The Trump administration is considering allowing a law that has been suspended since its creation in 1996 to go into effect, allowing U.S. citizens to sue foreign companies and individuals over property confiscated from them by the Cuban government.

The so-called Title III rule forms part of the Helms-Burton Act, which codified all U.S. sanctions against Cuba into law 23 years ago. It has been waived by every president ever since, Democrats and Republicans alike, due to opposition from the international community and fears it could create chaos in the U.S. court system, analysts say.

However, the administration of President Donald Trump on Wednesday suspended it for just 45 days rather than the customary six months and said it would take a fresh look at allowing it to go into effect.

“This extension will permit us to conduct a careful review of the right to bring action under Title III in light of the national interests of the United States and efforts to expedite a transition to democracy in Cuba,” the State Department said in a statement.

“We encourage any person doing business in Cuba to reconsider whether they are trafficking in confiscated property and abetting this dictatorship.”

Dash foreign investment

If Title III went into effect, it would likely dash foreign investment that Cuba has been seeking to drum up to support its beleaguered state-dominated economy.

In the first official Cuban response to the news, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez wrote on Twitter that the decision to suspend Title III for just 45 days was “political blackmail” and a “brutal attack against international law.”

U.S.-Cuban relations have nosedived since Trump became president, partially rolling back the detente initiated by his predecessor Barack Obama and reverting to Cold War rhetoric, albeit maintaining re-established diplomatic relations.

Cuba hardliners

Analysts say changes to the administration over the last year, including the appointment of Cuba hardliners to top posts, suggest the Trump government could further toughen its stance on Cuba.

John Bolton, who became Trump’s national security adviser last April, called Cuba and its top allies Venezuela and Nicaragua a “troika of tyranny” in November.

The right to sue over property confiscated by the Cuban government after the 1959 revolution is one of the long-standing claims of older generations of Cuban-Americans.

“I look forward to continuing to work with the administration to ensure that … the victims receive the justice which is long overdue,” said Florida Representative Mario Diaz-Balart on Twitter.

Move could backfire

However, analysts said such a move could backfire.

“It would cause an enormous legal mess, anger U.S. allies in Europe and Latin America, and probably result in a World Trade Organization case against the U.S.,” said William Leogrande, a professor of government at American University.

The State Department estimated in the past that allowing Title III to go into effect could result in 200,000 or more lawsuits being filed, he said.

‘Sowing havoc’

Even U.S. businesses could get caught in the crossfire, said Michael Bustamante, an assistant professor of Latin American history at Florida International University.

U.S. airlines and cruise companies started operating in Cuba following Obama’s detente, paying fees to Havana’s airport and port, properties that may have been confiscated.

“Legitimate property claims need to be resolved, but in the context of a bilateral negotiation,” said Bustamante. “Those backing the enforcement of Title III seem most intent on sowing havoc rather than achieving a positive good.”

 
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Parents, teachers and students are pushing back on a report released recently in Parkland, Florida — the site of a mass shooting at a high school last February — that recommends arming teachers to secure schools.

“I don’t agree we should arm teachers,” said Lori Alhadeff, whose 16-year-old daughter, Alyssa, was shot and killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

“We need to train our law enforcement to actively engage a threat! Our teachers should be armed with more resources and pay but definitely not guns!” Alhadeff, who now serves on Broward County’s school board, wrote in an email to VOA.

The shooter, a 20-year-old recent graduate of the high school, killed 17 people with a semiautomatic AR-15 rifle. While the massacre drew national attention to the larger question of gun control in the United States, it also prompted a months-long local investigation and subsequent report into how the shooter was able to perpetrate the mass shooting, and how similar events may be prevented in the future.

The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission released a more than 400-page report covering details of the shooting, identifying security problems and making recommendations.

Among the recommendations was the expansion of a program that allows teachers and staff members to carry concealed firearms to defend students in the event of an active shooter.

“School districts and charter schools should permit the most expansive use of the Guardian Program under existing law to allow personnel — who volunteer, are properly selected, thoroughly screened and extensively trained — to carry concealed firearms on campuses for self-protection and the protection of other staff and students,” the report read.

Alhadeff was not the only parent of one of the 16 students killed last year who disagreed with the recommendation to arm teachers. Max Schachter, one of two parents of victims on the commission board, voted against the recommendation to arm teachers, the Sun-Sentinel reported.

‘Absolutely not’

But the commission, which included sheriffs and state politicians, as well as two parents of the shooting victims, did not consult with any of Marjory Stoneman Douglas’s teachers.

“They’re not in the school. So, they’re making recommendations on how to make the school safe, make our kids safer going forward. But they didn’t ask any teachers, who are in the school, who would have a better idea of what’s practical,” Felicia Burgin, an English teacher, told VOA.

When asked if she agreed with the recommendation to arm teachers, Burgin said, “Absolutely not.”

Burgin and fellow teacher Sarah Lerner agree with Alhadeff’s suggestion that increasing the number of security personnel on campus is a more reasonable solution than arming teachers.

“To have a firearm at school — it just seems counterproductive. I’m here to teach, I’m not a police officer,” Lerner, who teaches journalism and English, told VOA.

Along with concerns about where the funding would come to arm and train teachers, Lerner, who was teaching on campus in a different building than where the shooting took place, does not think that being armed would have helped her.

“By the time I would have accessed my weapon, which would have been secured safely in a closet, I would have been dead,” she said.

Concerns about objectivity

A few days after the report was released, the leader of the commission, Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, appeared on a television show of the National Rifle Association (NRA) — sparking outrage by some in the community who say that his appearance on a network that advocates for gun rights threatens the objectivity of the commission.

