Month: December 2018

Turkey Says it Will Launch New Syria Offensive Within Days

Posted on 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 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 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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Can Drought-Proof Maize Save Zimbabwe’s Farmers?

Posted on 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 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 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 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

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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 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 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 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.

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.

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

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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

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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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Rebel: Yemen’s Warring Sides Set Jan. 20 for Prisoner Swap

Posted on 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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Egypt Probes Images of Naked Couple Atop Pyramid

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Egyptian authorities have launched an investigation into images said to show a naked couple who scaled the Great Pyramid that has sparked outrage in the conservative Muslim country, an official said Tuesday.

In a video titled “Climbing the Great Pyramid of Giza”, Danish photographer Andreas Hvid appears to scale the 4,500-year-old tomb on the outskirts of Cairo at night with an unidentified woman who is later seen taking off her top.

Hvid says the video was taken in late November but it was published on YouTube on December 8.

A photograph released by Hvid appears to show the couple completely naked on top of each other while looking in the direction of a nearby pyramid with the horizon illuminated.

“The public prosecution is investigating the incident of the Danish photographer and the authenticity of the photos and video of him climbing the pyramid,” Mostafa Waziri, the secretary general of Egypt’s supreme antiquities council, told AFP.

If the video was actually filmed at the top of the pyramid, that would make it a “very serious crime”, Waziri said.

The nearly three-minute video has taken social media by storm and has been the subject of late night talk shows. It has notched up almost three million views on YouTube alone.

“A 7,000-year-old civilization has turned into a bed sheet,” a Twitter user in Egypt lamented.

Another protested that “they want to soil the dignity and pride of Egyptians because the pyramid reflects the glory and grandeur of the Egyptian people”.

The authenticity of the images has been disputed with some arguing the photograph showing the pair naked appears to be very bright whereas the video showed them scaling the pyramid at night.

Antiquities Minister Khaled el-Enany told government newspaper Al-Ahram that the video has stirred “anger and outrage among Egyptians”, and that officials in charge of guarding the pyramids would be punished if found to have been negligent.

Hvid, 23, explained back home to the Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet that he had “dreamed for many years of climbing the Great Pyramid” as well as of taking a naked photograph.

“I’m sad that so many people have got angry but I’ve also received a lot of positive responses from many Egyptians,” he said in an interview.

The young Norwegian, who runs his own YouTube channel, said he had absolutely no interest in stirring up a crisis such as that triggered by cartoons in Western newspapers of the Prophet Muhammad.

As for the girl in the video, she was not his girlfriend. “It was just a pose. We did not have sexual relations,” Hvid said.

The Great Pyramid, also known as the Khufu pyramid, is the largest in Giza, standing at 146 meters (480 feet) tall, and the only surviving structure of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world.

Climbing pyramids is forbidden in Egypt.

In 2016, a German tourist was barred from entering the country for life after he posted online footage of climbing one of the ancient structures.
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US Agency: Arctic Posts 2nd Warmest Year on Record in 2018

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The Arctic had its second-hottest year on record in 2018, part of a warming trend that may be dramatically changing earth’s weather patterns, according to a report released on Tuesday by the U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

“Arctic air temperatures for the past five years have exceeded all previous records since 1900,” according to the annual NOAA study, the 2018 Arctic Report Card, which said the year was second only to 2016 in overall warmth in the region.

It marks the latest in a series of warnings about climate change from U.S. government bodies, even as President Donald Trump has voiced skepticism about the phenomenon and has pushed a pro-fossil fuels agenda.

The study said the Arctic warming continues at about double the rate of the rest of the planet, and that the trend appears to be altering the shape and strength of the jet stream air current that influences weather in the Northern Hemisphere.

“Growing atmospheric warmth in the Arctic results in a sluggish and unusually wavy jet-stream that coincided with abnormal weather events,” it said, noting that the changing patterns have often brought unusually frigid temperatures to areas south of the Arctic Circle.

