May 2018 - Page 4 of 24

American, Wife Freed From Venezuelan Prison

Posted on 05/27/2018 by SeeUS

Twenty-six-year-old Joshua Holt had been a prisoner in Venezuela since the summer of 2016, but on Saturday he told U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House that he was “overwhelmed with gratitude” for those who had worked for his release.

Trump said Holt had been “incredibly brave.”

Holt and his Venezuelan wife, Thamara Candelo, arrived in the U.S. Saturday accompanied by Senator Bob Corker, who helped negotiate their release.

Holt, a former Mormon missionary, had traveled to Venezuela in June 2016 to marry Candelo. Police arrested the couple after finding an assault rifle and grenades during a raid on a housing complex where the couple lived. The couple has denied the charge of concealing weapons.

Senator Orrin Hatch, who represents Holt’s home state of Utah posted on Twitter:

Hatch also thanked Corker, the U.S. Senate foreign relations committee chairman, who met with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro Friday in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, to secure the couple’s release.

The White House press secretary’s office released a statement late Saturday, saying Holt’s release “does not change United States policy.” It said, “The Maduro regime must call free, fair, and transparent elections, consistent with its constitution. The election process that occurred on May 20 was illegitimate.” The statement called for “new elections and the democratic process,” the release of all political prisoners and the acceptance of “desperately needed international humanitarian aid for Venezuela’s dying citizens.”

“Very glad that Josh Holt is now back home with his family — where he has always belonged,” U.S. Vice President Mike Pence wrote in a tweet. “Sanctions continue until democracy returns to Venezuela.”

Maduro won a second six-year term in office May 20 in an election that the U.S. and other countries have described as a “sham” after several rivals were prohibited from running.

After his victory, Maduro expelled the two most senior U.S. diplomats for allegedly conspiring to sabotage the election by pushing opposition parties to boycott the election.

Despite the expulsion of the American diplomats, the Venezuelan government has been seeking ways to avoid the threat of harsh U.S. oil sanctions that could further cripple the country’s ailing economy.

A spokesman for Maduro described the release of the couple as a “gesture” aimed at improving diplomatic relations with the United States.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement Saturday, “U.S. policy toward Venezuela remains unchanged. The United States stands steadfast in support of the Venezuelan people and their efforts to return to democracy.”
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New York Clothing Store Sells Gender Neutral Lifestyle

Posted on 05/27/2018 by SeeUS

New shops appear in New York City every day, but Phluid Project, which recently opened its doors on Broadway, is different. One of the first gender-fluid boutiques in the world, Phluid Project sells clothing for men, women and everyone in between. Both the clothes and the mannequins here are gender-neutral, and as an added selling point, its store owners say the prices are more than affordable. Elena Wolf visited the one-of-a-kind store, where no one feels out of place.
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Senegal’s Biennale Art Expo Opens Opportunities for Local Artisans

Posted on 05/27/2018 by SeeAF

Since its first edition in 1990, the Dak’Art Biennale in Senegal has become a key event in the world of African contemporary art. This year, the main international expo features the work of 75 artists from 33 countries. But the biennial also offers a chance for local Senegalese artists to showcase their work. Sofia Christensen reports from Dakar’s historic Medina neighborhood.
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South Korea Urges North to Salvage Nuclear Summit with US

Posted on 05/27/2018 by SeeUS

South Korean President Moon Jae-in said he urged North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to directly engage with Washington to salvage the June 12 nuclear summit with the U.S., when the two leaders held a surprise second inter-Korean summit Saturday.

“I emphasized that the two sides must directly communicate in order to eradicate any misunderstandings, and preliminary talks through working-level negotiations on key agendas are necessary,” said President Moon at a press briefing in Seoul Sunday.

Security concerns

North Korea requested the meeting between Kim and Moon after U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday canceled the Singapore summit. Trump said his decision was based on the “tremendous anger and open hostility displayed” by North Korea officials recently over U.S. demands that Pyongyang follow the Libya denuclearization model.

North Korea sees that model for rapid and complete denuclearization as a threat to the Kim government’s security, since Libyan leader Moammar Ghadafi was later overthrown and killed by his own people, with support from a multinational military coalition that included the U.S.

Pyongyang has called for a more incremental process that links concessions to partial nuclear reductions and postpones complete denuclearization until the North’s security demands are met.

Moon met with Kim on the North side of the inter-Korean border, in the same village of Panmunjom where the two leaders held a summit in April. At that meeting, on the south side of the border, the two leaders jointly declared their support for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

On Saturday Moon said Kim reaffirmed his commitment to end his country’s nuclear weapons program, but shared his key concern that the U.S. would work to destabilize his rule despite any security guarantees it offers.

“What is uncertain for Chairman Kim Jong Un is not his willingness for denuclearization, but he has concerns over whether North Korea can trust the fact that Washington will end its hostile relations, and guarantee the security of the regime if North Korea does denuclearize,” Moon said.

Trump has said Kim would be both secure in his rule and rich, as the U.S. and other countries would offer substantial economic aid and investment.

Summit planning

Pyongyang has taken a conciliatory tone in response to the cancellation of the summit. KCNA, North Korea’s official state news agency, reported Sunday that that Kim Jong Un “expressed his fixed will” to hold the summit with President Trump and “thanked” President Moon for acting as a mediator to reconcile the differences between North Korea and the U.S.

President Moon also emphasized that North Korea demonstrated “its strong intentions” by unilaterally suspending nuclear and missile tests since November of last year and demolishing the Punggye-ri nuclear test site last week.

President Trump Saturday suggested that the canceled Singapore summit with North Korea could happen after all. He told reporters that working level talks with Pyongyang “are going very, very well.”

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement Saturday, “The White House pre-advance team for Singapore will leave as scheduled in order to prepare should the summit take place.”

Inter-Korean relations

Moon and Kim also agreed to hold high-level talks June 1 and accelerate cooperation efforts, including holding military talks to ease border tensions, and continue planning for a reunion in August for families that have been separated by the division of Korea at the end of World War II.

This renewed show of unity and friendship comes after North Korea seemed to express its anger at the U.S. by punishing South Korea, in canceling recent working level inter-Korean talks and temporarily banning South Korean journalists from covering the nuclear site closing.

Pyongyang also recently pulled out of a joint North-South taekwondo exhibition that was to be performed in St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City this week in front of dignitaries including Pope Francis.

North Korea cited the U.S.-South Korea military drills as the source of the renewed tensions with Seoul and Washington. Pyongyang demanded an end to these joint exercises that it says are rehearsals for invasion. However Kim Jong Un earlier indicated that neither the joint drills, nor the U.S. military presence on the Korean Peninsula would not be an obstacle toward improving inter-Korean relations or in reaching a denuclearization deal with the U.S.

Lee Yoon-jee in Seoul contributed to this report.
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In Oman, Yemen, Cyclone Toll: 6 Dead, 30 Missing

Posted on 05/27/2018 by SeeEA

A cyclone more powerful than any previously recorded in southern Oman slammed into the Gulf country and neighboring Yemen on Saturday, deluging a major city with nearly three years’ worth of rainfall in single day. The storm killed at least six people while more than 30 remain missing, officials said.

