Month: May 2018

US Donates Military Aircraft to Cameroon

Posted on by SeeAF

The United States has given Cameroon two military aircraft to assist in the fight against Boko Haram militants. It adds to armored vehicles, U.S.-led training on landmine detection and the presence of U.S. Marines in the country.

This is the sound of one of the two planes donated by the U.S. taking off from the military air base in Yaounde on a reconnaissance flight Friday. On board are Cameroon defense minister Joseph Beti Assomo and the U.S. Ambassador to Cameroon Peter Henry Barlerin.

The two planes, according to Joseph Beti Assomo, are specialized in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. Each of the C208 aircraft possess inbuilt cameras that could capture images from the ground for up to 10 kilometers away.

Joseph Beti Assomo says he is particularly grateful because pilots and other crew members of the aircraft have been trained by the U.S. and the maintenance of the equipment will be assured for two years by the United States.

He says Cameroon is very grateful to the people of America who have not relented in helping its military to combat Boko Haram terrorism. He says his country’s military will use the aircraft to protect not only its citizens and national territory from Boko Haram atrocities, but will also join troops of the Lake Chad Basin Commission to free Nigeria, Chad and Niger from the pain inflicted on them by terrorists.

The United States has been supporting Cameroon its fight against Boko Haram. In 2015, it handed a consignment of U.S. military equipment to Central African nations that deployed a regional military force to counter Boko Haram’s insurgency in Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad.

That year the United States had declared Boko Haram a foreign terrorist organization and placed a $7 million bounty on the terror group leader Shekau to help bring him to justice.

In 2016, the United States trained the Cameroon military in detecting and counteracting landmines and explosive devices when the increasing use of landmines and suicide bombings by Boko Haram militants was reported.

In October 2015 and as part of an effort to assist the central African state and other regional governments in their efforts to battle extremist groups, the United States deployed approximately 90 troops to Cameroon to provide airborne intelligence, surveillance and other reconnaissance operations at the request and invitation of the Cameroonian government.

The U.N. refugee agency estimates approximately 26 million people in the Lake Chad region have been affected by the Boko Haram violence, and more than 2.6 million displaced in the conflict that has entered its 9th year.
…

your ad here

US Would Offer North Korea ‘Security Assurances’ if It Ended Nuclear Program

Posted on by SeeUS

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday that if North Korea agrees to full denuclearization, the United States is prepared to “provide security assurances” for the Pyongyang government and allow private American investment to build out the country’s woefully inadequate electrical grid.

“We will have to provide security assurances, to be sure,” the top U.S. diplomat told Fox News. “This is a trade-off that has been pending for 25 years.”

He said that until President Donald Trump, “No president has ever put America in a position where the North Korean leadership thought that this was truly possible, that the Americans would actually do this, leading to the place where America was no longer held at risk by the North Korean regime. That’s the objective.”

Watch related video by VOA’s Michael Bowman:

​After meeting twice with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang, Pompeo said he is “convinced” that Kim “shares the objective of the American people.”

Pompeo said the goal of the June 12 summit between Kim and Trump in Singapore is to “set out those markers” where terms of denuclearization and security assurances could be negotiated and finalized.

In a separate interview on CBS News, Pompeo said that in nuclear negotiations over the years, North Korea has not “proved worthy of their promises.  But we’re hopeful that this will be different, that we won’t do the traditional model where they do something, and we give them a bunch of money, and then both sides walk away.  We’re hoping this will be bigger, different, faster. Our ask is complete and total denuclearization of North Korea, and it is the president’s intention to achieve that.”

Pompeo told Fox that if denuclearization is achieved, the U.S. would allow “private sector Americans… help build out the energy grid that needs enormous amounts of electricity in North Korea.” He also said Americans would also help invest in North Korean infrastructure and agriculture if Pyongyang meets U.S. demands on ending its nuclear weapons program.

However, in a CNN interview, national security adviser John Bolton ruled out direct economic aid from the U.S. government to North Korea. He credited the “maximum pressure” of Trump’s economic sanctions on North Korea to Kim’s announced willingness to abandon the country’s nuclear weapons program.

Pyongyang says it is dismantling its nuclear bomb test site sometime between May 23 and 25 and said that western observers would be allowed in to watch as tunnels at the site are collapsed with explosives and research buildings and security posts destroyed.

Pompeo said, “Every single site that the North Koreans have that can inflict risk upon the American people that is destroyed, eliminated, dismantled is good news for the American people and for the world. And so this is one step along the way.”

On Saturday, Trump said on Twitter, “Thank you, a very smart and gracious gesture!” Trump said Saturday on Twitter.

While the U.S. expressed willingness for private investment in North Korea, Bolton said that renewed economic sanctions against Iran after Trump’s withdrawal of the U.S. from the 2015 international accord restraining Tehran’s nuclear program could be “quite dramatic.” He described Iran’s economy as “quite shaky.”

European allies of the U.S. opposed Trump’s abrogation of the Iran pact. Bolton said it is possible that the U.S. could block European companies from doing business in the U.S. if they continue to do business with Iran.

 

 
…

your ad here

Erdogan Arrives in UK Before Meetings with Queen, PM

Posted on by SeeEU

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has arrived in Britain two days before meetings with Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Theresa May.

Before leaving Istanbul for London on Sunday, Erdogan called the U.K. a “strategic partner and ally” and said he would be discussing bilateral, regional and international issues with May on Tuesday. They include the latest developments in Cyprus, where Turkey and Britain act as guarantors, and a “joint action plan” in the Middle East, especially in Syria, Iraq and Iran.

