Month: April 2018

Critic of Burundi’s Leader May Use ‘Surprise’ Cannes Platform

Posted on by SeeAF

When the 71st Cannes Film Festival opens in France next month, the jury will include a Burundian songwriter and singer who by her own admission, has nothing to do with films.

“It was a big surprise for me. First of all, I have no connection with that world of cinema. I was surprised that they chose me,” Khadja Nin told VOA’s Central Africa Service.  “This event is one of the biggest in the world and to be part of that prestigious jury is of course for me a great honor in a way.”

Nin does have great connections to the world of music, having won wide acclaim for albums stretching back to the 1990s.  That was likely her ticket to Cannes, where organizers strive to include personalities from the worlds of music and art as well as film.

Nin studied music at an early age, before leaving her home country to go to Europe some 40 years ago. Her albums are a mix of occidental pop music, African and afro-Cuban rhythms.

Criticize Nkurunziza?  Maybe.

Although she thinks the festival isn’t the best place to talk about the politics of Burundi, she would not shy away of speaking about it, if an opportunity arose.

“I have to see how it goes. I have no idea what will happen there. It is my first time in Cannes. Of course, I will take any opportunity to talk about my country and people,” she said.

Burundi has been plagued by deadly political violence since President Pierre Nkurunziza successfully sought a disputed third term in 2015. Hundreds have been killed and hundreds of thousands have fled the country.

 

Nin has been an outspoken critic of Nkurunziza’s regime.

“He decided to go for a third term and that is one thing. The second thing is: In Burundi they still kill, they still torture they still rape and that cannot continue,” said Nin.

She says she won’t stop speaking out until the end of the crisis.

“We will sit down the day that stops. That is our mission. We cannot let these people kill our children, rape our sisters and mothers. That is not possible for us,” Nin said.

“This is my goal. Really my goal. It is a full time job for me, at this moment.”

Other jury members

Other 2018 Cannes jury members include Australian actress and producer Cate Blanchett, Chinese actor Chang Chen, American writer, director, producer Ava DuVernay, French director Robert Guédiguian  and French actress Léa Seydoux, American actress Kristen Stewart, Canadian director Denis Villeneuve and Russian director Andrei Zvyagintsev.

The 71st Festival de Cannes runs from May 8 to 19.
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Iran Frees Anti-Hijab Activist After 2nd Arrest

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Iranian authorities have released an anti-hijab activist two days after detaining her as she attended a gathering near Tehran in tribute to the nation’s former ruler, Reza Shah Pahlavi.

Family members of Maryam Shariatmadari informed Masih Alinejad, the freelance host of VOA Persian’s Tablet program, that she was released Friday.

A sister of Shariatmadari earlier sent Alinejad an audio message in which she said her sibling and their mother had been beaten by unknown individuals who detained them Wednesday in the southern Tehran district of Shahr Rey.

The mother and daughter had joined a public gathering in tribute to Reza Shah after authorities said construction workers may have unearthed his missing remains near a local shrine Monday. The monarch, who founded the Pahlavi dynasty and ruled from 1925 to 1941, is admired by many Iranians for helping to modernize the country.

Prominent Iranian lawyer and human rights defender Nasrin Sotoudeh, who represents Shariatmadari, identified the people who beat her client and her client’s mother as intelligence agents of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

In comments to DW’s Farsi service published Friday, Sotoudeh said the agents freed the mother hours after the beatings, but kept Shariatmadari in detention while they seized the anti-hijab activist’s computer and other personal belongings.

Shariatmadari, who is in her early 30s, rose to prominence earlier this year for standing on a utility box on a Tehran street and waving her hijab in a February 23 protest against Iranian laws requiring women to cover their hair in public. A policeman pushed her off the box and caused her to fall and injure herself. A video of the incident went viral on social media. That protest also marked her first arrest. She was sentenced in March to one year in prison before being released on bail.

In a related development, an Iranian woman who was wrestled to the ground by “morality” policewomen last week on suspicion of not wearing her hijab properly has enlisted the help of another prominent Iranian lawyer who represents victims of alleged rights abuses. A mobile phone video of the April 18 incident in a Tehran park also went viral on social media.

Editor’s note: Some viewers may find this video disturbing:

In a Skype video interview on VOA Persian’s Early News program Friday, Tehran-based lawyer Mohammad Hossein Aghasi said he planned to file several complaints with the authorities on behalf of the woman, whom he described as a graduate student but declined to name. He said one complaint was in response to accusations by some Iranian officials that his client and her friends had staged or deliberately provoked the confrontation in order to tarnish the image of Iran’s morality police.

“This was not orchestrated, it was a reality — my client was beaten,” Aghasi said. “She and the friends who came to her rescue had no intention to harm the morality police’s reputation.”

Aghasi also said his client had been wearing her hijab properly and would file a complaint against the morality policewomen who accosted her. He said a third complaint would be lodged against the person who filmed and posted the video clip, an action that he said had upset his client greatly.

The sharing of the video clip prompted a social media backlash against the morality policewomen who assaulted the woman. Several women in the Iranian government also posted tweets criticizing the assault and calling for change in how authorities enforce hijab regulations.

This report was produced in collaboration with VOA’s Persian service.
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Syrian Refugees Face Deadline to Register or Forfeit Homes

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The Syrian government is set to seize the property of millions of Syrians who fled their homes, unless they return to claim them by presenting ownership deeds to local authorities.

Under a law introduced in April, the 6 million Syrians who fled their homes to escape the carnage and 7 million displaced to other parts of the war-torn country have until May 10 to register their properties or forfeit their homes. “The remaining plots will be auctioned,” according to legislation known as Law No. 10.

Government-connected investors from President Bashar al-Assad’s minority Alawite Muslim sect are likely to reap massive profits.

European officials at a donor conference this week described the law as “punitive.” The German foreign ministry Friday issued a statement saying

it saw the law as an attempt to change property ownership “to the benefit of the regime and its supporters and hinder the return of a huge number

of Syrians.”

At a recent conference in Brussels, donors, mainly from Western and Gulf countries, pledged $4.4 billion in humanitarian aid for Syria and neighboring Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, which are sheltering the bulk of the Syrians who fled over the borders to escape vicious fighting.

The collective pledges fall far short of the $7 billion that U.N. officials say is needed. And with the increasing likelihood that refugees will be afraid to return, or will have nothing to return to because of the new law, the international community is likely to need far more funding to shelter millions of Syrians for the foreseeable future.

U.N. officials say only a small fraction of the refugees and displaced will even have the necessary documentation. Many Syrian land registries have been destroyed, often purposely to help depopulate Sunni areas and put into effect population transfers, they say.

For the past year, many Syrians have been debating whether to risk returning home. They sought safety in neighboring states and Europe, either to maintain resistance against Assad or to escape the airstrikes and barrel bombs, as well as fighting in their war-torn country.

With the balance of battlefield power swinging in favor of the Assad government, they have been asking what the future holds for them.

Rebel fighters and opposition activists and politicians say they can only picture a “Syria-less” future for themselves. They and their families face the prospect of long-term, even permanent exile, they say, because they won’t ever be able to return as long as Assad remains in power.

