.

 
…

your ad here

Pamplonans Protest Gang Rape Verdict for 3rd Day

Posted on by SeeEU

Tens of thousands of people have marched in northern Spain for a third consecutive day to protest the acquittal of five men on gang rape charges.

Local police in Pamplona estimated the size of the crowd at Saturday’s march at 35,000.

An 18-year-old woman was attacked during the city’s famed San Fermin bull-running festival in 2016.

The five men, whose members named their WhatsApp group “The Pack,” were convicted Thursday on a lesser felony of sexual abuse and sentenced to nine years each in prison. Lawyers say the victim is appealing.

The court’s decision has also prompted thousands of women to share their experiences of abuse on Twitter under the hashtag #cuentalo, Spanish for #tell it.

The Spanish government has announced plans to convene discussions on possible legal reforms.
…

your ad here

Law Enforcement Effort Hits IS Propaganda Outlets

Posted on by SeeEU

Law enforcement authorities in the United States, European Union and Canada this week began a joint cybercampaign against Islamic State online communication channels that will “severely disrupt” the group’s propaganda machine, the EU’s law enforcement agency Europol said.

The multinational action, led by Belgian federal prosecutors, was launched  Wednesday and Thursday and targeted IS media outlets, including Amaq news, al-Bayan radio, Halumu and Nashir news.

IS’s Amaq news agency is believed to be a major propaganda outlet for the terror group. The group relies on the outlet to spread propaganda in several languages, including English and French. Amaq has broadcast claims of responsibility for deadly terrorist attacks in Paris, Brussels, Berlin and Barcelona.

“With this groundbreaking operation we have punched a big hole in the capability of IS to spread propaganda online and radicalize young people in Europe,” Rob Wainwright, the head of Europol, said in a statement released Friday.

“I applaud the determined and innovative work by Europol and its partners to target a major part of the international terrorist threat prevalent in Europe today,” he added.

Earlier efforts

This is not the first time Western countries joined forces to crack down on IS propaganda capabilities. A coordinated effort in August 2016 hit Amaq’s mobile application and web infrastructure. Another multinational operation led by Spanish Guardia Civil in June 2017 against the outlet helped authorities identify radicalized individuals in over 100 countries around the world.

Europol claimed the two-day effort this week led to the seizure of digital evidence by law enforcement authorities and compromised IS broadcast capabilities and materials.

Europol authorities said the data retrieved as a result of the crackdown would be used to identify the administrators behind IS media outlets.

In a separate statement, Belgian police said the operation also aimed to seize and shut down computer servers used to spread terror propaganda in Europe.

Over the years, IS has weaponized the internet to radicalize, recuit and inspire acts of terrorism in the West and around the world.

The group’s ability to produce and distribute new propaganda has been significantly diminished since it lost nearly 98 percent of the territory it once held in Iraq and Syria, and social media giants Facebook, Google and Twitter increased their efforts to remove radical content from the internet. 

VOA Turkish service’s Arzu Cakir contributed to this report from Paris. 
…

your ad here

Syria’s War Seen Through Children’s Eyes

Posted on by SeeEA

The Syrian civil war’s death toll is staggering, and civilians have increasingly borne its brunt, particularly children.

The U.N. International Children’s Fund (UNICEF) issued a blank statement in February 2018 as a response to reports of mass casualties among children in Eastern Ghouta and Damascus. The statement was preceded with the message, “No words will do justice to the children killed, their mothers, their fathers and their loved ones.”

In the midst of the violence and destruction, a number of Syrian children use social media to tell the tales of war to the outside world and provide a window into life and death in Syria.

Muhammed Najem, 15, uses his mobile phone to capture videos and images of Eastern Ghouta, his hometown. 

His biggest hope is to be able to sit in a classroom one day and live a peaceful life. 

“I want to travel, continue my study, and work on my English and my journalism skills,” Najem told VOA.

When the Syrian government escalated its airstrikes as it pushed into Eastern Ghouta, Najem captured moments of the suffering as the city was besieged and the regime forces bombarded it with nonstop airstrikes. 

Eastern Ghouta

Those inside the city were struggling for basic living needs. 

Eastern Ghouta, a rebel stronghold, saw countless attacks over the years, but in February, the attacks took a new turn as the city was targeted by the bloodiest bombing campaign by the Bashar al-Assad regime in years.

