December 2018 - Page 10 of 15

US Congressman Backs ‘Material Support’ to Help Iranians ‘Overcome’ Islamist Rulers

Posted on 12/13/2018 by SeeEA

A U.S. Republican lawmaker sponsoring a bill to support a democratic and secular Iran says Washington should provide Iranians with material support to help them “overcome” their Islamist rulers.

U.S. Representative Tom McClintock spoke to VOA Persian late Tuesday at a Christmas celebration held by the Organization of Iranian American Communities (OIAC) at Washington’s Rayburn House Office Building.

“I believe it is increasingly important that we provide (Iranians) with material support that they need to overcome the tyranny in Tehran,” McClintock said, without specifying what form that support should take. “In previous years, we provided cash on cargo pallets to the mullahs, cash used to oppress the Iranian people. Now we owe it to the Iranian people to provide the resistance with the kind of material support that we once gave the mullahs.”

McClintock was referring to the Obama administration’s Jan. 17, 2016, air cargo delivery of cash worth $400 million to Tehran as part of a settlement of a decades-old arbitration claim between the U.S. and Iran. The transfer happened on the same day that Iran agreed to release four American prisoners, leading the Democratic president’s Republican critics to denounce the cash delivery as a ransom payment.

House resolution

McClintock is the sponsor of a House resolution that expresses support for the Iranian people’s “desire for a democratic, secular, and non-nuclear Republic of Iran.” The bill also condemns what it calls Iranian state-sponsored terrorism. It was referred to the House Foreign Affairs Committee in July and has gained 103 co-sponsors since then.

Iran sees itself as a victim, rather than a perpetrator, of terrorism. Tehran also denies U.S. accusations that it seeks to divert what it calls a peaceful nuclear program to making weapons.

OIAC, a supporter of McClintock’s bill, is a nonprofit group that seeks to mobilize Iranian-Americans to support what it calls the Iranian people’s “struggle for democratic change” and a “non-nuclear government.” It is allied to exiled Iranian dissident movement Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), which leads the France-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and advocates the overthrow of “religious dictatorship” in Iran. Islamist clerics have led the nation since its 1979 Islamic Revolution.

A bipartisan group of nine House members attended and spoke at the OIAC event, four Republicans and five Democrats. The speakers included Republican lawmakers McClintock, Dana Rohrabacher, Mike Coffman and Ted Poe, and Democratic lawmakers Eliot Engel, Brad Sherman, Sheila Jackson Lee, Judy Chu and Steve Cohen.

In a separate interview with VOA Persian at the event, Engel, the presumptive chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee in the next congressional session that begins in January, said he supports freedom for the people of Iran, but he stopped short of calling for U.S. material support as favored by McClintock.

“I want the people of Iran to know that the people of the U.S. are aware of what is happening in their country and that we stand with the people of Iran, not with the oppressive regime, not with the mullahs in Tehran,” Engel said. “We don’t attempt to tell the people of Iran what kind of government they should elect. They should just have the freedom to be able to do that … the same kind of freedom that American people have.”

Anniversary of protests

OIAC used the event to mark the first anniversary of mass anti-government protests that erupted across Iran in late December 2017 and continued into the first week of January 2018. At least 25 people were killed, among them protesters and security personnel, as the demonstrations turned violent.

Since then, frequent smaller-scale protests have taken place across the country, with Iranians expressing anger toward government officials and business leaders they accuse of corruption, mismanagement and oppression.

This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service.
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Yemen Peace Talks Set to End Thursday

Posted on 12/13/2018 by SeeEA

The first peace talks on Yemen in two years are scheduled to end Thursday, with U.N. mediators hoping to make progress on several key issues.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will join the final day of talks near Stockholm to encourage both sides to keep building on what has been achieved so far.

The Saudi-backed Yemeni government and the Iranian-supported Houthi rebels have agreed on a huge prisoner swap. Reports say they are close to deals to reopen Sanaa’s airport, and restart oil and gas exports to help the cash-starved country earn revenue.

But the situation in the rebel-held port of Hodeida is still a major source of contention.

Both sides have rejected an initial proposal to withdraw fighters and arms from the city and turn it over to a temporary U.N. administration.

Nearly all food and humanitarian aid deliveries come through the port, and any hindrance in those deliveries puts more lives at risk.

The Saudi-led coalition backing Yemeni forces says the rebels get Iranian arms thorough the port, a charge Iran denies.

Coalition airstrikes against the Houthis have been widely indiscriminate, wiping out entire civilian neighborhoods and hospitals.

A Saudi missile hit a busload of schoolchildren in August near Sanaa, killing 40. The coalition called the missile strike a “mistake.”

The U.S. Senate began to debate a measure to end U.S. support to the Saudi military involvement in Yemen.

The lawmakers are not just sickened by the bloodshed and attacks against children. They are upset over the killing of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, allegedly at the behest of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and President Donald Trump’s tepid criticism of the Saudi government.

Trump is unwilling to anger a major U.S. ally like Saudi Arabia. But he told Reuters Tuesday, “I hate to see what’s going on in Yemen. But it takes two to tango. I’d want to see Iran pull out of Yemen.”

Both sides in the peace talks say they plan to meet again early next year.

The fighting between the Houthis and Yemeni forces broke out in 2014, when the rebels seized the capital, Sanaa. Tens of thousands of people have been killed, including countless civilians.

Many experts say the fighting is a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

The U.N. calls Yemen the world’s worst humanitarian disaster. With the county on the brink of famine, nearly 80 percent of the population lack enough food, clean water and proper medical care.
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US Senate Delays Vote on Resolution on Saudi Campaign in Yemen

Posted on 12/13/2018 by SeeUS

The U.S. Senate adjourned late Wednesday, delaying its vote on a resolution to end American support for Saudi Arabia’s military intervention in Yemen’s civil war.

The Senate will reconvene Thursday at 9:30 a.m. EST (1430 UTC) and resume consideration of the resolution.

A vote is planned at 1:45 p.m. EST (1845 UTC). A handful of Republican senators are expected to join Democrats in ultimately passing the resolution.

Earlier Wednesday, the Republican-led chamber voted 60-39 to begin debate on the measure, acting in defiance of the Trump administration, which had strenuously argued against a rupture of cooperation between Washington and longtime ally Riyadh.

“There needs to be an end to U.S. complicity in the ongoing bombing of civilians and the killing of children (in Yemen), in effect, war crimes,” Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal told VOA.

