Month: December 2018

Egypt Probes Images of Naked Couple Atop Pyramid

Posted on by SeeEA

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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Africa 54

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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

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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

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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

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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’ 

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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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EU’s Top Diplomat: EU-Iran Trade Vehicle Could Be Ready by Year-End

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The European Union’s foreign policy chief said Monday a system to facilitate non-dollar trade with Iran and circumvent U.S. sanctions could be in place by year’s end.

The European Union wants the so-called Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to help preserve the economic benefits for Iran deriving from the curbs it placed on its nuclear program under a 2015 deal with world powers, from which President Donald Trump withdrew the United States in May.

EU diplomats had hoped to have the SPV in place by now but ran into delays as member states balked at hosting it for fear of being targeted by the revived U.S. sanctions regime against Iran.

Asked about progress on the SPV, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini told reporters: “I would expect this instrument to be established in the coming weeks so before the end of the year as a way to protect and promote legitimate business with Iran.”

She did not offer any other details following a meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers in Brussels but said work on creating the mechanism was “advancing well.”

France and Germany are now due to take joint responsibility for the SPV. But EU diplomats have said its ambitions could be scaled back to encompass only less sensitive items such as humanitarian and food products, rather than oil trade.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told the bloc’s ministers in a closed-door meeting in Brussels on Nov. 19 that Paris and Berlin were working closely together to achieve something by year-end, two other EU diplomats said.

The discussion came as EU nations have debated potential new sanctions on Iran after accusations of Iranian attack plots in France and Denmark.

“Our strong support for the implementation of the JCPOA (2015 nuclear deal) doesn’t mean we turn a blind eye for other issues,” Mogherini told reporters.

Until now, the EU has been straining to uphold the 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and world powers, but has been less willing to consider sanctions, instead seeking fresh talks with the Islamic Republic.

Iran has warned it could ditch the nuclear deal if EU powers do not protect its trade and financial benefits.
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Sudan Pound Slides to Widest Over Official Rate Since Devaluation

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The Sudanese currency slid to 60 pounds to the dollar on the black market Monday, traders said, increasing the gap with the official rate of 47.5 pounds to its widest since a sharp devaluation two months ago.

The growing gap indicates the pound’s official value may have to weaken further, adding to the woes of citizens already suffering shortages of bread and fuel.

The government has been expanding the money supply to finance its budget deficit, spurring inflation and weakening the currency’s value.

“The deterioration of the Sudanese pound’s real value has made everyone rush to convert their savings into dollars,” economics professor and analyst Abdullah al-Ramadi told Reuters. “Bloated government spending has increased inflation.”

Annual inflation edged up to 68.93 percent in November from 68.44 percent in October, the state statistics agency said Sunday.

The pound was trading at 57 to the dollar on the black market as recently as Saturday. On Oct. 7 the government weakened the official rate to 47.5 pounds to the dollar from 29 pounds.

The severe shortages of fuel and bread, both subsidized by the government, have forced people in the capital to queue in front of bakeries and cars to line up in front of petrol stations.

“I have been waiting for bread for more than an hour, and I have had difficulty withdrawing my monthly salary from the bank since December,” said Yassin Abdullah, 43, an employee standing outside a bakery on one of Khartoum’s main streets. “With prices rising we are living in a real nightmare.”
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Nobel Laureate Mukwege Worried Congo Vote Could Lead to War

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Presidential elections in Democratic Republic of Congo this month could lead to conflict if they are not free, fair and peaceful, and evidence suggests they will not be, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Denis Mukwege said on Monday.

The December 23 elections are scheduled to mark Congo’s first democratic transfer of power and end President Joseph Kabila’s rule, which began in 2001 after the assassination of his father.

Mukwege was co-recipient of the 2018 prize for his work as a doctor helping victims of sexual violence in the eastern Congo city of Bukavu. He has performed surgery on scores of women and campaigned to highlight their plight after they were raped by armed men.

He shared the prize with Nadia Murad, a Yazidi rights activist and survivor of sexual slavery perpetrated by Islamic State.

“What I have seen as I was leaving my country did not reassure me,” Mukwege told Reuters before an award ceremony in Oslo.

