Amid the very real hardships Syrian refugees face, little has been said about another major health and humanitarian issue: What to do with the massive accumulations of trash and waste. But one refugee camp in Jordan is doing something about it. With the help of an international nonprofit group, the residents of the Zaatari Refugee Camp launched a recycling program to eliminate the trash left by the tens of thousands of refugees who live there … and provide jobs. Arash Arabasadi reports.
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Month: July 2018
How Trade Fight Impacts National Economies, Ordinary People
The political squabbling between China and the United States over trade and other issues affect the world’s two largest economies through a variety of mechanisms with unpredictable results.
For example, prices of stock in both nations have been hurt as some shareholders sold their shares and other investors were reluctant to buy shares of companies that might be hurt by rising tariffs. These actions cut demand for certain stocks, making prices fall. Shareholders are part-owners of companies who hope to profit when the company prospers and grows. Rising tariff costs make growth less likely, and that hurts investor confidence.
World Trade Organization spokesman Dan Pruzin told Reuters that worries about trade are already being felt.
“Companies are hesitating to invest, markets are getting jittery, and some prices are rising,” he said, adding that further escalation could hurt “jobs and growth,” sending “economic shock waves” around the world.
Confidence
Trade squabbles can hurt business confidence, because managers are less willing to take the risk of buying new machines, building new factories or hiring new workers. Less expansion means less demand for equipment, and a smaller workforce means fewer people have the money to rent apartments, buy food or finance a new car. Less demand for goods and services ripples through the economy and sparks less economic activity and less growth.
Agriculture
U.S. farmers are another group feeling the effects of this trade dispute, as Beijing raises tariffs on U.S. soybeans. Higher tariffs raise food costs for Chinese consumers, so demand falls for U.S. farm products, a key American export. Anticipating slackening demand for U.S. soybeans, market prices dropped even before the tariffs were imposed. That means U.S. farmers can no longer afford to buy as many tractors and hire as many workers. Fewer workers mean fewer people with the money to buy products, which slows economic growth in farm states.
Consumers
Meantime, new U.S. tariffs hit Chinese-made vehicles, aircraft, boats, engines, heavy equipment and many other industrial products. China’s Xinhua news agency said new U.S. tariffs are an effort to “bully” Beijing. The agency says the new tariffs violate international trade rules, and will hurt many companies and “ordinary consumers.”
Experts say Washington tried to avoid tariffs on China that would directly raise costs to U.S. consumers. Economists say increasing taxes on products that help create consumer goods will still raise costs to consumers, fuel inflation and hurt demand.
Currency
PNC Bank Senior Economist Bill Adams, an expert on China’s economy, says one step China could take, but has not, would be to let its currency value drop. A weaker currency would mean Chinese-made products are cheaper and more competitive on international markets. Adams says China has taken steps recently to prop up the value of its currency. While a weaker currency helps exports, it can fuel inflation by raising the costs of imported products like oil or other raw materials needed by Chinese companies.
In the meantime, uncertainty fueled by trade disputes puts upward pressure on the value of the U.S. dollar, because investors see the United States as a safe haven in times of economic strife. But a stronger, more expensive dollar means U.S. products are more expensive for foreign customers, which hurts American exports and economic growth.
All of this means it is hard to predict how this trade dispute will play out. Experts say it will depend in large measure on how many times the two sides raise tariffs in response to each other, how high the tariffs go, and how long the bickering lasts.
William Zarit, the chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, writes that this is the biggest trade dispute between China and the United States in 40 years.
The two sides must work something out, Zarit says, because a “strong bilateral trade and investment relationship is too important to both countries for it to be mired in verbal and trade remedy attacks and counterattacks.”
He says a new agreement would “significantly benefit both economies.”
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‘No New Policy’ on Immigrants Joining Military, Says Pentagon
The Pentagon says “there is no new policy” concerning immigrants who wish to join the U.S. military, after the Associated Press reported some immigrant reservists and recruits were being “abruptly discharged” from the Army.
“Any recruit … who receives an unfavorable security screening is deemed unsuitable for military service and is administratively discharged,” Army spokeswoman Lt. Col. Nina Hill said Friday.
Hill added that each recruit undergoes reviews “dependent upon each individual’s unique background.” The Army, however, could not provide VOA with specific details of individuals’ security checks due to privacy laws.
The discharged recruits and reservists cited in the Associated Press report were all enlisted in recent years under a special program targeting non-U.S. citizens called the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest program, also known as MAVNI.
The program, aimed at bringing medical specialists and language specialists into the military, was ended in September 2017. However, hundreds of MAVNI recruits who were still in the process of joining the military at that time were to be “grandfathered in” if they passed appropriate security checks, according to Pentagon spokeswoman Air Force Maj. Carla Gleason.
“There is no new policy,” Gleason added.
Foreign nationals must complete security screening, basic military training and 180 days of “honorable service” before they can become naturalized U.S. citizens. Those in the reserve components of the military must complete security screening, basic military training and one year of honorable service before they can become naturalized.
Since 2009, more than 10,000 non-U.S. citizens have joined or signed contracts to join the military through the MAVNI program. As of April this year, about 1,100 of those MAVNI recruits were still in the Army’s delayed entry program, a process where individuals sign an enlistment agreement but are not yet service members.
A U.S. defense official told VOA and other reporters that the hundreds constituting this final group of MAVNI recruits likely could include those with backgrounds that are more difficult to clear through security.
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the discharge of approximately 40 immigrant recruits from the Army as reported by the AP was part of a “normal process” and would “likely keep happening” as the final MAVNI recruits are assessed.
Service members in the U.S. military come from more than 240 countries and territories, according to Defense Department data from December 2017.
