Iraqis will head to the polls May 12 for the country’s first national election since the defeat of ISIL. At stake, 329 seats for the Council of Representatives, the political body that will elect Iraq’s president and prime minister. Despite assurances by Iraqi authorities of rigid security measures aimed at protecting the country’s election centers, analyst say the upcoming election is unlikely to bring the kind of political stability many Iraqis are hoping for. VOA’s Rebaz Majeed reports.
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Month: May 2018
Armenia Protest Leader on Course to Become Prime Minister
The ruling party of Armenia indicated it will support the opposition leader’s bid to become prime minister in a parliamentary vote scheduled for May 8. The decision follows weeks of protests that culminated in blockades and strikes this week. The opposition called a halt to the demonstrations Thursday as all sides negotiated a political solution. The protests erupted last month after the former prime minister was accused of manipulating the constitution to cling to power. Henry Ridgwell reports.
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Abbas Re-Elected Palestinian Leader
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas was re-elected as chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) Executive Committee on Friday, as the veteran leader sought to renew his legitimacy while installing loyalists who he hopes will eventually continue his legacy.
The expected reappointment came at the end of a four-day meeting by the Palestinian National Council (PNC) in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. The PNC chose a new Executive Committee, the most senior body of the PLO.
“Members of the PLO Executive Committee consulted among themselves and decided to elect brother Abu Mazen (Abbas) as the chairman of the Executive Committee,” said Azzam Al-Ahmad, a staunch ally of Abbas, who was among nine new people elected to the 15-member committee.
The PNC was convened by Abbas in part to forge a strategy in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s decisions to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and to move the U.S. embassy to the city.
Speech criticized as anti-Semitic
The first PNC meeting in 22 years was overshadowed by criticism of Abbas’ opening speech Monday, which drew accusations of anti-Semitism.
The new Executive Committee was not elected but rather chosen by consultation with the PLO factions who took part.
Abbas, 82, is thought to have achieved most of his goals at the meeting, including the removal from the committee of some of his rivals, including Yasser Abed Rabbo and former Palestinian Authority prime minister and negotiator Ahmed Qurei.
Abbas left the door open for other factions who boycotted the session, such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, to win one of three seats that have yet to be filled.
Rival groups welcome
He also said that a rival Islamist group such as Hamas was welcome to come on board “if it accepted the national unity and if it accepted the PLO.”
Hamas and Islamic Jihad boycotted the meeting, along with some PLO factions.
Some did not want to attend an event held in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and others wanted the meeting postponed to allow for greater consultation and more time for reconciliation between the two main rival factions, Hamas and Fatah.
The leader of Abbas’s most powerful rival, Hamas, dismissed the four-day session as a “clapping party” for Abbas.
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Missouri to Hold Special Session on Greitens’ Impeachment
In a historic move, Missouri lawmakers announced Thursday that they are calling themselves into a special session to consider impeaching Gov. Eric Greitens following allegations of sexual misconduct and misuse of charity resources.
House and Senate leaders said they had gathered more than the constitutionally required signatures of three-fourths of the members of each chamber to summon themselves into a special session that will start at 6:30 p.m. on May 18 — just 30 minutes after the end of work in their regular session.
It will mark the first time in Missouri history that lawmakers have called a special session. Extraordinary sessions typically are called by governors.
The petition calls upon lawmakers to consider “disciplinary actions” against Greitens, which also could include lesser reprimands than impeachment.
If the House votes to impeach Greitens, the Senate then would appoint a panel of judges to conduct a trial on whether to remove him from office.
Only one other Missouri official — former Secretary of State Judi Moriarty in 1994 — has been removed from office following impeachment.
The legislative announcement about a special session came a day after a House investigatory committee released a report indicating that Greitens had misused a donor list from a veterans’ charity he founded to raise money for his 2016 gubernatorial campaign. The report included testimony from a former Greitens’ aide indicating the campaign also falsely identified the source of the donor list in a settlement with the Missouri Ethics Commission.
It was the second stunning report from the House panel. Last month, it released a report with testimony from a woman alleging that Greitens had restrained, slapped, shoved, threatened and belittled her during a series of sexual encounters in 2015 that at times left her crying and afraid.
Greitens faces a May 14 trial in St. Louis on a felony invasion of privacy indictment stemming from his encounter with the woman. He is accused of taking and transmitting a partially nude and unauthorized photo of the woman while she was bound and blindfolded in the basement of his home. Greitens has acknowledged having a consensual affair but has denied criminal wrongdoing.
He also was charged April 20 in St. Louis with a felony charge of tampering with computer data for allegedly disclosing The Mission Continues donor list to a political fundraiser in 2015 without the permission of the St. Louis-based veterans’ charity that he had founded.
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Massachusetts Senator to Quit After Scathing Ethics Report
Former Massachusetts Senate President Stan Rosenberg announced Thursday he would end his long political career after a scathing ethics report concluded he failed to protect the Senate from his husband, who has been charged with sexual misconduct.
In a one-sentence letter delivered to the Senate, Rosenberg said his resignation would be effective at 5 p.m. Friday.
The decision came amid mounting calls, including several from his Democratic colleagues, for the Amherst Democrat to resign. He stepped down from the presidency in December when allegations first surfaced against his husband, Bryon Hefner. The couple has since separated.
In a statement, Rosenberg said he was leaving the Senate because he no longer had the authority to fully represent the interests of his constituents.
He noted that the report found no evidence that he violated any Senate rules, no evidence he was aware of any alleged sexual assaults by Hefner, nor that Hefner asserted any influence over his actions while Senate leader.
Failure in judgment found
But Rosenberg acknowledged findings in the report, prepared by investigators hired by the Senate Ethics Committee, faulting him for not doing more to control Hefner’s access to information and access to people who worked for or had business with the Senate.
“Although, as the report states, I was unaware of many of the events attributed to Bryon, and took steps to address those incidents that came to my attention, that does not diminish my sorrow at what reportedly transpired or my sense of responsibility for what the ethics committee concludes was a failure on my part in not doing more to protect the Senate,” Rosenberg wrote.
He also conveyed his “sincere apology” to anyone who’d been affected by events detailed in the report.
Investigators concluded that Rosenberg showed “significant failure of judgment and leadership,” and knew or should have known that Hefner was “disruptive, volatile and abusive,” and had racially or sexually harassed Senate employees.
Rosenberg also violated Senate policy by allowing Hefner access to his Senate email and to his cellphone, which Hefner on at least two occasions used to send messages to Senate staffers while pretending to be Rosenberg, the report found.
The committee had recommended Rosenberg be barred from serving in any leadership posts or from chairing any committees through 2020, and the full Senate could have imposed further punishment.
Calls for resignation
Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, Democratic Attorney General Maura Healey and at least six Democratic senators had publicly called for Rosenberg to quit after the report was released.
“I think the report made very clear that there was damage done … to the Senate and I think it was appropriate for him to step down and I’m glad he did,” Baker told reporters Thursday.
The governor said he was especially troubled that Rosenberg appeared not to keep a promise he made to Senate colleagues in 2014 to build a “firewall” between his personal and professional life.
Baker added that he had appreciated his long working relationship with Rosenberg, dating back to the 1990s when Baker was state Secretary of Administration and Finance and Rosenberg chaired the Senate Ways and Means Committee.
The first openly gay person to lead a legislative chamber in Massachusetts, Rosenberg, 68, has served in the Senate for more than a quarter century and helped craft numerous state laws.
He also played a key role in convincing the Legislature not to overturn a 2003 ruling by the state’s highest court that made Massachusetts the first U.S. state to legalize gay marriage.
Hefner, 30, pleaded not guilty at his arraignment last month on charges of sexual assault, criminal lewdness and distributing nude photos without consent. The allegations involve four men.
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Disbelief, Optimism Greet Armenian Ruling Party’s Vow to Support Opposition Figure
The Armenian ruling party’s signal of support for opposition leader Nikol Pashinyan’s bid to become interim prime minister has been greeted with disbelief by some on the streets of the capital.
Opposition supporters lingered in Yerevan’s Republic Square even after Pashinyan called to halt demonstrations as all sides negotiated a solution to the political crisis that has wracked the tiny South Caucasian country for weeks.
On Thursday, Armen Ashotyan, deputy head of the ruling Republican Party, told reporters that his legislators would support Pashinyan in an upcoming May 8 parliamentary vote to elect a prime minister, as long as the opposition figure won at least a third of the votes cast.
