Month: February 2019

Ivanka Trump Says She Knew Little About Moscow Project

Posted on by SeeUS

President Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, says she knew “literally almost nothing” about the Trump Organization’s work to possibly build a hotel, office and residential building in Russia while her father was running for the White House.

 

Ivanka Trump also tells ABC News in an interview aired Friday that she isn’t concerned any of her loved ones will be swept up in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

 

She was copied in on emails in 2015 about the project. In one email, she suggests an architect for the Trump Tower Moscow project.

 

The president’s eldest daughter says it wasn’t an “advanced project” and that there was “never a binding contract.”

 

She says the Trump Organization could have had 40 to 50 projects like that floating around that people were reviewing.

 

 
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British Actor Albert Finney Dies at 82

Posted on by SeeEU

Albert Finney, one of the most respected and versatile actors of his generation and the star of films as diverse as “Tom Jones” and “Skyfall,” has died. He was 82.

From his early days as a strikingly handsome and magnetic screen presence to his closing acts as a brilliant character actor, Finney was a British treasure known for charismatic work on both stage and screen.

Finney’s family said Friday that he “passed away peacefully after a short illness with those closest to him by his side.” He died Thursday from a chest infection at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, a cancer treatment center.

Finney burst to international fame in 1963 in the title role of “Tom Jones,” playing a lusty, humorous rogue who captivated audience with his charming, devil-may-care antics.

He excelled in many other roles, including “Saturday Night and Sunday Morning”, a 1960 drama that was part of the “angry young man” film trend.

Finney was a rare star who managed to avoid the Hollywood limelight despite more than five decades of worldwide fame. He was known for skipping awards ceremonies, even when he was nominated for an Oscar.

“Tom Jones” gained him the first of five Oscar nominations. Other nominations followed for “Murder on the Orient Express,” ″The Dresser,” ″Under the Volcano” and “Erin Brockovich.” Each time he fell short.

In later years he brought authority to bid-budget and high-grossing action movies, including the James Bond thriller “Skyfall” and two of the Bourne films. He also won hearts as Daddy Warbucks in “Annie.”

He played an array of roles, including Winston Churchill, Pope John Paul II, a southern American lawyer, and an Irish gangster. There was no “Albert Finney”-type character that he returned to again and again.

In one of his final roles, as the gruff Scotsman, Kincade, in “Skyfall,” he shared significant screen time with Daniel Craig as Bond and Judi Dench as M, turning the film’s final scenes into a master class of character acting.

“The world has lost a giant,” Craig said.

Although Finney rarely discussed his personal life, he said in 2012 that he had been treated for kidney cancer for five years.

He also explained why he had not attended the Academy Awards in Los Angeles even when he was nominated for the film world’s top prize.

“It seems silly to go over there and beg for an award,” he said.

The son of a bookmaker, Finney was born May 9, 1936, and grew up in northern England on the outskirts of Manchester. He took to the stage at an early age, doing a number of school plays and — despite his lack of connections and his working-class roots — earning a place at London’s prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.

He credited the headmaster of his local school, Eric Simms, for recommending that he attend the renowned drama school.

“He’s the reason I am an actor,” Finney said in 2012.

Finney made his first professional turn at 19 and appeared in several TV movies.

Soon, some critics were hailing him as “the next Laurence Olivier” — a commanding presence who would light up the British stage. In London, Finney excelled both in Shakespeare’s plays and in more contemporary offerings.

Still, the young man seemed determined not to pursue conventional Hollywood stardom. After an extensive screen test, he turned down the chance to play the title role in director David Lean’s epic “Lawrence of Arabia,” clearing the way for fellow RADA graduate Peter O’Toole to take what became a career-defining role.

But stardom came to Finney anyway in “Tom Jones”.

That was the role that introduced Finney to American audiences, and few would forget the sensual, blue-eyed leading man who helped the film win a Best Picture Oscar. Finney also earned his first Best Actor nomination for his efforts and the smash hit turned him into a Hollywood leading man.

Finney had the good fortune to receive a healthy percentage of the profits from the surprise hit, giving him financial security while he was still in his 20s.

“This is a man from very humble origins who became rich when he was very young,” said Quentin Falk, author of an unauthorized biography of Finney. “It brought him a lot of side benefits. He’s a man who likes to live as well as to act. He enjoys his fine wine and cigars. He’s his own man. I find that rather admirable.”

The actor maintained a healthy skepticism about the British establishment and turned down a knighthood when it was offered, declining to become Sir Albert.

“Maybe people in America think being a ‘Sir’ is a big deal,” he said. “But I think we should all be misters together. I think the ‘Sir’ thing slightly perpetuates one of our diseases in England, which is snobbery.”

He told The Associated Press in 2000 that he would rather be a “mister” than a “Sir.”

Instead of cashing in by taking lucrative film roles after “Tom Jones,” Finney took a long sabbatical, traveling slowly through the United States, Mexico and the Pacific islands, then returned to the London stage to act in Shakespeare productions and other plays. He won wide acclaim before returning to film in 1967 to co-star with Audrey Hepburn in “Two for the Road.”

This was to be a familiar pattern, with Finney alternating between film work and stage productions in London and New York.

Finney tackled Charles Dickens in “Scrooge” in 1970, then played Agatha Christie’s sophisticated sleuth Hercule Poirot in “Murder on the Orient Express” — earning his second Best Actor nomination— and even played a werewolf hunter in the cult film “Wolfen” in 1981.

In 1983, he was reunited with his peer from the “angry young man” movement, Tom Courtenay, in “The Dresser,” a film that garnered both Academy Award nominations.

Finney was nominated again for his role as a self-destructive alcoholic in director John Huston’s 1984 film “Under the Volcano.”

Even during this extraordinary run of great roles, Finney’s life was not chronicled in People or other magazines, although the British press was fascinated with his marriage to the sultry French film star Anouk Aimee.

He played in a series of smaller, independent films for a number of years before returning to prominence in 2000 as a southern lawyer in the film “Erin Brockovich,” which starred Julia Roberts. The film helped introduce Finney to a new generation of moviegoers, and the chemistry between the aging lawyer and his young, aggressive assistant earned him yet another Oscar nomination, this time for Best Supporting Actor.

His work also helped propel Roberts to her first Best Actress Oscar. Still, Finney declined to attend the Academy Awards ceremony — possibly damaging his chances at future wins by snubbing Hollywood’s elite.

Finney also tried his hand at directing and producing and played a vital role in sustaining British theater.

The Old Vic theater said his “performances in plays by Shakespeare, Chekhov and other iconic playwrights throughout the ’60s, ‘70s and ’80s stand apart as some of the greatest in our 200-year history.”

Finney is survived by his third wife, Pene Delmage, son Simon and two grandchildren. Funeral arrangements weren’t immediately known.

 
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British Actor Albert Finney Dies at 82

Posted on by SeeEU

Albert Finney, one of the most respected and versatile actors of his generation and the star of films as diverse as “Tom Jones” and “Skyfall,” has died. He was 82.

From his early days as a strikingly handsome and magnetic screen presence to his closing acts as a brilliant character actor, Finney was a British treasure known for charismatic work on both stage and screen.

Finney’s family said Friday that he “passed away peacefully after a short illness with those closest to him by his side.” He died Thursday from a chest infection at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, a cancer treatment center.

Finney burst to international fame in 1963 in the title role of “Tom Jones,” playing a lusty, humorous rogue who captivated audience with his charming, devil-may-care antics.

He excelled in many other roles, including “Saturday Night and Sunday Morning”, a 1960 drama that was part of the “angry young man” film trend.

Finney was a rare star who managed to avoid the Hollywood limelight despite more than five decades of worldwide fame. He was known for skipping awards ceremonies, even when he was nominated for an Oscar.

“Tom Jones” gained him the first of five Oscar nominations. Other nominations followed for “Murder on the Orient Express,” ″The Dresser,” ″Under the Volcano” and “Erin Brockovich.” Each time he fell short.

In later years he brought authority to bid-budget and high-grossing action movies, including the James Bond thriller “Skyfall” and two of the Bourne films. He also won hearts as Daddy Warbucks in “Annie.”

He played an array of roles, including Winston Churchill, Pope John Paul II, a southern American lawyer, and an Irish gangster. There was no “Albert Finney”-type character that he returned to again and again.

In one of his final roles, as the gruff Scotsman, Kincade, in “Skyfall,” he shared significant screen time with Daniel Craig as Bond and Judi Dench as M, turning the film’s final scenes into a master class of character acting.

“The world has lost a giant,” Craig said.

Although Finney rarely discussed his personal life, he said in 2012 that he had been treated for kidney cancer for five years.

He also explained why he had not attended the Academy Awards in Los Angeles even when he was nominated for the film world’s top prize.

“It seems silly to go over there and beg for an award,” he said.

The son of a bookmaker, Finney was born May 9, 1936, and grew up in northern England on the outskirts of Manchester. He took to the stage at an early age, doing a number of school plays and — despite his lack of connections and his working-class roots — earning a place at London’s prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.

