Month: May 2018

Paraguay Opens Embassy in Jerusalem

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Paraguay opened a new embassy Monday in Jerusalem, becoming the third country to make the politically sensitive move in the past week.

Paraguayan President Horacio Cartes said at a dedication ceremony that the move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is “historic” and strengthens the ties between Paraguay and Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed Paraguay’s decision.

Last week, the United States was the first to officially open its embassy in Jerusalem, fulfilling a campaign pledge from President Donald Trump.

Guatemala moved its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem two days later.

Palestinians have strongly opposed the changes. They see East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state, while Israel views Jerusalem as its undivided capital.

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Nigeria’s Dapchi Girls Go Back to School, Defying Boko Haram Abductors

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The Dapchi girls’ secondary school in Nigeria has reopened its doors, nearly three months after it was attacked by terrorists and 109 students kidnapped. Nearly all of the girls were safely returned home about a month later, but parents in Dapchi are grappling with tough choices – do they send their daughters back to school, is it safe? Chika Oduah reports from Dapchi.
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Fear Still Grips Dapchi Girls’ School in Nigeria

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The students of the Government Girls Science and Technology secondary school stand under the gaze of the morning sun, belting out the national anthem. “…To serve with heart and mind, one nation bound in freedom, peace and unity,” they sing in unison.

It’s Monday, May 7, the first time in nearly three months these students have sung the anthem together on their school grounds. On February 19, members of the extremist sect Boko Haram kidnapped 109 students from the school. A month later, the insurgents returned the girls, minus one. 

Despite their relief, many of the parents are grappling with tough choices about whether to allow their daughters to go back to the Dapchi school or to even resume Western-styled education.

On April 30, the government of Yobe State, where Dapchi is located, mandated the school to re-open. But a week later, fewer than 220 of the school’s more than 900 students showed up.

“The reason, we can assume or we can suspect, [was that] the parents were afraid to send down their children or the children were also afraid to come back,” the school principal, Adama Abdulkarim, told VOA.

Fear lingers on campus

On the first day back, the students were visibly fearful, walking in groups across the campus from the dorms to their classrooms. Many of the students who came back are traumatized by their monthlong captivity with Boko Haram members.

“They snapped our photos and told us not to return to school, but I came back because I want to learn,” said a 17-year-old student who asked for VOA to only use her first name, Maryam.

“I want Western education to improve my future. I came back to this school because I don’t want to change my environment. I have already started school here and I want to finish here. Boko Haram told us that if we go back to school, they will come back to kidnap us and kill us … but they didn’t tell us exactly when they will come back.”

Mohammed Lamin, the Yobe State education commissioner, said students must be resilient because other attacked schools in the area have resumed.

“Life has to continue. The students will have to learn, they have to study,” he told VOA.

Expectations, threats keep girls out of school

Female students in many parts of Nigeria face unique challenges that often hinder their educational ambitions, including cultural norms that expect females to marry by a certain age.

In addition, Boko Haram’s violent campaign often targets girls. When the insurgents returned the Dapchi students in March, they told the parents that “boko” (slang for books, which refers to Western education) is “haram” (sinful), so they should not return their daughters back to school.

“They believe that girls are weaker than the boys,” said Garba Haruna, whose daughter was among the abducted and returned Dapchi schoolgirls.

Western education in northeastern Nigeria has taken a blow since the insurgency began in 2009. Nearly 2,300 teachers have been killed and 19,000 displaced, and almost 1,400 schools destroyed. Last year, the U.N. Children’s Agency said the violence in the region forced more than 57 percent of schools in Borno State to close, leaving about 3 million children without an education as the 2017-18 school year began.

A multimillion dollar, UNICEF-supported Safe Schools Initiative, launched in the wake of the 2014 abduction of the Chibok girls, is supposed to make schools in northeastern Nigeria more conducive to learning by training teachers on security and providing clean water, among other measures. 

In Dapchi, it was only after the February abductions that UNICEF came in, handing out backpacks and school supplies to the students. Soldiers have been posted at the main gate, while local vigilante and civil defense forces stand at the second gate.

The parents of the Dapchi schoolgirls say these measures are helpful. They’ve been meeting to discuss the security situation and have opted to defy Boko Haram’s demand to keep girls out of school.

“We have to fight it. We have to fight it. They cannot beat us and they can never win because we must see that we send them back to school. Let them go,” Haruna said.

The one left behind

It’s a different story for Rebecca Sharibu, whose 15-year-old daughter Leah is the sole Dapchi schoolgirl whom Boko Haram did not release, reportedly because she refused to convert to Islam. Sharibu and her son look at Leah in a family photo.

“When my daughter comes back, I will not allow her to go to that school again. No any government come for us and help us or tell us anything about Leah,” Sharibu said, speaking in Nigerian pidgin slang English. 

These days, Rebecca often finds herself going into her daughter’s bedroom to cry.

Across the street from the Sharibus’ home, Leah’s classmates are taking a huge risk simply by going to school.
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Doctor: Palestinian President Hospitalized, Condition ‘Reassuring’

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Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was hospitalized in the West Bank on Sunday, doctors and Palestinian officials said, giving conflicting accounts of the leader’s condition.

It is the third time Abbas, 82, has been hospitalized in less than a week. He is expected to stay at least overnight. Abbas underwent minor ear surgery on Tuesday but went back into al-Istishari Hospital in Ramallah briefly overnight on Saturday/Sunday, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa said.

He was then rushed back later on Sunday, for what doctors described only as “medical tests.”

Dr. Saed al-Sarahneh, medical director of the hospital, spoke outside the private hospital late Sunday, saying that Abbas had entered in the morning “for medical tests after the surgery he had three days ago in his middle ear. All the tests are normal and his medical condition is reassuring.”

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which is headed by Abbas, said on its Twitter account that Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat had visited the leader in hospital and quoted Erekat as saying: “the President is in good health.”