Syrian NGOs and relief workers, too, say there’s no future for them while Assad is in Damascus or his Baath party is in control.

“In my case, if Assad remains in power, I would either be thrown into prison for the rest of my life or would become another name on the international lists of victims and the disappeared,” said Mohammad Noor, who has been studying in Turkey.

In dozens of interviews VOA has conducted in the past few weeks with Syrians based outside their country, those active in rebel militias or the political opposition and civil society organizations, or who have relatives connected to such groups, are the most adamant in saying they won’t be able to return.

Aside from the risks, many in the opposition say they couldn’t contemplate living in a country ruled by Assad on moral grounds — a conviction that’s only deepened with time during a conflict that has seen scorched-earth bombing of rebel-held towns and alleged chemical warfare use.

“How could I live in a country ruled by Bashar al-Assad? He’s responsible for destroying more than half of Aleppo, killing half a million Syrians and forcing millions of others to flee the country or their homes?” queried an activist who uses the name Khudur. “I can’t return and live in a country ruled by a criminal.”

Others unconnected with political or military activity, though, have started to return, but in small numbers, pushed to go because of harsh conditions in neighboring countries, say NGOs working with refugees. The returns result from unsafe and precarious living conditions in asylum and are not a sign that the situation in Syria has improved, according to the Durable Solutions Platform, an NGO-led research initiative.

Increasing vulnerability, poverty and desperation are driving the few who are returning to do so, despite the danger and hazards they court back in their home country, six NGOs warned in a report, Dangerous Ground — Syria’s Refugees Face an Uncertain Future.

Push factors are mounting, the NGOs say, on Syrians to return against a backdrop of increased anti-refugee rhetoric and policies, with governments openly contemplating the return of refugees to the country.

“The prevailing interest in securing the return of refugees is undermining their safety and dignity in neighboring countries, creating push factors and increasing the likelihood of forced returns in 2018. It also threatens to limit the options for making a life beyond the region through resettlement or other safe and legal routes,” the NGOs, including the Danish Refugee Council and Save the Children, warned in the report, published in February.

The governments of neighboring countries had planned for — or at least hoped for — a brief Syrian war and refugee crisis, with most of the refugees returning to their homes. It has been only in the past 18 months that the Turks have started to develop plans for what to do with the 2 million Syrians in Turkey.

In Lebanon, Prime Minister Saad Hariri has promised there will be no forced returns, but there’s mounting political pressure for that to happen.

Refugees have become a key issue in current election campaigning in Lebanon. Christian and Shiite politicians, including Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, say it is time all Syrian refugees return home, arguing that the overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim Syrian refugee population threatens Lebanon’s national identity and sectarian mix.

U.N. officials warn that Syrian refugees are facing increasing harassment and mistreatment in efforts to pressure them to go home. According to the U.N.’s refugee agency, UNHCR, 1,300 Syrian families were evicted from settlements in the Bekaa Valley last year, with most evictions ordered by Lebanese military intelligence.

Opinion is divided about whether most Syrian refugees will return or try to stay put in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq, or further afield. Syrian activists had predicted that “ordinary” Syrians in Europe or the United States would not return, but those living in camps and refugees in countries surrounding Syria would be more tempted to return because of a lack of options, if the shelling and airstrikes stop.

If their homes and property are confiscated, however, then a major pull factor will have been eliminated. They won’t go back, unless the host countries start deporting them, activists predict.

“Facing mounting social and economic difficulties, refugees feel trapped between host countries that do not want them and a Syria to which they cannot return,” according to a study released last week by the Carnegie Middle East Center, a research institution.
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Experts See Gulf Rift Hurting Counterterror Effort

Posted on by SeeEA

As representatives from more than 70 countries met this week to strengthen efforts to fight terror financing, experts told U.S. lawmakers that resolving a crisis among the Arab Gulf states could be an effective tool to reduce such funding.

The event Wednesday and Thursday in Paris included Gulf states that have accused each other of funding terrorism.

Tensions in the Gulf region emerged last June when Qatar faced an abrupt diplomatic embargo from fellow Gulf Cooperation Council members Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, joined by Egypt, over allegations that Doha was courting Iran and supporting Islamist extremist groups in the region.

“The rift is a distraction from the many pressing issues that face all parties involved,” Katherine Bauer, an expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former U.S. Treasury official, told lawmakers at a joint hearing of two House Foreign Affairs subcommittees.

“The United States should continue to work to alleviate the impact of the rift on counterterrorism and other security cooperation,” Bauer added.

The U.S. has thousands of military personnel at over a dozen bases in the Gulf region and works closely with the GCC countries to counter Iranian influence and fight different terror groups, particularly al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula.

But officials in Washington have often complained that the region remains a hotbed where terrorists obtain millions of dollars from sympathizing donors.

Bauer said the blame, which should be shared by all GCC members, is put solely on Qatar, singling out Doha for its counterterror financing deficiencies while letting other states, particularly Kuwait, have a free pass. 

At the beginning of the dispute, U.S. President Donald Trump sided with Saudi Arabia and other Arab states, denouncing Qatar as a “funder of terror.”

“Kuwait’s role as mediator in the rift risks crowding out U.S. efforts to push Kuwait to remedy its own counterterror financing deficiencies,” said Bauer, adding the blockade had pushed Qatar closer to Iran.

​Targeting center

The U.S. and GCC members established the Terrorist Financing Targeting Center (TFTC) last May to disrupt terror financing actions and provide support in building the required capacity to tackle terror financing networks in the region. That effort was followed by a memorandum of understanding in June between the U.S. and Qatar to help strengthen the Gulf states’ fight against terror financing.

The two initiatives have helped the U.S. work with the GCC states to impose sanctions on dozens of individuals and entities accused of providing financial support to terror groups in the region — including the Islamic State and al-Qaida — particularly in Yemen.

Earlier this month, Trump welcomed Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim al-Thani, to the White House and praised him as “big advocate” of combating terror financing.

“We’re making sure that terrorism funding is stopped in the countries that we are really related to,” Trump said. “But those countries are stopping the funding of terrorism, and that includes UAE and it includes Saudi Arabia, it includes Qatar and others. A lot of countries were funding terrorism and we’re stopping it.”

Lingering standoff

But experts warned U.S. lawmakers that those efforts could be undermined as the standoff among the GCC members lingers.

David Weinberg, an expert with the Anti-Defamation League, told lawmakers that the dispute had also opened the door to the politicization of the terror financing list. He said some Gulf states were using the terror financing issue as a pretext to target their rivals, particularly in the case of Qatar.

“The U.S. should review the designations of individual terror financiers issued by the anti-Qatar quartet over the last year to assess whether any of those individuals not under U.S. sanctions should also be designated by the United States,” said Weinberg.

“Although some of the more politicized entries on this list certainly do not meet U.S. legal standards for designation, some other entries might,” he added.
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Trump: No Iran Nukes Even if Agreement Folds  

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Standing alongside Germany’s chancellor, U.S. President Donald Trump emphasized on Friday that Iran would not be permitted to build a nuclear arsenal, even if a deal intended to prevent that scenario collapsed. 

