Month: November 2018

Dutch King Visits Renewed Anne Frank House Museum

Posted on by SeeEU

Dutch King Willem-Alexander visited the Anne Frank House museum Thursday after a two-year reboot to give the building a new entrance hall, redesigned exhibition spaces and a new way of telling the story of the teenage Jewish diarist.

The aim of renewing the landmark museum was to “provide more information about the historical context and background of the story we represent, which is the story of Anne Frank,” executive director Ronald Leopold said Wednesday night at a press preview of the renewed museum.

 

What hasn’t changed is the museum’s moving centerpiece: the Spartan secret annex, reached via a door concealed behind a bookcase, where Anne wrote her world-famous diary as she, her family and four other Jews hid for two years from Nazis during World War II until they were arrested and deported to concentration camps.

 

“Of course we did not change the hiding place itself — the annex — which is the most authentic place where Anne Frank was in hiding and where she wrote the diary,” Leopold said.

 

The museum believes that telling Anne’s story remains relevant more than 60 years after she and her sister both perished in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp after contracting typhus.

 

On Wednesday, the head of the European Jewish Congress, Moshe Kantor, warned at a conference in Vienna that “Jewish communities in Europe are increasingly concerned about their security and pessimistic about their future.”

 

Leopold said the museum, which receives 1.2 million visitors annually, has an important role to play in combatting anti-Semitism.

 

“We run a museum and we know how powerful the influence of this museum is,” he said. “A visit … really has a huge impact on young people and encourages them to fight discrimination, anti-Semitism, racism in their own communities.”

 

The museum got a new entrance and changes to rooms including the darkened space that displays the iconic books that made up Anne’s diary, which was published by her father after the war and went on to become a symbol of hope and resilience. The diary has been translated into more than 70 languages.

 

The building housing the secret annex was turned into a museum in 1960. The museum, which remained open throughout the renovations, also has revamped the way it tells the story of the Frank family, and by extension the Nazi persecution of Jews.

 

“What we tried to do is… use the family history as kind of a window onto a larger history,” said Tom Brink, the museum’s head of publications and presentations.

 

He said the larger history includes the Nazi-occupied Dutch capital during the war “and, of course, European history because all Europe was affected by the Nazi rule.”

 

As well as the physical changes, the museum now has an audio tour which pieces together narrated fragments from the diary, family stories and historical perspective. That allowed curators to keep physical exhibits sparse while still explaining the Franks’ story and putting it in historical context.

 

A room that served as the office for Anne’s father’s company has just a few photos on the wall. One shows a group of Jewish men in Amsterdam kneeling, their hands on their heads, watched over by a Nazi soldier carrying a rifle.

 

On another wall is a map drawn up by Amsterdam civil servants for the city’s Nazi occupiers with black dots representing the places where Jews lived.

 

“We wanted to preserve the character of the house, which is very much its emptiness,” said Leopold. “I think its emptiness is probably the most powerful feature of the Anne Frank House.”

 

 
…

your ad here

Poland Moves to Reinstate Retired Judges to Supreme Court

Posted on by SeeEU

Poland’s parliament passed legislation Wednesday to reinstate Supreme Court judges who were recently forced to retire, a step that could significantly ease a standoff with the European Union.

For the EU, which is facing a string of crises, including Brexit and Italy’s debt, it was a rare victory in its struggle to preserve democracy in a region where illiberal populism has been on the rise, a trend led by Hungary.

Wednesday’s development comes a month after the EU’s court ordered Poland to immediately suspend the lowering of the retirement age for Supreme Court judges, which had forced about two dozen of them off the bench.

The forced retirement of the judges was widely seen as an attempt by the ruling populist party, Law and Justice, to stack the court with loyalists, and it was condemned internationally as a blow to democratic standards.

Poland has been in a standoff with the EU for three years over attempts by Law and Justice, under the leadership of powerful party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, to impose control over the court system.

Many legal experts said that the forced retirement of the Supreme Court judges, including the chief justice, violated Poland’s constitution. That, along with the broader overhaul of the justice system, has raised serious concerns over rule of law in the young democracy, with the EU saying the changes erode the independence of the judicial branch of government.

Wednesday’s legislative initiative — which noted that it was introduced to comply with the EU court ruling — marks one of the first significant steps by Poland to meet EU demands.

“We know very well that in politics effectiveness matters and that sometimes you have to take one step back to take two steps forward,” said Stanislaw Piotrowicz, a ruling party lawmaker and one of the key architects of the judicial overhaul, in an interview with the wPolityce.pl portal.

Zselyke Csaky, an expert on Central Europe with Freedom House, called it a “significant” step and a sign by the ruling party of “common sense,” though she also said on Twitter that “the full damage to rule of law and legal certainty will be much harder to remedy.”

The Polish government, in power since 2015, has been forced to climb down before. Earlier this year it softened a Holocaust speech law that made it a crime to attribute co-responsibility in the Holocaust to the Polish nation and which sparked a major diplomatic dispute with Israel. It also dropped draft legislation in 2016 that would have tightened the already restrictive abortion law after massive street protests by women wearing black.

But it is an almost unheard-of concession to the EU, which the government often says has no right to meddle in its internal affairs.

Under the amendment passed Wednesday to the new law on the Supreme Court, the judges who were forced to retire early will have the choice of returning to their duties. The law had lowered the retirement age from 70 to 65, and any judge who wished to remain had to request the consent of the president.

The party introduced the amended legislation to the parliament Wednesday and it was passed quickly by the lower house. It goes next to the Senate and also needs the president’s signature, but since both are aligned with the party, these steps are all but certain to happen.

The party’s reversal comes after local elections last month that showed Law and Justice winning the most seats in regional assemblies but losing badly in mayoral races in the cities and even mid-size towns. The results suggested the party’s conflicts with the EU — which is extremely popular among voters — have cost it votes among urban, middle-class voters.

It also comes as the party, which has a strong anti-corruption profile, finds itself mired in corruption allegations. Last week the head of the state financial authorities resigned over allegations he had solicited a bribe of millions of dollars from a billionaire who heads two troubled banks.
…

your ad here

After Synagogue Shooting, Fresh Thoughts on Giving Thanks

Posted on by SeeUS

David Feldstein knew seven of the 11 people killed in the synagogue. For Augie Siriano, they all were friends. Rabbi Jeffrey Myers was leading Shabbat services when the gunshots rang out. 

