September 2018 - Page 15 of 24

Poll: Democrat Advantage Grows as GOP Frets Ahead of Midterms

Posted on 09/12/2018 by SeeUS

U.S. Democrats’ chances at regaining majorities in Congress are rising, a new poll showed Wednesday, as President Donald Trump’s approval rating suffers a fresh hit and Republicans issue dire warnings about upcoming elections.

With 55 days until the mid-terms that will decide congressional, state and local races nationwide, the Republicans who control both chambers of Congress appear increasingly threatened by a resurgent opposition.

The worry among Republicans has risen to such levels that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell recently likened his party’s efforts to hold their Senate majority to a “knife fight in an alley.”

Asked in the latest NPR/Marist poll which party they are more likely to vote for in their congressional districts in November, Americans chose Democrats by a 12-point advantage.

The shift is particularly acute in the U.S. Midwest, where Democrats have enjoyed a 13-point swing in their direction since July, according to the poll.

Trump’s trade wars are unpopular in the Midwest, where tariffs imposed in retaliation for his aggressive levies on cars, steel and other imports have hurt manufacturing and farming operations.

In the poll of 949 adults, half of voters (50 percent) said they were more likely to vote for the Democrat in their district over the Republican (38 percent) — an increase from July, when the Democratic edge was 47 to 40 percent.

Heaping further pressure on poor Republican numbers is Trump’s unpopularity.

Just 36 percent approve of the way the president is handling his job, down from 42 percent in August, a CNN poll released Monday showed.

Among independents the drop was sharper, from 47 percent approval last month to 31 percent now.

Democrats need to flip 23 seats in the 435-member House of Representatives to reclaim the majority, a goal several experts say is likely to be met.

They face a far tougher election map in the 100-member Senate, but polling data has shown several races skewing toward Democrats.

McConnell himself expressed doubts about his party holding the upper chamber, pointing to toss-up races from Republican strongholds in North Dakota, Tennessee and West Virginia to swing states like Florida and Nevada.

“All of them too close to call, and every one of them like a knife fight in an alley,” McConnell told reporters Tuesday.

“I hope when the smoke clears, that we’ll still have a majority in the Senate.”

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‘Nobody Likes The Truth,’ says Veteran Serbian Human Rights Activist

Posted on 09/12/2018 by SeeEU

Nataša Kandić, the formidable Serbian human rights campaigner and Nobel Peace prize nominee, shrugs. “Nobody likes the truth,” she says.

For almost three decades Kandić has been a thorn in the side of those who butchered, raped and tortured during the Balkans wars of the 1990s. She documented abuses and massacres. She protested what was unfolding, cajoling and informing a shocked world, insisting it pay attention to the return of genocide to Europe, and to do something about it.

The evidence she gathered was used in the preparation of many indictments issued by the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, including a video of Bosnian-Serb paramilitaries executing a number of captives, which helped prove Serbia’s role in the Srebrenica massacre of 7,500 Bosnian Muslim men and boys.

She has drawn the praise of human rights activists across the world, but in her home country she has seen by many as a traitor and drawn the hatred of the Serbs’ wartime leaders and their followers, including a new generation of ethnic nationalists who glorify ethnic cleansing and the Balkans conflict, which marked the first large-scale slaughter of civilians in Europe since the Nazi era.

During an interview in downtown Belgrade at the Humanitarian Law Center, an NGO she founded in 1992, she said, “The majority of public opinion is without respect for human rights. Truth is not so nice for people and politicians because Serbia bears responsibility for many war victims, wrongdoing, bad relations with neighbors, especially Kosovo. And we don’t have politicians who are willing to take responsibility for the wrong decisions of Serbia. All of them participated in making decisions in 1991 at the beginning of the war.”

Asked during the interview about continuing threats against her she answers indifferently: “It is the normal situation with killing and with war crimes.”

Despite the threats, she takes few safety precautions.

When she sat down with VOA, her only guard was an inquisitive tabby cat. Kandić is neatly dressed in white, frail physically but sturdy in argument, and she remains motivated and determined. Asked if it might not be time to retire, she responds: “I will not be quiet.”

Hours after she spoke with VOA, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić lauded Serbia’s wartime leader Slobodan Milošević, describing him in a speech as “a great Serbian leader” whose “aims were certainly the best.” Vučić criticized former Serbian officials, who he dubbed pro-Western, for handing over Slobodan Milošević and his generals to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

His remarks prompted outrage in neighboring Balkan states where Milosevic’s ultranationalist policies during the breakup of Yugoslavia prompted bloodshed and destruction, and the deaths of at least 120,000 people in Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo.

For Kandić, Vučić’s remarks are not a surprise. Like many human rights activists and war victims in the Balkans she is frustrated with the halting progress made with transitional justice since the end of the Balkans conflict. She believes punishments and prosecutions, acknowledgement, and the apportioning of guilt are necessary to advance reconciliation.

She laments the ending of the mandate of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, which wrapped up its work last year. She says the court changed the landscape of international humanitarian law and its legacy is important, but she worries “there is no other body to build on that legacy.”

Kandić says Western countries have neglected human rights in the Balkans and is urging them to back her calls for the establishment of a regional commission “to register all of the victims, to oblige states to name the victims and with a mandate to collect information to establish the identities of 130,000 victims; to establish the facts about how they lost their lives and organize public recognition.”

She asks, “How can you establish the rule of law without punishing the people who committed the crimes in the past?”

Kandić clearly is fearful of backsliding amid rising nationalist sentiment across the Balkans. “For example, in Kosovo, all the leaders were very active in the war, they were on the top level, they were war leaders. In Serbia, all current opposition leaders were very close to Milosevic.”

She is not alone nursing worries. In the Serbian-controlled Republika Srpska, one of the two legal entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Aleksandra Letić of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, bewails an increase in nationalist rhetoric, fanned by the politicians, especially before Bosnia-wide elections next month.

“Everybody, in particular the international community, is pretending that the pink elephant [a euphemism for hallucination] is not running through the streets of Bosnia Herzegovina,” she says.

A new generation of youngsters are thrilling to the idea of Serbian ultra-nationalism and there is little effort to pull them the other way, she says. “In Bosnia Herzegovina monuments are raised to the perpetrators, but the victims are neglected. We have only one official monument for the victims in Republika Srpska and that was built because of international pressure.”

“What is concerning is that those who are actually supporting war criminals, supporting the ideology of those who actually committed war crimes are young people born after the war,” says Letić. She adds the young generation should be the driving force for progress towards an open and democratic society, but is “deeply involved in nationalistic and chauvinistic behavior.”

The schools, she laments, do not teach what the war criminals did to get convicted. “Some of the history text books end before the peak of the Balkans conflict,” she complains.

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EU Lawmakers Vote to Sanction Hungary for Eroding Democracy

Posted on 09/12/2018 by SeeEU

European Union legislators took the unprecedented step Wednesday to begin process of imposing sanctions on Hungary for presenting a “systematic threat” to the bloc’s Democratic values.

The European Parliament voted 448-197 to launch an Article Seven process, which could result in the suspension of Hungary’s EU voting rights.

The vote dealt a serious blow to Prime Minister Viktor Orban, further isolating him from powerful allies in the midst of his ambitious effort to push Europe toward Hungary’s version of an “illiberal democracy.”

Orban managed during his eight years in office to deflect his critics, who contend Hungary’s electoral system is irregular, media freedom and judicial independence are waning and refugees and asylum-seekers are abused.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto condemned the vote as “nothing less than the petty revenge of pro-immigration politicians.” He also said Hungary was considering legal actions because the vote was tainted by “massive fraud” since abstentions were not included in the final count.

There were 48 abstentions, so the 448 votes in favor of the sanctions exceeded the two-thirds needed only because it was based on 645 votes. If the abstentions were counted, there would have been a total of 693 votes.

Judith Sargentini, a Dutch politician who presented the European Parliament’s report recommending the sanctions process, welcomed the results of the vote.

“Viktor Orban’s government has been leading the charge against European values by silencing independent media, replacing critical judges, and putting academia on a leash,” she said. “The Hungarian people deserve better. They deserve freedom of speech, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice and equality, all of which are enshrined in the European treaties.”

With European Parliament elections in May, the dispute over Hungary and Poland, which faces a similar sanctions process that was initiated by the European Commission last year, highlights tensions between nationalists and federalist camps on the continent.

