Month: November 2018

52% of Americans Would Be ‘Very Comfortable’ with Woman President

Posted on by SeeUS

Several Democratic women, including Senators Kamala Harris (California), Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts), Kirsten Gillibrand (New York) and possibly even 2016 nominee Hillary Clinton, are potential presidential contenders in 2020, but it could be more of an uphill battle for them than for their male counterparts.

That’s because just over half of Americans are totally comfortable with the idea of a woman president, according to a new report by the consulting firm Kantar Public. 

The report finds that while 63 percent of Americans are perfectly fine with the idea of a woman heading a major corporation, just 52 percent are as comfortable with a scenario featuring a female president.

Men are more inclined to judge a person’s leadership suitability based on gender, while women are more likely to think men and women are equally suited to leadership, according to the report, which finds that 60 percent of women would be OK with one of their own as commander-in-chief, compared to just 45 percent of men.

Ten thousand people in seven developed countries – members of the G7 – were surveyed for the study. In addition to the United States, members of the G7 include Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom. England and Germany currently have a woman leading their governments.
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Fearing Espionage, US Weighs Tighter Rules on Chinese Students

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The Trump administration is considering new background checks and other restrictions on Chinese students in the United States over growing espionage concerns, U.S. officials and congressional sources said.

In June, the U.S. State Department shortened the length of visas for Chinese graduate students studying aviation, robotics and advanced manufacturing to one year from five. U.S. officials said the goal was to curb the risk of spying and theft of intellectual property in areas vital to national security. 

But now the Trump administration is weighing whether to subject Chinese students to additional vetting before they attend a U.S. school. The ideas under consideration, previously unreported, include checks of student phone records and scouring of personal accounts on Chinese and U.S. social media platforms for anything that might raise concerns about students’ intentions in the United States, including affiliations with Government organizations, a U.S. official and three congressional and university sources told Reuters.

U.S. law enforcement is also expected to provide training to academic officials on how to detect spying and cyber theft that it provides to people in government, a senior U.S. official said.

“Every Chinese student who China sends here has to go through a party and government approval process,” one senior U.S. official told Reuters. “You may not be here for espionage purposes as traditionally defined, but no Chinese student who’s coming here is untethered from the state.”    

The White House declined comment on the new student restrictions under review. Asked what consideration was being given to additional vetting, a State Department official said: “The department helps to ensure that those who receive U.S. visas are eligible and pose no risk to national interests.” 

The Chinese government has repeatedly insisted that Washington has exaggerated the problem for political reasons.

China’s ambassador to the United States told Reuters the accusations were groundless and “very indecent.”

“Why should anybody accuse them as spies? I think that this is extremely unfair for them,” Ambassador Cui Tiankai said.  

Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are scheduled to meet at a G20 summit in Argentina this week. 

Greater scrutiny of Chinese students would be part of a broader effort to confront Beijing over what Washington sees as the use of sometimes illicit methods for acquiring rapid technological advances that China has made a national priority. The world’s two biggest economies also are in a trade war and increasingly at odds over diplomatic and economic issues.  

Any changes would seek to strike a balance between preventing possible espionage while not scaring away talented students in a way that would harm universities financially or undercut technological innovation, administration officials said.  

But that is exactly what universities – ranging from the Ivy League’s Harvard, Yale and Princeton universities to state-funded schools such as University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign – fear most. They have spent much of 2018 lobbying against what they see as a broad effort by the administration to crack down on Chinese students with the change in visas this summer and a fear of more restrictions to come.  

At stake is about $14 billion of economic activity, most of it tuition and other fees generated annually from the 360,000 Chinese nationals who attend U.S. schools that could erode if these students look elsewhere for higher education abroad. 

Many Ivy League schools and other top research universities, such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Stanford University, have become so alarmed that they regularly share strategies to thwart the effort, according to three people familiar with the discussions.

U.S. authorities see ample reason for closer scrutiny, pointing to recently publicized cases of espionage, or alleged espionage, linked to former students from Louisiana State University and Duke University and the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.               

FBI Director Christopher Wray told a Senate hearing this year that his agents across the country are seeing “non-traditional collectors (of intelligence), especially in the academic setting.”

Stop short of a ban

White House adviser Stephen Miller proposed a ban early this year on student visas for all Chinese nationals, according a report to the Financial Times, and confirmed by Reuters. 

But the new measures would stop well short of such a ban, according to multiple sources. Terry Branstad, a former Iowa governor who is now ambassador to China, helped convince Trump to reject the Miller idea during a meeting in the Oval Office in the spring, one administration source said. Branstad argued that a ban would hurt schools across the United States, not just the elite universities many Republicans view as excessively liberal.  

U.S. Representative Judy Chu of California warned the administration was at risk of overreach.  

“Our national security concerns need to be taken seriously, but I am extremely concerned about the stereotyping and scapegoating of Chinese students and professors,” Chu, a Democrat who chairs the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, said in a telephone interview.  

Already worried about restrictions, universities have mounted a pressure campaign focused on the White House, State Department and Congress and held multiple meetings with the FBI, according to lobbyists, university officials and congressional aides.  

Terry Hartle, senior vice president at the American Council on Education, told Reuters that Chinese students risked becoming “pawns” in the U.S.-China rivalry.   

MIT president L. Rafael Reif, and Andrew Hamilton, the president of New York University, are among several top university officials who published opinion columns recently addressing the perceived growing threat to their Chinese students. 

Reif said that academic institutions recognize the threat of espionage, but any new policy needs to “protect the value of openness that has made American universities wellsprings of discovery and powerhouses of innovation.”
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Judicial Nominations, Congressional Probes Likely to Flourish in 2019

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A bolstered Republican Senate majority will facilitate U.S. President Donald Trump’s push to remake the federal judiciary even as Congress as a whole returns to political gridlock beginning next year, observers say.

 

While Democrats won control of the House of Representatives in midterm elections earlier this month, Republicans boosted their Senate majority from 51 to 54 seats in the 100-member chamber, with only one contest, in Republican-leaning Mississippi, yet to be decided.

 

Beginning in January, Democrats will be able to use their House majority to block any legislation to which they object. But in one critical area, judicial nominees, Republicans will have a stronger hand to confirm Trump’s picks for lifetime appointments to the federal bench and make the judiciary far more ideologically conservative for years, perhaps decades, to come.

 

“While most things the Senate does need to get 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, nominations only need 51 votes,” Molly Reynolds, a governance studies fellow at Washington‘s Brookings Institution, said. “When you have 53 votes (Republicans have just gained another Senate seat in a Mississippi runoff election), that gives you more of a margin for error.”

 

‘Judge factory’

“The Senate has become a judge factory,” American Enterprise Institute resident scholar Norman Ornstein said. “[Republican Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell is bringing up a substantial number of judges. With 53 [Republican senators], you can withstand one, two, or even three defections (Republican ‘no’ votes), and still get it done. So for McConnell, this is a substantial amount of breathing room.”

Lawmakers have signaled they are coming to terms with a Congress that will be politically divided and require bipartisan cooperation to send legislation to the president’s desk.

 

“Marshaling resources against the opioid crisis, reforming Dodd Frank [financial regulations], funding our armed forces, taking care of our veterans…are some of the things we have done in this Congress on a bipartisan basis,” McConnell, who represents Kentucky, recently tweeted.