He credited the headmaster of his local school, Eric Simms, for recommending that he attend the renowned drama school.

“He’s the reason I am an actor,” Finney said in 2012.

Finney made his first professional turn at 19 and appeared in several TV movies.

Soon, some critics were hailing him as “the next Laurence Olivier” — a commanding presence who would light up the British stage. In London, Finney excelled both in Shakespeare’s plays and in more contemporary offerings.

Still, the young man seemed determined not to pursue conventional Hollywood stardom. After an extensive screen test, he turned down the chance to play the title role in director David Lean’s epic “Lawrence of Arabia,” clearing the way for fellow RADA graduate Peter O’Toole to take what became a career-defining role.

But stardom came to Finney anyway in “Tom Jones”.

That was the role that introduced Finney to American audiences, and few would forget the sensual, blue-eyed leading man who helped the film win a Best Picture Oscar. Finney also earned his first Best Actor nomination for his efforts and the smash hit turned him into a Hollywood leading man.

Finney had the good fortune to receive a healthy percentage of the profits from the surprise hit, giving him financial security while he was still in his 20s.

“This is a man from very humble origins who became rich when he was very young,” said Quentin Falk, author of an unauthorized biography of Finney. “It brought him a lot of side benefits. He’s a man who likes to live as well as to act. He enjoys his fine wine and cigars. He’s his own man. I find that rather admirable.”

The actor maintained a healthy skepticism about the British establishment and turned down a knighthood when it was offered, declining to become Sir Albert.

“Maybe people in America think being a ‘Sir’ is a big deal,” he said. “But I think we should all be misters together. I think the ‘Sir’ thing slightly perpetuates one of our diseases in England, which is snobbery.”

He told The Associated Press in 2000 that he would rather be a “mister” than a “Sir.”

Instead of cashing in by taking lucrative film roles after “Tom Jones,” Finney took a long sabbatical, traveling slowly through the United States, Mexico and the Pacific islands, then returned to the London stage to act in Shakespeare productions and other plays. He won wide acclaim before returning to film in 1967 to co-star with Audrey Hepburn in “Two for the Road.”

This was to be a familiar pattern, with Finney alternating between film work and stage productions in London and New York.

Finney tackled Charles Dickens in “Scrooge” in 1970, then played Agatha Christie’s sophisticated sleuth Hercule Poirot in “Murder on the Orient Express” — earning his second Best Actor nomination— and even played a werewolf hunter in the cult film “Wolfen” in 1981.

In 1983, he was reunited with his peer from the “angry young man” movement, Tom Courtenay, in “The Dresser,” a film that garnered both Academy Award nominations.

Finney was nominated again for his role as a self-destructive alcoholic in director John Huston’s 1984 film “Under the Volcano.”

Even during this extraordinary run of great roles, Finney’s life was not chronicled in People or other magazines, although the British press was fascinated with his marriage to the sultry French film star Anouk Aimee.

He played in a series of smaller, independent films for a number of years before returning to prominence in 2000 as a southern lawyer in the film “Erin Brockovich,” which starred Julia Roberts. The film helped introduce Finney to a new generation of moviegoers, and the chemistry between the aging lawyer and his young, aggressive assistant earned him yet another Oscar nomination, this time for Best Supporting Actor.

His work also helped propel Roberts to her first Best Actress Oscar. Still, Finney declined to attend the Academy Awards ceremony — possibly damaging his chances at future wins by snubbing Hollywood’s elite.

Finney also tried his hand at directing and producing and played a vital role in sustaining British theater.

The Old Vic theater said his “performances in plays by Shakespeare, Chekhov and other iconic playwrights throughout the ’60s, ‘70s and ’80s stand apart as some of the greatest in our 200-year history.”

Finney is survived by his third wife, Pene Delmage, son Simon and two grandchildren. Funeral arrangements weren’t immediately known.

 
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Enquirer Says it Will Investigate Bezos Extortion Claims

Posted on by SeeUS

The publisher of the National Enquirer said Friday it will look into claims of extortion and blackmail made by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who said the tabloid threatened to publish intimate photos of him unless he stopped investigating how the Enquirer obtained his private exchanges with his mistress.

American Media Inc. said it “acted lawfully” while reporting the story.

 

The company’s statement is the latest twist in a high-profile clash between the world’s richest man and the leader of America’s best-known tabloid, who is a strong backer of President Donald Trump. Bezos’ investigators have suggested the Enquirer’s coverage of his affair – which included the release of risque texts – was driven by dirty politics.

 

Bezos, who is also owner of The Washington Post, detailed his interactions with American Media Inc., or AMI, in an extraordinary blog post Thursday on Medium.com. The billionaire did not say the tabloid was seeking money – instead, he said, the Enquirer wanted him to make a public statement that its coverage was not politically motivated.

 

The company has admitted in the past that it engaged in what’s known as “catch-and-kill” practices to help Trump become president. Trump has been highly critical of Bezos and the Post’s coverage of the White House.

 

“Of course I don’t want personal photos published, but I also won’t participate in their well-known practice of blackmail, political favors, political attacks, and corruption,” Bezos wrote of AMI, in explaining his decision to go public. “I prefer to stand up, roll this log over, and see what crawls out.”

 

The Bezos affair became public when the Enquirer published a Jan. 9 story about his relationship with Lauren Sanchez, a former TV anchor who is also married. Bezos then hired a team of private investigators to find out how the tabloid got the texts and photos the two exchanged.

 

Bezos’ personal investigators, led by his longtime security consultant, Gavin de Becker, concluded that Bezos’ phone wasn’t hacked. Instead, they’ve been focusing on Sanchez’s brother, according to a person familiar with the matter.

 

De Becker and his team suspect Michael Sanchez, a talent manager who touts his support of Trump and is an acquaintance of Trump allies Roger Stone and Carter Page, may have provided the information to the Enquirer, the person said. The person wasn’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

 

Sanchez, who is also his sister’s manager, has declined to speak with The Associated Press on the record and did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Thursday. In a tweet, he said de Becker “spreads fake, unhinged conservative conspiracy theories” and ” ‘dog whistle’ smears.”

 

Several days ago, someone at AMI told Bezos’ team that the company’s CEO, David Pecker, was “apoplectic” about the investigation, Bezos said. AMI later approached Bezos’ representatives with an offer.

 

“They said they had more of my text messages and photos that they would publish if we didn’t stop our investigation,” Bezos wrote.

 

Bezos wrote that this week, the tabloid’s editor, Dylan Howard, emailed an attorney for Bezos’ longtime security consultant to describe photos the Enquirer “obtained during our newsgathering.” The photos include a “below the belt selfie” of Bezos, photos of him in tight boxer briefs and wearing only a towel, and several revealing photos of Sanchez, according to the emails Bezos released.

 

According to the emails, an attorney for AMI offered a formal deal Wednesday: The tabloid wouldn’t post the photos if Bezos and his investigators would release a public statement “affirming that they have no knowledge or basis” to suggest the Enquirer’s coverage was “politically motivated or influenced by political forces.”

 

Bezos said he decided to publish the emails sent to his team “rather than capitulate to extortion and blackmail,” despite the “personal cost and embarrassment they threaten.”

 

In its Jan. 9 story, the Enquirer said reporters followed Bezos and Sanchez “across five states and 40,000 miles” and “tailed them in private jets, swanky limos, helicopter rides, romantic hikes, five-star hotel hideaways, intimate dinner dates and `quality time’ in hidden love nests.”

 

It reported that Bezos sent “sleazy text messages and gushing love notes” to Sanchez, months before Bezos announced he was splitting up with his wife, MacKenzie. The story carries the bylines of Howard and two reporters.

 

Bezos usually stays out of the public eye, frequently delegating announcements and public Amazon business updates to his executives. He doesn’t even speak on the company’s quarterly financial earnings call with analysts.

 

AMI’s relationship with Trump has gotten the company into hot water in the past. It admitted to “catch-and-kill” practices as part of a deal with federal prosecutors, who agreed not to pursue charges against the company.

 

AMI acknowledged secretly assisting Trump’s campaign by paying $150,000 to a Playboy model for the rights to her story about an alleged affair with the then-candidate. The company then intentionally suppressed the story until after the 2016 election.

 

In September, the Justice Department agreed to a non-prosecution agreement with AMI, which requires the company and some top executives, including Pecker and Howard, to cooperate with authorities.

 

De Becker is now trying to find a way that federal prosecutors in Manhattan – where the non-prosecution agreement was signed – could investigate the text message scandal, the person familiar with the matter said, though it wasn’t immediately clear what, if any, crime the prosecutors would be asked to look into.

 

It is a federal crime to threaten to injure someone’s reputation in exchange for money or a “thing of value,” though federal courts haven’t made it directly clear whether a public statement, like the one demanded by AMI, could be considered something of value.

 

Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor and professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said the allegations potentially put prosecutors in an awkward position because of the deal they had already cut with AMI.