The Associated Press spoke with discharged reservist Lucas Calixto, a Brazilian immigrant who said, “It was my dream to serve in the military. Since this country has been so good to me, I thought it was the least I could do to give back to my adopted country and serve in the United States military.”
Some of the service members told the Associated Press their discharges were left unexplained. Others who pressed for answers said the Army informed them they’d been labeled as security risks because they have relatives abroad or because the Defense Department had not completed background checks on them, according to the AP.
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Lawyers: Manafort in Solitary Confinement as He Awaits Trial
Lawyers for Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, say their client has been in solitary confinement as he awaits trial on financial charges.
The lawyers say Manafort is locked in a jail cell in Virginia for 23 hours a day, excluding visits from his attorneys, and has been in solitary confinement because the facility can’t guarantee his safety.
Manafort was jailed last month after a federal judge revoked his house arrest over allegations of witness tampering in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
His lawyers are asking a federal appeals court to overturn the judge’s order and release him under certain conditions as he awaits trial later this month in Alexandria, Virginia, and later this fall in Washington, D.C.
The lawyers say his detention makes it “effectively impossible” for Manafort to prepare for trial. They also say U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who is presiding over Manafort’s case in Washington and who ordered him to jail, did not analyze carefully enough whether Manafort had actually committed witness tampering.
“Independently, the alleged evidence of obstruction is so thin that it cannot reasonably support the determination that no set of conditions could ensure Mr. Manafort’s appearance and the safety of the community,” Thursday’s court filing states.
Manafort is one of four Trump campaign or White House aides to have been charged in Mueller’s investigation. Three others — George Papadopoulos, Michael Flynn and Rick Gates — have pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with investigators.
Separately Friday, Manafort’s lawyers asked for his upcoming trial in Virginia to be moved to Roanoke — much farther away from Washington — because of pretrial publicity.
“A simple Google search for articles about Russian collusion shows 2,900,000 results. As the Court has pointed out, public interest in this case is far beyond what the Court would expect,” the lawyers wrote. “In fact, the amount of media coverage of the Special Counsel’s investigations is astounding.”
Of the articles about Manafort, they say, “one is hard pressed to find any that are not unfavorable” to him.
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May Wins Support from Divided UK Government on Brexit Plan
British Prime Minister Theresa May secured a cabinet agreement on Friday for her plans to leave the European Union, overcoming rifts among her ministers to win support for “a business-friendly” proposal aimed at spurring stalled Brexit talks.
After an hours-long meeting at her Chequers country residence, May seemed to have persuaded the most vocal Brexit campaigners in the cabinet to back her plan to press for “a free trade area for goods” with the EU and maintain close trade tie.
The agreed proposal — which also says Britain’s large services sector will not have the current levels of access to EU markets — will not come soon enough for Brussels, which has been pressing May to come up with a detailed vision for future ties. But the hard-won compromise may yet fall flat with EU negotiators.
By also committing to ending free movement of people, the supremacy of the European court and “vast” payments to the bloc, May could be accused of “cherry-picking” the best bits of the EU by Brussels officials, who are determined to send a strong signal to other countries not to follow Britain out of the door.
The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier welcomed the agreement but added on Twitter: “We will assess proposals to see if they are workable and realistic.”
For now, May, who has been written off by critics regularly since losing her Conservative Party’s parliamentary majority in an ill-judged election last year, will be buoyed by the hard-won agreement.
“Today in detailed discussions the cabinet has agreed our collective position for the future of our negotiations with the EU,” May said in a statement. “Now we must all move at pace to negotiate our proposal with the EU to deliver the prosperous and secure future all our people deserve.”
In a document outlining the government’s position, ministers said they had agreed that an earlier proposal made to the EU “needed to evolve in order to provide a precise, responsible and credible basis for progressing negotiations.”
Instead, they had agreed to negotiate for a “free trade area for goods,” one that would see Britain having a “common rulebook for all goods” in a combined customs territory. This would allow Britain to set its own import tariffs and seal new free trade deals.
They also agreed that parliament would have the power to decide whether to follow EU rules and regulations in the future, and the government would step up preparations for the eventuality of a ‘no deal’ exit.
But for both sides of the Brexit debate — the hardline eurosceptics and the staunch EU supporters — the agreed negotiating position was not enough.
John Longworth, a chairman of campaign group Leave Means Leave, accused May of personally deceiving Brexit campaigners.
“May’s Brexit means BRINO — ‘Brexit In Name Only’ — a fake Brexit.”
Pro-EU Labour lawmaker Chuka Ummuna described it as “yet another behind-closed-doors stitch up that would leave us all worse off.”
The Times newspaper said, without citing sources, that May was taking a hard line and had promised senior allies that she would sack foreign minister Boris Johnson, a Brexit supporter, if he tried “to undermine the peace deal.”
Trade deals
With nine months before Britain leaves and just over three before the EU says it wants a deal, May has been under intense pressure from the bloc and from many businesses to show her negotiating position.
As she held the crisis talks with her ministers, the chief executive of European planemaker Airbus, Tom Enders, accused the government of having “no clue or at least consensus on how to execute Brexit without severe harm.”
May was cautious on whether she will win the support of the EU, saying only that she had “been talking to European leaders over the last week or so.”
“This is a proposal that I believe will be good for the UK and good for the EU and I look forward to it being received positively,” she told reporters.
But she has at least cleared yet another domestic hurdle. She seems to have reassured pro-Brexit ministers that under the new negotiating position Britain will still be able to seek trade deals with the rest of the world, easing fears that mirroring EU rules for goods would rule that out.
They may also have been reassured by May reiterating her belief that any agreement with the EU should end the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, although British courts would still have to “pay due regard” to its rulings.