 

In an opinion piece for Fox News, the majority leader wrote, “Looking ahead to the coming year, there will be no shortage of opportunities to continue this impressive record of cooperation across the aisle and across the Capitol.”

 

‘Check on Donald Trump’

For their part, Democrats are not dismissing bipartisanship, but are making clear they intend to flex their newfound political muscle.

 

“There is now a check on Donald Trump, and that is great news for America,” Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said at a post-election news conference.

 

On Twitter, Schumer wrote, “We have tremendous unity in our caucus…Democrats are going to be relentlessly focused on the issues that matter most to the American people.”

 

“Divided control of the two houses of Congress is not a recipe for [producing] major legislation over the next two years,” Reynolds said. “There will be some things they work together on, perhaps infrastructure, perhaps prescription drug prices. But by and large, I expect the two chambers to be operating on different playing fields.”

 

The year 2010 saw the mirror image of the 2018 midterm election results. In 2010, Republicans won control of the House of Representatives and used it as a check on then-president Barack Obama, a Democrat, as well as what was then a Democratically-led Senate. Legislative gridlock and a series of partial U.S. government shutdowns ensued beginning in 2011.

“Just as in 2011 and 2012, we’re going to see almost no progress on the major issues facing the country, with one possible exception, [improving U.S.] infrastructure, where the interests of House Democrats and the president may come together,” Ornstein said.

 

Investigations expected

But differences between 2019 and 2011 are likely, given Democrats’ stated intention to investigate the Trump administration.

 

“I expect Democrats to spend most of their time on oversight and engaging in a wide range of investigations, some of which will target President Trump personally as well as the conduct of the executive branch over the last two years,” Reynolds said.

 

“This time around, Democrats in the House are not going to instigate a [government] shutdown. We may get a shutdown in the coming months but it will come from Donald Trump insisting on full funding for his [border] wall,” Ornstein said, adding. “[Congressional] investigations are going to bring a great deal of tension.”

 

Trump remains combative on the ongoing Russia probe and is warning of consequences if House Democrats open the investigative floodgates, recently tweeting, “The prospect of Presidential Harassment by the Dems is causing the Stock Market big headaches!”

 

Changes in party control of one or both houses of Congress occurred in 2007, 2011, 2015, and will occur again in 2019. Throughout it all, Congress has suffered low approval ratings from the American people, a situation that is unlikely to improve anytime soon.

 

“We’re going to have sharper partisan edges in the body, a lot of partisan and ideological combat, tribal combat, in the coming years,” Ornstein said. “It’s hard for me to imagine that Americans are going to feel better about things.”

 

“Gridlock is likely to keep most Americans not terribly happy with how Washington works,” Reynolds said.

 
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Trump Under Pressure to Take Forceful Line With Putin at G20

Posted on by SeeEU

Until the Russian attack Sunday on Ukrainian vessels in the Black Sea, the White House and the Kremlin had at least been agreed on one thing: the agenda for Saturday’s scheduled face-to-face between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, their second summit meeting.

Arms control, security issues as well as the Middle East and North Korea were all set to figure prominently, senior U.S. and Russian aides told reporters in the run-up to the meeting.

Russian officials say the Kremlin had earmarked as their key issue Trump’s recent decision to abandon a landmark Cold War-era agreement prohibiting the U.S. and Russia from possessing ground-launched short-range nuclear missiles.

For the White House, securing a public commitment from the Russians to enforce United Nations sanctions on North Korea before next month’s planned summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was a key objective, according to U.S. officials.

But analysts say the Russian attack on three Ukrainian vessels risks shifting the dynamics of Saturday’s planned two-hour face-to-face between Trump and Putin on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Argentina, with the U.S. leader being urged to take a tough line that might imperil his overall determination to improve U.S.-Russian relations.

Trump suggested Tuesday he might cancel the meeting after Russian ships opened fire on and seized the Ukrainian ships near Crimea. But on Thursday he indicated the meeting will go ahead.

“I probably will be meeting with President Putin. We haven’t terminated that meeting. I was thinking about it, but we haven’t. I think it’s a very good time to have the meeting,” he told reporters at the White House.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Wednesday in Moscow the White House hadn’t indicated to the Kremlin the meeting wouldn’t be held.

“We don’t have to agree on all issues, which is probably impossible, but we need to talk. It’s in the interests of not only our two countries, it’s in the interests of the whole World,” Peskov said.

Asked what would be discussed, he said, “First of all, questions related to bilateral relations, we need to think about how to start talking on matters of bilateral relations, on matters of strategic security and disarmament and on regional conflicts.”

Earlier this week John Bolton, the U.S. National Security Adviser, said Trump would discuss security, arms control and regional issues with Putin.

“I think it will be a continuation of their discussion in Helsinki,” he said, referring to the first summit meeting between the two leaders held in Finland in July, when they met for more than two hours with only their translators present.

The Helsinki sit-down prompted widespread criticism of Trump from across the U.S. political spectrum, with Republican and Democrat lawmakers expressing dismay at what they saw as the U.S. leader’s amplifying of Putin denials of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections.

Bolton did not confirm whether the naval clash in the Kerch Strait, a shared Russian-Ukrainian waterway linking the Black Sea with the Sea of Azov, would be on the table. But it is hard to see how it won’t be amid Western clamor about what U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has labelled a “dangerous escalation and a violation of international law.”

State Department Spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Washington wanted to see tougher enforcement of sanctions against Russia as a consequence of the Russian action, the first time the Kremlin has staged open aggression against Ukraine since Putin annexed Crimea four years ago and launched a destabilization campaign in Ukraine’s Donbas region.

German chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to address the Kerch incident at the G20 meeting before the Trump-Putin sit-down.

Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko piled pressure Thursday on the G20 by calling for a tough collective response to Russia, saying he fears Moscow intends broader military action against his country.

European Union hawks have called for more sanctions to be imposed on Russia, although diplomats say with the bloc already divided over policy towards Russia, it is unlikely that will happen swiftly without a strong lead from Washington.

Trump waited more than 24 hours after the maritime clash before he commented on the incident, prompting criticism, once again that he was going lightly on his Russian counterpart. But once he did address the clash, his irritation was clear.

“I don’t like that aggression. I don’t want that aggression at all,” he told the Washington Post.

Steven Pifer, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and now an analyst at the Washington-based Brookings Institution said if Trump “does not raise the question of the Russian conflict against Ukraine … the Russian would calculate the President is weak on this issue.

“That’s going to be bad for Ukraine, but also bad for American foreign policy,” he told VOA.
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Africa 54

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Cameroon Activates Village Militias

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Cameroon has reactivated village militias on its northern border with Nigeria after twin suicide bombings Wednesday wounded 29 people. Authorities say the bombers were Boko Haram terrorists who crossed over from Nigeria. It is hoped the armed locals can prevent further attacks.

A group of 200 young men, drawn from 20 villages around the town of Amchide, sing a song about initiation into the local militia. In the lyrics, they vow to defend their communities from all intruders who would disturb the peace they had enjoyed for the past five months.

That peace was shaken on Wednesday when two suicide bombers attacked a food market in Amchide, wounding 29 people,nine of them critically. The women bombers — the only ones killed — are suspected of having crossed over from the neighboring Nigerian town of Banki.