“This resolution says that in this terrible, horrific war that Congress is prepared to act, and I hope very much that all of us will seize this opportunity,” Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who co-authored the measure, said.

War powers authority

Underpinning the resolution is an assertion of Congress’ constitutional duty to declare war and approve U.S. military missions. The U.S. legislature has not authorized America’s support role in Saudi Arabia’s campaign to combat Iranian-backed Yemeni rebels, a conflict that has led to widespread civilian deaths and stands as one of the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophes.

But some argued that, in this instance, the case for asserting war powers authority is weak.

“The United States is not involved in combat (in Yemen). It is not dropping ordinance. It is no longer even providing air-to-air refueling (for Saudi warplanes),” Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said. “If the Senate wants to pick a constitutional fight with the executive branch over war powers, I would advise my colleagues to pick a better case.”

Top Trump administration officials have argued that the conflict in Yemen would be even deadlier without the involvement of the United States, which has helped Saudi Arabia identify bombing targets. McConnell echoed the argument.

“This resolution would threaten other support the U.S. is providing that is designed to improve coalition targeting and to limit civilian casualties,” the majority leader said.

Congressional ire toward Saudi Arabia had been simmering for years as Yemen’s civil war dragged on with ever-higher civilian death tolls. Anger spiked after dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed in the kingdom’s consulate in Turkey two months ago.

Speaking at the United Nations Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo noted that the Trump administration has sanctioned “a large number of persons who were responsible for the heinous murder of Jamal Khashoggi,” adding, “(W)e will continue to investigate and take the facts where they lead and get to a place where we hold those responsible accountable.”

But Pompeo stressed that “America’s interests in the region are important, and our partnership with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is an important one. It has delivered American security in important ways in President Trump’s first two years in office, and we intend to continue to work with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to keep America safe.”

Trump has said that responsibility for Khashoggi’s death remains an open question, and he noted Riyadh’s repeated denials that the kingdom’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, played a role.

The Senate took up the Yemen resolution hours after CIA Director Gina Haspel briefed leaders of the House of Representatives on the agency’s conclusions about the Khashoggi killing. Haspel similarly briefed key senators last week, after which lawmakers of both parties said they were convinced MSB ordered the journalist’s grisly demise.

While the Senate resolution, if approved, would send a strong signal of displeasure to Saudi Arabia, it is likely to stand as a largely symbolic gesture for now. Swift House action became less likely after the chamber advanced a rule blocking a vote on any war powers resolution relating to Yemen for the remainder of the current Congress.

Senators of both parties have said they expect further consideration of Saudi Arabia-related measures when the new Congress is sworn in at the beginning of next year.
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Britain’s May Survives Confidence Vote, Fails to Tame Critics

Posted on 12/13/2018 by SeeEU

There wasn’t much of a honeymoon Wednesday for Britain’s embattled Theresa May after she survived a bid to oust her by critics from her own Conservative party.

Standing outside No. 10 Downing Street after an internal party vote she won but not emphatically, May pledged she will “get on with the job of delivering Brexit.”

But the British leader’s opponents from both the euroskeptic and pro-European Union wings of her party were not silenced, warning her survival has done nothing to improve the chances of getting the House of Commons to approve her contentious Brexit deal.

More than a third of the Conservative lawmakers voted against her, preferring to see the party elect a new leader, underscoring the mountain she still has to scale in getting her Brexit deal through a Parliament that has grave doubts about the agreement.

Many in party vote against May

Conservative lawmakers rejected a no-confidence motion to May’s leadership, 200-117, but the win has merely exposed the bitter split in her party over Britain’s departure from the EU and provides no clues as to how May can plot a course out of the Brexit maze, analysts say.

Ominously, most lawmakers who don’t have government jobs or positions voted for May to go.

Even May loyalists conceded privately that her win was hardly a ringing endorsement.

Her critics, as well as Britain’s opposition parties, quickly pointed out that surviving an attempt to topple her changes nothing when it comes to the arithmetic in the House of Commons, where a majority oppose a Brexit withdrawal deal, which took months of haggling with the EU to negotiate.

Before May had even finished talking about a “renewed mission” and her hope of “bringing the country back together,” hardcore euroskeptics in her party announced in a statement, “We cannot and will not support the disastrous withdrawal agreement the prime minister has negotiated.”

General election

They warned that if she pushes ahead with it, the likelihood is that she will be setting the country on course for a general election.

May runs a minority government. With the main parties splintered, the House of Commons is deadlocked, and there’s no majority for anything when it comes to Brexit, including crashing out without a deal, staying in, or holding a second referendum. There is only a majority against her deal.

The warning from Conservative euroskeptics was echoed by Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), whose 10 lawmakers in the House of Commons prop up the minority Conservative government.

The DUP is deeply opposed to the withdrawal agreement that would see Northern Ireland treated differently from the rest of Britain, in order to avoid the imposition of customs checks on the border separating Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. They fear the different treatment will end up weakening the ties between the province and London.

May spoke to DUP leader Arlene Foster shortly before the confidence vote, trying to persuade her to withdraw her opposition to the deal.

Foster later said she “emphasized that tinkering around the edges would not work. … We wanted fundamental legal text changes.”

Brexit vote delayed

On Monday, May delayed a scheduled House of Commons vote on the exit deal as it became clear lawmakers were set to reject it. Defeat would likely force May out of No. 10 Downing Street and possibly trigger the fall of the Conservative government and an early general election.

May’s deal, which tries to square the circle between Britons who want to remain in the EU and Brexiters who want a clean, sharp break, would see Britain locked in a customs union with the EU for several years while it negotiates a more permanent, but vaguely defined, free trade settlement with its largest trading partner.

In the temporary customs union, Britain would be unable to influence EU laws, regulations and product standards it would have to observe. It would be not be able to implement free trade deals with non-EU countries.

Opposition parties also warned that May’s remaining as prime minister would not lessen parliamentary opposition to the deal.

“Tonight’s vote changes nothing,” Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said. “Theresa May has lost her majority in Parliament. Her government is in chaos, and she’s unable to deliver a Brexit deal that works for the country and puts jobs and the economy first.”

It is unclear when a Brexit vote in the House of Commons might take place.

Back to Brussels

Some government managers said the vote could happen next week or even be delayed until next month. All May has said is that it will take place by Jan. 21, a cut-off date for Parliament to get legislation through in time for Britain’s scheduled departure March 29.