 

“It shows how complicated and dangerous it is to make an agreement with National Enquirer,” Levenson said. “They may have to cooperate, but they’re continuing in their ongoing battle with Bezos and others.”

 

But Levenson said it was too difficult to tell if the case amounted to blackmail or extortion without additional context and some prosecutors may be reluctant to charge someone for threatening another with embarrassing material.

 

 
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Enquirer Says it Will Investigate Bezos Extortion Claims

Posted on by SeeUS

The publisher of the National Enquirer said Friday it will look into claims of extortion and blackmail made by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who said the tabloid threatened to publish intimate photos of him unless he stopped investigating how the Enquirer obtained his private exchanges with his mistress.

American Media Inc. said it “acted lawfully” while reporting the story.

 

The company’s statement is the latest twist in a high-profile clash between the world’s richest man and the leader of America’s best-known tabloid, who is a strong backer of President Donald Trump. Bezos’ investigators have suggested the Enquirer’s coverage of his affair – which included the release of risque texts – was driven by dirty politics.

 

Bezos, who is also owner of The Washington Post, detailed his interactions with American Media Inc., or AMI, in an extraordinary blog post Thursday on Medium.com. The billionaire did not say the tabloid was seeking money – instead, he said, the Enquirer wanted him to make a public statement that its coverage was not politically motivated.

 

The company has admitted in the past that it engaged in what’s known as “catch-and-kill” practices to help Trump become president. Trump has been highly critical of Bezos and the Post’s coverage of the White House.

 

“Of course I don’t want personal photos published, but I also won’t participate in their well-known practice of blackmail, political favors, political attacks, and corruption,” Bezos wrote of AMI, in explaining his decision to go public. “I prefer to stand up, roll this log over, and see what crawls out.”

 

The Bezos affair became public when the Enquirer published a Jan. 9 story about his relationship with Lauren Sanchez, a former TV anchor who is also married. Bezos then hired a team of private investigators to find out how the tabloid got the texts and photos the two exchanged.

 

Bezos’ personal investigators, led by his longtime security consultant, Gavin de Becker, concluded that Bezos’ phone wasn’t hacked. Instead, they’ve been focusing on Sanchez’s brother, according to a person familiar with the matter.

 

De Becker and his team suspect Michael Sanchez, a talent manager who touts his support of Trump and is an acquaintance of Trump allies Roger Stone and Carter Page, may have provided the information to the Enquirer, the person said. The person wasn’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

 

Sanchez, who is also his sister’s manager, has declined to speak with The Associated Press on the record and did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Thursday. In a tweet, he said de Becker “spreads fake, unhinged conservative conspiracy theories” and ” ‘dog whistle’ smears.”

 

Several days ago, someone at AMI told Bezos’ team that the company’s CEO, David Pecker, was “apoplectic” about the investigation, Bezos said. AMI later approached Bezos’ representatives with an offer.

 

“They said they had more of my text messages and photos that they would publish if we didn’t stop our investigation,” Bezos wrote.

 

Bezos wrote that this week, the tabloid’s editor, Dylan Howard, emailed an attorney for Bezos’ longtime security consultant to describe photos the Enquirer “obtained during our newsgathering.” The photos include a “below the belt selfie” of Bezos, photos of him in tight boxer briefs and wearing only a towel, and several revealing photos of Sanchez, according to the emails Bezos released.

 

According to the emails, an attorney for AMI offered a formal deal Wednesday: The tabloid wouldn’t post the photos if Bezos and his investigators would release a public statement “affirming that they have no knowledge or basis” to suggest the Enquirer’s coverage was “politically motivated or influenced by political forces.”

 

Bezos said he decided to publish the emails sent to his team “rather than capitulate to extortion and blackmail,” despite the “personal cost and embarrassment they threaten.”

 

In its Jan. 9 story, the Enquirer said reporters followed Bezos and Sanchez “across five states and 40,000 miles” and “tailed them in private jets, swanky limos, helicopter rides, romantic hikes, five-star hotel hideaways, intimate dinner dates and `quality time’ in hidden love nests.”

 

It reported that Bezos sent “sleazy text messages and gushing love notes” to Sanchez, months before Bezos announced he was splitting up with his wife, MacKenzie. The story carries the bylines of Howard and two reporters.

 

Bezos usually stays out of the public eye, frequently delegating announcements and public Amazon business updates to his executives. He doesn’t even speak on the company’s quarterly financial earnings call with analysts.

 

AMI’s relationship with Trump has gotten the company into hot water in the past. It admitted to “catch-and-kill” practices as part of a deal with federal prosecutors, who agreed not to pursue charges against the company.

 

AMI acknowledged secretly assisting Trump’s campaign by paying $150,000 to a Playboy model for the rights to her story about an alleged affair with the then-candidate. The company then intentionally suppressed the story until after the 2016 election.

 

In September, the Justice Department agreed to a non-prosecution agreement with AMI, which requires the company and some top executives, including Pecker and Howard, to cooperate with authorities.

 

De Becker is now trying to find a way that federal prosecutors in Manhattan – where the non-prosecution agreement was signed – could investigate the text message scandal, the person familiar with the matter said, though it wasn’t immediately clear what, if any, crime the prosecutors would be asked to look into.

 

It is a federal crime to threaten to injure someone’s reputation in exchange for money or a “thing of value,” though federal courts haven’t made it directly clear whether a public statement, like the one demanded by AMI, could be considered something of value.

 

Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor and professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said the allegations potentially put prosecutors in an awkward position because of the deal they had already cut with AMI.

 

“It shows how complicated and dangerous it is to make an agreement with National Enquirer,” Levenson said. “They may have to cooperate, but they’re continuing in their ongoing battle with Bezos and others.”

 

But Levenson said it was too difficult to tell if the case amounted to blackmail or extortion without additional context and some prosecutors may be reluctant to charge someone for threatening another with embarrassing material.

 

 
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Errors Cause Judge to Throw Out Georgia Election a 2nd Time

Posted on by SeeUS

Rep. Chris Erwin finally won a seat in the Georgia legislature after a chaotic campaign in which a judge threw out the first election and ordered the vote to be redone in December. Now a court has ruled that illegal votes tainted the second election, forcing Erwin to prepare to step down and run for the job a third time less than a month after he was sworn into office.

“It’s frustrating, I won’t say any different,” said Erwin, who’s already seeing signs of do-over deja vu in his district. “I drove to the dentist this morning and I rode by and noticed three of my campaign signs had been put out already.”

Erwin and the fellow Republican he thought he had defeated twice last year, former state Rep. Dan Gasaway, are heading for a third showdown at the polls in state House District 28 in northeast Georgia. That’s after a Superior Court judge found illegal votes tainted both the initial GOP primary last May as well as the special do-over election held December 4.

It’s yet another example of problems Georgia voters faced at the polls in 2018. In some cities, voters had to wait two hours or more to cast ballots Nov. 6. Pending lawsuits accuse Georgia officials of enforcing strict voter ID rules and other policies that violated citizens’ voting rights. Meanwhile, state officials are working to replace paperless electronic voting machines that security experts have warned are vulnerable to hackers.

Attorneys for both Gasaway and Erwin said errors that tainted both elections originated with local officials. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who oversees elections in Georgia, said Thursday his office is investigating whether vote fraud played a role, but gave no details.

Republicans keep the seat no matter who eventually wins. No Democrats ran in the district that spans Banks, Stephens and Habersham counties in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.

Facing the loss of a seat he’d held since 2013, Gasaway challenged the May primary election in court after losing by 67 votes. A judge from outside the district was brought in to hear the case, and ruled mapping errors allowed some who didn’t live in Gasaway’s district to vote.

The December do-over election was even closer. Erwin won again by just two votes, and Gasaway went back to court. After hearing four days of testimony, the same judge on Feb. 1 threw out the second election. Judge David Sweat found that four voters cast illegal ballots — enough to have potentially tipped the race.

Gasaway said his refusal to concede to a fellow Republican hasn’t been popular with some in the GOP.

“I’ve been called every name known to man,” Gasaway said. “I have seen some parties who thought it was sour grapes the first time, and now see that I’ve been right twice, who are realizing we have a real problem now and Dan might not be crazy.”

All four instances of illegal voting cited by the judge occurred in Habersham County. One voter showed up as having voted twice. Three others were found to have cast illegal votes in the race because they had moved outside the district.

“It does sort of boggle the mind,” said Cathy Cox, Georgia’s secretary of state from 1999 through 2007 and now the dean of Mercer University’s law school. “When you have to redo any election, you would hope that everybody involved would flyspeck any of the places where there was potential for error. … But we’re all humans.”

The elections supervisor for Habersham County, Laurel Ellison, did not immediately respond to phone and email messages seeking comment on the state’s fraud investigation. In a prior email, Ellison said the new election will likely be held April 9 but gave no further comment. Ralph Taylor, the attorney who represented the county in court, did not immediately return phone and email messages.