“There is very little electoral preparation and a lot of military preparation. I am very worried that these elections will not be free, fair, credible and peaceful and that if there are massive frauds …. supporters [from losing candidates] will not accept them.”

He said election authorities were struggling to meet deadlines ahead of the vote and that violence was worsening in the eastern borderlands with Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi.

“These … elements suggest to me that oppression is being prepared, at the very minimum, and it could be that a war against its own people is being prepared,” he said.

Kabila was due to step down in 2016 at the end of his constitutional mandate. But the election to replace him was repeatedly delayed, igniting protests in which dozens were killed.

During the ceremony, Mukwege and Murad called for justice for the victims of sexual violence in conflicts.

“The perpetrators of sexual violence against Yazidi and other women and girls are yet to be prosecuted for these crimes,” said Murad, adding that more than 3,000 Yazidi women and girls were still held captive by Islamic State.

“If justice is not done, this genocide will be repeated against us and against other vulnerable communities,” she said. Both Murad and Mukwege received several standing ovations, with many guests wiping away tears. ‘Name the perpetrators’

Mukwege called on a U.N. report into the war crimes committed in Congo to name those it investigated. “This investigation explicitly names the victims, the places and the dates, but leaves the perpetrators nameless,” he said.

“Let us have the courage to reveal the names … to prevent them from continuing to plague the region.”

Kabila told Reuters on Sunday preparations for the election were proceeding smoothly and he wanted it to be “as close to perfection” as possible.

He also did not rule out running again for president in 2023. Critics say he could rule from behind the scenes if his candidate, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, wins this month.

Mukwege said Kabila had the right to run in 2023 but he hoped voters would remember Kabila’s “broken promises.”

“None of the elements needed to install a real democracy have been made during his time in power,” he said.

A war in which some 5 million people died ended in 2003, but violence is still a problem and militias target civilians.

Mukwege called for pressure on manufacturers that use cobalt and coltan that Congo produces to control their supply chains to prevent child and slave labor.

He also called for pressure on Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda to pacify armed groups that fight in eastern Congo. It was not possible to reach a spokesman for the DRC government.
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Amnesty Calls on ICC to Fully Probe Boko Haram Conflict Atrocities

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Amnesty International on Monday said the International Criminal Court should start a full-blown investigation into atrocities committed in the Boko Haram insurgency, accusing Nigeria of failing to bring those responsible to justice.

ICC chief prosecutor Fatma Bensouda opened a preliminary examination in 2010 into eight potential cases of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the violence.

Six cases relate to the jihadists and include the killing of civilians, mass kidnapping, attacks on schools and places of worship, sexual violence, plus the use of children in conflict.

The other two — involving attacks on civilians, mass arrests and detention of suspects, abuse, torture and summary executions — concern the military.

Boko Haram’s Islamist insurgency has killed more than 27,000 people and left 1.8 million homeless in northeast Nigeria since 2009, triggering a humanitarian crisis in the wider region.

President Muhammadu Buhari, a former military ruler, in June 2015 promised to “leave no stone unturned to promote the rule of law and deal with all cases of human rights abuses”.

Bensouda acknowledged in her latest annual report published on December 5 that Nigeria appeared to have taken “concrete steps” towards investigating the allegations.

She wrote there appeared to be a “tangible prospect” of proceedings against Boko Haram members but not against troops “since the Nigerian authorities tend to deny any allegation.”

But Amnesty International suggested Abuja was keeping her “in limbo” by giving the impression of domestic action but in reality doing very little.

“Eight years since the opening of the preliminary examination and faced with the continuing commission of crimes under international law and the possibility of a never-ending preliminary analysis, it is time for the OTP (Office of the Prosecutor) to open a formal investigation in Nigeria,” it said.

There was no immediate response from the government or military. But both have previously dismissed accusations from Amnesty as being without foundation.

‘Legal cover’ 

Central to the human rights group’s argument is Nigeria’s investigations into alleged military atrocities and its prosecution of thousands of Boko Haram suspects.

None of the more than 20 government inquiries launched into claims of abuse by troops and civilian militia members in the last nine years has led to formal investigations and prosecutions, it pointed out.