May will fly Thursday to Brussels to appeal once again to her fellow EU leaders to agree to concessions. But she tried that Tuesday, criss-crossing Europe on a whistle-stop diplomatic tour that took her to Berlin and The Hague, but got no agreement on anything substantive.
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Former CAR Militia Leader Arrested on Suspicion of War Crimes

Posted on 12/12/2018 by SeeAF

A leading African soccer official was arrested Wednesday in France on charges of war crimes committed in the Central African Republic.

Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court (ICC) said Patrice Edouard Ngaissona was the most senior leader and “national general coordinator” of the anti-Balaka militia.

The ICC said that as the leader of the mostly Christian militia, Ngaissona was suspected of war crimes and crimes against humanity including murder, extermination, deportation, persecution, torture, attacking civilians and recruiting child soldiers.

The anti-Balaka militia was formed in 2013 to counter the Muslim Seleka rebels who seized control of the CAR capital, Bangui and ousted President Francois Bozize. The resulting civil war has killed thousands and displaced hundreds of thousands more.

Ngaissona is head of his country’s national soccer federation. In February, he was elected to the executive committee of the Confederation of African Football, the governing body for soccer on the continent, prompting many to think he was untouchable. But Lewis Mudge, senior researcher in the Africa Division of Human Rights Watch, said the arrest proved “even high-level figures implicated in grave crimes can be arrested to face justice.”

Amnesty International, which named Ngaissona and 19 others as possible war crimes suspects in 2014, called the arrest a “major step forward in the fight against impunity in the Central African Republic.”

Another anti-Balaka leader, Alfred Yekatom, was sent to the ICC at The Hague last month.

ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has said the court is investigating all sides of the conflict, but so far, no Seleka rebels have been publicly charged.
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EU to Offer Ukraine Help Over Azov Sea at Summit

Posted on 12/12/2018 by SeeEU

European Union leaders will offer Ukraine help for its regions affected by Russia’s actions in the Azov Sea when they meet Thursday, according to a draft summit statement seen by Reuters on Wednesday.

But there is no mention of consideration of further sanctions against Russia, reflecting division among member states. Diplomats expect a rollover of existing sanctions but no consensus on increases sought by more hawkish governments.

Condemning Russia, the EU will reiterate its support for Ukrainian sovereignty over Crimea’s 2014 annexation by Moscow and — referring to the capture of Ukrainian naval vessels off Crimea last month — said: “There is no justification for the use of military force by Russia.”

The statement demanded the release of Ukrainian sailors seized during the incident, the return of their vessels and free passage to all ships passing through the Kerch Strait.

It concluded with the offer of financial and other measures to help areas of eastern Ukraine whose maritime access was affected by Moscow’s action.

“The EU stands ready to adopt measures to strengthen further its support in favor of the affected areas of Ukraine,” the statement said.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko met summit chair Donald Tusk in Brussels on Wednesday and will hold talks at NATO headquarters in the city on Thursday. EU leaders will discuss Ukraine and Russia over a summit dinner later in the day.
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Kenya, Jersey Island Sign Deal for Return of Graft Money

Posted on 12/12/2018 by SeeAF

Kenyan officials signed an agreement Tuesday with Jersey, an island off the coast of France, that will pave the way for the return to Kenya of about $5 million stolen from government coffers.

Kenya’s attorney general, Paul Kihara Kariuki, and the external affairs minister from the government of Jersey, Senator Ian Gorst, signed the Framework for Return of Assets from Corruption and Crime, or FRACCK, in Nairobi.

In March of last year, the two governments signed a preliminary asset-sharing agreement that sought to ensure that the stolen funds would be sent back to Kenya.

Gorst said the deal was aimed at strengthening cooperation and would prevent, identify and control illicit financial flows.

“We are transparent in what we are doing in financial services and we meet the highest international standards, but that’s not good enough,” Gorst said. “We also want to partner with countries, and today we are partnering with Kenya to make sure that if Jersey in the past has been used for the proceeds of crime, we will work together and ensure that those proceeds are repatriated for the benefit of communities in those countries.”

The agreement between Kenya and Jersey follows similar arrangements that Kenya has made with Britain and Switzerland.

Kenya and Jersey say the treaty will allow Kenya to recover approximately $5 million worth of assets hidden in accounts on the island.

Kenya’s Kihara said steps are in place to ensure that the money is used lawfully and for the good of the country.

“These proceeds will make a lot of change, let’s say building hospitals where health facilities are not easily accessible,” Kihara said.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, who is in his final term, has intensified the war on corruption.

In June, Kenyatta announced that all public servants would undergo a compulsory “lifestyle audit” to account for the sources of their income and assets. He said corruption will not be tolerated.

This week, a number of high-level Kenyan officials were arrested, arraigned in court and charged with various corruption-related offenses.
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Congo Faces Pivotal Poll After 2 Years of Delays

Posted on 12/12/2018 by SeeAF

The December 23 elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo are the country’s most important in more than a decade. After delaying a new poll for two years, longtime President Joseph Kabila is stepping aside. Two main candidates are vying to replace him, one is his handpicked successor, the other an opposition leader.

After two decades under the Kabila family, Congolese voters face a stark choice when they go to the polls: Continuity, or change?

Kabila is stepping down two years after his mandate expired. His departure from the top job has opened the door to a flood of 21 presidential aspirants and thousands of people jockeying for lower offices.

But in this crowd, only a handful of names stand out. Little-known former interior minister Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary is Kabila’s choice to become Congo’s next president — and he is campaigning heavily on that relationship.

“I was chosen as candidate for the presidential election by President Joseph Kabila,” he told a crowd at a campaign rally.

But Shadary faces stiff competition from a fractured but passionate opposition, including from the son of the late longtime opposition leader.

Felix Tshisekedi, who is widely seen as the frontrunner, entered the race late, after the opposition chose another man as their coalition candidate.

That coalition candidate is confident voters will back him, said businessman Martin Fayulu. However, an October opinion poll conducted by international and local think tanks only gave him about eight percent of the vote.

“We want to leave after us all the bad things that Mr. Kabila has done in this country,” Fayulu told VOA. “The bad things that the 20 years of Kabilisme have done in this country. Corruption, insecurity — the mass killing. That should be something that we have to make a big cause, so we can move ahead and change things in this country.”

But, he said he’s not sure this election will give him that chance. And on this point, the divided opposition sings in the same key: they believe this poll will not be free, fair or transparent.