 

Barely three weeks after the Tree of Life massacre — believed to be the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history — they and their fellow Pittsburghers are preparing to mark a holiday built around gratitude. But in the neighborhood of Squirrel Hill, they aren’t shying away from celebrating Thanksgiving. They’re welcoming it.  

“It’s really a perfect time that Thanksgiving is falling right now,” Myers says. The holiday, he says, is about family — and spending time with loved ones is needed at a time like this. 

 

And in the concentric circles of grief and healing around him — Tree of Life, Squirrel Hill and the city of Pittsburgh itself — the sentiment is similar. 

 

“[With] Thanksgiving coming so closely on the heels of the shooting, people feel the need to be around family more,” says Dan Iddings, owner of Classic Lines, a bookstore about a half-mile from the synagogue. He will celebrate Thanksgiving with about 20 family and friends, and he expects it to be “a very family- and community-centered Thanksgiving, more so than in the past few years.” 

 

How do you summon thankfulness in a family, in a community, when the wounds are so fresh and the grief so hard to bear? When what you’ve lost is so profound, how do you sit down around a holiday spread and enjoy what you have? To talk to people in Squirrel Hill this week — those directly affiliated with Tree of Life and those who compose the community around it — is to begin to understand the different forms that gratitude can take. 

 

Siriano, Tree of Life’s custodian since 1993, was in the synagogue restroom when he heard gunshots Oct. 27. He rushed out to see one of the worshippers, someone he had shared tea with 10 minutes earlier, lying dead. On Thursday, he will be with family. He says he has much to be thankful for, including a grandson born Saturday. 

 

“There has to be a place in your heart for the sadness and the joy,” says Rabbi Chuck Diamond, Tree of Life’s former rabbi who led a “healing” service outside the synagogue a week after the shooting. 

 

“We recognize and acknowledge what we have lost, but, at the same time, looking around the table, we recognize what we have,” Diamond says. “People should observe Thanksgiving and appreciate the comfort and joy of the family around them.”  

Feldstein understands the difficulty in celebrating the holiday less than a month after tragedy visited the neighborhood where he has owned a bagel shop for the past 28 years. Seven of the slain worshippers were Bagel Factory regulars, as were two of the Pittsburgh police officers injured in the shooting. 

 

“You feel a bit guilty,” Feldstein says. “It’s a difficult feeling. But you still have to make your kids appreciate what they have, so when they have children, you want them to feel that appreciation. I love my family. To me, that’s the best time.” 

 

The shooting took place in Squirrel Hill, the center of Jewish life in the city as well as home to churches, ethnic eateries, grocery stores, delis, pizzerias and a movie theater. The violence shook the neighborhood, and much of the city around it, to its foundations. 

 

A makeshift memorial bearing the 11 victims’ names stood outside the synagogue until recently and drew thousands of visitors. Steel barricades now line the entrance to the synagogue, and the memorial sits inside, where two other congregations — New Light and Dor Hadash — also had gathered when the shooting occurred.  

The crowds have thinned, but people still stop to pay respects. Bouquets of flowers and cards lean on hedges outside the synagogue. Someone left a pair of gold-painted Converse tennis shoes; written in English was the Hebrew and Arabic phrase, “Peace be unto you.” 

 

Margaret Porter of Heath, Ohio, was in town to celebrate Thanksgiving with her son, a sophomore at the University of Pittsburgh. On Tuesday, they felt compelled to bring flowers to the synagogue. “I would say we’re more thankful this Thanksgiving,” Porter said.  

What makes Pittsburgh’s Jewish community special is how different denominations interact with such ease, say Daniel and Baila Cohen, who recently took over ownership of of Pinskers Books and Judaica, as well as the adjoining cafe, in Squirrel Hill. 

 

“Here, people know each other. They’ll be part of different synagogues,” Baila Cohen says. “We are comfortable in all of them.” 

 

Adds her husband: “There’s a lot of crossover.” 

 

Another reason that so many here are grateful on this holiday: the support the Jewish community received from the city, nation and throughout the world. 

 

At Bagel Factory, people have shelled out hundreds of dollars in advance to pay for food for complete strangers. A store refused to charge for a Thanksgiving turkey when the owner learned the customer worked for Diamond. New Light, which lost three of its members in the shooting, has received thousands of letters from all over the world — all of them personal. 

 

“People, not just Jews, were touched by this. The outreach from other religious communities has been overwhelming,” says New Light co-president Stephen Cohen. He has been welcome, he notes, at services at a black church, a mosque and a Hindu temple. 

 

Every business in Squirrel Hill has some sign of support in its window, be it murals of love, kindness and hope, or placards reading, “Stronger than hate,” “Our hearts cry for Shalom,” or “Love our neighborhood. No place for hate.” 

 

Crocheted or knitted Stars of David hang from bare branches, sign posts and doorways throughout the business district. A sixth-grader from Arkansas scribbled, “God loves you. You are in our prayers,” on the back of a leather heart, on which a Star of David made from ice pop sticks was pasted. A sign thanks people for participating in an act of Tikum Olam, the Jewish concept of repairing the world. 

 

“So many people have walked up to me and said, ‘What can I do for you? What do you need?’ ” New Light’s Stephen Cohen says. 

 

His congregation, like Dor Hadash and Tree of Life, found new locations for their services. And in those new places, during these very jumbled days, they are finding new ways of giving thanks. 

 

They are the same community, marking the same American holiday as they did last November, but they find themselves with a new landscape to navigate — a landscape of grief, hope and, to hear many of them tell it, gratitude. 

 

“The first thing you do is change the venue,” Stephen Cohen says. “Then, you come together. We spend a lot of time together. … That’s how you get past things like this. Maybe.” 
…

your ad here

Iran Says US Bases, Aircraft Carriers Within Missile Range

Posted on by SeeEA

An Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander said on Wednesday that U.S. bases in Afghanistan, the UAE and Qatar, and U.S. aircraft carriers in the Gulf were within range of Iranian missiles, as tensions rise between Tehran and Washington.