And the agreed negotiating position also hands a big role for parliament to decide whether Britain should continue to follow EU rules and regulations, recognizing that any rejection of them “would have consequences.”
“This is a further step, an important further step, in our negotiations with the European Union,” she said. “But of course we still have work to do with the EU in ensuring that we get to that end point in October. But this is good.”
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Trump’s Tariffs: What They Are, How They’ll Work
So is this what a trade war looks like?
The Trump administration and China’s leadership have imposed tens of billions of dollars in tariffs on each other’s goods. President Donald Trump has proposed slapping duties on, all told, up to $550 billion if China keeps retaliating and doesn’t cave in to U.S. demands to scale back its aggressive industrial policies.
Until the past couple of years, tariffs had been losing favor as a tool of national trade policy. They were largely a relic of 19th and early 20th centuries that most experts viewed as mutually harmful to all nations involved. But Trump has restored tariffs to a prominent place in his self-described America First approach.
Trump enraged such U.S. allies as Canada, Mexico and the European Union this spring by slapping tariffs on their steel and aluminum shipments to the United States. The tariffs have been in place on most other countries since March.
The president has also asked the U.S. Commerce Department to look into imposing tariffs on imported cars, trucks and auto parts, arguing that they pose a threat to U.S. national security.
Here is a look at what tariffs are, how they work, how they’ve been used in the past and what to expect now:
Are we in a trade war?
Economists have no set definition of a trade war. But with the world’s two largest economies now slapping potentially punishing tariffs on each other, it looks as if a trade war has arrived. The value of goods that Trump has threatened to hit with tariffs exceeds the $506 billion in goods that China exported to the United States last year.
It’s not uncommon for countries, even close allies, to fight over trade in specific products. The United States and Canada, for example, have squabbled for decades over softwood lumber.
But the U.S. and China are fighting over much broader issues, like China’s requirements that American companies share advanced technology to access China’s market, and the overall U.S. trade deficit with China. So far, neither side has shown any sign of bending.
So what are tariffs?
Tariffs are a tax on imports. They’re typically charged as a percentage of the transaction price that a buyer pays a foreign seller. Say an American retailer buys 100 garden umbrellas from China for $5 apiece, or $500. The U.S. tariff rate for the umbrellas is 6.5 percent. The retailer would have to pay a $32.50 tariff on the shipment, raising the total price from $500 to $532.50.
In the United States, tariffs — also called duties or levies — are collected by Customs and Border Protection agents at 328 ports of entry across the country. Proceeds go to the Treasury. The tariff rates are published by the U.S. International Trade Commission in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule, which lists U.S. tariffs on everything from dried plantains (1.4 percent) to parachutes (3 percent).
Sometimes, the U.S. will impose additional duties on foreign imports that it determines are being sold at unfairly low prices or are being supported by foreign government subsidies.
Do other countries have higher tariffs than the United States?
Most key U.S. trading partners do not have significantly higher average tariffs. According to an analysis by Greg Daco at Oxford Economics, U.S. tariffs on imported goods, adjusted for trade volumes, average 2.4 percent, above Japan’s 2 percent and just below the 3 percent for the European Union and 3.1 percent for Canada.
The comparable figures for Mexico and China are higher. Both have higher duties that top 4 percent.
Trump has complained about the 270 percent duty that Canada imposes on dairy products. But the United States has its own ultra-high tariffs — 168 percent on peanuts and 350 percent on tobacco.
What are tariffs supposed to accomplish?
Two things: Raise government revenue and protect domestic industries from foreign competition. Before the establishment of the federal income tax in 1913, tariffs were a big money-raiser for the U.S. government. From 1790 to 1860, for example, they produced 90 percent of federal revenue, according to Clashing Over Commerce: A History of US Trade Policy by Douglas Irwin, an economist at Dartmouth College. By contrast, last year tariffs accounted for only about 1 percent of federal revenue.
In the fiscal year that ended last September 30, the U.S. government collected $34.6 billion in customs duties and fees. The White House Office of Management and Budget expects tariffs to fetch $40.4 billion this year.
Tariffs also are meant to increase the price of imports or to punish foreign countries for committing unfair trade practices, like subsidizing their exporters and dumping their products at unfairly low prices. Tariffs discourage imports by making them more expensive. They also reduce competitive pressure on domestic competitors and can allow them to raise prices.
Tariffs fell out of favor as global trade expanded after World War II.
The formation of the World Trade Organization and the advent of trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement among the U.S., Mexico and Canada reduced or eliminated tariffs.
Why are tariffs making a comeback?
After years of trade agreements that bound the countries of the world more closely and erased restrictions on trade, a populist backlash has grown against globalization. This was evident in Trump’s 2016 election and the British vote that year to leave the European Union — both surprise setbacks for the free-trade establishment.
Critics note that big corporations in rich countries exploited looser rules to move factories to China and other low-wage countries, then shipped goods back to their wealthy home countries while paying low tariffs or none at all. Since China joined the WTO in 2001, the United States has shed 3.1 million factory jobs, though many economists attribute much of that loss not just to trade but to robots and other technologies that replace human workers.
Trump campaigned on a pledge to rewrite trade agreements and crack down on China, Mexico and other countries. He blames what he calls their abusive trade policies for America’s persistent trade deficits — $566 billion last year. Most economists, by contrast, say the deficit simply reflects the reality that the United States spends more than it saves. By imposing tariffs, he is beginning to turn his hard-line campaign rhetoric into action.
Are tariffs wise?
Most economists — Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro is a notable exception — say no. The tariffs drive up the cost of imports. And by reducing competitive pressure, they give U.S. producers leeway to raise their prices, too. That’s good for those producers, but bad for almost everyone else.