Jake Evans, Gasaway’s attorney, said election workers in Habersham County failed to catch voters who had moved outside the district even after they signed in at the polls under addresses that didn’t match their voter registration.

“The crux of this case was just letting people to continue to vote in a district they had moved out of and provided notice,” Evans said.

Erwin’s attorney, Bryan Tyson, argued the three voters who had moved still should have been allowed to vote because Georgia law gives voters time to change their registration before they can be removed from the rolls at a former address.

“It’s a complicated question of what is the duty of the voter and what is the duty of the registrar when you move somewhere else,” Tyson said. “I think everybody worked really hard here to get it right.”

Tyson said he hasn’t decided whether to appeal. The judge’s ruling requires Erwin to step down from the House, likely leaving the district’s more than 50,000 constituents with no representative until after the 2019 legislative session ends.

It’s not the first Georgia election to require a double do-over. Courts twice tossed out results of the District 1 state House race in November 2002 and again in January 2003, citing confusion over which voters were eligible after the northern Georgia district’s boundaries were redrawn. Democratic Rep. Mike Snow won re-election after the third round of voting in July 2003.
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Errors Cause Judge to Throw Out Georgia Election a 2nd Time

Posted on by SeeUS

Rep. Chris Erwin finally won a seat in the Georgia legislature after a chaotic campaign in which a judge threw out the first election and ordered the vote to be redone in December. Now a court has ruled that illegal votes tainted the second election, forcing Erwin to prepare to step down and run for the job a third time less than a month after he was sworn into office.

“It’s frustrating, I won’t say any different,” said Erwin, who’s already seeing signs of do-over deja vu in his district. “I drove to the dentist this morning and I rode by and noticed three of my campaign signs had been put out already.”

Erwin and the fellow Republican he thought he had defeated twice last year, former state Rep. Dan Gasaway, are heading for a third showdown at the polls in state House District 28 in northeast Georgia. That’s after a Superior Court judge found illegal votes tainted both the initial GOP primary last May as well as the special do-over election held December 4.

It’s yet another example of problems Georgia voters faced at the polls in 2018. In some cities, voters had to wait two hours or more to cast ballots Nov. 6. Pending lawsuits accuse Georgia officials of enforcing strict voter ID rules and other policies that violated citizens’ voting rights. Meanwhile, state officials are working to replace paperless electronic voting machines that security experts have warned are vulnerable to hackers.

Attorneys for both Gasaway and Erwin said errors that tainted both elections originated with local officials. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who oversees elections in Georgia, said Thursday his office is investigating whether vote fraud played a role, but gave no details.

Republicans keep the seat no matter who eventually wins. No Democrats ran in the district that spans Banks, Stephens and Habersham counties in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.

Facing the loss of a seat he’d held since 2013, Gasaway challenged the May primary election in court after losing by 67 votes. A judge from outside the district was brought in to hear the case, and ruled mapping errors allowed some who didn’t live in Gasaway’s district to vote.

The December do-over election was even closer. Erwin won again by just two votes, and Gasaway went back to court. After hearing four days of testimony, the same judge on Feb. 1 threw out the second election. Judge David Sweat found that four voters cast illegal ballots — enough to have potentially tipped the race.

Gasaway said his refusal to concede to a fellow Republican hasn’t been popular with some in the GOP.

“I’ve been called every name known to man,” Gasaway said. “I have seen some parties who thought it was sour grapes the first time, and now see that I’ve been right twice, who are realizing we have a real problem now and Dan might not be crazy.”

All four instances of illegal voting cited by the judge occurred in Habersham County. One voter showed up as having voted twice. Three others were found to have cast illegal votes in the race because they had moved outside the district.

“It does sort of boggle the mind,” said Cathy Cox, Georgia’s secretary of state from 1999 through 2007 and now the dean of Mercer University’s law school. “When you have to redo any election, you would hope that everybody involved would flyspeck any of the places where there was potential for error. … But we’re all humans.”

The elections supervisor for Habersham County, Laurel Ellison, did not immediately respond to phone and email messages seeking comment on the state’s fraud investigation. In a prior email, Ellison said the new election will likely be held April 9 but gave no further comment. Ralph Taylor, the attorney who represented the county in court, did not immediately return phone and email messages.

Jake Evans, Gasaway’s attorney, said election workers in Habersham County failed to catch voters who had moved outside the district even after they signed in at the polls under addresses that didn’t match their voter registration.

“The crux of this case was just letting people to continue to vote in a district they had moved out of and provided notice,” Evans said.

Erwin’s attorney, Bryan Tyson, argued the three voters who had moved still should have been allowed to vote because Georgia law gives voters time to change their registration before they can be removed from the rolls at a former address.

“It’s a complicated question of what is the duty of the voter and what is the duty of the registrar when you move somewhere else,” Tyson said. “I think everybody worked really hard here to get it right.”

Tyson said he hasn’t decided whether to appeal. The judge’s ruling requires Erwin to step down from the House, likely leaving the district’s more than 50,000 constituents with no representative until after the 2019 legislative session ends.

It’s not the first Georgia election to require a double do-over. Courts twice tossed out results of the District 1 state House race in November 2002 and again in January 2003, citing confusion over which voters were eligible after the northern Georgia district’s boundaries were redrawn. Democratic Rep. Mike Snow won re-election after the third round of voting in July 2003.
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Ukraine’s 44 Presidential candidates Set All-Time Record

Posted on by SeeEU

Ukraine’s election officials say they have registered 44 presidential contenders — an all-time record for the nation.

The latest polls show that comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who plays the nation’s president in a popular TV series, has surged ahead of both incumbent President Petro Poroshenko and the ex-prime minister in the run-up to the March 31 vote.

Zelenskiy’s popularity has been driven by both his TV star status and public dismay with current leaders. Ukraine has faced economic troubles after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.

A survey released earlier this week had 21.9 percent supporting Zelenskiy, while former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was the choice of 19.2 percent, and Poroshenko came in third with 14.8 percent. The poll of 10,000 had a margin of error of 1 percentage point.
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Ukraine’s 44 Presidential candidates Set All-Time Record

Posted on by SeeEU

Ukraine’s election officials say they have registered 44 presidential contenders — an all-time record for the nation.

The latest polls show that comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who plays the nation’s president in a popular TV series, has surged ahead of both incumbent President Petro Poroshenko and the ex-prime minister in the run-up to the March 31 vote.

Zelenskiy’s popularity has been driven by both his TV star status and public dismay with current leaders. Ukraine has faced economic troubles after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.

A survey released earlier this week had 21.9 percent supporting Zelenskiy, while former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was the choice of 19.2 percent, and Poroshenko came in third with 14.8 percent. The poll of 10,000 had a margin of error of 1 percentage point.
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Health of Iranian-Swedish Doctor Jailed in Iran is Failing, Wife Says

Posted on by SeeEA

The wife of an Iranian Swedish doctor sentenced to death in Iran for collaborating with a hostile government has provided new details of how her husband’s health has worsened sharply in detention.

In a Wednesday phone interview with VOA Persian from her home in Sweden, Vida Mehran Nia said her husband, Ahmad Reza Jalali, a detainee at Tehran’s Evin prison, recently underwent a botched surgery for a hernia, began suffering from anemia, and has lost a lot of weight.

Iranian authorities arrested Jalali, a disaster medicine specialist who had been working at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, as he visited Iran’s capital at the University of Tehran’s invitation in April 2016.

A court sentenced him to death in October 2017 for “collaborating with a hostile government,” a sentence that Iran’s Supreme Court upheld two months later, but that also remains under review as his lawyer repeatedly has tried to appeal it.

Rushed to hospital

Mehran Nia said that Evin prison authorities rushed Jalali to Tehran’s Taleghani hospital, Nov. 18, 2018, for surgery to treat a hernia, but sent him back to prison the next day before his stitches had properly healed, leaving him in need of another surgery.

She said recent blood tests also have shown that Jalali has been suffering from anemia, a condition for which a specialist recommended he receive additional hospital treatment that so far has been denied.

In a further sign of Jalali’s worsening health, Mehran Nia said he has lost 30 kilograms from his original weight of 81 kg. She told VOA Persian that she has been in regular phone contact with her jailed husband and his lawyer. But she said neither she nor their two children have been able to see him since he traveled to Iran in 2016.

There has been no comment about Jalali’s case in Iranian state media in recent months.

Nobel laureates protest

A group of 121 Nobel laureates wrote an open letter to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in December, saying they had heard that Jalali’s medical condition was “declining rapidly.”

The laureates, led by British molecular biologist Richard Roberts, appealed to Khamenei to ensure that Jalali is treated “humanely and fairly” and released as soon as possible.

Iranian state television broadcast a purported confession from Jalali in December 2017, days after Iran’s top court upheld his death sentence. In the Dec. 17, 2017, broadcast, Jalali said he had supplied information to a foreign intelligence service about Iranian nuclear scientists who later were assassinated. But Jalali disavowed the confession in an audio recording made in prison and shared with international media two days after the broadcast. In the recording, whose authenticity was verified by his family, Jalali said he had confessed under duress.