Some examples are “a swarm of severe winter storms in the eastern United States in 2018, and the extreme cold outbreak in Europe in March 2018 known as ‘the Beast from the East.'”

Environmentalists have long warned of rapid warming in the Arctic, saying it threatens imperiled species like polar bears, and is a harbinger of the broader impacts of climate change on the planet.

Scientists have warned that the region could suffer trillions of dollars worth of climate change-related damage to infrastructure in the coming decades.

But the melting of Arctic ice has piqued the interests of polar nations like the United States, Canada and Russia by opening new shipping routes and expanding access to a region believed to be rich in petroleum and minerals.

The United States and Russia have both expressed an interest in boosting Arctic drilling, and Russia has bolstered its military presence in the north.

The NOAA report comes weeks after more than a dozen U.S. government agencies released a study concluding that climate change is driven by human consumption of fossil fuels and will cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century.

Trump, who has been rolling back Obama-era environmental and climate protections to maximize production of domestic fossil fuels, said of the update to the National Climate Assessment: “I don’t believe it.”

Trump last year announced his intention to withdraw the United States from the 2015 Paris Deal agreed by nearly 200 nations to combat climate change, arguing the accord would kill jobs and provide little tangible environmental benefit.
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UN Launches Multi-Billion-Dollar Appeal for Syrian Refugees

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The U.N. is appealing for $5.5 billion to support millions of Syrian refugees, and the neighboring countries hosting them in the coming years.

The U.N. praises Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq for their support in offering asylum and protection to millions of refugees from Syria, which is now in its eighth year of crisis. But, the support, they say, has taken a heavy toll on the economies and development of these host countries.

The global body says conditions for both the refugees and the communities in which they live have deteriorated since Syria’s civil war broke out in 2011. It says 70- to 80 percent of the refugees live under the poverty line, children are deprived of education and many are forced to work to help them and their families survive.

The U.N. refugee agency’s director for the Middle East and North Africa, Amin Awad, says the war in Syria has for the most part ended. As the situation improves, he says some refugees are going home.

“There are many obstacles that are on the way of return inside Syria and we are working with the government of Syria with other countries neighboring Syria and with the International Community at large to help remove these obstacles for return and create environments that are conditions for the return of refugees. Until then, we repeat, we ask the donors to stay the course,” said Awad.

Awad says Syria is far from stable, with conflicts continuing in places such as Idlib and erupting in others. He says the refugee crisis is far from over. That means both the Syrians living in neighboring countries and their host communities will require international support for the foreseeable future.

The UNHCR says nearly 117,000 refugees have returned spontaneously to Syria since 2016. That is a fraction of the 5.6 million refugees still living in exile.

The U.N. agencies say the appeal will provide the refugees with health, water, sanitation, food, education, psycho-social support, community services and other essential relief. Assistance also will be given to nearly 4 million people in the communities hosting them.

They say those communities are under great strain. Humanitarian operations, they say, will be geared toward assisting them through livelihoods and economic opportunities, as well as basic services and support to help local institutions and municipalities function better.

 

 
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Activists Fear Countries Will Fall Short on UN Migration Pact

Posted on by SeeAF

As heads of state and government jetted out of Morocco on Tuesday after formally adopting a UN deal on migration, NGOs raised doubts about its implementation on the ground and the high seas.

The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration — finalized at the UN in July after 18 months of talks — was formally approved in Marrakesh on Monday in a ceremony attended by representatives of 164 governments.

A host of European politicians including German Chancellor Angela Merkel have firmly endorsed the deal, even as the US and a string of other countries have shunned it amid a wave of anti-immigrant populism.

While welcoming the agreement, the medical charity MSF and the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC) pointed to policies by EU states that sit uneasily alongside the pact’s commitments to save lives and “eradicate trafficking in persons.”

“What we see right now is that months of government policies on migration are … deepening the suffering of migrants by basically offering them on a plate to criminal organization networks,” said Joanne Liu, international president of MSF.