Erdogan said his three-day visit would also focus on increasing Turkey-Britain trade.

He said that “we want to continue our economic relations as the governments of Turkey and the United Kingdom without interruptions after Brexit.”

Erdogan will also be speaking at think tank Chatham House and meeting investors.
…

your ad here

Two British Hostages Freed in DRC

Posted on by SeeAF

Two British tourists kidnapped in the Democratic Republic of Congo have been released, Britain’s foreign minister Boris Johnson said Sunday.

A park ranger was killed in the kidnapping Friday, which took place in the village of Kibati near the edge of Virunga National Park, just north of Goma.

“My thoughts are now with the family of Virunga Park ranger Rachel Makissa Baraka who was killed during the kidnapping, and with the injured driver,” Johnson said in a statement.

“I pay tribute to the DRC authorities and the Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation for their tireless help during this terrible case,” the statement went on, without providing further details of the kidnapping.

Virunga National Park is home to around one quarter of the world’s remaining mountain gorilla population.

 

 

 
…

your ad here

South African Photographer of Iconic Protest Image Dies

Posted on by SeeAF

Tributes are being paid following the death of Sam Nzima, the South African photographer who took the iconic image of a black high school student carrying a fatally wounded fellow student away from the gunfire of apartheid police in the Soweto student riots of 1976.

Nzima, 83, died Saturday night in a hospital in the northwestern city of Nelspruit, said his son, Thulani Nzima. He said the photographer had collapsed two days earlier but did not recover in the hospital.

 

Nzima’s photograph of the Soweto student uprising galvanized international public opinion against apartheid, South Africa’s system of racial discrimination that ended in 1994.

“Sam Nzima was one of a kind,” said President Cyril Ramaphosa, in a statement Sunday. “His camera captured the full brutality of apartheid oppression on the nation’s psyche and history.”

Nzima’s photo of the dying Hector Pieterson and strength of the student, Mbuyisa Makhubu, carrying him away from the violence “caused the world to come to terms with the brutality and evil of the apartheid system,” said South Africa’s ruling party, the African National Congress, in a statement. “This came at a price to Nzima who was subjected to countless acts of intimidation.”

Harassed by the apartheid regime, Nzima left Johannesburg and in 1998 won the copyright for the much reproduced photo. In his later years he taught photography to young students in rural Bushbuckridge.
…

your ad here

Melania Trump Steps Onto Public Stage Amid White House Scandals, Controversies

Posted on by SeeUS

U.S. first lady Melania Trump stepped into the limelight this month as she launched her official platform to address major issues facing children today. Since becoming the first lady, Mrs. Trump has kept a relatively low profile amid the turmoil and controversies surrounding the Trump White House, but experts say Mrs. Trump, who enjoys a higher approval rating than her husband, may be ready to take on a more public role. VOA White House Correspondent Peggy Chang has more from the White House.
…

your ad here

Perry Halts Nuclear Arms-Into-Fuel Project

Posted on by SeeUS

Energy Secretary Rick Perry has formally ended construction of a facility meant to reprocess weapons-grade plutonium and uranium into fuel for reactors, a key element of the nation’s commitment to containing the global nuclear threat. 

 

Perry executed a waiver Thursday to terminate construction of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. 

 

A day earlier, Perry called it a “historically questionable” expenditure in testimony before Congress about the Trump administration’s 2019 budget proposal, which includes $220 million toward closing the project, and $59 million toward replacing it with a so-called “dilute and dispose” approach to surplus nuclear material.

Facility over budget, behind schedule 

The MOX was initially slated to open in 2016, blending weapons-grade plutonium and uranium into commercial reactor fuel. But its estimated construction cost soared from $1.4 billion in 2004 to more than $17 billion. About $5 billion had been spent by last year, with completion not expected until 2048.

 

The MOX was proposed as part of the US-Russia nuclear nonproliferation agreement in 2000. Since then, the idea of converting potential weapons into safe energy has helped persuade leaders in multiple countries to surrender their nuclear material before it could fall into dangerous hands. 

 

With MOX being discontinued, the National Nuclear Security Administration has proposed installing pits to store plutonium waste, 50 per year at the Savannah River Site and 30 per year at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

 

A news release from NNSA said the two-pronged approach involving the pits “is the best way to manage the cost, schedule, and risk of such a vital undertaking.”

South Carolina to fight move

 

Rep. Rick Allen, a Republican from Georgia, criticized the move Friday, saying he still believes “MOX is the most viable way forward to dispose of our weapons grade plutonium,” but he also supports installing pits at the Savannah River Site, which will continue to provide jobs in the local economy. 

 

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster called dilute-and-dispose “not logical” during a March question-and-answer session in North Augusta.

 

“The Department of Energy has been trying to shut down the MOX project for years, breaking a promise to the people of South Carolina and breaking federal law along the way,” McMaster said. “We will not accept it, and we will fight every step of the way to make sure South Carolina’s interests are protected.”