Sweden granted citizenship to the detained Jalali, who had lived in the European nation since 2009, in February 2018. Iran protested the move as unfriendly.

‘His life is at stake’

In her VOA Persian interview, Mehran Nia said the Swedish ambassador in Tehran repeatedly has asked Iranian authorities for consular access to Jalali but has been denied.

“His life is at stake,” she said. “He desperately needs medical treatment.”

This article originated in VOA’s Persian service.
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Health of Iranian-Swedish Doctor Jailed in Iran is Failing, Wife Says

Posted on by SeeEA

The wife of an Iranian Swedish doctor sentenced to death in Iran for collaborating with a hostile government has provided new details of how her husband’s health has worsened sharply in detention.

In a Wednesday phone interview with VOA Persian from her home in Sweden, Vida Mehran Nia said her husband, Ahmad Reza Jalali, a detainee at Tehran’s Evin prison, recently underwent a botched surgery for a hernia, began suffering from anemia, and has lost a lot of weight.

Iranian authorities arrested Jalali, a disaster medicine specialist who had been working at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, as he visited Iran’s capital at the University of Tehran’s invitation in April 2016.

A court sentenced him to death in October 2017 for “collaborating with a hostile government,” a sentence that Iran’s Supreme Court upheld two months later, but that also remains under review as his lawyer repeatedly has tried to appeal it.

Rushed to hospital

Mehran Nia said that Evin prison authorities rushed Jalali to Tehran’s Taleghani hospital, Nov. 18, 2018, for surgery to treat a hernia, but sent him back to prison the next day before his stitches had properly healed, leaving him in need of another surgery.

She said recent blood tests also have shown that Jalali has been suffering from anemia, a condition for which a specialist recommended he receive additional hospital treatment that so far has been denied.

In a further sign of Jalali’s worsening health, Mehran Nia said he has lost 30 kilograms from his original weight of 81 kg. She told VOA Persian that she has been in regular phone contact with her jailed husband and his lawyer. But she said neither she nor their two children have been able to see him since he traveled to Iran in 2016.

There has been no comment about Jalali’s case in Iranian state media in recent months.

Nobel laureates protest

A group of 121 Nobel laureates wrote an open letter to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in December, saying they had heard that Jalali’s medical condition was “declining rapidly.”

The laureates, led by British molecular biologist Richard Roberts, appealed to Khamenei to ensure that Jalali is treated “humanely and fairly” and released as soon as possible.

Iranian state television broadcast a purported confession from Jalali in December 2017, days after Iran’s top court upheld his death sentence. In the Dec. 17, 2017, broadcast, Jalali said he had supplied information to a foreign intelligence service about Iranian nuclear scientists who later were assassinated. But Jalali disavowed the confession in an audio recording made in prison and shared with international media two days after the broadcast. In the recording, whose authenticity was verified by his family, Jalali said he had confessed under duress.

Sweden granted citizenship to the detained Jalali, who had lived in the European nation since 2009, in February 2018. Iran protested the move as unfriendly.

‘His life is at stake’

In her VOA Persian interview, Mehran Nia said the Swedish ambassador in Tehran repeatedly has asked Iranian authorities for consular access to Jalali but has been denied.

“His life is at stake,” she said. “He desperately needs medical treatment.”

This article originated in VOA’s Persian service.
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No Talks Between Trump and China’s Xi Before Trade Deadline

Posted on by SeeUS

U.S. President Donald Trump said Thursday he did not plan to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping before a March 1 deadline set by the two countries to achieve a trade deal.

Asked during an event in the Oval Office whether there would be a meeting before the deadline, Trump said: “No.”

When asked whether there would be a meeting in the next month or so, Trump said: “Not yet. Maybe. Probably too soon. Probably too soon.”

The remarks confirmed comments from administration officials who said the two men were unlikely to meet before the deadline, dampening hopes of a quick trade pact and sparking a drop in U.S stock markets.

Late last year during a dinner between Trump and Xi in Argentina, the two men agreed to take a 90-day hiatus in their trade war to give their teams time to negotiate an agreement.

If the talks do not succeed, Trump has threatened to increase U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports. Another round of talks is scheduled for next week in Beijing.

Trump, who is proud of having a warm relationship with Xi, said last week he would meet with him again to hammer out a final deal, after Chinese Vice Premier Liu He presented Xi’s invitation at the White House.

A person briefed on the talks said that Trump’s advisers were concerned that accepting a meeting invitation at this stage would raise unfounded expectations for a quick deal and erode U.S. leverage in the talks, where the two sides remain far apart on core structural intellectual property issues.

“There was concern about the downside for markets in particular if they don’t reach a deal,” the source said.

The president is scheduled to travel to Asia at the end of this month for a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Vietnam, and some had speculated that he could meet with Xi on the same trip. Trump had indicated that was one option, or Xi could come to the United States.

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told reporters that the leaders of the two economic superpowers could still meet at a later date.

“At some point the two presidents will meet, that is what Mr. Trump has been saying. But that is off in the distance still at the moment,” he said.

Market drop

The news prompted a sharp selloff in U.S. stocks, dashing the optimism that had been building that the countries were progressing toward a deal before tariffs on Chinese imports rise to 25 percent after the March 1 deadline.

The S&P 500 Index closed down 0.93 percent in its biggest drop in two weeks. Treasury bond yields dropped as investors sought safety in sovereign U.S. debt. The benchmark 10-year yield slid 4 basis points to 2.66 percent, the lowest in nearly a week.

“I could see where that would impact the markets because obviously we had a lift in the month of January from optimism surrounding these trade talks,” said Peter Jankovskis, co-chief investment officer at OakBrook Investments LLC in Lisle, Illinois.

U.S. demands

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin are leaving Monday for the next round of talks in China, one administration official said.

“They’re hoping for more success,” he said.

The United States is pressing China to make major reforms, including on structural issues related to how it treats U.S. companies doing business there. Washington accuses China of stealing U.S. intellectual property and forcing American businesses to share their technology with Chinese companies. China denies the accusations.

Trump said in his State of the Union address Tuesday that any new trade deal with Beijing “must include real, structural change to end unfair trade practices.”

Such reforms have been a sticking point in talks so far.

Lighthizer told reporters last week that the two leaders may not meet if the negotiations do not progress sufficiently.

“If we do make headway, and the president thinks we’re close enough that he can close the deal on major issues, then I think he’ll want to have a meeting and do that,” he told reporters. “I have complete confidence in the president, both to close a deal if we get to that point, but also to make that judgment.”

Trump has vowed to increase U.S. tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports to 25 percent from 10 percent currently if the two sides cannot reach a deal by 12:01 a.m. (0501 GMT) on March 2.

CNBC reported that the tariffs were likely to remain at the 10 percent rate. Three sources familiar with the matter indicated that report was wrong. The president has said repeatedly that the tariffs would go up if no deal has been reached, and that position has not changed, one source said.

Lighthizer said last week that tariffs had not been a subject of the talks.
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No Talks Between Trump and China’s Xi Before Trade Deadline

Posted on by SeeUS

U.S. President Donald Trump said Thursday he did not plan to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping before a March 1 deadline set by the two countries to achieve a trade deal.

Asked during an event in the Oval Office whether there would be a meeting before the deadline, Trump said: “No.”

When asked whether there would be a meeting in the next month or so, Trump said: “Not yet. Maybe. Probably too soon. Probably too soon.”

The remarks confirmed comments from administration officials who said the two men were unlikely to meet before the deadline, dampening hopes of a quick trade pact and sparking a drop in U.S stock markets.

Late last year during a dinner between Trump and Xi in Argentina, the two men agreed to take a 90-day hiatus in their trade war to give their teams time to negotiate an agreement.

If the talks do not succeed, Trump has threatened to increase U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports. Another round of talks is scheduled for next week in Beijing.

Trump, who is proud of having a warm relationship with Xi, said last week he would meet with him again to hammer out a final deal, after Chinese Vice Premier Liu He presented Xi’s invitation at the White House.

A person briefed on the talks said that Trump’s advisers were concerned that accepting a meeting invitation at this stage would raise unfounded expectations for a quick deal and erode U.S. leverage in the talks, where the two sides remain far apart on core structural intellectual property issues.

“There was concern about the downside for markets in particular if they don’t reach a deal,” the source said.

The president is scheduled to travel to Asia at the end of this month for a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Vietnam, and some had speculated that he could meet with Xi on the same trip. Trump had indicated that was one option, or Xi could come to the United States.

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told reporters that the leaders of the two economic superpowers could still meet at a later date.

“At some point the two presidents will meet, that is what Mr. Trump has been saying. But that is off in the distance still at the moment,” he said.

Market drop

The news prompted a sharp selloff in U.S. stocks, dashing the optimism that had been building that the countries were progressing toward a deal before tariffs on Chinese imports rise to 25 percent after the March 1 deadline.