Midjiyawa Bakari, governor of this far northern region of Cameroon, which borders Nigeria., said the bombings prompted him to reactivate the village militias, known as self-defense groups.

He advised people to be extremely vigilant. He said Boko Haram fighters and suicide bombers may want to infiltrate at this time of year when people are traveling between Nigeria and Cameroon to buy goods in preparation for end-of-year feasts.

Twenty-nine-year-old Cameroonian businesswoman Rouga Amina said she barely escaped death when debris from the bombings hit her left leg.

She said she now feels the pain Boko Haram victims have gone through. With Boko Haram’s unpredictability, she said death is very near and pain very likely.

Suspected Boko Haram suicide bombers last attacked Amchide in July when three blew themselves up, wounding five civilians.

Cameroon reopened most of its border with Nigeria in January, five years after it was closed due to Boko Haram attacks.

Rigobert Galdima, leader of an Amchide militia, said the self-defense groups were disbanded when attacks waned, but they don’t want further suffering inflicted on their people.

He said they are ready to help stop suicide bombers and fighters from coming to their villages. But he added that it is not an easy task because most self-defense groups don’t get paid and lack training and basic communication tools.

In addition, he said some are also traumatized when their family members and houses are targeted by Boko Haram supporters.

The militias live on donations and what support they can get from Cameroon’s government. In recent years, authorities arrested some militia members suspected of being Boko Haram supporters.

Rosaline Ngwesse, a politics and crime analyst at the University of Yaounde, said the militias are vital if Boko Haram is to be defeated. But she said those who seek to join them should be thoroughly screened.

“They must be reliable and competent, diligent, assiduous, available and willing to work,” she said. They are supposed to know the rules and regulations, ethics and deontology [moral thory related to duties and rights]. If they are not, then there is a problem somewhere.”

Cameroon and Nigeria recently said they have reduced Boko Haram’s ability to organize large-scale attacks, with none reported for the past year. But they also warned the terrorist group was restocking its ranks by recruiting vulnerable young people.
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British Group: Briton Among 5 Killed in Taliban Raid

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A British security contractor, G4S, says five of its employees, including a Briton, were killed and 32 others injured in an overnight gun-and-bomb attack against one of its compounds in the Afghan capital Kabul.

The company said Thursday five employees have been “seriously” injured.

Afghan officials confirm the attack on the well-guarded facility in Kabul killed a total of 10 people and injured many more.

“We are committed to our security role in support of the people of Afghanistan, and we are determined that incidents such as this will not prevent the vital work that the international community conducts from continuing,” said Charlie Burbridge, the company’s managing director.

The Taliban has claimed responsibly for the suicide raid, saying it inflicted heavy casualties on both Afghan and “foreign occupying” forces inside the compound.

G4S is a leading global security company providing security for the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office in Afghanistan.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the attack began Wednesday with a suicide bomber exploding a vehicle-born bomb, making way for four other heavily armed “martyrdom seekers” to storm the compound.

He claimed the targeted compound was being used to plan attacks in Afghan provinces of Kandahar, Helmand and Nangarhar.  Mujahid said the attack was a “response to recent enemy atrocities against civilians” in these provinces.

Afghan officials and residents have confirmed dozens of civilians, including women and children, have been killed in recent airstrikes in Kandahar, Helmand and Nangarhar.

The spike in insurgent attacks comes as the United States has renewed efforts for a negotiated settlement to the conflict with the Taliban.  

U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan peace and reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad, is leading the peace efforts.  He has held two rounds of talks with Taliban representatives in Qatar in recent weeks.

“Yes, we are in a hurry to end the Afghan tragedy, the Afghan people deserve peace.  They have been at war for 40 years,” he told PBS TV on Wednesday when asked whether he was attempting to strike a peace deal before the Afghan presidential election in April.

“Everyone, starting with the President (Donald Trump), would like to see the war in Afghanistan end, that there would be reconciliation and peace among the warring factions,” he noted.

 
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Deutsche Bank Offices Raided in Money Laundering Probe

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Police raided six Deutsche Bank offices in and around Frankfurt on Thursday over money laundering allegations linked to the “Panama Papers”, the public prosecutor’s office in Germany’s financial capital said.

Investigators are looking into the activities of two unnamed Deutsche Bank employees alleged to have helped clients set up offshore firms to launder money, the prosecutor’s office said.

Around 170 police officers, prosecutors and tax inspectors searched the offices where written and electronic business documents were seized.

“Of course, we will cooperate closely with the public prosecutor’s office in Frankfurt, as it is in our interest as well to clarify the facts,” Deutsche Bank said, adding it believed it had already provided all the relevant information related to the “Panama Papers”.

The news comes as Deutsche Bank tries to repair its tattered reputation after three years of losses and a drumbeat of financial and regulatory scandals.

Christian Sewing was appointed as chief executive in April to help the bank to rebuild. He trimmed U.S. operations and reshuffled the management board but revenue has continued to slip.

Deutsche Bank shares were down more than 3 percent by 1220 GMT and have lost almost half their value this year.

Offshore links

The investigation was triggered after investigators reviewed so-called “Offshore-Leaks” and “Panama Papers”, the prosecutor said.

The “Panama Papers”, which consist of millions of documents from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, were leaked to the media in April 2016.

Several banks, including Scandinavian lenders Nordea and Handelsbanken have already been fined by regulators for violating money laundering rules as a result of the papers.

The prosecutors said they are looking at whether Deutsche Bank may have assisted clients to set up offshore companies in tax havens so that funds transferred to accounts at Deutsche Bank could skirt anti-money laundering safeguards.

In 2016 alone, over 900 customers were served by a Deutsche Bank subsidiary registered on the British Virgin Islands, generating a volume of 311 million euros, the prosecutors said.

They also said Deutsche Bank employees are alleged to have breached their duties by neglecting to report money laundering suspicions about clients and offshore companies involved in tax evasion schemes.

The investigation is separate from another money laundering scandal surrounding Danish lender Danske Bank, where Deutsche Bank is involved.

Danske is under investigation for suspicious payments totaling 200 billion euros from 2007 onwards and a source with direct knowledge of the case has told Reuters Deutsche Bank helped to process the bulk of the payments.

A Deutsche Bank executive director has said the lender played only a secondary role as a so-called correspondent bank to Danske Bank, limiting what it needed to know about the people behind the transactions.

Under scrutiny

Weaknesses in Deutsche Bank’s controls that aim to prevent money laundering have caught the attention of regulators on both sides of the Atlantic. The bank has publicly said that it agreed it needed to improve its processes to properly identify clients.

In September, Germany’s financial watchdog – BaFin – ordered Deutsche Bank to do more to prevent money laundering and “terrorist financing,” and appointed KPMG as third party to assess progress.

In August, Reuters reported that Deutsche Bank had uncovered further shortcomings in its ability to fully identify clients and the source of their wealth.

Last year, Deutsche Bank was fined nearly $700 million for allowing money laundering through artificial trades between Moscow, London and New York. An investigation by the U.S.

Department of Justice is still ongoing.

Deutsche Bank has been under pressure after annual losses, and it agreed to pay a $7.2 billion settlement with U.S. authorities last year over its sale of toxic mortgage securities in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis.