“We had two criteria to assist any candidate,” Ashotyan said. “The first is a necessary … amount of signatures, and the second is to calm down the situation on the streets, not blocking the interstate roads, airports, etcetera. So, the man who could cope with this criteria is considered to be Nikol Pashinyan and in case — before 8 May — he keeps these two criteria as promised, as agreed, we will assist his election.”
The statement comes just two days after Armenia’s parliament voted 45-to-55 against Pashinyan, leaving him eight votes short of the majority needed to capture the former Soviet republic’s most powerful office.
“If that is true, we are very glad, but I can’t believe that’s possible,” said a young Armenian woman who, like thousands of others, had participated in weeks of protests that forced the resignation of former Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan.
Sargsyan, who was elected prime minister by parliament on April 17 — some eight days after his two-term presidency ended — had previously said he would not seek to become prime minister after newly implemented constitutional changes, which he championed during his presidency, made the office of prime minister more powerful than that of the president.
Republicans’ Tuesday abstentions, which blocked Pashinyan’s bid to become prime minister, leaving the office vacant, triggered city-wide street blockades and strikes.
On a bench in Republic Square, one protester suggested Ashotyan’s Thursday assurances of a plan to back Pashinyan seemed too good to be true.
“We can’t believe until we see it,” he said.
“We hope Nikol Pashinyan will be our premier,” said the women seated beside him. “And by ‘our,’ I mean all of us.”
If the May 8 vote fails to elect a prime minister, parliament will be dissolved and fresh elections will be called.
Optimistic opposition
Although recants protests have been largely non-violent, some Pashinyan loyalists say the country appears to be on the verge of forcing a change of government.
Gevorg Gorgisyan, a parliamentarian aligned with Pashinyan’s Yelk or “Way Out”-alliance, which holds 47 votes among its loosely allied opposition constituency, described the majority Republican as out of touch with most Armenians.
“[Republican leadership] speeches enraged our citizens, as they merely admitted minor mistakes and attempted to stay in power,” he said, referring to widespread frustration over poverty, corruption and poor governance in the nation of some 3 million people.
According to statistics by the United Nations, more than 11 percent of Armenians live below the poverty line, earning less than 1,530 Armenian drams ($3.20) per day, and, as Bloomberg reports, emigre remittances from Armenia’s 8-million-strong diaspora comprise 14 percent of national GDP.
Under Sargsyan, Armenia barely recovered from a GDP decline of 14 percent in 2009, only to witness a 7.5-percent surge of economic growth in 2017.
By the end of last year, however, the economy faced deflation and extremely weak domestic demand.
“They just don’t realize that it’s too late,” Gorgisyan added. “That train has already left the station.”
Fellow Yelk Alliance MP Edmon Marukhyan expressed confidence in a May 8 triumph for Pashinyan, who has vowed to rid Armenia of corruption, poverty and nepotism, and has promised snap elections.
“We will need to adapt the electoral code to guarantee that no administrative resource can be used during the elections and to prevent any bribe of the voters,” he said, seeming to look well beyond the upcoming parliamentary vote. “Only the people’s candidate can guarantee that, and today that person is Nikol Pashinyan.”
Gagik Tsarukyan, leader of the slightly larger opposition Prosperous Armenia, told VOA’s Armenian Service that although his party has been odds with their fellow Yelk Alliance legislators, they plan to back Pashinyan unconditionally.
“Today the victory belongs entirely to the people, and the people should decide who their candidate [for prime minister] is,” he said. “As for us, we will vote for that candidate as we did last time.”
In the United States, members of the vast Armenian diaspora community have given full-throated support for Pashinyan’s candidacy, holding demonstrations in front of the Armenian embassy in Washington on the streets of Los Angeles, which is home to Armenia’s largest diaspora community.
“The people have said ‘enough!'” said Gurgen Mkhitaryan, a member of the Los Angeles branch of Armenian Renaissance, a diaspora-led grass-roots organization composed of international and municipal chapters that aims to bring about true representative government and rule of law in Armenia.
“We should have said it long ago, but we managed to do it today,” he added, expressing skepticism about calls to slow the Armenian opposition’s pursuit of radical change.
“Questions about why now, why not a year ago, why not wait until 2022 — they don’t make sense,” he said. “Armenia belongs to the people.”
This story originated in VOA’s Armenian Service. Arman Tarjimanyan reported from Washington. Angelina Bagdasaryan of VOA’s Russian Service contributed original reporting from Los Angeles.
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Canada Van Attack Spotlights Online Men’s Movement
The deadly April 23 van attack in Toronto has put the spotlight on an obscure online community of men whose sense of sexual rejection has, at its extreme, grown into a justification for rape, murder and other kinds of violence.
The attack, which killed 10 people and injured 14 others, was allegedly carried out by a 25-year-old self-identified incel — short for “involuntary celibate” — named Alek Minassian, who dropped a hint about the move before the assault.
“The Incel Rebellion has already begun!” Minassian announced cryptically on Facebook just minutes before a group of pedestrians were mowed down with his van. “We will overthrow all the Chads and Stacys! All hail to Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger.”
To most people outside the incel movement, Minassian’s elliptical references made no sense. But to incels — men who cannot find sexual partners and use online discussion forums to vent about it — they were terms of art: “Chads” are sexually successful men and “Stacys” are women who shun incels.
Lauded by some
To a minority in the community, Rodger is something of a patron saint, having killed six people and injured 14 others in Isla Vista, California, in 2014, after being rejected by women.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors extremism and hate groups, views incels as an outgrowth of the “pickup artist” movement, a “male supremacy” community of men who swap tips and strategies on how to seduce women, with some members going as far as advocating rape and murder.
The center earlier this year added male supremacy to its map of hate ideologies, saying it was “fundamental to the foundation of the racist alt-right, and in many ways served as its gateway drug.”
“It’s part of the larger manosphere and ties into the larger tableau of the alt-right in that it is an amalgam of many ideologies, many of which are pulled from the history of white supremacy and white nationalism,” said Ryan Lenz, an investigative reporter for the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Barbara Perry, a University of Ontario Institute of Technology professor who has studied extremist groups for more than two decades, agreed, saying masculinity remains central to the largely male-dominated alt-right movement’s ethos.
“This notion of anti-feminism, this notion of traditional gender roles, has long been a part of the movement,” Perry said.
But far-right radio host Alex Jones, a prominent voice of the alt-right, pushed back against the characterization, telling his listeners the day after the Toronto attack that incels are not “a right-wing movement of men.”
“It’s a movement of scumbags,” he said.
Canadian’s term
Ironically, it was a Canadian woman who coined the term “involuntary celibate.” In the 1990s, the woman, then a student at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, created an all-text website she called “Alana’s Involuntary Celibacy Project.” It was aimed at people — both men and women — who, like herself, were celibate through no choice of their own.
“It feels like being the scientist who figured out nuclear fission and then discovers it’s being used as a weapon for war,” the woman told Elle magazine after the 2014 Rodger shooting.She long ago moved on in her life and turned the website over to a man she says she didn’t know.
The Rodger rampage put the community on the map. In a 137-page manifesto titled My Twisted World, Rodger identified with the incel movement and explained why he had decided to punish both men and women.
“All of those beautiful girls I’ve desired so much in my life, but can never have because they despise and loathe me, I will destroy,” Rodger wrote. “All of those popular people who live hedonistic lives of pleasure, I will destroy, because they never accepted me as one of them.”
The 22-year-old became an overnight martyr for many incels, who came to call him “Supreme Gentleman” and celebrated May 23, the anniversary of his massacre, as “St. Elliot Day.”
They continued to hang out on Reddit, 4Chan and other forums to vent, but when some members called for rape and murder, Reddit stepped in. In November, Reddit shut down a subreddit where many of its 40,000 self-described incels denigrated women and openly condoned rape and murder.
But outside their own world, the incels largely escaped notice until the Toronto attack. And when word got out last week that Minassian may have been one of their own, many incels were quick to glorify him.
On Incels.me, a popular incel hangout, one commenter wrote, “Saint Alek’s bravery might have just woken up 1,000’s upon 1,000’s of incels. Welcome, men.”
Another commenter wrote: “It is a good time to be an Incel. Our brothers are launching their counterattack, getting their revenge. Thank you St. Rodgers, thank you St. Minassian.”