Rigging machines

An area of particular concern is the electronic voting machines that opposition figures have, repeatedly, described as “rigging machines.”

Adding to that, the government has refused any foreign assistance to hold this poll, saying they’ll do it all themselves, without foreign interference.

Fayulu, who said he will refuse to use a voting machine and will insist on a paper ballot, added that the elections have been a mess from the start.

“The elections, you know, the organization is the worst organization,” he said. “I’ve never seen a country organizing elections and doing what is being done here in this county. Starting from the electoral register. It was a disaster.”

Shadary’s camp disputes these claims, and says they are confident the poll will be up to standard.

Andre-Alain Atundu, a spokesman for the ruling coalition and a close associate of Shadary’s, said he thinks continuity is important and that it will happen, no matter who wins.

“If it’s Mr. Shadary, he’s saying, ‘I’ll continue with the spirit of progress advanced by Mr. Kabila.’ He’s honest,” said Atundu. ‘The other will take advantage of what Mr. Kabila has left. … It’s a question of honesty. And every next president will want to continue what Mr. Kabila has had the opportunity to achieve.”

As the poll nears, election paraphernalia is everywhere in the capital, with Shadary’s impassive face beaming from billboards and promising economic development, security and better infrastructure.

Tshisekedi and Fayulu are far less visible on posters, but Kinshasa is an opposition stronghold, where their rallies are packed and where historically they have performed well.

The visual clutter of faces and names and promises has almost become invisible to residents of the bustling capital, who declined to stop and talk about politics when asked.

But as December 23 edges ever closer, everyone is wondering: In which direction will Congo go?
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Turkey Says it Will Launch New Syria Offensive Within Days

Posted on 12/12/2018 by SeeEU

Turkey’s president says it will begin a new military operation against U.S-backed Kurdish fighters in Syria “within a few days.”

Addressing a defense industry meeting in Ankara on Wednesday, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the target of the operation would be the Syrian Kurdish militia known as the People’s Protection Units, or YPG — which Turkey views as a terrorist group linked to the insurgency within its borders.

The YPG is the main component of a Kurdish-led militia that rolled back the Islamic State group with the help of the U.S.-led coalition. U.S. troops are deployed with the Kurdish fighters in northeastern Syria, in part to prevent clashes with NATO ally Turkey.

Turkish forces have already waged two cross-border campaigns against Syrian Kurdish forces, in 2016 and earlier this year.

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UN Chief Returns as Climate Talks Teeter Closer to Collapse

Posted on 12/12/2018 by SeeEU

The United Nations secretary-general flew back to global climate talks in Poland Wednesday to appeal to countries to reach an agreement, as some observers feared the meeting might end without a deal.

U.N. chief Antonio Guterres opened the talks last week, telling leaders to take the threat of global warming seriously and calling it “the most important issue we face.”

But as the two-week meeting shifted from the technical to political phase, with ministers taking over negotiations, campaign groups warned of the risks of failure in Katowice.

Harjeet Singh of ActionAid International said the main holdouts were the United States, Australia and Japan, while the European Union was “a mere spectator.”

“A new leadership must step up,” said Vanessa Perez-Cirera of the environmental group WWF. “We cannot afford to lose one of the twelve years we have remaining.”

She was referring to a recent scientific report by a U.N.-backed panel that suggested average global warming can only be halted at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) if urgent action is taken by 2030, including a dramatic reduction in use of fossil fuels.

Endorsing the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change became a crunch issue over the weekend, with the United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait opposing the move.

Jean-Pascal Ypersele, a former deputy chair of the panel, said whether or not countries believe the conclusions of the report was irrelevant because the science was clear.

“Nobody, even the so-called superpowers, can negotiate with the laws of physics,” he said.

Ypersele called for the 1.5-degree target — already mentioned in the 2015 Paris accord — to be recognized in the final text.

“It’s a question of survival for a large part of humanity, and many other species,” he said.

Poland, which is chairing the talks, was expected to circulate a condensed draft text Wednesday running to about 100 pages, down from about 300 at the start of the talks.

The Dec. 2-14 meeting is supposed to finalize the rules that signatories of the Paris accord need to follow when it comes to reporting their greenhouse gas emissions and efforts to reduce them.

Li Shuo, a climate expert at Greenpeace, warned that the current text was riddled with loopholes. “A Swiss cheese rulebook is unacceptable,” he said.

Poor countries also want assurances on financial support to tackle climate change.

A third objective of the talks is getting governments to make a firm commit to raising ambitions in the coming two years, albeit without any precise figures.

One issue that has risen to the fore at the talks is the proposal by Poland for countries to back the idea of a “just transition” for workers in fossil fuel industries facing closure from emissions-curbing measures.

Germany’s environment minister, Svenja Schulze, told reporters that her country is committed to phasing out the use of coal, though the exact deadline has yet to be determined.

But in a nod to the recent protests in France over fuel prices, Schulze warned against governments forcing through measures, saying they would lose public support “faster than you can spell climate protection, and then people pull on yellow vests.”
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French Police Search For Suspect in Deadly Strasbourg Shooting

Posted on 12/12/2018 by SeeEU

A massive manhunt is underway in France for the gunman who killed three people and wounded 13 others in an attack at the Christmas market in the center of Strasbourg.

French officials deployed hundreds of security forces Wednesday in the search after the suspect escaped from the market following the shooting Tuesday night.

France raised its security threat level to “emergency attack,” adding tighter border controls while security is boosted at other Christmas markets.

Interior Minister Christophe Castaner traveled to Strasbourg to open a terror investigation, but the gunman’s motive was unknown.

Authorities have identified the suspect as 29-year-old Cherif Chekatt and said he was on a watch list of suspected extremists.

Police went to his home earlier in the day Tuesday in connection with a murder investigation, but he was not there at the time.

A witness told reporters that one of those killed in the attack was a tourist from Thailand who was shot in the head and did not respond to emergency treatment.

Strasbourg is headquarters of the European Parliament. The building was put on temporary lockdown after the shooting.

The market is set up around the Strasbourg cathedral and attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists every year. Authorities say they have long been on the alert for an attack on the market since a foiled a terror plot in Strasbourg on New Year’s Eve, 1999.

France is no stranger to extremist attacks. Islamic State claimed responsibility for two nights of bombings and shootings in Paris in November 2015, killing 130, months after a deadly shooting at a French satirical magazine and hostage taking in a kosher supermarket.