Cyclone Mekunu caused flash flooding that tore away whole roadways and submerged others in Salalah, Oman’s third-largest city, stranding drivers. Strong winds knocked over street lights and tore away roofing.

Rushing waters from the rain and storm surges flooded typically dry creek beds. The holiday destination’s now-empty tourist beaches were littered with debris and foam from the churning Arabian Sea.

Deaths, damage in Yemen

Three people, including a 12-year-old girl, died in Oman, and two more bodies were recovered from the Yemeni island of Socotra. More than 30 people were still missing in Socotra, including Yemeni, Indian and Sudanese nationals.

Yemeni officials also reported damage in the country’s far east, along the border with Oman. Rageh Bakrit, the governor of al-Mahra province, said on his official Twitter account late Friday that strong winds had blown down houses and taken out communication lines and water services. He said there were no fatalities in the province.

India’s Meteorological Department said the storm packed maximum sustained winds of 170-180 kilometers (105-111 miles) per hour with gusts of up to 200 kph (124 mph). It called the cyclone “extremely severe.”

Portions of Salalah, home to some 200,000 people, lost power as the cyclone made landfall.

Branches and leaves littered the streets. Several underpasses became standing lakes. Some cars were left abandoned on the road. Electrical workers began trying to repair lines in the city while police and soldiers in SUVs patrolled the streets. On the outskirts of the city, near the Salalah International Airport, what once was a dry creek bed had become a raging river.

The airport, closed since Thursday, will reopen early Sunday, Oman’s Public Authority for Civil Aviation said. The Port of Salalah, a key gateway for the country and for Qatar amid a regional diplomatic dispute, remained closed, its cranes secured against the pounding rain and winds.

Omani forecasters said Salalah and the surrounding area would get at least 200 millimeters (7.87 inches) of rain, more than twice the city’s annual downfall. It actually received 278.2 mm, nearly three times its annual rainfall.

Authorities remained worried about flash flooding in the area’s valleys and potential mudslides down its nearby cloud-shrouded mountains. In nearby Wadi Darbat, the storm’s rains supercharged its famous waterfall.

Rescue efforts

Police and others continued their rescue efforts even as the winds and rains calmed. Capt. Tarek al-Shanfari of the Royal Oman Police’s public relations department said there had been at least three fatalities in the storm, including the death of a 12-year-old girl who was hit in the head by a door flung open by the wind.

An Asian laborer died in a flooded valley and an Omani national when his vehicle was swept away, al-Shanfari said. Oman’s National Committee for Civil Defense announced a fourth death early Sunday, without offering details.

On Socotra, authorities relocated more than 230 families to sturdier buildings and other areas, including those more inland and in the island’s mountains, Yemeni security officials said.

Flash floods engulfed Socotra’s streets, cutting electricity and communication lines. Some humanitarian aid from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates arrived on the island just hours after the cyclone receded.

Yemeni security officials said rescuers recovered two bodies on Socotra, while more than 30 people remain missing. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.
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OPEC, Russia Could Raise Oil Output After US Prodding

Posted on 05/27/2018 by SeeEA

Saudi Arabia and Russia are discussing raising OPEC and non-OPEC oil production by about 1 million barrels a day, sources said, weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump complained about artificially high prices.

Riyadh and Moscow are prepared to ease output cuts to calm consumer worries about supply adequacy, their energy ministers said Friday, with Saudi Arabia’s Khalid al-Falih adding that any such move would be gradual so as not to shock the market.

Raising production would ease 17 months of strict supply curbs amid concerns that a price rally has gone too far, with oil hitting its highest since late 2014 at $80.50 a barrel this month.

Trump tweeted last month that OPEC had “artificially” boosted oil prices.

A need to respond

“We were in the meeting in Jeddah, when we read the tweet,” OPEC Secretary General Mohammad Barkindo said, referring to a meeting in Saudi Arabia April 20.

“I think I was prodded by his excellency Khalid Al-Falih that probably there was a need for us to respond. We in OPEC always pride ourselves as friends of the United States,” Barkindo told a panel with the Saudi and Russian energy ministers in St. Petersburg at Russia’s main economic forum.

OPEC officials said by “the need to respond” Barkindo was referring to a tweet he sent the same day, rather than the need to act.

Hitting agreed level

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies led by Russia have agreed to curb output by about 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) through 2018 to reduce global stocks, but the inventory overhang is now near OPEC’s target.

In April, pact participants cut production by 52 percent more than required, with falling output from crisis-hit Venezuela helping OPEC deliver a bigger reduction than intended.

Sources familiar with the matter said an increase of about 1 million bpd would lower compliance to 100 percent of the agreed level.

Barkindo also said it was not unusual for the United States to put pressure on OPEC as some U.S. energy secretaries had asked the producer group to help lower prices in the past.

Oil prices fell more than 2 percent toward $77 a barrel Friday as Saudi Arabia and Russia said they were ready to ease supply curbs.

Near target

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said current cuts were in reality 2.7 million bpd because of a drop in Venezuelan production, somewhere around 1 million bpd higher than the initially agreed reductions.

Novak declined to say, however, whether OPEC and Russia would decide to boost output by 1 million bpd at their next meeting in June.

“The moment is coming when we should consider assessing ways to exit the deal very seriously and gradually ease quotas on output cuts,” Novak said in televised comments.

Initial talks are being led by the energy ministers of OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia and Russia at St. Petersburg this week, along with their counterpart from the United Arab Emirates, which holds the OPEC presidency this year, the sources said. OPEC and non-OPEC ministers meet in Vienna on June 22-23, and the final decision will be taken there.

Compliance at record high

Current discussions are aimed at relaxing record-high compliance with the production cuts, the sources said, in an effort to cool the market after oil hit $80 a barrel.

China has also raised concerns about whether enough oil is being pumped, according to a Saudi statement issued after Energy Minister Falih called China’s energy chief on Friday to discuss cooperation between their countries and to review the oil market.

Nur Bekri, administrator of China’s National Energy Administration, told Falih he hopes Saudi Arabia “can take further substantial actions to guarantee adequate supply” in the crude oil market, the Saudi Energy Ministry statement said.

While Russia and OPEC benefit from higher oil prices, up almost 20 percent since the end of last year, their voluntary output cuts have opened the door to other producers, such as the U.S. shale sector, to ramp up production and gain market share.

The final production number is not set yet as dividing up the extra barrels among deal participants could be tricky, the sources said.

“The talks now are to bring compliance down to the 100 percent level, more for OPEC rather than for non-OPEC,” one source said.

Rally concerns

OPEC may decide to raise oil output as soon as June because of worries over Iranian and Venezuelan supply and after Washington raised concerns the oil rally was going too far, OPEC and oil industry sources told Reuters on Tuesday.

However, it is unclear which countries have the capacity to raise output and fill any supply gap other than Gulf oil producers, led by Saudi Arabia, and Russia, the sources said.

“Only a few members have the capability to increase production, so implementation will be complicated,” one OPEC source said.

So far, OPEC had said it saw no need to ease output restrictions despite concerns among consuming nations that the price rally could undermine demand.