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Juncker: EU Must Grasp World Role as US Retreats

Posted on 09/12/2018 by SeeEU

The European Union must flex its muscles as a world power, EU chief executive Jean-Claude Juncker said on Wednesday, as he spoke critically of U.S. President Donald Trump’s retreat from international engagement.

In his annual State of the Union address to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Juncker, who is entering his final year as president of the European Commission, urged EU states to bridge angry divisions over budgets, immigration and other issues in order to capitalize on a chance to shape the world.

“Whenever Europe speaks as one, we can impose our position on others,” Juncker said, arguing that a deal he struck in July with Trump to stall a transatlantic tariff war and which won plaudits for the Commission should have come as no surprise.

“The geopolitical situation makes this Europe’s hour: the time for European sovereignty has come,” he said.

Juncker made no direct comment on Trump or U.S. policy but aides said the geopolitical situation he spoke of was a U.S. retreat into what Juncker described elsewhere in the speech as “selfish unilateralism”. He also saw new opportunities to work with China, Japan and others to develop “multilateral” rules.

Some proposals to strengthen the EU’s effectiveness face an uphill battle against member state opposition, notably scrapping national vetoes in some foreign policy areas, such as where economic pressure from the likes of Russia or China on certain EU countries has blocked EU sanctions to defend human rights.

In repeating his support for deeper economic integration, he also pushed the idea that the euro should challenge the dollar as the world’s leading currency, calling it “absurd” that the EU pays for most of its energy in the U.S. currency despite buying it mainly from the likes of Russia and the Gulf states. He said

airlines should also buy planes priced in euros not dollars.

Juncker renewed calls for states to push ahead in developing an EU defense capability independent of the U.S.-led NATO alliance and to embrace Africa through investment and a sweeping new free trade area — part of a strategy to curb the flow of poor African migrants which has set EU governments at each other’s throats and fueled a sharp rise in anti-EU nationalism.

EU divisions

Without naming Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Juncker blasted EU leaders who sought to undermine democracy and the rule of law and rejected complaints from lawmakers that the Commission has been lenient toward Hungary, Poland and other eastern states.

Later on Wednesday, the European Parliament voted to sanction Hungary for flouting EU rules on democracy, civil rights and corruption in an unprecedented step that could lead to a suspension of Budapest’s EU voting rights.

At the same time, the Commission put forward a plan to get even tougher on illegal economic migrants whose arrival has so angered Orban and others.

However, the idea of a fully federal European Border and Coast Guard, with its own 10,000-strong uniformed force run from Brussels may hit national resistance.

With an eye on elections next May to the European Parliament, Juncker proposed new vigilance, and penalties, for attempts to manipulate voters. As the centenary nears of the end of World War One, he recalled how Europeans were taken totally by surprise by its outbreak and urged more respect for the EU as a force for peace against nationalistic “poison and deceit.”

He spoke of regret at Britain’s impending withdrawal from the bloc which will mark his five-year mandate and warned Prime Minister Theresa May that the EU would not compromise its single market to let London pick and choose which rules to obey.

But as negotiators struggle to overcome problems about the future of the land border on the island of Ireland, Juncker also pledged that Britain would remain a very close partner.

In the parliamentary debate which followed his hour-long address, Nigel Farage, of the UK Independence Party, accused him of failing to acknowledge the arrival of euroskeptics in government in Italy and a “populist revolt” across Europe that he said would resist Juncker’s aim to centralize more power.
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US Drug Company Chief: ‘Moral Requirement’ for Big Price Hike

Posted on 09/12/2018 by SeeUS

A U.S. pharmaceutical executive is defending his price boost of a key antibiotic by 400 percent to almost $2,400 a bottle as a “moral requirement,” a claim that drew an immediate rebuke from the country’s drug regulatory chief.

Nostrum Pharmaceuticals president Nirmal Mulye told The Financial Times he had a “moral requirement to sell the product at the highest price,” pushing the price of the antibiotic mixture called nitrofurantoin from $474.75 to $2,392 a bottle. The World Health Organization calls the drug an “essential” medicine for lower urinary tract infections.

Mulye told the newspaper, “I think it is a moral requirement to make money when you can. This is a capitalist economy and if you can’t make money you can’t stay in business.”

He compared his decision to increase the price to that of an art dealer selling “a painting for half a billion dollars” and said he was in “this business to make money.”

The Food and Drug Administration commissioner, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, rejected Mulye’s justification for the price hike, saying, “There’s no moral imperative to price gouge and take advantage of patients.”

He said the FDA “will continue to promote competition so speculators and those with no regard to public health consequences can’t take advantage of patients who need medicine.”

The dispute over the antibiotic’s price comes in the midst of periodic complaints by President Donald Trump that drug costs are too high in the United States.

In May, Trump unveiled a plan to try to increase competition among drug makers in an effort to lower drug prices.

“The drug lobby is making an absolute fortune at the expense of American patients,” Trump said.
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FDA Considering Ban on Flavored E-Cigarettes

Posted on 09/12/2018 by SeeUS

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is considering a ban on flavored

e-cigarettes in response to an “epidemic” of young people using e-cigarettes, the agency’s leader said on Wednesday.

In a speech at FDA headquarters, Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said the agency would also revisit its compliance policy that extended the dates for manufacturers of flavored e-cigarettes to submit applications for premarket authorization.

“We see clear signs that youth use of electronic cigarettes has reached an epidemic proportion,” Gottlieb said.

Gottlieb announced a number of steps the agency planned to take as part of a broader crackdown on the sale and marketing of e-cigarettes to kids. The agency issued 12 warning letters to companies that it says have deceptive marketing labels on e-liquids. “We cannot allow a whole new generation to become addicted to nicotine,” he said.

Shares of British American Tobacco were up nearly 6 percent and shares of cigarette-maker Imperial Brands PLC were up more than 3 percent. Shares of cigarette and e-cigarette maker Altria Group also rose more than 6 percent, while Philip Morris International shares were up 4 percent.

Traders said proposed FDA action was less harsh than feared. Manufacturers offer and market e-cigarette flavors that appeal to minors, including candy, bubble gum and fruit flavors. The FDA said more than 2 million middle school and high school students used e-cigarettes in 2017.

The FDA is giving the five top-selling e-cigarette brands — Juul Labs Inc., Vuse, MarkTen XL, Blu and Logic — 60 days to provide plans for how they will mitigate sales to minors.

Juul Labs said it would work with the FDA on its request and is committed to preventing underage use of its product. But it added that “appropriate flavors play an important role in helping adult smokers switch,” spokeswoman Victoria Davis said. The owners of Vuse, MarkTen XL, Blu and Logic did not

immediately respond to requests for comment.

“While we remain committed to advancing policies that promote the potential of e-cigarettes to help adult smokers move away from combustible cigarettes, that work can’t come at the expense of kids,” Gottlieb said.

As part of its broader enforcement efforts, the FDA said it issued more than 1,300 warning letters and fines to retailers who illegally sold e-cigarette products to minors.
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Pope Francis Summons Bishops for Sex Abuse Summit

Posted on 09/12/2018 by SeeEU

Pope Francis is summoning senior Catholic bishops from around the world to a February summit to discuss the church’s burgeoning clergy sex abuse scandal involving attacks on minors and years of cover-ups of allegations against parish priests.

The Vatican said Wednesday the heads of the national Catholic bishops’ conferences would meet with Francis from February 21 to 24. The meeting of more than 100 church leaders is believed to be the first of its kind and a recognition that top church officials view the sex abuse scandal as global in scope.

The church is now facing abuse scandals in the United States, Chile, Australia, Germany and elsewhere.

Earlier this year, Francis admitted to “grave errors in judgment,” when he at first repeatedly discredited sex abuse victims and the claims they had made against a Chilean predator priest. The pontiff subsequently sanctioned guilty priests that had covered up the priest’s abuse.

In Germany, a church-commissioned study detailed 3,677 abuse cases against minors, mostly boys, between 1946 and 2014, involving 1,670 clergy.

The Vatican’s announcement on the February summit came a day before Francis is meeting with U.S. Catholic Church leaders to discuss the church’s sexual abuse scandal in the United States, where a grand jury in the eastern state of Pennsylvania recently alleged that more than 300 parish priests had abused at least 1,000 young people over a period of 70 years. Prosecutors in a handful of other states have opened similar investigations.

The head of the U.S. bishops’ conference, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, the archbishop of the Galveston-Houston area in the southwestern state of Texas, and other Catholic leaders in the United States say they want answers from the pontiff about allegations he knew years ago about credible information that Archbishop Theodore McCarrick of Washington had abused a teenage altar boy in the 1970s and other seminarians and young priests, but did not confront McCarrick about the allegations.