A terrorist truck attack in Nice in 2016 left 86 dead.
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Sustainable Tree Farming Means Better Lives for Kenyan Farmers

Posted on 12/12/2018 by SeeAF

Wood consumption — including logging and the production of charcoal — is a leading cause of forest degradation in Africa. In some of Kenya’s coastal regions, recurring droughts have made the problem even worse. Now, farmers in those regions are planting trees, putting their once-barren land to use in a venture that enables them to earn a living and conserve the environment at the same time.

At Be Sulubu Tezo, in Kilifi county, Kenya, Kanze Kahindi Mbogo tends to her tree farm. She thins out the trees whose wood is now strong enough for her to sell for home-building and making fences.

The money she makes is for her six children.

A better life

Kahindi says she has been able to educate her children, pay a couple of debts and do lots of other things. She adds she was also able to take one of her sons to college and right now he is a driver.

Before growing trees, putting food on the table was difficult in this land where droughts are common and crops often fail.

With the help of NGOs and entrepreneurs, farmers are learning how agroforestry can make them money and at the same time save the environment. One of those firms is Komaza, a Kenyan firm that is working with 14,000 farmers to plant drought-resistant trees for harvest, reducing the drive to deforest.

Help with the harvest

“Farmers are able to nurture the seedlings into trees, and then the trees become fully grown trees ready to harvest,” said Allan Ongang’a, a manager at Komaza. “Once they are ready for harvest we have the operations team from the forestry department that identify trees that are ready for harvest, agree with the farmers on a fair price, the trees are marked and harvested.”

The firm trains farmers on cultivation and selective harvesting.

But not all farmers have the resources to plant a tree and wait for it to grow, so some farm subsistence crops among the trees. Researchers say this arrangement counters the effects of climate change.

Everybody benefits

“Trees end up absorbing carbon dioxide when they making their food and therefore essentially the trees are actually getting to bring carbon from the atmosphere into the tree stem and therefore on land,” explained researcher John Recha with the Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security Program, a private entity in Nairobi.. “That means there is the benefit of reducing greenhouse gas emission through more enhanced agroforestry systems.”

For these Kenyan farmers, environmentalism begins to make sense when it starts to translate into a sustainable income.
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Can Drought-Proof Maize Save Zimbabwe’s Farmers?

Posted on 12/12/2018 by SeeAF

Researchers are betting that a drought-proof variety of maize can help farmers in Zimbabwe withstand a changing climate that is increasingly prone to drought.

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) says it is working on ensuring Zimbabwe returns to its former status as a prosperous, self-sufficient agricultural producer, after erratic rainfall in recent years affected the country’s food security.

The El Nino weather phenomenon is predicted to give Zimbabwe another drought in coming months. But CIMMYT believes its technologies can improve small farmers’ maize production, says researcher Esnath Hamadziripi.

“Here in Zimbabwe, three-in-five seasons are expected to be bad for farmers. El Nino is making that worse. So it is important to make varieties that are climate resistant because maize is the staple crop here in Zimbabwe … in the 2015/2016 season we tested our maize varieties all over Zimbabwe and they yielded close to double the yield of commercial varieties that are on the market, so we believe that these varieties work. We actually encourage farmers to get hold of climate resistant varieties,” Hamadziripi said.

Recently, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) identified the new climate resilient maize developed by CIMMYT as one of the best innovations in agriculture.

Zimbabwe, once considered the breadbasket of southern Africa, saw farm production fall sharply in the early 2000s after a land reform program displaced experienced white commercial farmers and replaced them with black peasant farmers. Repeated droughts have helped to keep production low.

CIMMYT warns that planting climate resilient maize alone will not help Zimbabwean farmers. It says farmers should conserve the rains they receive, says Isaiah Nyagumbo, a CIMMYT agronomist.

“With conservation agriculture we are also minimizing the amount of runoff out of the system, that means reducing the amount of the water that runs into rivers, along with it a lot of soil is lost, so with conservation agriculture we help to stop that by ensuring that the soil and water remain in place,” Nyagumbo said.

Fifty-nine-year old Viola Thwamba, a farmer about 60 kilometers northeast of Harare, says conservation has helped her survive droughts in the past.

“I have heard of the pending drought, but we have faith in God. We collect dry leaves and crop stubbles. Once our crops germinate we start mulching to keep moisture in case of prolonged dry spells. Others are hit by the droughts but our conservation agriculture is helping me for 12 years now,” Thwamba said.

Thwamba wants to set up an irrigation system once her financial situation improves. But with a poor rainy season predicted, that might take a long time.
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Sustainable Tree Farming Means Better Lives for Kenyan Farmers

Posted on 12/12/2018 by SeeAF

Environmentalists have long reported that wood consumption – including logging and the use of charcoal – is a leading cause of forest degradation in Africa. In some of Kenya’s coastal regions, recurring droughts have made the problem even worse. Now, farmers in those regions are now planting trees, putting their once-barren land to use in a venture that enables them to earn a living and conserve the environment at the same time. For VOA, Rael Ombuor reports from the coastal region of Kilifi.
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Dogs Pose with Santa for Christmas Photos

Posted on 12/12/2018 by SeeUS

In the United States, Christmas cards with family photos are popular. But more than ever many of those photos include a four-legged member of the family, the pet dog. For the past several years, a gourmet dog bakery and boutique in Arlington, Virginia has hired a professional pet photographer to take dog photos with Santa Claus. VOA’s Deborah Block takes us there to see the cute pups.
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Flynn Argues Against Prison Time in Russia Probe

Posted on 12/12/2018 by SeeUS

Lawyers for Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, asked a judge Tuesday to spare him prison time, saying he had devoted his career to his country and taken responsibility for an “uncharacteristic error in judgment.”

The arguments to the judge echoed those of special counsel Robert Mueller’s office, which last week said that Flynn’s cooperation — including 19 meetings with investigators — was so extensive that he was entitled to avoid prison when he is sentenced next week.

Flynn, who pleaded guilty of lying to the FBI about conversations during the presidential transition period with the then-Russian ambassador to the United States, will become the first White House official punished in the special counsel’s probe into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia during the 2016 presidential election.

In court papers Tuesday, he requested probation and community service for his false statements.

The filing came as lawyers for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort said they were still deciding whether to dispute allegations that he lied to investigators and breached his plea agreement. A judge gave Manafort until Jan. 7 to respond to prosecutors’ claims that he misled them about his interactions with an associate who they say has ties to Russian intelligence and with Trump administration officials.