 

Several studies are needed and environmental concerns are to be addressed before dilute-and-dispose can fully proceed, according to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency letter sent April 2. The EPA said agency involvement in the matter at this point would be premature.
…

your ad here

Hometown Celebrates Markle’s Sparkling Personality, Charitable Works

Posted on by SeeUS

People in her hometown of Los Angeles remember actress Meghan Markle as a charitable young girl who sparkled on stage. Next week the entire world will be watching Markle as she officially ties the knot to England’s most eligible bachelor. VOA Correspondent Mariama Diallo takes a look at Markle’s fairy tale life and the prince that some say is the lucky one.
…

your ad here

Smuggled Iraqi Artifacts Are Returned Home

Posted on by SeeEA

More than 4,000 ancient Iraqi artifacts that were smuggled into the United States almost a decade ago are going home. They were brought into the country illegally by the arts and crafts store chain Hobby Lobby. In July 2017, the Department of Justice brought a civil complaint against the store, and Hobby Lobby agreed to pay a $3 million fine and to return the artifacts to Iraqi authorities. Sandzhar Khamidov has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.
…

your ad here

US Opening Jerusalem Embassy on Territorial Anomaly 

Posted on by SeeEA

The Jerusalem no man’s land where the U.S. says part of its new embassy to Israel will be located is a territorial quirk of the Arab-Israeli conflict, a quirk that originated at the start of hostilities in 1948.

The U.S. will inaugurate the embassy Monday in an existing consular complex at the southwestern corner of a no man’s land that appears as a five-sided box on contemporary U.S. government and Google maps of Jerusalem. That zone first appeared on a map in a much smaller form in May 1948.

At its heart is a compound known as Government House, built in 1933 on a strategic hilltop to serve as the headquarters of the British High Commissioner who ruled the then-British Mandate of Palestine.

When Britain ended its rule of Palestine on May 14, 1948, it withdrew from Government House and handed the keys to the Red Cross, which a day earlier had declared a Red Cross Zone around the site. The rectangular-shaped area was meant to be a safe haven for refugees from the war that erupted May 14, as Israel declared independence and Arab nations declared a war to destroy the Jewish state.

​Fighting in the area persisted, prompting a U.N. Central Truce Supervision Board to create a Neutral Zone around the Red Cross Zone, Aug. 27, 1948, to try to push the combatants farther away.

The Red Cross pulled out of Government House, Sept. 30, 1948, and handed it to the United Nations, which converted the building into a base of the U.N. Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO). U.N. personnel demanded that Israeli and Arab forces continue to stay out of the former Red Cross/Neutral Zone around Government House, essentially turning the area into a U.N.-mandated demilitarized zone.

Israel and Jordan, one of the warring Arab nations, signed an armistice agreement on the Greek island of Rhodes, April 3, 1949, and attached to the document several maps with hand-drawn armistice demarcation lines between their forces.

In Jerusalem, where the fighting left Israel in control of the city’s western part and put Jordan in control of the east, the two sides were unable to agree on a single line dividing the city between them. So they drew two sets of lines representing where they thought their boundaries should be, with the Israelis drawing a line farther east and the Jordanians drawing a line farther west. The agreement referred to the gap in the armistice lines as an “area between the lines” in which neither side was permitted to send its civilians or security forces.

Through most of Jerusalem, the dual armistice lines ran close together, creating gaps from a few meters to a few hundred meters wide. But in the area around Government House, the lines widened considerably as Israel and Jordan agreed to put UNTSO’s broad demilitarized zone between them. UNTSO wielded authority in the Israeli-Jordanian conflict, not just as the mediator of a Mixed Armistice Commission that included delegates of both sides, but also as the arbiter of their armistice disputes.

In a quirk of the April 3, 1949, map, the southern perimeter of the U.N. demilitarized zone around Government House disappeared. As the dual armistice lines moved south of that zone, they narrowed slightly but remained some distance apart as they looped toward the west.

Within weeks, the lines changed again. In a new, unpublished map signed by Israel and Jordan, April 23, 1949, and seen by VOA, the two sides reinstated the southern perimeter of the zone around UNTSO. They also removed the wide gaps between the lines running through southern and northern Jerusalem in the April 3 map, merging the dual armistice lines into single lines.

A stretch of the Jerusalem-to-Tel Aviv railway that had been in southern Jerusalem’s no man’s land was now in sovereign Israeli territory, while the no man’s land around the Arab village of Beit Iksa, north of Jerusalem, became part of Jordan.

The Israeli-Jordanian armistice lines of April 23, 1949, later were replicated in U.S. government maps of Jerusalem that have been published and mirrored in Google’s online map of the region.

In the weeks after signing the second armistice map of Jerusalem, Israel and Jordan kept haggling over the fate of the zone around UNTSO. In his 2002 book Jerusalem Divided: The Armistice Regime 1947-1967, Israeli scholar Raphael Israeli wrote that the zone “constituted a large and well-located urban area coveted for civilian and economic development.”

Besides Government House, the zone also contained a Jewish agricultural school and farmland as well as parts of Jabel Mukaber, an Arab village.

Israeli, a former Mixed Armistice Commission delegate, said Israel and Jordan decided, without consulting UNTSO, to divide the zone between them except for the Government House compound, creating three sectors: an Israeli sector in the west, a Jordanian sector in the east, and a small UNTSO sector in the middle.

In the following years, Israel and Jordan allowed their civilians and even security personnel to operate within their respective sectors. But each side occasionally complained to UNTSO about the activities of the other side, and they never formalized the partition on a legally binding map.

Despite the lack of an official agreement, Israel drew the partition onto its own maps of the zone around UNTSO. One such map, published by Israel’s surveying department in 1958, shows a thin green line bisecting the zone into western and eastern sectors and surrounding UNTSO’s compound in the center. The Israeli foreign ministry’s online map of the 1949 armistice lines also shows the partition.

It is not clear if Jordan ever marked the partition on its maps. The Jordanian government did not respond to a VOA request for official maps from the period and declined to comment on the issue.

In the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, Israel captured the entire zone around UNTSO, as well as eastern districts of Jerusalem that had been under Jordan’s sovereignty. Jordanian forces had seized UNTSO’s compound at the start of the six-day conflict, but Israel pushed them out and later allowed UNTSO to resume its use of the compound.