Rising costs especially hurt consumers and companies that rely on imported components. Some U.S. companies that buy steel are complaining that Trump’s tariffs put them at a competitive disadvantage. Their foreign rivals can buy steel more cheaply and offer their products at lower prices.
More broadly, economists say trade restrictions make the economy less efficient. Facing less competition from abroad, domestic companies lose the incentive to increase efficiency or to focus on what they do best.
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US Judge Fines Chinese Turbine Company $1.5M
A U.S. judge has ordered one of China’s biggest makers of wind turbines to pay a $1.5 million fine after the company was convicted of stealing trade secrets from a U.S. manufacturer.
The judge in Madison, Wisconsin, also sentenced Sinovel on Friday to one year of probation, during which it must pay in full a $57.5 million settlement it struck with Massachusetts-based manufacturer AMSC.
Friday’s sentence came after a U.S. federal jury found Sinovel guilty in January on charges of conspiracy, trade-secret theft and wire fraud.
AMSC, formerly known as American Superconductor Inc., almost went out of business after Sinovel’s crime. Federal prosecutors said investors dumped more than $1 billion in AMSC stock and about 700 workers lost their jobs, more than half of the company’s global workforce.
The case centered on technology that AMSC developed to regulate the flow of electricity from wind turbines to electrical grids.
U.S. prosecutors said Sinovel entered into an $800 million contract for products from AMSC but never paid the money. Instead, prosecutors said, Sinovel used computers in Austria to steal the wind turbine technology and trade secrets from AMSC and to install them on Sinovel’s own turbines.
“Rather than pay AMSC for more than $800 million in products and services it had agreed to purchase, Sinovel instead hatched a scheme to brazenly steal AMSC’s proprietary wind turbine technology,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General John P. Cronan.
The U.S. Justice Department said Sinovel had already paid AMSC $32.5 million of the settlement. It said the case was investigated by U.S. FBI agents supported by a team of FBI personnel in Vienna and Beijing.
The Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Scott C. Blader said, “This case is about protecting American ideas and ingenuity.”
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Watchdog Reports on Alleged Syrian Attack Behind Airstrikes
The global chemical weapons watchdog said Friday in an interim report that “various chlorinated organic chemicals” had been found at the site in Syria where a chemical attack is suspected of being carried out in April.
A fact-finding mission of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons warned that it was too early to judge the suspected attack on Douma, saying that “work by the team to establish the significance of these results is ongoing.”
At the same time, the investigators reported, based on initial test results, that “no organophosphorous nerve agents or their degradation products” were detected in samples taken from people allegedly exposed or in the environment.
The OPCW is investigating the suspected April 7 chemical attack on Douma, a town near the Syrian capital, Damascus. The United States, Britain and France blamed Syrian government forces and launched punitive airstrikes. Syria denied responsibility.
The chemical weapons organization, based in the Netherlands, historically did not have authority to assign blame for chemical attacks, but national representatives recently empowered it to identify the parties it found responsible.
2 gas cylinders
The team said in its initial report on Douma that two industrial gas cylinders had been discovered at different locations in the town — one on a top-floor patio and the other on a bed in a top-floor apartment. It said it was working to establish how they got there and whether they were linked to the alleged attack.
The team said it “needs to continue its work to draw final conclusions regarding the alleged incident and, to this end, the investigation is ongoing.”
Louis Charbonneau, the U.N. director for Human Rights Watch, said the OPCW should “move quickly to finish its investigation and determine whether a chemical weapon attack occurred.”
“In the meantime, it should apply its new authority to determine responsibility for the use of chemical weapons in Syria to two other chemical weapons attacks [fact-finders] recently confirmed,” Charbonneau said in a statement.
Russia and Syria have sought to disprove that Douma was hit by a poison gas attack. In April, they brought a group of Syrians to the global chemical weapons watchdog’s headquarters in The Hague to denounce the reports of an illegal attack as fake.
The insistence by Russia and Syria that a chemical weapons attack was staged runs counter to accounts from witnesses and survivors interviewed by The Associated Press, some of them in Douma, who described being overwhelmed by a strong smell of chlorine.
The survivors interviewed by the AP in Douma after government forces took control of the town blamed rebels from the Army of Islam group of being behind the attack.
Other survivors who left Douma said the chlorine attack occurred amid government airstrikes and blamed the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
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Ankara Pushes Back Over US Iran Sanctions
Ankara has criticized Washington’s hardline policy toward Tehran, and with Turkey’s cooperation seen as vital to enforcing U.S. sanctions against Iran, analysts say a new confrontation could be looming.
“The implementation of sanctions against Iran will have a negative impact on the entire region and is extremely dangerous,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in an interview Friday with Turkey’s state news agency Anadolu.
A senior adviser to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaking on condition of anonymity, said “Turkey will only enforce U.N. sanctions and no other. Turkey is not going to be used for other countries’ agendas.”
U.S. President Donald Trump earlier this year vowed to enforce tough economic sanctions against Tehran after withdrawing from an international agreement on Iran’s nuclear program.
Analysts say that while Turkey and Iran are historically regional rivals, Ankara is wary of being sucked into any confrontation between Washington and Tehran.
“Turkey shares a border with Iran, it has had difficult relations with Iran over many centuries,” said Sinan Ulgen, head of the Istanbul-based Edam think tank. “But at the same time, it knows it will continue to live side by side with Iran, and it recognizes the role of Iran in the region. Therefore, it does not want to take sides in a conflict between Iran and the U.S.”
Turkish-Iranian relations often are characterized as an uneasy mix of cooperation and rivalry. Energy-poor Turkey relies on Iran’s oil and is the largest importer of Iranian natural gas. But this week, the U.S. director of policy planning, Brian Hook, ruled out any “waivers of licenses” for any businesses doing business with Iran.