Pope Francis removed McCarrick as a cardinal in July, but the Vatican’s former U.S. ambassador, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, has called for the pope step down in the wake of his failure to act against McCarrick until recently.

DiNardo has said that he wants the pontiff to authorize a full-fledged investigation of the McCarrick case and the allegations of a coverup by the Vatican.

DiNardo said the Pennsylvania report “again illustrates the pain of those who have been victims of the crime of sexual abuse by individual members of our clergy, and by those who shielded abusers and so facilitated an evil that continued for years or even decades. We are grateful for the courage of the people who aided the investigation by sharing their personal stories of abuse. As a body of bishops, we are shamed by and sorry for the sins and omissions by Catholic priests and Catholic bishops.”
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Islamic Development Bank Freezes Somalia Project

Posted on 09/12/2018 by SeeAF

The Islamic Development Bank has suspended a multimillion dollar project in Somalia due to accusations of corruption and mismanagement.

Started in October 2016, the Dryland Development Project was being conducted in three rural villages to help pastoralists build resilience to drought, give them access to health and education services, and develop livestock and crops.

The project was set to cost $5 million overall, and since February 2017, the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) had transferred about $1.5 million to an account at Somalia’s central bank in three installments.

But according to an IsDB audit of the project, a progress report submitted by the project’s coordinator, Abdishakur Aden Mohamud, contained “no substantial information” on what the project has achieved.

A letter by IsDB written on July 5 this year, seen by VOA Somali’s Investigative Dossier program, said there was no supporting evidence for the claims made in the report. The letter stated the audit raised several concerns, including the lack of a coherent payment system and overpayments to a supplier.

The IsDB also said while the audit was being conducted, the project coordinator made cash and check withdrawals which it said was “not in line with the fiduciary and financial management system.”

The bank has asked the Somali federal government to investigate and take appropriate actions. In the meantime, IsDB has frozen the account.

Somali government prosecution

Corruption is a problem that has bedeviled Somali governments for decades. The problem persists despite pledges from successive governments to eliminate it.

Recently, the government of President Muhammad Abdullahi Muhammad detained 10 people — including several port workers and another project director — for alleged public theft. The government has also suspended Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Mukhtar Mahad Daud for corruption allegations.

As for the Dryland project, the government says project coordinator Aden was arrested August 1.

Deputy Attorney General Jamal Mohamed Ahmed says he is confident the government has a strong case against Aden.

“This is a large corruption case and mismanagement and abuse of power at the office [of the coordinator],” he told Investigative Dossier. “When we received the case we investigated, we obtained documents and we’ll present it to the court.”

VOA investigation

VOA’s investigation into the project suggests it was mishandled from the start. For instance, Aden did not win his job on a competitive basis. He started work in October 2016 without having a proper contractual service with the Ministry of Finance, earning $6,000 a month according to an internal government report seen by Investigative Dossier.

Former finance minister Mohamed Aden Fargeti, who was in charge of the ministry when the project started, confirms that Aden did not have a proper contract, but was given a “letter of appointment” instead.

The internal report details that the project spent more than $505,000 for the salaries of 19 staff members, an amount that exceeds the expenditure spent on the project during the entire first year, which was $407,743.

The report could not find any documentation for nearly $100,000 which was reported to have been spent on office supplies. This suggests that only $400,000 of the first $1 million allocated for the project has been spent on needy people.

Even then there is no evidence showing money was spent correctly on pastoralists.

The coordinator is also accused of withdrawing funds from the central bank account, something that subcontractors and service providers should have done.

The former finance minister, Fargeti, says the letter of appointment did not give the coordinator authority to make withdrawals from the bank without countersignature, as found by the internal government report.

Lawyer rejects allegations

Aden’s lawyer, Ali Halane, denies the corruption allegations against his client. He said the government is relying on five individuals who worked at the project to testify against Aden.

He dismissed all the accusations against Aden, including that he made cash and check withdrawals from the bank during the audit. He said the withdrawals he made were countersigned by the Ministry of Finance.

Meantime, a court in Mogadishu has refused to release Aden on bail.

IsDB spokesman Abdulhakim Elwaer praises the Somali government for removing the coordinator and for promising to investigate the issue.

“We received an immediate response from the government taking appropriate action to investigate the case and, of course, make sure the corrective action is taken,” he said.

Elwaer says the bank did not ask the government to detain the official, but says they welcome his removal from the post.

“The one that really concerns us from the direct point of view is the replacement of the project coordinator with a new one … that satisfies one of the questions in terms of lack of management,” he said.

He said IsDB set conditions for the resumption of the project. “We have proposed that we will provide the necessary training on financial management for all the staff that are managing the project. We also want the appointment of the project coordinator be done on a competitive basis.”

He said the project will resume as soon as the Somali government accepts the conditions.

“So given the urgency and the importance of the matter we look forward to, maybe [in a] couple of months, to resolve the matter and be able to proceed if all goes well,” he said.
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Russia Says Joint War Games With China Will Be Routine

Posted on 09/12/2018 by SeeEU

Russia’s defense minister says Moscow and Beijing intend to regularly conduct joint war games similar to the massive ones being held this week.

Sergei Shoigu and his Chinese counterpart, Gen. Wei Fenghe, on Wednesday visited the Tsugol firing range in eastern Siberia where nearly 300,000 Russian troops and about 3,200 Chinese troops are participating in joint exercises.

The weeklong Vostok (East) 2018 maneuvers launched Tuesday span vast expanses of Siberia and the Far East, the Arctic and the Pacific Oceans. They involve 1,000 Russian aircraft and 36,000 tanks.

China sent 900 combat vehicles and 30 aircraft to join the drills at Tsugol. The significant deployment reflects its shift toward a full-fledged military alliance with Russia amid tensions with the United States. Mongolia also has sent a military contingent.
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UN: Zimbabwe Cholera Outbreak Now a ‘Very Dire Situation’

Posted on 09/12/2018 by SeeAF

The United Nations says the cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe is a “very dire situation” because there are now cases outside the country’s capital, where the government has declared a state of emergency.

Zimbabwe’s health minister, Obadiah Moyo, is calling on international aid agencies to chip in, following 20 deaths and more than 2,000 cases related to waterborne diseases such as salmonella, typhoid and cholera.

Sirak Gebrehiwot, United Nations spokesperson in Zimbabwe, says U.N. agencies have since moved in to try and stabilize the situation.

“This cholera situation is very dire situation. The hot spot is Harare but we are getting reports of confirmed and unconfirmed cases in other parts of the country, like Shamva, Masvingo and Buhera,” said Gebrehiwot. “The U.N. family we are providing all the support we could; positioning, repositioning essential drugs, at the same time the issue is on strengthening the surveillance system.”

Health minister Moyo on Tuesday said his government wants to address the issue of poor water supply, blocked sewers, and irregular trash collection, the factors he said were making a cholera outbreak in the capital worse.

Dr. Norman Matara of Zimbabwe Doctors for Human Rights said his organization has volunteered resources to avoid unnecessary deaths from the cholera outbreak.

But he said the group wants President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government to quickly improve the water treatment system.

“Cholera is a disease which is quite ancient, easily preventable. So we just have to provide safe cleaning water, have proper sanitation facilities. You won’t have cholera,” said Matara. “But we have been seeing all year round; broken down sewer [pipes], sewers all over the places, even the piped water, you would see dirt water coming out of the taps. We were breeding cholera all along, we knew we were sitting on a time bomb; soon we were going to have cholera but nothing was done.”

Officials are trying to fix broken sewer pipes in Budiriro, one of the most affected parts of Harare.

A 2008 cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe lasted more than a year and killed about 5,000 people. It only stopped after international groups like United Nations agencies and USAID donated drugs and water treatment chemicals.

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Libyan Officials: Unknown Missiles Hit Tripoli Airport

Posted on 09/12/2018 by SeeAF

Missiles were fired at Libya’s capital Tripoli, including the city’s only functioning airport, forcing authorities to divert flights to another airport to the south, government and airport officials said Wednesday, less than a week after the U.N. brokered a cease-fire between rival armed groups.

The source of Tuesday’s missile attack was unclear and there were no casualties reported, the officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.

Mitiga International Airport posted on its Facebook page late Tuesday that the airport was closed and all flights were being diverted to Misrata International Airport.

Pilots were called Tuesday night to fly planes out of Tripoli to Misrata so they would not be hit, said one official.