The defendants, their fortunes sliding in opposite directions, represent starkly different paths in Mueller’s investigation — a model cooperator on one end and, prosecutors say, a dishonest and resistant witness on the other. Even as prosecutors recommend no prison time for Flynn, they’ve left open the possibility they may seek additional charges against Manafort, who is already facing years in prison.

Threats to Trump

Given both men’s extensive conversations with prosecutors, and their involvement in key episodes under scrutiny, the pair could pose a threat to Trump, who in addition to Mueller’s investigation is entangled in a separate probe by prosecutors in New York into hush-money payments paid during the campaign to two women who say they had affairs with the president.

Since his guilty plea a year ago, Flynn has stayed largely out of the public eye and refrained from discussing the Russia investigation despite encouragement from his supporters to take an aggressive stance.

Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general, spent three decades in the military, including five years in combat. In a public statement after his plea, Flynn has said he cooperated with prosecutors because it was in “the best interests of my family and our country.”

In Manafort’s case, prosecutors have accused him of repeatedly lying to them even after he agreed to cooperate. They say Manafort lied about his interactions with a longtime associate they say has ties to Russian intelligence, his contacts with Trump administration officials and other matters under investigation by the Justice Department.

Manafort pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in Washington in September and faces sentencing in a separate case in Virginia, where he was convicted of eight felony counts related to his efforts to hide from the Internal Revenue Service millions of dollars he received for Ukrainian political consulting.
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Trump Not Concerned About Impeachment, Defends Payments to Women

Posted on 12/12/2018 by SeeUS

President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he was not concerned that he could be impeached and that hush payments made ahead of the 2016 election by his former personal attorney Michael Cohen to two women did not violate campaign finance laws.

“It’s hard to impeach somebody who hasn’t done anything wrong and who’s created the greatest economy in the history of our country,” Trump told Reuters in an Oval Office interview.

“I’m not concerned, no. I think that the people would revolt if that happened,” he said.

Federal prosecutors in New York said last week that Trump directed Cohen to make six-figure payments to two women so they would not discuss their alleged affairs with the candidate ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

They said the payments violated laws that stipulate that campaign contributions, defined as things of value given to a campaign to influence an election, must be disclosed, and limited to $2,700 per person.

Democrats said such a campaign law violation would be an impeachable offense, although senior party leaders in Congress have questioned whether it is a serious enough crime to warrant politically charged impeachment proceedings.

Impeachment requires a simple majority to pass the House of Representatives, where Democrats will take control in January. But removal of the president from office further requires a two-thirds majority in the Senate, where Trump’s fellow Republicans hold sway.

Cohen is scheduled to be sentenced on Wednesday in New York for his role in the payments to the two women — adult film actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal.

Trump has denied having affairs with them.

Earlier this year, Trump acknowledged repaying Cohen for $130,000 paid to Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.

He previously disputed knowing anything about the payments.

Trump has slammed Cohen for cooperating with prosecutors, alleging that the lawyer is telling lies about him in a bid to get a lighter prison term. He has called for Cohen to get a long sentence and said on Tuesday his ex-lawyer should have known the campaign finance laws.

“Michael Cohen is a lawyer. I assume he would know what he’s doing,” Trump said when asked if he had discussed campaign finance laws with Cohen.

“Number one, it wasn’t a campaign contribution. If it were, it’s only civil, and even if it’s only civil, there was no violation based on what we did. OK?”

Asked about prosecutors’ assertions that a number of people who had worked for him met or had business dealings with Russians before and during his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump said: “The stuff you’re talking about is peanut stuff.”

He then sought to turn the subject to his 2016 Democratic opponent.

“I haven’t heard this, but I can only tell you this: Hillary Clinton — her husband got money, she got money, she paid money, why doesn’t somebody talk about that?” Trump said.
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Pentagon Conducts Latest Successful Test of US-Japan Interceptor

Posted on 12/11/2018 by SeeUS

The U.S. military on Tuesday successfully conducted a test of a new ballistic-missile interceptor system, which is being co-developed with Japan.

The launch marks the second successful test in less than two months for the SM-3 Block IIA missile and its associated technologies, which had previously experienced failures.

According to the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), sailors at the Aegis Ashore Missile Defense Test Complex at the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii, tracked and intercepted an intermediate-range missile with an SM-3.

The target in Tuesday’s test was an air-launched missile, fired from an Air Force C-17 plane over the ocean thousands of kilometers southwest of the Aegis Ashore system.

“The engagement leveraged a ground, air and space-based sensor/command and control architecture,” the MDA said in a statement.

In October, the U.S. military successfully shot down a medium-range ballistic missile with an SM-3.

That successful operation came after two failed intercept tests, in June 2017 and January 2018.

A test firing in February 2017 had been successful.

The MDA said this year that America had so far spent about $2.2 billion on the system and Japan had contributed about $1 billion.

The SM-3 Block IIA missile – made by arms giant Raytheon – is a key piece of NATO’s missile defense system and is due to be deployed in Poland in 2020.

“This system is designed to defend the United States, its deployed forces, allies, and friends from a real and growing ballistic missile threat,” MDA Director Lieutenant General Sam Greaves said.

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Turkey Pledges EU Reforms as Rights Concerns Linger

Posted on 12/11/2018 by SeeEU

Turkish ministers are pledging to speed up judicial reforms as Ankara tries to get its European Union membership effort back on track. They met Tuesday to address Turkey’s EU membership aspirations, which have all but collapsed amid growing human rights concerns.

Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul announced a judicial reform strategy would be unveiled in January at a meeting with Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and Treasury and Finance Minister Berat Albayrak.

The ministers gathered under the auspices of the Reform Action Group (RAG), which was created to expedite EU-required membership reforms, as part of Ankara’s decades-long membership bid. The RAG had been moribund for years. However, the reconvening of the group is interpreted by some as a sign of a new impetus in Turkish-EU relations.

“It is the second meeting of this year, and it is really significant. We are looking forward to the results on the basis of what was indicated in the August meeting,” a high-level EU official was quoted by Turkey’s Daily Sabah, as saying.

In August the Turkish ministers pledged reforms on fundamental rights, justice, freedom, and security.

“The aim of the new strategy is to further enhance trust in the judiciary, improve access to the justice system, increase its effectiveness and provide better protection for the right to trial within a reasonable time,” read a Turkish Foreign Ministry statement.

“Ankara wants to improve ties with Brussels. It’s realized it was endangered of becoming isolated. I expect more efforts to repair ties,” said former Turkish diplomat Aydin Selcen.