Some reject violence
The canonization of Minassian worries extremism watchers, who say the violent rhetoric can inspire copycat attacks. But not all incels condone violence. Some are pushing back against characterizations of incels as a hate movement prone to violence.
“I feel that equating incels with violent criminals would set a dangerous precedent — further alienating young men with nothing to lose, as well as amplifying the ‘When in Rome’ effect,” one commenter wrote on Reddit. “A distinction needs to be drawn between those who fit the description of an Incel and those who cope with those feelings in undesirable ways.”
University of Oregon sociologist Randy Blazak said 99 percent of the violent rhetoric is made up. For law enforcement, Blazak said, the challenge is “to figure out which of it is fantasy violent role play and which of it is actually connected to real crime.”
Perry said Minassian represents “a fringe of the fringe.”
“I wouldn’t suspect that we’re going to see more of this kind of violence,” Perry said. “Certainly it won’t be a common threat, unlike what we might see from those who are more racist and Islamophobic in their perspectives.”
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Striking Arizona Teachers Win 20 Percent Raise, End Walkout
The Arizona governor signed a plan Thursday to give striking teachers a 20 percent pay raise, ending their five-day walkout after a dramatic all-night legislative session and sending more than a million public school students back to the classroom.
Gov. Doug Ducey’s signature awarded teachers a 9 percent raise in the fall and 5 percent in each of the next two years. Teachers did not get everything they wanted, but they won substantial gains from reluctant lawmakers.
“The educators have solved the education crisis! They’ve changed the course of Arizona,” Noah Karvelis of Arizona Educators United shouted to several thousand cheering teachers. “The change happens with us!”
Hours after Ducey acted, strike organizers called for an end to the walkout. Some schools planned to reopen Friday, with others likely to resume classes next week.
The Senate approved the pay raises just before dawn as hundreds of red-shirted teachers followed the proceedings from the lobby, many sitting on the cold stone floor.
The night before, the teachers, who are among the lowest paid in the country, held a candlelight vigil in a courtyard outside the original neoclassical Capitol building. They stood together with their right hands over their hearts and sang “America the Beautiful.”
Wrapped in blankets or sleeping bags, they napped on the ground or in folding metal chairs, occasionally using cellphones to monitor an online video stream of the legislative debate in the chambers.
Ducey said the teachers had earned a raise and praised the legislation as “a real win” for both teachers and students. The pay increases will cost about $300 million for the coming year alone.
‘Far short’ of demands
Some teachers returned to the Capitol on Thursday as lawmakers debated the rest of the state’s $10.4 billion budget plan. Among them was Wes Oswald, a third-grade teacher from Tucson who made the two-hour drive for a sixth day.
Oswald said the budget still does not address serious issues such as the need for higher per-pupil spending, raises for support staff and a smaller-student-to-counselor ratio.
Teachers must still fight for those problems to be addressed, Oswald said, adding that “the worst thing would be for this movement to dissolve.”
Arizona Education Association President Joe Thomas said Thursday that educators now should focus on a campaign for a November ballot measure that would seek more education funding from an income tax increase on the wealthiest taxpayers.
“The budget is a significant investment, but it falls far short” of what the movement demanded, Thomas said.
The state’s largest district in the Phoenix suburb of Mesa, as well as districts in the suburbs of Scottsdale and Glendale, planned to reopen Friday. Officials from Tucson’s biggest school district said they will not be ready and were working to reopen 86 school sites Monday.
Many other Arizona districts had not announced plans for resuming classes.
Education cuts over the past decade have sliced deeply into Arizona’s public schools. Teachers wanted a return to pre-recession funding levels, regular raises, competitive pay for support staff and a pledge not to adopt any tax cuts until per-pupil funding reaches the national average.
Phoenix-area teacher Rebecca Wilson was among those who camped out in the Capitol overnight.
“I’m glad it passed and we’ll get something because I’m a single mom of three kids, but it’s not enough,” she told Phoenix-area radio station KTAR.
The package provides the state’s schools will a partial restoration of nearly $400 million in recession-era cuts, with a promise to restore the rest in five years. Other cuts remain in place.
Party lines
Minority Democrats mainly voted against the budget plan, drawing criticism from Republicans.
“You know, talk is pretty cheap — it’s your vote that counts,” Republican Rep. Anthony Kern said. “If Republicans voted with Democrats tonight, you would be walking away with zero.”
Democratic Rep. Reginald Bolding urged lawmakers not to congratulate themselves for easing the same crisis they created.
“You can’t set a house on fire, call 911 and claim to be a hero. And that’s what this body has done,” Bolding said.
One Republican lawmaker upset about the strike proposed amendments to make it illegal for teachers to espouse political beliefs at work, to require the attorney general to investigate schools that allow political activity and to bar schools from closing during a walkout.
“There are hundreds of families contacting me that are harmed financially, occupationally,” an emotional Rep. Kelly Townsend said.
Rep. Mitzi Epstein, a Democrat, tried and failed to win support for an amendment that would mandate a 250:1 ratio for students to school counselors. Epstein said the bill could help prevent suicide and bullying and improve academic performance.
“Not only is school not fun anymore, but it’s scary,” she said.
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Canadian Officials in Nigeria Work with US to Stem Asylum Seekers
Canada has officials in Lagos, Nigeria, working with U.S. visa officers as Ottawa leans on its neighbor to stop issuing so many visas to Nigerians who then make refugee claims in Canada.
The Canadian government is trying to stem the flow of asylum seekers illegally walking across the U.S. border even as their ranks grow: About 2,500 asylum seekers crossed into Canada to file refugee claims in April, according to estimates from the federal immigration and refugee department — the highest level since August and almost triple last April’s figure.
More than 26,000 people illegally crossed the Canada-U.S. border in the past 15 months to file refugee claims.
The Canadian government says many of the more recent arrivals are Nigerians who arrived bearing valid U.S. visas after having spent very little time in the United States.
“It is apparent that they obtained those visas with the express intent to actually go to Canada. … We’ve been sharing that information with the United States with the view of preventing the abuse of U.S. visas,” a Canadian immigration department spokeswoman told Reuters in an email.
Canada wants agreement change
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his ministers faced pointed questions this week after Reuters reported that Canada wants U.S. help turning back thousands of asylum seekers.
A Canadian official familiar with the matter told Reuters that Canada wants to amend a bilateral agreement to allow it to block border-crossing refugee claimants.
Canada has asked for this change “at least a dozen” times since September, the official said.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has said it is reviewing Canada’s proposal but has not made a decision.
Two Canadian officials have been sent to Lagos to work directly with their counterparts in the U.S. visa office, a spokeswoman for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said in an email on Wednesday.
Under pressure
The department had not yet responded on Thursday afternoon to queries as to what exactly the Canadian officials are doing.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department wrote that “consular officers in the field often coordinate with our close partners from other countries to discuss matters of shared concern.” She did not elaborate on the role the Canadian officials are playing.
Trudeau’s government is under pressure to appear in control of the country’s border and refugee system while obeying Canadian law and maintaining its image as compassionate and welcoming of newcomers.
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Police: 1 Man Kills Another, Surrenders at Nashville Mall
One 22-year-old man ended a fight with another by fatally shooting him inside a Tennessee mall on Thursday, and then gave up his weapon and surrendered, saying he didn’t want any more trouble, police said.
Nashville Police spokesman Don Aaron said the shooter put the gun on the counter of a ticket booth across from the Opry Mills Mall, and then was ordered to lay on the ground by a retired California police officer who now lives in Tennessee.
The gunfire prompted an outsized response. The mall was evacuated, police officers responded in force, at least a half-a-dozen ambulances converged on the scene, and authorities said the adjacent Grand Ole Opry House and convention center were put on lockdown for a time.
The shooting couldn’t be heard over the battle scenes in a showing of Avengers: Infinity War, which was disrupted when officers in riot gear came into the theater and told everyone to leave.
“I’m just thinking Aurora, Colorado,” said Dave O’Brien, a crime and breaking news reporter for the Record-Courier in Kent, Ohio, who was visiting Nashville with his girlfriend to check out CrimeCon, a convention of true crime enthusiasts.
O’Brien said he grabbed his media credentials and then snapped some photos and tweeted them.
“The exits are blocked. Cops everywhere,” O’Brien said. “There’s a command post set up. News trucks and cop cars everywhere, just armed police officers. Their response time was incredibly quick.”
Jayla Chapple, 18, was in an employee meeting in the back of Moe’s Southwest Grill when two people rushed in saying there was a shooter in the mall. Chapple, a shift leader at the restaurant, said the employees started running outside through the rear exit.