Last week, her organization was forced to abandon its search and rescue missions in the Mediterranean — a key crossing for migrants and refugees traveling from Africa to Europe.

The charity’s vessel Aquarius has been blocked at the French port of Marseilles since losing its Panamanian registration and flag in September, amid what it has called a smear campaign led by Italy.

Both Liu and the IFRC charged that European powers have facilitated the detention of migrants in Libya.

“We have been very vocal in saying Libya is not a safe place,” Liu told AFP on the sidelines of the Marrakesh conference.

But “European governments have basically been using public money to … finance detention centers in Libya.”

IFRC president Francesco Rocca hit out at the EU for policies he said pushed migrants back to the highly unstable North African country, including the training of a nascent Libyan coastguard.

“Nobody should be sent back to Libya. This is unacceptable. You cannot send anyone back to a place that is not safe, and we know perfectly well that Libya is not safe,” he told AFP.

‘Feels like a balance’

Billed as the first international document on managing migration, the compact lays out 23 objectives to open up legal migration and discourage illegal border crossings.

Many NGOs have raised concerns that it is non-binding, raising further questions about whether its provisions will be implemented.

“States are not obliged to respect” the deal, said Michel Prieur of the International Centre for Comparative Environmental Law.

Prieur was also disappointed that environmental factors feeding into migration — including climate change, natural catastrophes and industrial disasters — merited only three paragraphs in the 35 pages of the pact’s text.

He and others said civil society could have been better consulted.

The agreement has been hit by a string of withdrawals by UN member states, with some claiming it infringes national sovereignty.

The US disavowed the process late last year.

Australia, Austria, the Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Poland and Slovakia all pulled out in the weeks and months ahead of the pact’s adoption, while Chile withdrew the night before the conference and Brazil joined the defectors on Monday.

Rows over the accord have erupted in several EU nations, hobbling Belgium’s coalition government and pushing Slovakia’s foreign minister to tender his resignation.

Italy falls into a group of countries that UN migration chief Louise Arbour has said is still engaged in “internal deliberations” over the pact.

For Sarnata Reynolds of Oxfam, the pact has been an achievement in a challenging global environment.

It was a case of “governments getting together at a time that is quite heated for migration policies… to ultimately find something that feels like a balance,” said the charity’s global head on displacement and migration.

“There are some places in the contents of the compact where for example we would have liked to have seen the principle of non-refoulement, which basically means that a person can’t be returned to a country if they’re going to be harmed,” Reynolds said.

“But the global compact from Oxfam’s perspective is a chance to push further and get governments to do better,” she added.

The pact is due to be ratified by the UN General Assembly on December 19.
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US Presidential Hopefuls Pushed to Go Big on Climate Change

Posted on by SeeUS

Environmental activists are ramping up a pressure campaign designed to drum up Democratic support for a sweeping agenda to fight climate change, with the 2020 presidential campaign in their sights.

Hundreds of young demonstrators turned out Monday on Capitol Hill to push Democrats on a package of ambitious environmental goals — including a nationwide transition to 100 percent power from renewable sources within as little as 10 years — that’s collectively dubbed the Green New Deal. Already embraced by Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., an increasingly influential figure on the left, the Green New Deal is designed to nudge prospective Democratic presidential candidates to stake out aggressive positions on climate change. Some cast the goals as idealistic and politically risky.

Organizers with the Sunrise Movement activist group frame it as a make-or-break issue for Democratic voters, particularly young ones. But they’re fighting recent history on that point.

Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., jockeyed during the 2016 Democratic presidential primary over their plans to stave off the devastating effects that scientists have warned of as temperatures continue to rise. Ultimately, however, other issues dominated the debate, and climate change barely registered during the 2016 general election.

Stephen O’Hanlon, a spokesman for the Sunrise Movement, said, “Any senators or any other politician who wants the votes of young people in 2020 needs to back a Green New Deal that would transform our economy and create millions of new jobs stopping climate change.”