An aide to Erekat said that Abbas had talked and joked with him, and that Abbas was expected to leave hospital tomorrow or the day after.

One Palestinian official in Ramallah said Abbas had gone back in because of complications after Tuesday’s ear surgery. Abbas had been running a high temperature, he said, “so doctors advised that he go back into hospital.”

However, a source at al-Istishari hospital said the president’s condition was unrelated to the ear operation.

“The president will stay in hospital until tomorrow. He is being given antibiotics to treat an inflammation in the chest,” said the hospital source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he or she was not authorized to speak with the media.

Abbas, a heavy smoker, was hospitalized in the United States for medical checks in February during a trip to address the U.N. Security Council.

The Western-backed leader became Palestinian president after the death in 2004 of his predecessor, Yasser Arafat. He pursued U.S.-led peace talks with Israel but the negotiations broke down in 2014.

He is also chairman of the executive committee of the PLO, a position to which he was re-elected unopposed on May 4.

Abbas’ hospitalization has coincided with an escalation in Israeli-Palestinian tensions after Israeli troops shot dead dozens of Palestinian protesters on the Gaza border on May 14 as the new U.S. Embassy opened in Jerusalem.

The Gaza Strip is controlled by the Islamist group Hamas, a bitter political rival of Abbas’s secular Fatah movement. 
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Killings, Kidnappings Mar Cameroon National Day Celebrations

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As President Paul Biya led National Day celebrations in Yaounde on Sunday, several policemen were killed, soldiers wounded and mayors kidnapped in Cameroon by suspected armed separatists who had warned against celebrating the central African state’s national day in English-speaking regions.

A Nigerian military contingent — part of the Cameroon effort to fight a Boko Haram insurgency — sang before Biya, cabinet ministers, diplomats and thousands of people during the National Day parade in Yaounde.  

Nigerian Lieutenant Colonel Mochtar Sani Daroda said the soldiers were invited by Biya to participate as recognition for their fight against the militant group that has left 25,000 people dead and more than 2.6 million displaced in Cameroon, Nigeria, Chad and Niger.

“The class brigade is the elite brigade that carries out national functions on behalf of the Nigerian army,” Daroda said. “They also provide security of the president and the entire federal capital city [Abuja ] and they have been selected to participate in one of the parade we hold in very high esteem. A very special corps to take part in your [Cameroon] parade.”

But tensions flared in many towns and villages of Cameroon’s English-speaking regions, including Konye, Batibo, Ekona and several villages.

At least two policemen and several people were killed.

In a recording provided by suspected separatists, Mayor Ekuh Simon of Bangem, an English-speaking town in southwest Cameroon, said he was kidnapped with his deputy for distributing uniforms for residents to march in National Day ceremonies. Separatists had called for a boycott of events.

Simon said he is being held by Ambazonia restoration forces.

Ambazonia is what separatist’s call their self-declared republic in the English-speaking regions of Cameroon.

Nobert Ngu says he escaped Saturday from Ekona to Yaounde when armed separatists started shooting to stop people from celebrating National Day.

Ngu said his house was attacked. “Some boys saw my father inside the house, attacked my father. I lost my father because of this crisis,” he added.

Biya’s government had asked people to come out in numbers to celebrate National Day as a sign of unity.

Tensions in Cameroon began in November 2016 when English-speaking teachers and lawyers protested, saying they were frustrated with the dominance of the French language and the marginalization of the Anglophone population.

The crisis intensified early this year when separatist leader Ayuk Tabe was arrested with 48 others in Nigeria and extradited to Cameroon. 

International rights groups have condemned the harsh government crackdown on the English speaking regions and indiscriminate arrests of suspects.
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Iran: EU Not Doing Enough to Support Nuclear Deal

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Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said Sunday that Europe’s political support to save the 2015 international nuclear accord after the U.S. withdrawal was not sufficient if too many European companies end their investments in Iran.

“The cascade of decisions by EU companies to end their activities in Iran makes things much more complicated,” Zarif said after meeting with European Union energy commissioner Miguel Arias Canete.

Iranian state broadcaster IRIB quoted Zarif as saying, “With the exit of the United States from the nuclear deal, the expectations of the Iranian public towards the European Union have increased… and the EU’s political support for the nuclear agreement is not sufficient.”

With the threat of reimposed U.S. sanctions against European companies doing business in Iran, several foreign firms have already pulled out of the country.

French oil major Total said it is abandoning its $4.8 billion investment in Iran unless it gets a sanctions waiver from the U.S., while another energy company, Engie, said it plans to stop its engineering work in Iran before November, when U.S. says it will reimpose sanctions.  

“The European Union must take concrete supplementary steps to increase its investments in Iran,” Zarif said. “The commitments of the EU to apply the nuclear deal are not compatible with the announcement of probable withdrawal by major European companies.”

EU leaders have pledged to try to keep Iran’s oil trade flowing, but conceded it would not be easy.

Arias Canete said, “We have to preserve this agreement so we don’t have to negotiate a new agreement. Our message is very clear. This is a nuclear agreement that works.”

If the nuclear deal falls apart in the aftermath of President Donald Trump withdrawing the U.S., Iran has threatened to resume industrial uranium enrichment “without limit.”

Tehran’s economy was hobbled by the sanctions imposed before the international agreement was reached to restrain Iran’s nuclear development, in exchange for ending the sanctions. Even as Trump withdrew the U.S., the remaining five signatories –Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China — have all said they intend to stay in the pact with Tehran.

The U.S. has said it wants to reimpose sanctions to force Iran to negotiate a new deal with tighter curbs to prevent its development of nuclear weaponry, end its ballistic missile tests and rein in its military advances in the Middle East.