“They are within our reach and we can hit them if they (Americans) make a move,” Amirali Hajizadeh, head of the Revolutionary Guards’ airspace division, was quoted as saying by Tasnim news agency.

Hajizadeh said the Guards had improved the precision of their missiles, and specifically said they could hit the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, Al Dhafra base in the United Arab Emirates and Kandahar base in Afghanistan that host U.S. forces.

U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of an international agreement on Iran’s nuclear program in May and reimposed sanctions on Tehran. He said the deal was flawed because it did not include curbs on Iran’s development of ballistic missiles or its support for proxies in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq.

The Islamic Republic’s government has ruled out negotiations with Washington over its military capabilities, particularly its missile program run by the Guards.

Iran, which says its missile program is purely defensive, has threatened to disrupt oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf if the United States tries to strangle Iranian oil exports.

In October, the Revolutionary Guards fired missiles at Islamic State militants in Syria after the Islamist group took responsibility for an attack at a military parade in Iran that killed 25 people, nearly half of them members of the Guards.
…

your ad here

Felony Case Declined Against Attorney Avenatti

Posted on by SeeUS

The Los Angeles district attorney declined to prosecute attorney Michael Avenatti on felony domestic abuse charges Wednesday and referred allegations that he roughed up his girlfriend to the city attorney for a possible misdemeanor case. 

Avenatti, 47, was arrested on suspicion of felony domestic violence last week after his girlfriend told police he abused her at his Los Angeles apartment following an argument. 

A restraining order against Avenatti was issued after actress Mareli Miniutti said he dragged her by the arm across a bedroom floor. 

Avenatti, who had called the allegations “completely false” and a fabrication, said in a statement he was thankful the district attorney had rejected the charges. 

“This Thanksgiving,” he said, “I am especially grateful for justice.” 

A spokeswoman for the district attorney would not say why prosecutors declined to take the case from Los Angeles police. Documents supporting the decision were not released because the case was referred to the city attorney and is still under investigation. 

Avenatti, who is mulling a presidential run, is best known as the attorney for porn actress Stormy Daniels, who has said she had sex with President Donald Trump in 2006, a claim Trump denies. 

As Daniels’ lawyer, Avenatti has pursued the president and those close to him relentlessly for months, taunting Trump in interviews and baiting him and his lawyers in tweets. 

Miniutti said in her request for a restraining order that she was wearing only a T-shirt and underwear when he grabbed her by the arm and dragged her out of the bed. She said she was scratched on her side and leg. Court papers include photographs that appear to show bruises. 

The order was granted Monday. 

Avenatti said that he would be vindicated once footage from security cameras in the building was reviewed, even though the violence described by Miniutti would not have occurred in the building’s public areas. 
…

your ad here

Suicide Rate Rising Among US Workers, CDC Study Finds

Posted on by SeeUS

Suicide rates are rising among U.S. workers, and the risk may depend partly on the types of jobs people do, government researchers suggest. 

From 2000 to 2016, the U.S. suicide rate among those aged 16 to 64 rose 34 percent, from 12.9 deaths for every 100,000 people in the population to 17.3 per 100,000, according to the study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 

The highest suicide rate among men was for workers in construction and mining jobs, with 43.6 deaths for every 100,000 workers in 2012 and 53.2 deaths per 100,000 in 2015, the analysis found. 

The highest suicide rate among women was for workers in arts, design, entertainment, sports and media, with 11.7 fatalities for every 100,000 workers in 2012 and 15.6 deaths per 100,000 in 2015. 

“Since most adults spend a great deal of their time at work, the workplace is an important and underutilized venue for suicide prevention,” said study co-author Deborah Stone, a behavioral scientist at the CDC in Atlanta. 

While the study wasn’t designed to prove whether or how specific types of jobs or workplace characteristics might contribute to the risk of suicide, lack of control over employment and a lack of job security can both be stressors that make suicide more likely, Stone said by email. 

Many factors outside the workplace can also influence the risk of suicide, including relationship problems, substance use, physical or mental health, finances or legal problems, Stone added. 

And ready access to guns and other weapons have a big impact on whether suicidal thoughts turn into actions with fatal outcomes, Stone said. 

Guns may explain the higher suicide rates among men than among women, said Gary Namie, director of the Workplace Bullying Institute in Boise, Idaho. 

“In America, with ready access to guns, men make the choice of death by gun, but it is the less likely choice by females,” Namie, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email. “Hence, it is possible that in moments of despair that might pass if friends or family could intervene, with a gun handy, the decision is too quickly implemented.” 

Data from 17 states

To assess suicide rates by occupation, the CDC examined data collected from 17 states in 2012 and 2015; the results are not representative of the nation as a whole. The results were published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.  

Although arts, design, entertainment, sports and media had the highest suicide rates among women, this category saw the biggest increase in suicide rate among men during the study. For women, the biggest increase in suicide rates was in the food service industry. 

One limitation of the study is that it didn’t examine suicide methods. It also excluded two groups of Americans that typically have stressors that can increase their risk of suicide: military veterans and unemployed people. 

Even so, the results suggest that employers can play a role in suicide prevention by offering worksite wellness programs, encouraging use of behavioral and mental health services, and training workers in the warning signs of suicide and how to respond, Stone said. 

Promoting social interaction rather than isolation in daily tasks on the job may also help with suicide prevention, along with creating a workplace culture of inclusion that does not allow for abusive conduct or bullying, Namie said. 

The road to suicide begins when one employee begins a “systematic campaign of interpersonal destruction against another employee,” Namie said. “Bullying is the most preventable predictor of suicide.” 
…

your ad here

London Counterterrorism Unit Involved After 2 Devices Found

Posted on by SeeEU

British counterterrorism police are investigating after two devices were found in an unoccupied apartment in northwest London.

Police said Wednesday the “initial assessment” is that the items were improvised explosive devices.

Police said the devices were made safe and neighboring apartments that had been evacuated as a precaution have been re-opened to occupants.

Officials say the surrounding area was searched and has been declared safe. The area had been cordoned off for roughly eight hours.