Najem decided that the world needed to see the war through his eyes.

“He spoke in English because he thought he would reach more people,” Najem’s sister, Hiba, told VOA.

“He stopped going to school after it was destroyed in an airstrike. He used English words he learned when he was in school to deliver his message,” she said.

Loss of father

Najem lost his father during a shelling in Eastern Ghouta. The war also claimed the life of his best friend, who was killed in an airstrike.

His experiences and losses forced him to act more like an adult, undertaking responsibilities children in his age normally don’t even have to think about.

He began cutting and collecting wood for heat and bringing water from nearby wells to his family.

He also used his social media skills to tweet about everyday life.

“The [humanitarian] and [medical] situation in Eastern Ghouta is difficult to describe with words. What is happening now is genocide,” Najem said in one a Twitter video earlier this year.

Najem was evacuated from Eastern Ghouta just days before the regime’s chemical attack that killed and injured scores of civilians in the area.

As Najem and thousands of other civilians were bused to refugee camps in the north, he documented his journey.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimates about 46,000 civilians and fighters were evacuated from the rebel enclave. 

Najem still tweets from his refugee camp, and he has a message for the outside world:

“My message to the world is that our right as children is to live in peace and be able to go to school and play like any other child in this world.” 

​Nour and Alaa

Nour and Alaa, 12 and 8 years old, respectively, caught the world’s attention when the sisters started tweeting details of their daily lives under siege and bombardment in Eastern Ghouta.

Shams, their mother, created a joint Twitter account for them to provide a window of communication to the outside world and to appeal to the international community for help as living conditions deteriorated. 

“Children in Eastern Ghouta were deprived from everything, food, water, school, home,” Shams told VOA.

“Ghouta was ignored by the world, so I decided with my daughters to open a Twitter account to show the world what is going on,” she said.

Nour and Alaa told VOA that at one point they lived underground for two months because of continued airstrikes.

“Many hundred civilians have been killed and injured,” tweeted Nour and Alaa. “Yesterday there was a meeting [in the U.N. Security Council] but without result.”

That meant, they said, that “there is no truce, no cease-fire and no hope, as warplanes and helicopters still target us.”

Nour and Alaa told VOA the sky was never clear from warplanes and helicopters, striking their area day and night when they were in Eastern Ghouta. 

Like Najem, Nour and Alaa stopped going to school after it was destroyed by a regime airstrike.

“Memories from #Ghouta / #Syria. This is a #school in #Jobar, they destroyed the schools and hospitals and mosques and all buildings, no building left [without] being hit by two or three missiles,” the girls tweeted.

Children can’t recall peace

The civil war has entered its eighth year and many Syrian children do not remember peace, because they were either born during war or were too young when the conflict began in 2011 to remember life before the conflict.

“Seeing my girls grow up in this war was very hard; seeing my children sleep hungry and terrified was painful. But hope springs eternally. We hope one day to return back to our homes in peace,” Shams said.

Like Najem, the two sisters were also evacuated from Eastern Ghouta to northern Syria. While Najem is still in Syria, Nour and Alaa crossed into neighboring Turkey and live there as refugees.

But they have not forgotten about Syria. 

“Please help the children of Syria. They deserve to live like other children in this world,” Nour and Alaa told VOA.
…

your ad here

Funeral Held for Top Houthi Official Killed in Yemen Airstrike

Posted on by SeeEA

Thousands of Yemenis attended a funeral Saturday for a top Houthi rebel official killed more than a week ago in a Saudi-led coalition airstrike in the coastal province of Hodeida.

Saleh al-Samad, chief of the Houthis’ Supreme Political Council, was killed in that airstrike along with six others. Al-Samad’s successor, Mahdi al-Mashat, was among the mourners who attended the funeral in Sanaa’s al-Sabeen Square.

Rebel leader Abdul-Malek al-Houthi has vowed to avenge the death of al-Samad.

Shortly after the funeral started, the Houthis said they had launched eight ballistic missiles into Sunni territory. The Saudi-led coalition said it had intercepted four of the missiles, which were headed for the coastal city of Jizan.

The coalition also said one man had been killed by flying debris from the attack.