 
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British Diplomat: Yemen Talks Next Week in Stockholm

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Britain’s ambassador to Yemen said Thursday he has spoken with representatives from the country’s warring sides and that he expects them to attend peace talks that are to begin next week in Stockholm.

However, overnight fighting cast a cloud on efforts to establish a cease-fire in the war-torn Arab country. Peace talks to end Yemen’s three-year war pitting a Saudi-led coalition and rival Iran-aligned Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, have repeatedly fallen through, most recently in September after the rebels did not attend.

Ambassador Michael Aron posted on Twitter that he had spoken with Mohammed Abdel-Salam, a spokesman for the rebels, and also met with Khaled al-Yemeni, the foreign minister for Yemen’s internationally recognized government.

“I have booked my trip and look forward to seeing you there leading your delegation,” he said in an Arabic message to Abdel-Salam. “The political solution is the way forward and these consultations are a great step forward.”

Aron also sent al-Yemeni a similar message, but did not mention where they had met.

Rebels fire missile at Saudi air base

In the latest sign that de-escalation efforts are failing on the ground, the Houthis said they fired ballistic missiles into Saudi Arabia on Wednesday for the first time since saying they would stop such cross-border attacks Nov. 18 as a sign of good will.

The rebels said that they fired the Badr-1 missiles into the southern Saudi border region of Najran, claiming they hit an air base, destroyed Apache attack helicopters and killed two pilots in the Saudi-led coalition. Saudi authorities were not immediately available for comment.

Hours earlier Wednesday night, the rebels called for suspending truce efforts in Yemen over what they alleged was U.S. opposition to the text of a British cease-fire initiative at the United Nations.

The United Nations says that both Yemen’s Saudi-backed internationally recognized government and the rebels who control the capital, Sanaa, have agreed to attend the peace talks.

Conflict since 2014

The conflict in Yemen began with the 2014 takeover of Sanaa by the Houthis, who toppled the government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. The Saudi-led coalition has been fighting the Houthis since March 2015.

Saudi-led airstrikes have hit schools, hospitals and wedding parties, and the Houthis have fired long-range missiles into the kingdom and targeted its vessels in the Red Sea. Tens of thousands of people are believed to have been killed in the war and U.N. food agency chief David Beasley said last week that as many as 12 million of the 28 million Yemenis “are just one step away from famine.”
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Watchdog: Uganda Diverted Weapons to South Sudan

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A key broker of the latest deal to end South Sudan’s civil war diverted European weapons to South Sudan’s military despite an EU arms embargo, a new report says. It also asks how a U.S. military jet ended up deployed in South Sudan in possible violation of arms export controls.

The London-based Conflict Armament Research report, released Thursday, raises questions about Uganda’s support for neighboring South Sudan’s government even as it promotes itself as a neutral negotiator in one of Africa’s deadliest conflicts.

South Sudan’s warring sides signed the peace agreement in September to end a five-year civil war that has killed nearly 400,000 people. Previous deals have collapsed in gunfire. The new report is a “forensic picture of how prohibitions on arms transfers to the warring parties have failed,” said Conflict Armament Research’s executive director, James Bevan.

EU weapons

The report says Uganda bought arms and ammunition from at least three EU members, Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia, that were diverted to South Sudan’s military and armed allies in Sudan. The transfers occurred before the United Nations Security Council imposed its own arms embargo on South Sudan earlier this year but well after the EU embargo.

With the Bulgarian weapons, “South Sudan arranged for Uganda to issue end-user certificates (the essential paperwork for an international arms transfer) … to make it look like these weapons were for the use of the Ugandan armed forces when in fact they were always destined for South Sudan,” said Mike Lewis, the head of regional operations for Conflict Armament Research.

It is less clear whether Uganda’s government, a key U.S. security ally in the region, was complicit in the diversion of ammunition shipped to it from Romania and Slovakia in 2015, Lewis said. Some of the ammunition was discovered with Sudan-based militias allied with South Sudan’s military.

Uganda’s government did not reply to evidence sent to it, Lewis said. Uganda’s military spokesman, Brig. Richard Karemire, told The Associated Press he had not seen the report.

“For us, we support the peace process in South Sudan,” he said.

South Sudan rejects report

South Sudan’s information minister Michael Makuei Lueth rejected the findings as fake. 

“We don’t even have money to buy arms and now we need money for the peace agreement,” he told the AP. He added: “How can they pass an arms embargo and expect others to abide by it? If the EU has passed an arms embargo that’s up to them, but we in African countries, we’re not a member of the EU and we’re not bound by it.”

As for the exporting countries, there is no suggestion they were complicit in, or even aware of, the diversion, the new report says.

Uganda in the past has openly provided support to South Sudan’s government during the civil war, which erupted in late 2013 between supporters of President Salva Kiir and then-deputy Riek Machar. The latest peace deal once again returns Machar as Kiir’s deputy; a previous attempt at that arrangement failed amid fresh fighting in July 2016. The new deal, largely brokered by Uganda and Sudan, faces skepticism from the United States and others.

Sudan in the past quietly supplied Chinese-made ammunition to South Sudan’s armed opposition, the new report adds.

Private companies

The report also describes how a network of “jointly owned Ugandan and U.S. companies, controlled by British, Israeli, Ugandan, and U.S. nationals, procured a military jet from the United States and an Austrian-made surveillance aircraft, which one of these companies delivered into service with (South Sudan’s military) in 2015 and 2016, respectively.”

Based on interviews and commercial documents, the report found that the company, Yamasec, transferred both aircraft to South Sudan’s military. The U.S. military jet, after being used by Uganda’s air force, was deployed in South Sudan in 2016, overflying armed opposition targets along with attack helicopters.

The military jet’s previous private owner in the U.S. told Conflict Armament Research that “Yamasec USA LLC took responsibility for obtaining a U.S. Department of Commerce dual-use export license,” the report says. “The Department of Commerce, however, has stated that it issued no such license” and it is not clear whether the State Department issued a required military export license.

The Uganda-based Yamasec Ltd. used the plane to train members of Uganda’s air force, the report says. While the transfer to Uganda was not illegal, “re-export to South Sudan may have violated non-retransfer conditions under U.S. arms export controls.”

Yamasec did not reply to Conflict Armament Research, nor to the AP.
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Senate Advances Resolution to Cut US Help to Saudi-Led Campaign in Yemen

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The U.S. Senate has advanced a resolution to stop American help to the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen. VOA’s Michael Bowman reports, Wednesday’s vote came despite pleas from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who met with the full Senate behind closed doors.
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Senegal Criticizes Report on Teacher Abuse in Secondary Schools

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Abuse of Senegalese girls in secondary schools, including sexual exploitation, is widespread, according to a recent Human Rights Watch report that documents incidents of gender-based violence and harassment around the country. But as Sofia Christensen reports from Dakar, authorities and teachers have denounced the report as poorly researched.
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Yemen Tribal Leaders Support US-UN Peace Process

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As U.S. officials and members of U.S. Congress debate U.S. support for the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen, some tribal leaders in Yemen are supporting the U.S and U.N. proposed political solution to end the war and urge an active role in the ongoing negotiations.