The S&P 500 Index closed down 0.93 percent in its biggest drop in two weeks. Treasury bond yields dropped as investors sought safety in sovereign U.S. debt. The benchmark 10-year yield slid 4 basis points to 2.66 percent, the lowest in nearly a week.

“I could see where that would impact the markets because obviously we had a lift in the month of January from optimism surrounding these trade talks,” said Peter Jankovskis, co-chief investment officer at OakBrook Investments LLC in Lisle, Illinois.

U.S. demands

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin are leaving Monday for the next round of talks in China, one administration official said.

“They’re hoping for more success,” he said.

The United States is pressing China to make major reforms, including on structural issues related to how it treats U.S. companies doing business there. Washington accuses China of stealing U.S. intellectual property and forcing American businesses to share their technology with Chinese companies. China denies the accusations.

Trump said in his State of the Union address Tuesday that any new trade deal with Beijing “must include real, structural change to end unfair trade practices.”

Such reforms have been a sticking point in talks so far.

Lighthizer told reporters last week that the two leaders may not meet if the negotiations do not progress sufficiently.

“If we do make headway, and the president thinks we’re close enough that he can close the deal on major issues, then I think he’ll want to have a meeting and do that,” he told reporters. “I have complete confidence in the president, both to close a deal if we get to that point, but also to make that judgment.”

Trump has vowed to increase U.S. tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports to 25 percent from 10 percent currently if the two sides cannot reach a deal by 12:01 a.m. (0501 GMT) on March 2.

CNBC reported that the tariffs were likely to remain at the 10 percent rate. Three sources familiar with the matter indicated that report was wrong. The president has said repeatedly that the tariffs would go up if no deal has been reached, and that position has not changed, one source said.

Lighthizer said last week that tariffs had not been a subject of the talks.
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Sierra Leone’s President Declares ‘Rape Scourge’ a National Emergency

Posted on by SeeAF

The brutal rape of a young girl by her uncle in Sierra Leone became the rallying point for a campaign that on Thursday pushed President Julius Maada Bio to declare the prevalence of sexual violence a national emergency.

The five-year-old girl, whose identity has been kept secret for her own safety, has been paralyzed from the waist down since a 28-year-old male relative raped her a year ago, crushing her spine.

“She may never walk again, and I want vengeance for what has happened,” her grandmother told Reuters, sitting next to the girl in her wheelchair in a Freetown medical clinic.

“The man who did this ruined her life and deserves to spend his life in prison.”

Sexual offense against minors

The assault was one of many that have gone unpunished in Sierra Leone, where until now sexually-motivated crimes carried a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison and few cases were successfully prosecuted.

Following months of campaigning by activists, the president declared a national emergency and said those convicted of sexual offenses against minors would face life in prison.

“Some of our families practice a culture of silence and indifference towards sexual violence, leaving victims even more traumatized,” Bio told a crowd at the State House.

“We as a nation must stand up and address this scourge.”

Reported cases almost double

According to police statistics, reported cases of sexual and gender-based violence nearly doubled last year to over 8,500, a third of which involved a minor. Activists, including First Lady Fatima Bio, say the actual figures are much higher as most cases are never reported.

Gender-based violence is a traditionally seen as a taboo topic in Sierra Leone. Only 12 years ago parliament passed its first gender equality laws in 46 years of independence, following lobbying efforts by women’s rights groups.

Implementation of these policies has been slow and law enforcement agencies have been hampered by inadequate resources, promoting a culture of impunity.

In December, the first lady led a demonstration in the capital to raise awareness of the issue, and has since launched her “Hands Off Our Girls” campaign to increase awareness of violence against girls across West Africa.

Step in right direction

The president’s declaration of a national emergency is seen as a step in the right direction, but activists such as Fatmata Sorie say progress must continue.

“We still need to think about how services for survivors are not accessible, especially for the poor,” said Sorie, who is president of Legal Access through Women Yearning for Equality Rights and Social Justice (LAWYERS)“ an all-female group of barristers who provide pro bono legal services to vulnerable women and girls.

“We’ve made a big step today, but this is a very complex issue that will require complex and continuing solutions,” she said.

 
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Sierra Leone’s President Declares ‘Rape Scourge’ a National Emergency

Posted on by SeeAF

The brutal rape of a young girl by her uncle in Sierra Leone became the rallying point for a campaign that on Thursday pushed President Julius Maada Bio to declare the prevalence of sexual violence a national emergency.

The five-year-old girl, whose identity has been kept secret for her own safety, has been paralyzed from the waist down since a 28-year-old male relative raped her a year ago, crushing her spine.

“She may never walk again, and I want vengeance for what has happened,” her grandmother told Reuters, sitting next to the girl in her wheelchair in a Freetown medical clinic.

“The man who did this ruined her life and deserves to spend his life in prison.”

Sexual offense against minors

The assault was one of many that have gone unpunished in Sierra Leone, where until now sexually-motivated crimes carried a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison and few cases were successfully prosecuted.

Following months of campaigning by activists, the president declared a national emergency and said those convicted of sexual offenses against minors would face life in prison.

“Some of our families practice a culture of silence and indifference towards sexual violence, leaving victims even more traumatized,” Bio told a crowd at the State House.

“We as a nation must stand up and address this scourge.”

Reported cases almost double

According to police statistics, reported cases of sexual and gender-based violence nearly doubled last year to over 8,500, a third of which involved a minor. Activists, including First Lady Fatima Bio, say the actual figures are much higher as most cases are never reported.

Gender-based violence is a traditionally seen as a taboo topic in Sierra Leone. Only 12 years ago parliament passed its first gender equality laws in 46 years of independence, following lobbying efforts by women’s rights groups.

Implementation of these policies has been slow and law enforcement agencies have been hampered by inadequate resources, promoting a culture of impunity.

In December, the first lady led a demonstration in the capital to raise awareness of the issue, and has since launched her “Hands Off Our Girls” campaign to increase awareness of violence against girls across West Africa.

Step in right direction

The president’s declaration of a national emergency is seen as a step in the right direction, but activists such as Fatmata Sorie say progress must continue.

“We still need to think about how services for survivors are not accessible, especially for the poor,” said Sorie, who is president of Legal Access through Women Yearning for Equality Rights and Social Justice (LAWYERS)“ an all-female group of barristers who provide pro bono legal services to vulnerable women and girls.

“We’ve made a big step today, but this is a very complex issue that will require complex and continuing solutions,” she said.

 
…

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Russian-Ukrainian Operative Was at Trump Inauguration, Filing Shows

Posted on by SeeUS

A former business partner of Paul Manafort  who has been accused by U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller of having ties to Russian intelligence attended the inauguration of President Donald Trump, according to a court transcript released Thursday.

Russian-Ukrainian political operative Konstantin Kilimnik met with Manafort, who was Trump’s presidential campaign chairman, in January 2017 when he was in the U.S. capital for Trump’s inauguration, according to the transcript of a Feb. 4 court hearing in a federal court in Washington.

The closed hearing was held so the judge could weigh evidence supporting allegations by Mueller’s office that Manafort had lied to prosecutors — including about his interactions with Kilimnik — in breach of a plea agreement.

According to the transcript, Mueller’s team accused Manafort of lying about how many times he had discussed an unspecified topic with Kilimnik. Among other times, they said Manafort and Kilimnik had discussed the topic “in January 2017, in person, in Washington, D.C., when Kilimnik was here for the inauguration.” 

While certain portions of the transcript are redacted, judging by previous court filings the topic at issue appears to be a “Ukrainian peace plan” that Kilimnik and Manafort allegedly discussed at several points in 2016 and 2017. 
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Russian-Ukrainian Operative Was at Trump Inauguration, Filing Shows

Posted on by SeeUS

A former business partner of Paul Manafort  who has been accused by U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller of having ties to Russian intelligence attended the inauguration of President Donald Trump, according to a court transcript released Thursday.

Russian-Ukrainian political operative Konstantin Kilimnik met with Manafort, who was Trump’s presidential campaign chairman, in January 2017 when he was in the U.S. capital for Trump’s inauguration, according to the transcript of a Feb. 4 court hearing in a federal court in Washington.

The closed hearing was held so the judge could weigh evidence supporting allegations by Mueller’s office that Manafort had lied to prosecutors — including about his interactions with Kilimnik — in breach of a plea agreement.

According to the transcript, Mueller’s team accused Manafort of lying about how many times he had discussed an unspecified topic with Kilimnik. Among other times, they said Manafort and Kilimnik had discussed the topic “in January 2017, in person, in Washington, D.C., when Kilimnik was here for the inauguration.” 

While certain portions of the transcript are redacted, judging by previous court filings the topic at issue appears to be a “Ukrainian peace plan” that Kilimnik and Manafort allegedly discussed at several points in 2016 and 2017. 
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Guantanamo Prison Looms as Option for IS Fighters

Posted on by SeeUS

The Guantanamo Bay detention center would receive new prisoners for the first time in more than a decade under one option being considered as the U.S. withdraws its forces from Syria and works to resolve the fate of hundreds of captured suspected Islamic State fighters, officials say.