 
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Saudi Women Thrilled that Ban on Driving Is Nearing Its End

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Weeks before they will officially be allowed to drive for the first time, women in Saudi Arabia are gearing up for the big day. While some are taking driving lessons, others have already picked out their cars and can’t wait to take them for a spin. VOA Correspondent Mariama Diallo reports.
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Washington Digests US-China Trade Announcement

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Washington is digesting China’s stated intention to purchase more American goods and reduce the trade imbalance between the two countries. VOA’s Michael Bowman reports, last week’s talks between U.S. and Chinese negotiators did not yield specific commitments from Beijing in dollar figures, sparking criticism from some lawmakers in Washington.
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Friends, Families Mourn Texas School Shooting Victims

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Many parents, families and friends of the victims of Friday’s shooting at a school in the state of Texas attended church services on Sunday, grieving the 10 people who were killed just two days earlier.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott attended a service at Arcadia First Baptist Church in Santa Fe on Sunday, hugging mourning parishioners.

Three months after the shooting deaths of 17 people at a school in Parkland, Florida, ignited student-led calls for stronger gun control laws, a shooter killed 10 people, most of them students, at the Santa Fe High School in Texas.

On Sunday morning, Texas’ Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick linked gun violence to violent video games and social media, saying that the United States has “devalued life.”

“Whether it’s through abortion, whether it’s the breakup of families, through violent movies, and particularly violent video games,” Patrick told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday morning, insisting that arming teachers, a controversial solution proposed by many gun rights activists, is necessary.

Fred Guttenberg, a parent of one of the children killed in Parkland in February, called the comments “idiotic” and “moronic,” calling instead for stricter gun control laws.

Texas officials charged a 17-year-old with capital murder following the deadly shooting Santa Fe High School.

 

Students said the gunman, identified by law enforcement as Dimitrios Pagourtzis, a school junior, opened fire before 8 a.m. Friday at Santa Fe High School.

Texas Governor Abbott said police found explosive devices, including a fire bomb, at the suspected shooter’s home and in a vehicle, as well as around the high school where the shooting took place.

 

Abbot said the suspect, who is in custody and waived his right to remain silent, originally intended to commit suicide following the shooting but told law enforcement after he was arrested that he didn’t have the courage to go through with it.

The governor said two guns were used in the attack, a shotgun and a .38 revolver. He said both guns were owned by the suspect’s father, but said it was not clear whether the father knew his son had taken the guns.

Among the victims are a substitute teacher and a foreign exchange student.

Santa Fe is located in southeastern Texas between the cities of Houston and Galveston.

 
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Trump Rails Against Russia Probe

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President Donald Trump unleashed a torrent of complaints Sunday about the year-long investigation into whether his 2016 campaign colluded with Russia and if he obstructed justice by trying to thwart the probe.

“Things are really getting ridiculous,” Trump complained in one of six Twitter remarks, asking at what point the investigation will end, calling it a “soon to be $20,000,000 Witch Hunt.”

 

 

He contended that investigators have “found no Collussion [sic] with Russia, No Obstruction, but they aren’t looking at the corruption” in the campaign of his Democratic challenger two years ago, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The U.S. leader said the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller “has given up on Russia and is looking at the rest of the world” and its connections to the Trump campaign.

Trump said Mueller, who was authorized to investigate related matters he uncovered as he probed Russia’s meddling in the election aimed at helping Trump win, “should easily be able” to extend the inquiries into the congressional elections in November where he and his team “can put some hurt on the Republican Party.”

He added, “Republicans and real Americans should start getting tough on this Scam.”

 

Mueller’s investigation shows no hint of ending any time soon. He has indicted numerous Russian individuals and entities for interference in the U.S. election through the creation of fake news stories commenting on contentious American issues and secured guilty pleas from three Trump campaign associates who are now cooperating with prosecutors in the ongoing investigation.

Trump on Sunday also claimed that the the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the country’s top law enforcement agency, has been “hard charging (except in the case of Democrats)” and ignored a string of accusations against Clinton, the Democratic National Committee and a Washington lobbyist linked to Democrats.

Trump’s Sunday tweets followed one on Saturday about the FBI and its parent agency, the Department of Justice, infiltrating his campaign through the use of an informant who made contact with three Trump associates before passing on information to the FBI.

Several news agencies have identified the informant as Stefan Halper, a 73-year-old American-born professor at Britain’s University of Cambridge who worked decades ago in three Republican administrations in the U.S.

“If the FBI or DOJ was infiltrating a campaign for the benefit of another campaign, that is a really big deal,” Trump said. Before Halper’s name surfaced, Trump had called the use of the informant the “all time biggest political scandal.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
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Facebook’s Zuckerberg, EU Lawyers Locked in Negotiations

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Facebook and European Union officials were locked in high-stakes negotiations Sunday over whether founder Mark Zuckerberg will appear Tuesday before EU lawmakers to discuss the site’s impact on the privacy rights of hundreds of millions of Europeans, as well as Facebook’s impact on elections on both sides of the Atlantic and the spreading of fake news.

Being debated is whether the meeting would be held after EU Parliament President Antonio Tajanibe agreed to have it live-streamed on the internet and not held behind closed-doors, as previously agreed.

The leaders of all eight political blocs in the parliament have insisted the format be changed.

Lawmakers say it would be deeply damaging for Zuckerberg, if he pulls out simply because they want him to hold what they say is the equivalent of a “Facebook Live.”

Claude Moraes, chairman of the EU parliament’s Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs panel, warned Zuckerberg will have to go into greater detail than he did in his testimony before U.S. Senate and Congressional panels last month on the “issues of algorithmic targeting, and political manipulation” and on Facebook’s relationship with Cambridge Analytica.

Facebook shared with the British firm the data of millions of Americans and Europeans, which was subsequently used for election campaigning purposes. Facebook did not return calls from VOA asking about whether Zuckerberg’s meeting with EU lawmakers would still go ahead.