Turkey is continuing to cooperate with Brussels in controlling illegal migration into EU territory as part of a deal agreed to in 2016. “We have reduced by 97 percent refugee migration to Europe,” Interior Minister Soylu claimed Tuesday.

The migration deal remains a point of tension. Ankara accuses Brussels of failing to honor a promise of visa-free travel. However, the EU contends the concession is conditional in part on judicial reforms and addressing human rights concerns.

Ministers at Tuesday’s RAG meeting discussed reforms needed to meet EU demands for visa-free travel. However, analysts suggest Brussels is looking for concrete steps from Ankara.

“In terms of economic benefits, visa waivers, a new customs union (from the EU), I don’t see these things happening so far,” said analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners. “Until we release [pro-Kurdish HDP leader Selahattin] Demirtas and journalists from jail, pass a decent judicial reform law, etc., etc., the EU is not going to give us an inch.”

Brussels strongly criticized Ankara for failing to observe the European Court of Human Rights’ October ruling calling for the release of Demirtas. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan dismissed the ruling saying Turkey was not bound by the decision, even though the country is a member of the court.

Dozens of parliamentary HDP deputies along with scores of journalists are among the tens of thousands jailed under anti-terror laws following a 2016 failed coup. Brussels has strongly condemned the crackdown, calling it disproportionate and aimed at silencing dissent rather than protecting democracy, a criticism rejected by Ankara.

On Friday, the Vienna-based media watchdog the International Press Institute slammed Ankara after a three-day visit of its representatives to Turkey.

“We have seen continuing evidence of the systematic targeting of journalists who are doing their jobs,” said executive IPI member Sandy Bremner.

“We have continually heard government assurances that Turkey is committed to free speech, human rights and the rule of law,” he added. “These assurances will only mean something when Turkey is no longer the world’s worst jailer of journalists.”

On Monday, Turkish prosecutors demanded sentences of up to 15 years for two leading columnists and three editors of an opposition newspaper on anti-terror charges.

President Erdogan, speaking Monday at a meeting celebrating the 70th anniversary of the U.N. Declaration of Universal Humans Rights, insisted Turkey is not a country where one can find problems regarding democracy and human rights. “No one can lecture our country about democracy, human rights, and freedom,” Erdogan said.

However, analysts suggest it remains neither in Brussels’ or Ankara’s interests for a breakdown in ties, and both sides will continue to work on a thaw in the deep freeze that has characterized relations in recent years.

“A Turkish crisis would see another million refugees at their (the EU’s) doors, which would be very difficult to stop and destabilize the Balkans,” analyst Yesilada said, “no one wants that. Turkey won’t bring the EU down. That’s an exaggeration, but if you can avoid such a crisis with small gestures why not do it.”

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Brexit Sparks Exasperation in Brussels, Despair in London

Posted on 12/11/2018 by SeeEU

Britain has long prided itself on having strong and stable governments. But Brexit has fractured political parties, making it harder for embattled Prime Minister Theresa May to plot a course out of the Brexit maze or for European Union leaders to calculate what might happen.

“The House of Commons is divided not by parties, but by factions,” Britain’s longest-serving lawmaker and a former Conservative minister, Ken Clarke, said Monday.

He spoke after May announced she was postponing a House of Commons vote on her exit withdrawal deal, which took months of haggling with the EU to negotiate, throwing the Brexit process into further turmoil.

Both of Britain’s two storied main parties, the ruling Conservatives and Labor, are equally divided over whether to remain in the European Union, or, as importantly, how to exit. The smaller parties are more united, with the Scottish Nationalists and the Liberal Democrats wanting to remain in the bloc and the 10 lawmakers of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party wanting Britain out.

Even before May delayed the vote on an unpopular deal, no one in Downing Street, the country’s parliament, the press, or academia could predict how the Brexit process was going to end or when.

Now there’s even less certainty, more confusion and even more fear.

Recession fears

Currency traders are reacting to the political chaos by pushing the value of the pound to its lowest point against the dollar in 20 months. Their worry is Britain will exit the EU as scheduled on March 29 without any deal, which would likely push the country into a recession.

“It’s a mess. In a world of turmoil, Brexit has become a bit of comic relief; it’s like a British comedy,” Shane Oliver, head of investment strategy of AMP Capital Investors, told Bloomberg.

But for Britons whose livelihoods are tied to what happens, there’s little to laugh about.

“Small businesses are keen to prepare [for Brexit] but they still don’t know, some 15 or 16 weeks out, what it is they have been asked to prepare for,” said Colin Borland, a director at the Federation of Small Businesses.

The latest events at Westminster have just heaped greater uncertainty, making it impossible to make decisions, he added.

“Investment plans have been paused for two-and-a-half years. Unless a deal is agreed quickly, the country risks sliding toward a national crisis, warned Carolyn Fairbairn, director general of the Confederation of British Industry.

The national leaders of the 27 EU member states have closed the door on reopening negotiations.

May headed to Brussels Tuesday to seek changes and concessions in a frantic round of diplomacy. But Jean-Claude Juncker, European Commission president, warned there’s “no room whatsoever” for renegotiating a Brexit deal that can’t secure a majority in the House of Commons.

Junker offered May only additional “clarifications and interpretations” of contentious parts of the 585-page agreement, mainly over the so-called “backstop solution,” which is designed to avoid customs checks on the border separating Northern Ireland from the Republic of Ireland.

Speaking to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Juncker said he was “surprised” May is talking about changes “because we had reached an agreement.”

Parliament has final say

In the end, the most important Brexit negotiations are to be in the British parliament and not between the British government and Brussels, say analysts.

But Britain’s House of Commons has seldom been so deadlocked.

“No division has been so central to Britain’s future since 1972, when the Commons passed by just eight votes the Bill taking us into Europe,” commentator Simon Heffer wrote in The Telegraph newspaper.

As May was in Brussels Tuesday, the talk in London was of another mutinous attempt to oust her as party leader and prime minister.

Steve Baker, one of her former Brexit ministers-turned-rebel, urged Conservative lawmakers to submit formal no-confidence letters in her leadership to trigger a confidence vote.

“What I would say to my colleagues is: you now face the certainty of failure with Theresa May. You must be brave and make the right decision to change prime minister, and change prime minister now,” he said on BBC radio.
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Putin Defends Jailing of 77-Year-old Activist

Posted on 12/11/2018 by SeeEU

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday defended the jailing of an elderly rights activist over calls to protest, stressing he wants to prevent events like France’s “yellow vest” revolt.