The rapid decline in oil inventories and worries about supplies after the U.S. decision to withdraw from the international nuclear deal with Iran, as well as Venezuela’s collapsing output, were behind the change in OPEC’s thinking.
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Uncertain Future Awaits Syria’s Children

Posted on 05/26/2018 by SeeEA

Ten-year-old Khaled lives in a refugee camp in the countryside of Idlib, Syria. He has wide gray eyes and looks serious in front of the camera, but his friends and caregivers call him the “head of mischief.”

Khaled lost his father five years ago when Islamic State militants abducted him in Idlib. That was the last time Khaled saw his father.

“Khaled’s father got out from the house heading to Friday prayers, then disappeared. We searched everywhere for him. Later we learned that militants from IS had taken him, and he just disappeared,” Khaled’s mother, who did not want to be named, told VOA.

Khaled, his mother and 6-year-old twin brothers moved several times from one refugee camp to another as the Syrian government’s warplanes kept striking camps in the area.They finally settled in the Uthman ibn Affan camp for orphans and refugees, where they are currently living.

“One day, Syrian government jets attacked our village. We survived,” Khaled’s mother said, recalling the horror that she and her children experienced.

Khaled is only one among thousands of children who have lost their parents to the war in Syria.

Syrian activist Omar Omar, who arranges entertainment for children living in refugee camps in Idlib’s countryside, told VOA that the organization he works for is caring for more than 6,000 children in the area who have lost one or both parents.

“Some orphans are living with family members, like grandparents, uncles and aunts. Some are separated from their entire families, and they are supported by humanitarian organizations,” Omar said.

His is just one organization caring for 6,000 children in one area. The total number of children who lost their parents could be in tens of thousands of children.

Perpetual war

The war in Syria broke out in 2011, and within a couple of years it had resulted in tens of thousands of deaths, according to estimates from opposition activist groups. But IS’s emergence in 2013, after a split with what was then known as the al-Nusra Front, an al-Qaida affiliated group, further increased the suffering of ordinary people in the country. IS engaged in clashes with rebels first in Idlib and later expanded to other areas of the country, including Raqqa in the east, which became the IS de facto capital.

Since then, civilian casualties have soared. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said that as of March 2018, more than 510,000 had been killed in the war. A lot of those killed left behind children and families.

In a 2017 study published by Save the Children, a global nonprofit organization working for children’s well-being, about 77 percent of adults told researchers that they knew of children who had lost one or both parents in the Syrian civil war.

Eighteen percent said they knew of children who were “living alone with no choice but to fend for themselves with little community or institutional support. Many have to work in farms or in shops, steal or beg on the streets, or join armed groups to get by,” the report said. Some have had to undertake grownup responsibilities and become breadwinners for their families.

The report did not have an actual figure for the total number of orphaned children in the country.

Impact on education

According to Save the Children, more than 4,000 attacks have taken place on schools in Syria since the war broke out, which has seriously affected children’s education. The organization warned that if measures were not taken, the interruption in education could have serious implications for Syria’s postwar society.

The impact of being deprived of education is worse on orphaned children, because they lack the parental guidance that is needed.

Manar Qarra, general manager of the Selam Orphanage in Gaziantep, Turkey, told VOA that education is a key priority in rehabilitating orphans so that they can gain confidence and depend on themselves in the absence of one or both parents.

But she says that’s not enough.

“We also focus on developing children’s skills and enabling the children to discover themselves and plan for their futures,” Qarra said.

Qarra added that children who have been out of school for years cannot simply go back to school, especially when there are psychological problems that could prevent them from succeeding in their studies. She said remedial instruction and therapy may be needed.

The oldest girl in Qarra’s orphanage is Shahira Qaddour, 21, who came to the orphanage five years ago, along with her five younger sisters, from Homs governorate in central Syria.

Shahira and her sisters lost both of their parents.Syrian government forces killed her father. Her mother and a toddler sister were also killed in an airstrike that hit their house. Shahira and the remaining sisters miraculously survived the attack, and activists helped the girls come to Selam Orphanage.

At the orphanage, Shahira loves taking pictures and aspires to work as a photographer one day. Selam Orphanage uses many of the pictures she takes on its social media pages and website.

Exploitation concerns

Activists like Qarra are concerned that children who lost their caregivers in Syria are at risk of being forced into labor, marriage or service in armed groups.

“The orphan who comes to our center is a war orphan. The child not only suffers from the loss of a parent but also homelessness, fear and deprivation,” she said.

Qarra added that traumatized mothers, who experienced abuse and sexual harassment in the past, should not be ignored by aid groups, because their emotional breakdowns and reactions could directly affect their children.

Qarra said that children affected by the war in Syria carry hidden wounds that go beyond physical loss, and with no end in sight to the conflict, they cannot regain a sense of normalcy.
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US Warns Syrian Government Not to Advance on South

Posted on 05/26/2018 by SeeEA

The United States warned it would take “firm and appropriate measures” to protect a cease-fire in southern Syria if President Bashar Assad’s forces move against rebels there.

The area in southwestern Syria, between the border city of Daraa and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, has emerged as a flashpoint in a wider standoff between regional archrivals Israel and Iran.

The U.S., Russia, and Jordan agreed last year to include Daraa in a “de-escalation zone” to freeze the lines of conflict. But government forces have recently dropped leaflets on rebel-held areas warning of an imminent offensive and urging fighters to lay down their arms, Syrian state media said Friday.

In a statement released Friday, the U.S. State Department said it was concerned by reports that Assad’s forces were preparing for an operation in southwestern Syria. It warned the government against “any actions that risk broadening the conflict.”

Assad has relied on Russia, Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah to battle an uprising against his family’s decades-long rule and roll-back an Islamic State insurgency that grew out of the country’s seven-year civil war. Iran has sent military commanders to oversee battles and organize militias from across the Middle East to fight alongside Assad’s troops.

The U.S. and Israel view Iran’s extensive military presence in Syria as a threat to Israel and have threatened action. The Israeli military is believed to be behind dozens of airstrikes in recent years against Hezbollah, Iran, and Syrian military positions.

Earlier this month, Israel bombed Iranian military positions in Syria in what it said was retaliation for an Iranian rocket attack on the occupied Golan Heights. Israel called it its most serious operation in Syria since the 1973 Mideast war.

The government began moving reinforcements to Daraa province this week after expelling the last rebels and IS militants from around Damascus, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which closely monitors the war.

Leaflets dropped on northern Daraa, which is divided between rebel and government-controlled areas, warned: “The men of the Syrian army are coming.”

The Syrian uprising began in Daraa in 2011. The cease-fire has slowly disintegrated as government warplanes have carried out airstrikes against rebel-held areas.

Meanwhile in Idlib, a car bomb in one of the northern city’s main streets killed at least four people and wounded about 30 others on Saturday, according to the Syrian Civil Defense search-and-rescue group.

Idlib, the capital of a province by the same name, has suffered deterioration to its security in recent months as rebel and jihadist factions battle with the al-Qaida-linked Levant Liberation Committee for dominance. The province is one of the opposition’s last remaining footholds in the country. The other is Daraa.