The war also enabled Israel to draw a new municipal boundary for Jerusalem, annexing former Jordanian territory and the areas between the armistice lines and proclaiming them to be part of a new, united capital of the nation — a move never recognized by the U.N.

Jordan’s King Hussein renounced his territorial claims to the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem in a July 31, 1988, national address, saying those territories should become part of an independent Palestinian state.

In a comment to The New York Times in March, Palestine Liberation Organization negotiator Ashraf Khatib said the zone around UNTSO should be part of negotiations to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in which that zone is one of the biggest territorial anomalies.
…

your ad here

Sanders: Aide’s McCain Comment Shouldn’t Have Leaked

Posted on by SeeUS

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told staffers Friday that an aide’s recent comment about Sen. John McCain was inappropriate but shouldn’t have been leaked to the media.

Sanders told communications’ staffers in a private meeting that it was inappropriate for aide Kelly Sadler to dismiss McCain’s opinion during a recent closed-door meeting because, Sadler said, “he’s dying anyway.”

Sanders said the leak was selfish and distracted from the president’s agenda and “everything we’re trying to accomplish for the American people,” according to a person familiar with the meeting who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the private meeting. She noted that it garnered attention following the president’s welcoming home of three Americans detained in North Korea and an upcoming summit with Kim Jong Un in Singapore.

During the meeting, White House director of strategic communications Mercedes Schlapp defended Sadler, saying the private comments shouldn’t have been leaked to the media, the person said.

Sanders declined to condemn Sadler’s comments during a White House briefing on Friday, saying she wouldn’t “validate a leak out of an internal staff meeting.”

McCain, the 81-year-old Arizona GOP senator, was diagnosed in July with glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer. He left Washington in December and underwent surgery last month for an infection.

Sadler is a special assistant to the president. She has declined to respond to requests for comment on her McCain remark.
…

your ad here

NASA to Send Tiny Helicopter to Mars 

Posted on by SeeUS

NASA is planning to send a tiny autonomous helicopter to Mars on its next rover mission to the red planet.

The space agency announced Friday that the helicopter will be carried aboard the Mars 2020 rover as a technology demonstration to test its ability to serve as a scout and to reach locations not accessible by ground.

The helicopter is being developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

The craft weighs less than 4 pounds (1.8 kilograms), has a fuselage about the size of a softball and twin, counter-rotating blades that will spin at almost 3,000 rpm — a necessity in the thin Martian atmosphere. Solar cells will charge its lithium-ion batteries.

Flights will be programmed because the distance to Mars precludes real-time commands from Earth.
…

your ad here

McCain Still Up for a Fight, Even in Illness

Posted on by SeeUS

John McCain is not signing off quietly.

As in so much of the senator’s extraordinary life, the rebellious Republican is facing this challenging chapter — battling brain cancer — in his own rule-breaking way, stirring up old fights and starting new ones. Rarely has the sickbed been so lively.

McCain is promoting a new book, delivering a counterpunch of ideals contrary to President Donald Trump’s running of the White House. McCain’s long-distance rejection of CIA director nominee Gina Haspel’s history with torture goaded former Vice President Dick Cheney into a fresh debate over waterboarding and other now-banned interrogation techniques. On Friday, friends rallied to defend McCain against a White House official’s cruel joke that his positions don’t matter because “he’s dying anyway.”

If this is Washington’s long goodbye to a sometimes favorite son, it’s also a reemergence of old resentments and political fault lines that continue to split the nation.

Perhaps no one should have expected anything less from the 81-year-old senator, who can be crotchety and cantankerous but is also seen by many, both in and out of politics, as an American hero, flaws and all.

Former Vice President Joe Biden said Friday as McCain “fights for his life, he deserves better — so much better.”

Our children learn from our example,'' Biden said.The lingering question is: Whose example will it be? I am certain it will be John’s.”

Said House Speaker Paul Ryan, “His legacy is so long that John McCain is a hero to us all.”

McCain was diagnosed in July with glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer. He left Washington in December and few expect him to return. Up-and-down reports of his health shift every few days.

A steady stream of visitors have stopped by the McCain family ranch in Arizona — including Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York, on Friday.

Close friend and political ally Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., visited McCain this week, and the two watched an old movie and talked about McCain’s imprint on politics.

Graham said he told McCain he will leave behind a long list of Republicans — and Democrats — he has mentored, Graham included.

Your legacy is the people you affected,'' Graham said he told his friend.John McCain’s going to have a hell of a legacy.”

Not everyone, though, is so keen to listen to McCain these days.

Most Republican senators are not heeding his advice to reject Haspel, who was chief of base of a detention site where terror suspects were waterboarded. McCain lived through years of captivity during the Vietnam War.

Trump has suggested reviving the now-banned brutal interrogation techniques. And Cheney, who was an architect of the post-Sept. 11, 2001, strategy, said he would keep the program active and ready for deployment, and doesn’t think it amounted to torture.

“People want to go back and try to rewrite history, but if it were my call, I’d do it again,” Cheney told Fox Business.

One retired Air Force general, Tom McInerney, called McCain “songbird John” on the same station this week for allegedly providing information to the North Vietnamese while he was a prisoner of war. McCain has said he gave inaccurate information after being tortured. Fox said McInerney would not be invited back on its business or news channels.

Still, one of McCain’s longtime sparring partners, Sen. Rand Paul R-Ky., re-affirmed his opposition to Haspel on Friday.