“EU governments are absolutely aware that every election now is tainted. We want to get to the heart of this,” said Moraes. EU lawmakers say Zuckerberg’s appearance is all the more important as he has declined to appear before national European parliaments, including Britain’s House of Commons.

Terrorist connections

Zuckerberg is likely also to be pressed on why Facebook is still being used by extremists to connect with each other and to recruit. Much of the focus in recent weeks on Facebook has been about general issues over its management of users’ data, but analysts are warning the social-media site is enabling a deadly form of social networking and isn’t doing enough to disrupt it.

“Facebook’s data management practices have potentially served the networking purposes of terrorists,” said the Counter Extremism Project, nonprofit research group, in a statement.

“CEP’s findings regularly debunk Facebook’s claims of content moderation. This week, a video made by the pro-ISIS al-Taqwa media group was found that includes news footage from attacks in the West and calls for further violence, encouraging the viewer to attack civilians and ‘kill them by any means or method,” according to CEP

CEP researchers say Facebook’s “suggested friends” feature helps extremists connect to each other and is “enabling a deadly form of social networking.” “Worldwide, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, there has been a spike of militant activity on social media channels … Encrypted messaging apps like Facebook-owned WhatsApp are well known mechanisms used by terrorists to communicate, plot and plan attacks, a practice that is tragically continuing,” CEP says.

New rules

Aside from the EU parliament, Zuckerberg has agreed to be interviewed onstage Thursday at a major tech conference in Paris, and is scheduled to have lunch with French president Emmanuel Macron during the week.

His visit comes as the British government is threatening social-media companies with a tax to pay for efforts to counter online crime. According to Britain’s Sunday Telegraph newspaper, British ministers have instructed officials to carry out research into a new “social media levy” on internet companies.

Culture Minister Matt Hancock indicated Sunday the British government is beginning to move away from allowing the internet companies to regulate themselves and is ready to impose requirements on them, which if approved by parliament will make Britain the “safest place in the world” to be online.

A new code of practice aimed at confronting social-media bullying and to clear the internet of intimidating or humiliating online content could be included in the legislation, say officials. Other measures being considered include rules that have to be followed by traditional broadcasters that prevent certain ads being targeted at children. Hancock said work with social-media companies to protect users had made progress, but the performance of the industry overall has been mixed, he added.

Hancock said, “Digital technology is overwhelmingly a force for good across the world and we must always champion innovation and change for the better.”

 
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US, China Back Away from Tariff War

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The U.S. and China said Sunday they have agreed to back away from imposing tough new tariffs on each other’s exports, a day after reaching an accord calling for Beijing to buy more American goods to “substantially reduce” the huge U.S. trade deficit with China.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told Fox News the world’s two biggest economic powers “have made very meaningful progress and we agreed on a framework” to resolve trade issues. “So right now we have agreed to put the tariffs on hold while we try to execute the framework.”

Watch related video by VOA’s Michael Bowman:

China’s state-run news agency Xinhua quoted Vice-Premier Liu He, who led Chinese negotiators in trade talks in Washington this past week, as saying, “The two sides reached a consensus, will not fight a trade war, and will stop increasing tariffs on each other.”

Liu said the agreement was a “necessity.” But he added: “At the same time it must be realized that unfreezing the ice cannot be done in a day, solving the structural problems of the economic and trade relations between the two countries will take time.”

U.S. President Donald Trump had threatened to impose new tariffs on $150 billion worth of Chinese imports and Beijing had responded that it would do the same on American goods.

Mnuchin and White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross would soon go to Beijing to negotiate on how China might buy more American goods to reduce the huge U.S. trade deficit with Beijing, which last year totaled $375 billion.

Although the U.S. has said it wants to reduce the trade deficit by $200 billion annually, Saturday’s agreement mentioned no specific number.

Kudlow told ABC News, “You can’t predict these numbers. We’ve made a lot of progress. You can see where we’re going next. As tariffs come down, the barriers come down, there will be more American exports.”

Kudlow said Ross will be “looking into a number of areas where we’re going to have greatly significant increases” in U.S. exports, including energy, liquefied natural gas, agriculture and manufacturing.

He said any agreement reached will be “good for American exports and good for Chinese growth.”

Mnuchin predicted a 35 to 40 percent increase in U.S. agricultural exports to China and a doubling of energy purchases over the next three to five years.

“We have specific targets,” he said. “I am not going to publicly disclose what they are. They go industry by industry.”

One contentious point of conflict between the two trading points is the fate of ZTE, the giant technology Chinese company that has bought American-made components to build its consumer electronic devices.

The U.S. fined ZTE $1.2 billion last year for violating American bans on trade with Iran and North Korea. But ZTE said recently it was shutting down its manufacturing operations because it could no longer buy the American parts after the U.S. imposed a seven-year ban on the sale of the components.

However, Trump, at the behest of Chinese President Xi Jinping, a week ago “instructed” Ross to intervene to save the company and prevent the loss of Chinese jobs.

Even so, Kudlow said, “Do not expect ZTE to get off scot free. Ain’t going to happen.”
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Deadly Tropical Cyclone Hits Horn of Africa

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At least 22 people have been killed, and others are still missing after heavy rains from tropical cyclone hit the Horn of Africa.

At least 15 were killed in Awdal region in the self-declared republic of Somaliland, according to regional governor Abdirahman Ahmed Ali, while another person was killed in the town of Berbera in Sahil region.

Ali said the report is still preliminary and the death toll could rise as they try to reach remote areas of the region affected by the rains.

Most of the victims are believed to be swept away by the flash floods, residents said.

Residents in Baki town of Awdal region say they recorded four deaths, three of them swept away by floods while the fourth person died after a house collapsed.

Mohamed Aw Ahmed Ateye is the head of the district council in Baki town. “There is a huge loss of lives and destruction of properties,” he told VOA Somali.