It was not clear who was behind Saturday’s bomb blast. According to the Observatory, at least 119 people have been killed over the past month in the factional infighting in Idlib. Thirty-one of them have been civilians.
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Thousands Across France Protest Macron’s ‘Brutal’ Policies

Posted on 05/26/2018 by SeeEU

Thousands of protesters marched under tight security in eastern Paris on Saturday after French labor unions, left-wing political parties and civil rights groups called for “floods of people” to oppose the economic policies of President Emmanuel Macron.

Marches and rallies also were being held in dozens of other French cities as part of the joint action against Macron’s policies that organizers consider pro-business and “brutal.”

At the Paris event, Philippe Martinez, head of leading French union CGT, advised the president to “look out the window of his palace to see real life.”

More than 1,500 police officers were mobilized in the French capital to prevent activists not associated with the official protest from disrupting the march and causing damage, which has happened during previous recent demonstrations.

Police said they detained 35 people in Paris before and after the march started. Some of them were preemptively taken in for questioning after officers searched their bags and found “equipment” that could be used to cause damage or to hide their faces.

Others, mainly youths dressed in black with their faces covered, were detained on the sidelines of the main protest for breaking a window at a business or damaging bus shelters. Police used tear gas canisters to push them back. One officer was slightly injured by thrown debris.

Unions, opposition parties and other groups are particularly denouncing a Macron-led legal overhaul aimed at cutting worker protections and increasing police powers.

They allege that Macron supports tax reform that favors France’s wealthiest and is working to tear down public services, including by making it harder for students to attend the universities of their choice and easier for police to brutalize residents of disadvantaged neighborhoods.

In the southern port city of Marseille, Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of the far-left Defiant France party, also addressed Macron while speaking to demonstrators.

“In the name of the poor, the humiliated, the homeless and the jobless, we are telling you, `Enough, enough of this world,”‘ Melenchon said.

Macron, a centrist former investment banker, says his economic changes are meant to increase France’s global competitiveness. In an interview with BFM TV on Friday, the French leader said that those who protest will not manage to “block the country.”

“No disorder will stop me, and calm will return,” Macron said.
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Groups Says Masked Attackers Kill Five Syria Rescuers

Posted on 05/26/2018 by SeeEA

Five Syrian rescue workers were killed in an attack by masked assailants Saturday on one of their centers in the northern province of Aleppo, the White Helmets said.

The rescue force said armed men stormed its Al-Hader center in a pre-dawn attack and fired on the first responders inside.

Four volunteers were killed on the spot and a fifth died later in hospital, it wrote on Twitter.

Founded in 2013, the White Helmets are a network of first responders who rescue wounded in the aftermath of air strikes, shelling or blasts in rebel-held territory.

The Al-Hader center lies in an area controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a jihadist organization whose main component was once Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria.

“At around 2:00 am, an armed group stormed the Al-Hader center, blindfolded the staff members who were on the night shift, and killed five of them,” said Ahmad al-Hamish, who heads the center.

“Two others were wounded and another two were able to flee. The attackers were masked and escaped after stealing some equipment and generators,” he said.

It was unclear whether the attack was a robbery-gone-wrong or if the center and its crew had been specifically targeted.

More than 200 White Helmets rescuers have been killed in Syria’s seven-year war, usually in bombing raids or shelling on their centers.

While attacks like the one on Saturday are rare, they have happened before. In August, seven White Helmets members were killed in a similar assault in the town of Sarmin, in neighboring Idlib province.

Most of Idlib is held by HTS, as well as a part of Aleppo and the adjacent province of Hama.
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Jailed British-Iranian Aid Worker To Face Trial On Security Charges

Posted on 05/26/2018 by SeeEU

A detained British-Iranian aid worker sentenced to five years in jail in Iran is to face a second trial on new security charges, the semi-official Tasnim news agency on Saturday quoted Tehran Revolutionary Court’s head Musa Ghazanfarabadi as saying.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was arrested in April 2016 at a Tehran airport as she was heading back to Britain with her two-year-old daughter after a family visit.

She was convicted of plotting to overthrow Iran’s clerical establishment, a charge denied by her family and the Foundation, a charity organization that is independent of Thomson Reuters and operates independently of Reuters News.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson discussed Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s case with Iranian officials after flying to Tehran in December to try to seek her release.

“Ghazanfarabadi said the charge against Zaghari in the new case is security-related but did not say whether it was espionage or another charge,” Tasnim reported.

“Zaghari is to present an attorney and then the court will convene,” Ghazanfarabadi said.

Reuters was unable to determine the identity of the lawyer.

Asked for comment by Reuters, Britain’s Foreign Office said on Saturday that it would not provide a commentary on “every twist and turn.”

Her husband Richard Ratcliffe said it was not clear what the latest charges involved.

“To go back a week, she had met with the judge … who said there would be a charge of spreading propaganda against the regime, that’s a very mild form of security charge so hopefully it’s just that,” he told BBC TV.

In a statement on Monday, the Thomson Reuters Foundation said it totally rejected “the renewed accusations that Nazanin is guilty of spreading propaganda” and said it continued to assert her full innocence.

In response to an urgent question in parliament on Tuesday about her situation, British Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt said Prime Minister Theresa May had raised all consular cases with President Hassan Rouhani in a call earlier this month. He did not provide further details.

He also said the British ambassador in Tehran had spoken to Zaghari-Ratcliffe last Sunday.

“We remain of the assessment that a private, rather than public approach is most likely to result in progress in Nazanin’s case and ultimately, her release, which is all any of us want,” he said.

Iran does not recognize dual citizenship, which limits the access foreign embassies have to their dual citizens held there.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have arrested at least 30 dual nationals during the past two years, mostly on spying charges, according to lawyers, diplomats and relatives, Reuters reported in November.

According to former prisoners, families of current ones and diplomats, in some cases the detainees are kept to be used for a prisoner exchange with Western countries. Iran denies the accusation.
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English Speaking Activists in Cameroon Given Jail Sentences

Posted on 05/26/2018 by SeeAF

A military tribunal in Cameroon sentenced seven English speaking detainees to 10 to 15 years in prison in connection with unrest that has paralyzed business in the English speaking zones of the central African state.

Among them is radio host Mancho Bibixy, the leader of the so called coffin revolution, who used an open casket in street demonstrations calling for better conditions for the poor.

Bibixy was accused of threatening Cameroon’s sovereignty when he appeared in a coffin at a protest in the north western town of Bamenda in November 2016, saying his coffin was symbolic of anglophone Cameroonians who seemed to have died before their real death and who therefore should not fear speaking truth to power.

The suspects were arrested separately in 2016 and charged with conspiracy to terrorism, rebellion against the state, incitement of civil unrest, breach of the constitution, provoking civil war by inciting the people to take arms against each other, and propagation of false information.

Shortly after the verdicts were read, Tsi Conrad, one of the activists, demanded that the presiding judge announce their sentences and stop wasting time.

Bibixy said he had expected a death sentence and added that all English speaking detainees were threatened on a daily basis by prison workers.

The suspects were also ordered pay a fine of $500,000 as damages to the civil parties, including the state of Cameroon.