Police were called to the Craven Park neighborhood Wednesday morning when the two suspicious devices were found in an apartment that was being refurbished.

Officials say they are keeping an open mind about the incident and have asked the public for any information.

The country’s official terrorism threat level is set at “severe.”
…

your ad here

US Setting Up ‘Observation Posts’ Along Turkey-Syria Border

Posted on by SeeEA

The United States is setting up “observation posts” along parts of the border between Turkey and Syria to help keep the focus on defeating Islamic State militants in Syria, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Wednesday.

The observation posts would not require additional U.S. troops being sent to Syria, Mattis told reporters. The Pentagon says it has about 2,000 troops in Syria.

The United States has long been complained that tensions between Turkey and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which includes the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, have at times slowed down progress on fighting Islamic State militants.

The observation posts are aimed at ensuring that Turkey and the SDF remain focused on clearing final Islamic State strongholds.

“We are putting in observation posts in several locations up along the Syria border, northern Syria border, because we want to be the people who call the Turks and warn them if we see something coming out of an area that we’re operating in,” Mattis said.

“What this is designed to do is to make sure that the people we have fighting down in the (middle Euphrates River Valley) are not drawn off that fight, that we can crush what’s left of the geographic caliphate,” Mattis said, referring to areas controlled by Islamic state.

Turkey has been infuriated with Washington’s support for the YPG, which it views as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) waging a decades-long insurgency on Turkish soil.

Islamic State is still present in eastern Syria in a pocket east of the Euphrates River near the border with Iraq.

President Donald Trump’s administration hopes that the U.S.-backed fight against Islamic State in its last foothold in northeastern Syria will end within months but a top U.S. diplomat recently said American forces will remain to ensure the “enduring defeat” of the militant group.

 
…

your ad here

CDC Says US Abortion Rate Fell to Decade Low in 2015

Posted on by SeeUS

A U.S. government agency said Wednesday that abortion rates among American women of all ages fell to a decade low in 2015, which both opponents and supporters of abortion rights attributed in part to individual states’ efforts to restrict women’s access to the procedure. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that statistics for 2015, the most recent year for which data are available, showed the abortion rate was 11.8 per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44. That was down 26 percent from 2006, when the study began and the rate was 15.9 abortions per 1,000 women. 

Teens aged 15 to 19 experienced a greater decrease than older women, with the rate falling 54 percent from 2006 to 2015, the CDC said. 

“This decrease in abortion rate was greater than the decreases for women in any older age group,” the CDC said in a statement. 

The CDC did not provide any reason for the decline, but abortion rights advocates attributed it to increased use of contraceptives as well as decreased access to abortion services in some states. 

“Affordable access to the full range of contraception and family planning options is critical for people deciding if and when they’d like to become parents, develop their careers, plan for their futures and manage their health,” said Rachel Jones, a research scientist at Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research group that supports abortion rights. 

Opponents of abortion rights said the decrease was primarily the result of many states’ efforts to restrict women’s access to the procedure. 

“That is due, in a significant way, to pro-life legislation that seeks to provide life-affirming solutions to abortion, combined with pro-life efforts that educate Americans about the effects of abortion and the humanity of the unborn child,” Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee, said in an email. 

Total yearly number sinks

The total number of reported abortions fell to 638,169 in 2015, from 842,855 in 2006, a 24 percent decrease. In 2015, there were 188 abortions per 1,000 live births, compared with 233 abortions per 1,000 live births in 2006, a drop of 19 percent. 

In 2015, all measures reached their lowest level for the entire period of analysis from 2006 to 2015, the CDC said of the annual study, Abortion Surveillance — United States 2015.  

Conservative state lawmakers are passing increasingly restrictive abortion laws in a challenge to Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 landmark decision that established that women have a constitutional right to have abortions. 

The Republican-controlled Ohio House of Representatives last week approved a measure that would ban abortions at six weeks, while an Iowa law banning abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected is tied up in a court battle. 

Such laws are designed to end up before the Supreme Court, which has become more conservative following President Donald Trump’s appointments of Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. 

The CDC study also showed 91.1 percent of abortions performed in 2015 were in a woman’s first 13 weeks of pregnancy. There was also a shift toward earlier abortions, with the number performed at six weeks or less increasing 11 percent. 
…

your ad here

White House Approves Use of Force by Troops at Border  

Posted on by SeeUS

The Trump administration is allowing troops stationed at the U.S.-Mexico border to engage in some law enforcement activities and, if necessary, use lethal force. 

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis confirmed to reporters on Wednesday that he had received a Cabinet order signed by White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, not President Donald Trump, making engagement guidelines less restrictive. 

“The president did see a need to back up the Border Patrol [officers], and we received late last night an additional instruction authorizing us to implement additional measures. We’re sizing up what those are. We already talked with folks over at DHS [Department of Homeland Security],” Mattis said. 

He added that he wouldn’t take any action unless he heard from DHS. 

“The secretary of homeland security has to ask me to do stuff.  I now have the authority to do more. Now we’ll see what she asks me for,” Mattis said. 

‘Minimal risk’

The New York Times reported Wednesday that an internal DHS document said U.S. border guards faced a “minimal” risk of violence in encounters with migrants.

The Cabinet order that Mattis received, first reported by the Military Times, allows military personnel to perform activities that the secretary of defense “determines are reasonably necessary to protect border agents, including a show or use of force (including lethal force, where necessary), crowd control, temporary detention and cursory search.” 

Mattis downplayed the order, however. 

“I think part of this is just putting in the crowd-control barriers and the barbed wire. If there’s one thing you don’t want to walk through, any of us as human beings, it’s barbed wire. Even cows are smart enough to stay away from that stuff,” he said. 

Allowing military personnel to take on law enforcement activities would most likely be challenged in court. The 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, in connection with the Insurrection Act of 1807, limits the federal government’s power to use military personnel to enforce domestic policies.

In an email to VOA, Hina Shamsi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project, said the Cabinet order was an “unnecessary escalation of a political stunt that risks harm to civilians and legal jeopardy for the military. In addition to serious concerns about violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, it’s hard to see how John Kelly, a civilian White House official, has the authority to issue any such order.” 