“I really didn’t have time to think that much, but get out of there,” she said.
Troopers happened to be conducting motorcycle training in the mall’s parking lot at the time, so they set up a perimeter to support the responding police officers, Tennessee Highway Patrol Lt. Bill Miller said.
Metro Nashville Police said in a tweet Thursday that there was no further threat, but officers were sweeping through the mall to make sure after the shooting.
Tonya Young said she raced to the scene when she heard about the shooting because her 17-year-old daughter, Victoria Holt, works at one of the shops.
She later learned that her daughter was unhurt, but remained stuck outside while officers did their work.
“Until I physically lay eyes on her, I’m not going to be OK,” Young said. “I want to see her; I want to get to her.”
The mall was built on the former site of the Opryland USA theme park. With more than 200 stores, it is Tennessee’s biggest outlet mall, featuring a movie theater, a celebrity wax figure museum, restaurants and more.
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Russian Asylum Applications In US Hit 24-Year Record
The number of asylum applications by Russian citizens in the United States hit a 24-year high in 2017, jumping nearly 40 percent from the previous year and continuing an upward march that began after Russian President Vladimir Putin returned to the Kremlin in 2012.
U.S. authorities received 2,664 new asylum applications from Russian nationals in the fiscal year ending on Sept. 30, a 39-percent increase compared to 2016.
RFE/RL obtained the 2017 statistics, which have yet to be released publicly, under a Freedom Of Information Act request filed with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
The 2017 figure is more than double the number of first-time applications by Russians since 2012, when Putin was elected to a third presidential term after serving four years as prime minister. It also eclipsed the previous high according to USCIS data for post-Soviet Russia, set in 1994 with 2,127 first-time asylum applications by Russians.
Putin has been accused by critics of overseeing a mounting crackdown on dissent — including against the political opposition and businesspeople not in step with the Kremlin — and fostering stigmatization of sexual minorities since he regained the presidency.
A flashpoint of criticism has been law signed by Putin in 2013, a year into his third term, that banned disseminating “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations” to minors, and which has been widely denounced as discriminatory — an accusation the Kremlin rejects.
The USCIS statistics do not indicate the basis for the asylum claims, though successful applicants must demonstrate “persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution” in their home country “on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.”
Rights activists and immigration attorneys say the surge in the number of Russian asylum applications in the United States has been driven in part by the 2013 law concerning sexual minorities.
In a ruling last year, the European Court of Human Rights said that by enacting such laws, Russian authorities “reinforce stigma and prejudice and encourage homophobia, which is incompatible with the notions of equality, pluralism, and tolerance inherent in a democratic society.”
‘I had to leave’
Vlad, a gay Russian applicant in his 30s, told RFE/RL that he was simply looking to move somewhere where he could live “more freely,” and that a lawyer suggested U.S. asylum as an option. He said his family is not aware that he is gay and asked that his last name not be published.
Vlad said in a telephone interview that a man he had dated in Russia was killed after leaving a gay club, and that he believes militant antigay thugs may have been responsible. He said he had also been harassed in Russia due to his sexual orientation.
“I understood that I had to leave, and that it’s unlikely I could live peacefully and find a partner in Russia,” Vlad said, adding that he applied for U.S. asylum in December 2016.
Lyosha Gorshkov, a New York-based activist and asylee who heads RUSA LGBT, a support network for Russian-speaking sexual minorities and their families, told RFE/RL that since 2016 there has also been a “huge influx” of HIV-positive gay men from Russia seeking U.S. asylum.
Gorshkov attributes this to significant difficulties in obtaining medication in Russia to treat HIV.
Canada and several European countries last year began helping gay men from Chechnya obtain asylum following revelations about an alleged campaign of torture and murder targeting gay Chechens in the mainly Muslim republic in southern Russia.
Russian activists say gay Chechens face difficulties in obtaining a U.S. visa that would allow them to travel to the United States and apply for asylum.
Wendy Barlow, an immigration attorney with The Law Offices of Grinberg & Segal in New York, told RFE/RL that her firm had “a couple of consultations with members of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) community from Chechnya” last year, but had not represented any.
‘Getting shaken down’
Russian entrepreneurs are also seeking political asylum in the United States, claiming they were targeted by Russian authorities, according to U.S.-based attorneys handling such cases.
New York-based attorney Boris Palant said that most of his Russian asylum cases involve “persecution in the form of a fabricated criminal case.”
“One is a banker, but most of them are young businessmen,” Palant told RFE/RL.
Another New York-based attorney, Andrew Johnson, said his firm took on 25-30 new cases involving Russian asylum applicants in 2017. Half of those involved “straight political opinion,” while 35 percent concerned politically tinged “business-related” cases, Johnson said.
He said his firm had clients who say they were “getting shaken down on their business dealings merely because they are partisan and anti-Putin, and funding or being involved in another political party.”
In some cases, even apolitical asylum seekers say they were accused by Russian authorities of antigovernment behavior after they rebuffed requests for bribes and other official pressure, Johnson said.
Putin was recently elected by a landslide to a fourth term as president in a ballot decried by opposition activists as tightly controlled political theater.
During his March 1 state-of-the-nation address, delivered at the height of the campaign period, Putin said that Russia must “get rid of everything that enables corrupt officials and law enforcement officers to pressure businesses.”
Both Putin and his stopgap predecessor, current Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, have made similar calls in the past.
‘Hidden’ migration
The 2,664 new Russian asylum applications in the United States last year — a 268-percent increase since 2012 — represent, of course, a tiny percentage of Russia’s total population of 144 million.
But that figure did place the United States ahead of every European Union country except Germany in terms of Russian first-time asylum applications in 2017. According to full-year EU immigration data for 2017, Germany received 4,885 of the more than 12,600 first-time Russian asylum applications in the 28-member bloc.
Around 90 percent of Russian citizens who apply for asylum in Germany are ethnic Chechens who enter the EU on the Belarusian-Polish border, according to Olga Gulina, head of the Berlin-based Institute on Migration Policy.
In the United States, “there is a lot more variety among (Russian) people seeking asylum,” Gulina told RFE/RL.
Gulina said, however, that “humanitarian migration” by Russians to Europe is “hidden” to a significant degree.
“People prefer not to apply for asylum. They prefer to look for other mechanisms,” including educational programs, Gulina said.
A study published in January by researchers at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration estimated that annually, around 100,000 Russians have left their homeland in recent years. Around 40 percent of those people have higher educations, according to the study.
There searchers surveyed highly qualified Russians who moved to the West — and stayed there — after 2010. A majority of the respondents said they left due to economic difficulties that snowballed in 2014, when flagging oil prices and Western sanctions over Russia’s expansionism in Ukraine battered the Russian economy.
A quarter of the respondents said they left due to the “political situation” in Russia, including “disappointment” after the 2012 election that brought Putin back to the Kremlin and the “events of 2014,” when Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and war between Kyiv’s forces and Russia-backed separatists erupted in eastern Ukraine.
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For Yemeni Mothers, Skipped Meals and Gnawing Stomachs
The young mother stepped onto the scale for the doctor. Even with all her black robes on, she weighed only 84 pounds – 38 kilograms. Umm Mizrah is pregnant, but starving herself to feed her children.
And her sacrifice may not be enough to save them.
The doctor’s office is covered with dozens of pictures of emaciated babies who have come through Al-Sadaqa Hospital in Aden, casualties of a three-year war in Yemen that has left millions of people on the edge of famine.
Mothers like Umm Mizrah are often the only defense against the hunger that has killed thousands. They skip meals, they sleep to escape the gnawing in their stomachs. They hide bony faces and emaciated bodies in voluminous black abaya robes and veils.
The doctor asked the mother to get back on the scale holding her son, Mizrah. At 17 months, he was 5.8 kilograms (12.8 pounds) – around half the normal weight for his age.
He showed all the signs of “severe acute malnutrition,” the most dire stage of hunger. His legs and feet were swollen, he wasn’t getting enough protein. When the doctor pressed a finger into the skin of his feet, the indentation lingered.
Around 2.9 million women and children are acutely malnourished; another 400,000 children are fighting for their lives, in the same condition as Mizrah.
Nearly a third of Yemen’s population – 8.4 million of its 29 million people – rely completely on food aid or else they would starve. That number grew by a quarter over the past year.