As he weighs another White House run, Sanders has staked out an early claim on the issue, hosting Ocasio-Cortez for a climate change town hall last week and preparing a forthcoming proposal that an aide said is likely to align with the broad goals of the Green New Deal.

“Next Congress I will be working on legislation that addresses the scope of the crisis we face, creates tens of millions of jobs and saves American families money while holding fossil fuel companies accountable for the enormous damage they have done to our planet,” Sanders said in a statement to The Associated Press. “Our job is to be bold, to think very big and to go forward in a moral struggle to protect our planet and future generations.”

When Sanders introduced single-payer health care legislation last year, most Senate Democrats also considering presidential runs signed on at the outset. It’s not clear, however, whether other prominent Democrats eyeing the White House would back Sanders’ forthcoming climate change bill or seek to carve out their own territory.

Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., said last week that “obviously, we have been doing a lot of work trying to find some bolder things we as a nation could be doing” on climate change. Booker spokeswoman Kristin Lynch that his staff has held dozens of meetings since the summer aimed at shaping a broad climate bill and that he welcomes the activists’ effort to spotlight the issue.

The staff of Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., has been in contact with the organizers behind the Green New Deal push, according to spokeswoman Lily Adams, who said the senator is broadly supportive of the sort of sweeping climate change agenda that the effort envisions. As legislation aimed at enacting the Green New Deal begins to take shape, Adams added, Harris plans to take a close look at it.

The Green New Deal deliberately omits details on how to reorient the United States toward the drastic carbon emissions reductions it calls for, instead calling for a select committee in the House to devise a plan by 2020. That timetable is designed to rally Democrats behind a climate change strategy as they’re picking a nominee to take on President Donald Trump, who has rolled back multiple environmental regulations and cast doubt on the scientific consensus that human activity is driving global warming.

Bill McKibben, a leading environmentalist whom Sanders tapped to help write the Democratic National Committee’s party platform in 2016, said that it would be “hard for me to imagine a serious Democratic candidate emerging” in the 2020 presidential race who doesn’t support a version of the Green New Deal, single-payer health care and a $15-per-hour minimum wage.

A Capitol Police spokeswoman said that 138 people were arrested during Monday’s demonstrations by Green New Deal supporters.

The plan, named for the New Deal that reshaped America under former President Franklin D. Roosevelt, envisions a costly and dramatically remodeled U.S. energy infrastructure as soon as 2030. It’s a shift from where Democrats laid down their symbolic markers on climate change as recently as last year. Sanders and Booker, as well as potential presidential hopeful Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., introduced legislation then that aimed to shift the nation to 100 percent renewable and clean energy sources by 2050.

Fossil fuels, mostly natural gas and coal, generated 63 percent of U.S. electricity in 2017, compared with 17 percent for renewable sources such as wind and solar, according to the nonpartisan Energy Information Administration. Nuclear energy comprised the remaining 20 percent.

“Is it all that realistic? Probably not, in the environment where we work. Certainly not now,” Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., the party”s senior member on the environment committee, said of the Green New Deal’s target. “But it’s a good aspirational goal.”

Sarah Dolan, communications director for the conservative opposition research group America Rising, warned that Democratic presidential hopefuls’ “race to the left” on climate change, as well as on health care, minimum wage and immigration, would backfire in 2020.

“Being the first to take the most progressive position of the day will only lead to a party that can’t compete in the general election as it becomes unrecognizable to independent voters,” she said.

 

 
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US Diplomat: Russia Gas Pipeline to Boost Grip on Ukraine, Europe

Posted on by SeeEU

Russia is seeking to boost its power in Europe and grip over Ukraine with the proposed Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline, the top U.S. energy diplomat said on Monday, in a step-up of Washington’s rhetoric against the pipeline.

“Through Nord Stream 2, Russia seeks to increase its leverage of the West while severing Ukraine from Europe,” Francis Fannon, the U.S. assistant secretary for energy resources at the State Department, told reporters in a teleconference.