They will each also have to pay $10,000 or spend additional two years in jail.

Emmanuel Simh, one of the lead defense attorneys, said they would file an appeal.

Also among the activists is journalist Thomas Awah Junior who was given an 11-year jail term.

Some people are asking for a return to a federal state Cameroon had practiced for about a dozen years after its 1960 independence. Some are asking for the independence of the English speaking from the French speaking regions of Cameroon, but President Paul Biya has repeated on several occasions that national unity is not for negotiation.
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Senator, Trump Say Utah Man Released From Venezuela Jail

Posted on 05/26/2018 by SeeUS

President Donald Trump said U.S. citizen Josh Holt was released from a Venezuelan jail Saturday after being detained for two years without a trial.

“Should be landing in D.C. this evening and be in the White House, with his family, at about 7:00 P.M.,” the president wrote on Twitter. “The great people of Utah will be very happy!”

Senator Orrin Hatch, who represents Holt’s home state of Utah, posted on Twitter he helped secure the release of Holt and his wife, Thamy.

“Over the last two years I’ve worked with two Presidential administrations, countless diplomatic contacts, ambassadors from all over the world, a network of contacts in Venezuela, and President Maduro himself, and I could not be more honored to be able to reunite Josh with his sweet, long-suffering family …”

Hatch also thanked U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, who met in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas Friday with President Nicolas Maduro in an attempt to secure the release of Holt. Holt has been in a Caracas jail without a trial for two years on what he has said are false weapons charges.

The 26-year-old Holt traveled to Venezuela in June 2016 to marry a woman he met online. Police arrested Holt after finding an assault rifle and grenades during a raid on a housing complex where the couple lived. Holt has denied the charges.

After Corker’s meeting with Maduro, there was speculation on social media platforms in Venezuela that the couple would be released as a goodwill gesture to improve U.S.-Venezuelan relations.

Maduro won a second six-year term in office Sunday in an election that the U.S. and other countries have described as a “sham” after several rivals were prohibited from running.

After his victory, Maduro expelled the two most senior U.S. diplomats for allegedly conspiring to sabotage the election by pushing opposition parties to boycott the election.

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DRC Ebola Outbreak Threatens Children

Posted on 05/26/2018 by SeeAF

The UN children’s fund warned the Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo threatens the health and well-being of children, and special care must be taken to help them survive.

Ebola is highly contagious, killing between 20 and 90 percent of its victims, and the UN children’s fund is engaging communities in the fight against Ebola. UNICEF spokesman, Christophe Boulierac said schools are crucial for minimizing the risk of transmission among children.

“UNICEF is scaling up prevention efforts in schools across all three affected health zones,” he said. “This includes on-going efforts to install hand washing units in 277 schools and supporting awareness raising activities reaching more than 13,000 children in Mbandaka, Bikoro and Iboko.”

Previous outbreaks of Ebola in DRC and most recently in the horrific epidemic in West Africa have shown the high-level of trauma experienced by children at the loss of family members. Boulierac told VOA orphaned children often become social outcasts because of their association with this fatal disease.

“There is as you mention, rightly, the risk of stigma and the risk that the child when his father, his care-giver, his mother is affected; the child is psychologically affected,” he said.

Boulierac said UNICEF is taking preventive measures, including providing trained therapists to families affected by the Ebola outbreak and helping children cope psychologically with the trauma of losing loved ones.
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Ireland Ends Abortion Ban as "Quiet Revolution" Transforms Country

Posted on 05/26/2018 by SeeEU

Ireland has voted by a landslide to liberalize its highly restrictive abortion laws in a referendum that its prime minister called the culmination of a “quiet revolution” in what was one of Europe’s most socially conservative countries.

Voters in the once deeply Catholic nation backed the change by two-to-one, a far higher margin than any opinion poll in the run up to the vote had predicted, and allows the government to bring in legislation by the end of the year.

“It’s incredible. For all the years and years and years we’ve been trying to look after women and not been able to look after women, this means everything,” said Mary Higgins, obstetrician and Together For Yes campaigner.

Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, who campaigned to repeal the laws, had called the vote a once-in-a-generation chance and voters responded by turning out in droves. A turnout of 64 percent was one of the highest for a referendum.

All but one of Ireland’s 40 constituencies voted “Yes” and contributed to the 66 percent that carried the proposal, almost an exact reversal of the 1983 referendum result that inserted the ban into the constitution.

“What we see is the culmination of a quiet revolution that has been taking place in Ireland over the last couple of decades,” Varadkar, who became Ireland’s first openly gay prime minister last year, told journalists in Dublin.

The outcome is the latest milestone on a path of change for a country which only legalized divorce by a razor thin majority in 1995 before becoming the first in the world to adopt gay marriage by popular vote three years ago.

“For him (his son), it’s a different Ireland that we’re moving onto. It’s an Ireland that is more tolerant, more inclusive and where he can be whatever he wants without fear of recrimination,” said Colm O’Riain, a 44-year-old teacher with his son Ruarai, who was born 14 weeks premature in November.

Astonishing margin

Anti-abortion activists conceded defeat early on Saturday as their opponents expressed astonishment at the scale of their victory. Lawmakers who campaigned for a “No” vote said they would not seek to block the government’s legislation.

“What Irish voters did yesterday is a tragedy of historic proportions,” the Save The 8th group said. “However, a wrong does not become a right simply because a majority support it.”

Voters were asked to scrap the constitutional amendment, which gives an unborn child and its mother equal rights to life.

The consequent prohibition on abortion was partly lifted in 2013 for cases where the mother’s life was in danger.

The largest newspaper, the Irish Independent described the result as “a massive moment in Ireland’s social history”.

Campaigners for change, wearing “Repeal” jumpers and “Yes” badges, gathered at count centers, many in tears and hugging each other. Others sang songs in the sunshine outside the main Dublin results center as they awaited the official result.

The large crowd cheered Varadkar as he took to the stage to thank them for “trusting women and respecting their choices”.

“Yes” campaigners had argued that with over 3,000 women travelling to Britain each year for terminations – a right enshrined in a 1992 referendum – and others ordering pills illegally online, abortion was already a reality in Ireland.

Reform in Ireland also raised the prospect that women in Northern Ireland, where abortion is still illegal, may start travelling south of the border.

The leaders of Sinn Fein, the province’s largest Irish nationalist party that also has a large presence in the Irish republic, held up a sign on stage saying “The North is next.”

Middle ground

No social issue has divided Ireland’s 4.8 million people as sharply as abortion, which was pushed up the political agenda by the death in 2012 of a 31-year-old Indian immigrant from a septic miscarriage after she was refused a termination.

Campaigners left flowers and candles at a large mural of the woman, Savita Halappanavar, in central Dublin. Her parents in India were quoted by the Irish Times newspaper as thanking their “brothers and sisters” in Ireland and requesting the new law be called “Savita’s law”.

Deputy Prime Minister Simon Coveney said he believed a middle ground of around 40 percent of voters had decided en masse to allow women and doctors rather than lawmakers and lawyers to decide whether a termination was justified.

The vote divided political parties, saw the once-mighty Catholic Church take a back seat, with the campaign defined by women on both sides publicly describing their personal experiences of terminations.