Aid agencies warn that parts of Yemen could soon start to see widespread death from famine. More and more people are reliant on aid that is already failing to reach people. The war, now three years old, drags on interminably between Yemen’s Shiite Houthi rebels who hold the country’s north, and the Saudi-led coalition, armed and backed by the United States. which has sought to bomb the rebels into submission with a relentless air campaign in support of the Yemeni government.
It is unknown how many have died, since authorities are not able to track cases. Save the Children late last year estimated that 50,000 children may have died in 2017 of extreme hunger or disease, given that up to 30 percent of children with untreated cases of severe acute malnutrition die.
“Unfortunately, now Yemen is considered to be the world’s largest humanitarian emergency,” said Stephen Anderson, the Yemen director of the World Food Program. Some 18 million people do not know where their next meal is coming from.
Even before the war, the Arab world’s poorest nation struggled to feed itself. It is a country of deserts and mountains with dwindling water resources where only 2 to 4 percent of the land is cultivated, so almost all of its food and supplies must be imported.
The war has shattered everything that kept Yemen just above starvation. Coalition warplanes blasted hospitals, schools, farms, factories, bridges and roads.
The coalition has also clamped a land-sea-and-air embargo on Houthi-controlled areas, including the Red Sea port of Hodeida, once the entry point of 70 percent of Yemen’s imports. Now far less gets in as coalition ships off shore allow through only U.N.-inspected and approved commercial ships and aid, often with delays.
The United States gives significant backing to the coalition campaign, providing intelligence and billions of dollars-worth of munitions as well logistical help like air-to-air refueling of coalition warplanes. The U.S. State Department says Washington has provided nearly $854 million to address the humanitarian situation in Yemen.
In many places there is food in the markets, but people simply can’t afford it, since salaries are going unpaid, work is harder to find and the currency has collapsed in value.
Umm Mizrah and her husband, who have three young daughters in addition to Mizrah, usually eat one meal a day, often just bread and tea. The Associated Press is identifying her by the nickname she often goes by – meaning “mother of Mizrah” – to protect her privacy.
When the doctor in Aden told her malnutrition can be fatal, she trembled. The parents felt helpless. Cigarette burns were visible on the baby’s belly. Desperate, the father had turned to a Yemeni folk cure called “maysam,” or “branding” – using burns to expel evil spirits.
“I don’t know what is right,” she said quietly. “He was playful and doing fine then he started to get sick and stopped breastfeeding and playing.”
The AP traveled across southern Yemen, territory held by the coalition-backed government, and visited several districts among the 107 areas nationwide that the U.N. warns are most likely to fall into outright famine.
It is a landscape of desperation .
Death by starvation
A video filmed by a doctor shows 8-month-old Fadl in his last days of life.
The baby twitches his legs in pain. He’s crying but he is so dehydrated his eyes can’t produce tears. His belly is inflated as taut as a balloon. You can easily count the 12 rows of protruding ribs on his rapidly palpitating chest. His desperate parents plastered his head with black henna, a dye that is used as a folk cure.
Fadl was born in the wilderness. His mother, Fatma Halabi, was eight months pregnant when she and thousands of others fled the area around her district of Mowza as government forces descended on the Houthis.
Separated from her husband, Halabi led her four children and two goats across the Great Valley, the arid plain spilling down from the mountains toward the city of Mocha on the Red Sea.
These desolate stretches are historically a site of death. More than 400 years ago, a Muslim ruler forcibly sent almost the entire Jewish population of Yemen here for refusing to convert. Chroniclers say two thirds of them died in the heat and deprivation.
Halabi and the children hid in thorn bushes to avoid artillery and airstrikes along the shifting front line. One day in April last year, she went into labor and, alone, gave birth to Fadl under a tree. And then fainted.
Eventually, she and her husband reunited and settled in an abandoned hut in the valley.
Speaking from inside her makeshift home in February, Halabi sat with a rope cinched around her emaciated waist, her blue robe sliding off her bony shoulder.
She spoke in short, exhausted sentences. When asked what she had eaten that day, she said, “Bor,” the local Arabic word for flour. “We stay patient,” she said. “We have to feed the children.” When she gets hungry, she lies down and tries to sleep.
Often she and her husband eat one meal in the morning, and nothing again until the next day.
Unable to breastfeed Fadl, she gave him goat or camel milk, which lack the nutrients of breast milk or formula. The newborn kept getting fever and diarrhea, so she repeatedly borrowed money to take him to the hospital in Mocha.
The hospital has seen 600 malnutrition cases over the past 10 months, but is so short on supplies it doesn’t even have pain relievers for headaches, said one doctor, Abdel-Rehim Ahmed. It has no therapeutic feeding center. None of its doctors have been trained in treating malnutrition.
And Mocha is swelling with 40,000 displaced people.
Left untreated, prolonged malnutrition causes the body to lose its stock of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. The body starts to eat itself. The brain struggles to find energy, the heart shrinks, and the skin cracks, exposing the body to infections. The kidney and the liver stop functioning properly, so toxins build up inside the body, leading to a vicious cycle of disease.
Fadl’s last visit to the hospital was Nov. 29. At eight months old, he weighed 2.9 kilograms (6 pounds), a third of the normal weight. The circumference of his upper arm, a common measure for malnutrition, was 7 centimeters, less than 3 inches. That indicated severe acute malnutrition.
Unable to pay for a hospital stay, Fadl’s parents took him home.
He gave his last breath not long after in the arms of his grandmother. His exhausted parents were asleep on the floor. The grandmother woke them and told them their boy was dead.
The only image of Fadl from his short life of hunger and pain is the video, taken by the head of the nutrition center. His parents don’t have mobile phones or a camera.
“Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I remember he’s no longer there and I start to cry,” Halabi said. “Who wouldn’t cry for their children?”
“Liberated,” and still starving
Even in parts of Yemen that are wrested from Houthi rule, starvation persists – or gets worse.
In late February, mothers carrying babies mobbed the nutrition center at the main hospital in al-Khoukha, a little town on the Red Sea, expecting to receive monthly allotments of baby formula and nutrient supplies.
They left empty-handed.
The center ran out of supplies weeks ago. Some of the women, cloaked in black abayas, pushed and shoved feebly. But most were too weak to complain and silently shuffled away.
Al-Khoukha was taken back from the Houthis in December by coalition-backed forces marching up the coast. In rebel hands, the town had been directly connected to the Hodeida port farther north, the biggest entryway for international aid into Yemen.
Now cut off from the port, no supplies have come from the south.
“We have no vaccinations. There are shortages in medicines. The aid stopped,” said Abdullah Doubala, head of al-Khoukha health department. The burden is increasing as families fleeing fighting elsewhere stream into al-Khoukha, bringing more thin and hungry children.
Doctors estimate that 40 percent of the children in the town suffer from malnutrition. Barefoot kids fill the center’s corridors, many visibly emaciated, some with malaria or cholera. Some can barely stand.
Nine-month old Galila, her ribs sharply outlined, her eyes bulging in shrunken sockets, sat in the lap of her mother, Aisha.
The baby girl caught malaria and began to lose weight. Now she is all of 4.5 kilograms (9.9 pounds), compared to the average of 6 to 8 kilograms (13-17 pounds) for a 9-month-old girl.
Her mother is tiny as well, ravaged by giving up food for a family that is constantly growing.
Aisha has been giving birth each year; Galila is her 14th child. Her husband, a woodcutter, can hardly find any work. Even coming to the hospital is too expensive; if she wants to come, she has to wait for her brother, who has a motorcycle, to take her.
“I eat whatever is available or wait till next day,” Aisha said. “A meal once a day.”
The mothers’ hunger is repeated over and over throughout the war-ravaged country.
A mother’s hunger
It isn’t just those driven from their homes who suffer.
Isolated in a mountain valley, the 450 residents of the village of Qibli are wasting away. Boys and girls running around barefoot in the dirt paths are stunted.
Most of the men here are soldiers, who haven’t been paid for months, or farm laborers, who can no longer find work.
Any money they have goes in search of food. The nearest market is 13 kilometers (8 miles) away, which means paying high gas prices on top of the cost for the food itself, which have doubled over the past year.
Sitting on the floor of her home, Sherine fed her two children scraps of bread dipped in “besbas,” a sauce of tomato and garlic. She took no bites herself.
Her 1-year-old daughter Amal, has been diagnosed with acute malnutrition and can no longer stand up.