In explaining his opposition, Paul said, “We shouldn’t reward somebody who participated in torture, really still has trouble saying and articulating that it’s an immoral thing.”

Just a few years ago, McCain called Paul and fellow Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, “wacko birds” for their filibuster blocking then-CIA nominee John Brennan. McCain later apologized.

After McCain’s recent hospitalization for an intestinal infection, Graham said he was worried about his old friend’s health. But after seeing him this week, he decided McCain will “be with us for a while.”

The two weren’t quite yet saying their goodbyes. In fact, “there’s not talk of funerals, there’s talk of the future,” Graham said.

They watched a classic Western, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance'' -- with McCain narrating along the way in words that cannot be repeated -- and talked about McCain's book, which Graham says couldn't have come at a better time.I told him it should be required reading,” he said.

It’s a story about the country, and “even though we make our share of mistakes, we’re always trying to make it a more perfect union,” Graham said.
…

your ad here

21 Fare Hike Protesters Arrested in Egypt

Posted on by SeeEA

Egyptian police arrested 21 people for taking part in rare protests against the government’s surprise decision to hike fares on Cairo’s subway as part of austerity measures meant to overhaul the economy, officials said Saturday.

The arrests, mostly at Helwan metro station on the southern outskirts of Cairo, took place two days after the government announced the second round of subway fare hikes since March 2017. The hikes were by up to 250 percent, raising fares from 2 to up to 7 Egyptian pounds (11 U.S. cents to 39 cents), depending on the number of stations commuters travel.

Videos circulating online show dozens of outraged commuters yelling and chanting anti-government slogans at Cairo metro stations, with some jumping over electronic ticket gates to avoid paying fares. Other videos showed plainclothes policemen scuffling with protesters while trying to arrest them. One showed a woman berating the men at the station for not being brave enough to challenge the hikes.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.

Although small, Saturday’s protests were the first by Egyptians angered by the government’s austerity measures, which started in 2014 but escalated after a deal was struck in 2016 with the International Monetary Fund for a $12 billion loan.

Money for maintenance

The government said the latest hike in metro fares was designed to secure maintenance funds for the poorly maintained network as its owning company, which has been operating in the red for years, grapples with mounting debts. It also said the higher fares would contribute to the purchase of new trains and improved services.

Nearly 5 million people a day in the city of 20 million use the Cairo metro. Running along three lines, it is by far the fastest mode of transport, since nightmarish traffic jams can leave streets gridlocked for hours on end. Only some trains are air-conditioned, leaving people on other trains sweltering in the punishing summer heat. Commuters sometimes face 15- or 20-minute waits, making packed rush-hour trains even more crowded.

The latest hike in fares is also part of a government drive to lift subsidies on basic items and services and introduce new taxes to overhaul the country’s battered economy; this has included raising fuel prices, electricity and water charges and introducing a value added tax. Those actions met demands by the IMF for the $12 billion bailout loan.

Pro-government media sought to justify the hikes, with one TV presenter saying it was meant to test the faith of Egyptians. Some newspapers published the much higher metro fares in foreign countries to show that fares on the Cairo metro remained among the world’s cheapest. The comments triggered a flood of satirical comments on social media.

Just too expensive

Regular metro users told The Associated Press outside a busy Cairo metro station near Tahrir Square that the new fares were beyond the reach of many households. Among them were Omar Farouk, 17, and his two sisters, who were concerned about how their family would be able to afford weekly visits to relatives in a Cairo suburb, more than 16 stations away from home.

“We are a family of seven. Imagine the money we’d have to pay for a round trip,” Farouk said. “The price hikes are understandable generally, but making it dependent on the number of stations is too tough for us.”

Similarly, high-school student Abdel-Rahman Tarek blamed the government, saying it should have been “fairer” and “more considerate” of people’s conditions.

Egypt embarked on its economic reform program shortly after President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi took office in 2014. The general-turned-president has frequently pleaded with Egyptians to brace for tough austerity measures, promising this would spur economic recovery and attract foreign investment.
…

your ad here

Iraqis Head to Polls

Posted on by SeeEA

Iraqi citizens voted for members of a new parliament, May 12, 2018. It was the first such election since Islamic State militants were driven out of the cities, towns and villages inhabited by millions of people.
…

your ad here

Israel Closes Border Crossing After Palestinian Protesters Break In

Posted on by SeeEA

Israel has closed a border crossing with Gaza a day after it was damaged during Palestinian protests.

The military said dozens of Palestinians on Friday broke into the Kerem Shalom terminal and set a gas pipeline alight. The blaze damaged the pipeline and a conveyor belt that transfers goods in and out of the territory.

Israel said the crossing will remain closed until the damage is repaired and the situation assessed. Meanwhile, it is expected to be open for only humanitarian cases, the military said.

Kerem Shalom is one of three main border crossings between Gaza, Israel, and Egypt. It is the one where most goods pass through on a daily basis.

Friday’s damage occurred during what have become weekly protests by Palestinians over Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian territory governed by the Hamas Islamic organization. A year after Hamas won power in Gaza’s 2006 legislative elections, Israel and Egypt placed a blockade on the territory, which has hindered economic growth and exacerbated poverty in Gaza.

On Friday, the Gaza Health Ministry said one Palestinian was killed and 49 were injured when members of the Israeli army fired on protesters near the border fence with Israel and the Gazan city of Khan Younis.

In a statement Friday, the Israeli Defense Forces said about 5,000 Palestinians took part in the protests, most of which it said were peaceful. IDF said it only targets protesters who threaten the border.