“This was the only option to make sure they were not destroyed after the missiles landed on the airport grounds,” he said.

Also on Wednesday, the U.N. envoy for Libya, Ghassan Salame, met with the head of the U.N.-backed government, Fayez Sarraj, and military commanders in the western town of Zawiya to discuss a “Tripoli security arrangement,” according to the U.N. mission in Libya.

“There is readiness by the international community to deal firmly with those who manipulate or violate the cease-fire,” Salame said in the meeting.

The missile attack followed recent fighting in Tripoli between rival armed groups, which left at least 61 people dead. A cease-fire has been in place since last week.

Clashes in Tripoli erupted Aug. 26 when militias from Tarhouna, a town south of Tripoli, attacked southern neighborhoods of the capital, prompting militias supporting the U.N.-backed government in Tripoli to come to the city’s defense. The fighting has killed 78 people and wounded 216 including eight children and six women, according to the Health Ministry.

Separately, the extremist Islamic State group on Tuesday claimed responsibility for an attack on the headquarters of Libya’s national oil company in the capital Tripoli that killed two people and wounded at least 10 others.

Islamic extremists expanded their reach in Libya after the 2011 uprising plunged the country into chaos and toppled and later killed longtime ruler Moammar Gadhafi.

IS was driven from its main stronghold, the coastal city of Sirte, in 2016 and fled inland.

Libya is currently split between rival governments in the east and the west, each backed by an array of militias.

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US Defense Chief to Visit Macedonia, Concerned about Russian ‘Mischief’

Posted on 09/12/2018 by SeeUS

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Tuesday he would visit Macedonia before a Sept. 30 referendum on changing the country’s name, also expressing concern about suspected Russian interference in the vote, which Moscow denies.

Macedonia scheduled the referendum on the government’s deal in June with neighboring Greece to change its name to the Republic of North Macedonia which would open the door for it to join NATO and the European Union.

“I am concerned about it … The kind of mischief that Russia has practiced from Estonia to the United States, from Ukraine and now to Macedonia, it always has adapted to the specific situation and it’s always beyond the pale,” Mattis, who will visit Macedonia over the weekend, told reporters.

Mattis said he wanted to make it clear the United States supported the Macedonian people.

NATO invited Macedonia to begin accession talks with the alliance, but said it would have to change its constitution and adopt the new name first. The EU has also said it would set a date for Macedonian accession talks pending implementation of the name deal.

Moscow’s ambassador to Skopje has criticized Macedonia’s ambitions to join NATO, saying it could become “a legitimate target” if relations between NATO and Russia deteriorate further.

Greece, a member of both NATO and the EU, has refused to accept the Balkan country’s name, saying it implies territorial claims on the Greek province of Macedonia and amounts to an appropriation of its ancient civilization.

Prime Minister Zoran Zaev’s government, elected in 2017, pushed for an agreement with Greece. Nationalists, including President Gjorge Ivanov, oppose the deal saying it is against the constitution.

In July, Greece expelled two Russian diplomats and barred two other people from entering the country, accusing them of having meddled by encouraging demonstrations and bribing unidentified officials to thwart the Macedonia agreement.

Russia has denied wrongdoing and responded in kind with expulsions of Greeks.
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Lawmakers Propose New Ways to Help Native American Women

Posted on 09/12/2018 by SeeUS

Federal and state lawmakers have proposed or adopted a series of measures designed to address the problem of missing and slain Native American women and related issues, such as human trafficking, domestic violence and rape. Among them:

From Capitol Hill

— Savanna’s Act : The legislation, introduced last fall by North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, seeks to expand tribal access to some federal crime databases and establish protocols for handling cases of missing and slain Native Americans. It also would require annual reports to Congress on the number of missing and slain Native American women. The Democratic senator says if authorities have accurate statistics, they might be able to detect patterns that help solve more cases.

Last year, Heitkamp also launched the #NotInvisible social media campaign to draw attention to this problem.

— End Trafficking of Native Americans Act: The bill, introduced in July by three senators — Heitkamp, Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, and Catherine Cortez Masto, a Nevada Democrat — would expand efforts to combat human trafficking among Native Americans and Alaska Natives. It would establish an advisory committee to make recommendations to the Justice and Interior departments and a coordinator within the Bureau of Indian Affairs to organize prevention efforts across federal agencies.

— SURVIVE Act (Securing Urgent Resources Vital to Indian Victim Empowerment): This measure would create a tribal grant program within the Justice Department. It would allot 5 percent from a federal crime victims fund for grants that could be used to help tribes assist survivors of violent crimes and set up programs and services, including rape crisis centers and domestic violence shelters.

The bill was reintroduced last year by Sen. John Hoeven, a North Dakota Republican, and has co-sponsors from both parties.

— The National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Native Women and Girls. The Senate unanimously passed a resolution designating the day in memory of Hanna Harris, who was murdered in July 2013 on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana.

The first day of awareness was May 5, 2017, which would have been Harris’ 25th birthday. A woman and her common-law husband pleaded guilty in Harris’ death, and both were sentenced to prison.

Washington state

In June, a law was enacted that requires the Washington State Patrol to conduct a study to examine how to improve the collection and sharing of information about missing Native American women.

The study also will develop an estimate of how many Native women are missing in the state. “We don’t even know the exact scope of our problem,” said State Patrol spokeswoman Monica Alexander. “We have been told there are hundreds … and nobody is doing anything about it.”

Patrol officials will travel the state to assess the problem and meet with members of the state’s 29 tribes. The patrol will present a report to the Legislature next June.

Montana

The Legislature’s State-Tribal Relations Committee heard testimony this spring that could lead to five bills addressing missing persons. These measures were inspired, in part, by discussions about missing and slain Native American women.

One proposal is called Hanna’s Act, in remembrance of Hanna Harris. It would authorize the state’s Justice Department to assist with the investigation of all missing-person cases and employ a specialist who would act as a liaison between families and law enforcement agencies.

A second proposal would require law enforcement to accept, without delay, reports of missing persons. Harris’ family complained authorities were slow to search for Hanna after they reported her missing.

The committee meets Sept. 7 to decide whether to move the proposed legislation forward.

Minnesota

A bill to establish a governor’s task force to address the cases of missing and slain Native women in the state failed to pass the Legislature this year. But the chief sponsor, state Rep. Mary Kunesh-Podein, says she is working with activists to gather data and plans to tweak the measure with additional information and reintroduce it in January.
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Despite Reforms, Native American Women Face High Rates of Crime

Posted on 09/12/2018 by SeeUS

For generations, Native American women have been victimized at astonishing rates, with federal figures showing that more than half have encountered sexual and domestic violence at some point during their lives — even amid a wave of efforts aimed at reducing such crimes.

The statistics reinforce arguments that the criminal justice system still fails to protect these women, and its shortcomings again are being exposed as another crisis gains attention: the disappearances of hundreds of Native American and Alaska Native women and girls from across the United States.

In the past decade, Congress responded to the problem of violence against Native American women with intensely debated legislation seeking to close legal loopholes, improve data collection and increase funding for training of tribal police. Those efforts have proven severely limited, however, prompting advocates to again push for more reforms.

“I think the reason that Native women may go missing at higher rates than other groups of people is very similar to the reason that they are at higher risk for domestic violence and sexual assault,” said Sarah Deer, a University of Kansas professor, member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and author of a book on sexual violence in Indian Country. “The legal system is simply not functioning properly [to prevent] these types of things from happening.”

At the end of 2017, the FBI’s National Crime Information Center database had 633 open missing-person cases for Native American women, who make up 0.4 percent of the U.S. population but 0.7 percent of cases in the figures obtained by The Associated Press. African-American women were the only other group to be over-represented in the caseload compared with their proportion of the population.

Figures too low

The numbers are considered an undercount, however, given that reporting is largely voluntary and some tribes didn’t gain full access to the database until 2015, under a Justice Department program launched that year.

Just 47 of the nation’s more than 570 federally recognized tribes are part of DOJ’s Tribal Access Program, which allows them to exchange data with national crime information systems for civil and criminal purposes. The Justice Department has gradually allocated funding to bring more tribes on board, and up to 25 are expected to join the program in the next year, officials said. Other tribes have limited access via state, federal or local law enforcement agencies.

“We think that’s an important way of ensuring that tribes have the ability to directly deal with the issues on the ground that their families and their community are dealing with,” said Tracy Toulou, head of the Justice Department’s Office of Tribal Justice.