Ateye reported the collapse of 41 homes in the town, while another 30 homes were destroyed in Harirad town. He also said 140 farms were destroyed.

“The floods destroyed the crop, farm equipment and bridges were swept away after 17 hours of rains,” he said.

In Mogadishu, officials confirmed the death of at least six people and more than 300 homes are underwater in the capital.

According to United Nations, heavy rains continue to fall across Somalia and the Ethiopian highlands. It says 772,500 people have been affected by flooding in Somalia with more than 229,000 displaced.

Hashim Omar Goth contributed to this report from Awdal.

 

 

 

 

 

 
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Iraq’s al-Sadr Says Next Government Will be ‘Inclusive’

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Shi’ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose coalition won the largest number of seats in Iraq’s parliamentary elections, has sought to reassure Iraqis about their next government, saying it will be “inclusive” and mindful of their needs.

 

No single bloc won a majority in the May 12 vote, raising the prospect of weeks or even months of negotiations to agree on a government. Major political players began talks soon after the election’s partial results were announced last week. The latest round was held late Saturday night between al-Sadr and Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, whose bloc made a surprisingly poor showing in the election.

 

Speaking after the talks, al-Sadr said the first postelection meeting between the two “sends a clear and comforting message to the Iraqi people: Your government will take care of you and will be inclusive, we will not exclude anyone. We will work toward reform and prosperity.”

 

He did not elaborate, or provide details about what he and al-Abadi discussed.

 

Al-Sadr, whose followers fought U.S. forces in Iraq after the 2003 invasion, won 54 of the chamber’s 329 seats. Al-Abadi’s “Victory” bloc took 42 and a coalition of government and Iranian-backed paramilitary forces came in second.

 

 
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Thousands Seek Refuge in DR Congo

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The U.N. refugee agency reports an uptick in fighting in south-eastern Central African Republic has driven more than 7.000 people to abandon their homes and seek refuge in a remote area in DR Congo over the past week.

The U.N. refugee agency describes the refugees as desperate, weary and in urgent need of assistance. UNHCR spokesman William Spindler says thousands of people, mainly women and children, have fled over difficult terrain to escape violence in Central African Republic.

He says the refugees have arrived in the remote village of Kanzawi in DR Congo’s northern Bas-Uele province, which is inundated with tens of thousands of refugees from previous outbursts of fighting.

“The refugees have reported fleeing fighting between two Anti-Balaka groups in the area of Kouango, just across the border. It is the latest of a series of refugee movements into northern DRC. In less than a year, the number of CAR refugees in DRC has grown from around 102,000 to more than 182,000 not including the latest arrivals,” said Spindler.

In December 2012, the Seleka, a coalition of largely Muslim groups toppled the CAR government. The Anti-Balaka, composed primarily of Christians and animists, formed to counter the brutality of the Seleka.

U.N. agencies report CAR’s civil war has displaced nearly 700,000 and caused almost one-half million people to seek refuge in neighboring countries. Spindler says the current exodus is adding to the already heavy refugee burden.

“We are particularly worried about the situation of elderly people, pregnant women and others with specific needs. There is only one water source in Kanzawi village, forcing people to drink from the river. Most of the refugees are sleeping in the open, others in public buildings,” he said.

Spindler says these people are in urgent need of the most basic support. Unfortunately, he says the UNHCR’s ability to provide emergency aid is extremely limited as it has received only 16 percent of the money it needs to care for refugees in DRC.
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Monitor: IS Fighters Leave Damascus Enclave

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A Syrian monitor says Islamic State fighters are being evacuated from the last insurgent enclave near Damascus, a move that will restore state control over the area.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the evacuation of the fighters and their families from Yarmuk Palestinian refugee camp began Sunday. Buses were carrying the fighters and their families to the Syrian Desert, east of the capital.

Reuters reports the enclave is the last besieged insurgent area in western Syria.

 

 

 

 

 
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1 New Death From Ebola in Congo, Bringing Total to 26

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Congo’s health ministry announced one new death from Ebola Sunday, bringing to 26 the number of deaths from the deadly outbreak in Equateur province in the country’s northwest.

Four new cases of the Ebola virus have been confirmed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to country’s health ministry most recent statement.

A total of 46 cases of the hemorrhagic fever have been reported in the current outbreak: 21 confirmed cases of Ebola, 21 probable and four suspected.

President Joseph Kabila and his Cabinet decided Saturday to increase funds for Ebola emergency response which amounts to more than $4 million.

Health Minister Oly Ilunga said late Friday the new cases of the often lethal virus were confirmed in Mbandaka city, a city of 1.2 million people where another case was confirmed days earlier.

The United Nations World Health Organization declined to declare the outbreak an international health emergency but said the risk of the virus spreading within the country was “very high.” The WHO said there was also a high risk of it spreading to nine neighboring countries but maintained there should be no travel or trade restrictions in the region.

A new, experimental vaccine is expected to be administered beginning early next week. The vaccine was effective in a West African outbreak a few years ago. Four-thousand doses are already in Congo and more shipments are enroute. Congolese health officials are challenged with keeping the vaccine cold in a large country where the infrastructure is in poor condition.

This is the ninth Ebola outbreak in Congo in more than 40 years, but the earlier ones were limited to rural areas. There were two outbreaks in the capital of Kinshasa, which has a population of 10 million people, but they were quickly stopped.

There is no specific treatment for the virus, which is lethal and highly contagious. The latest virus is of the same strain that spread in three West African countries for two years beginning in 2013, creating global panic. By the time its spread was halted, the virus had killed more than 11,300 people, making it the most deadly Ebola outbreak ever.

 
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Report: Europe, China, Russia Discussing New Iran Deal

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Diplomats from Europe, China and Russia are discussing a new accord to offer Iran financial aid to curb its ballistic missile development and meddling in the region, in the hope of salvaging its 2015 nuclear deal, a German newspaper reported Sunday.