Instead, the proceedings appeared designed to provide a “veneer of accountability” and exonerate senior officers and “shield persons concerned from criminal responsibility”, it alleged.

At the same time there had been a “minimal” number of prosecutions against mid- to high-ranking Boko Haram members for serious crimes such as terrorism, murder or hostage-taking.

The report said mass trials of more than 1,000 suspects that began in October 2017 were a “sham” designed to provide “legal cover” for those held in prolonged, arbitrary and unlawful detention.

Prosecutions were based on unreliable and untested confessions or guilty pleas, while defendants had a lack of access to lawyers and trials were rushed through.

Most of those on trial were acquitted due to lack of evidence or walked free because of time already served in custody. The majority appeared to be civilians caught up in the conflict.

Amnesty said Nigeria had failed to meet its obligations under international law to investigate and prosecute crimes as part of the ICC’s preliminary examination.

Further delays to a formal investigation “will allow further destruction and decay of evidence”, it added in the 74-page report. 

“It is in the interests of both the OTP and Nigeria to demonstrate that serious steps are being taken to cure Nigeria’s inability or unwillingness to bring perpetrators to justice,” it said. “Above all it is in the interest of victims.”
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US, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait Have not Endorsed a Key Study on Global Warming

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As the U.N. global climate conference in Katowice, Poland entered its second week Sunday, the non-governmental environmental organization Greenpeace demanded urgent action from world leaders to tackle climate change.

Greenpeace activists projected a message onto the roof of the “Spodek” arena where the COP24 is being held, saying “No Hope Without Climate Action: and “Politicians Talk, Leaders Act.”

Disappointing many of the scientists and delegates at the conference, the United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait refused to endorse a landmark study on global warming which was to be the benchmark for future action in curbing the global warming.

The four nations wanted only to “note” but not “welcome” the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that was released in October, in keeping with the views of the Trump administration. With no consensus on including the report, the idea was dropped.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who has announced he is pulling the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, tweeted Saturday that “people do not want to pay large sums of money … in order to maybe protect the environment.” 

The IPCC’ report said that drastic actions would be needed to achieve the Paris accord’s most ambitious target of keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius. The report warned that the world was far from that target and heading more towards an increase of 3 degrees Celsius.

On Monday, the environmental ministers arrive at COP24 and many delegates hope that they will make every effort to include the IPCC report in the conference agenda.
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Huge Winter Storm Hits US South

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Crews in several southern U.S. states are working Monday to clear roads and restore electricity after a strong storm dumped snow, sleet and freezing rain.

Parts of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia and Tennessee received between 30 and 60 centimeters of snow Sunday.

The storm made roads treacherous, leading to numerous accidents and one reported death from a tree that fell on a car in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Charlotte’s normally busy airport had more than 1,000 canceled flights Sunday.

​Power companies reported the storm knocked out service to more than 300,000 people, the majority of them in North Carolina.

Big snow storms are much more common in northern U.S. states, which are also better equipped to respond to them.

The governors of both Virginia and North Carolina declared a state of emergency before the storm hit in order to help mobilize resources from the state governments to help with recovery efforts.
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Official: Trump Backs $750 Billion Defense Budget Request to Congress

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U.S. President Donald Trump has backed plans to request $750 billion from Congress for defense spending next year, a U.S. official said on Sunday, signaling a Pentagon spending hike at a time of potential belt-tightening elsewhere in the government.

Trump, faced with a budget deficit at a six-year high, told his Cabinet earlier this year to come up with proposals to cut spending by their agencies by 5 percent, but he suggested the military would be largely spared.

The $750 billion would be even more than the $733 billion request that the Pentagon had been expected to make for fiscal year 2020. It is also well above a $700 billion figure Trump cited in October.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Defense Secretary Jim Mattis had discussed the budget with Trump in recent days and outlined the risks of flat defense spending. The official said that it was clear during that discussion that Trump wanted to “accelerate the progress his administration has made in rebuilding the military.”

In August, Trump signed a $716 billion defense policy bill.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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US Airstrike Outside Somalia’s Capital Kills 4 al-Shabab

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The U.S. military says it has killed four members of the al-Shabab extremist group with a “self-defense airstrike” outside Somalia’s capital after partner forces were attacked.