Analysts point out that Ankara has undermined previous U.S. Iranian sanctions. “Since the very beginning, they [Ankara] have profited a lot from sanctions, especially under the [former Iranian President] Ahmadinejad regime. Turkey was one of two or three countries that helped over avoiding sanctions,” said Iran expert Jamshid Assadi of France’s Burgundy Business School.
“But Turkey is more internationally isolated than it was in the past, and it may be ready to circumvent sanctions. I think it will be more difficult, it may think twice before defying Washington, they [Ankara] are not on good terms with Israel, and the European Union,” Assadi added.
U.S. leverage
Washington retains powerful leverage over Ankara. U.S. authorities are considering potential multibillion-dollar fines against Turkish state banks after a New York court convicted a senior employee of Turkey’s Halkbank for violating U.S.-Iranian sanctions.
“Given the already quite frail state of the Turkish economy, if the U.S. decides to impose heavy sanctions that would further endanger the health of the economy,” analyst Ulgen warned.
The Halkbank case is one of multiple issues straining Turkish-U.S. relations. However, there has been progress over the past several months in resolving some disputes.
Turkey’s location bordering Iraq, Iran and Syria makes it strategically important to Washington. “[A] crucial ally and partner,” is how U.S. Assistant Secretary of State A. Wess Mitchell described Turkey in Senate hearings this week.
Turkish cabinet
Erdogan on Monday is due to announce his new cabinet, which will report directly to him under Turkey’s new executive presidency.
International relations Professor Huseyin Bagci of Ankara’s Middle East Technical University suggests a new approach could be in the offing. “Ibrahim Kalin is likely to be the new foreign minister, and if there is a new foreign minister, there is a new attitude in general to Russia, to America and the Europe Union. We may expect that Turkey will not be so confrontational, but rather cooperational in several fields.”
Personal chemistry between the U.S. and Turkish presidents also could play a part in achieving a diplomatic breakthrough.
“Trump was one of the first to congratulate Erdogan on his victory. There may be personal chemistry between Erdogan and Trump to resolve their differences,” Bagci said.
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Deaths on Mediterranean Rise as Anti-migrant Attitudes Harden
The U.N. refugee agency says would-be migrants continue to die trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe. The agency says anti-migrant attitudes are complicating efforts to save sinking boats.
The U.N. refugee agency says asylum seekers and migrants continue to die in the Mediterranean, despite a sharp decline in the numbers reaching European shores.
In the first six months of this year, the UNHCR says 45,700 asylum seekers and migrants arrived in Europe, while more than 1,000 have either died or disappeared at sea.
The agency says the high loss of life shows the urgent need to strengthen search and rescue capacities in the region.
But, UNHCR spokesman Charlie Yaxley says non-government organizations that can play a crucial role in sea rescues are being discouraged from helping out.
Yaxley tells VOA it is critical that any boat in the vicinity of a vessel in distress should be allowed to do that.
“If we have any threats of legal action or potential repercussions hanging over boats rescuing people at sea, then the very principle itself would potentially come under risk,” said Yaxley. “You may see ship masters wavering over responding to distress calls. That is a dire situation, not only for refugees and migrants, but for anybody who is in distress at sea.”
Recently, Italy and Malta have refused to allow boatloads of refugees and migrants rescued at sea to disembark in their ports, stranding the boats at sea for days.
The peak season for attempted sea crossings has just begun. Yaxley says saving lives must be the key priority. He warns a reduction in search and rescue efforts will lead to further loss of life, as unscrupulous smugglers lure desperate people to risk their lives crossing the sea in flimsy, unseaworthy vessels.
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Nigerian Court Clears Senate President of Asset-Declaration Charges
Nigeria’s Supreme Court on Friday dismissed all outstanding charges against Senate president Bukola Saraki related to alleged false declarations of assets.
Saraki, one of the country’s most powerful politicians, has been dogged by accusations of misconduct and investigations since he became president of the upper house of parliament in 2015, though none has led to convictions.
The original charges related to allegations that Saraki had falsely declared his assets when he was a state governor from 2003 to 2011, to which he had pleaded not guilty. A Code of Conduct Tribunal cleared him of the charges in June 2017, saying the case lacked substance.
The Supreme Court upheld his appeal on Friday against a decision in December last year that he should still face three charges.
“I am happy that I have been vindicated. The Supreme Court has affirmed that there is no evidence of false declaration of assets,” Saraki said in a statement.
Saraki ran unopposed for the post of Senate president, mainly with the support of the opposition even though he is a member of the ruling All Progressives Congress. He was not the APC’s preferred candidate, which led to strains in his relationship with President Muhammadu Buhari.
“This is a politically motivated case,” Saraki said in his statement, which did not name Buhari. “The case was trumped up in the first instance because of my emergence as the President of the Senate against the wishes of certain forces.”
A presidency spokesman declined to comment.
Saraki’s battles with the presidency are not the only fractures to have emerged in the APC before elections early next year. On Thursday, a faction of the APC split, declaring that it no longer supported the Buhari’s government and threatening his hopes of securing a second term.
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Cameroon Football Fans Cheer for French Player with Ties to Africa
As the World Cup nears its climax, one of the players being cheered on in Africa is French striker Kylian Mbappe. Mbappe’s mother is from Algeria and his father is from Cameroon. While Cameroon failed to qualify for this year’s World Cup, many Cameroonians feel they are represented by Mbappe.
“France are performing very well and if you see them qualifying, it is because of Kylian Mbappe,” said Marcel Leinyuy, owner of Terminus bar in Makepe, a neighborhood in Cameroon’s economic capital, Douala. The bar was re-baptized “Mbappe” after the player scored two goals in France’s 4-3 victory over Argentina in the World Cup.