The family lives largely on bread and tea. Her husband is among the ranks of unpaid soldiers. His father, a retired soldier, still gets a meager pension, but uses that to help all his children and grandchildren, a family of 16 in total.
Aid hasn’t come to Qibli since 2016, according to relief volunteer Rashid al-Khoushbi. Only four families in the area were on the World Food Program lists for food aid. Most households here are considered to have a male breadwinner, making them a lower priority.
In the area’s main town, al-Mallah, doctors were nowhere to be seen at the hospital. No one pays them so many staffers often don’t show up.
Sitting in bed, Umm Molham was so weak she could barely lift her 13-month-old son. When the AP met her, she had been at the hospital for three days waiting for someone to examine him.
The toddler had been vomiting, coughing and suffered from diarrhea. The family can only afford to give him formula once a day. His body is emaciated, his eyes sunken.
His mother sat helplessly, the baby in her lap.
“She is not breastfeeding,” said her husband, Anwar Said. “She doesn’t eat well and has no milk.”
Umm Molham didn’t say a word, even when asked questions, lost in her internal world of frailty and hunger.
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IOC to Challenge Russian Doping Cases at Swiss Supreme Court
The International Olympic Committee will appeal to Switzerland’s supreme court against rulings that cleared some Russian athletes of doping sanctions from the Sochi Games.
The Olympic body is “not satisfied at all” by the verdicts and written explanations from the Court of Arbitration for Sport, IOC President Thomas Bach said Thursday after an executive board meeting.
The Swiss Federal Tribunal, also based in Lausanne, can overturn CAS verdicts if the legal process was abused, though appeals rarely succeed.
“The chances of winning did not play a role in our discussion,” Bach said at a news conference. “The only factor which led us to this decision was the protection of the clean athletes who have finished behind the Russian athletes who have not been declared innocent.”
Days before the Pyeongchang Winter Games in February, two CAS judging panels upheld appeals of 28 Russian athletes against IOC sanctions that included being subjected to Olympic life bans and being stripped of their Sochi results.
CAS said the IOC’s investigations in those cases did not prove doping offenses, while also stressing the 28 were not formally declared innocent of taking part in orchestrated cheating.
The verdicts irritated Olympic leaders who believed the sports court applied the burden of proof of a criminal case. Sports law in a civil court like CAS typically requires cases to be proven to the “comfortable satisfaction” of judges.
Bach said on Thursday the IOC had “put ourselves into the shoes” of athletes who would want the Russian appeal victories evaluated again.
A further 11 Russians lost their appeals at CAS, which confirmed their Sochi disqualifications.
The Russian athletes’ urgent appeals to CAS followed a slew of IOC disciplinary hearings late last year to process the cases before the Pyeongchang Games, where some hoped to compete.
The IOC disqualified 43 Russians from their Sochi Olympics results for doping offenses. Those cases sought to verify allegations and evidence presented by World Anti-Doping Agency-appointed investigator Richard McLaren and Russian whistle-blower Grigory Rodchenkov, the former director of testing laboratories in Moscow and Sochi.
In one detailed verdict published two weeks ago, the CAS judges found flaws in the evidence-gathering and conclusions of the two star witnesses. Rodchenkov testified from a secret location in the United States, where he is in a witness protection program.
A 154-page document detailed why a three-man CAS panel upheld the appeal of cross-country skier Alexander Legkov. He was reinstated as the gold medalist in the 50-kilometer freestyle race and the silver medalist in the 4×10-kilometer relay from the Sochi Games.
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Mozambique Rebel Leader Afonso Dhlakama Dies
Mozambique rebel leader Afonso Dhlakama died Thursday, according to sources with the Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO), the country’s main opposition party.
Party sources and members of his family told VOA Dhlakama died in the remote mountains of Gorongosa, where he had been since 2013 as periodic conflict resumed in the southern African country.
A cause of death is not yet confirmed, but some sources say it was a heart attack, and others say it was diabetes-related.
Dhlakama led RENAMO for nearly 40 years, including during a 16-year war against the ruling Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO) that ended in 1992. RENAMO subsequently emerged as an opposition party that continued to retain armed fighters.
He had a series of meetings recently with President Filipe Nyusi and was perceived as playing a significant role in the country’s ongoing peace process.
Dhlakama and the government announced a truce in December 2016, an apparent step toward a possible formal peace agreement.
FRELIMO has ruled Mozambique since it gained independence in 1975 from Portugal, which ruled the country for more than four centuries.
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SCENARIOS – What Could Iran Do if Trump Pulls out of Nuclear Deal?
President Donald Trump is expected to pull the United States out of the Iran nuclear agreement on May 12. Tehran signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, with China, France, Germany, Russia, Britain, and the United States in 2015.
Iran agreed to curbs on its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of some sanctions. But the withdrawal of the United States will probably sink the deal. If that happens, Iran could retaliate by undermining the interests of Washington and its allies in the Middle East. Here are some possible scenarios:
Iraq
When Islamic State seized much of Iraq in 2014, Iran was quick to support Baghdad. Iran has since helped arm and train thousands of Shi’ite fighters in Iraq. These Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) are also a significant political force.
If the deal falls through, Iran could encourage PMF factions who want the U.S. to leave Iraq to step up rhetorical, and maybe military, attacks against American forces.
These could be rocket, mortar and roadside bomb attacks not directly linked to a specific Shi’ite militia, which would allow Iran to deny it had changed its position of avoiding direct conflict with U.S. forces in Iraq.
Syria
Iran and paramilitary allies such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah have been involved in Syria’s war since 2012. Iran has armed and trained thousands of Shi’ite paramilitary fighters to shore up the government. Israel says Iran has recruited at least 80,000 Shi’ite fighters.
Iran’s presence in Syria has brought Tehran into direct conflict with Israel for the first time, with a series of high-profile clashes in recent months. Israeli officials say they will never let Tehran or Hezbollah establish a permanent military presence in neighboring Syria.
If the nuclear deal falls through, Iran will have little incentive to stop its Shi’ite militia allies in Syria from carrying out attacks against Israel.
Iran and the forces it controls in Syria could also cause trouble for about 2,000 U.S. troops deployed in northern and eastern Syria to support Kurdish-led fighters.
A top adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader said in April he hoped Syria and its allies would drive U.S. troops out of eastern Syria.
Lebanon
In 2006, Hezbollah fought Israel to a standstill in a 34-day border war. According to Israeli and U.S. officials, Iran is now helping Hezbollah build factories to manufacture precision-guided missiles or refit longer-range missiles with precision guidance systems.
Israeli forces have repeatedly attacked Hezbollah in Syria where the group is leading many of Iran’s Shi’ite militia allies. The rhetoric between Israel and Iran has ramped up in recent weeks. Though Hezbollah and Israel say they are not interested in conflict, the tensions could easily spill over into another Lebanon war.
Hezbollah said last year that any war waged by Israel against Syria and Lebanon could draw thousands of fighters from countries including Iran and Iraq, indicating that Shi’ite militias could come to Lebanon to help Hezbollah.
Hezbollah is also a major political force in Lebanon, and may strengthen its position at elections on May 6. For the moment, the group is working with its political opponents, notably Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, who is backed by Western governments.
But if the nuclear deal falls through, Iran could pressure Hezbollah to isolate its opponents, a development experts believe could destabilize Lebanon.
“Hezbollah literally controls Lebanese politics,” said Hilal Khashan, a professor of political studies at the American University of Beirut. “If they do that, it would be sheer harassment.”
Yemen
Iran has never acknowledged direct military involvement in Yemen. But U.S. and Saudi officials say it is supplying rebel Houthi fighters with missiles and other arms. The Houthis have fired missiles at Riyadh and Saudi oil facilities, saying they are retaliating against air raids on Yemen.
Iran and Saudi Arabia are locked in a regional power struggle. Supporters of the Iran nuclear deal say it has prevented the conflict from descending into open warfare. If the deal falls through, Iran could increase support for the Houthis, possibly provoking a military response from Saudi Arabia and Gulf allies such as the United Arab Emirates.
“I’m not ruling out Iranian support to the Houthis,” said Khashan.
Treaty
Iran also has options directly related to its nuclear programme. Iranian officials have said that one option they are examining is to withdraw completely from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), an agreement designed to stop the spread of
nuclear weapons. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says the country is not interested in developing nuclear weapons. But if Iran withdraws from the NPT, it will set off alarm bells globally.
“This would of course be a disastrous course for the Islamic Republic, as it will find itself isolated,” said Ali Alfoneh, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.