The U.S. Africa Command statement says the airstrike occurred on Saturday near Basra, a community outside the capital, Mogadishu. The statement says no civilians were involved.

 

The U.S. military has carried out 39 airstrikes this year against the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab, Africa’s most active Islamic extremist group, which controls parts of rural southern and central Somalia and continues to stage deadly attacks in Mogadishu and other cities.

 

The U.S. airstrikes have picked up dramatically since President Donald Trump took office and approved expanded military operations in the Horn of Africa nation. Airstrikes also target a small presence of fighters linked to the Islamic State group.

 

 
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Vice President: Gabon’s Bongo Suffered A Stroke

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Gabon’s President Ali Bongo, out of the country since falling ill in October, suffered a stroke, his vice president said, providing the first official details of his illness.

The 59-year-old leader left hospital in Morocco earlier this month and is recovering at a private residence in the capital Rabat after weeks of silence about his condition.

Vice President Pierre Claver Maganga Moussavou said Bongo had suffered a cerebrovascular accident or CVA, commonly known as a stroke.

“Nobody should rejoice over the death or illness of another, those who have never known a CVA, pray to God that they never know one,” Moussavou said in a speech in Franceville in the south of the country on Saturday.

“I would not wish it on anyone, not even my worst enemy.”

A lack of official news after Bongo fell ill at an economic forum in Saudi Arabia on October 24 sparked speculation the Gabonese leader was incapacitated or even dead.

The vice president was part of a delegation of high-ranking officials who visited Bongo on Tuesday in Morocco, where he flew at the end of November after a stay in hospital in Riyadh.

A presidential spokesman had initially talked briefly of severe fatigue when referring to Bongo’s illness.

Official statements did not give details of his condition, though some sources had referred to a possible stroke.

A photograph of Bongo and two videos without sound have been published since his arrival in Morocco, further fueling rumors about his state of health.

The Bongo family has governed the oil-rich equatorial African nation for five decades and long maintained close ties with former colonial master France.

Diplomatic ties cooled after Ali Bongo was elected in 2009 following his father’s death and French authorities launched a corruption investigation into the family’s assets.
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More Than Half the World’s Population is Using the Internet

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The International Telecommunication Union reports that for the first time in history, half of the global population is using the internet. A new report finds by the end of the year, 3.9 billion people worldwide will be online.

The report finds access to and use of information and communication technologies around the world is trending upwards. It notes most internet users are in developed countries, with more than 80 percent of their populations online. But it says internet use is steadily growing in developing countries, increasing from 7.7 percent in 2005 to 45.3 percent this year.

The International Telecommunication Union says Africa is the region with the strongest growth, where the percentage of people using the internet has increased from just over two percent in 2005 to nearly 25 percent in 2018.

The lowest growth rates, it says, are in Europe and the Americas, with the lowest usage found in the Asia-Pacific region.

In addition to data on internet usage, newly released statistics show mobile access to basic telecommunication services is becoming more predominant. ITU Senior Statistician, Esperanza Magpantay says access to higher speed mobile and fixed broadband also is growing.

“So, there is almost 96 percent of the population who are now covered by mobile population signal of which 90 percent are covered by 3G access. So, this is a high figure, and this helps explain why we have this 51 percent of the population now using the internet,” she said.

With the growth in mobile broadband, Magpantay says there has been an upsurge in the number of people using the internet through their mobile devices.

The ITU says countries that are hooked into the digital economy do better in their overall economic well-being and competitiveness. Unfortunately, it says the cost of accessing telecommunication networks remains too high and unaffordable for many.

It says prices must be brought down to make the digital economy a reality for the half the world’s people who do not, as yet, use the internet.

 

 

 
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Hunger, Lice, Filth: Moroccan Camp Shows Migrant Challenges

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As Morocco prepares to host the signing of a landmark global migration agreement, hundreds of migrants are languishing in a Casablanca camp rife with hunger, misery, lice and filth.

These sub-Saharan Africans who dream of going to Europe are a symbol of the problems world dignitaries are trying to address with the U.N.’s first migration compact, being finalized at a conference in Marrakech on Monday and Tuesday.