“They’re not going to be doing nuclear weapons. You can bank on it,” Trump told reporters. 

Asked about possible actions, including use of force, that he could take if Iran restarted its nuclear weapons program, if the deal made in 2015, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was abandoned, the president replied: “I don’t talk about whether or not I’d use military force.” 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, appearing with Trump at the news conference following their Friday meetings, described the JCPOA as “anything but perfect,” adding, “It will not solve all the problems of Iran.” 

She described it as one piece to limit Iran’s bad actions, while saying Berlin considered it of “prime importance” to contain threats from Iran as it exerts geopolitical influence in Syria, which has been racked by years of civil war. 

Merkel said her government would continue very close discussions with the United States as the president neared a decision on the Iranian nuclear accord, signed by Iran with China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union.

The Trump administration is required to recertify to Congress every 90 days that Iran is complying with the deal. The next deadline is May 12. 

The U.S. president repeatedly has heaped scorn on the agreement, referring to it as a “disgrace,” “stupid” and the “worst deal ever negotiated.” 

Following a meeting Friday of foreign ministers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), new U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters in Brussels that “absent a substantial fix, absent overcoming the flaws of the deal,” the U.S. president “is unlikely to stay in that deal.” Earlier in the week, French President Emmanuel Macron said in Washington that he did not believe he had been able to persuade Trump not to abandon the nuclear agreement. 

Asked by journalists whether he thought the U.S. president would walk away from the pact, Macron replied, “That’s my bet.” 

Macron was seen by many as the foreign leader most likely to be able to change Trump’s mind because of the warm relationship between the two. 

Trump on Friday greeted Merkel under the West Wing entry portico with a kiss on both cheeks and a handshake in the Oval Office, more affection than during Merkel’s initial White House visit 13 months ago when he appeared to refuse to shake her hand in the Oval Office. 

Merkel’s relationship with Trump remains icy, according to The Washington Post, quoting a person who was in the room when the president was with Macron on Tuesday when Trump reportedly said he was “not looking forward to Merkel coming.”

According to Peter Rashish, senior fellow and director of the geoeconomics program at the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies, “there was always going to be a division of labor between Macron and Merkel with Trump.”

Rashish, a former vice president for Europe at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, noted that while “Macron is a gifted public performer, Merkel thrives in close-range, behind-the-scenes meetings. The cordial tone of the press conference suggests she was able to find a way to engage Trump in a way that could bear fruit further down the line.”

Alongside Trump, during several events Friday at the White House when reporters were in the room, Merkel remained mostly stone-faced. But there were a couple of flashes of puzzlement during their joint news conference when Trump made off-the-cuff remarks in his trademark fashion. 

Trump and Merkel acknowledged they discussed other difficult matters, including the level of funding for NATO and trade tariffs. 

“We had an exchange of views,” she said when asked about steel tariffs Trump is poised to impose on European exports. “The decision lies with the president.” 

While Trump emphasized the need to bring down the EU trade surplus with the United States, the president also said he wanted to deepen economic ties with Europe, which observers saw as something new. 

Merkel on Friday restated her interest in a U.S.-EU free-trade agreement.

“Put those two ideas together and you could imagine down the road the resumption of some version of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with a more Trumpian stamp,” Rashish told VOA. 
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Trump: House Report Proves ‘No Collusion’

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U.S. President Donald Trump has commended the release of a report by the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee, saying it proves there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. 

Questioned about it during a joint news conference with visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Trump said, “We were honored. It was a great report. No collusion, which I knew anyway.”

He called the investigation “a witch hunt,” echoing a phrase he had tweeted earlier that morning, and added: “If we can get along with Russia, that’s a good thing, not a bad thing. But there has been nobody tougher on Russia than me.” 

Trump was questioned about the 243-page report released Friday by the House Intelligence Committee. The report contained a large number of redactions and a conclusion that while the meddling by Russia was real, collusion with the Trump campaign was not. 

It called contacts between Russian officials and campaign aides “ill-advised” and said at least one person might have given answers in legal testimony that were “incomplete.”

The Republicans on the committee said their report was based on interviews with 73 people and a review of more than 300,000 documents.

But the committee’s ranking Democrat, Adam Schiff of California, told reporters that the report exemplified “the [Republican] majority’s fundamentally flawed approach to the investigation and the superficial and political nature of its conclusions.”

The report criticized intelligence officials, saying they leaked information before and after the election that installed Trump as president. It pointed out reports published by The Washington Post, The New York Times, NBC and CNN as examples of dangerous leaks. 

Much of the information in the section on leaks was redacted, a fact that gave rise to criticism of the report itself. 

Representative Devin Nunes, the California Republican who is chairman of the committee, told reporters that he hoped a more transparent version of the report could be released later. He indicated the redactions were not the doing of the committee, but instead of federal agencies vetting the report. He said the committee “will convey our objections to the appropriate agencies and looks forward to publishing a less redacted version in the near future.”

A Democratic rebuttal of the report called its conclusions “misleading and unsupported by the facts and the investigative record.” It also faulted the congressional investigators for failing to interview key witnesses and issue subpoenas to get crucial information. Schiff accused the Republicans on the committee of “adopting the role of defense counsel for key investigation witnesses.”

The report included the caveat that other investigations, including that of special counsel Robert Mueller, might have access to facts that the committee could not obtain. In addition to the House Intelligence Committee and Mueller’s probe, the Senate Intelligence Committee is investigating the matter.
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At NATO Ministerial, US Officials Call for Crimea’s Return to Ukraine

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A top U.S. official said Friday that NATO foreign ministers would refuse to “return to business as usual with Russia” until Moscow “withdraws forces and support for proxies in the Donbas, and returns control of Crimea to Ukraine.”

The unusually pointed demand, tweeted by State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert, coincided with newly confirmed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s arrival in Brussels for Friday’s ministerial meeting — a powerful message to send to NATO allies for his first day on the job.

“I hopped straight on a plane and came straight here,” Pompeo told the ministerial. “There’s good reason for that. The work that’s being done here today is invaluable and our objectives are important and this mission means a lot to the United States of America.”

Tweeting throughout the initial phase of the Brussels visit, Nauert reiterated those talking points, calling NATO “more relevant than any time since the Cold War,” and that today’s focus was squarely on “Russia’s continued aggression and ability to threaten, coerce, undermine and invade its neighbors.”

She also tweeted that 22 Ukrainian soldiers had been wounded in last 48 hours in eastern Ukraine, the highest number since July, adding that “Russia-led forces have intensified artillery attacks on Ukrainians defending their country. Russia must end its aggression and fully implement the Minsk agreements.”

Neal Walker, chief of the U.N. humanitarian mission to Ukraine, told VOA’s Ukrainian service that they were recording 40,000 cease-fire violations each month.

“As you can imagine, this isn’t really a cease-fire,” he said. “This is a hot conflict that has a huge impact on people’s lives.”