Although not on the ballot paper, the “No” camp sought to seize on government plans to allow abortions with no restriction up to 12 weeks into a pregnancy if the referendum is carried, calling it a step too far for most voters.

Save The 8th spokesman McGuirk appealed for tolerance and respect from “those who find themselves in the majority now”.

Jim Wells, a member of Northern Ireland’s socially conservative Democratic Unionist Party, said that after the vote Northern Ireland and Malta were the only parts of Europe where the unborn child was properly protected.

“It is inevitable that the abortion industry based in Great Britain will set up clinics in border towns,” he said. “The outcome of the referendum is an extremely worrying development for the protection of the unborn child in Northern Ireland.”
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Real-World Debates Permeate Venice Biennale on Architecture

Posted on 05/26/2018 by SeeEU

Real-world debates permeate this year’s Venice Biennale on architecture, from commemorating spaces once part of the U.S. slave trade to maintaining the delicate status quo at religious sites in the Holy Land.

The sprawling exhibition, which opens Saturday for a six-month run, reflects not only on the political implications of what gets built but also on the empty spaces in between.

“We have to be aware of the political issues in order to make buildings which protect, in so far as we can, the status of the human being in the world,” said Shelley McNamara, co-curator with Yvonne Farrell of the main exhibition, “Free Space.” “We are acutely aware of the things that are threatening the quality of life of human beings.”

Israeli Pavilion

The Israeli Pavilion, subtitled “structures of negotiation,” outlines the consequences of multiple claims on revered religious places and how daily use defines monuments.

It doesn’t comment on how the Trump administration’s recent decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv might impact the Middle East conflict. But the curators agreed it is easy to draw inferences.

“What we know is that sometimes political events have a very heavy impact on the status quo of the holy places and vice versa, and even if the equilibrium of the status quo in the holy places is for some reason violated it has an influence on the political situation,” said the pavilion’s co-curator Tania Coen Uzzielli.

Take the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, revered as the place of Jesus’ crucifixion and burial and one of the pavilion’s five case studies. The exhibit features a color-coded, three-dimensional model of the church made for an Ottoman-era pasha to make clear which denomination controlled which area.

In the early part of the last century, a conflict over who had the right to clean a raised stone in the church courtyard led to violence, said pavilion co-curator Deborah Pinto Fdeda.

“Tens of people died,” she said. “It is through the usage of places over time that these communities gain or lose power.” Yet even there the status quo evolved: “Today the Latins and Orthodox agree to clean it as if the other doesn’t exist.”

US pavilion

The U.S. pavilion comments on the meaning of citizenship as governments dictate who belongs and who doesn’t.

Amanda Williams and Andres Hernandez created, in collaboration with Shani Crowe, “a pocket of retreat” in the courtyard behind a protective veil of black braids. The refuge is built on a rail, symbolizing the underground railroad that helped bring slaves to freedom. It projects upward, toward a better future.

“The piece tries to embody that trajectory from fighting and surviving for your citizenship to thriving,” Williams said.

Inside, a group called Studio Gang brought 800 stones from a 19th century landing in Memphis linked to the slave trade. Co-curator Ann Lui said the project was about “taking a moment to think about these fraught sites” without proposing, yet, how to remember them.

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia is one of six countries participating for the first time in the architectural Biennale, with a project that focuses on urban sprawl in the kingdom’s four major centers: political capital Riyadh, religious capital Mecca, the oil city of Dammam and the port city of Jeddah.

“The sprawl is the result of the oil boom but the result of the sprawl is actually social isolation,” said curator Sumayah Al-Solaiman.

Participation in the Biennale is yet another sign of recent opening in Saudi Arabia, giving Saudis an important chance to communicate their experiences directly to the world.

“I think it is becoming more and more relevant to be involved in things that relate in art and culture,” said architect Abdulrahman Gazzaz. “I think it is truly fascinating to us to be present at such a wonderful shift in the dynamic of the country.”

The Vatican

The Vatican also is participating for the first time in the Biennale of architecture after joining the contemporary art fair in 2013 and 2015. The Holy See entrusted world-renowned architects including Norman Foster to create chapels in a wooded area on an island in the Venetian lagoon.

Curator Francesco Dal Co said the woods provided a metaphor “of where you get lost in life” and the chapels “are always a place of encounter, meeting experience and orientation.”

The chapels may stay on as a permanent presence on San Giorgio island after the Biennale closes on Nov. 25.
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Fire Fears Force Land Closures in Arizona

Posted on 05/26/2018 by SeeUS

Dry pine needles and dead wood snapped under fire prevention officer Matt Engbring’s boots as he hiked a half-mile into the woods in search of a makeshift campsite that had served as one man’s home until this week when the area was closed because of the escalating threat of massive wildfires.

Engbring walked past small ravines where wind quickly could carry embers and by the charred remains of a campfire, finally reaching the spot where John Dobson had been living among ponderosa pines in Arizona’s Coconino National Forest.

He spotted Dobson earlier as he was leaving the forest with his bicycle and issued a warning that he’ll likely repeat over the busy Memorial Day weekend as tourists flock to Arizona’s cooler mountainous areas to hike, bike, camp and fish.

“The area is closed now, and I can’t allow you to go back in,” he said.

Conditions ripe for wildfire

Many parts of the West are dealing with drought, but nowhere else has more state and federal land been closed to recreation than in Arizona where conditions are ripe for large-scale wildfires. Portions of the Apache-Sitgreaves, Coconino, Kaibab and Tonto national forests are closed because the dry vegetation quickly can go up in flames, firefighters would have a hard time stopping it, and homes and water resources are at risk.

In neighboring New Mexico, fire restrictions are in place, but no forests have closed. Forest officials in the western part of that state have suspended woodcutting permits, including ceremonial wood gathering by Native American tribes. They’ve also warned the public to look out for hungry bears.

Forests in southern Colorado and southern Utah are open, but officials are limiting campfires to developed areas.

“A lot of our rural, small communities depend on recreation and access to public land, so it’s on the table but really an option of last resort,” said Holly Krake, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service region that includes Colorado.

Hot, dry, breezy forecast

Weather over the next six weeks is expected to be in line with the typical onset of fire season: increasingly hot, breezy and dry. Then the monsoonal system that carries heavy rain should kick in.

“The bottom line is it’s going to get worse before it gets better,” said Rich Naden, fire weather meteorologist with the Southwest Coordination Center. “But this time of year is always like that. It’s almost like clockwork.”

Rare closures

Widespread forest closures in Arizona are rare. The 1.8 million-acre Coconino National Forest shut down completely because of fire danger in 2006 for nine days. A 2002 shutdown lasted nine weeks, encompassing the Memorial Day and July 4 holidays. Other national forests had closures in 2002 as well.

The current closures are affecting a small percentage of national forests in Arizona, and the general guidance for tourists is to check ahead of time to see what’s open and whether campfires are allowed.

In Flagstaff, Los Angeles residents Pauline and John Barba had hoped to barbecue this week while staying at a commercial campground, but charcoal grills were wrapped in yellow caution tape.

Nearby, a bright yellow sign on the barbed wire fence warned that no one is allowed in the forest.