 

Rising numbers of migrants live in the makeshift camp that sprung up on a soccer field near a busy Casablanca bus station, where they are bedded down under tents or shacks built from plastic and wood.

 

Scant food, a lack of heat and no sanitation are the main worries at the Oulad Ziane camp, as lice and respiratory infections are becoming endemic.

 

Morocco embodies multiple dilemmas facing the countries meeting in Marrakech: It’s a major source of Europe’s migrants but is also a transit country as well as a migrant host for other Africans fleeing poverty and persecution.

 

The 34-page U.N. Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration is to be formally approved in Marrakech, Morocco, on Dec. 10-11. But the United States and several European countries have said they won’t sign on.

 

The Oulad Ziane camp houses African migrants seeking to reach Europe via the western Mediterranean route to Spain after crackdowns by Italy and Malta have slowed smuggling traffic in the eastern Mediterranean. Many of the migrants have already tried the journey north to Morocco’s border with Spain, only to be pushed away by Moroccan police, sometimes violently.

 

In the meantime they look for work in Casablanca, hoping to earn enough to pay smugglers to try once again.

 

New arrivals at the Casablanca camp came after clashing violently with Moroccan border agents as they tried to scale the fence separating Morocco from Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta.

 

“I am only here to recover. I come and go,” said 19-year-old Guinean Ibrahim Bah, who arrived days ago with open wounds on his wrists, arms and back.

 

“Moroccan forces caught us and beat us. They broke one of my friend’s arms, handcuffed us and crammed us on a bus. This time they dropped us in Casablanca but usually they take us far to the south,” he said.

 

Government officials didn’t respond to requests for comment on inhumane treatment of migrants or the Casablanca camp, but Morocco’s government describes the country’s migration policy as “exemplary.” That mostly refers to reforms launched in 2014, largely funded by the EU, to encourage migrants to stay in Morocco.

 

More than 23,096 migrants have been given Moroccan residency since 2014 and the authorities are currently processing about 25,000 other applications.

 

Still, more than 6,500 Sub-Saharan migrants and refugees were arrested and pushed back on buses to southern Morocco or toward Algeria between July and September 2018, according to an anti-racist group Gadem.

 

Other migrants in the Oulad Ziane camp had just walked over 100 hours from Tiznit, a town in Morocco’s far south where they had been deported to.

 

“The precarious journey is never over. It’s constant fear. You walk in the street, you get arrested. You go to the mosque, you are arrested. We feel like criminals,” said Jiane Jbrahima, a 22-year-old from Senegal.

 

Jbrahima lived for five years in Tangiers before undergoing, along with thousands of migrants, what Amnesty International describes as a “large-scale crackdown on thousands of sub-Saharan migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees” by Morocco.

 

Migrants arrested in the north are at times held for several days in two Tangiers police stations before buses bring them back to the south. These detentions are “wholly arbitrary and legally unsubstantiated,” as “no one was brought before a judge at any stage,” says Gadem.

 

A Spanish activist working in Morocco, Helena Maleno, says the EU-supported Moroccan regularization policy would work if it brought about real change in terms of providing migrants work and access to health care.

 

“The initiative is good on itself, but it does so little to change the hard reality of migrants, mostly because it’s not really targeted to provide assistance for them but rather to please the EU and keep migrants from reaching Europe,” she said.

 

Rising numbers of migrants taking the Morocco-Spain route to Europe have turned Morocco into the main entry point for sub-Saharan African migrants, putting border pressures on the North African kingdom.

 

The EU agreed this summer to give Morocco $275 million to halt flows of illegal migrants, “pushing the country to take a more violent approach in stopping migrants from reaching Europe,” says Maleno.

 

This year, Morocco stopped 68,000 illegal migration attempts, according to government spokesman Mustapha El Khelfi.

 

Concerned by rumors of an upcoming deportation campaign, migrants in Casablanca camp spend most of their time in their ragged tents, smoking cannabis and talking about the psychological scars from years of uncertainty.