UN Says Enormous Humanitarian Funding Restraints in Ukraine

NATO-Russia tension

Analysts say Pompeo has good reason to hit the ground running, with increased tensions between NATO and Russia likely to top the agenda. 

Pompeo and the other NATO foreign ministers will most likely focus on how to counter Russian cyberattacks and other interference in Western democracies, as well as Moscow’s role in protecting President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

During his first year in office, U.S. President Donald Trump criticized alliance allies for not spending enough on defense, calling it unfair to taxpayers in the United States. The president, however, did reaffirm support for NATO while urging allies to pay their fair share.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and other leaders in Brussels said they appreciated Pompeo’s quick action to attend Friday’s talks.

“I feel that that’s a great expression of the importance of the alliance and the importance we attach to the alliance, and I very much look forward to talking with you, on the need to adapt NATO to a more demanding security environment,” the secretary-general told Pompeo.

As of publication time, Russia’s Foreign Ministry had not yet responded to Nauert’s tweets or Pompeo’s visit with NATO ministers.

This story originated in VOA’s Ukrainian service. VOA’s Cindy Saine contributed original reporting.
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Former Vermont Governor Who Presided Over Liberal Swing Dies

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Former Democratic Gov. Philip Hoff, who’s credited with starting Vermont’s transition from one of the most Republican-entrenched states in the country to one of the most liberal, has died. He was 93.

Hoff, who became the first Democrat elected governor of Vermont in more than 100 years in 1962, died on Thursday, according to The Residence at Shelburne Bay, where he had been living.

“Phil Hoff forever changed the state of Vermont,” said Steve Terry, a former journalist who helped write a biography titled “Philip Hoff: How Red Turned Blue in the Green Mountain State.” ”His influence in the 1960s has molded and created the Vermont many of us know today.”

During his six years in office, Hoff helped start a process that evolved into the state’s environmental movement. He focused on reducing pollution and cleaning up the state’s rivers and streams.

He also emphasized education reform and helped revamp the state’s judicial system.

Hoff’s policies helped refocus state government on meeting the needs of residents, a philosophy embraced by his Republican successor, Deane C. Davis.

The office has alternated between Democratic and Republican governors since Hoff was elected.

At the mid-point of the 20th century, Vermont remained one of the most Republican states in the country. The state was dominated by a couple of political families, but Hoff shook up the staid Vermont political structure.

He became governor when the state was under a federal court mandate to reapportion the state House, where each of the state’s 241 cities and towns were represented by a single person, no matter the community’s population.

“The people of Vermont have clearly said that they don’t want to continue with the old ways, and if we fail to respond to forces at work in our society, we face a bleak future,” Hoff said at his 1963 inaugural address.

“I loved it any time he came into the office because there was a sense of vibrancy and life,” said U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, who joined Hoff’s Burlington law firm after graduating from law school in 1964. Two years later, Hoff appointed Leahy as Chittenden County state’s attorney, a post he held for eight years, until his 1974 election to the U.S. Senate.

“I’d see the governor all the time,” Leahy said. “I was the star-struck young lawyer in his office. I’d see people staying in the halls, just waiting to say hi to him. We’d have meetings with him. It was exciting.”

Philip Henderson Hoff was born on June 29, 1924, in Turners Falls, Massachusetts. He took time off from Williams College to serve in the Navy during World War II and returned to Williams after the war. He graduated and went on to law school at Cornell University before moving to Burlington in 1951.

Hoff first ran for office in 1958 for a seat on the Burlington Board of Aldermen. He was defeated.

Two years later, he was elected to the Vermont House after running what Terry called “a minimalist campaign.” He had no campaign literature of his own and instead handed out brochures promoting the presidential candidacy of U.S. Sen. John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts.

After one term in the Legislature, Hoff won the race for governor in 1962 after he campaigned on the need for change and to end 100 years of one-party rule.

Hoff was briefly considered as a vice presidential candidate in 1968 but withdrew his name when it became clear his friend, Sen. Edmund Muskie of Maine, was being considered. Hoff ran for the U.S. Senate in 1970, but lost to the incumbent GOP Sen. Winston Prouty.

Hoff returned to the Legislature in 1982 after being elected to the state Senate. He served three, two-year terms.
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(Im)migration News Roundup, April 22-28

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Editor’s note:

With four people working on (im)migration stories every day, we still struggle to keep up with all of the relevant news. So, we wanted a way to keep you updated with the top immigration stories every week — the ones that will affect you, our international readers, viewers and listeners — most. We want you to know what’s happening, why, and how it could impact your life, family or business.

Travel ban 3.0

We didn’t mean to, but we made a new mother cry outside the Supreme Court when we asked her what it was like to be pregnant, then have her first baby — while her own mother is 10,000 km away in Iran and unable to be by her side. Dela is now 8 months old, plump-cheeked, quick to smile, and teething — and her grandmother dispenses advice over text and Skype to help her growing family. Read and watch our story. 

What’s next? The Supreme Court is expected to decide in June whether the Trump administration’s third travel ban is constitutional. Opponents of the policy tell VOA that no matter what the outcome of the lawsuit, the president has already made clear his view on immigrants — and it’s not positive.

Bonus: Meet the two Immigration Team reporters who were at the Supreme Court on Wednesday. One was inside, dry and warm. The other was outside, water-logged.

​Trump’s TPS tally

Nepalese nationals living in the United States are the latest to learn that thousands of their citizens will lose legal status next year, after the Trump administration canceled Temporary Protected Status for a fifth country since taking office.

​Caravan to El Norte: ‘The ones that killed him now don’t trust me’

Meet some of the Central American travelers headed to the U.S. border to ask for asylum from violence, in Ramon Taylor’s story from Mexicali. The top official for Homeland Security referred to the travelers as a security risk, and insisted that the department “is doing everything within our authorities to secure our borders and enforce the law.” 

Now what? U.S. law allows people to seek asylum in the U.S., or at its border, if they have a “well-founded fear of persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group.” So, in theory, the caravan members should be able to claim asylum and have their cases reviewed. Expect more border reporting next week from Ramon Taylor and Arturo Martinez.

​Tennessee trauma

A town that largely helped Donald Trump get elected to the presidency also raised $60,000 for the families of undocumented workers caught up in a workplace immigration raid. “Relationships change everything.” 

Legal limbo: Some of the detainees were released and will have hearings in immigration court. Dozens more remain in custody.

‘Crusades 2.0’

Three men were convicted of plotting violence against Somali-Americans in “Crusades 2.0,” by planning explosions at a housing complex in Kansas. An advocacy group identified a 15 percent increase in hate crimes against Muslims in 2017, according to data they released this week. 

​From South Sudanese ‘Lost Boy’ to Barista

Sip on this story about Manyang Kher, who named his company after the geographic coordinates of the refugee camp where he sought safety. 

A judge has given the federal government 90 days to defend its decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy. If they don’t, the program could begin functioning again.

What we’re keeping an eye on

Following several immigration raids, New York’s governor this week accused the head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) of “blatant disrespect” for the state’s laws. ICE Director Thomas Homan responded that the governor was “grandstanding” and criticized his support for sanctuary policies. Will their feud escalate as tensions mount between federal law enforcement, and the outspoken leaders of some states like New York and California, over immigration issues?