That program was one of many crime-fighting measures in the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010, which gave tribes authority to hand down longer sentences while mandating that federal officials do more to train tribal police on evidence collection and provide an annual report on Indian Country crime statistics.

Years later, those data collection and reporting efforts are still in development, funding for law enforcement training remains limited, and the Justice Department’s assistance with public safety on reservations — a role referenced in multiple treaties with tribes — has fallen short of officials’ expressed commitment to Indian Country, according to the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General.

Prosecutors’ track record

In a 2017 report, the inspector general also highlighted U.S. attorneys’ uneven track record with prosecuting serious violent crimes on reservations, citing data that must be collected under the 2010 law to help improve those prosecution rates.

Before the law, the U.S. Government Accountability Office found, U.S. attorneys declined to prosecute half of cases on reservations, leading to concerns that the practice was creating a safe haven for criminals on tribal lands. The latest figures, from 2016, show U.S. attorneys declined to prosecute 46 percent of reservation cases, marking only marginal improvement. That included rejecting more than 550 assault and sexual assault cases — more than any other type of crime. (Domestic violence cases typically fall under assault.) Prosecutors blamed the vast majority of rejections on insufficient evidence.

A few weeks ago, at an annual meeting between tribal and federal officials about violence against Native women, Jesse Panuccio, the Justice Department’s acting associate attorney general, identified domestic violence and sex trafficking as two underlying issues that may be linked to disappearances of women in Indian Country. He said improving law enforcement’s response to those crimes could help.

“Many tribal leaders have testified that the disappearance and deaths of American Indian and Alaska Native women are not taken seriously enough, and that increased awareness and a stronger law enforcement response are critical to saving Native women’s lives,” Panuccio said.

Some tribal leaders and victims’ families contend authorities too often are unwilling to help search for missing loved ones or even file a report.

In Alaska, state authorities — who handle criminal investigations in more than 200 Alaska Native villages — have been accused of classifying fatalities as suicides when families feel certain their loved ones died from a homicide, according to representatives from the Akiak, Emmonak and Tetlin communities. The state, which has the highest percentage of Native residents in the U.S., also has some of the biggest crime disparities in the nation, including the highest rate of women murdered by men.

A 2013 report found that at least 75 Alaska Native communities had no law enforcement presence, and Alaska Native officials spoke candidly in a federal report last year about barriers victims face in seeking justice. Some victims needing a sexual assault forensic exam must take a boat or plane to an urban area, according to Michelle Demmert, chief justice for the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes.

As a result of complaints about police response nationwide, proposals have begun to emerge to address how officers respond, with calls for the Justice Department to establish standardized protocols.

One of those proposals, included in draft legislation to renew and broaden the Violence Against Women Act, would expand tribal jurisdiction over a range of crimes. For example, tribal police would be able to arrest non-Native Americans suspected of selling women for sex or running trafficking rings.

A problem of resources

An earlier version of the Violence Against Women Act gave tribal authorities the ability to prosecute non-Indians in domestic violence cases. However, only 18 tribes have met the mandates to do so, the National Congress of American Indians reported in March. Those mandates include requiring tribes to provide an attorney to suspects who cannot afford one — a costly ask for cash-strapped nations.

“We can’t guarantee that, because we don’t have the funding to guarantee it,” said Robert LaFountain, a prosecutor on Montana’s Crow Reservation, where the per capita annual income of roughly $15,000 is about half the national average. “The funding is always difficult.”

Another measure included in the VAWA reauthorization calls for annual reports on the number of missing and murdered Native Americans, one of multiple federal proposals aimed at measuring the full scope of the problem.

The Violence Against Women Act expires this fall, and prospects for passing any new changes are uncertain. There are no Republican co-sponsors, and the U.S. Justice Department has not signaled its support for amendments. As a senator, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions opposed the legislation in 2013, citing an objection to expanding tribes’ authority over non-Indians and other provisions.
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Two Sets of Remains from North Korea ID’d as US Soldiers

Posted on 09/12/2018 by SeeUS

Forensic scientists have identified two sets of remains of U.S. troops killed in the Korean War, turned over by North Korea.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis made the announcement Tuesday, praising the swift work of the scientists.

“There’s been already some closure for a couple of families that have waited many, many years for this,” Mattis said.

North Korea turned over 55 boxes of what could be U.S. remains after the June summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

One of the boxes contained a U.S. military dog tag, the only obvious piece of evidence that the boxes may contain the bones of Americans.

Using DNA and dental records, it could take forensic experts several years to identify the rest of the remains.

The Pentagon said U.S. and North Korean military officials held negotiations last week on surrendering more remains.
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Iran Nuclear Chief Hopes Deal Will Survive

Posted on 09/11/2018 by SeeEA

Iran’s nuclear chief said Tuesday he hopes Tehran’s landmark atomic deal with world powers will survive President Donald Trump withdrawing the U.S. from it, warning the Islamic Republic’s program stands ready to build advanced centrifuges and further enrich uranium.

In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, Ali Akbar Salehi stressed Iran would be guided by “prudence and wisdom” when weighing whether to abandon the deal if European nations fail to protect it from Trump.

The U.S. withdrawal from the deal already has badly shaken Iran’s anemic economy, crashing its currency, the rial. That likely will be compounded by U.S. sanctions coming in November that threaten Iran’s oil exports, a major source of government funding.

All this puts further pressure on the administration of Iran’s relatively moderate President Hassan Rouhani, to whom Salehi reports as one of his vice presidents. But Salehi dismissed out of hand the idea of caving to American demands to renegotiate the accord.

“Yes, we have our problems. Yes, the sanctions have caused some problems for us. But if a nation decides to enjoy political independence, it will have to pay the price,” Salehi said. “If Iran decides today to go back to what it was before, the lackey of the United States, the situation would” be different.

Salehi heads the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, whose Tehran campus encompasses a nuclear research reactor given to the country by the U.S. in 1967 under the rule of the shah. But in the time since that American “Atoms for Peace” donation, Iran was convulsed by its 1979 Islamic Revolution and the subsequent takeover and hostage crisis at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

For decades since, Western nations have been concerned about Iran’s nuclear program, accusing Tehran of seeking atomic weapons. Iran long has said its program is for peaceful purposes, but it faced years of crippling sanctions.

The 2015 nuclear deal Iran struck with world powers, including the U.S. under President Barack Obama, was aimed at relieving those fears. Under it, Iran agreed to store its excess centrifuges at its underground Natanz enrichment facility under constant surveillance by the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran can use 5,060 older-model IR-1 centrifuges at Natanz, but only to enrich uranium up to 3.67 percent.

That low-level enrichment means the uranium can be used to fuel a civilian reactor but is far below the 90 percent needed to produce a weapon. Iran also can possess no more than 300 kilograms (660 pounds) of that uranium. That’s compared to the 10,000 kilograms (22,046 pounds) of higher-enriched uranium it once had.

New facility

Salehi spoke to the AP on Tuesday about Iran’s efforts to build a new facility at Natanz that will produce more-advanced centrifuges, which enrich uranium by rapidly spinning uranium hexafluoride gas.

The new facility will allow Iran to build versions called the IR-2M, IR-4 and IR-6. The IR-2M and the IR-4 can enrich uranium five times faster than an IR-1, while the IR-6 can do it 10 times faster, Salehi said. Western experts have suggested these centrifuges produce three to five times more enriched uranium in a year than the IR-1s.

While building the facility doesn’t violate the nuclear deal, mass production of advanced centrifuges would. Salehi, however, said that wasn’t immediately a plan.

“This does not mean that we are going to produce these centrifuges now. This is just a preparation,” he said. “In case Iran decides to start producing in mass production such centrifuges, [we] would be ready for that.”

Salehi suggested that if the nuclear deal fell apart, Iran would react in stages. He suggested one step may be uranium enrichment going to “20 percent because this is our need.” He also suggested Iran could increase its stockpile of enriched uranium. Any withdrawal ultimately would be approved by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

‘Wrong move’

While the U.N. repeatedly has verified Iran’s compliance with the deal, Trump campaigned on a promise to tear it up. In May, he withdrew the U.S. in part because he said the deal wasn’t permanent and didn’t address Iran’s ballistic missile program and its influence across the wider Middle East. But Trump, meanwhile, has tweeted he’d accept talks without preconditions with Tehran.

Asked what he personally would tell Trump if he had the chance, Salehi chuckled and said: “I certainly would tell him he has made the wrong move on Iran.”