“Everyone should be disturbed by the leader of the School Safety Commission (which opened following the shooting at the high school) going on NRA TV,” David Hogg, a survivor of the Feb. 14 shooting, said on Twitter. “This is supposed to be a nonpartisan commission that looks at safety; it’s (sic) goal is supposed to be protecting students, not selling more guns.”

“There’s no reason for them to be involved or to be on NRA TV at all if they’re members of this nonpartisan committee,” Lerner said.

The existing Guardian Program, signed into law by outgoing Republican Gov. Rick Scott shortly after the shooting last year, only allows administrators or non-teaching staff to receive firearm training.

In April 2018, the Broward County School Board voted against adopting the program, which would have given Broward County schools over $67 million to train and arm teachers, according to The Eagle Eye, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School’s newspaper.

Sheriff suspended

The report was released earlier this month and also recommended a full internal investigation of the Broward County sheriff’s office, which responded first to the shooting, to “address all of the actions or inactions of personnel on February 14, 2018.”

Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel was suspended over the weekend by newly inaugurated Florida Gov.  Ron DeSantis.

“Effective immediately, I am officially suspending Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel for his repeated failures, incompetence and neglect of duty,” DeSantis wrote on Twitter Friday.

Israel has said he will contest his suspension, calling the move political and unjustified.

“This was about politics, not about Parkland,” he told reporters shortly after the suspension was announced Friday.

The commission first met in April 2018, setting January 2019 as the deadline to submit a preliminary report. During the second half of 2018, the commission held monthly meetings interviewing witnesses and reviewing “a massive amount of evidence,” according to the report.

 

The commission was formed by Scott, who has since become a U.S. senator for the state.

 
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Jonathan Nez delivered a message of hope, resilience and change Tuesday in his inaugural address as president of the Navajo Nation, drawing from the tribe’s history as a way to move forward.

He and Vice President Myron Lizer took the oath of office before a large crowd at an indoor sports arena in Fort Defiance, near the tribal capital, that dwindled as the ceremony ran longer than scheduled.

The two easily won November’s general election to lead the tribe on the nation’s largest Native American reservation for the next four years. They will have to confront a loss of about $40 million in annual revenue and hundreds of jobs held by Navajos if a coal-fired power plant and its supply mine close in December, as expected.

Nez and Lizer said they would support Navajo entrepreneurs and Navajo-owned businesses, eliminate redundancies in the tribal government and restore people’s trust in their leaders. They also vowed to work with tribal lawmakers.

“We have to begin to view the situation as an opportunity to re-evaluate ourselves on the way we do business,” said Nez, 43.

The inauguration was a mix of traditional Navajo elements and Christianity, which wasn’t received well among everyone in the audience, with speeches in Navajo and English. A traditional practitioner blessed the men, as did pastors. Nez quoted scripture in his address and highlighted the strength of Navajos who were forcibly marched off their homeland 150 years ago and of Navajo women.

He spoke about self-reliance, a healthy lifestyle, and returning to lessons learned in the sheep camp and rooting oneself in the Navajo language.

His words about instilling hope in Navajo youth facing adversity because of bullying, depression and rates of suicide among Native Americans that are higher than the general population were reassuring for Kathleen Bowman, who heads the tribe’s public defender office.

​”What I’d like to see is for our leaders to think in terms of helping our people overcome addiction to substance abuse, help them find ways to heal from what they’ve suffered from growing up,” she said. “There should be a message of hope because we certainly need change.” 

Nez proudly proclaimed he’s from Shonto, Arizona, and had leaders from the community and his own parents depicted in faint images over pictures of Shonto Canyon displayed behind the stage. Also in the backdrop were two large Navajo rugs woven in the Ganado style, symmetrical geometric designs that look like dazzling eyes in colors that aligned with Nez’s campaign. Two rugs featuring the Navajo Nation seal were on either side. 

More modern art was placed at the front of the stage showing vibrant corn stalks and moccasins around a basket, in what inauguration director Curtis Berry said was meant to honor youth.

“To me, the youth are our future, and the way they’re depicting our culture is different, is changing,” he said.

The Navajo Nation Council delegates took the oath of office together, picking items from a basket that’s referred to as their medicine bundle in blessing themselves.

Delegate Nathaniel Brown said the council should make the expected shortfall in revenue a priority, a sentiment echoed by his colleagues, and think well ahead in to the future. A Navajo energy company is studying the purchase of the Navajo Generating Station near the Arizona-Utah border and the Kayenta Mine, and the council would have some say if it moves forward.

“What are we going to leave for our children?” Brown said. “Are we going to preserve our language, our culture, our way of life? We need to look deep into the future and have a massive plan.”

Other leaders of Arizona tribes and past Navajo leaders attended the inauguration. But the Navajo Nation’s immediate past president, Russell Begaye, did not. He ran for re-election but didn’t make it beyond the tribe’s primary in August. 
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The United States is criticizing Iran’s failed attempt Tuesday to launch a satellite into orbit.

Iranian officials say the launch failed when the rocket carrying the satellite did not reach the proper speed to propel it into orbit.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo condemned Iran for what he calls its “defiance of the international community…the launch yet again shows that Iran is pursuing enhanced missile capabilities that threaten Europe and the Middle East.”

Pompeo said the rocket that Iran used to try to put the satellite into orbit “incorporates technologies that are virtually identical and interchangeable with those used in ballistic missiles, including intercontinental ballistic missiles.”

He said the launch violates a 2015 UN Security Council Resolution urging Iran not to work on ballistic missile technology for eight years. 

The resolution is part of the six-nation nuclear agreement with Iran from which the U.S. withdrew last year.

Iran says its space launches and satellite program have no military intent and will continue.

It also says they do not violate the Security Council resolution which it says only recommends but does not bar Iran from such launches.
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