Even if Iran does not withdraw from the NPT, it has indicated that it will probably ramp up enrichment of uranium, strictly limited under the deal to help allay fears it could be used to produce atomic bomb material. Under the current deal,
Iran’s enrichment levels must remain around 3.6 percent. Iran stopped producing 20 percent enriched uranium and gave up the majority of its stockpile as part of the 2015 agreement.
Uranium refined to 20 percent fissile purity is beyond the 5 percent normally required to fuel civilian nuclear power plants, although short of highly enriched, or 80 to 90 percent, purity needed for a nuclear bomb.
This week, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi, said Iran was able to enrich uranium to a higher level than it could before the deal.
Iran’s actions may be influenced by the extent to which the other signatories to the deal respond to U.S. withdrawal, according to analysts.
That will depend on: the extent to which France, Germany and Britain insist that their companies can continue to do business with Iran under what is an international agreement ratified unanimously by the UN Security Council; the level of diplomatic
support for Iran from Russia, its partner in Syria; and how much China wishes to bind Iran into its Belt and Road foreign trade and investment initiative.
There will be a test of wills if the Trump administration restores sanctions and threatens violators with being shut out of the U.S. banking system. Of the other signatories only China, the biggest buyer of Iranian oil, is able to brush this off.
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Libya Bombing Could Mark IS Resurgence
Wednesday’s deadly suicide bombing of Libya’s election commission is the most sophisticated terror attack the country has suffered since 2015. And analysts say it underlines the dangers Libya will need to navigate in the months ahead as divided authorities, encouraged by the United Nations, seek to hold a nationwide poll.
Islamic State’s Amaq propaganda wing claimed responsibility for the blast, which left at least 12 dead, and involved three gunmen, two of whom blew themselves up, saying the bloodletting in the capitol, Tripoli, was part of a campaign to target polling stations.
For weeks the proposed elections have prompted the doubts of some political observers and analysts, who fear the country isn’t stable or secure enough to be holding polls and that trying to do so would invite efforts to derail it — either from jihadists or militias fearing their power will be undercut.
Last month, Human Rights Watch warned against rushing Libya to the polls, while the country remains mired in violence and divided between warring factions featuring rival governments and an array of militias, some ideological, some town-based.
The rights group warned that neither the internationally-recognized government in Tripoli nor authorities in the east, led by the renegade General Khalifa Haftar, can guarantee freedom of assembly or free speech essential for any credible vote.
“Libya today couldn’t be further away from respect for the rule of law and human rights, let alone from acceptable conditions for free elections,” said Eric Goldstein, deputy Middle East and North Africa director for the rights group.
The last parliamentary elections in Libya in 2014 led to rival governments being set up in Tripoli and the east, backed by competing and shifting armed alliances.That election saw a very low turnout with only 630,000 people voting out of a registered electorate of 2.5 million.
Most voters didn’t bother to go to the polls, analysts and Libyans said at the time, because they despaired anything would be changed by doing so and feared the country would just continue to be engulfed by the lawlessness and disorder it has seen since the 2011 popular uprising that toppled Libyan autocrat Colonel Moammar Gadhafi.
The United Nations mission in Libya condemned Wednesday’s suicide bombing on Twitter and extended condolences to the families of the dead.
Five successive United Nations envoys have tried to oversee a deal between warring factions in the fractious country, but to little avail.The current envoy, Ghassan Salame, told the U.N. Security Council last month that working towards free and credible elections in Libya to be held this year was a “top priority.”
He hopes elections will edge the country back to stability and end the impasse between rival governments and militias. The election commission in recent weeks has been registering voters and its officials say the registrations are secure, thanks to a back-up database. The election process has already seen the assassinations of a string of self-declared electoral candidates.
Emadeddin Muntasser, a Libyan human rights activist and political analyst, fears the latest U.N. plan backed by Western powers will fail.
“With elections only a few months away, the U.N. has not addressed the lack of security or the lack of basic freedoms in areas controlled by various warlords,” he argued in a policy paper published by the Atlantic Council, a New York-based research group.
Muntasser says the best way forward would be for incremental elections to be held with towns signing up as they see fit and sending representatives to a new parliament that slowly emerges and starts in an evolutionary way to stabilize the country.
Other analysts argue the U.N. has little choice but to try to press on with an election, arguing a nationwide poll provides the best opportunity for Libyans to end the disorder.
The bombing and gunfire that erupted Wednesday may also herald a new phase in IS efforts to remain relevant and dangerous in the North African state and reflects the difficulty of rooting out jihadists, who have suffered setbacks in Libya.
Islamic State had controlled the coastal city of Sirte, hoping to use it as a launchpad for attacks in Libya and in neighboring states. But it was driven out by forces loyal to the United Nations-backed prime minister, with the assistance of U.S. airstrikes and Western special forces.
It took a nearly three-year-long effort for General Haftar to oust extremist militias from Benghazi, Libya’s second city. And the eastern town of Derna is still occupied by an Islamist militia known as the Shura Council of Mujahideen. Jihadist elements also remain lodged in the southwestern city of Sebha.
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Zimbabwe Election Campaigns Ask: What about China?
Much of the recent, heated debate surrounding Zimbabwe’s coming elections centers on the nation’s largest foreign investor, China — and analysts say the conversation is distracting from the real election issue: Zimbabwe’s failing economy.
Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa is courting both China and the West, saying that Zimbabwe, after decades of pariah status, is “open for business.”
‘Your business is shady dealing’
But Nelson Chamisa, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, has pledged to weed out Chinese investors whom he accuses of exploiting Zimbabwe. He accused Mnangagwa, whose nickname is Ngwenya, or Crocodile, of being involved.
“We do just say Zimbabwe is open for business when we see that the business you are talking about, is looting, your business is corruption, your business is marginalization of the workers, your business is shady dealing,” he said at a rally in Harare this week, speaking in a mixture of English and Shona. “We have seen the deals by Ngwenya and with the Chinese and others. They are busy asset stripping and looting our resources, so I said beginning September when I get into office, I will ask the Chinese to come in a queue and interrogate their deals. We will send away all those with bad deals for Zimbabwe. We want genuine investment which will bring benefit for the people, not for the leadership only.”
The opposition is attempting to unseat the ruling ZANU-PF party, which has ruled since independence in 1980. Chamisa has mocked Mnangagwa’s claim that Zimbabwe is “open for business,” saying that the nation needs to be choosier and only allow deals that “truly benefit the people” — not just elites and wealthy investors.
Zimbabwe has faced tough U.S. and international sanctions for alleged human rights abuses and political repression under former president Robert Mugabe. One of the few sources of foreign investment has been China, which has pumped money into mining, chemicals and textile projects.
China-Africa analyst Cobus van Staden, of the South African Institute of International Affairs, says he’s not surprised to see China becoming a political football.
“We’ve seen that kind of populist, anti-Chinese agitation in other African countries too,” he told VOA. “The most famous one was in Zambia a few years ago, when late President Michael Sata was campaigning under a similar kind of nationalist, anti-Chinese kind of message. But then, interestingly, after he came to power, that changed very quickly. Because I think once one is power and one faces the reality of the investment environment and the relative influence of China in the whole world, then it becomes very difficult. That’s kind of campaign talk, I think, more than governing talk.”
A new chapter?
Mnangagwa has made clear overtures to China since he came into power in November after the military-supported resignation of President Robert Mugabe. His first presidential visit outside of Africa was to China, where, in April, he and President Xi Jinping spoke of a “new chapter” between the two countries and of deals that would rejuvenate Zimbabwe’s economy.
During a welcoming ceremony last month in Beijing, Xi told Mnangagwa, “You are an old friend of China and I appreciate your efforts to develop relations in all areas.”
But is it real?
Derek Matyszak, a Harare-based political analyst from the Institute for Security Studies, says that for all that talk, he’s not convinced that the foreign direct investment has actually happened.
“It’s very difficult to distinguish between rhetoric and the pre-election propaganda from the reality,” he told VOA. “We are told that a lot of FDI has come into the country. Government’s official position is that $11 billion is earmarked for investment in the country. But when you start to analyze these deals, the details are vague. They are fake deals, sometimes the deals are little more than memorandums of understanding. There’s no actual, concrete investment going on behind them.”
And, he says, the Mugabe administration’s poor record of China-Zimbabwe joint ventures means that, while Zimbabwe may be open for Chinese investment, China may not be so sure.