Also Saturday, a Saudi-led coalition airstrike in Yemen’s capital killed two Houthi leaders.

It was not immediately clear how many other people were killed or injured in the attack in Sanaa. Saudi Arabia’s state-run television put the death toll at more than 50, while al-Arabia television said at least 38 rebels had been killed in the strike on the Houthis’ interior ministry building.

More than 2 million people have become internally displaced in Yemen since March 2015. That is when the Saudi-led coalition, in support of Yemen’s government, began a bombing campaign against Houthi rebels.

Yemen, the site of the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, has more than 22 million people in need of assistance. Aid agencies warn needs are increasing, fueled by the ongoing conflict, collapsing economy, and lack of social services and livelihoods.
…

your ad here

Russia, Iran, Turkey Criticize Western Airstrikes on Syria 

Posted on by SeeUS

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Saturday that airstrikes on Syria, conducted by the U.S., Britain, and France on April 14, were a violation of international law and indicated that the Western powers were trying to destroy the peace process.

Lavrov, speaking after meeting in Moscow with his Turkish and Iranian counterparts, said such “attempts to … destabilize the situation” encourage the extremists in Syria to go on with their armed struggle.

Lavrov and his counterparts said they agreed that Syria’s territorial integrity should be preserved, while accusing the United States of plans to “reformat” the Middle East and divide Syria into parts.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javid Zarif said there was no military solution to the Syrian crisis. He also said that Iran condemned the use of chemical weapons and hoped that the investigation of an alleged Syrian attack on its own people would uncover the truth. He also said anyone who supported Iraq when it used chemical weapons against Iran in the 1980s had no right to criticize Syria today.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said his country, too, supported Syrian territorial integrity and, with allies Iran and Russia, hoped ultimately to find a political solution to the crisis. He said “some groups” had tried to undermine that work, and he urged all parties to contribute to the peace process instead.
…

your ad here

Trump Calls for Senator to Resign Over Opposition to Nominee for Veterans Post

Posted on by SeeUS

U.S. President Donald Trump called for the resignation Saturday of Democratic Senator Jon Tester for raising concerns about Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs, Ronny Jackson, who withdrew his name from consideration on Thursday.

Jackson, who is the White House physician and a Navy Rear Admiral, dropped his bid Thursday to head the country’s second-largest federal agency as lawmakers probed allegations of professional misconduct and excessive drinking.

In a pair of tweets, Trump wrote the allegations “are proving false” and that Tester, who represents the western state of Montana, should step down.

 

 

Trump blamed Tester for the demise of Jackson’s nomination after Tester said Wednesday that 20 current and former members of the military familiar with Jackson’s office had told lawmakers that he drank on the job. They also said Jackson oversaw a toxic work environment and handed out drug prescriptions with little consideration of a patient’s medical background.

Jackson said if the allegations “had any merit, I would not have been selected, promoted and entrusted to serve in such a sensitive and important role as physician to three presidents over the past 12 years. Going into this process, I expected tough questions about how to best care for our veterans, but I did not expect to have to dignify baseless and anonymous attacks on my character and integrity.”

The White House presented documents to reporters from an administration official who claims they exonerate Jackson from the accusations of inappropriately dispensing medication and crashing a government vehicle after a Secret Service going away party.

Jackson was fast losing support in Congress.

Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers indefinitely postponed Jackson’s scheduled Wednesday confirmation hearing as they investigated the allegations.

Several news outlets reported that Jackson was known as the “candy man” for over-prescribing drug prescriptions, while CNN said that in one 2015 incident Jackson drunkenly banged on the hotel room door of a female employee in the middle of the night on an overseas trip. The U.S. Secret Service intervened to stop Jackson, according to the report, so then-President Barack Obama, sleeping in another hotel room, would not be awakened.

Jackson gained a degree of fame unusual for White House physicians earlier this year when he took questions from the White House press corps on national television, describing at length about Trump’s health after conducting the president’s physical exam.

Trump, the oldest first-term president in American history, was plagued at the time by questions about his physical health, weight and mental stability. But Jackson gave the president a top rating. “The president’s overall health is excellent,” Jackson declared at the time.