Protests at the border have been taking place for weeks over the decade-long blockade of the Palestinian territory, where many families live in poverty. The IDF said some of the protesters have been burning tires, hurling rocks or homemade explosives, or even flying kites with burning rags attached over the border with Israel.

Israeli forces have responded with tear gas and gunshots.

 

The protests come just before Monday’s opening of the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, and Tuesday’s 70th anniversary of the founding of Israel.

The Palestinians have nicknamed Israel’s founding “an-Nakba,” or “catastrophe,” because it led to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians being forced from their homes in what had been the state of Palestine.
…

your ad here

Somalia: 13 militants, 4 Civilians Killed in Market Blast, Fighting

Posted on by SeeAF

Clashes between Somali army troops backing local villagers and al-Shabab militants have left at least 13 of the militant fighters dead, witnesses and officials said.

The clashes in central Somalia Saturday started after armed al-Shabab militants tried to impose taxes on residents of Halfoley, a rural village near the town of Jalalaqsi, in the Hiran region.

Abdi Dahir Guure, the district commissioner of the region’s Bulabarde town, told VOA Somali that government soldiers, backing cattle herders, engaged in more than five hours of fierce battle with the militants.

“The battle erupted at around 7 a.m. local time when heavily armed militants attacked the villagers after refusing an earlier order by militants in which they asked local pastoralists to hand over some of their livestock as a zakat demand, or tax,” said Guure. “Government army forces, sent there to protect the pastoralists, immediately joined the battle, killing at least 13 militants.”

Somali government officials in the region said other units of the Somali national army had moved into other villages in the region to prevent militants from re-organizing and counter-attacking pastoralists.

Multiple Independent witnesses contacted by VOA confirmed the government claim, saying they saw the bodies of at least 13 militants. Two local pastoralists also were injured during the battle.

Clashes involving pastoralists resisting al-Shabab taxes began in Somalia’s Hiran and Middle Shabelle regions in 2013.

In a separate incident, a blast in a market in the Bulomarer District, some 150 kilometers south of Mogadishu, where African Union peacekeepers from Uganda are stationed, left four civilians dead and five others injured.

“An explosive device apparently planted in a livestock market went off, killing four innocent civilians and five others were injured,” Muhidiin Khalif Aliyow, a local official in the town told the VOA Somali Service.

“I heard an explosion, and minutes after looked outside and saw a kiosk in flames and the dead bodies of four civilians and several cattle,” a witness told VOA on the condition of anonymity.

The blast occurred in mid-afternoon, as some government forces were checking cars at a nearby military post.

It was not immediately clear who was behind the blast, but local security officials blame al-Shabab, a terrorist group.

On Wednesday, an explosion killed at least 10 people and wounded 15 in a market where the stimulant leaf khat is sold in the town of Wanlaweyn, in the same Lower Shabelle region, about 90 kilometers to the northwest of the capital, Mogadishu.

Somali government officials have warned repeatedly this week about the possibility of increased terror attacks by militants during the Islamic holy month ofRamadan.

The clashes and the al-Shabab blasts against civilians, however, came as the pastoralists and habitants in the southern regions already are struggling with heavy rain and flooding.

On Friday, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the heavy rain in Somalia’s Juba and Shabelle river basins continued to cause flooding, displacing an estimated 220,000 people.

 
…

your ad here

Cameroon’s Military, Humanitarian Workers Teach Returning Children

Posted on by SeeAF

In Cameroon’s far north region, hundreds of school children in Boko-Haram-affected areas have been returning to class, but their teachers, who fled the atrocities, are absent. The government is calling on them to return, but in the meantime, humanitarian workers and members of the military are providing the lessons for the students.

Haman Dewade, a 37-year-old staff sergeant in the Cameroon army, greets children at a government school in Fotokol, on Cameroon’s northern border with Nigeria. Dewade says he fought the Boko Haram insurgency for two years, beginning in 2015. VOA asked him how he found himself in the classroom as a teacher after the war.

He says the Cameroon military hierarchy has instructed them to teach children in preparation for exams, while expecting the teachers will eventually will see that peace gradually is being restored in what had been conflict zones so they can return home and resume their teaching jobs.

 

​Sixteen-year-old Demayi Oumate is among the 14 children in this class. She fled with her parents to the neighboring town of Mora and returned last October. Oumate says the presence of the military in their school, and the fact that no major attack has taken place in Fotokol since they returned, is reassuring that peace really is taking hold.

She told VOA Friday morning the military gives them daily security guidelines before classes begin. 

“[They told me this morning that] I should be vigilant and try to detect any sign of fighting or of unknown persons in the school campus,” said Oumate. “My plan is to work more hard and then to be disciplined and always be obedient and avoid things that can make me fall in trouble in school.”

​There are 900 children in the school — down from about 3,000 in April 2015, when it was closed after Boko Haram fighters attacked Fotokol, killing 30 civilians and wounding another 50. Houses, mosques and schools were torched.

It is the only school out of three in the locality that has been opened. Villagers contribute to the safety of the school through self-defense groups they have created. They systematically search all children before they are given access to the school.

Asfamu Djoulde, leader of the Fotokol traditional council, says they also are educating parents to send their children to school.

He says their traditional rulers and the clergy have taken commitments and deployed self-defense groups to the school to make sure that all children returning can receive an education. He says they are educating villagers who continue to drag feet, emphasizing that their children can not make it in this world without an education.

 

​One hundred and twenty-four schools were closed due to Boko Haram atrocities in Cameroon’s far north region in 2015. When massive attacks by the insurgents diminished, suicide bombings intensified, making the government reluctant to re-open some of them. The government said more than 400 teachers fled for their lives. The government has told all of them to return to their classrooms or face disciplinary sanctions.