U.S.-backed Syrian fighters have custody of nearly 1,000 suspected IS fighters who the State Department said should be sent back to their home countries and prosecuted. The Syrian fighters have warned they may not be able to continue to hold the IS fighters after the withdrawal of American forces from Syria ordered by President Donald Trump in December.

If they can’t be repatriated, though, the detention center on the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, could be used to hold them “where lawful and appropriate,” the State Department said Thursday.

“The Administration’s National Strategy for Counterterrorism makes very clear that Law of Armed Conflict detention, including at Guantanamo, remains an important and effective counterterrorism tool,” it said in a statement to The Associated Press in response to questions about the prisoners.

Trump had said in his first State of the Union last year that he would use Guantanamo “in many cases” to detain prisoners as part of the fight against Islamic State and al-Qaida. As a candidate, when asked about what he would do with the controversial detention center, he said he would “load it up with some bad dudes.”

But the administration has not added any prisoners to the detention center that President Barack Obama sought to close, and officials say that sending suspected Islamic State fighters back to their homelands remains the preferred choice.

“Repatriating foreign terrorist fighters to their countries of origin and ensuring they are prosecuted and detained is the best solution to prevent them from returning to the battlefield,” the State Department said.

A U.S. official said Guantanamo is the “option of last resort.” The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. has identified about 50 people among the more than 900 held by Syrian forces as “high value” suspects that could be transported to Guantanamo if they are not repatriated.

Legal issues

Sending Islamic State prisoners to Guantanamo would open up new legal challenges, according to experts.

The U.S. is allowed to detain al-Qaida and “associated forces” at Guantanamo under the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force. But whether Islamic State group fighters meets that criteria is an untested question, said Robert Chesney, a national security law professor at the University of Texas.

“No court has ever once had the case and the executive branch for many years has really not wanted the court to answer that question,” Chesney said.

The U.S. began holding prisoners suspected of links to al-Qaida and the Taliban in January 2002, drawing intense international criticism for holding men indefinitely without charge amid reports of mistreatment at the isolated base on the southeastern tip of Cuba.

Prison size

Guantanamo held nearly 700 prisoners at its peak in the summer of 2003. Amid legal challenges and international pressure, more than 500 were released under President George W. Bush. Obama viewed the detention center as a waste of money that damaged America’s reputation and ordered it closed, but was blocked by Congress.

There are now 40 prisoners held, including nine who have been charged and are facing trial by military commission in proceedings that have dragged on for years.

From a purely practical standpoint, U.S. military officials have said they could accommodate additional prisoners at the base.

The forces overseeing Guantanamo prison say the prison can hold 40 more people “with no additional staffing” and the facility could accommodate 200 more inmates total, “with minimal adjustments to current infrastructure and manpower,” said Navy Cdr. Adam Bashaw, a spokesman for the military task force that runs the detention center.
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Guantanamo Prison Looms as Option for IS Fighters

Posted on by SeeUS

The Guantanamo Bay detention center would receive new prisoners for the first time in more than a decade under one option being considered as the U.S. withdraws its forces from Syria and works to resolve the fate of hundreds of captured suspected Islamic State fighters, officials say.

U.S.-backed Syrian fighters have custody of nearly 1,000 suspected IS fighters who the State Department said should be sent back to their home countries and prosecuted. The Syrian fighters have warned they may not be able to continue to hold the IS fighters after the withdrawal of American forces from Syria ordered by President Donald Trump in December.

If they can’t be repatriated, though, the detention center on the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, could be used to hold them “where lawful and appropriate,” the State Department said Thursday.

“The Administration’s National Strategy for Counterterrorism makes very clear that Law of Armed Conflict detention, including at Guantanamo, remains an important and effective counterterrorism tool,” it said in a statement to The Associated Press in response to questions about the prisoners.

Trump had said in his first State of the Union last year that he would use Guantanamo “in many cases” to detain prisoners as part of the fight against Islamic State and al-Qaida. As a candidate, when asked about what he would do with the controversial detention center, he said he would “load it up with some bad dudes.”

But the administration has not added any prisoners to the detention center that President Barack Obama sought to close, and officials say that sending suspected Islamic State fighters back to their homelands remains the preferred choice.

“Repatriating foreign terrorist fighters to their countries of origin and ensuring they are prosecuted and detained is the best solution to prevent them from returning to the battlefield,” the State Department said.

A U.S. official said Guantanamo is the “option of last resort.” The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. has identified about 50 people among the more than 900 held by Syrian forces as “high value” suspects that could be transported to Guantanamo if they are not repatriated.

Legal issues

Sending Islamic State prisoners to Guantanamo would open up new legal challenges, according to experts.

The U.S. is allowed to detain al-Qaida and “associated forces” at Guantanamo under the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force. But whether Islamic State group fighters meets that criteria is an untested question, said Robert Chesney, a national security law professor at the University of Texas.

“No court has ever once had the case and the executive branch for many years has really not wanted the court to answer that question,” Chesney said.

The U.S. began holding prisoners suspected of links to al-Qaida and the Taliban in January 2002, drawing intense international criticism for holding men indefinitely without charge amid reports of mistreatment at the isolated base on the southeastern tip of Cuba.

Prison size

Guantanamo held nearly 700 prisoners at its peak in the summer of 2003. Amid legal challenges and international pressure, more than 500 were released under President George W. Bush. Obama viewed the detention center as a waste of money that damaged America’s reputation and ordered it closed, but was blocked by Congress.

There are now 40 prisoners held, including nine who have been charged and are facing trial by military commission in proceedings that have dragged on for years.

From a purely practical standpoint, U.S. military officials have said they could accommodate additional prisoners at the base.

The forces overseeing Guantanamo prison say the prison can hold 40 more people “with no additional staffing” and the facility could accommodate 200 more inmates total, “with minimal adjustments to current infrastructure and manpower,” said Navy Cdr. Adam Bashaw, a spokesman for the military task force that runs the detention center.
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US General Warns of Russian, Chinese Inroads in Africa

Posted on by SeeEU

Fears that Washington is increasingly losing influence across the globe are starting to come to fruition in Africa, where a top military official says Russia is playing on perceived U.S. weaknesses to gain leverage and resources.

The most alarming inroads have come in African countries where leaders are seeking to consolidate power, the commander of U.S. Africa Command, Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, told lawmakers Thursday, adding Russia seems to have its sights set on areas that could give them an edge over U.S. allies.

“It’s, I think, clear that’s their strategy along the northern part of Africa, southern part of NATO, the Mediterranean, to have influence inside of Libya, for example,” Waldhauser told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

But he warned the Kremlin’s designs go even further, pointing to Russian inroads in the Central African Republic, where the Russian military firm Wagner has stationed about 175 mercenaries.

“The individuals are actually in the president’s cabinet and they’re influencing the training,” Waldhauser said.

In addition, the Russian military itself sent 500 trainers to CAR, along with weapons, helping to train 1,000 soldiers as of September of last year.

Despite concerns from some CAR officials and the international community, Russia’s overall effort has been welcomed.

“We are a country that has endured a grave crisis, and we are returning with great difficulty because we don’t have the means to control everything that happens in our territory,” CAR Defense Minister Marie-Noelle Koyara told VOA’s French to Africa service this past October.

“We want a professional army that will truly be of service to the people,” she said.

​Hunting for access

U.S. military commanders, however, worry that Russia’s outreach is increasingly part of an effort to gain access to raw materials, like mineral deposits, as well as leverage.

“Russian interests gain access to natural resources on favorable terms,” Waldhauser noted in his prepared testimony, warning that CAR elected leaders continue to “mortgage mineral rights — for a fraction of their worth — to secure Russian weapons.”

“We’re concerned that that model might be looked at or viewed positively by other countries,” Waldhauser told lawmakers.

“To a large degree it’s still a matter of influence, especially in areas we’re not in or especially in areas where they could say the United States, or the U.K. or Western partners, are perhaps backing away,” he said.

‘Toxic mix’ of threats

Waldhauser’s warning followed similar statements from top intelligence officials who testified last week that the U.S. is facing a “toxic mix” of threats, including a synergistic approach from Russia and China to gain influence in Africa at Washington’s expense.

“The Chinese bring the money and the Russians bring the muscle,” he told lawmakers, referencing a recent quote from a presidential candidate in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

U.S. military officials also worry that Beijing, too, is likely to become more ambitious when it comes to flexing its military might across Africa.

China currently has a single military base in Africa, in Djibouti, but its military forces have been increasingly active in U.N. peacekeeping missions. And, officials say, they continue to eye additional ports as they look to expand their economic presence.

“The Chinese work hard at developing and maintaining relationships with the senior officials of the governments inside the African continent,” Waldhauser said. “They come with a full plan.”

“If we want to maintain influence, we kind of need to up our engagement,” he added.
…

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US General Warns of Russian, Chinese Inroads in Africa

Posted on by SeeEU

Fears that Washington is increasingly losing influence across the globe are starting to come to fruition in Africa, where a top military official says Russia is playing on perceived U.S. weaknesses to gain leverage and resources.