“Both the people and the tribes in Yemen support the American political solution to the conflict in Yemen as long as it welcomes the demands of the tribes and the Yemeni people,” Abdurabuh Al-Shaif, a tribe leader from Daham tribe in al-Jawf province of Yemen, told VOA.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate delivered a historic rebuke of Saudi Arabia and President Donald Trump’s handling of the fallout over journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s killing last month, as a majority of members voted to advance a measure to end U.S. military support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen.

President Trump and his administration have described Saudi Arabia as a vital ally and resisted calls for sanctions against the kingdom’s leadership over Khashoggi’s death.

Al-Shaif voiced concerns over the way U.S has approached the conflict.

“Any political solution that does not lead to the restoration of the state, disarming of the Houthi militias, and lead to democratic solution can’t be called a political solution. It is rather a surrender to the militias … which we can’t accept,” Al-Shaif added.

Pompeo, Mattis brief lawmakers

Talking to U.S. lawmakers, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Wednesday urged the preservation of Washington’s support for the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen.

The top U.S diplomat and the top defense official said a hasty U.S. withdrawal from Yemen would allow Iran to further strengthen its grip on the country, and that would be problematic for the region and the world.

Pompeo also strongly objected to the Senate resolution describing it as “poorly timed.”

“Passing a resolution at this point undermines that [peace effort]. It would encourage the Houthis [Yemeni rebels]. It would encourage the Iranians,” Pompeo said.

“The Houthis and the Republic of Yemen government have committed to attending consultations in Sweden in December, if that diplomacy starts to make breakthroughs our hopes are high that hostilities will soon stop entirely,” Pompeo assured U.S. lawmakers.

Martin Griffiths, the U.N. special envoy to Yemen, is planning to convene a gathering of all parties to the Yemen conflict in Sweden in December to seek a political solution to the ongoing war.

“This is an opportunity at a crucial moment to pursue a comprehensive and inclusive political settlement to the conflict,” Griffiths said.

The war in Yeman began in 2014 between the government of Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who has the support of a U.S.-backed Saudi coalition, and the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. Since then the conflict become a humanitarian crisis, with tens of thousands of casualties and severe famine threatening the lives of millions of civilians including children.

​Tribes’ role

Nadwa Al-Dawsari, the Yemen country director for the Center for Civilians in Conflict, a Washington-based organization working for the protection of civilians in armed conflict, told VOA that tribes could play a crucial role and are a fundamental pillar of Yemeni society and wrongfully depicted as lawless and anti-state.

“In reality, tribes operate according to customary rules that govern the relationship between individuals and their tribes, among tribes and between tribes and the state,” Al-Dawsari said.

“In the absent of the state, customary law has helped maintain order and security, prevented and resolve conflicts. Yemeni tribes have always co-existed and even collaborated with the government,” she added.

Some analysts like Khaled Fattah, an expert on Yemen and tribes in the Arab World, charge that ignoring tribes, specially their youths, could even be problematic.

“Tribal youth are locked in a harsh environment of deprivation and conflict, and lack of access to almost everything from political participation and education to sport and recreational facilities,” Fattah said.

“Mobile phones and internet into tribal areas resulted not only in exposing tribal youth to the ideology of violent extremism, but also in creating a wide psychological distance between their offline and online lives,” Fattah added.

Fattah said tribes are politically and military significant in Yemen as they have access to weapons.

“In these markets, all sorts of weapons from AK-47 to bazookas and anti-aircraft missiles are available. Prior to the Saudi-led military operations, it was estimated that Yemeni tribes have five times more small arms than the central government in Sanaa,” Fattah added.

AQAP

However, Al- Dawsari said tribes have served as frontline defenders against terror groups like al-Qaida.

She did acknowledge that the presence of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is a challenge in the region, but said they have no havens among Yemeni tribes.

“It is the tribes that have denied AQAP the ability to expand territory. AQAP was only able to make significant influence in parts of Yemen where the tribal structure is weak or nonexistent,” Al-Dawsari said.

“Some tribesmen joined AQAP but in doing so, they have acted independent of and against the wish and interest of their tribes,” she added.

Houthis

Yemeni tribe leader, Al-Shaif said the Yemeni tribes see the Houthi movement, which has overthrown the government, as a terrorist movement as well.

“The Houthis committed unprecedented abuses against local tribes, including abduction, forced disappearance, torture, killing of tribal leaders, and blowing up homes of their opponents,” Al-Shaif said.

Al-Shaif said that most of the tribes in Yemen do not trust the Saudi-led Arab coalition either because it failed to restore peace in provinces that are under government control.

“We don’t trust the Arab coalition anymore. The Arab coalition did not help the state expand its influence and re-establish stability in many provinces,” Al-Shaif said.
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Israel Eyes Bahrain as Next Arab State to Openly Host Israeli Officials

Posted on by SeeEA

Israel is eyeing Bahrain as the next Gulf Arab state to publicly welcome Israeli officials after two others did so in recent weeks, signaling closer Israeli-Arab ties in the face of their mutual concerns about Iran. 

In reports published Sunday and Monday, Israeli media quoted unnamed officials as saying Israel and Bahrain are working toward establishing formal diplomatic ties. Israel’sYediot Ahronot newspaper quoted those officials as saying Bahrain also is likely to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s next public visit to an Arab state with whom Israel has no formal relations. 

Netanyahu made a previously unannounced trip to Oman Oct. 25-26 for talks with its leader, Sultan Qaboos Bin Said, a visit later publicized by both sides, who also have no diplomatic ties. It was the first such trip by an Israeli leader to Oman since 1996. 

Netanyahu and Sultan Qaboos issued a joint statement saying the two sides “discussed ways to advance the Middle East peace process and discussed a number of issues of mutual interest to achieve peace and stability in the Middle East.” 

Oman later hosted Israeli Intelligence and Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz, who met several Arab ministers on Nov. 6 to brief them on his plan for a railway connecting the Gulf to the Mediterranean via Israel and Jordan. 

The United Arab Emirates, which like Oman has no formal relations with Israel, took the unusual step of welcoming two other Israeli ministers in late October. Israeli Culture Minister Miri Regev traveled to Abu Dhabi to cheer on gold medal-winning Israeli judokas at an international judo tournament, while Israeli Communications Minister Ayoub Kara went to Dubai for an international telecommunications conference. 

Speaking Sunday at a joint news conference with visiting Chadian President Idriss Déby, Netanyahu said there would be more such visits to Arab states soon, without elaborating. The only Arab states that recognize Israel are Egypt and Jordan. 

In another sign that Bahrain may soon publicly welcome an Israeli official, the Reuters news agency said Israeli Economy Minister Eli Cohen told Israeli Army Radio on Monday that he has received an invitation to a Bahraini-hosted conference. Cohen did not say if he would travel to the Global Entrepreneurship Congress in Bahrain next April, and there was no confirmation of the invitation from Bahraini officials. 

Unpublicized visits by Israeli security officials to Arab states have been common in the last five years, according to former Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Dore Gold, who now heads the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. 

“What really changes the situation in the region is the willingness to do that in public. That is the new reality,” Gold told an audience at Washington’s Hudson Institute on Tuesday. 

Gold said Shiite-majority Iran’s support of Shiite militants throughout the region has “scared the hell” out of Sunni Arab-led states neighboring Israel. 