“The Chinese are a little bit more cautious now, and are basically saying to the Mnangagwa government, ‘Well, before we start talking about new investment, what about the money that you owe us on account of the previous investments?’” he said. “So that’s a bit of a sticking point and a problematic area for Chinese-Zimbabwe relations.”
Sebastian Mhofu contributed to this report from Harare.
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Libya Election Plans Thrown Into Turmoil After Suicide Attack
Various Libyan factions are accusing each other of trying to postpone parliamentary and presidential elections, following the suicide-attack against the headquarters of the country’s electoral commission Wednesday in Tripoli. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the bombing, while the military spokesman in the east of the country downplayed that claim.
The suicide bomber attack Wednesday against Libya’s electoral commission headquarters left a trail of death and destruction. Libyan TV showed the charred remains of the badly damaged building and reported more than a dozen people had been killed.
Arab media said the so-called Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack.
Colonel Ahmed al-Masmari, military spokesman for the self-styled Libyan National Army in the east of the country, was skeptical of the claim.
He says that there are “gangs” from the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaida that were behind this attack. He says the “Islamic State” group claimed responsibility, but they claim they are behind everything. He says for the Libyan Army, the Muslim Brotherhood, IS, and al-Qaida are the same thing.
Masmari said the Muslim Brotherhood is attempting to postpone presidential and parliamentary elections in Libya by tying them to a separate vote on revising the constitution.
University of Paris Political Science Professor Khattar Abou Diab also is skeptical about the alleged “Islamic State” claim of responsibility for the bombing.
He says these terrorists do exist, and they have their own independent networks, but they frequently are manipulated by various countries. He notes that at one point it appeared that “IS” was infiltrated by former Gadhafi elements, and now it looks like certain countries are manipulating them. One needs to look at who profits from the crime, he insists.
Arab League head Ahmed Aboul Gheit said earlier this week certain countries have stepped up funding to various local militia groups.
U.N. Libya envoy Ghassan Salame said the internal and external tangents of the Libyan crisis need to be tackled.
He says the United Nations is working to resolve the internal conflict, but efforts must be made on the international and diplomatic front to reduce negative meddling and increase positive intervention.
Washington-based Middle East analyst Theodore Karasik tells VOA recent reports that eastern Libyan military commander General Khalifa Hafter was on his deathbed demonstrate the extent of outside propaganda by certain countries.
“What Hafter’s trip to Paris exposed was how aggressive the Qatari-Turkish-Pro Muslim Brotherhood info-war campaign is. This campaign that focused on Hafter’s health and his imminent [death] was illustrative of how aggressive Ankara and Doha still are in Libya,” he said.
Analyst Christopher Davidson, who teaches at Durham University in Britain, tells VOA he thinks neither General Hafter nor the Muslim Brotherhood are likely to want to see “potentially unifying national elections take place” in Libya. Both sides, he argues, “need more time to gain more territory and strengthen their hand at the future national negotiating table.”
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Scottish Appeals Board to Review Lockerbie Bomb Conviction
Scotland’s criminal appeals body said Thursday that it will review the case of a Libyan man convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, as his family tries posthumously to clear his name.
The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission said it has decided “that it is in the interests of justice” to review the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi over the bombing, which killed 270 people.
Al-Megrahi was convicted in 2001 of blowing up Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie on Dec. 21, 1988, killing all 259 people aboard and 11 on the ground. Many victims were American college students flying home for Christmas.
Al-Megrahi lost one appeal and abandoned another before being freed in 2009 on compassionate grounds. He died of cancer in 2012, still protesting his innocence.
Review Commission chief executive Gerard Sinclair said al-Megrahi abandoned his second appeal “as he held a genuine and reasonable belief that such a course of action would result in him being able to return home to Libya, at a time when he was suffering from terminal cancer.” He said “on that basis” the commission considered it right to review the conviction.
The review commission will decide whether to hand the case to an appeals court.
Al-Megrahi’s family is seeking to overturn the murder conviction, citing concerns about the evidence, including doubts about the timer alleged to have detonated the bomb.
Family lawyer Aamer Anwar welcomed the decision, saying “the reputation of the Scottish law has suffered both at home and internationally because of widespread doubts about the conviction of Mr. al-Megrahi.”
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Germany Says Liu Xiaobo’s Widow is Welcome ‘at any Time’
Germany said Thursday it would welcome the widow of Chinese Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo after a recording was released of her crying in desperation and indicating that she has given up hope of being able to leave China.
“If I can’t leave, I’ll die in my home,” Liu Xia, the widow, said during a recent phone call with her close friend Liao Yiwu, a writer who documented their conversation in an essay published Wednesday.
“Xiaobo is gone, and there’s nothing in the world for me now,” Liu said tearfully. “It’s easier to die than live. Using death to defy could not be any simpler for me.”
Liu has never been charged with a crime, but has been kept guarded and largely isolated since her husband, Liu Xiaobo, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his human rights activism in 2010. He was still serving a prison sentence for inciting subversion of state power when he died of liver cancer last summer.
Germany’s Foreign Ministry told The Associated Press on Thursday that the German government has been discussing Liu’s case with China and “will continue to do so.”
“According to the information available to us, Liu Xia has not been accused of any crime,” the ministry said in emailed comments. “She should be allowed to travel, also for humanitarian considerations. Should she choose to come to Germany, Liu Xia would be welcome here at any time.”
Writing from Germany where he is living in exile, Liao said that Chinese state security agents repeatedly promised Liu Xia that she would be able to leave the country and seek treatment for the clinical depression that has long ailed her.
Germany was prepared to take her in, according to Liao: “In early April the German Foreign Minister had already made specific arrangements, including as to how they’d not alert the news media, how they’d covertly collect Liu Xia at the airport, and how they’d arrange her treatment and recovery and more.”
But hopes for a quiet departure have not borne fruit.
Hu Jia, a dissident and longtime friend of the Lius, described Liao’s essay as a “counterattack” against Chinese authorities prompted by an “awakening” after hearing for months that Liu would soon be released.
Corroborating Liao’s account, Hu said Liu had initially been told by security agents to wait until after the 19th Party Congress last fall, when President Xi Jinping secured a second term at the helm of the ruling Communist Party. Then, Hu said, they told her to wait until after the meeting of the ceremonial legislature in March.
During this time, Liu’s supporters kept a low profile because government agents told them that remaining silent about the case would lead to a solution, Hu told the AP.
“Why did Mr. Liao call Liu Xia on April 30? Because at that point it was already clear that hope was shattered,” Hu said. “We were duped.”
When asked at a regular press briefing whether Liu will be able to leave the country, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said she was “not aware of the situation.”
“But Liu Xia is a Chinese citizen. The competent Chinese authority will handle the relevant matter in accordance with laws,” Hua said, repeating a statement often used by China to address Liu’s case.
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Rights Groups Highlight New Threats on World Press Freedom Day
As the world marks Press Freedom Day, journalists around the world face arrests, intimidation or death for doing their jobs. And while the list of the world’s most censored countries is more or less the same, new hostility against media is emerging from previously friendly quarters. Rights organizations say freedom of the press, rather than improving, is increasingly at risk. VOA’s Ayesha Tanzeem reports.
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Russian Fighter Jet Crashes Off Syria, Killing 2
Russia’s Defense Ministry said a Russian fighter jet crashed Thursday shortly after taking off from an air base in Syria, killing both of its pilots.
A ministry statement carried by Russian media said the Su-30 jet went down in the Mediterranean Sea after taking off from Hmeimim air base, located along the coast in northwestern Syria.
It further said the plane had not come under fire and that preliminary information suggested the cause of the crash could have been a bird being sucked into one of the plane’s engines.
Russian forces joined Syria’s war in September 2015 fighting in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.
your ad hereTrump Praises Teachers Amid Wave of US Teacher Strikes
U.S. President Donald Trump met with teachers of the year from several states Wednesday at the White House. Trump conferred the 2018 National Teacher of the Year award, as public teachers in many states protest low pay and criticize the administration for what they see as siphoning education funds from public schools into private alternatives. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has more.
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Journalists Continue to Risk Their Lives for the Story
The April 30 killings of 10 journalists in Afghanistan highlight the dangers journalists face in covering some parts of the world. On VOA’s Plugged in with Greta Van Susteren, experts discuss why worldwide freedom of the press is more important now than ever. VOA’s Jesusemen Oni has more.
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