“I wish our football federation could have called him to play for us in the national team. When you look at our own national team, you see there is something missing of which Mbappe has,” Leinyuy said.
Mbappe, whose Cameroonian father is his agent, is one of 15 players on the French squad who were either born in Africa or can trace their roots back to the continent, parts of which France ruled at one time as a colonial power.
Mbappe became a professional player in Monaco at the age of 16, just three years ago.
He has never lived nor played in Cameroon, but his performances attracted the attention of the Cameroon Football Federation, and he was contacted to play for the national team, nicknamed the Indomitable Lions. But French coach Didier Deschamps already had keen eyes for him.
Soccer analyst and former Cameroon premier league player Gabriel Tsila says it is a great loss that Cameroon failed to get Mbappe to play for his father’s homeland.
Tsila says the team needed Mbappe to bring Cameroon’s football (soccer) back to glory, but their local football federation neglected him. He says it is a shame that Cameroon abandoned Mbappe to France at a time when central African states’ football has taken a downward turn due to a lack of talented players.
Cameroon’s national team is the African champion. However, the squad was eliminated from the race to the 2018 World Cup after a one-all tie last year with Nigeria.
Local football fans say if they had players like Mbappe, they would have performed better.
Nonetheless, thousands of Cameroonian World Cup fans will cheer on Mbappe, who they see as a fellow countryman playing for a nation with deep ties to Cameroon.
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At Least 30 Killed When Bus in Cameroon Drives Into a River
Authorities in Cameroon say at least 30 people are dead after a bus crashed on the road that links the political capital, Yaounde, with the western regional capital, Bafoussam.
Governor Naseri Paul Bea says the bus drove into a river in Boutorou town early Friday. He says the two injured survivors have been evacuated to Yaounde for treatment.
The governor says authorities are investigating. The cause of the crash is not known, but such accidents in Cameroon are often linked to the poor state of roads and drivers.
The Ministry of Transport estimates that 1,500 people die in road accidents each year.
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Swaziland or Eswatini? King’s New Name Faces Legal Challenge
A human rights activist in Swaziland is challenging King Mswati III’s decision to change the tiny southern African nation’s name to the Kingdom of eSwatini.
Africa’s last absolute monarch announced the new name in April at celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary of Swazi independence from Britain.
However, activist Thulani Maseko argued in a High Court submission that the decision undermined the constitution and was a waste of money, especially in a country with the world’s highest HIV/AIDS rate.
He asked that the court set aside the decision as the product of the whim of the UK-educated monarch taken without any public consultation, court papers showed on Friday.
“Every citizen has a right to take part in the conduct of public affairs, directly or through freely chosen representatives,” Maseko said in the papers.
Most of the landlocked nation’s 1.5 million people eke out a living as farmers or migrant laborers in neighboring South Africa. Swaziland holds elections every five years but political parties are not allowed to contest and the king appoints the Prime Minister.
The Attorney General’s Office, which is named in the papers, has not yet responded to the submission.
your ad hereTurkey: 2 British Brothers Arrested for ‘Terror Propaganda’
Turkey’s state-run news agency says authorities have arrested two British citizens of Iraqi heritage for allegedly engaging in “terror propaganda” on behalf of outlawed Kurdish rebels.
Anadolu Agency said Friday that brothers Ayman Barzan and Hariam Barzan were detained at Dalaman Airport in southwest Turkey after being questioned by anti-terrorism profilers for acting “suspiciously.”
Police examined their social media accounts and found postings they deemed to be propaganda on behalf of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, PKK, and the Syrian Kurdish militia group, the People’s Protection Units, or YPG.
Turkey considers the YPG to be an extension of the PKK, which has waged a more than three-decade long insurgency in southeast Turkey and is considered a terror group by Ankara and its allies.
No further information was available on the brothers.
your ad hereDo Your Brexit Duty, Britain’s May Tells Her Divided Government
Prime Minister Theresa May called on her government to do its duty and agree a plan for Britain’s future outside the European Union, a last-ditch appeal to ministers to put Brexit rows behind them and take a “step forward”.
Just hours before hosting a meeting at her Chequers country residence on Friday that she hopes will overcome deep rifts that have hampered Britain’s Brexit plans, May urged her cabinet to agree a way to push on with all-but-stalled talks with the EU.
A united stance from the government cannot come soon enough for an increasingly frustrated EU and for many companies, which have stepped up their warnings of the risk to tens of thousands of jobs if Britain leaves the bloc without a deal.
But the first details of May’s new plan for close customs ties with the EU – a “facilitated customs arrangement” – won mixed reviews, with one Brexit campaigner saying it could leave the country out of Europe, but still run by Europe.
Her foreign minister, Boris Johnson, was reported by local media to have held a meeting of pro-Brexit ministers to plan a counter attack to May’s plans.
“The cabinet meets at Chequers … to agree the shape of our future relationship with the European Union. In doing so, we have a great opportunity – and a duty,” May said before her ministers set off for the 16th-century manor house 40 miles (60 km) northwest of London.
“Now is the time for another step forward. We want a deal that allows us to deliver the benefits of Brexit – taking control of our borders, laws and money and by signing ambitious new trade deals with countries like the U.S, Australia and New Zealand,” she added in a statement.
Her effective deputy, cabinet office minister David Lidington, said he was confident ministers, who have long been at odds over how close Britain’s future relationship with the EU should be, would reach a “concrete position”.
Brexit vision
The stakes are high.
May has been reluctant to spell out her Brexit vision for fear of angering one faction or another. But with only nine months before Britain leaves the bloc and just over three months before the EU says it wants a deal, she has been forced to act.