Trump unexpectedly picked Jackson to replace a holdover from the administration of former president Obama, David Shulkin, whom Trump fired. Several lawmakers have complained that the White House did not properly vet Jackson’s background before Trump announced Jackson’s appointment.
…

your ad here

Trump Betting on Large, Friendly Crowd at Michigan Rally

Posted on by SeeUS

President Donald Trump was betting on a big crowd and a friendly reception at a Saturday evening rally in Michigan – one of the states in the Upper Midwest that Hillary Clinton counted on in 2016 but saw slip away.

In fact, Trump was the first Republican presidential nominee to capture Michigan since George H.W. Bush in 1988.

“Look forward to being in the Great State of Michigan tonight,” Trump said in a tweet hours before the event in Washington Township, Michigan, which is about 40 miles north of Detroit.

He also tweeted: “Major business expansion and jobs pouring into your State. Auto companies expanding at record pace. Big crowd tonight, will be live on T.V.”

Also scheduled to air on cable television Saturday night was a Washington tradition that Trump says he’s happy to skip: The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.

Trump said in a fundraising pitch from campaign that he had come up with something better than being stuck in a room “with a bunch of fake news liberals who hate me.”

He said he would rather spend the evening “with my favorite deplorables.”

During the 2016 campaign, Clinton drew laughs when she told supporters at a private fundraiser that half of Trump supporters could be lumped into a “basket of deplorables” – denouncing them as “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it.”

Clinton later did a partial rollback, said she had been “grossly generalistic” and regretted saying the label fit “half” of Trump’s supporters. But she didn’t back down from the general sentiment.

Trump soon had the video running in his campaign ads, and his supporters wore the “deplorable” label as a badge of honor.

Macomb County, the site of Trump’s rally, is among the predominantly white counties known as a base for “Reagan Democrats” – blue-collar voters who abandoned the Democratic Party for Ronald Reagan, but who can be intriguingly movable.

Democrat Barack Obama won the county twice in his White House runs, then Trump carried it by more than 11 percentage points.
…

your ad here

Agreeing to Disagree: New Normal in Transatlantic Relations

Posted on by SeeUS

Can the Europeans save the Iran nuclear deal? It’s an accord U.S. President Donald Trump has excoriated repeatedly and threatened to scrap.

 

Europeans were heartened midweek by indications from the U.S. leader that he’s willing to consider French President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to augment an accord he considers “insane” by negotiating a side deal with Iran to address Trump’s concerns about Iran’s ballistic missile development and its expanding military presence across the Middle East.

Nonetheless, the nuclear deal signed in 2015 by the Obama administration hangs in the balance, despite the back-slapping, hand-pumping “bromance” between Macron and Trump in Washington. The two leaders continued to forge a personal entente cordiale, but as Macron highlighted in a speech to Congress, the pair is far apart on Iran and Syria, climate change and trade.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has dismissed talk of a re-negotiation, saying midweek he had warned Macron several times of Tehran’s refusal to “add anything to the deal or remove anything from it, even one sentence.”

 

The nuclear deal has no fans in the White House. Trump’s new national security adviser John Bolton has long argued in favor of scraping the deal, which he believes has thrown an economic lifeline to a regime he’d like to change. Three years ago Bolton advocated in a newspaper editorial that to stop Iran from developing a bomb, Iran would have to be bombed.

High-profile visits

And the visits in the past week to Washington by Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel inthemost high-profile European push to date to try to convince Trump to preserve the nuclear accord with Iran may not be enough to save it, say political observers.

Even Macron, on his departure from the U.S. capital, suggested he’d failed to persuade Trump to continue with the nuclear deal. “My view — I don’t know what your president will decide — is that he will get rid of this deal on his own, for domestic reasons,” he told reporters.

On Friday, U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis said no decision had yet been made by Trump.

By May 12, President Trump has to decide whether to renew sanctions relief for Iran, a key step in keeping the deal. Even if he does renew the relief this time, possibly out of respect for Macron, that will be no guarantee against him subsequently scrapping the accord. European officials admit they are skeptical of being up to conjure up a diplomatic solution that will stop him from doing so later.

If Trump does rip up the accord, where would that leave a transatlantic partnership between the U.S. and Europe that won the Cold War against the Soviet Union, and now appears to be at the onset of another one with Vladimir Putin’s Russia?

 

Will it mark the beginning of the end for a transatlantic alliance that has been roiled since Trump entered the White House?