The officials will meet in Vienna in the coming week under the leadership of senior European Union diplomat Helga Schmid to discuss next steps after the May 8 decision by U.S. President Donald Trump to pull out of a 2015 nuclear accord with Iran, the Welt am Sonntag newspaper said, citing senior EU sources.

No US participation

Germany, France, Britain, Russia and China would participate in the meeting, but the United States would not, it said. It was not immediately clear if Iran, which has resisted calls to curb its ballistic missile program in the past, would take part.

Under the 2015 deal, Iran agreed to curb its nuclear program in return for the lifting of most Western sanctions. One of the main complaints of the Trump administration was that the accord did not cover Iran’s missile program or its support for armed groups in the Middle East, which the West considers terrorists.

Concluding a new agreement that would maintain the nuclear provisions and curb ballistic missile development efforts and Tehran’s activities in the region could help convince Trump to lift sanctions against Iran, the paper said.

“We have to get away from the name ‘Vienna nuclear agreement’ and add in a few additional elements. Only that will convince President Trump to agree and lift sanctions again,” the paper quoted a senior EU diplomat as saying.

No immediate comment was available from the German foreign ministry.

Reassurances to Iran

The EU’s energy chief sought to reassure Iran on Saturday that the 28-member bloc remained committed to salvaging the nuclear deal and strengthening trade with Tehran.

Officials from the EU, Germany and other countries that remain committed to the deal have said it would disastrous if EU efforts fail to preserve it.

Iran has struggled to achieve financial benefits from the deal, partly because remaining unilateral U.S. sanctions over its missile program deterred major Western investors from doing business with Tehran.

The officials are looking for a new approach given an understanding that it would be difficult for European firms to work around new U.S. sanctions, the newspaper reported.

It said the new deal could include billions of dollars of financial aid for Iran, in line with an EU deal that provided billions in aid to Turkey for taking in millions of migrants and closing its borders, which helped end a 2015 migrant crisis.

Iran and European powers have made a good start in talks over how to salvage the 2015 deal but much depends on what happens in the next few weeks, Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif said last week.
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Iraq Election Body Feared Effects of Recount, Member Says

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As demands for a manual voter recount surge amid claims of election fraud in the Iraqi general elections, the country’s Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) is concerned a ballot-by-ballot recount could portray the newly introduced electronic system as a failure, one member says.

During a telephone interview with Voice of America, Saeed Kakei, a member of the IHEC, said his request for a manual recount was rejected by other members of the election commission who “feared” that a recount could possibly show the failure of the machines.

“I told them we should work with transparency. What is the fear for?” Kakei told VOA. “I proposed that they manually recount 25 percent of the ballot boxes, or at least 5 percent, but they refused to do so.”

The IHEC is headed by a nine-member board and has complete authority over holding elections and examining electoral complaints.

Other members of the commission could not be reached for comment.

First vote since IS emergence

Iraq held elections to pick a new parliament and government May 12 for the first since the emergence of the Islamic State in parts of the country in 2014.

The introduction of electronic counting machines for the first time by the IHEC was initially hailed as an attempt to prevent voter fraud while also expediting election results.

But the announcement of the results this week led to strong criticism from several political blocs who claimed the electronic counting machines had been manipulated in favor of their political opponents.

IHEC, however, defended the electronic system as accurate and transparent. A public statement from the election body Friday rejected conducting a manual recount, saying the electronic tally was done according to the country’s electoral laws.

“The election commission, in compliance with the law and the constitution, rejects all forms of pressure which are exercised by some affected by the results,” the statement said.

WATCH: Iraq for First Time Uses Electronic Counting in Elections

In a separate statement Wednesday, the commission said Kakei and his family had received death threats from “one of the political parties affected by the election results.”

Proponents of manual recount

Those in favor of a manual recount include Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, Iraqi Vice President Ayad Allawi, the Conquest Alliance and six Kurdish political parties from the Kurdistan Region.

Jan Kubis, the U.N. special representative to Iraq, on Thursday called on IHEC to promptly investigate the complaints, particularly in the province of Kirkuk, which is disputed between the Iraqi central government and the Kurdistan Region.

“It is important that these are undertaken in full transparency, witnessed by stakeholders, to strengthen the confidence in the process. The U.N. is ready to provide assistance, if requested,” Kubis said.

Kakei told VOA that most of the complaints concerned the possible compromise of Polling Station Count Optical Scanners (PCOS) and Central Count Optical Scanners (CCOS), provided to Iraq by the South Korean firm Miru Systems. The firm received $135 million as part of a contract signed in April 2017.

Fingerprint voter identification technology purchased from the Spanish company Indra Sistamas has resulted in no such complaints, he charged. 

“If the electronic results are inaccurate, we should admit to the people that we made a mistake,” he said, adding that Iraqi’s contract with Miru Systems holds the company accountable if malfunction or interference was verified. 

Under the new system, Iraqi voters inserted ID cards into a machine that linked them to individual ballot boxes using machine-readable codes. Voters used a rubber stamp to mark their chosen candidates on the ballot papers before putting them into a scanner for electronic sorting and counting.

Parliamentary session canceled

Whether the machines have been tampered with will remain controversial in the coming weeks, as winning parties continue their efforts to play a role in forming the next Iraqi government.

An Iraqi parliament emergency session on the fraud allegations was set for Saturday but had to be called off for the lack of a quorum; at least 165 of the 328 members were required to be present.

Meanwhile, the bitter dispute among the members of Iraq’s electoral body will most likely increase questions about the performance and independence of the commission.

Saad al-Hadithi, the spokesperson for Abadi, said Thursday that the prime minister had referred the electoral body to the government’s Integrity Commission even before the elections were held for “violating some procedures.”
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Hawaii Lava Engulfs More Homes as Ash Plume Ascends

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New, fast-moving lava poured from the flank of Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano on Saturday, destroying four more homes on the Big Island after a second

explosive eruption shot a nearly two-mile-high ash plume from the crater.