The pipeline has been opposed both by President Donald Trump, a Republican, and his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama as a political tool for Russia to consolidate power over Europe.

Much of the gas that Europe currently gets from Russia via pipeline goes through Ukraine, which collects billions of dollars in transit charges making up to 3 percent of its gross domestic product.

If Nord Stream 2, which aims to bring Russian gas to Western Europe via the Baltic Sea, and TurkStream, a pipeline to bring gas from Russia to Turkey, are completed it would mean transit revenues would evaporate, “It’s kind of just what’s left over that would be transited, potentially transited, through Ukraine,” Fannon said. “Even then that’s only based on whether we can trust (Russia President Vladimir) Putin, I don’t think the record should indicate anyone should.”

Putin has said that Nord Stream 2, a consortium of Russia’s state-controlled Gazprom and five European companies, is purely economic and not directed against other countries. Russian gas could continue to go through Ukraine if the pipeline is completed, Putin has said.

But Russia has stopped shipments of gas to Ukraine in winter in recent years over a series of pricing disputes. Critics of Nord Stream 2 say it could increase Russia’s ability to manipulate European energy markets. In an increase in tensions, Russia last month seized three Ukrainian naval ships off the coast of Russia-annexed Crimea in the Sea of Azov after opening fire on them.

Germany’s foreign minister, Heiko Maas, said this month that Berlin will not withdraw its political support for Nord Stream 2 and that German Chancellor Angela Merkel had secured a pledge from Putin in August allowing gas shipments across Ukraine’s territory.

Fannon made his comments after traveling to Eastern Europe to discuss projects that could offer Europe a more diverse natural gas supply. Those included a floating liquefied natural gas terminal on the Adriatic island of Krk that could one day receive gas imports from the United States, which is increasing its exports of the fuel, or the eastern Mediterranean.

Fannon said he expected Russia’s aggression in the Sea of Azov to boost support for several bills in the U.S. Congress that include new sanctions on Russia’s energy sector, though he refrained from commenting on any particular legislation.
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US Blocks ex-Gambian President, Family from Entering

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The U.S. State Department says former Gambian President Yahya Jammeh and members of his immediate family are now ineligible for entry into the United States.

 

The decision comes almost two years after Jammeh was forced into exile in Equatorial Guinea after he refused to concede defeat in a presidential election. Jammeh ruled the tiny West African country for two decades.

 

The State Department says he’s now being banned from entry under a category that applies to foreign government officials who are believed to have committed “significant corruption or a gross violation of human rights.”

 

In addition to Jammeh, his wife Zineb, and their daughter Mariam and son Muhammad are also being blocked.
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Incoming House Majority Leader Promises to Address ‘Immigration Challenges’ 

Posted on by SeeUS

In a roomful of pro-immigrant advocates and activists Monday afternoon, one of the highest-ranking Democrats in Congress made big promises — ones lawmakers have not been able to uphold for years. 

U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer, who will become the Majority Leader of the House of Representatives when Democrats take control of the chamber in January, pledged to “bring legislation to the floor that addresses our immigration challenges.” 

Hundreds of attendees applauded. Those laws Hoyer went on to describe affect their work, and in some cases, their friends and families. 

He listed the main concerns for the crowd at the three-day National Immigrant Integration Conference, held in Arlington, Virginia this week. He promised Dreamers and DACA recipients “the relief they deserve” and a pathway to citizenship. He swore there would be a bill addressing Temporary Protected Status. And he promised Democrats would counteract the “dangerous, un-American, inhumane policy” of the Trump administration in separating families and detaining children. 

“This is not a partisan fight though I have put it, in some respects, in partisan terms. This is an American fight,” Hoyer said to “yeses” and nods from the crowd.   

But any reform to the immigration system has been a failure for both parties in Congress for years. With a divided Congress come January — the House led by Democrats and the Senate by Republicans — hope of passing any laws may remain out of reach. 

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has altered the immigration system on its own through a series of policy changes and executive orders. 