The most alarming inroads have come in African countries where leaders are seeking to consolidate power, the commander of U.S. Africa Command, Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, told lawmakers Thursday, adding Russia seems to have its sights set on areas that could give them an edge over U.S. allies.

“It’s, I think, clear that’s their strategy along the northern part of Africa, southern part of NATO, the Mediterranean, to have influence inside of Libya, for example,” Waldhauser told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

But he warned the Kremlin’s designs go even further, pointing to Russian inroads in the Central African Republic, where the Russian military firm Wagner has stationed about 175 mercenaries.

“The individuals are actually in the president’s cabinet and they’re influencing the training,” Waldhauser said.

In addition, the Russian military itself sent 500 trainers to CAR, along with weapons, helping to train 1,000 soldiers as of September of last year.

Despite concerns from some CAR officials and the international community, Russia’s overall effort has been welcomed.

“We are a country that has endured a grave crisis, and we are returning with great difficulty because we don’t have the means to control everything that happens in our territory,” CAR Defense Minister Marie-Noelle Koyara told VOA’s French to Africa service this past October.

“We want a professional army that will truly be of service to the people,” she said.

​Hunting for access

U.S. military commanders, however, worry that Russia’s outreach is increasingly part of an effort to gain access to raw materials, like mineral deposits, as well as leverage.

“Russian interests gain access to natural resources on favorable terms,” Waldhauser noted in his prepared testimony, warning that CAR elected leaders continue to “mortgage mineral rights — for a fraction of their worth — to secure Russian weapons.”

“We’re concerned that that model might be looked at or viewed positively by other countries,” Waldhauser told lawmakers.

“To a large degree it’s still a matter of influence, especially in areas we’re not in or especially in areas where they could say the United States, or the U.K. or Western partners, are perhaps backing away,” he said.

‘Toxic mix’ of threats

Waldhauser’s warning followed similar statements from top intelligence officials who testified last week that the U.S. is facing a “toxic mix” of threats, including a synergistic approach from Russia and China to gain influence in Africa at Washington’s expense.

“The Chinese bring the money and the Russians bring the muscle,” he told lawmakers, referencing a recent quote from a presidential candidate in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

U.S. military officials also worry that Beijing, too, is likely to become more ambitious when it comes to flexing its military might across Africa.

China currently has a single military base in Africa, in Djibouti, but its military forces have been increasingly active in U.N. peacekeeping missions. And, officials say, they continue to eye additional ports as they look to expand their economic presence.

“The Chinese work hard at developing and maintaining relationships with the senior officials of the governments inside the African continent,” Waldhauser said. “They come with a full plan.”

“If we want to maintain influence, we kind of need to up our engagement,” he added.
…

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UN Expert: Saudi Arabia Undermined Khashoggi Probe

Posted on by SeeEU

A U.N. human rights expert said Thursday that Saudi Arabia undermined Turkey’s efforts to investigate the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which she described as a “brutal and premeditated killing” planned and carried out by Saudi officials. 

 

Agnes Callamard, the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, made her assessment Thursday after visiting Turkey.  

  

Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who wrote critically about Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. His remains have not been found. 

 

During its Jan. 28-Feb. 3 trip to Turkey, Callamard’s four-member team met with the foreign and justice ministers, the country’s intelligence chief and the prosecutor leading the case. 

 

Callamard concluded that “Turkey’s efforts to apply prompt, effective and thorough, independent and impartial, and transparent investigations — in line with international law — had been seriously curtailed and undermined by Saudi Arabia,” the U.N. human rights office in Geneva said in a statement.  

​Limited access

“Woefully inadequate time and access was granted to Turkish investigators to conduct a professional and effective crime-scene examination and search required by international standards for investigation,” Callamard said. 

 

Evidence collected during the trip indicates “that Mr. Khashoggi was the victim of a brutal and premeditated killing, planned and perpetrated by officials of the state of Saudi Arabia,” she said. She did not point to any specific official. 

 

Callamard’s team was given access to parts of the audio material obtained by Turkish intelligence on Khashoggi’s killing, but was “not able to undertake a deep technical examination of this material” and didn’t have an opportunity to authenticate it independently. 

 

The statement said the team wasn’t able to carry out some other inquiries, such as meeting forensic and crime scene experts involved, “largely, but not only, due to time constraints.” 

 

Callamard plans to present her final report to the U.N. Human Rights Council in June. 

 

Turkish officials have been frustrated by what they say is a lack of cooperation by Riyadh and have called for an international inquiry. 

 

After denying for several weeks that Khashoggi had been killed in the consulate, Saudi Arabia indicted 11 people in the killing and is seeking the death penalty against five of them. 

 

Turkey says Saudi Arabia must reveal the identity of a person who is thought to have disposed of the journalist’s body and hold all involved accountable.
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UN Expert: Saudi Arabia Undermined Khashoggi Probe

Posted on by SeeEU

A U.N. human rights expert said Thursday that Saudi Arabia undermined Turkey’s efforts to investigate the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which she described as a “brutal and premeditated killing” planned and carried out by Saudi officials. 

 

Agnes Callamard, the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, made her assessment Thursday after visiting Turkey.  

  

Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who wrote critically about Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. His remains have not been found. 

 

During its Jan. 28-Feb. 3 trip to Turkey, Callamard’s four-member team met with the foreign and justice ministers, the country’s intelligence chief and the prosecutor leading the case. 

 

Callamard concluded that “Turkey’s efforts to apply prompt, effective and thorough, independent and impartial, and transparent investigations — in line with international law — had been seriously curtailed and undermined by Saudi Arabia,” the U.N. human rights office in Geneva said in a statement.  

​Limited access

“Woefully inadequate time and access was granted to Turkish investigators to conduct a professional and effective crime-scene examination and search required by international standards for investigation,” Callamard said. 

 

Evidence collected during the trip indicates “that Mr. Khashoggi was the victim of a brutal and premeditated killing, planned and perpetrated by officials of the state of Saudi Arabia,” she said. She did not point to any specific official. 

 

Callamard’s team was given access to parts of the audio material obtained by Turkish intelligence on Khashoggi’s killing, but was “not able to undertake a deep technical examination of this material” and didn’t have an opportunity to authenticate it independently. 

 

The statement said the team wasn’t able to carry out some other inquiries, such as meeting forensic and crime scene experts involved, “largely, but not only, due to time constraints.” 

 

Callamard plans to present her final report to the U.N. Human Rights Council in June. 

 

Turkish officials have been frustrated by what they say is a lack of cooperation by Riyadh and have called for an international inquiry. 

 

After denying for several weeks that Khashoggi had been killed in the consulate, Saudi Arabia indicted 11 people in the killing and is seeking the death penalty against five of them. 

 

Turkey says Saudi Arabia must reveal the identity of a person who is thought to have disposed of the journalist’s body and hold all involved accountable.
…

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France Recalls Ambassador to Italy Amid Spat

Posted on by SeeEU

France is recalling its ambassador to Italy over so-called “outrageous” attacks on the French government by Italy’s leaders, further weakening a European Union struggling with Brexit and other divisions. 

France’s Foreign Ministry said its ambassador to Rome is being brought back for “consultations,” after what it said were “repeated and baseless attacks and outrageous statements” by the Italian government, which it suggested were aimed at winning win votes in May’s European parliament elections. 

Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Luigi di Maio met Wednesday with French yellow vest protesters — and after mounting tensions between Rome and Paris over issues ranging from immigration to the Libyan crisis.

France’s European affairs minister, Nathalie Loiseau, later tried to dial down tensions. In remarks carried on French radio, she called for restarting political dialogue. While Paris and Rome do not share the same political choices, she said, both governments must focus on domestic issues their citizens care about.

Italian leaders have directed sharp criticism against French President Emmanuel Macron and his government in recent months. Di Maio has accused France of continuing to colonize Africa and of fueling the migrant crisis. Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini described Macron as a “terrible president” and said he hoped French voters would turn against him. France and Italy also are competing for influence in trying to solve the Libyan crisis.

The last straw for France came with di Maio’s meeting with French yellow vests who plan to run in elections. After the meeting, he tweeted that the “wind of change has crossed the Alps” into France.

The spat adds to EU worries that include a potentially chaotic hard-Brexit and divisions among other European governments that include rising populist movements.

“It is clear the European Union is going through multiple crises,” French analyst and former diplomat Philippe Moreau Defarges said. “The problem, the challenge is if the European Union could disappear … if Europe destroys the European Union, there is nothing else.”

Defarges said that is why this particular spat between Paris and Rome is so worrying.

“The Europeans must be careful about their own future,” Defarges said. “That is why it is not an important crisis, but it is a dangerous crisis.”

Defarges also said Italy’s anger over immigration has some merit. Along with Greece, it is shouldering the biggest burden of migrants crossing the Mediterranean, while France and other European nations are not taking on their fair share. 
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