On Thursday, May made her opening gambit to overcome the deep divisions in not only her government, but in her Conservative Party, parliament and across Britain by suggesting a new customs plan to keep trade flowing as freely as possible.
It would see Britain closely mirror EU rules, use technology to determine where goods will end up and therefore which tariffs should be applied, and hand London the freedom to set its own tariffs on incoming goods. Britain would also be able to strike trade deals with other countries, her spokeswoman said.
But Brexit campaigners, including at least two ministers in her cabinet, fear that the plan will keep Britain in the EU’s customs sphere. That, Brexit supporters say, would be a betrayal of her pledge for a clean break with the bloc and for Britain to win the ability to strike out alone.
Her office has so far made public only a few details of the plan and it may be changed at the Chequers meeting, which is expected to run all day and possibly late into the evening.
Even if she finds agreement at home, May still faces the hard task of winning the support of the EU, which poured cold water on her previous suggestions for customs arrangements and has pressed the leader to come up with “workable” proposals.
But for now, May hopes to concentrate minds at home.
She said: “This is about agreeing an approach that delivers decisively on the verdict of the British people – an approach that is in the best interests of the UK and the EU, and crucially, one that commands the support of the public and parliament.”
your ad hereMiG-29 Military Jet Crashes in Poland Killing Pilot
A Polish MiG-29 military jet crashed during a night flight in northern Poland the defense ministry said Friday.
The 33-year-old Polish air force pilot, whose name was not released, was killed, despite ejecting before the crash. His body was found a few hundred meters away from the wreckage.
The pilot had some 800 hours of flight time.
The Associated Press reports that Polish authorities have ordered all of the country’s aging Soviet-made MiG-29 jets grounded pending an investigation.
Poland has about 30 MiG-29 fighter jets which have been in service for almost 30 years. It is gradually replacing them with U.S.-made F-16 aircraft.
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Nuclear Deal Talks Set to Drag on as Iran Seeks More From World Powers
Talks to save the 2015 nuclear deal on Friday are unlikely to satisfy Iran, European powers said, and Tehran warned that it could leave the accord if it was not fully compensated for the re-imposition of U.S. sanctions.
Ministers from Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia meet their Iranian counterpart in Vienna for the first time since U.S. President Donald Trump left the pact in May, but diplomats see limited scope for salvaging it.
Trump pulled the United States out of the multinational deal under which sanctions on Iran were lifted in return for curbs on its nuclear program verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Washington has since told countries they must stop buying the OPEC producer’s oil from Nov. 4 or face financial consequences.
Speaking on French radio ahead of arriving in the Austrian capital, France’s foreign minister said world powers would struggle to put together an economic package immediately.
“They (Iran) must stop threatening to break their commitments to the nuclear deal,” Jean-Yves Le Drian said. “We are trying to do it (economic package) before sanctions are imposed at the start of August and then the next set of sanctions in November. For August it seems a bit short, but we are trying to do it by November,” he said.
On arrival in Vienna, Germany’s Foreign Minister Heiko Mass said he didn’t expect a collapse of talks, but suggested more negotiations would be needed in the future. He stressed hat world powers would struggle to compensate Tehran for companies leaving Iran.
The pillars of the European Union’s strategy are: European Investment Bank lending, a special measure to shield EU companies from U.S. secondary sanctions, and a Commission proposal that EU governments make direct money transfers to Iran’s central bank to avoid U.S. penalties.
Bank payments
“We’ve made some progress, including on safeguarding some crude (oil) sales, but it’s unlikely to meet Iranian expectations. It’s also not just about what the Europeans can do, but also how the Chinese, Russians, Indians, others can contribute,” said a senior European diplomat.
Iranian officials have said that key for them is to ensure measures that guarantee oil exports do not halt, and that Tehran still has access to the SWIFT international bank payments messaging system or an alternative.
“We are ready for all possible scenarios … the collapse of the deal will increase the tension in the region. To save the deal, other signatories should compensate for U.S. sanctions,” a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Friday.
During a visit to Europe this week President Hassan Rouhani warned that Iran could reduce its co-operation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog, having already threatened Trump of the “consequences” of fresh sanctions against Iranian oil sales.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have also warned that they may block oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz in response to U.S. calls to ban all Iranian oil exports.
“We expect our partners to give us verifiable solutions rather than just promises,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told reporters on Friday.
your ad hereBritain, Russia Clash Over New Nerve-Agent Poisoning Case
British police are searching for the source of contamination that sickened a man and a woman in the area of southern England where a former Russian spy and his daughter were poisoned in March. The two victims tested positive for a Novichok nerve agent. Novichok is a series of deadly nerve agents designed by the Soviet Union that are generally unavailable outside Russia. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports the two poisoning cases have sparked a political row between Britain and Russia.
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Ugandan Doctors Struggle to Provide Adequate Health Care
Uganda’s government has called the country’s doctors unprofessional, selfish, unpatriotic and enemies of the people, after they called for a sit-down strike in 2017 demanding better pay and improved working conditions. Halima Athumani spent a night at an Ugandan hospital and shows us the challenges doctors face.
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US Army Discharging Immigrant Recruits, Reservists
The Associated Press has learned that the U.S. Army has moved in recent weeks to discharge immigrant recruits and reservists who enlisted through a program that promised them a path to citizenship.
Some of these service members say they weren’t told why they were being discharged. Others say the Army told them they’d been labeled as security risks because they have relatives abroad or because their background checks were pending.
The AP was not able to ascertain how many service members who enlisted through the immigrant recruitment program have been booted out of the Army because of their immigrant status, but immigration attorneys said they were aware of more than 40 enlistees who have been discharged in recent weeks.