VOA’s Ramon Taylor and Aline Barros contributed to this report.
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Malawians Protest Corruption Ahead of Former President’s Return

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Business came to a standstill in Malawi’s commercial capital Friday, with the city’s main road almost deserted and many shops and businesses temporarily closed, as hundreds of people marched against corruption and bad governance.

The demonstrations, drawing thousands of people nationwide, were held one day before former president Joyce Banda returns home after spending the past four years in the U.S. Investigations into corruption during her administration are ongoing.

The march in Blantyre was peaceful, despite fears of a repeat of the 2011 anti-government demonstration in which 20 protesters were shot dead.

“I should commend our colleagues, our citizens, that we have really demonstrated peacefully and we believe nobody has been injured or [their rights] violated,” said Masauko Thawe, coordinator for the Blantyre demonstrations.

In a petition entitled “Time to Reclaim Our Destiny,” organizers demanded that President Peter Mutharika reverse his appointment of Rodney Jose as the acting inspector general of police. Jose was implicated in the murder of university student Robert Chasowa in 2011.

The protesters also demanded the government end ongoing power outages, stop attacks on albinos, and change the electoral system to elect the president by simple majority vote.

Activists have given the president 90 days to respond to some of the issues, according to Thawe, but “we have other issues which are very pertinent which we require immediate response, we have given them 15 days to respond.”

Charles Mphembo of Blantyre District Council received the petition on behalf of the president.

“I want to assure you, those who have brought it, that it is, indeed, received and it will reach the authorities at the right time today,” Mphembo said.

The demonstrations coincided with the planned return of Malawi’s former president, Joyce Banda, on Saturday.

Banda left the country in 2014 amid a $32 million corruption scandal known as Cashgate, in which several convicted suspects named Banda as a mastermind.

Last year, police issued an arrest warrant to question Banda on the allegations. Speaking to VOA Friday, police spokesperson James Kadadzera would not say whether police will try to take Banda into custody.

“All I can say in a single sentence is the warrant of arrest is still valid. I will stop there, that it is still valid,” Kadadzera said.

Banda’s spokesperson, Andekuche Chanthuya, told VOA that the warrant for arrest does not scare Banda.

“Dr. Joyce Banda is not afraid or intimidated by their announcement that their warrant of arrest is still valid because all Cashgate cases were investigated and prosecuted by the Anti-Corruption Bureau,” Chanthuya said. “Now, the head of the Anti-Corruption Bureau has made it clear that JB [Joyce Banda] is not linked to any Cashagate, whether as a beneficiary or as a masterminder.”

He says Banda has been abroad to conduct personal business, give speeches and run her foundation.

Chanthunya said Banda will hold a political rally for her People’s Party in her home district, Zomba. 
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Nigerian Shi’ite Group Vows More Protests Until Leader Freed

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The Islamic Movement of Nigeria demonstrated again on Wednesday in Abuja. A rally by the group Monday descended into violence, leading to dozens of arrests and injuries. The IMN is demanding the release of its leader, who has been in state custody since a deadly military crackdown on the group more than two years ago.

IMN members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria have been gathering in the Nigerian capital every day since mid-January to protest.  Each day, they repeat the same chant.

 

They’re calling for the release of the Shi’ite cleric Ibraheem Zakzaky, the founder and leader of the IMN.  He and his wife have been detained since December 2015. Authorities have refused to comply with a 2016 court order to release them.

 

IMN’s spokesman Ibrahim Musa told VOA that Zakzaky had a minor stroke and is experiencing eye problems. He said the government has denied Zakzaky’s request to travel abroad for medical treatment.

 

“He is suffering a lot in detention,” Musa said. “So I would believe that the federal government is just buying time probably for him to die in detention and that is why apart from the legal path we have taken, we resorted to protest so at least our voice can be heard by the world.”

 

The Nigerian government has repeatedly said that IMN breaks laws and incites unrest.

 

Police have shut down IMN rallies this week.

 

A protestor shared cell phone footage he shot Monday with VOA.

 

The video shows police officers on horseback. Some of the officers grab the protestors by their arms. Protesters throw stones at armored tanks.

IMN member Abdullahi Musa, 32, told us what he saw.

 

“They threw much tear gas and water cannon. Later on used live bullets on us and they shoot a lot of people,” he said. “Yesterday, myself, I was injured. On my knee, they hit me with a stick. I have many, like three friends that were seriously injured by gunshots.”

 

Nigerian police have not responded to accusations that officers used live bullets. In a statement Monday, police said at least 115 people were arrested and 22 officers were injured.

 

Amnesty International has been investigating the government’s response to IMN since 2013. Isa Sanusi, the media officer of Amnesty’s Nigeria office, spoke to VOA.

 

“We call on the government to allow them their right to lawful protests and lawful assembly and freedom of expression so that they can be able to voice their grievances, voice their anger,” said Isa. “They have been peaceful, and they’ve never been a threat. We see no reason why the government would actually resort to the kind of excessive use of force against them as displayed in Abuja in the last two days.”

 

Nigeria’s Shi’ite minority says it has faced repression for decades, something IMN attributes to the centuries-old rift between Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims.

 

The IMN does not recognize the authority of the federal government. Some Nigerian states have banned the IMN, describing its members as extremists and insurgents.

 

Six out of nine of Zakzaky’s children have been killed in clashes with security forces in the past 20 years. In December 2015, soldiers attacked IMN’s headquarters in the city of Zaria in northern Nigeria. More than 300 IMN supporters were killed.

A Nigerian commission of inquiry investigated the incident and said it found evidence of mass graves in Zaria as well as the use of excessive force by the military.

 

The spokesman for the IMN tells VOA the group will continue to demonstrate until Zakzaky is released.
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Cape Town’s Gang Violence ‘Makes for Intolerable Living’

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Fourteen-year-old Zinadene Pelton was walking to his grandmother’s house after school one day when gunfire erupted.

“I just heard the gunshots, and I heard somebody shout, ‘It’s Zinadene!'” his grandmother, Maureen Johnstone, recalled days after the shooting in Cape Town’s Hanover Park township.

Standing at a street-side memorial to the boy, Johnstone added, “A group of us rushed over here. He was lying with his backpack still on his back. We picked him up and rushed him to the hospital. But, even as he lay here, I could see he was already gone.”

Police said Zinadene, shot in the chest, had gotten caught in gang crossfire.

Grim distinction

Zinadene’s fatal shooting in March 2017 was one more validation of Cape Town’s sorry title as South Africa’s murder capital – with gang violence a key contributor.

Last year, Cape Town recorded 62 homicides for every 100,000 people – double that of almost any other in the country, according to the South African Cities Network, which promotes best practices in urban development and city management.

The epicenter of that violence is the Cape Flats, a cluster of impoverished neighborhoods – on the outskirts of Cape Town’s affluent city center – where mixed-race or “colored” people were forcibly resettled in the 1960s during apartheid rule. The displacement fractured communities, fueling joblessness and poverty. Gangs sprang up, offering vulnerable youths a sense of belonging and control.