“It is the fear of hegemonic ambitions of non-Arab powers Iran and Turkey in the Middle East that gives us and the Arabs a certain common ground to speak about,” Gold said. 

Gold, who served as an ambassador at the U.N. from 1997 to 1999 and as director general of Israel’s foreign ministry from 2015 to 2016, said Arab nations have little reason to see the Jewish state as a threat.

“We’re not seeking to create a Hebrew empire, although I think our non-Arab neighbors do have broad ambitions that you have to keep your eye on.”

This article originated in VOA’s Persian service. 
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UN Presses Syria for Information on Dead, Detainees

Posted on by SeeEA

The U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Syria Wednesday urged the Security Council to press the Syrian government to provide information to families about the fate of those missing or detained during the seven-year war.

Following a closed-door informal meeting with council members, the commission chairman said it was crucial to push the government to give a full account after it began in May to release death notifications.

“The issues of the detainees and the disappeared should not be dealt after peace, but now is the time to consider this,” said Paulo Pinheiro, who heads the commission set up to investigate human rights violations in the war.

In May, the military police and army provided for the first time information to government civil registry offices on the deceased, allowing families to finally learn the fate of their loved ones.

“The state is beginning to put out that information, but little else,” commission member Hanny Megally said. “The families have a right to know what happened, where the bodies are, to get information about them.”

An international independent body must be given access to all places of detention to confirm who is still alive in detention, he added.

The commission hopes council members including Russia, Syria’s ally, can encourage the Damascus government to take steps to address demands from the families of lost or missing loved ones.

Syria’s war has killed more than 360,000 people and displaced millions.

U.N.-led diplomatic efforts to end the war have stalled, but Russia, Iran and Turkey are spearheading a separate drive to stabilize the country.
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Ruling Party Candidate Leads in Georgia Presidential Runoff

Posted on by SeeEU

Preliminary results from Georgia’s presidential runoff showed the ruling party-backed candidate, who favours balancing the ex-Soviet republic’s relations with Moscow and the West, leading her rival who advocates a stronger pro-Western line.

Figures from the Central Election Commission gave French-born Salome Zurabishvili 58.2 percent of the vote in the runoff, which was held on Wednesday. Opposition candidate Grigol Vashadze had 41.8 percent, based on results from 55 percent of the polling stations, the CEC said on its website.

Voting under close scrutiny

Earlier, two exit polls also showed Zurabishvili, a former French career diplomat who served as Georgia’s foreign minister from 2004-2005, with a clear lead.

The second round of voting was under close scrutiny by opposition and international observers for any sign that the ruling Georgian Dream party is using its control of state machinery to help Zurabishvili win.

The opposition said there have been attacks on its activists during campaigning and complained there were many irregularities during the vote, including attempts to pressure voters and manipulation of voter lists.

The ruling party has denied attempting to influence the outcome of the vote unfairly.

International observers said the first round of voting last month had been competitive, but had been held on “an unlevel playing field” with state resources misused, private media biased, and some phoney candidates taking part.

Balanced approach

Vashadze, who was foreign minister in 2008-2012, had been expected to use the presidency’s limited powers to send a vocal message of integration with the U.S.-led NATO alliance and the European Union — sensitive issues in the South Caucasus country that fought a war in 2008 with its neighbour Russia.

Georgian Dream and Zurabishvili take a more pragmatic line, balancing the country’s aspirations to move closer to the West with a desire to avoid antagonising the Kremlin.

Constitutional changes have reduced the authority of the president, and put most levers of power in the hands of the prime minister, a Georgian Dream loyalist.

Move to electoral college

The election was the last in which the president will be selected by popular vote. From 2024, presidents will be picked by an electoral college of 300 lawmakers and regional officials.

Zurabishvili won 38.6 percent of the vote in the first round on Oct. 28. That was just one percentage point ahead of Vashadze, who was a foreign minister in 2008-2012 in a resolutely pro-Western government that was in power when the conflict with Russia broke out over a Moscow-backed breakaway Georgian territory.

Georgian Dream was founded by billionaire banker Bidzina Ivanishvili, the country’s richest man, and critics say he rules the country from behind the scenes.

Zurabishvili’s supporters say she would bring international stature to the presidency. But her opponents have criticized her for statements that appeared to blame Georgia for the 2008 war and remarks about minorities that some see as xenophobic. 
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UK Government to Face Challenges to May’s Brexit Plan in Parliament 

Posted on by SeeEU

British Prime Minister Theresa May’s bid to win approval for her Brexit deal will have to overcome attempts to block or change it by rival lawmakers on Dec. 11, a proposed format for the debate published on Wednesday showed. 

 

The government has set out the details of a debate on a motion to approve May’s plan to take the country out of the European Union, allowing for amendments to be discussed that could try to reshape the deal she brought back from Brussels. 

 

The format of the debate has been keenly awaited to see whether rivals would have a chance to test their alternative exit plans, such as remaining in the EU’s customs union or making the exit conditional upon a second referendum. 

 

Any such amendments would not be legally binding on the government but would prove politically hard to ignore. 

May already has an arduous task to get the motion approved. It is opposed by a large group of lawmakers from her own party, the Northern Irish party that props up her minority government and by all opposition parties who say they will vote against it. 

 

Defeat would most likely unleash huge political uncertainty and could roil financial markets. 

 

According to documents filed at Britain’s Parliament on Wednesday, debates will be held on Dec. 4, 5, 6, 10 and 11, with up to six amendments selected on the final day. The opposition Labor Party said on Twitter the debate would conclude at 1900 GMT on Dec. 11. 

 

The amendments could be put to several votes, meaning that as well as overcoming the huge opposition to her plan, May will have to defeat attempts to add extra conditions to it or to thwart the exit agreement altogether. 

 

The government has previously voiced concerns that any of these so-called amendments that win support in the House of Commons could prevent the government from ratifying the exit deal because the amended motion would not provide the necessary unequivocal approval required under previously passed legislation.  
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UN Chief Appeals to G20 Leaders for Cooperation on Urgent Global Issues

Posted on by SeeEA

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has appealed to G-20 leaders ahead of their meetings this week to cooperate more to address some of the planet’s most pressing issues. 

“Threats to human prosperity are becoming increasingly acute,” Guterres wrote in a five-page letter dated Nov. 16 and released by the U.N. on Wednesday. “More, rather than less, cooperation is needed,” he said.

Guterres detailed threats from global hunger to climate-related disasters to the need for empowering women and harnessing technology for good. He said multilateralism must be “preserved and renewed,” and he urged international support for the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which he said “provide us with an agreed blueprint to tackle the most daunting challenges of our times.” 

Watch: What is the G-20?

The U.N. General Assembly adopted the SDGs in 2015. The 17 global goals provide a framework for ending extreme poverty and hunger, improving health and education, and protecting the planet, all by 2030.

“I hope leaders at the G-20 will give it a strong push forward,” Guterres told reporters ahead of his departure for the summit in Argentina.  

The U.N. chief is also grappling with a series of international crises and conflicts. At the top of the list is the nearly four-year-old war in Yemen that has left half that nation —14 million people— on the brink of starvation. 

“We are at a very crucial moment in relation to Yemen,” Guterres said in response to reporters’ questions. “I believe there is a chance to be able to start effective negotiations in Sweden early in December, but we are not yet there.”