Pessimists, among them former U.S. officials and analysts, as well as European politicians, warn that the U.S. and Europe are drifting quickly toward a fracture — and not just over Iran.

Growing divide?

A former political director of the British Foreign Office, Simon Gass, has warned that a U.S. revocation of the Iran deal will push the Europeans into the uncomfortable position of being aligned with Russia and China when it comes to Tehran. “Such a division between the U.S. and some of its closest allies would cause as much dismay in European capitals as it would glee in some others,” he said.

America and Europe’s foes have been gleeful following other recent sharp divergences between Washington and the Europeans — including over the Paris climate accord, Trump’s criticism of what he sees as low defense spending by the Europeans as a percentage of gross domestic product, the imposition of trade tariffs and the threat of a transatlantic trade war. There have been differences over policy toward Russia and China, the conflict in Syria, and abrasive tweet clashes between British and German politicians on one side and Trump over refugee policies and Islam.

Trump foes blame him for the differences and disagreements, arguing he’s driving a wedge between America and Europe and that scrapping the Iran deal will lead to a breakdown in the transatlantic alliance.

Optimists point out that America and Europe have been at serious odds before — including over Vietnam, Ronald Reagan’s hardline “evil empire” confrontation with the Soviet Union, and the Balkans war. The transatlantic alliance weathered those because ultimately, for all the disputes, American and European interests, more often than not, overlapped.

But will they in the future? Analyst Xenia Wickett says there are several factors shaping the new era in transatlantic relations. In a report she authored earlier this year for Britain’s Chatham House research group, Wickett argued Trump may cause “real and meaningful shorter-term disruptions” in transatlantic relations, but heposes “less of a long-term threat to the relationship between the U.S. and Europe” than key structural factors affecting the alliance.

“While his policies may have reverberations beyond his time in office, there is no reason to believe that the consequences are likely to be profound and long-lasting for the fundamental interests of the transatlantic relationship,” she wrote.

She cautioned, however, there will be changes in that relationship thanks to migration patterns. “The increase in Latin American and Asian groups in the U.S., and to a lesser extent, Middle Eastern populations in Europe, is likely to cause the U.S. and Europe to continue to diverge in terms of their regional interests and attention,” she said.

Inherent affinity

But for all of the sharp disagreement in recent months there are clear indications that both Washington and the Europeans value the alliance. Trump may have been more iconoclastic than many fervent Atlanticists may like — especially rhetorically — but despite his declaring NATO obsolete and accusing European allies of “ripping the U.S. off,” his administration has devoted more U.S. resources for European security, notes Jeffrey Rathke of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based policy institute.

Likewise, Trump temporarily exempted the European Union from recent tariffs imposed on aluminum and steel imports. Rathke dubs all of this a “political zig and zag,” and worries that “the United States’ alliance relationships are no longer Washington’s foreign policy lodestar, as they were for the past 70 years,” arguing that the U.S. and the EU are stronger when working together and are more vulnerable when they aren’t.

“Confrontation, just like friction, can generate heat and rancor, but it is also necessary to challenge and refine, to hone and polish,” Rathke argued in a midweek CSIS commentary. “Now is the time for the United States’ closest friends to adapt to these undiplomatic times with a more robust, and if necessary, confrontational diplomacy,” he said.

 

That more confrontational diplomacy by the Europeans was on display this week. In Macron’s case it was accompanied by a warmth — and a personal chemistry between the French and U.S. leaders that partly overshadowed their disagreements. Merkel’s much more understated visit — three hours compared to three days — was accompanied by a greater chill, but was more cordial than their previous encounters, say analysts.

But that might be the new normal in transatlantic relations, and it could well remain so after Trump leaves the White House, with allies not trying to disguise divergences or cover up disagreements, but talking openly and frankly even abrasively, maybe as only friends can do.
…

your ad here

Ex-con Candidate Compounding GOP Woes in West Virginia

Posted on by SeeUS

Republican Don Blankenship doesn’t care if his party and his president don’t think he can beat Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin this fall.

This former coal mining executive, an ex-convict released from prison less than a year ago, is willing to risk his personal fortune and the GOP’s golden opportunity in West Virginia for the chance to prove them all wrong.

“I’ll get elected on my own merits,” Blankenship says.