Most unarmed

But Mattis pointed out that though military police would have shields and batons, most of the troops at the border aren’t even armed. “There’s no violation here at all. … We’ll stay strictly according to the law,” he said. 

He also confirmed he has final say over the use of force by the military at the border. “The president has delegated that to me. Yes,” he added. 

Trump has so far deployed about 5,800 active-duty service members to the border, along with 2,100 National Guard troops. 

Mattis also told reporters some military personnel could “certainly” be home for the holidays.  

“So as long as DHS doesn’t assign us more missions to lay more wire, which they could, then we could anticipate they’d be home,” he said. “I would anticipate they would be, but some troops may not be, or some new troops may be assigned to new missions. This is a dynamic situation.” 

Some information for this report came from AFP.
…

your ad here

German Car Bosses Reportedly Invited to White House to Discuss Tariffs 

Posted on by SeeEU

The Trump administration has invited the heads of Volkswagen, BMW and Daimler to the White House to discuss U.S. tariffs on carmakers, the Handelsblatt newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Citing industry and diplomatic sources, the paper said the meeting could possibly take place as soon as next week, depending on circumstances. Handelsblatt said it was not known whether U.S. President Donald Trump would attend the meeting.

A spokesman for Volkswagen declined to confirm or deny whether the carmaker had received an invitation. Sources close to VW said it had not received an invitation.

 

Daimler and BMW did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump has threatened for months to impose tariffs on all European Union-assembled vehicles, a move that could up-end the industry’s business model for selling cars in the United States.

But he has refrained from imposing car tariffs while the United States and European Union launch negotiations to cut other trade barriers.
…

your ad here

Repatriated 6th-Century Mosaic to Help Reconstitute Apse

Posted on by SeeEU

A rare, 1,500 year-old mosaic depicting St. Mark has joined other repatriated pieces that were looted from the ethnically split Cyprus’ breakaway north, a Cypriot Orthodox Church official said Wednesday.

Together the pieces will create a Swiss government-funded reproduction of an apse that adorned a 6th-century church in the island’s north.

The mosaics were stolen by Turkish art dealer Aydin Dikman from the Church of the Virgin of Kanakaria about four decades ago and sold abroad.

Cyprus’ Byzantine Museum Director Ioannis Eliades said the apse will go on display at the museum until it can return to the Kanakaria church.

“This is a major project that we had envisioned for many years to restore these pieces and now we have the last piece,” Eliades told The Associated Press.

“Especially such a mosaic which dates to the same period as the Ravenna mosaics is of particular importance, of great architectural value and … also has a very high religious value.”

The Kanakaria mosaics are among a few early Christian works that survived the iconoclastic period in the 8th and 9th centuries when most of such works were destroyed.

The St. Mark mosaic returned to Cyprus after Dutch investigator Arthur Brand tracked it down in Monaco and handed it over to authorities at the Cypriot Embassy in the Netherlands last week.

The Cyprus Antiquities Department said that initial information about the mosaic’s whereabouts was provided to Cypriot authorities two years ago by the Greek-American organization AHEPA.

The department said pieces of the mosaics including those of Saints Luke, Bartholomew, Matthew, James, Thaddeus, Thomas and Andrew as well as the upper part of the Virgin Mary and Christ were gradually repatriated since 1983, but more pieces are still missing.
…

your ad here

What is Interpol?

Posted on by SeeEU

Interpol is the world’s largest global police organization, consisting of 194 member countries.

The group was officially created in 1923 as the International Criminal Police Commission, but became known as Interpol in 1956.

 

The idea for the organization was broached in 1914 at the first International Criminal Police Congress in Monaco. Law enforcement officials from 24 countries met there to discuss policing procedures and techniques and centralized international criminal records.

The organization says it has developed high-tech infrastructure to help “meet the growing challenges of fighting crime in the 21st century.”

Red Notices

One such tool at Interpol’s disposal is the Red Notice, a request to “locate and provisionally arrest an individual pending extradition.”

Red Notices, which alert police departments around the world, are issued by the General Secretariat on behalf of a member country or an international tribunal.

The notices raise the visibility of cases, allowing law enforcement authorities to identify criminals and suspects and share information.

For example, a country searching for a terrorist or other criminal outside its borders can issue a notice to alert police in other countries and seek arrests.

The secretary-general, currently German police official Juergen Stock, runs Interpol’s operations.

The group also has a president who is not as directly involved in operations, instead devoting much of his time to general oversight and presiding over the group’s general assembly and executive committee.

New chief

Member nations elected South Korea’s Kim Jong Yang as Interpol’s new president on Wednesday. He defeated Russia’s Alexander Prokopchuk amid U.S.-led warnings the Kremlin would try to leverage the position to hunt down political opponents and fugitive dissidents.

Interpol’s charter says the organization cannot be used for political reasons.

 
…

your ad here

A New Era In Ethiopia – Straight Talk Africa

Posted on by SeeAF

In this episode of Straight Talk Africa veteran journalist Shaka Ssali explores the challenges of major social and political reforms in Ethiopia that the new Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is undertaking. He is joined by Negussie Mengesha, Director of the VOA Africa Division, Nunu Wako, political analyst, Kone Feseha of the Ethiopian Dialogue Forum and Elias Wondimu, CEO of Tsehai Publishers.
…

your ad here

Calls for Dialogue with Cameroon’s Separatists Increase after Spate of Kidnappings

Posted on by SeeAF

Cameroon’s military says it has freed nine students and a teacher who were kidnapped this week from a school in one of the country’s restive English-speaking regions. It is the third time this month that students have been abducted from schools in the Anglophone regions.

Senior divisional officer Nto’ou Ndong Chamberlin says several gunmen were killed Wednesday in the military operation, and other armed men responsible for the abduction are on the run. The teacher was wounded in the rescue.   

“Nine guns have been seized, four neutralized — among them the head of the team, called ‘Man of Lucks,’ and three bikes destroyed and even the camp has also been burned down by the forces of law and order [military],” Chamberlin said.