 

“I listen to the radio and the news says that it’s good for us here. I wonder if they’re oblivious to what is going on or simply they think we’re idiots,” said Mohamed Rafiou Barry, 22, from Guinea. “Even if 40 years pass, I’ll never forget being taken from one bus to another, beaten, eating from garbage. You don’t forget those things.”

 

 
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At Scene of South Sudan Mass Rape, ‘No One Could Hear Me’

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Wrapping an arm around her stomach, the young woman hung her head and recounted the day in early November when she and a friend were bound, dragged into the bush and raped by four men with guns.

 

“My body hasn’t been the same since,” the 18-year-old said. The men attacked during an hours-long walk home to the South Sudan village of Nhialdiu. “I was crying and screaming but I was so far from the village that no one could hear me,” she told The Associated Press, which doesn’t identify survivors of sexual assault.

 

Shock and outrage followed when the medical charity Doctors Without Borders announced that 125 women and girls had been raped, whipped and clubbed over 10 days last month in a dramatic spike in sexual violence. “Horrific,” the United Nations secretary-general said. They were attacked as they made the long walk to a food distribution site in Bentiu, in Unity state.

 

In an exclusive look at the aftermath, the AP joined a U.N. peacekeeping patrol where the attacks occurred as humanitarians, rights groups and South Sudan’s government scrambled to find out more.

 

Rape has been used widely as a weapon in South Sudan. Even after a peace deal was signed in September to end a five-year civil war that killed nearly 400,000 people, humanitarians have warned of higher rates of sexual assault as growing numbers of desperate people try to reach aid. While some aid groups have quietly questioned whether all 125 people in the Doctors With Borders report were raped, they do not dispute that the problem has become grave.

 

The 18-year-old was not included in that report, and the real toll of sexual assault is not known.

 

Joining the U.N. patrol on Friday, the AP traveled the potholed road where the recent assaults took place. Shrouded by trees and elephant grass, some stretches provide cover for perpetrators to lurk.

 

Several local women said the violence is escalating.

 

Nyalgwon Mol Moon said she was held at gunpoint last month while two men in civilian clothes, their faces covered, stole her clothes, her shoes and the milk she meant to sell at market. Standing beside the road, pointing to her borrowed, oversized sneakers, she said she now tries to take alternative routes on her weekly walks to Bentiu.

 

She has no other choice. Food in Nhialdiu and nearby villages is scarce. Most people were unable to cultivate last season because of fighting and too much rain. Many rely on monthly aid from the U.N.’s World Food Program.

 

That means a walk of almost 40 kilometers (24 miles) to Bentiu town. Unable to carry the heavy rations back in one trip, most women leave some behind with relatives and make several journeys throughout the month.

 

Some said they make the 11-hour trek at least six times.

 

Alarmed by the sexual assaults, the World Food Program said it is prepared to bring distribution points closer to communities. The U.N. is now clearing the road from Bentiu to Nhialdiu of debris to make access easier.

 

No one has taken responsibility for the wave of assaults that the U.N. and African Union have condemned as “abhorrent” and “predatory.”

 

South Sudan’s government has acknowledged the assaults occurred in areas it controls, on the road between Nhialdiu and Bentiu and in surrounding villages. But it blames them on “unregulated youth” who fought alongside warring factions before the peace deal, Laraka Machar Turoal, deputy governor of Northern Liech state that was once part of Unity, told the AP.

 

Youth who were never officially integrated with armed groups have been left idle, guns in hand, to take what they want by force, Turoal said.

 

South Sudan’s government has called on all sides to demobilize the youth. It said it has deployed troops to areas in Unity state suspected of harboring criminals.

 

And yet the army in Nhialdiu has not detained anyone in the assaults and denies responsibility for finding the perpetrators, said John Dor, army commander for the area. He said they took place far from town, outside his jurisdiction.

 

But several local people said they knew of attacks in villages less than 15 kilometers from the army base. Some who were attacked at gunpoint said they believe the armed youth are affiliated with government troops. The government has done nothing so far to stop the violence, one woman explained.

 

The U.N., which has increased patrols, is pushing South Sudan’s government to take more responsibility. The U.N. Security Council in a statement on Saturday noted its willingness to impose sanctions on those who threaten the peace, including by sexual violence.