His special envoy, Martin Griffiths, has been shuttling around the region talking to key players and trying to get them to the negotiating table in Sweden.Saudi Arabia, which leads the pro-government coalition bombing the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, will be represented at the G20 by Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. Asked if he would meet with the prince, who has come under international scrutiny for his possible role in the brutal murder of a Saudi dissident journalist, Guterres said he is ready to meet him. 

“I’m ready to discuss it with the crown prince or with any other Saudi officials, because I believe it is a very important objective at the present moment,” Guterres said. “If we are able to stop the Yemeni war, we will be stopping the most tragic humanitarian disaster we are facing in today’s world.”

Climate calls

The U.N. chief also made a big pitch for action on climate change.

“Climate action can no longer wait,” he wrote. “Decisive action to halt the progress of climate change is imperative.”

In 2015, leaders made ambitious commitments under the Paris Agreement to mitigate the effects of climate change and adapt to its effects. China and the United States — the world’s two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases — both joined the deal, but the U.S. under the Trump administration announced its intention to withdraw.

“The members of the G20 are responsible for more than three-quarters of greenhouse emissions,” Guterres told reporters. “Yet, it is equally true that G20 members have the power to bend the emissions curve. They also have the resources to provide the financing needed for both mitigation and adaptation,” he added. 

The U.N. chief has insisted that greening the global economy will be good for everyone, creating jobs and investment opportunities. 

After the G20, Guterres will travel to Katowice, Poland, for the Conference of the Parties (COP 24) to the Paris accord. 
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Kosovo President: Defining Borders Will Help Solve Disputes with Serbia

Posted on by SeeEU

Kosovo President Hashim Thaci says defining the borders between Kosovo and Serbia is a key step toward easing tensions between the two nations. Border talks come 10 years after Kosovo declared independence from Serbia.

Kosovo has been recognized by more than 110 countries as a sovereign nation, though Serbia refuses to recognize it. Both countries want to join the European Union, but Brussels said disagreements over Kosovo’s sovereignty must be settled first.

“One thing should be clear: Without defining the borders, there cannot be a final, peaceful agreement that would guarantee mutual recognition [between Kosovo and Serbia],” Thaci said in an interview with VOA’s Albanian Service.

He added that teams from Kosovo and Serbia, as well as representatives from the United States, NATO and the European Union, will work together to “clearly define the border between Kosovo and Serbia.”

His comments follow meetings in Washington with National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Pompeo “encouraged Kosovo to seize this unique window of opportunity to reach a historic comprehensive normalization deal with Serbia.”

Bolton tweeted that “the U.S. stands ready to help both parties achieve this historic goal.”

Thaci did not elaborate on what has changed to allow progress after 10 years of tension and apparent stalemate.

​Border change

Neither Bolton’s nor Pompeo’s statements mention border changes, although in August, Bolton was the first senior U.S. official to say that Washington would contemplate the idea if the parties agree to it.

“Our policy, the U.S. policy, is that if the two parties can work it out between themselves and reach agreement, we don’t exclude territorial adjustments. It’s really not for us to say. It’s obviously a difficult issue. If it weren’t, it would have been resolved a long time ago. But we would not stand in the way, and I don’t think anybody in Europe would stand in the way if the two parties to the dispute reached a mutual and satisfactory settlement?” he said back then.

Bolton’s comments came after Thaci and his Serbian counterpart, Aleksandar Vucic, floated the idea that could see Serbia getting parts of northern Kosovo with a mostly Serb population, and Kosovo getting parts of Serbia’s Presevo Valley, inhabited mostly by ethnic Albanians.

But neither leader explicitly addressed where the border would be redrawn and have not — at least publicly — put forth a detailed plan. The idea has sparked fierce opposition within their countries.

Thaci said Wednesday that there cannot be mutual recognition without defining borders.

“Everything will have to go through Kosovo’s parliament, whether it is approved or not. Or the other alternative is a referendum. But it is easy to be a skeptic. It is more difficult to take responsibility and do the work. That is why, invite everyone to act together, take responsibility, discuss. We can all agree to it, or we don’t. But if we don’t, we all together pay a price,” Thaci told VOA.

Vucic has rarely spoken about redrawing borders but recently complained that the idea seems to have little support in Serbia.

Western experts have warned that changing borders in the Balkans could destabilize the region.

​Precarious relationship

Flare-ups are common between the two countries. A tariff scuffle is the latest example.

A week ago, Kosovo’s government imposed a tariff of 100 percent on imports of Serbian goods. It was retaliation for Belgrade’s efforts to block Kosovo’s membership in international organizations.

Tariffs were imposed a day after Kosovo failed to become a member of Interpol, widely seen as a result of Serbia’s strong lobbying effort to prevent it.

After meeting Thaci on Monday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged Kosovo to “rescind the tariffs placed on imports from Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and to work with Serbia to avoid provocations and de-escalate tensions.”

Washington seems to be pushing the two countries to normalize their relations. Efforts to reach that goal will test both nations’ leaders and show how high a price Kosovo and Serbia are willing to pay to trade their troubled past for a more prosperous European future.
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Rwandan Dissident Draws US Congressional Support

Posted on by SeeAF

U.S. congressional lawmakers are pressing Rwanda’s government against incarcerating dissident politician Diane Rwigara, who faces up to 22 years in prison after being convicted of inciting insurrection and forgery.

Diane Rwigara, a former presidential candidate, is scheduled to be sentenced December 6, along with her mother, Adeline Rwigara. Both women were tried November 7, with the elder Rwigara convicted of insurrection and promoting ethnic hatred. They had been detained by police in October 2017 and jailed for a year but released on bail last month, prior to trial. They remain at home in Kigali, the capital city, under travel restrictions.

“Peaceful political expression is not a crime. Running for office is not a crime,” the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission — a bipartisan congressional caucus named for its co-founder — said in a tweet posted earlier Monday.

The commission, which defends and promotes human rights internationally, has scheduled a December 4 briefing on Rwanda’s treatment of human rights and political prisoners, including the Rwigaras.

Diane Rwigara ran for president in 2017, challenging incumbent Paul Kagame, but was disqualified after election officials alleged that some signatures needed for her candidacy had been falsified.

In July 2017, the activist started the People Salvation Movement to “encourage Rwandans to hold their government accountable,” as she told CNN. She later was arrested on charges of incitement and fraud. Her mother also was arrested for criticizing the government in a WhatsApp exchange with another relative living outside Rwanda. 

Diane Rwigara denied the charges, saying Kagame was trying to prevent her from speaking out against injustice. In an interview with VOA after her October release, she called for the release of political prisoners and others unjustly detained.     

Kagame oversaw the central African country’s reconciliation after the 1994 genocide, but rights groups have accused him and the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front of increasingly clamping down on dissent.

This report originated in VOA’s Central Africa Service.
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Huge Pro-government Media Conglomerate Formed in Hungary 

Posted on by SeeEU

The owners of a vast majority of Hungary’s pro-government media outlets said Wednesday that they were donating their companies to a foundation, creating a huge right-wing media conglomerate. 