While waiting for their return, the children count on the military and humanitarian workers from United Nations agencies for their education.

While Cameroon has been calling on internally displaced persons to return, officials also are urging caution because the insurgents are using suicide bombers out of what authorities say is last-ditch desperation.

The U.N. Refugee Agency estimates approximately 26 million people in the Lake Chad region have been affected by the Boko Haram violence, and more than 2.6 million displaced.

Cameroon, Chad, Nigeria and Niger all have been calling on their displaced populations and refugees to voluntarily return, but to be vigilant. 
…

your ad here

Joy, Outrage as US Embassy Set to Open in Jerusalem

Posted on by SeeUS

With the opening Monday of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, the region is bracing for both celebrations and unrest.

The United States plans to host about 800 guests at an opening ceremony of its embassy. U.S. President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, will be on hand, while Trump addresses the ceremony via video, reaffirming his December 2017 decision to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv.

“I have determined that it is time to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel,” Trump said at the White House late last year. “While previous presidents have made this a major campaign promise, they failed to deliver. Today, I am delivering.”

WATCH: Joy and Outrage as US Embassy Set to Open in Jerusalem

 

National Security Advisor John Bolton points out that other presidents also said they would move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, but Trump is the only one to do it.

“That’s not simply something that has an effect on the conditions in Israel, but it says to world leader all around the world, when he says he’s going to do something, he does,” Bolton told VOA on Friday.

Most of the 850 U.S. Embassy workers will remain in Tel Aviv until a new embassy building is constructed in Jerusalem. Fifty of them will make up the initial staff at the new embassy, including U.S. Ambassador David Friedman.

Experts say the move is largely symbolic. But with Palestinians wanting to name East Jerusalem as a capital of their future state, this symbolism matters.

‘Contentious’ issue

Khaled Elgindy of the Brookings Institution notes both Republican and Democratic administrations have resisted moving the U.S. Embassy for the past 70 years.

“The United States, like most countries in the world, have maintained an embassy in Tel Aviv, rather than in Jerusalem, precisely because of the highly contentious nature of the issue of Jerusalem for Palestinians, for Israelis, for the Arab world, for the Muslim world, for Christians around the world, and of course for Jews as well,” he said.

Elgindy said the move was centered on U.S. domestic politics, namely a campaign pledge Trump made to his core supporters. 

“There is no national security interest that is gained by moving the embassy — to the contrary,” he said. “I think it destabilizes the region. It adds a level of instability and it also makes it much harder to negotiate peace between Israelis and Palestinians.”

Palestinians have protested Trump’s decision and are calling for more demonstrations next week. They want East Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war, as the capital of their future Palestinian state and feel that Trump gave away the “crown jewel” of peace negotiations.

Senior Palestinian official Nabil Shaath said Trump shattered any hope for the peace process. 

“What [Trump] has done is blow out the possibility of a peace process that was really never completed,” Shaath said.

Palestinian officials are no longer accepting the U.S. as a mediator, while Israeli leaders see the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem as a long-held dream come true.

‘Great moment’ for Israel

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the move would have long-term, positive ramifications.

“This is a great moment for the citizens of Israel and this is a historic moment for the state of Israel,” Netanyahu said during an Israeli Cabinet meeting in February.

Asked what concessions the United States had won from Israel in exchange for the move, a senior administration official said that was not what the decision was about. It was about doing what is best for America’s interests, the official said.

“There was no give-and-take with Israel with regard to this decision,” the official said during a background briefing with reporters.

The official said the Jerusalem embassy would be opening just five months after the president announced the decision, adding, as the president likes to say, “ahead of schedule and under budget.” 
…

your ad here

Chinese Soybean Purchases Plant Seeds of Concern for US Farmers

Posted on by SeeUS

As U.S. farmers head to their fields to plant this year’s crop, they face new challenges created by Chinese threats to impose tariffs on some of their products. It’s the latest salvo in an escalating trade dispute that has farmers warily watching fluctuating commodity prices as the United States Department of Agriculture projects net farm income in 2018 to reach a 12-year low. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh has more from Illinois.
…

your ad here

Joy and Outrage as US Embassy Set to Open in Jerusalem

Posted on by SeeUS

With the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem on Monday, the region is bracing for both celebrations and unrest. Experts say President Donald Trump’s decision to relocate the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv amounts to U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, a decision that has drawn praise from Israelis and angered Palestinians. VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from the State Department on Monday’s ceremony.
…

your ad here

Turkish Ambassador’s Residence Tells Many Tales

Posted on by SeeUS

The Everett House, which serves as the Turkish ambassador’s residence, is a Washington landmark. It is also famous as the one-time home of the Ertegun family, the brothers who would go on to found Atlantic records and change the sound of American jazz and pop music. But the Erteguns also played a role in Washington history by standing with African Americans in what was, at the time, a deeply segregated city. VOA’s Ozlem Tinaz reports.
…

your ad here

Top Diplomats From Britain, France, Germany to Discuss Iran Deal

Posted on by SeeEU

European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini is expected to host a meeting Tuesday with the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany in Brussels to discuss the future of the Iran nuclear deal, now that U.S. President Donald Trump has announced the United States is pulling out of the deal.

The EU’s External Action Service made the statement Friday, adding that Iran’s foreign minister Javad Zarif also is expected to meet with the three foreign ministers and the EU’s Mogherini.