Molten rock from two huge cracks formed a single channel and traveled 1,000 feet in under an hour, twice the speed of previous flows of older lava that have torn through homes, roads and tropical forest for over two weeks, the County of Hawaii’s Civil Defense Agency said.

The new lava, which is flowing east underground from the sinking lava lake at Kilauea’s summit, is expected to create more voluminous flows that travel farther, threatening homes and a coastal road that is a key exit route for around 2,000 residents.

“There is much more stuff coming out of the ground and it’s going to produce flows that will move much farther away,” said U.S. Geological Survey scientist Wendy Stovall on a conference call with reporters.

Up at the volcano’s summit, 25 miles (40 kilometers) to the east, the second large explosive eruption occurred around midnight, with winds blowing ash onto communities southwest of the crater, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory reported.

Scientists expect Kilauea, one of the world’s most active volcanoes, to experience a series of explosive eruptions that could spread ash and volcanic smog across the Big Island, the southernmost of the Hawaiian archipelago. That could pose a hazard to jet engines if it blows into aircraft routes around

30,000 feet (9,144 meters).

There have been no reported injuries or deaths since the lava crossed a road on Friday near the Leilani Gardens housing development in lower Puna district, cutting off around 40 homes and forcing the helicopter evacuation of four residents by the Hawaii National Guard, authorities said.

Around 2,000 residents of Leilani Estates and Laipuna Gardens housing areas have faced mandatory evacuations because of at least 22 volcanic cracks that have opened since May 3.

Many thousands more residents of the area have voluntarily left their homes because of life-threatening levels of toxic sulfur dioxide gas spewing from vents in the volcanic fissures.

Another 2,000 residents of coastal communities may face compulsory evacuation if lava from the fissures blocks the oceanside Highway 137.
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Egypt Detains Socialist Activist, Lawyers Say

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Egypt’s state security prosecutor on Saturday ordered a prominent activist detained for 15 days for investigation on charges of involvement with a banned group and inciting and taking part in illegal protests, rights lawyers

said.

Haitham Mohamedeen, a leftist lawyer, was taken from his home Friday, security sources said, the latest in a number of arrests of activists in recent weeks.

At least 20 people have been detained by security forces over protests against a rise in metro fares, and they are being investigated on charges that include disturbing the peace and obstructing public facilities.

Mokhtar Mounir and Mohamed Hanafi, two rights lawyers representing Mohamedeen, told Reuters he was under investigation for “participating in the activities of a banned group while knowing its objectives” and “using the internet to incite terrorist acts,” charges he denies. The prosecutor did not

identify the banned group, Hanafi said.

A judicial source confirmed Mohamadeen’s detention but gave no further comment.

Mohamedeen had been detained at least twice in the past, once in 2013 on accusations of belonging to a secret organization and spreading lies about the military, and again in 2016 for calling for protests against the transfer of two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia.

His detention followed those of other prominent activists. 

State security prosecutors this week ordered Shady Ghazaly Harb, a leading opposition figure during the 2011 Arab Spring uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak, held for 15 days for investigation over accusations including joining a terrorist organization, according to state news agency MENA.

Last week, authorities detained Amal Fathy for 15 days for investigation on charges of insulting the state after she posted a video on social media criticizing the government for failing to protect women against sexual harassment.

Campaigners say Egypt’s human and civil rights record has deteriorated sharply under President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.

Sissi’s supporters say his tough security policy is needed to ensure stability as Egypt recovers from years of political chaos and tackles economic challenges and an Islamist insurgency.

Sissi this week pardoned more than 330 people, many of them young people jailed for demonstrating in recent years.
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US, China Agree to Increased Trade Cooperation

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China and the United States said Saturday that they had reached consensus on steps to substantially reduce the U.S. trade deficit with Beijing.

The announcement followed high-level talks in Washington and U.S. allegations that unfair Chinese trade practices meant the United States was buying far more from China than it sold there.

China pledged to make “meaningful” increases in purchases of services and goods, particularly agricultural and energy items. 

A statement from the White House said Washington would send a team of officials to China to work out details. It mentioned the importance of intellectual property protection and said the two sides would work to achieve a “level playing field in trade.”

New York Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic minority leader, said the statement offered too few details.

He said China often denies access to its huge market unless U.S. companies give Chinese firms access to American technical and business secrets. Schumer said short-term purchases of U.S. goods would not make up for that. 
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Texas Shooting Suspect Seems ‘Weirdly Nonemotional,’ Lawyer Says

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The 17-year-old student who authorities said killed 10 people when he opened fire in an art class in his Houston-area high school appeared to be disoriented on the morning after the rampage, one of his lawyers said Saturday.

The teenager, identified by law enforcement as Dimitrios Pagourtzis, has been charged with capital murder and is being held without bail in Santa Fe, Texas, where authorities said he opened fire shortly before 8 a.m. Friday. In addition to the nine students and one teacher killed, gunfire wounded at least 13 people, with two of them in critical condition. One of those

in critical condition was one of the two school resource officers who engaged the shooter before his surrender.

Nicholas Poehl, one of two lawyers hired by the suspect’s parents to represent him, told Reuters he had spent a total of one hour with Pagourtzis on Friday night and Saturday morning.

“He’s very emotional and weirdly nonemotional,” the attorney said when asked to describe his client’s state of mind. “There are aspects of it he understands and there are aspects he doesn’t understand.”

As the shooting unfolded, Pagourtzis spared people he liked so he could have his side of the story told, a charging document seen by Reuters showed, but there was no immediate indication of why he apparently targeted the art class.

Investigators had seen a T-shirt on the suspect’s Facebook page that read “Born to Kill,” and authorities were examining his journal, Texas Governor Greg Abbott told reporters. But there were no outward signs he had been planning an attack.