Today, authorities estimate some 130 gangs operate in the Western Cape Province, which encompasses Cape Town. The gangs support themselves through weapons smuggling, contract killing, drug and human trafficking, prostitution and more, recruiting children as young as 9 into the trade.

The largest and most notorious gang is the Americans, whose factions include the Young Americans, the Ugly Americans and the JFKs – short for Junky Funky Kids, not John F. Kennedy, the 35th U.S. president.

To set themselves apart from rival gangs such as the Hard Livings or Sexy Boys, the Americans wear red, white and blue, sometimes adorned with stars and stripes. Or they flaunt clothes emblazoned with logos – legit or counterfeit – of U.S. brands.

Some sport tattoos with the Americans’ motto, “In God We Trust,” a phrase borrowed from U.S. currency.

But gang violence can make the Cape Flats feel like a forsaken place.

Pressing for change

“It makes for intolerable living here,” said Jean-Pierre Smith, who serves as Cape Town’s safety and security chief. “…You can’t keep clinics open. Everything is under stress. You can’t run proper sports programs, you can’t get public-sector investment, you can’t get job investment, you can’t create jobs because the bullets keep on flying.”

Outside the building where Zinadene Pelton’s funeral was taking place, Hanover Park resident Fatima Blankenberg circulated a petition asking the mayor or other government officials to halt the bloodshed.

“This is an innocent child who got killed. We want government to do something about it,” said Blankenberg, who said she has lost relatives and neighbors to shootings.

Some residents, and advocacy groups such as Gun Free South Africa, have asked parliament to enforce existing gun laws or enact tougher ones in a country where at least hundreds of thousands of illegal weapons circulate.

Some guns have come from corrupt police. In 2016, a former Cape Town senior officer was sentenced to 18 years in prison for selling confiscated weapons to gangsters in the Western Cape. As Eye Witness News reported, Christiaan Prinsloo and some of his colleagues stole 2,400 guns over eight years. 

To counter what they see as a gang war on their doorsteps, some Cape Town residents have urged bringing in soldiers. Last October, Fikile Mbalula, then national police minister, said he had requested the deployment of army troops to the Western Cape to combat “the large groupings and military training of some of the [gang] perpetrators,” the News 24 website reported him as saying.

But no troops were sent. The current police minister, Bheki Cele, said he has no plans to seek troops’ aid in fighting gangs in the townships, South Africa’s Eye Witness News (EWN) reported in March.

Tracking shootings

While gangs such as the Americans perpetrate crime on the Cape Flats, American technology and American-style interventions are being used to confront it.

Cape Town authorities have turned to ShotSpotter, a real-time gunfire detection system developed in the United States. Audio sensors pick up the sound of gunfire on the streets. GPS technology pinpoints where the shots were fired.

That information gets relayed to a 24-hour monitoring center in California, where it’s processed. The center promptly feeds details – about the precise location and shooting context – to Cape Town police.

ShotSpotter technology, originally brought to South Africa to tackle rhino poaching, isn’t a magic bullet. But Smith, Cape Town’s security chief, said its use coincided with a decline in shootings in gang hot spots such as Hanover Park.

Quick law-enforcement response brings “a suppressive element, a disincentive to shoot,” he said.

Human intervention

Cape Flats community leaders say boots on the ground are just as essential as technology.

Pastor Craven Engel says he runs a special kind of ministry: Project CeaseFire, an intervention program that deploys former gang members to Hanover Park’s streets as “violence interrupters.” They act as mediators in helping gangs work out their differences, by using words instead of bullets. They also head off retaliation after shootings – and try to keep kids out of gangs in the first place.

“Our job is to get to the shooter, to quarantine him and alter his behavior for him not to shoot. That is our job,” Engel said. 

Introduced in Hanover Park in 2012, the project is modeled after CeaseFire, a violence prevention program launched in 2000 in a tough neighborhood of Chicago, in the U.S. state of Illinois. It reduced shootings there by 67 percent in its first year, according to Cure Violence, the nonprofit group responsible for the health program.

The CeaseFire model has been adopted by at least 50 other U.S. cities as well as international sites.

Interrupters have “beats,” gathering information about potential conflict including planned shootings. The work requires the “street cred” that can only come from being an ex-gang member, Engel said.

“They come out of prison, they understand the gang language,” the pastor said of his team. An interrupter “cannot go talk to the gangs about sugar and tea. He’s got to talk to them about the issues at hand. On the other hand, he needs to act like a normal community member, so I’m expecting this double life of them.”

The Cape Flats CeaseFire project has come under criticism. A 2015 report by local law enforcement members called it ineffective and complained its members refused to work with police, South Africa’s Independent Media reported that year.

But security chief Smith was quoted as defending the program, citing “a 31 percent reduction in murders compared to the period in the preceding years” in Hanover Park.

If interrupters associated with police, Smith added, they would lose gang members’ trust and “would no doubt be killed very quickly.”

The death toll already is too high on the Cape Flats. There, families like young Zinadene’s console each other and press for change, hoping for an end to the gang violence that has left so many with little more than memories.

VOA journalist Haydé Adams FitzPatrick grew up in the Cape Flats township of Elsies River. This report originated in VOA Africa Division’s English to Africa Service.
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Nigerian Shi’ites Vow More Protests Demanding Release of Leader

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In Nigeria’s capital, demonstrations by the movement representing the country’s Shi’ite minority have turned violent this month, and as Chika Oduah reports for VOA from Abuja, the tensions show no signs of easing.
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EU Moves to Further Ban Bee-Killing Pesticides

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European Union countries backed a proposal Friday to extend a partial ban on the use of insecticides known as neonicotinoids that studies have shown are harmful to bees.

The full outdoor ban will be on the use of three active substances: imidacloprid, developed by Bayer CropScience; clothianidin, developed by Takeda Chemical Industries and Bayer CropScience; as well as Syngenta’s thiamethoxam.

“All outdoor uses will be banned and the neonicotinoids in question will only be allowed in permanent greenhouses where exposure of bees is not expected,” the European Commission said in a statement.\
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Russia Tensions to Dominate NATO Meeting, as Ukraine Pushes to Join

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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo travels to the NATO Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Brussels Friday, a day after the U.S. Senate approved his appointment. Russia will top the agenda, as will Western accusations that Moscow poisoned a former spy in Britain. Tensions further increased following Syria’s alleged chemical weapons attack and the Western air strikes that followed. As Henry Ridgwell reports, Ukraine is pushing hard to build closer relations in line with its ambition of joining NATO.
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Cosby’s Verdict Provokes Emotions on Both Sides

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Accusers and supporters of popular U.S. comic actor Bill Cosby reacted emotionally Thursday after a jury in Pennsylvania found him guilty of sexual assault. His supporters cheered him on arrival to the court. His victims shed tears of relief and celebrated victory for all the women who have been sexually abused. His chief accuser, Andrea Constand, first brought a civil case against Cosby 13 years ago. His defense team claims the actor is a victim of a smear campaign. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
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New Secretary of State Pompeo Gets Right To Work

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Newly sworn in Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is already on his first trip as the chief U.S. diplomat, headed first to a NATO foreign ministers in Brussels, and then to the Middle East. He boarded a plane just a couple of hours after his confirmation vote in the Senate. VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine has more from Washington.
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Consumers Close Wallets, Trim US 1st Quarter Growth

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The U.S. economy likely slowed in the first quarter as growth in consumer spending braked sharply, but the setback is expected to be temporary against the backdrop of a tightening labor market and large fiscal stimulus.