Gunmen kidnapped the students and their teacher Tuesday evening from Lords Bilingual School in Kumba, a city in Cameroon’s southwest region.

The kidnapping comes three weeks after gunmen kidnapped and then released 79 students and three staff from a school in the neighboring northwest region. 

Eleven students were later kidnapped from the same Presbyterian Secondary School. Church moderator Fonki Samuel said a $4,000 ransom was paid to the abductors for their release. 

Pierre Marie Abbe, a political analyst at the Catholic University of Central Africa, says the government’s war against the separatists has been a failure.

The government should drop the idea of war and organize dialogue with English-speaking Cameroonians, Abbe said. But for such a dialogue to be successful, he added, the government should meet Anglophone Cameroonians to find out from them who they see as their true leaders. 

The government says separatists in the two English-speaking regions have torched at least a hundred schools and abducted or killed dozens of teachers. More than 90 percent of the regions’ schools remain closed. 

The international community and rights groups have condemned violence from both sides and called on the government to negotiate an end to the crisis.

“The U.N. has, along with most of the international community, asked for dialogue,” said Allegra Maria Del Pilar Baiocchi, the U.N. resident coordinator for Cameroon. “We need to hear the voices of the people saying we have had enough and we want solutions. It should not only be the U.N. saying it or the ambassadors. We need confidence-building measures and I think we need peace.”

Unrest broke out in Cameroon’s western regions in 2016, when English-speaking teachers and lawyers protested the dominance of French-speakers.

Cameroon’s military reacted with a crackdown, and armed separatists soon launched a campaign for independence.

Clashes since have killed more than 1,200 people.  
…

your ad here

US Calls for Credible Elections in DR Congo

Posted on by SeeAF

The United States is calling for peaceful and credible elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where campaigns for next month’s polls begin Friday.

In a statement Wednesday, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert says the December 23 elections give the DRC “a historic opportunity” to conduct a peaceful and democratic transfer of power.

She suggested a credible vote will also help Congo alleviate its humanitarian crisis, attract foreign investment, and stabilize central Africa.

The elections were originally due to take place in 2016, but were delayed as President Joseph Kabila refused to leave office at the end of his mandate. 

Kabila, who has ruled the DRC since 2001, is now stepping aside and has endorsed a former interior minister, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, to be his successor.

Congolese authorities have blocked several opposition leaders from running for president, most prominently former vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba.

Opposition parties agreed to unite behind a single candidate for the election, businessman Martin Fayulu. But two opposition leaders, Felix Tshisekedi and Vital Kamerhe, have since pulled out of the agreement.
…

your ad here

Trump Thanks Saudis for Tamping Down World Oil Prices

Posted on by SeeEA

U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday thanked Saudi Arabia for tamping down world oil prices, a day after saying the U.S. would not turn its back on Riyadh despite its responsibility for killing a dissident U.S.-based Saudi journalist.

From his retreat along the Atlantic Ocean in Florida, Trump praised the Saudis, second only to the U.S. as an oil producer but the biggest global exporter, for sending enough crude to world markets to keep oil prices in check.

Before leaving Washington for the Thanksgiving holiday, Trump told reporters at the White House that U.S. national security and economic interests outweigh any human rights concerns. He said turning his back on Saudi Arabia, despite the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, “would be a terrible mistake.”

“We’re staying with Saudi Arabia,” Trump announced. He noted the kingdom’s opposition to Iran and its purchases of American military equipment that mean, according to the president, “hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of investment.”

Russia and China “are not going to get that gift,” Trump said before adding that oil prices would soar if the U.S.-Saudi relationship is broken up.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in an interview with a Kansas City radio station, defended Trump’s stance favoring Saudi Arabia, while noting that the U.S. had sanctioned 17 Saudis believed involved in the Khashoggi killing.

“We are going to make sure that America always stands for human rights,” Pompeo said.

But the top U.S. diplomat said the protection of Americans was of paramount concern to Trump.

“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been an important national security partner to the United States, pushing back against the murderous regime in Iran that actually presents real risk to the American people, and we are determined to make sure that the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia stays strong so that we can protect America,” Pompeo said.

‘Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t’

Asked at the White House about the CIA’s reported conclusion that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman likely knew about or ordered the plot to kill Khashoggi inside Riyadh’s consulate in Istanbul, Trump replied: “Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t.” Of the CIA’s finding, he declared: “They have nothing definitive.”

The president denied his decision to avoid harshly punishing the Saudis for the October 2 killing has anything to do with his personal business interests.

“I don’t make deals with Saudi Arabia. I don’t make money from Saudi Arabia,” Trump said. “Being president has cost me a fortune.”  

Trump said earlier he understands that some lawmakers in Congress want to pursue sanctions against Riyadh for the killing “for political or other reasons” and said, “They are free to do so.”

“I will consider whatever ideas are presented to me, but only if they are consistent with the absolute security and safety of America,” Trump said.

But the leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Republican Bob Corker and Democrat Robert Menendez, sent a letter to Trump Tuesday reminding him U.S. law requires him to examine whether the crown prince ordered Khashoggi’s death.

The Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act requires the president to determine if a foreign official is responsible for a human rights violation.

The act is named for Russian accountant Sergei Magnitsky who was apparently beaten to death in prison in 2009 after accusing Russian officials of tax fraud.

 

“I never thought I’d see the day a White House would moonlight as a public relations firm for the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia,” Senator Corker tweeted Tuesday. He added that  Congress will consider “all the tools at our disposal” to determine the role of the crown prince in the Khashoggi killing. 

Khashoggi lived in the United States, writing opinion articles for The Washington Post that were critical of the crown prince and Riyadh’s military involvement in Yemen.

His editor at the Post, Karen Attiah, described Trump’s statement as “full of lies and a blatant disregard for his own intelligence agencies. It also shows an unforgivable disregard for the lives of Saudis who dare criticize the regime. This is a new low.”

 

U.S Intelligence Community

.

Veterans of the U.S. Intelligence Community are also expressing their disdain with the president’s stance.

Former CIA Director John Brennan, who has repeatedly clashed with Trump, said on Twitter that Trump “excels in dishonesty” so now it is up to Congress to obtain and declassify the CIA findings on Khashoggi’s death.