Pagourtzis waived his right to remain silent and made a statement to authorities admitting to the shooting, according to an affidavit ahead of his arrest. Later he was charged with capital murder and denied bail at a court hearing.

On Friday morning, Santa Fe High School, southeast of Houston, became the scene of the fourth-deadliest mass shooting at a U.S. public school in modern history, joining a long list of U.S. campuses where students and faculty have fallen victim to gunfire.

The Texas rampage again stoked the nation’s long-running debate over gun ownership, three months after a student-led gun control movement emerged from a mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, which left 17 teens and educators dead.

Students and faculty, bused on to campus in small groups, were allowed to enter the high school on Saturday to retrieve belongings, though investigators closed off a section of the grounds. Police kept reporters about 100 yards (91.4 meters) away.

All schools in the Santa Fe school district will remain closed on Monday and Tuesday, officials said at a short briefing.

In a letter dated Friday but posted on the district’s website on Saturday, Superintendent Leigh Wall said eight of the dead were students and two were teachers. Authorities had earlier said that nine students and one teacher were killed.

A vigil was held Friday night for the victims, who have not been officially identified. 

“This will bring us closer together — hopefully, a positive impact from something negative,” said Clayton George, 16, who played football with the suspect.

The Pakistan Embassy in Washington D.C. identified one of the victims on Twitter as Sabika Sheikh, a Pakistani exchange student, while the brother-in-law of Cynthia Tisdale, a teacher’s aide and mother of four, said on Facebook she was killed in the attack.

National Football League star J.J. Watt, who plays defensive end for the Houston Texans, said he will pay for the funerals of the deceased, local media reported.

“Absolutely horrific,” he tweeted about the shooting.

Classmates at the school of some 1,460 students described Pagourtzis as a quiet loner who played on the football team. On Friday, they said he wore a trench coat to school in Santa Fe, about 30 miles (50 km) southeast of Houston, on a day when temperatures topped 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius).

Abbott, Texas’ governor, said Pagourtzis obtained firearms from his father, who had likely acquired them legally, and also left behind explosive devices.

Abbott told reporters that Pagourtzis wanted to commit suicide, citing the suspect’s journals, but did not have the courage to do so.

Some aspects of Friday’s shooting had echoes of the massacre at Columbine High School in 1999. The two teenaged killers in that incident wore trench coats, used shotguns and planted improvised explosives, killing 10 before committing suicide themselves.

It was the second mass shooting in Texas in less than seven months. A man armed with an assault rifle shot dead 26 people during Sunday prayers at a rural church last November.
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Pakistani Exchange Student Among Dead in Texas Shooting

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A Pakistani exchange student is among the 10 people killed Friday in a shooting at Santa Fe High School in the state of Texas.

Sabika Sheikh was to return home to Pakistan for Eid al-Fitr, a three-day holiday that marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, according to the Pakistan Association of Greater Houston on Facebook. The eldest of three daughters, Sabika, 17, resided in Karachi, reported Geo TV in Pakistan.

She had been in the U.S. under the Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study (YES) program since Aug. 21, 2017. She would have returned home when her program ended next month.

“She came to the U.S. to learn, to experience, to share and to bring back to her country all the knowledge she acquired during her exchange,” wrote friend and fellow exchange student George Lapadat in a tribute on Facebook.

“She was young, vibrant, happy and super excited to go back to her country. She was going to return in a few days. She has done an amazing job of being an amazing ambassador to her country here. She has volunteered in her community, she was involved in lots of activities and she created a lot of lifelong friendships,” Lapadat said.

“But she died today in the horrific Santa Fe, Texas, shooting,” wrote Lapadat, a Romanian exchange student in the Future Leaders Exchange Program through the U.S. State Department, who is living in Lakeville, Minnesota. “Her family and friends will never get to see her again. When she left for this trip, she was supposed to be gone for 10 months. … but now she is gone forever. And if this is not enough to prove that something is wrong and something needs to change, I don’t know what else would be.”

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressed his condolences Saturday to the family and friends of Sabika.

“Sabika was in the United States on the State Department-sponsored Youth Exchange and Study program, helping to build ties between the United States and her native Pakistan,” Pompeo said in a statement.” Sabika’s death and that of the other victims is heartbreaking and will be mourned deeply both here in the United States, and in Pakistan.”

Her family was reportedly bereft in Pakistan.

“It is still so very hard to believe that [Sabika is dead],” her father told Geo News. Geo reported that the family could not reach Sabika by mobile phone after hearing about the shooting following iftar on Friday. The consul-general in Houston confirmed that the student had died.

“It is with greatest sadness in my heart that I need to inform you that one of our YES students, Sabika Sheikh of Pakistan, was killed in the school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas,” wrote Megan Lysaght, program manager for the Kennedy Lugar YES program.

“Please know that the YES program is devastated by the loss and we will remember Sabika and her families in our thoughts and prayers,” Lysaght said.

WATCH: Sabika Sheikh made this video to express her feelings about being accepted into the YES program.

 

There were approximately 7,015 students from Pakistan in the U.S. in secondary and higher education in 2016-2017, a 14 percent increase from the previous year, according to the Institute of International Education.

Dimitrios Pagourtzis, 17, a junior at the school, opened fire before 8 a.m. at Santa Fe High School, according to law enforcement. Ten people were killed, and 10 others were wounded. Pagourtzis has been charged with murder.

Cynthia Tisdale, a teacher, was among those killed, her family confirmed. Tisdale was married for nearly 40 years and had three children and eight grandchildren, her niece Leia Olinde said.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott said the suspect, who is being held without bond in the Galveston County jail on capital murder charges, originally intended to commit suicide following the shooting but told law enforcement officials after he was arrested that he didn’t have the courage to go through with it.
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