 

The Central European Press and Media Foundation’s assets will include cable news channels, internet news portals, tabloid and sports newspapers, all of Hungary’s county newspapers, several radio stations and numerous magazines, among others. Among the brands to be under its control are Hir TV, Echo TV, Origo.hu, Nemzeti Sport, Bors, Magyar Idok and Figyelo. 

 

Most of the publications donated to the foundation were acquired or founded by allies of Prime Minister Viktor Orban in the past few years. Some of them turned from relatively independent outlets into unabashed supporters of the government, with copious state and government advertising. Since Orban’s return to power in 2010, international studies consider media freedoms to have steadily declined in Hungary. 

 

Agnes Urban, a media analyst at Budapest’s Mertek Media Monitor, said that after the “unprecedented” move “it makes little sense to speak about freedom of the press in Hungary” because of the power the conglomerate will have. 

 

“From now on, there will be total control over the right-wing media close to the government,” Urban said. “These companies were competing with each other for state advertising … but now the system will be much more centralized and it will be much cheaper to operate. 

More difficulty in operating

 

“The few remaining independent media companies will also find it much, much harder to operate, since they will be up against a single, huge competitor,” Urban concluded. 

 

Attila Toth-Szenesi, editor-in-chief of index.hu, which has seen its access to public information and state officials drastically reduced in recent years by the Orban government, said the consolidation of the right-wing media may help advertisers see more clearly where each media outlet belongs. 

 

At the same time, he said, it would simplify having the same centrally edited content in all the publications controlled by the foundation. 

 

“We already saw this happen a couple of years when Lorinc Meszaros took over most of the county newspapers,” Toth-Szenesi said. Meszaros, an Orban friend and former gas fitter who is now considered one of Hungary’s richest people, was among those who donated their media portfolio. 

 

The foundation, or CEMPF, said that one of its goals is to “help the survival of the Hungarian written press culture.” 

 

“In our conviction, this simultaneously serves the interest of readers and the representation of civic values,” the foundation said. 

 

The foundation will be led by Gabor Liszkay, a newspaper publisher known for his loyalty to Orban. 

 

In surveys on media freedom published annually by Freedom House, a Washington-based think tank, Hungary’s score was 23 in 2010 and 44 this year, with zero the best score and 100 the worst. Since 2012, Freedom House has described Hungary’s media status as “partly free.” 

Donated for free

 

The 10 companies that joined the foundation donated their media outlets and publications for free, even though their joint estimated value was possibly $100 million (88 million euros) or more. 

 

“The fact that such valuable firms were practically gifted to the foundation at the same time and in such an obviously coordinated way shows very well how the Orban system works,” said Daniel Pal Renyi, a journalist specializing in media matters at Hungary’s 444.hu news portal. “This demonstrates that the owners did not have real ownership rights, but were carrying out political tasks … and ultimately it’s the political will that gets its way.” 
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Russian Detainee Dies in US Immigration Custody  

Posted on by SeeEU

After nearly a year in detention, a months-long hunger strike, and a deportation order, 40-year-old Mergensana Amar died in U.S. immigration custody this month.

He was removed from life support 10 days after he was found unconscious in his cell at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington, and seven days after his last glimmer of brain activity.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced Monday that the Russia native died of “anoxic brain injury due to asphyxiation,” the agency reported this week. Washington’s Pierce County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled Amar’s death suicide by hanging. 

Amar was found in his cell on Nov. 15, and was declared brain dead on Nov. 18, according to ICE. He remained on life support until Nov. 24, however ICE has listed his official date of death as Nov. 18.

Amar entered the U.S. without proper documentation, according to ICE. He was on a hunger strike from August until Oct. 16, protesting his detention and imminent deportation, scheduled for November.

In an October interview during the hunger strike, Amar told local news website CrossCut that he was from Buryatia, Russia, and that he sought asylum after arriving at the southwest port of entry at San Ysidro, California, last December.

He told the outlet that skinheads in Russia beat and threatened him, and that he had also been jailed for his activism in favor of Buryatia’s independence. VOA has not independently verified these claims.

The Russian embassy in Washington, D.C., has not replied to a request for comment made Wednesday on Amar’s death. His next of kin has been notified, according to ICE.

Amar’s death is the 11th in ICE detention this year. 

An inmate dying in immigration custody is rare — the agency detains more than 100,000 people annually. But human rights groups say health care is inadequate in ICE facilities. A report this summer alleged that lack of care can lead to untimely deaths. 
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Kenya Report: Police Accused of Post-vote Sexual Violence 

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Kenyan police are accused of committing most of the sexual violence reported during last year’s opposition protests over election results, the government-funded Kenya National Commission on Human Rights said Wednesday. 

A new report from the commission focuses on alleged gang rapes and other abuses during the uproar between the announcement of presidential election results on Aug. 11 and the Supreme Court-ordered fresh vote on Oct. 26. President Uhuru Kenyatta won that vote, boycotted by the opposition, after the court nullified the first one citing “irregularities and illegalities.” 

Victims of sexual violence said the perpetrators included ordinary citizens, criminals and members of security forces, who allegedly accounted for 54 percent of the 201 cases recorded, the report said. 

“From the KNCHR’s findings, it can be deduced that sexual violence is being used as a weapon for electoral-related conflict,” the report said. 

Kenya’s national police said it rejected “in totality” the report’s “sensational, preposterous” assertions and urged anyone sexually assaulted by an officer to report to its civilian oversight body for investigation. 

The report said sexual violence was used as “punishment” in certain areas, notably in Nyanza and Nairobi, with both opposition and ruling-party neighborhoods targeted. Most victims were women from low-income neighborhoods, with the youngest victim 7 and the oldest 68. 

Sexual violence took the form of rapes and gang rapes, and in certain cases parents were sexually assaulted in front of their children, the report said. 
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AFRICOM: US Airstrike in Somalia Targets Al-Shabab

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A U.S. military airstrike Tuesday in Somalia killed three al-Shabab militants, according to the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM).

The U.S. conducted numerous strikes in the same region of Qay Ad, near Dabad Shil, in Mudug region on November 19 and 20, killing 50 al-Shabab fighters.

Local sources told VOA Somali that the latest strike targeted al-Shabab vehicles. The sources say the vehicles belonged to Abdishakur Mohamed Mire, a junior al-Shabab military commander. There was no confirmation on whether Mire was traveling in one of the vehicles at the time.

Africa Command said Tuesday’s airstrike did not “injure or kill any civilians.”

The latest operation brings the number of U.S. strikes in Somalia this year to 36, all of them against al-Shabab. The figure marks the highest number of strikes ever conducted by the U.S. military within a single year in Somalia.

The U.S. says strikes are targeting al-Shabab militants, fighting positions, infrastructure and equipment.

“U.S. forces, in cooperation with the government of Somalia, are conducting ongoing counterterrorism operations against al-Shabab and ISIS-Somalia to degrade the groups’ ability to recruit, train and plot terror attacks in Somalia and the region,” U.S. Africa Command told VOA Somali in an emailed message. ISIS is an acronym for Islamic State.

Several al-Shabab commanders have been killed in U.S. airstrikes over the years, including former emir Ahmed Abdi Godane on Sept. 1, 2014.

Al-Shabab, an affiliate of al-Qaida, is trying to overthrow Somalia’s government and turn the country into a strict Islamic state.
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