One of them — the so-called public charge rule — was most on the minds of conference attendees on Monday. The period for public comment on the proposed regulation change is set to end Monday night at 11:59 p.m. 

“Trump is trying to make an end-run around Congress,” Marielena Hincapie, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, said during a Monday news conference about the public charge issue. 

The modifications to the long-standing rule would expand the number of immigrants the government considers to be a potential “public charge” by counting their access to certain types of public benefits against them. 

“It’s hard to promise somebody that this won’t impact them,” Bitta Mostofi, Commissioner for the New York City’s Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, said of the effect the rule change is having on immigrant communities before it even takes effect.
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US Sanctions Three N. Korean Officials for Suspected Rights Abuses

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The United States on Monday sanctioned three North Korean officials, including a top aide to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, citing “ongoing and serious human rights abuses and censorship,” the U.S. Treasury Department said.

The sanctions “shine a spotlight on North Korea’s reprehensible treatment of those in North Korea, and serve as a reminder of North Korea’s brutal treatment of U.S. citizen Otto Warmbier,” the department said in a statement.

Warmbier was an American student who died in June 2017 after 17 months of detention in North Korea, which contributed to already tense exchanges between Pyongyang and Washington, primarily over North Korea’s nuclear development program.

It was not clear whether the decision to sanction the three men was related to U.S.-North Korean nuclear diplomacy, which has made little obvious progress since U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim met in Singapore in June.

The Treasury identified the three as Ryong Hae Choe, an aide close to Kim who heads the Workers’ Party of Korea Organization and Guidance Department; State Security Minister Kyong Thaek Jong; and the director of North Korea’s Propaganda and Agitation Department, Kwang Ho Pak.

The sanctions freeze any assets the officials may have under U.S. jurisdiction and generally prohibits them from engaging in any transactions with anyone in the United States.

In the lead up to the Trump-Kim summit, North Korea released three American prisoners, although talks between the two countries have since stalled. Last month, North Korea said it would deport another detained U.S. citizen.

Talks that had been planned for Nov. 8 between U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and senior North Korean official Kim Yong Chol and that aimed to pave the way for a second summit were canceled with 24 hours’ notice.

At the time, the U.S. State Department said the meeting had been postponed, but gave no reason, raising concerns that talks aimed at persuading North Korea to give up its nuclear arms could break down. The State Department said the talks would be rescheduled “when our respective schedules permit.”
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Macron ‘Takes Share of Responsibility’ for French Anti-Government Protests

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French President Emmanuel Macron was both humble and resolute as he spoke publicly for the first time on the anti-government protests that have shaken the country.

“I take my share of responsibility. I might have hurt people with my words,” Macron said in a nationwide broadcast speech Monday night.

He also said he recognizes that a proposed tax hike on pensions was “unjust.”

But Macron called the anger that has boiled over in the past weeks the result of what he describes as a 40-year-long “malaise,” especially among rural French.

The president declared an “economic and social state of emergency.”

Along with cutting the tax on pensioners, there will be a government-funded $113 boost in the monthly minimum wage, taxes on overtime pay will be scrapped, and large businesses have been asked to give workers a tax-free, end-of-the-year bonus.

But Macron stood firm against the street protesters, saying there will be “no indulgence” for those who smash windows, loot stores and attack police.

 

He also showed no signs of giving in to one of the demonstrators’ top demands — his resignation.

Macron has already canceled a fuel tax hike that sparked the protests nearly a month ago.

The anger expanded beyond the tax to a general outrage against a president many protesters say cares more about the rich than ordinary French citizens.

Protests in Paris forced police to temporarily shut down major tourist sites, including the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre museum.

They also left the streets of the capital and other major cities covered with debris. More than 4,500 people have been arrested since the marches began.

Some protesters and opposition members called Macron’s moves a good first step, but others said they are still not satisfied.

Since there is no formal protest leader, it is too early to tell how Macron’s words will be received overall and whether more marches are expected.
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