Gross domestic product probably increased at a 2.0 percent annual rate, according to a Reuters survey of economists, also held back by a moderation in business spending on equipment as well as a widening of the trade deficit and decline in investment in homebuilding.

Those factors likely offset an increase in inventories. The economy grew at a 2.9 percent pace in the fourth quarter. The government will publish its snapshot of first-quarter GDP Friday at 8:30 a.m. 

Don’t lose sleep

The anticipated tepid first-quarter growth will, however, probably not be a true reflection of the economy, despite the expected weakness in consumer spending. First-quarter GDP tends to be soft because of a seasonal quirk. The labor market is near full employment and both business and consumer confidence are strong.

“I would not lose sleep over first-quarter GDP, there is the residual seasonality issue,” said Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody’s Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania. “Overall the economy is doing very well and will continue to do well this year and into 2019.”

Economists expect growth will accelerate in the second quarter as households start to feel the impact of the Trump administration’s $1.5 trillion income tax package on their paychecks. Lower corporate and individual tax rates as well as increased government spending will likely lift annual economic growth to the administration’s 3 percent target, despite the weak start to the year.

Federal Reserve officials are likely to shrug off weak first-quarter growth. The U.S. central bank raised interest rates last month in a nod to the strong labor market and economy, and forecast at least two rate hikes this year.

Minutes of the March 20-21 meeting published earlier this month showed policymakers “expected that the first-quarter softness would be transitory,” citing “residual seasonality in the data, and more generally to strong economic fundamentals.”

Consumer spending lackluster

Economists estimate that growth in consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, braked to below a 1.5 percent rate in the first quarter. That would be the slowest pace in nearly five years and follows the fourth quarter’s robust 4.0 percent growth rate.

Consumer spending in the last quarter was likely held back by delayed tax refunds and impact of tax cuts. Rebuilding and clean-up efforts following hurricanes late last year probably pulled forward spending into the fourth quarter.

“Our new consumer survey found that 37 percent of consumers thought they didn’t get any extra income from the tax cut or did not know what to do with it,” said Michelle Meyer, head of U.S. economics at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in New York. “It is possible this means that there is a lag in the consumer response to tax cuts.”

Business spending

Business spending on equipment is forecast to have slowed after double-digit growth in the second half of 2017. The expected cooling in equipment investment partly reflects a fading boost from a recovery in commodity prices. Economists expect a marginal impact on business spending on equipment from rising interest rates and more expensive raw materials.

“While we do not expect rising rates to crush equipment spending, a slowdown nevertheless appears in store,” said Sarah House, a senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities in Charlotte, North Carolina. “Higher interest rates will hurt at the margin.”

Investment in homebuilding is forecast to have declined in the first quarter after rebounding in the October-December period. Government spending probably contracted after two straight quarterly increases. Spending is, however, expected to rebound in the second quarter after the U.S. Congress recently approved more government spending.

Trade was likely a drag on GDP growth for a second straight quarter after royalties and broadcast license fees related to the Winter Olympics boosted imports.

With consumer spending slowing, inventories probably accumulated in the first quarter. Inventory investment is expected to have contributed to GDP growth after subtracting 0.53 percentage point in the fourth quarter.
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Amazon Delivers Profits, a $20 Prime Hike, NFL Games

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Amazon.com Inc. more than doubled its profit Thursday and predicted strong spring results as the world’s biggest online retailer raised the price for U.S. Prime subscribers, added U.S. football games and touted its cloud services for business.

The results showed the broad strength of the company, which has been expanding far beyond shipping packages, the business that has drawn the ire of U.S. President Donald Trump.

The forecast beat expectations on Wall Street, sending shares up 7 percent to a new record in afterhours trade and adding $8 billion to the net worth of Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive and largest shareholder.

Seattle-based Amazon is winning business from older, big box rivals by delivering virtually any product to customers at a low cost, and at times faster than it takes to buy goods from a physical store. It is expanding across industries, too, striking a $130 million deal to stream Thursday night games for the U.S. National Football League online and working to ship groceries to doorsteps from Whole Foods stores nationwide.

Sales jumped 43 percent to $51.0 billion in the quarter, topping estimates of $49.8 billion, according to Thomson Reuters.

Prime now $119

Prime, Amazon’s loyalty club that includes fast shipping, video streaming and other benefits, has been key to Amazon’s strategy. Its more than 100 million members globally spend above average on Amazon.

The company announced Thursday it will increase the yearly price of Prime to $119 from $99 for U.S. members this spring.

The fee hike is expected to add a windfall to Amazon’s subscription revenue, already up 60 percent in the first quarter at $3.1 billion.

“We do feel it’s still the best deal in retail,” Brian Olsavsky, Amazon’s chief financial officer, said on a call with analysts. He said the number of items Prime members can get within two days had grown fivefold since the last price increase four years ago.

Advertising and the cloud

Despite the surge in shopping, Olsavsky gave credit for Amazon’s $1.6 billion profit last quarter to two younger businesses: advertising and Amazon Web Services.

Revenue from third-party sellers paying to promote their products on Amazon.com was an unusually large bright spot during the quarter, with sales in the category, which includes some other items, growing 139 percent to $2.03 billion. This included $560 million from an accounting change.

Amazon Web Services (AWS), which handles data and computing for large enterprises in the cloud, won new business and saw its profit margin expand. It posted a 49 percent rise in sales from a year earlier to $5.44 billion, beating estimates.

Amazon remains the biggest in the space by revenue, and its stock trades at a significant premium to cloud-computing rival Microsoft Corp.

Amazon’s shares have also outperformed the S&P 500, rising 30 percent this year as of Thursday’s market close, compared with the S&P’s less than 1 percent decline.

More workers, spending

Notorious for running on a low profit margin, Amazon has still reaped rewards for shareholders as it has bet on new services like voice-controlled computing and has expanded across continents and industries.

Global headcount was up 60 percent from a year earlier at 563,100 full-time and part-time employees, thanks to a hiring spree and an influx of workers from Whole Foods Market.

The company plans to increase its video content spending this year, Amazon’s Olsavsky said, with a prequel to “The Lord of the Rings” in the works. The third quarter will also see extra spending to prepare for the busy holiday season.

Amazon is working with JPMorgan Chase & Co and Berkshire Hathaway Inc to determine how to cut health costs for hundreds of thousands of their employees.

And it is expanding its retail footprint outside the United States, particularly in India. Amazon’s international operating loss grew 29 percent to $622 million in the first quarter.
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Report: Immigration Officials Seek to Prosecute Parents Illegally Entering US

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U.S. immigration officials are pushing for a change in policy to be allowed to prosecute parents caught crossing into the country illegally with their children, The Washington Post reported.