“I think [Trump] is on the loser’s side because he is pursuing the logic of power,” Salehi added. “He thinks that he can, you know, continue for some time but certainly I do not think he will benefit from this withdrawal, certainly not.”

In the wake of Trump’s decision, however, Western companies from airplane manufacturers to oil firms have pulled out of Iran. The rial, which traded before the decision at 62,000 to $1, now stands at 142,000 to $1.

Despite that, Salehi said Iran could withstand that economic pressure, as well as restart uranium enrichment with far more sophisticated equipment.

“If we have to go back and withdraw from the nuclear deal, we certainly do not go back to where we were before,” Salehi said. “We will be standing on a much, much higher position.”

Still, danger could loom for the program. The Stuxnet computer virus, widely believed to be a joint U.S.-Israeli creation, once disrupted thousands of Iranian centrifuges.

A string of bombings, blamed on Israel, targeted a number of scientists beginning in 2010 at the height of Western concerns over Iran’s program. Israel never claimed responsibility for the attacks, though Israeli officials have boasted in the past about the reach of the country’s intelligence services.

“I hope that they will not commit a similar mistake again because the consequences would be, I think, harsh,” Salehi warned.
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‘This One Really Scares Me,’ Expert Says of Hurricane Florence

Posted on 09/11/2018 by SeeUS

To whip up a monstrous storm like the one chugging for the Carolinas you need a handful of ingredients — and Florence has them all.

— Warmer than normal sea temperatures to add energy and rain to a storm. Check.

— A wind pattern that allows a storm to get strong and stay strong. Check.

— Higher sea levels to make a storm surge worse. Check.

— A storm covering enormous area, to drench and lash more people. Check.

— And an unusual combination of other weather systems that are likely to stall Florence when it hits the Carolinas, allowing it to sit for days and dump huge amounts of rain. Check.

“The longer it stays, the more wind, the more rain. That means the more trees that could fall, the more power outages,” National Hurricane Center Director Ken Graham said.

“This one really scares me,” Graham said. “It’s one of those situations where you’re going to get heavy rain, catastrophic, life-threatening storm surge, and also the winds.”

The National Hurricane Center is calling for 10 to 20 inches of rain, and 30 inches in isolated spots. But a computer simulation known as the European model predicts some places could get 45 inches. Sound unlikely? It’s the same model that accurately predicted that last year’s Hurricane Harvey, which also stalled over land, would drop 60 inches.

“It does look a bit similar to Harvey in a sense that it goes roaring into shore and then comes to a screeching stop,” said MIT meteorology professor and hurricane expert Kerry Emanuel. “This is not a pretty sight.”

Florence is unusual in that it is aiming at the Carolinas from the east. Usually storms come to the Carolinas and mid-Atlantic from the south — and those usually curve safely out to sea.

But a weather formation known as a high-pressure ridge is parked over the U.S. East Coast, preventing Florence from doing the normal turn, said University of Miami hurricane expert Brian McNoldy.

After Florence makes landfall, that ridge, now over Washington and New York, will move east — but be replaced by another one forming over the Great Lakes that will most likely keep the storm stuck, McNoldy said.

Florence’s path remains uncertain. It may move a little north into Virginia or a little south into South Carolina. But it’s such a large storm that the rain will keep coming down in the region no matter where it wanders. And with the Appalachian Mountains to the west, there could be flooding and mudslides, experts worry.

Florence’s large size — tropical storm force winds extend 170 miles from the center in all directions — means its fury will arrive long before the center of the storm comes ashore, Graham said.

Some of Florence’s behavior, both what has been seen so far and what experts expect, shows the influence of climate change.

Its expected sluggishness is becoming more common, a result of climate change, said National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration climate scientist and hurricane expert Jim Kossin.

The ocean waters that Florence is traveling over are about 2.7 degrees (1.5 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal, McNoldy said. Even normal water is warm enough for a storm to form there, but this adds to the storm’s fuel and its rainfall. The air is holding 10 percent more water that can be dumped as rain.

And the storm surge, which could be as much as 12 feet in some areas, will be on top of sea level rise from climate change. For example, the seas off Wilmington, North Carolina, have risen 7.5 inches since 1935, according to NOAA.
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Palestinians File War Crimes Claim Over West Bank Hamlet

Posted on 09/11/2018 by SeeEA

Palestinians have filed a new complaint against Israel with the International Criminal Court, a top Palestinian official said Tuesday.

The Palestinians’ move came a day after the U.S. closed their de facto embassy in Washington, citing their leaders’ refusal to enter peace talks with Israel. National security adviser John Bolton also lashed out at the Palestinians for their attempts to have Israel prosecuted at the ICC, denouncing the court’s legitimacy and threatening sanctions if it targeted Israel and others.

But at a news conference in Ramallah, Saeb Erekat, secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee, doubled down by saying the Palestinians had asked the ICC to investigate Israel’s planned demolition of the Palestinian Bedouin village of Khan al Ahmar in the West Bank. He also indicated the Palestinians planned to join other international bodies.

Erekat said the Palestinians had asked the chief prosecutor to meet with village representatives and include Israel’s actions as part of her investigation into possible war crimes by Israel.

“The U.S. threats against the ICC are a coup against the rules in the international system,” he said. “The Trump administration wants to dismantle the international order to ensure that it can stay above the laws and escape accountability.”

Israel has long denounced Palestinian efforts to globalize their conflict by turning to external bodies with what it considers bogus claims. In particular, it says the ICC lacks jurisdiction because Israel is not a member of the court.

‘Already dead’ to US

The Trump administration dramatically ratcheted up its rhetoric by threatening sanctions if the court pursued investigations against the U.S., Israel or other allies. Bolton said the ICC “is already dead” to the U.S.

“The United States supports a direct and robust peace process, and we will not allow the ICC, or any other organization, to constrain Israel’s right to self-defense,” he said in a speech to the Federalist Society, a conservative, Washington-based think tank.

The administration also cited the refusal of Palestinian leaders to enter into peace talks with Israel as the reason for closing the Palestinian Liberation Organization office in Washington, although the U.S. has yet to present its plan to resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the U.S. administration made the right choice.

“Israel supports the American actions that are meant to clarify to the Palestinians that their refusal to negotiate and attempts to attack Israel in international forums will not promote peace,” he said in a statement at the end of Jewish New Year holiday.

The Palestinians accuse the Trump administration of dismantling decades of U.S. engagement with them by blatantly siding with Israel. They say that given the recent moves by Washington, a pending U.S. peace plan will be dead on arrival.

The closure of the PLO office was the latest in a series of U.S. moves that targeted the Palestinians. Just last month, the administration canceled more than $200 million in aid for projects in the West Bank and Gaza as well as the remainder of its planned assistance for the U.N. agency that helps Palestinian refugees around the Middle East. Over the weekend, it announced it would cut $25 million in assistance for hospitals in East Jerusalem that provide critical care to Palestinian patients.

“We don’t want confrontation with the U.S., by the way, but how can anyone with all these American decisions, Trump’s decisions, believe that these people can be honest brokers, facilitators in any peace process? They are no longer partners in the peace process,” Erekat said.

He said Israel should be held accountable for its plans for the Khan al-Ahmar encampment, a West Bank hamlet that has focused attention on what critics say is the displacement of Palestinians by Israel. European countries urged Israel this week to refrain from demolition.

Israel says Khan al-Ahmar was illegally built and has offered to resettle residents 12 kilometers (7 miles) away. But critics say it’s impossible for Palestinians to get building permits and that the demolition is meant to make room for an Israeli settlement.

Israel’s Supreme Court rejected an appeal last week, paving the way for demolition.

Palestinian trailers

Palestinian activists put up several trailers early Tuesday in protest. Abdallah Abu Rahmeh said the white shipping containers, one with a Palestinian flag, were a message to Israel that “it’s our right to build on our land.”

Meanwhile, the Palestinian envoy to Washington said his staffers have been given a month to pack up after the U.S. punished them for what the State Department called the Palestinian leadership condemnation of “a U.S. peace plan they have not yet seen.”

Husam Zomlot told The Associated Press the closure of the PLO mission would not deter Palestinians from seeking a state with East Jerusalem as the capital.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas halted ties with the Trump administration in December after the U.S. recognized contested Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The U.S. Embassy was later moved there from Tel Aviv.

Zomlot was called home by Abbas in the spring as part of the crisis.