“We love the outdoors and the pine trees and everything,” she said. “It’s just a shame people are destructive and not careful.”

Economic hit

Beyond inconveniencing campers and hikers, the drought’s effects and forest closures are being felt by ranchers who can’t graze cattle in the forest and researchers who can’t conduct studies. Forest thinning projects also are delayed.

At a ski resort outside of Flagstaff, 50 people are out of work, and hundreds of tickets for pre-booked activities have been canceled. The Arizona Snowbowl, which operates under a special permit in a closed forest area, had hoped to run its scenic chair lift and debut family activities this weekend.

Those who left camping trailers in now-closed areas of the Coconino National Forest to stake out a spot for the busy holiday weekend will have to call forest officials to unlock the gate to let them out. Others have tried avoiding officials patrolling the forest or sneaking in when no one is looking.

The biggest fear is that a campfire sparks a wildfire. The Coconino National Forest recorded 700 abandoned campfires last year, and 121 built illegally during fire restrictions, setting a record. Target shooting, drones, cigarettes and sparks from vehicle exhausts also are concerns.
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Kenya Moves to Regulate Digital-Fueled Lending Craze

Posted on 05/26/2018 by SeeAF

Kenya built a reputation as a pioneer of financial inclusion through its early adoption of a mobile money system that enables people to transfer cash and make payments on cellphones without a bank account.

Now, a proliferation of lenders are using the same technology to extend credit to the banked and unbanked alike, saddling borrowers with high interest rates and leaving regulators scrambling to keep up.

This week, the finance ministry published a draft bill on financial regulation that covers digital lenders for the first time. A key aim is to ensure that providers treat retail customers fairly, it said.

“We have a lot of predatory lending out here, which we want to regulate,” Geoffrey Mwau, director general of budget, fiscal and economic affairs at the treasury, told reporters Thursday.

Test case for lending

As it was for mobile cash, Kenya is something of a test case for the new lending platforms. Several of the companies involved, including U.S. fintech startups, have plans to expand in other frontier markets, meaning Kenya’s regulation will be closely watched.

From having had little or no access to credit, many Kenyans now find they can get loans in minutes.

George Ombelli, a salesman for a company importing bicycles who also owns a hair salon and cosmetics shop with his wife, has borrowed simultaneously from four providers over the past year.

He took small loans from two Silicon Valley-backed U.S. fintech firms, Branch and Tala, to see what rates he would get, as well as from a new mobile app launched by Barclays Kenya in March and a business loan from Kenya’s Equity Bank.

Citing a slowdown in his business because of elections-related political turmoil last year, Ombelli said he has fallen behind on some of his payments. He fears he will be reported to one of Kenya’s three credit bureaus, jeopardizing his chances of being able to borrow more to grow his business.

‘Too many loans is a problem’

“I’ve realized having too many loans is a problem,” the 38-year-old father of three said in an interview in a coffee shop in Nairobi’s business district.

He is not alone. In the last three years, 2.7 million people out of a population of around 45 million have been negatively listed on Kenya’s Credit Reference Bureaux, according to a study by Microsave, which advises lenders on sustainable financial services.

For 400,000 of them, it was for an amount less than $2.

Global implications

Some of the fintech lenders are expanding into other African countries and into Latin America and Asia, saying their aim is to help some of the billions of people who lack bank accounts, assets or formal employment climb the economic ladder.

Tala says it has granted more than 6 million loans worth more than $300 million, mainly in Kenya, since it launched in Kenya in 2014. It is expanding its newer businesses in Mexico, Tanzania and the Philippines and is piloting in India.

Tala and Branch argue that their technology, which relies on an algorithm that builds a financial profile of customers, minimizes the risk of default. They say they strive to play a helpful role in planning for tighter regulation.

“We believe that credit bubbles and over-indebtedness will be a challenge over the next decade. (Credit Reference) Bureaus and regulation will be a big part of the solution,” said Erin Renzas, a Branch spokeswoman.

Branch says it expects to grant about 10 million loans worth a total of $250 million this year in Kenya and its other markets, Nigeria and Tanzania.

High interest rates

The current status of the sector, outside the direct remit of the central bank, allows providers, both banks and others, to skirt a government cap on interest of four points above the central bank’s benchmark interest rate, which now stands at 9.5 percent.

Market leader M-Shwari, Kenya’s first savings and loans product introduced by Safaricom and Commercial Bank of Africa in 2012, charges a “facilitation fee” of 7.5 percent on credit regardless of its duration.

On a loan with a month’s term, this equates to an annualized interest rate of 90 percent. The shortest loan repayment period is one week. A Safaricom spokesman referred Reuters to the CBA for comment. Calls to their switchboard and an email were not answered on Thursday.

Tala and Branch, number four and six in a ranking based on usage data by FSD Kenya, offer varying rates depending on the repayment period.

Their apps, downloaded by Reuters, each offered a month’s loan at 15 percent, equating to 180 percent over a year. Both companies say rates drop dramatically as people pay back successive loans.

Barclays Kenya launched an app in March offering 30-day loans with an interest rate of just less than 7 percent, still a hefty 84 percent annual equivalent rate. Reuters was unable to reach their spokespeople by telephone.

The new draft bill says digital lenders will be licensed by a new Financial Markets Conduct Authority and that lenders will be bound by any interest rate caps the Authority sets. But it is not clear if digital lenders are subject to such caps and the current government cap on banks’ interest rates is under review.

Introduced in 2016 to stop banks charging high interest rates, the cap has stifled traditional bank lending and the International Monetary Fund has conditioned Kenya’s continued access to balance of payments support on its removal.

But members of parliament say the public has had enough of high interest rates and the draft does not say the cap will be lifted. The finance ministry will come up with a final version of the bill in the next few weeks before sending it to parliament.
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Fearing Contamination, Idaho Town Told Not to Drink Water

Posted on 05/26/2018 by SeeUS

Residents of an Idaho town have been told not to drink its well water amid concerns that a fired municipal worker who killed himself in his home may have contaminated it, officials said Friday.

Tom Young, 62, was found dead Thursday by emergency workers who were sent to a hospital after entering his residence in Dietrich.

Lincoln County Sheriff Rene Rodriguez said Friday that Young’s death has been ruled a suicide and the cause is asphyxiation by nitrogen gas released into the home from a tank.

The gas is also blamed for sickening seven emergency workers, including Rodriguez, who was among those transported to hospitals. One other person was taken to a hospital. All were later released.

“For a couple of our guys it was sudden onset, and for me and a couple others it was delayed reaction,” said Rodriguez, noting he was still experiencing headaches.

Fired from city job

Young was fired May 9 from his city post following an altercation at City Hall that involved police, Dietrich Mayor Don Heiken said, declining to elaborate on the incident.

Court records say Young had been charged with felony robbery and misdemeanor counts of battery and intentional destruction of property. He pleaded not guilty and posted a $600 bond.

“When I talked to him after this altercation at City Hall, he said, ‘Well, I guess I don’t have a job,’” Heiken said. “And I said, ‘No you don’t.’ And that’s kind of how that happened.”