In a memo obtained by The Post, the officials say that threatening adults with criminal charges and prison time would be the “most effective” way to end illegal immigration.

But if enforced, the policy would also split up thousands of families. The memo does say parents who turn themselves in would not be prosecuted.

The current policy allows parents to be released and reunited with their children while they await civil deportation proceedings.

The memo sent to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen on Monday was signed by acting Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Thomas Homan, Director of Citizenship and Immigration Services L. Francis Cissna and Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin K. McAleenan, The Post reports.

The memo warned that the number of attempted crossings by parents with children will continue to rise if Nielsen does not act. It said nearly 700 attempts were made per day last week, the highest level since 2016.

It said the Trump administration tried this approach in the Border Patrol’s El Paso sector, which covers West Texas and New Mexico, between July 2017 and November 2017. As a result of that experiment, it said, the number of families trying to cross illegally fell 64 percent.

The Post quoted the memo as saying, “This decrease was attributed to the prosecution of adults. … Of note, the numbers began rising again after the initiative was paused.”
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Women Protest After Spanish Court Clears 5 of Rape Charges

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Outraged Spaniards filled the streets across the country Thursday to march against what many considered to be the light punishment for five men charged with raping a teenage girl in 2016.

The three-judge court in Pamplona sentenced the defendants to nine years in prison for the crime of sexual abuse, instead of the 22 years they could have gotten if convicted of rape.

Protests against the verdict erupted in Pamplona and soon spread to other major cities, including Madrid and Barcelona.

Marchers banged on pots and chanted “No means no” and “It’s not abuse — it’s rape.”

“I am asking myself what is happening with the justice system in Spain and in the world,” a female student from Madrid told reporters. “It is mind-blowing, what is happening here. This is a clear example that the masculine laws rule.”

The five defendants, who had dubbed themselves “The Pack,” were accused of dragging the 18-year-old victim into a building in Pamplona, raping her and capturing their crime on smartphones. They were also accused of stealing the young woman’s cellphone to stop her from calling for help.

Under the Spanish criminal code, rape is classified as a violent crime, while sexual abuse means there was no violence.

The defense argued the sex was consensual; prosecutors said it was not.

In addition to prison time, the judges ordered the five men to pay the victim $61,000. Their lawyers can appeal.
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Boko Haram Attack Repelled in Nigeria

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Nigerian forces repelled an attack by Boko Haram militants in the northeast city of Maiduguri on Thursday, the military said in a statement, the second such clash in a month.

Blasts and gunfire were heard earlier by residents in the city which is the capital of Borno, the state worst hit by the insurgency aimed at creating an Islamic caliphate in the northeast which has killed more than 30,000 people since 2009.

President Muhammadu Buhari, who took office in 2015 vowing to end the insurgency, has made it a priority to improve security in Africa’s most populous country. The issue has become politically charged in the run-up to an election next year which Buhari said he wants to contest.

“Troops of Operation Lafiya Dole have in the late hours of today, Thursday 26 April 2018, successful repelled Boko Haram terrorist incursion in the outskirt of Jidari Polo area of Maiduguri,” the military said in an emailed statement.

Boko Haram militants attempted to enter Maiduguri earlier this month, fighting soldiers in an attack in which at least 15 people were killed and 83 injured.

In the course of fighting the latest attack, the military said troops had been supported by the air force, police and other security agencies.

Witnesses had reported a heavy military presence and crowded streets as people attempted to flee to safety.

The general public and residents who fled the area earlier were urged to return home, the military statement said.

The government has been saying since December 2015 that the jihadist group has been defeated but high profile attacks in the last few months — including the kidnap of 111 schoolgirls from the town of Dapchi and a strike in the town of Rann that killed three aid workers — has shown the jihadists remain active. Nigeria’s government last month said it was in talks with Boko Haram, which split into two main factions in 2016, with the aim of securing a permanent ceasefire.

The government has not disclosed which elements of Boko Haram it is in discussions with and it was also not clear which faction carried out the latest attack.
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Three US Senators Move to Block F-35 Transfers to Turkey

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Three U.S. senators introduced a measure Thursday aimed at blocking the transfer of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter to Turkey, a NATO ally and one of nine partner nations involved in producing the high-tech, radar-evading aircraft.

The bill, by Republicans James Lankford and Thom Tillis, and Democrat Jeanne Shaheen, comes at a time of deteriorating relations between the United States and Turkey, which supported the fight against Islamic State but has become increasingly worried about U.S. backing for Kurdish fighters in north Syria.

The three senators, in introducing the bill, issued a statement expressing concern that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had embarked on a “path of reckless governance and disregard for the rule of law.”

“Turkey’s strategic decisions regrettably fall more and more out of line with, and at times in contrast to, U.S. interests. These factors make the transfer of sensitive F-35 technology and cutting-edge capabilities to Erdogan’s regime increasingly risky,” Lankford said in the statement.

The Turkish embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Erdogan declared a state of emergency in Turkey following an attempted coup in July 2016. Since then, he has detained tens of thousands of people, cracked down on dissent, and carried out purges in the military and bureaucracy. He charges that followers of a U.S.-based cleric were behind the coup attempt.

Erdogan has been a key U.S. ally in the fight against Islamic State but sent troops into the Kurdish-dominated Afrin region of northwestern Syria earlier this year and threatened to quash U.S. plans for a local security force in northern Syria.

The three senators voiced concern about Turkey’s detention of an American evangelical preacher, Andrew Brunson, a long-time resident of Turkey who was jailed during Erdogan’s crackdown.

“President Erdogan’s choice to take hostages and imprison innocent Americans, to try to gain leverage over the United States, is egregious and unlawful,” Shaheen said in the statement.

Turkey plans to buy more than 100 of the F-35 aircraft.

Turkish companies have been involved in producing parts for the fighter, and Ankara is scheduled to begin receiving its first aircraft within a year.

The bill would restrict the transfer of F-35s to Turkey and limit Ankara from receiving intellectual property or technical data needed to maintain and support the fighters.

It would allow the U.S. president to waive the restrictions by certifying Turkey is not taking steps that would undermine NATO security and not wrongfully detaining U.S. citizens.
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Texas Couple Charged With Forcing Guinean Child to Work

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A U.S. federal court charged a Texas couple Thursday with imposing forced labor on a child from Guinea from 2000 until she escaped from their home in 2016.

Mohamed Toure and Denise Cros-Toure of Fort Worth both face up to 20 years in prison if they are tried and convicted.

The government alleges the couple brought the unnamed girl from Guinea to the U.S. when she was 5 years old. She spoke no English.

The Toures are accused of forcing her to work in their home without pay for long hours cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, painting and caring for their children.

The charges say the couple took away the girl’s passport and physically abused her, denying her contact with her family in Guinea as well as a chance for an education.

The girl escaped the home in 2016 when she was 21 with the help of several former neighbors.

The couple has not yet entered a plea. The attorney for the Toures has yet to comment.
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