“We lost the U.S. administration but we gained our national rights,” Zomlot said.
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IS Claims Responsibility for Suicide Attack in Libya

Posted on 09/11/2018 by SeeEA

Islamic State on Tuesday claimed responsibility for the suicide attack on the Tripoli headquarters of the Libyan state oil company that occurred the day before, according to SITE, a U.S.-based intelligence group that monitors extremists.

Two staffers at the National Oil Corporation were killed and 10 were wounded. The three attackers were also killed.

A statement from Amaq, the IS news agency, said it targeted the “economic interests of the pro-Crusader governments of the tyrants of Libya.”

The U.N. mission in Libya condemned what it called a “cowardly terrorist attack.”

Libya has been in nonstop political and social turmoil since longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi was toppled and killed in 2011.

A rival government is jockeying for power with a U.N.-installed administration in Tripoli, which is struggling to assert its authority across the country.

Extremists, including Islamic State militants, claim to have a number of so-called “sleeper cells” inside Libya.
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Analysts: Looming Idlib Conflict Threatens Turkey’s Syria Strategy

Posted on 09/11/2018 by SeeEA

Turkey is urging the international community to intervene to prevent Syria from launching an offensive in Syria’s last remaining rebel-held Idlib enclave. The latest call for action comes as Syrian government forces mass around Idlib ahead of an expected assault for control of the enclave.

“I call on everyone to raise their voices against the Syrian regime’s aggression and find a peaceful solution,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Tuesday in Romania, where he held talks with his Romanian and Polish counterparts. His comments echoed recent remarks by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

In an article posted Monday in The Wall Street Journal, Erdogan warned, “The consequences of inaction are immense,” and “a regime assault would also create serious humanitarian and security risks for Turkey, the rest of Europe and beyond.”

Separately, the head of the U.N. humanitarian agency, Mark Lowcock, has warned that a ground offensive in Idlib could lead to the biggest loss of life this century has seen.

Ankara fears a refugee exodus from the bordering Idlib enclave. Turkey already hosts more than 3 million Syrian refugees, with Erdogan warning that his country can take no more.

More than half of Idlib’s refugees are already displaced from other parts of Syria, along with tens of thousands of rebel fighters. Syria, backed by Russia, accuses many of the rebels of belonging to terrorist groups.

Turkish intentions

Ankara is one of the backers of rebels fighting the Syrian government, including groups based in the enclave. Analysts say that along with humanitarian concerns, the survival of Idlib as a rebel base is key to Ankara’s broader strategic Syrian goals.

“Turkey needs to hold some portion of Syria and pose a credible threat to [Syrian President Bashar al-]Assad and force Assad into a peace agreement that would accept refugees” to return from Turkey, said political analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners. “Keeping parts of Idlib and Afrin and the al-Bab region is a crucial component of this game plan.”

In the last 18 months, Turkish-led rebel groups have taken control of the Afrin and al-Bab regions. Ankara justified the cross-border operations to deal with the twin threats of the Islamic State group and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party fighters, or PKK. The PKK, which Ankara considers a terrorist group, has been waging a long-running insurgency in southeast Turkey for greater Kurdish rights.

Ankara, however, is concerned that if Idlib were to fall to Syrian government forces, Turkey’s broader military presence in Syria would be next in Damascus’ sights, according to analysts.

“If Bashar al-Assad secures his power all around Syria, with the exception of those pockets controlled by Turkey, this means we are on a collision course with Damascus,” said former Turkish diplomat Aydin Selcen, who served widely in the region.

“What Ankara said about Turkey’s operations into Syria is to keep the PKK away from the Turkish borders,” he said, adding, “The unsaid objective is to keep Assad far from Turkey’s borders.”

Given Erdogan’s strong support of the Syrian rebels and commitment to bring down the Syrian leader, Ankara fears a victorious Assad could be tempted to extract revenge on Turkey. In the past, Damascus allowed the PKK to use Syria as a base to attack Turkey.

“Turkey’s end goal — it wants to create a situation in Syria — is that these neighboring Syria regions to Turkey continue to be controlled by pro-Turkish elements so that there is no security threat to Turkey,” said Sinan Ulgen, head of the Turkey-based Edam research institution.

Military buildup

Turkish reinforcements continue their buildup along the border of the Idlib enclave, with long-range artillery among the deployments with a range of 40 kilometers (25 miles). Local reports say some military forces have entered Syria to support 12 Turkish observation posts across the enclave.

“Turkey can resist quite plausibly the Assad regime. Turkey can deal with Assad. Idlib can be defended against the regime,” Selcen said.

Other analysts say they are not completely convinced. Soli Ozel, an international relations expert with Istanbul’s Kadir Has University, asked how Turkey could “have a war with the Syrian regime, if the Syrian regime is being supported by the Russians to the bitter end, and the Russians control the airspace?”

Russian warplanes are already bombing rebels across Idlib, a bombardment predicted to intensify ahead of the widely expected offensive.

For the past 18 months, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been cultivating a deepening relationship with Erdogan, much to the angst of Turkey’s NATO allies. Ankara is likely to be banking that Moscow will be careful to avoid any confrontation in Syria.

“We cannot envisage Russia bombing Turkey’s military presence in Idlib,” Selcen said.

Analysts suggest Erdogan could be engaging in a high-stakes gamble, betting that Moscow and Damascus aren’t ready to risk a clash with Turkey and could yet seek a last-minute diplomatic settlement over Idlib.

Last week, Erdogan met with Putin, along with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, at a trilateral summit in Tehran. The talks appeared to end in deadlock over efforts to avert conflict in Idlib. Tehran also backs Damascus in Syria’s seven-year-old civil war.
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UN Chief Appeals to Parties to Protect Civilians in Syria’s Idlib

Posted on 09/11/2018 by SeeEA

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres appealed Tuesday for the parties in Syria to avoid a full-scale battle for Idlib.

Idlib is the last so-called “de-escalation zone in Syria,” Guterres told reporters. “It must not be transformed into a bloodbath.”

Some 3 million civilians are living in the northwestern governorate, and the U.N. has repeatedly warned that there will be a humanitarian catastrophe if there is a military escalation there.

Russia, Iran and Turkey are known as the Astana guarantors — they oversaw the creation one year ago of four de-escalation zones in Syria that were supposed to be safer for civilians. They included parts of Idlib, Hama, eastern Ghouta and southern Syria. Only Idlib remains, the others have been militarily brought back under regime control.

Guterres appealed directly to the troika.

“It is important that those — especially the three guarantors of the Astana process — find a way in which it is possible to isolate terrorist groups. And it is possible to create a situation in which civilians will not be the price paid to solve the problem of Idlib.”

He said he understood that the situation in the governorate is unsustainable — the U.N. estimates some 15,000 terrorists are mixed in among Idlib’s residents — but that “fighting terrorism does not absolve warring parties of their core obligations under international law.”

De-escalation zone

Earlier, the U.N. Security Council met at Russia’s request so it could be briefed on the outcome of last Friday’s summit of the presidents of the Astana group. It was the third meeting on Idlib in the past week.

Turkey’s U.N. ambassador renewed his president’s calls to preserve the Idlib de-escalation zone and called for an immediate cease-fire.

“There is no doubt that an all-out military operation would result in a major humanitarian catastrophe,” Ambassador Feridun Hadi Sinirlioǧlu told the council. “Such an operation would trigger a massive wave of refugees and tremendous security risks for Turkey, the rest of Europe and beyond.”

Turkey already hosts 3.5 million Syrians, and its hospitality has been stretched to its limit.

He urged the international community to support Turkey’s call for a cease-fire.

U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley said the United States would consider any large-scale military assault on Idlib as a “reckless escalation” and called on Russia to prevent it.

“Russia has the power to stop the catastrophe looming in Idlib,” Haley, a member of President Donald Trump’s cabinet, told council members. “They have the power to stop the killing.”

She said the Astana process had failed to stop the violence or promote a political solution.

“Russia, Iran and (Bashar al-) Assad are demolishing Idlib and asking us to call it peace,” Haley said. “But here’s the reality: Astana has failed.”

She warned of potential military escalation and said that if the Assad regime, backed by Russia and Iran, continue on this path, “the consequences will be dire.”

Haley also repeated her warning that Washington would not tolerate the use of chemical weapons.

For weeks, the Russians have been accusing the West of conspiring to carry out a chemical weapons attack through rebel groups and the civil society first responders, the White Helmets, and then blaming the Assad government for it as a pretext for military intervention.

Moscow’s U.N. envoy fired back, accusing some council members of escalating rhetoric.