 

“They’re obliged to make sure everyone’s protected … it’s not enough just to sit in one place and not be involved,” said Paul Adejoh Ebikwo, the U.N. mission’s senior civil affairs officer in Bentiu.

 

Unity state was one of the hardest-hit areas in the civil war, and Bentiu has changed hands several times. Government and opposition forces remain at odds, even as factions across the country try to reconcile. A meeting on Thursday to build trust was canceled because the parties couldn’t agree on a place to meet, said the independent monitoring group charged with overseeing the peace deal’s implementation.

 

Meanwhile, many women and girls are terrified.

 

Cautiously peering through the trees, several hesitantly emerged from the bush, inching toward the side of the road.

 

“We’re walking here because we’re scared of coming on the main path,” said Nyachieng Gatman. Three days ago, she said, she met a breast-feeding mother and young girl who had been raped in a nearby town.

 

Standing beside her, 11-year Anchankual Dood lowered her heavy bag of grain and gulped from a bottle of water.

 

“It’s a long distance to go and come from Bentiu,” the girl said. “But we do it because we need food and because we’re suffering.”
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Paris Cleans Up After Latest Riot; Nearly 1,800 Arrested

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Nearly 1,800 people were arrested Saturday across France in the latest round of “yellow vest” protests.

Nationwide, the Interior Ministry says some 136,000 people rallied against France’s high-cost of living. Protesters also expressed their dismay with the presidency of Emmanuel Macron.

Protests were mounted in a number of cities besides Paris, including Marseilles, Bordeaux, Lyon and Toulouse.

The ministry said Sunday 1,723 people were arrested nationwide, with 1,220 of them ordered held in custody.

Parisian police said they made 1,082 arrests Saturday, a sharp increase from last week’s 412 arrests.

Meanwhile, tourist destinations, including the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre Museum, reopened and workers cleaned up broken glass Sunday. 

The man who unleashed the anger, President Emmanuel Macron, broke his silence to tweet his appreciation for the police overnight, but pressure mounted on him to propose new solutions to calm the anger dividing France.

On Saturday, French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said violent outbreaks in Paris were “under control” despite ongoing disorderly acts he declared “totally unacceptable.”

French police supported by armored vehicles fired tear gas at yellow-vested protesters on the Champs Elysees.

Castaner estimated 10,000 demonstrators had taken to Parisian streets.

He said 135 people had been injured, including 17 police officers.

France closed the Eiffel Tower and other tourist landmarks and mobilized tens of thousands of security forces for the fourth week of violent demonstrations.

Many shops in Paris were boarded up before Saturday’s protests to avoid being smashed or looted, and police cordoned off many of the city’s broad boulevards.

Despite what Castaner said were “exceptional” security measures, protesters still smashed store windows and clashed with police.

More than 89,000 police were deployed nationwide, an increase from 65,000 last weekend.

Police in central Paris removed any materials from the streets that could be used as weapons or projectiles during the demonstrations, including street furniture at outdoor cafes.

Macron made an unannounced visit Friday night to a group of anti-riot security officers outside Paris to thank them for their work.

The protests erupted in November over a fuel tax increase, which was part of Macron’s plan to combat global warming.

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe called for new talks Saturday with representatives of the “yellow vest” movement. He vowed the government would address their concerns over rising living costs.

“The president will speak, and will propose measures that will feed this dialogue,” Philippe said in a televised statement.

 

WATCH: Clashes and Hundreds Detained in France in ‘Yellow Vest’ Protests

U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted Saturday that the Paris Agreement, a global effort to reduce global warming beginning in 2020, “isn’t working out so well for Paris” and that “People do not want to pay large sums of money … in order to protect the environment.”

Since the unrest began in November, four people have been killed in protest-related accidents.

While Macron has since abandoned the fuel tax hike, protesters have made new demands to address other economic issues hurting workers, retirees and students.

Government officials are concerned the repeated weekly violence could weaken the economy and raise doubts about the government’s survival.

Officials are also concerned about far-right, anarchist and anti-capitalist groups like Black Bloc that have attached themselves to the “yellow vest” movement.
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