“No one in Saudi Arabia — most especially the Crown Prince — should escape accountability for such a heinous act,” Brennan wrote.

Former CIA officer Ned Price wondered Tuesday “how appointed intelligence leaders could continue to serve after this betrayal is beyond me.”

A Saudi prosecutor cleared the crown prince of wrongdoing last week while calling for the death penalty for five of the 11 suspects indicted in the killing.  The prosecutor said a total of 21 people have been detained.

Turkish officials concluded that Khashoggi was tortured and killed and his body dismembered. His remains have not been found.

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Tuesday Turkey might formally seek a United Nations investigation of the killing if cooperation with Riyadh reaches an impasse.
…

your ad here

Amnesty to Expand Probe of US-Led Campaign in Syria’s Raqqa

Posted on by SeeEA

Amnesty International said Wednesday it’s enlisting the help of thousands of online activists to speed up its investigation into the U.S.-led campaign that drove Islamic State militants from their self-styled capital of Raqqa but left the Syrian city in ruins.

The London-based rights group said the new phase of its investigation enables thousands of online activists, using satellite imagery of the city, to map out the destruction over the four-month campaign, which ended in October 2017.

 

The U.N estimates that more than 10,000 buildings were destroyed — or 80 percent of the city. Amnesty’s Strike Tracker campaign, in partnership with Airwars, would help narrow down when and where coalition air and artillery strikes destroyed buildings.

 

Amnesty hopes to compel the U.S-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group to take greater responsibility and conduct its own investigation into the deaths of hundreds of civilians.

 

The coalition says it worked to avoid civilian casualties in Raqqa. Col. Sean Ryan, a spokesman for the coalition, said it is “always willing to review if new evidence is reported.”

 

Amnesty said the scale of devastation in Raqqa is “too large” for its teams to do it alone.

 

By enlisting thousands of activists for the month-long project, Amnesty said it can save years of work by a small team of researchers processing endless amount of data.

 

“The Strike Tracker asks people around the world to join us to analyze one building at a time and establish when it was destroyed in a strike,” said Milena Marin, senior adviser on Amnesty’s Crisis Response team. The data would then be corroborated with other evidence, such as videos and strike and casualty reports.

 

“We are hoping to build a comprehensive picture of what happened last year and with the evidence to advocate the coalition, to again, admit responsibility in their operations,” she said.

 

In an earlier phase of Amnesty’s investigation inside Raqqa, the group provided new evidence that compelled the coalition to acknowledge 77 civilian deaths. In total, the coalition has acknowledged 104 civilian deaths from the hard-fought campaign.

 

“With bodies still being recovered from the wreckage and mass graves more than a year later, this is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Marin.

 

Some 2,500 bodies have been pulled from the rubble and uncovered in mass graves, and searches are still underway. Amnesty suspects hundreds of civilians died in the campaign.

 

Amnesty hopes to publish results of the research early next year.

 

Raqqa was the capital of the Islamic State group’s self-styled caliphate, which once encompassed a third of Syria and Iraq. In recent years the group has been driven from virtually all the territory it once controlled, and holds just a few small, remote pockets in Syria.

 
…

your ad here

Africa 54

Posted on by SeeAF

We are live. Join us and let us know from what part of the world you are watching us.
…

your ad here

Mattis: Yemen Peace Talks Expected in Early December

Posted on by SeeEA

U.N. envoy Martin Griffiths is in war-torn Yemen to prepare for peace talks after fresh fighting erupted in the key port of Hodeida.

Griffiths was scheduled to meet with Iran-aligned Houthi officials in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa in an attempt to persuade them and the Saudi-backed Yemeni government to begin negotiations in Sweden by year’s end.  The peace process collapsed in Switzerland in September when Houthi rebels failed to appear.

Both sides recently expressed support for Griffiths’ efforts, but the eruption of violence after a lull raised the possibility talks could be derailed.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Wednesday he expected the warring parties would hold peace talks in Sweden early next month.

Monday in New York, U.N. Security Council member Britain circulated a draft resolution to the rest of the council, calling for a cease-fire in Yemen, a halt to attacks on civilian areas, and unhindered access to Hodeida.

The port is under rebel control and is a lifeline for food, fuel, and humanitarian aid to the suffering population.

The Saudis have accused Iran of sending arms to the rebels through the port, a charge it denies.

The Trump administration has joined its Western allies in demanding a cease-fire in Yemen. The United States has stopped providing refueling services to Saudi coalition aircraft that attack Yemen.

The Houthis seized Sanaa in 2014, forcing the government to flee to exile in Saudi Arabia.

The group has since relocated to the southern Yemeni city of Aden.

Saudi-led airstrikes aimed at driving out the Houthis have killed thousands of people and wiped out entire civilian neighborhoods, including hospitals.

The fighting has compounded the misery in Yemen, which is also dealing with mass starvation and a cholera outbreak.

The war has created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.

The World Health Organization estimates nearly 10,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Yemen since the Saudis intervened in March 2015. Some human rights groups, however, believe the death toll may be five times higher.

The International aid group Save the Children said in a report Wednesday about 85,000 children may have died of starvation and disease since March 2015.

The United Nations estimates more than 1.3 million children have suffered from severe malnutrition since the war began, it says up to 14 million Yemenis are at risk of starvation if the port is closed by violence or damage.
…

your ad here

Lack of Money, Status Prevent Refugees in Kenya From Getting Clean Energy

Posted on by SeeAF

One of the United Nations’ sustainable development goals is to provide clean and reliable energy to people worldwide. The residents of the Kakuma refugee camp in northern Kenya are among those in need of better energy sources to light, cook and work in their homes. But progress has been held up by their murky legal status and their lack of money to buy the products. Mohammed Yusuf reports.
…

your ad here

US Endorses S. Korean Candidate as Interpol Votes For President

Posted on by SeeUS

Interpol’s general assembly is voting to choose a new president at a meeting Wednesday in Dubai, with a member of Russia’s Interior Ministry considered the front-runner in the race.

Alexander Prokopchuk currently serves as one of Interpol’s vice presidents. Kremlin critics say putting Prokopchuk in charge of Interpol would politicize the organization.