The Russian leader was responding to an appeal to free 77-year-old Sergei Ponomaryov, a prominent rights activist who is serving 16 days in police cells for urging people to take part in an unauthorized rally.

As a result, Ponomaryov was unable to attend the funeral Tuesday of a longtime comrade, veteran rights activist Lyudmila Alexeyeva, while Putin attended the memorial ceremony.

Putin told the presidential rights council, an advisory body, that he would ask Russia’s Prosecutor-General Yury Chaika “to look more carefully” at Ponomaryov’s case but added that it was “very difficult” for him to question the fairness of court decisions.

The president warned that calls to attend unauthorized protests such as those made by Ponomaryov could lead to unrest like that seen in France over the past month.

“We don’t want to have events in our country like in Paris where they are tearing up cobblestones and burning everything in sight,” Putin said.

“The country will then plunge into the conditions of a state of emergency,” he added.

Putin has previously warned against the risk of “color revolutions” in Russia, referring to the pro-European uprisings in Ukraine and Georgia.

Ponomaryov, head of the For Human Rights movement, was sentenced last week to 25 days behind bars for repeated calls to protest, while a higher court in Moscow reduced his sentence to 16 days on Monday.

He filed a separate request to be allowed out to pay his last respects to Alexeyeva, who died on Saturday aged 91, but was denied permission.

Popular historian Nikolai Svanidze told Putin at the meeting of the rights council that it was “a shame and a disgrace” that Ponomaryov was in jail on the day of Alexeyeva’s funeral, which fell on the 100th anniversary of the birth of dissident writer Alexander Solzhnenitsyn.

In late October, Ponomaryov made a public call for Russians to take part in an unauthorized rally in Moscow to protest a growing crackdown on young people including teenagers suspected of extremism.

Eighteen people were detained for taking part in the rally, held near the building housing the FSB spy agency, successor to the Soviet-era KGB.

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US Adds Pakistan to Blacklist for Religious Freedom Violations

Posted on 12/11/2018 by SeeUS

The United States said Tuesday it has added Pakistan to its blacklist of countries that violate religious freedom, ramping up pressure over its treatment of minorities.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he had designated Pakistan among “countries of particular concern” in a congressionally mandated annual report, meaning the U.S. government is obliged to exert pressure to end freedom violations.

Pompeo a year earlier had placed Pakistan on a special watch list – a step short of the designation – in what had been seen as a U.S. tactic to press Islamabad into reforms.

Human rights advocates have long voiced worry about the treatment of minorities in Pakistan, including Shiites, Ahmadis and Christians.

But the timing of the full designation may be jarring as it comes after Pakistan moved to resolve its most high-profile case, with the Supreme Court in October releasing Asia Bibi – a Christian woman on death row for eight years for blasphemy.

The government recently charged a hardline cleric, Khadim Hussain Rizvi, with terrorism and sedition after he led violent protests against Bibi’s acquittal.

“In far too many places across the globe, individuals continue to face harassment, arrests or even death for simply living their lives in accordance with their beliefs,” Pompeo said in a statement.

“The United States will not stand by as spectators in the face of such oppression,” he said.

Nine countries remained for another year on the list of Countries of Particular Concern – China, Eritrea, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

The United States removed one country from the list – Uzbekistan– but kept it on the watch list.

Pompeo also put on the watch list Russia, adding another item of contention to the relationship between the two powers.

Russia has increasingly drawn concern in the United States over its treatment of Jehovah’s Witnesses, the heterodox Christian group known for proselytization.

Also on the watch list was the Comoros, the Indian Ocean archipelago that is almost exclusively Sunni Muslim.

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Shaka: Extra Time

Posted on 12/11/2018 by SeeAF

We are live. In Extra Time Shaka answers your questions about politics in Africa.
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Rebel: Yemen’s Warring Sides Set Jan. 20 for Prisoner Swap

Posted on 12/11/2018 by SeeEA

Delegations from Yemen’s warring sides have agreed on Tuesday to set Jan. 20 as a final date to swap over 15,000 prisoners from both sides of the country’s devastating civil war, according to a member of the rebel delegation.

The internationally recognized government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and Iran-backed Shi’ite rebels said in press conferences in Sweden that they have exchanged prisoner lists, allowing four weeks for review, ahead of a final swap to be facilitated by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The move is a crucial step in the implementation of an agreement reached earlier this month on the exchange of all prisoners held by both sides over the four-year civil war.

The government, which is backed by a Saudi-led coalition, said it has provided U.N. mediators with an initial list of 8,200 prisoners allegedly held by the rebels, known as Houthis.

The government list included members of the family of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was killed by the Houthis in December of last year. It also included more than 300 children and 88 women.

The rebel delegation also said it has provided its own list of prisoners held by government forces.

“The Houthis provided a list of 7,487 captives and detainees. We provided a [list] of 8,576 detainees,” said Askar Zouail of the government delegation. “But the number of detainees [held by the rebels] exceeds 18,000 detainees since the beginning of the war [in March 2015].”

Othman Mujali, minister of agriculture from the Hadi government, said both sides are considering a “mechanism” to implement the prisoner swap.

“We hope the other side is serious. For us, we are serious and ready at the moment,” he said.

Abdul-Qader el-Murtaza, from the Houthi delegation, said the government list included prisoners from member countries in the Saudi-led coalition, such as Sudan and the United Arab Emirates.

He said Jan. 20 has been set a final date for a prisoner swap overseen by the ICRC.

A period of four weeks has been set for any queries and the verification of the prisoner names “then there will be ten days for the Red Cross to prepare logistic and technical matters for the transfer and exchange of the prisoners,” he said.

Iran’s foreign minister welcomed the initial agreements between Yemeni parties in Stockholm under U.N. supervision.

Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted Tuesday that Iran “strongly supports continuation of talks to achieve final accords on all issues. It is well past time for foreign aggressors to end their airstrikes & crimes against humanity.” He was referring to Yemen’s conflict, which has pushed the country to the brink of famine, pits the internationally recognized government against the Shiite rebels, who seized the capital of Sana’a in 2014. The Saudis intervened the following year.

The war has killed at least 10,000 people, though the figure is believed to be higher, and turned Yemen into one of world’s worst humanitarian crises with 22 of its 29 million people in need of aid, according to the U.N.
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