“The wordings started sounding basically along the lines that saying force against a sovereign state — Syria — can be used, and not only related to alleged use of chemical weapons, but basically also if there is a military operation in Idlib,” Vassily Nebenzia said. “We are not talking about a military operation. It’s an anti-terrorist operation.”

The Russian ambassador noted that de-escalation zones were created as “temporary entities,” not permanent ones.

“Sooner or later, they were to be replaced, first by local truces. And in those cases where that did not take place, by an anti-terrorist operation, which happened in other de-escalation areas, which are currently under the control of Syrian authorities.”

Nebenzia dismissed plans by the Syrian regime to use chemical weapons, saying they no longer had any, and if they did use them, it would be an “invitation” to Britain, France and the United States to strike the country. He also claimed to have “irrefutable proof” that the Syrian opposition was planning a chemical attack, but he did not offer it.

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S. Africa’s Controversial Land Expropriation Stirs Emotions, Uncertainty

Posted on 09/11/2018 by SeeAF

Plans by South Africa’s government to change the law to allow land expropriation without compensation have provoked an emotional response, even reaching the ears of President Donald Trump, who signaled his disapproval last month in a controversial tweet in which he ordered U.S. officials to investigate the situation.

South Africa’s government says it may change the constitution to allow expropriation of some land without compensation, in a bid to redress historical wrongs that left land mostly in the hands of the white minority. Hearings began last month to look into the feasibility of expropriation without compensation. President Cyril Ramaphosa supports the idea and says any expropriation will only happen if land transfer does not harm the economy or the nation’s food security.

Farmers, many of whom belong to the white minority, say they live in fear of losing their land; meanwhile, pro-expropriation activists say returning land to members of the traditionally marginalized black majority is only right. And some analysts say this is nothing but a political ploy as the ruling party faces a tough election next year.

The farm

Casper Willemse grew up working a 2,000-hectare maize farm about an hour south of Johannesburg. For years, he’s toiled in the fields from sunup to sundown, as five generations of his family did before him.

He always thought he would die here, and be buried alongside them.

“I’m the sixth generation that was born on this farm,” he said. “My children is the seventh … We are farmers, from the morning until noon to night.”

The government hasn’t publicly identified which properties, if any, it will target.

Groups like AfriForum, which calls itself a civil rights watchdog with a focus on the white Afrikaans-speaking minority, have circulated what they say are government lists of potential seizures, but the government denies those.

AfriForum says their biggest fear is of the economic impact of such a policy. But even without that, they say talk about expropriation has provoked a rise in illegal land seizures. The group is among many critics of the plan who say they fear expropriation without compensation will hurt South Africa’s economy and will cause the same economic spiral as was seen in neighboring Zimbabwe, after that country began a series of seizures from white farmers nearly two decades ago.

“We are seeing an increase in land invasion throughout the country,” said Ian Cameron, the group’s head of community safety. “So there is a definite threat to property rights at the moment. And the uncertainty being created by government increases that problem.”

Willemse said the uncertainty is what fills him with anxiety – and about more than just his future. In the meantime, he said, he has to carry on: he employs 14 people, and can’t leave them hanging. Besides, he said, he has no backup plan.

He agreed that South Africa’s violent, unequal past was wrong. But why, he asked, should he pay the price?

“Taking something without compensation is nothing but stealing,” he said. “Buying the land, and giving that to somebody else, that’s a different story. But just taking it for political reasons, and giving it away – it’s not going to yield anymore, because that guy that’s going to get it, they don’t have passion about it, they don’t have knowledge, they don’t have resources. I think that’s not going to work.”

Land on demand

But the Black First Land First Movement says that’s beside the point. The relatively new political movement, which launched in 2015 and calls itself a revolutionary, pan-Africanist socialist movement, says much of South Africa’s land was stolen from its original black owners by white settlers during South Africa’s colonial and apartheid periods. Today, the majority of South African agricultural land is owned by white farmers.

The group’s deputy president, Zanele Lwana, said all of this land should be returned and no one has the right to ask what the new owners plan to do with it.

“We believe South Africa is a black country,” she told VOA. “And we believe that white people in this country are sitting on stolen property. And the call to call for land expropriation without compensation speaks to historical redress.”

Lwana also told VOA that the group considers land occupation a legitimate tactic if the government does not go through with its expropriation plans.

Playing politics?

Analysts and critics say the government is exploiting this sensitive issue to win votes for next year’s elections, a claim Lwana and her movement echo, alleging that Ramaphosa has no actual intention of enacting meaningful land reform.

Ramaphosa’s ruling African National Congress has been steadily losing ground at the polls, and analysts say an emotive issue like land redistribution could attract voters, especially lower-income black voters who comprise much of the ANC’s base.

“It is a genuine issue, but like all genuine issues, it has been handled with the view of securing short term political gains, unfortunately,” independent political analyst Ralph Mathekga told VOA.

Mathekga, who owns a 10-acre farm in the rural Limpopo province, said he understands the emotional aspect of the debate. He got permission from local leadership to farm there about three years ago.

“I grew up farming,” he told VOA. “That’s what I did. I used to put together the mules, that’s what I did before I went off to university.”

He said he has issues with the debate’s focus on land reform, though, instead of on agricultural reform. If this is going to work, he said, the government needs to assist new farmers in getting into the economy. If not, this story will not end well, he contends.

“I’ve never made a cent out of [the farm],” he said, adding that a recent drought and difficulty in finding eager, competent young workers have made it hard to profit. “It’s a highly risky business, and I think people need to think very carefully about it.”
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Burundi Under Fire for Expelling UN Human Rights Team

Posted on 09/11/2018 by SeeAF

Burundi’s ambassador in Geneva struggled to explain to the U.N. Human Rights Council on Tuesday why his government had thrown out a U.N. team that the council, with Burundi’s backing, had sent to investigate human rights

abuses in the country.

Deputy Human Rights Commissioner Kate Gilmore told the council that her office could not deliver a promised report on human rights in Burundi because the government had not cooperated with the team members, who were deployed in March and then were told that their visas were canceled in April.

“It is a matter of concern that through its lack of cooperation, Burundi has prevented implementation of this council’s resolution and the mandated work of the group of experts,” she said.

Burundi has been gripped by violence since early 2015 when President Pierre Nkurunziza said he would seek a third term, widely seen as a breach of the constitution.

Subsequent clashes between security forces and rebels left hundreds dead and forced about half a million to flee, reviving memories of the 1994 genocide in neighboring Rwanda, which has a similar ethnic mix.

Gilmore welcomed criticism of Burundi by European diplomats at the council, which she said showed “the inappropriateness, the unacceptability of this paralysis.”

‘Events have been twisted’

Burundian Ambassador Renovat Tabu said the departure of the U.N. team had been spun to cast his government in a bad light.

“Burundi regrets … the way in which events have been twisted in order to imply there has not been full cooperation,” he said. “Burundi is concerned by an unfair accusation which further entrenches the hostility which has been commonplace against Burundi for some time.”

He said former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein had changed the U.N. team’s mission, an “irregularity” that surprised Burundi’s migration services, who declined to extend the team’s visas.

The agreement to send the experts to Burundi, based on a resolution submitted by the African group of countries at the council last year, was widely seen as a diplomatic ploy to derail a more heavyweight Commission of Inquiry.

But the attempt failed, and the council ended up sending both, leaving Burundi facing double scrutiny and with a public commitment to cooperate with investigators.

Last week the Commission of Inquiry said crimes against humanity were still being committed in Burundi, whipped up by rhetoric from top officials, including Nkurunziza. Burundi called the accusations “lies.”

The commission is seeking a renewal of its mandate from the 47-member Human Rights Council, which began a three-week session on Monday.
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Zimbabwe Opposition Leader Plans ‘Inauguration’

Posted on 09/11/2018 by SeeAF

Zimbabwe opposition leader Nelson Chamisa is planning his own “inauguration” Saturday after losing disputed elections, but his spokesman is coy on details.

Nkululeko Sibanda tells The Associated Press the rally will affirm Chamisa as the “duly elected president.”

He adds that “the legitimate president is Chamisa. The Saturday celebration is merely an affirmation.”

Sibanda refuses to say whether Chamisa will take an oath: “We are still working on the modalities but we will not break any laws.”

A government deputy minister, Energy Mutodi, warns on Twitter that “any attempt to delegitimize gvt will not be tolerated and those bent on causing anarchy will be dealt with mercilessly.”

Kenya’s opposition leader Raila Odinga in January held a mock inauguration after challenging last year’s election. Chamisa counts Odinga as a close ally.

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