There aren’t a lot of things that can sink Republicans’ hopes in the ruby red state that Donald Trump won by 42 percentage points in 2016, but Blankenship could well be one.

His candidacy is sending shudders down the spines of Republicans who are furiously working to ensure he is not their choice to take on Manchin in November. While Blankenship’s bid is a long shot, he’s testing whether a party led by an anti-establishment outsider can rein in its anti-establishment impulses.

“The establishment, no matter who you define it as, has not been creating jobs in West Virginia,” Blankenship said at a primary debate this past week.

Even before Blankenship emerged as a legitimate Republican candidate, West Virginia was a worry for some Republicans.

Former Gov. Manchin has held elected office in West Virginia for the better part of the past three decades, and he’s worked hard to cozy up to Trump and nurture a bipartisan brand.

He has voted with the Republican president more than he has opposed him, his office says, noting that the senator and Trump have collaborated on trade, environmental rules, gun violence and court nominations.

The alignment with Trump was so effective that former White House adviser Steve Bannon worried privately to colleagues that Trump might actually endorse the Democrat. An outright endorsement now is unlikely, but a Blankenship primary victory on May 8 could push Trump to help Manchin, at least indirectly, by ignoring West Virginia this fall.

The state has long been considered a prime pickup opportunity for Republicans, who hold a two-seat Senate majority that suddenly feels less secure given signs of Democratic momentum in Nevada, Arizona, Tennessee and elsewhere. If Democrats can win West Virginia, which gave Trump his largest margin of victory in the nation, they may have a slim chance at seizing the Senate majority.

Some of Trump’s most prominent conservative supporters, particularly those in Bannon’s network, have rallied behind state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, a former Capitol Hill aide who was raised in New Jersey but has served as West Virginia’s top lawyer since 2013.

Rep. Evan Jenkins, a former Democrat, has highlighted his West Virginia roots and deep allegiance to Trump. Jenkins noted that Manchin missed a big chance to align himself with Trump on key issues such as taxes and health care.

“The president gave Joe Manchin every opportunity in the early weeks and months of his administration to vote the right way,” Jenkins said in an interview. “He voted wrong.”

But in interviews this past week, Morrisey and Jenkins declined to attack Blankenship for his role in the 2010 Upper Big Branch mine disaster, the deadliest U.S. mine disaster in four decades, killing 29 men. Blankenship led the company that owned the mine and was sentenced to a year in prison for conspiring to break safety laws, a misdemeanor.

Raising that dark history has been left to the national GOP forces believed to be behind the Mountain Families PAC, an organization created last month that has invested more than $700,000 attacking Blankenship on television. A spokesman for the Senate GOP’s most powerful super PAC declined to confirm or deny a connection to the group.

Trump has done his part to hurt Blankenship’s chances as well.

The president excluded Blankenship from a recent West Virginia stop, where Trump appeared with Jenkins on one side and Morrisey on the other. And Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado, who leads the Senate GOP’s national campaign efforts, had this to say to reporters when asked about Blankenship last week: “Do they let ankle bracelets get out of the house?”

For voters, Blankenship remains a deeply polarizing figure.

Blankenship calls himself a West Virginian but had his supervised release transferred last August to federal officials in Nevada, where he has a six-bedroom home with his fiancee 20 miles from Las Vegas, in Henderson.

“It’s a friendly place and I like it,” said Blankenship, whose supervised release ends May 9, the day after the primary.

Blankenship recently drew attention for comments on a radio show about the father of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, who is married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. Blankenship said he believed McConnell has a conflict of interest in foreign relations matters, in particular those dealing with China. Chao’s father was born in China and started an international shipping company in New York.

According to media reports, Blankenship’s fiancee also was born in China.

“I don’t have any problem with Chinese people, Chinese girlfriend, Chinese anything,” Blankenship told the radio station. “But I have an issue when the father-in-law is a wealthy Chinaperson and has a lot of connections with some of the brass, if you will, in China.”

Stanley Stewart, a retired miner who was inside the Upper Big Branch mine when it blew up in 2010, calls Blankenship ‘ruthless, cold-blooded, cold-hearted, self-centered.”

“I feel that if anybody voted for Don Blankenship, they may as well stick a knife in their back and twist it, because that’s exactly what he’ll do,” Stewart said in an interview.