Heiken said there’s concern Young contaminated the well that serves the community of 300 people. However, he noted that it was unclear if Young would have had access to city property because he turned in his keys the day he was fired.

Tests clean so far

Mike Brown of the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality said Friday that the first set of water tests found no contamination, the Idaho Statesman reported.

“We surveyed the system and saw nothing out of the ordinary and no evidence of tampering,” he said earlier in the day.

He said Young had a large amount of fertilizer in his home and the tests will determine if there is fertilizer or other substances in the water used by residents.

Brown said nitrogen by itself wouldn’t harm the city’s drinking water.

Results of the other tests are expected Saturday.

Young had been scheduled to appear in court on the day he was found dead.
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Colombia Becomes NATO’s First Latin American Global Partner

Posted on 05/26/2018 by SeeUS

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos announced Friday that his country will formally become NATO’s first Latin American “global partner,” beginning next week.

In a televised address from the presidential Narino Palace and on Twitter, Santos said: “We will formalize in Brussels next week — and this is very important — the entry of Colombia into NATO in the category of global partner. We will be the only country in Latin America with this privilege.”

Santos, the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who made peace with FARC rebels, said the move would improve Colombia’s image on the world stage.

Colombia and NATO reached a partnership deal in May 2017 following the conclusion of the peace accord with FARC, now a political party.

Areas of cooperation include cybersecurity, maritime security, terrorism and its links to organized crime, and building the capacities and capabilities of the Colombian armed forces, according to a statement posted on NATO’s website.

In addition to Colombia, NATO lists Afghanistan, Australia, Iraq, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mongolia, New Zealand and Pakistan as “partners across the globe” or simply “global partners.”

Each country “has developed an Individual Partnership Cooperation Program” with the 29-country U.S.-led alliance. Many of them are actively contributing to NATO missions.
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Thousands of Flags Honor the Fallen at Arlington National Cemetery

Posted on 05/26/2018 by SeeUS

Thousands of flags wave proudly this weekend at tombstones in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, just outside Washington. For more than 60 years, the army’s ceremonial unit, known as the Old Guard, has been placing the flags at graves in the huge military cemetery in preparation for Memorial Day. The national holiday, observed the last Monday in May, honors the men and women who died while serving in the military. VOA’s Deborah Block takes us to the annual tradition known as “Flags in.”
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Khodorkovsky: Boycotting Russia World Cup a ‘Big Mistake’

Posted on 05/26/2018 by SeeEU

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former Russian oil tycoon-turned-Kremlin foe who spent a decade in prison and now lives in exile, says fellow Kremlin critics should not boycott the upcoming 2018 FIFA World Cup, slated to kick off June 14 in Russia.

Russian aggression abroad, along with domestic human rights violations, has “obviously caused a serious split, both inside Russian society and in the West,” Khodorkovsky said.

“There are thoughts about boycotting it, and thoughts about just turning a blind eye to everything happening in Russia during the event. But I think that boycotting the championship would be a big mistake if you think about teams going to Russia, and people and fans visiting the country,” he said. “The championship is a way to show everyday Russians that Russia is not surrounded by enemies, and that the Kremlin has largely invented them.”

On the other hand, Khodorkovsky added, “I do believe Western leaders would be making a mistake if they were to visit the man who has created a fully authoritarian regime and has surrounded himself with a criminal clique.”

“This would be a mistake, because it would be seen as encouragement, and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin should not be encouraged,” he said. “Therefore, there should be a very clear stance: ‘Yes, we are visiting the Russian society, but we are not visiting the Kremlin criminal clique.’ ”

Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch recently called on world leaders to boycott the tournament’s opening ceremony unless Putin takes steps to protect Syrian civilians.

Russia, which hosts the World Cup for the first time this year, is a key backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the country’s seven-year war, and the New York-based watchdog argued that Moscow’s responsibility in the suffering of Syrian civilians should not be overlooked.

The organization also said the monthlong World Cup tournament, which would be viewed by billions worldwide, will take place amid the worst domestic “human rights crisis in Russia since the Soviet era.”

Its statement followed a call in April by dozens of European parliamentarians who signed an open letter pleading with EU governments to boycott the tournament, calling the March 4 poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain “just the latest chapter in Putin’s mockery of our European values.”

On Thursday, a letter signed by families of the 40 Australians who were killed aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 as it flew over eastern Ukraine in July 2014 said recent revelations that a Russia-based military unit almost certainly fired on the commercial airliner cast a “dark shadow” over the tournament, and that Australians should boycott this year’s event out of respect for the dead.

This story originated in VOA’s Russian service.
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US Seeks Forfeiture of Illegally Imported Syrian Mosaic

Posted on 05/26/2018 by SeeUS

The U.S. government has filed an asset forfeiture complaint involving an ancient mosaic believed to have been looted from war-torn Syria and illegally imported into the United States, where authorities say it was seized from a California man.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles said Friday the 1-ton (0.9 metric ton) mosaic depicting Hercules is believed to have been created in the 3rd or 4th century and is consistent with mosaics found in Syria, particularly around the city of Idlib.

According to the complaint, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court, the government wants ownership transferred to the United States “for disposition according to law.”

“It is possible the mosaic could be repatriated to Syria,” U.S. attorney spokesman Thom Mrozek said in an email. For the time being it is in the custody of the FBI.

It measures 18 feet (5.5 meters) long, and 8 feet (2.5 meters) high.

The complaint says federal agents seized it from the Palmdale home of Mohamad Yassin Alcharihi on March 19, 2016, as part of an investigation into art that authorities believed may have been looted from Syria.

Alcharihi has not been charged with a crime, and Mrozek said the investigation is continuing.

Alcharihi’s home phone number has been disconnected and he could not be reached for comment Friday.

The complaint alleges the mosaic was imported into the United States in 2015 with paperwork indicating it was part of a shipment of vases and mosaics worth only about $2,000.

Authorities say Alcharihi later told them he paid about $12,000 for it but gave Customs officials the lower figure to reduce the import duty he’d have to pay.

The government says it has obtained preliminary estimates by antiquities experts that put its value somewhere between $100,000 and $200,000.
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Trump Expands Ability to Fire Federal Workers

Posted on 05/25/2018 by SeeUS

President Donald Trump on Friday signed three executive orders designed to make it easier to fire federal government workers and to crack down on the unions that represent them, drawing immediate criticism from a group representing federal employees.

Administration officials said the orders would give government agencies greater ability to remove employees with “poor” performance, get “better deals” in union contracts and require federal employees with union responsibilities to spend less time on union work.

“Today the president is fulfilling his promise to promote more efficient government by reforming our civil service rules,” said Andrew Bremberg, director of the White House’s Domestic Policy Council, in a conference call with reporters.

“These executive orders will make it easier for agencies to remove poor-performing employees and ensure that taxpayer dollars are more efficiently used.”

The American Federation of Government Employees said in a statement that the moves intended to “strip federal employees of their decades-old right to representation at the worksite” and would hurt veterans, law enforcement officers and others.

“This administration seems hell-bent on replacing a civil service that works for all taxpayers with a political service that serves at its whim,” the group’s president, J. David Cox, said in a statement.
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