Four U.S. Senators have called on the Trump administration to outright oppose Prokopchuk. They accuse him of being “personally involved” in what they call Russia’s routine “abuses of Interpol for the purpose of settling scores and harassing political opponents, dissidents, and journalists.”

Interpol presidents serve for a period of four years. The next president will replace China’s Meng Hongwei, who disappeared while visiting his native country in late September and was later said to be detained on bribery allegations.

South Korea’s Kim Jong Yang became Interpol’s acting leader, and on Tuesday U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo strongly endorsed him to win the election.

“We encourage all nations and organizations that are part of Interpol and that respect the rule of law to choose a leader of credibility and integrity that reflects one of the world’s most critical law enforcement bodies,” Pompeo said.

The Kremlin says opposition to a Russian candidate is election interference.

U.S.-born British fund manager and Kremlin critic Bill Browder, who has been the subject of several Interpol arrest warrants requested by Russia, says electing a Russian official to lead Interpol could intensify Russian government efforts to silence critics.

“This is a perfect way for Putin to basically breathe the fear of God into all of his enemies, so that they know they can’t even escape Russia if one of his guys is at the head of Interpol.”
…

your ad here

Witness at ‘El Chapo’ Trial Tells of High-Level Corruption

Posted on by SeeUS

A witness at the U.S. drug trafficking trial of accused Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman on Tuesday testified that he paid a multimillion-dollar bribe to an underling of Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in 2005. The witness, Jesus Zambada, also said he paid millions of dollars in bribes to former Mexican government official Genaro Garcia Luna on behalf of his brother, drug lord Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, who remains at large.

A spokesman for Lopez Obrador did not immediately respond to a call and text message seeking comment.

Garcia Luna, in a written statement, said the accusations were “defamation” and “perjury” and made without any proof. Garcia Luna said he had received commendations from high-level U.S. officials for his labors in fighting organized crime in Mexico and that he had been “systematically defamed” due to the actions he took against criminal networks. “There has never been a single proof or evidence of all those infamies,” he said.

Zambada gave his testimony about the bribes on the fifth day of trial under cross-examination by one of Guzman’s lawyers, William Purpura. Guzman’s lawyers have said they will try to prove that Guzman is being scapegoated and that Ismael Zambada was the real head of the Sinaloa Cartel.

Guzman, 61, is charged with 17 criminal counts and faces life in prison if he is convicted. He was extradited to the United States in January 2017, after twice escaping Mexican prisons.

Zambada, who was called to testify against Guzman under an agreement with U.S. prosecutors, previously told jurors that his brother and Guzman worked together for years to move multi-ton shipments of cocaine from Colombia through Mexico into the United States, while arranging for their rivals to be murdered.

During Purpura’s cross-examination, Zambada said he paid “a few million” dollars to a Mexico City government official while Lopez Obrador was head of government there. He said the bribe was paid because it was believed at the time that the official could become Mexico’s next secretary of public security. The name of the official was not immediately clear from the court testimony. But Gabriel Regino, a former subsecretary of public security in Mexico City who is now a criminal law professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, wrote on Twitter that an accusation of bribery had emerged against him in the trial but was false.

Zambada also said under cross-examination that he handed a suitcase containing $3 million to Garcia Luna in 2005 or 2006, when Garcia Luna was director of Mexico’s Federal Investigation Agency.

Garcia Luna said the charge was “unbelievable” since he was not able to appoint officials to posts, as Zambada alleged, and such designations were made by a council. Zamabda said he gave him another $3 million to $5 million in 2007, when he had become secretary of public security, to secure favorable treatment for the cartel.

Garcia Luna said he never had contact with Zambada and there was a public record of all his meetings in and out of the office when he was secretary of public security.
…

your ad here

Hook: US Sanctions on Iran Have Had Almost ‘Entire’ Global Compliance

Posted on by SeeUS

A senior Trump administration official says tough U.S. sanctions re-imposed on Iran earlier this month have been effective, with “almost entire compliance” from the international community. 

U.S. Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook made the comment in a sit-down interview with VOA’s Arabic-language sister network Alhurra in Dubai on Monday. 

“We have seen almost entire compliance with our sanctions regime,” Hook said. “And we don’t anticipate having to sanction any major companies, because we haven’t seen any evidence that these companies want to choose the Iranian market over the United States market.”

Washington re-imposed sanctions on Iran’s energy and banking sectors on Nov. 5 as part of a campaign to pressure Tehran into reaching a new agreement to stop its perceived malign behaviors. President Donald Trump withdrew in May from a 2015 deal in which his predecessor and five other world powers granted sanctions relief to Iran in return for a freeze on its sensitive nuclear activities.

Under the re-imposed energy sanctions, the Trump administration has threatened to penalize any entity that buys Iranian oil and gas  the main revenue sources for Iran’s government. But Washington also gave eight of Iran’s biggest energy customers, among international governments, another six months to reduce Iranian energy imports to zero.

Those governments include China, Taiwan, India, Turkey, Japan, South Korea, Italy and Greece. U.S. officials said the move is intended to prevent a spike in oil prices.

“We’ve been working very well with China and India, who have dramatically reduced their imports of Iranian oil,” Hook said. “It’s very important to go after the money, and for Iran, that means going after the oil revenue.” 

In a sign of ongoing defiance toward the U.S. sanctions campaign, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Monday his government will “not yield to economic and psychological pressure.”

Iran’s state-run Press TV network said Rouhani was speaking to a large gathering in the northwestern city of Khoy. 

“We know you’re angry! [But] correct your mistakes! You cannot cut Iran’s oil exports,” Rouhani said, in reference to the U.S. 

In his Alhurra interview, Hook said the U.S. sanctions campaign has forced Iran to cut 1 million barrels of oil from its daily output, equivalent to $2 billion in lost revenue.  

“This is a regime that, since 2013, has spent $16 billion in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, supporting various militias and missile proliferation all sorts of threats to peace and security,” Hook said. “Our sanctions are the toughest that have been imposed in history against Iran … as part of a campaign of maximum economic pressure so that the regime changes its behavior.”

This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service.
…

your ad here