Meanwhile, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire has said Europe should not think of the United States as the “world’s economic policeman” and urged consideration of French interests when deciding what to do next about the Iran deal.

In an interview Friday on Europe-1 radio, Le Maire said European nations must defend their “economic sovereignty.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday the withdrawal of the United States from the Iran nuclear deal undermines confidence in the global order. But she added that the development does not warrant scrapping the deal.

Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke Friday about the U.S. decision. Their offices say they both emphasized the continued goal of preserving the deal.

Russia also has announced it is pursuing a free trade pact with Iran, along with its former Soviet allies Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan.

On Wednesday, Trump warned Iran there would be “very severe consequences” if it starts developing nuclear weapons in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from a 2015 international pact aimed at restraining Tehran’s nuclear program.

Trump said the United States would “very shortly” reimpose economic sanctions in an attempt to force Iran to negotiate new terms on the deal, its ballistic missile tests and military advances in Syria, Yemen and elsewhere in the Middle East.

The U.S. leader accused Iran of creating “bedlam and death” in the region.

Trump’s comments came as the other five signatories to the accord — Germany, Britain, France, Russia and China — all voiced renewed support for the deal.
…

your ad here

Erdogan Heads to Britain to Boost Ties, Re-Election Bid

Posted on by SeeEU

Britain is set to roll out the red carpet Sunday as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan starts a three-day visit to London. The visit comes at an opportune time for him, ahead of the June 24 presidential elections, but it is controversial because he is facing growing accusations of authoritarianism.

Hosting Erdogan in the middle of an election campaign is seen as a sign of Britain’s commitment to the Turkish president.

“It is a great honor to have him and to be able to host him in our capital city,” Britain’s ambassador to Turkey, Dominick Chilcott, said Friday.

Erdogan’s reputation is increasingly tarnished by his country’s human rights record. Rights groups designate Turkey as the world’s worst jailer of journalists with more than 100 incarcerated reporters, along with tens of thousands of others jailed under emergency rule introduced after a 2016 failed coup.

“The Turkish regime is more and more isolated. Any photo opportunity is good during these harsh days. It’s an opportunity for Erdogan to send a message at home that things are going all right,” political scientist Cengiz Aktar said.

It’s anticipated Erdogan won’t face public criticism from his British hosts, with British diplomats maintaining that human rights concerns are best raised in private.

Observers point out that a sign of how controversial Erdogan has become is the fact this isn’t a state visit with all the accompanying public pomp and ceremony, an honor granted to Erdogan’s predecessor, Abdullah Gul, in 2011. Erdogan will, however, have tea with Queen Elizabeth.

Defense deals

British-Turkish relations have flourished since the 2016 failed coup. London was among the first of Ankara’s Western allies to offer its support following the failed military takeover. The decision by a British minister to proceed with an already-arranged visit to Ankara, just days after the coup attempt, cemented London’s credentials as a trusted ally. Ankara still remains critical of what it perceives as the slow response of other Western allies in supporting it after the failed coup.

“Even though Turkey is distancing itself from the Western alliance, an exception is made with Britain,” said political analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners.

British firms have reaped rich rewards from deepening bilateral ties. British defense companies have secured hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts. The centerpiece is a $130 million deal to develop and build a Turkish jet fighter.

Favored status

Trade is a key topic of Erdogan’s visit. With Britain set to leave the European Union and Turkey’s EU bid all but dead, analysts claim both sides see potential common ground and a solution to the threat of isolation.

“Turkey is using the UK as a bridge [to a wider world] and I think the feeling is mutual,” said Yesilada. “Turkey thinks the bilateral trade and investments agreements could mitigate … damage that might arise from any deterioration of relations with the EU, so they [the UK] do get favored treatment.”

Favored treatment extends beyond trade. Intelligence cooperation is deepening. A “golden age” is how one Turkish diplomat described relations. Britain is offering assistance in Turkey’s war against the Kurdish rebel group the PKK, while Ankara is helping London counter threats posed by Islamic State as well as tracking down British jihadists in Syria who are seeking to return home.

The European Union, while critical of Turkey’s human rights record, is expected to take a pragmatic approach to Erdogan. In March, Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, and Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, met with Erdogan in the Bulgarian resort city of Varna.

The meeting was seen as carefully choreographed to give the Turkish president a valuable photo opportunity, helping to enhance his statesman credentials at home. In February, Erdogan met in Paris with French President Emmanuel Macron.

“The EU is taking a careful line with Turkey,” said political columnist Semih Idiz of al-Monitor. “The EU understands, at the end of the day, it needs to work with Erdogan and he is seen as the only game in town.”

Observers point out most European diplomats are convinced Erdogan is certain to win the June elections, despite polls predicting a close election. Ankara’s ongoing cooperation in curtailing migrants entering Europe is viewed as vital by the EU.

“Turkey is very close to the EU; there have been lots of statements made from both sides, sometimes harsh ones last year,” the head of the EU delegation to Ankara, Ambassador Christian Berger, said Thursday. “That has now disappeared. I think the relationship is back onto engagement.”

Such positive statements will be welcomed by Erdogan, who recommitted himself to pursuing EU membership for Turkey at a campaign rally.

Analysts warn that for Erdogan’s opponents, these developments can only add to questions about the commitment of Turkey’s Western allies to the democratic values they claim to uphold.

“The tolerance the regime enjoys in the West is intimately linked to what is happening to the rule of law in Turkey,” Aktar said. “What the Europeans want is to trade with Turkey. They want Turkey’s cooperation on the migrants, so all these laments from Europe about the rule of law in Turkey are just a charade.”
…

your ad here