The Pentagon declined to comment because of a pending lawsuit.
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Scientists Working to Create Northern White Rhino Embryos
When Sudan, the last male northern white rhino, died in March, hopes for a revival of the sub-species were crushed. But as Sadie Witkowski explains, the magnificent creatures might not go the way of the dodo.
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Maryland Town’s Bathtub Races Attract Tourists for a Good Cause
Every year, hundreds of tourists arrive at the small town of Berlin, Maryland, to watch an unusual event — bathtub races! Despite all the fun, the races have a serious goal: to raise money to help critically ill children. Evgeny Baranov has a report, narrated by Anna Rice.
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Expert: Press North Korea to Reveal All Secret Nuclear Sites
Washington must press Pyongyang to reveal the existence of secret nuclear sites, including the second uranium enrichment facility known as Kangsong, in any nuclear disarmament deal, said a former United Nations nuclear inspector.
The United States must “make sure [North Korean officials] include these additional sites upfront into the deal,” said David Albright, a former United Nations nuclear inspector and current nuclear proliferation analyst at the Institute for Science and International Security.
Increased nuclear activities
Albright made his comments as another expert said North Korea’s increased nuclear activities since the summit in June have raised concerns whether it has violated the agreement made with the U.S. to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.
Before U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo headed to Pyongyang on Thursday to discuss denuclearization details, reports of North Korea’s secret nuclear sites and upgrades to the Yongbyon nuclear site surfaced. The reports fueled speculation about the real intentions of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un regarding denuclearization, despite what was said to U.S. President Donald Trump during last month’s summit in Singapore.
NBC and The Washington Post reported last week that U.S. officials believe, based on the latest intelligence assessments, that North Korea has been making preparations to deceive Washington about how many weapons it has in its possession and that the Kim regime has been increasing its production of enriched uranium for nuclear weapons at several secret sites since the summit.
These reports came at the heels of another report by 38north.org, indicating last week that Pyongyang was continuing to make “improvements to the infrastructure at North Korea’s Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center … at a rapid pace” based on satellite images taken from June 21.
Secret underground facility
Aside from the Yongbyon facility, which is the only nuclear site the North acknowledges, Pyongyang also operated Kangsong, a secret underground facility that is believed to have the capability to enrich twice the amount of uranium than Yongbyon.
According to Albright, who first mentioned Kangsong in May, the U.S. has known about the site since the Obama administration but remained mum.
“We agreed at that time it would have severely complicated the negotiations because the Obama administration had decided that they only wanted to freeze activities at Yongbyon, and they would deal with sites outside Yongbyon later,” Albright said. “So, if we published information about a secret site, that would become a part of negotiations and disrupt things. So, we agreed not to release it.”
Albright said the site needs to be acknowledged now by both sides so that Pompeo’s talks with Pyongyang include discussion of dismantling all of its facilities that have the capacity to produce nuclear weapons.
“In this case, I feel that it’s important to get this information out to impress upon negotiators that this agreement has to be different. It has to get at North Korea’s ability to make nuclear weapons,” said Albright adding, “I think Trump people are intending to do that, but you never know.”
Summit agreement
North Korea’s alleged increased nuclear activities since the summit raised concern about whether it has violated the agreement made with the U.S. to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.
“I don’t think they have any agreement that would make it a violation at this point,” said Christopher Hill, a chief U.S. negotiator with North Korea during the George W. Bush administration.
Hill continued, “All they have is a one-page summary from Singapore … Secretary Pompeo is going there. And let’s see what he comes back with.”
Hill said information about North Korea’s secret sites and continued nuclear activities seemed to have been leaked before Pompeo’s trip to Pyongyang in order to put pressure on him to negotiate a more substantial deal during this visit.
Critics of the Singapore summit have been arguing the joint statement issued by Trump and Kim at the summit failed to include any detailed agreement on denuclearization.
Give Pompeo a chance
Pompeo is expected to meet with North Korean officials through Saturday in what would be his third trip to North Korea and the first meeting since the summit.
While the concerns about North Korea’s undeclared nuclear sites and increased nuclear activities have raised concerns over its intention to denuclearize, Joseph DeTrani, a former U.S. special envoy for negotiations with North Korea said, “Let’s be patient. Let’s see what their nuclear declaration looks like and ensure that they sign a verification protocol that’s robust. And we can go from there.”
Robert Gallucci, chief U.S. negotiator during the 1994 North Korean nuclear crisis, thinks the leaked reports about Pyongyang’s nuclear activities could be leverage for Pompeo but said, “It’s clear that neither the secretary or, more importantly, the president doesn’t want to go back to a hard line.”
During his negotiations, Pompeo is expected to propose a schedule for denuclearization and North Korea is expected to declare all of its weapons and production facilities.
In an interview with CBS on Sunday, National Security Adviser John Bolton said Pompeo “will be discussing this with the North Koreans in the near future about really how to dismantle all of their [weapons of mass destruction] and ballistic missile program in a year.”
However, State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said Tuesday, “We’re not going to provide a timeline.”
According to Albright, dismantling nuclear weapons, which he thinks is what Bolton meant, as opposed to the verification of the dismantlement, can be done in a short period of time.
“Taking apart nuclear weapons isn’t that hard,” said Albright. “Countries build them and destroy them all the time like the United States. In South Africa, they were taking apart a weapon every week or two.”
However, he said it would take more than a year to dismantle a reactor.
“If you take a reactor, will it be dismantled after a year? Of course not,” said Albright. “It is highly radioactive, but you could destroy it so it couldn’t be used as a reactor again. And same with the reprocessing plant.”
Christy Lee contributed to this report which originated with the VOA Korean Service.
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