But there is skepticism that Blankenship was treated fairly by the courts. Blankenship has cast himself as a victim of an overbearing Obama administration, an argument that resonates with many white working-class voters on the ground here. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court last October left in place his conviction when the justices declined to take up his case.

“What they’ve said he’s actually done (in the criminal case), I don’t believe none of that,” 21-year-old coal mechanic Zack Ball said while grabbing a bite to eat in the Boone County coal community of Danville. “Don Blankenship all the way.”

Inside a Whitesville pizza shop a few miles north of the shuttered Upper Big Branch mine, retiree Debbie Pauley said Blankenship “was railroaded” at his trial.

“I think that Blankenship does have integrity,” she said. “I don’t think he’d put up with any crap.”
…

your ad here

Suicide Bomber Kills 4 Somali Army Officers

Posted on by SeeAF

At least four Somali government soldiers have been killed and six wounded by a suicide bomber who attacked a tea restaurant in the divided town of Galkayo in central Somalia, witnesses and officials said Saturday. The attack happened on the northern side of the town controlled by the Puntland semi-autonomous region.

“A young man wearing a suicide vest rushed toward the restaurant where government security officials and their guards gathered and blew himself up,” a witnesses told VOA.

Government officials in the region have confirmed that two senior military commanders were among those killed in the attack.

Col. Abdi Hukun Abdullahi Mohamed, the commander of the town’s security patrol teams, senior Somali military official Abdikani Ahmed Geyre, another army colonel and one of their guards died in the attack, Somali security officials told VOA.

Galkayo is the provincial capital of the divided Mudug region of Somalia. The northern part of the town is controlled by the Puntland regional state, while the south is controlled by Galmudug regional state.

No one claimed immediate responsibility for the attack, but it had the hallmarks of an al-Shabab strike. That militant group has attacked dozens of government buildings, hotels, restaurants and other targets in Mogadishu in recent years.

The town’s mayor, Hirsi Yusuf Barre, told reporters they are investigating the attack.

The commanders targeted in this latest attack were in charge of hundreds of military officers from Galmudug and Puntland states, and they carry out joint patrols in the divided town as part of a cease-fire agreement brokered with help of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), United Nations and other partners in 2017.

Somalia has been gripped by conflict since the downfall of Mohamed Siad Barre in early 1991, when repeated and deadly inter-clan fighting claimed the lives of many innocent civilians. But for the major cities, including capital city, Mogadishu, the armed al-Shabab group has been one of the main causes of unrest in the past two decades.
…

your ad here

Autism Poses Special Challenges in Africa

Posted on by SeeAF

The 4-year-old Cote d’Ivoire boy couldn’t walk, speak or feed himself. He was so unlike most other kids that his grandparents hesitated to accept him. The slightly older Kenyan boy was so restless that his primary-school teachers beat him, until they discovered he was a star pupil.

The two children reveal different faces of autism — and how society sometimes reacts to the condition.

Videos of the boys appear in “Autism: Breaking the Silence,” a special edition of VOA’s weekly Straight Talk Africa TV program. It was recorded Wednesday before a small studio audience of people who live with the condition or deal with it professionally.

About 45 minutes into the program, Benie Blandine Yao of Cote d’Ivoire holds her 4-year-old son, who has autism.

The program’s goal: to help demystify and deepen understanding of autism spectrum disorder. It affects the brain’s normal development, often compromising an individual’s ability to communicate, interact socially or control behavior. The condition can range from mild to severe.

New CDC findings

New findings released this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate an increase in autism’s prevalence in the United States.

The agency estimates it affects 1 in 59 children, up from 1 in 68 several years ago and 1 in 150 almost two decades ago. The research is based on studies of more than 300,000 8-year-olds in 11 U.S. states.

Globally, one out of every 160 children has an autism spectrum disorder, the World Health Organization reports. Rates of autism are harder to determine in low- and middle-income countries, including those in sub-Saharan Africa with limited access to clinicians.

Everywhere, “poor people get diagnosed later,” Scott Badesch, president of the Autism Society of America, said in a video overview that set the stage for discussion. “… There’s more services today than ever before but there’s nowhere near the services needed for all who need help.”

A complex condition

Stigma and superstition can heighten the challenges.

In parts of Africa, youngsters with autism “are labeled as devils and they’re not diagnosed and they are not given treatment,” Bernadette Kamara, a native of Sierra Leone who runs BK Behavioral Health Center in a Washington suburb, commented from the audience.

Some people believe the disorder is punishment for a parent’s bad behavior or an affliction that can be prayed away, said Mary Amoah, featured with 15-year-old daughter Renata in a related VOA video. 

 

“They don’t understand this is purely a medical condition. It can happen to anyone regardless of your background,” said Amoah, coordinator at a treatment center in Accra, Ghana, for children with disabilities. “A lot needs to be done in our part of the world in terms of education, acceptance and understanding.”

Causes

Researchers haven’t determined the exact cause of autism, though they cite genetic and environmental factors. 

Panelist Susan Daniels, who directs the office of autism research coordination for the National Institute of Mental Health, part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, stressed that research supported by the NIH and CDC shows no link to childhood vaccines.

Though the condition has no cure, early intervention can improve the quality of life for people with autism and their families.

Parents need to observe their children closely from infancy, advised Dr. Usifo Edward Asikhia, clinical director of the International Training Center for Applied Behavior Analysis in Lagos, Nigeria.

“When you have a baby at the age of 12 [months] that cannot babble, that’s a signal,” he said. Another is an inability to grasp objects, a sign of low muscle tone common in autism.

Other hallmarks include lack of eye contact or sensitivity to sounds, Daniels said. She added that a definitive diagnosis “can’t really be done accurately until age 2. But most kids aren’t diagnosed by then.”

“Children with autism in Africa tend to be diagnosed around age 8, about four years later, on average, than their American counterparts,” the Spectrum Autism Research News site reported in December.

​Call for cultural sensitivity

Some of those indicators could mislead when assessing African children, said panelist Morenike Giwa Onaiwu, a Texas-based member of the Autism Women’s Network.

“In a lot of African cultures, it’s customary not to make direct eye contact. That’s not a red flag,” said Onaiwu, whose parents came from Nigeria and who learned she was autistic only when two of her own six kids were positively identified with autism. “In terms of not babbling? We speak when we have something to say. … Certain things culturally may be missed because of the way diagnostic criteria are viewed through Western standards.”

While autism generally is associated with low IQ, the condition also affects people with high mental abilities. 

If they can “express themselves in some way, they’re actually geniuses,” said panelist Tracy Freeman, a Washington-area physician who has an autistic child. “Their challenge is neurodiversity and getting people to recognize their intelligence.”

At one point in the discussion, moderator Linord Moudou noticed Onaiwu twisting a metal coil in her hands. Onaiwu explained that the repurposed Christmas ornament is a “stimming” device for repetitive motion that provides relaxing sensory stimulation.

“It helps to calm me,” Onaiwu said. She has other strategies: “Sometimes you might see me rocking. … This kind of helps me to navigate in the neurotypical world.”

Growing role for governments?

Asikhia said families dealing with autism had few public supports in Nigeria or elsewhere in Africa. Most schools lack training in developmental delays that should be flagged for physicians, he said. 

“Those teachers just don’t know what to do,” he added.

Many African countries lack laws ensuring public education or health interventions for youngsters with autism or other developmental disorders.

But Chiara Servili, a child neuropsychiatrist and WHO technical adviser on mental health, sees rising interest. Representatives of more than 60 countries supported a 2014 WHO resolution urging member nations to develop policies and laws to ease “the global burden of mental disorders” and to devote “sufficient human, financial and technical resources.”

Many governments once focused just on improving child mortality rates, she said in a phone interview. Now, there’s “much more awareness not only that they survive but thrive. There is a new focus on early childhood development.”

The WHO is trying to improve supports for family caregivers as well as for teachers, social workers and other professionals in positions to encourage clinical evaluation, Servili said.

With international partners, the organization has developed a guide for caregivers, usually parents, to nurture children with developmental issues. For instance, “we teach them strategies so they can better engage children in play. Sit down at the level of the child. Provide some toys or some object from the house, observe what the child is doing and try to follow the lead,” Servili said. “… Reinforce any attempt to communicate.”

For a copy of the WHO Caregiver Skills Training program, contact Servili at servilic@who.org.
…

your ad here