Month: February 2019

Juncker: Hungary’s Ruling Party Doesn’t Belong in Europe’s Center-right

Posted on by SeeEU

The party of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban should leave the mainstream European center-right grouping, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said, comparing Orban to French far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

The unusually sharp comments, made at a public meeting in Stuttgart, Germany, came after the Hungarian government unveiled a new poster campaign accusing Juncker and philanthropist George Soros of wanting to flood Hungary with migrants.

“Against lies there’s not much you can do,” Juncker replied, adding that Manfred Weber, the European Peoples Party’s lead candidate for the upcoming European elections, would certainly be asking himself “if I need this voice” in the EPP.

Calls have been growing for Orban’s nationalist Fidesz party to be expelled from the EPP, which groups Christian Democratic and center-right parties in the European Parliament, because of Fidesz’s stridently anti-immigration campaigns.

Fidesz’s domestic strength, however, means it has a large delegation in the European legislature, and its removal from the EPP umbrella could erode the center-right’s current dominance of the Strasbourg parliament.

Juncker, previously the longtime center-right prime minister of Luxembourg, said he had called for Fidesz’s exclusion from the EPP.

“They didn’t vote for me in the European Parliament,” he said. “The far right didn’t either. I remember Ms. Le Pen, she said ‘I’m not voting for you.’ I said: ‘I don’t want your vote.’ There are certain votes you just don’t want.”
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Juncker: Hungary’s Ruling Party Doesn’t Belong in Europe’s Center-right

Posted on by SeeEU

The party of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban should leave the mainstream European center-right grouping, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said, comparing Orban to French far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

The unusually sharp comments, made at a public meeting in Stuttgart, Germany, came after the Hungarian government unveiled a new poster campaign accusing Juncker and philanthropist George Soros of wanting to flood Hungary with migrants.

“Against lies there’s not much you can do,” Juncker replied, adding that Manfred Weber, the European Peoples Party’s lead candidate for the upcoming European elections, would certainly be asking himself “if I need this voice” in the EPP.

Calls have been growing for Orban’s nationalist Fidesz party to be expelled from the EPP, which groups Christian Democratic and center-right parties in the European Parliament, because of Fidesz’s stridently anti-immigration campaigns.

Fidesz’s domestic strength, however, means it has a large delegation in the European legislature, and its removal from the EPP umbrella could erode the center-right’s current dominance of the Strasbourg parliament.

Juncker, previously the longtime center-right prime minister of Luxembourg, said he had called for Fidesz’s exclusion from the EPP.

“They didn’t vote for me in the European Parliament,” he said. “The far right didn’t either. I remember Ms. Le Pen, she said ‘I’m not voting for you.’ I said: ‘I don’t want your vote.’ There are certain votes you just don’t want.”
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US Automakers to Trump: Don’t Slap Tariffs on Imported Cars

Posted on by SeeUS

America’s auto industry is bracing for a potential escalation in President Donald Trump’s tariff war with the world, one that could weaken the global auto industry and economy, inflate car prices and trigger a backlash in Congress.

Late Sunday, the Commerce Department sent the White House a report on the results of an investigation Trump had ordered of whether imported vehicles and parts pose a threat to U.S. national security. Commerce hasn’t made its recommendations public, and the White House has so far declined to comment. If Commerce did find that auto imports imperil national security, Trump would have 90 days to decide whether to impose those import taxes.

Trump has repeatedly invoked his duty as president to safeguard national security in justifying previous rounds of tariffs. An obscure provision in trade law authorizes a president to impose unlimited tariffs on particular imports if his Commerce Department concludes that those imports threaten America’s national security.

Whatever Commerce has concluded in this case, Trump has made clear his enthusiasm for tariffs in general and for auto tariffs in particular. Some analysts say they think Commerce has likely endorsed the tariffs, not least because the president has conveyed his preference for them.

‘Tariff Man’

Among Commerce’s recommendations “will certainly be tariffs because, hey, he’s a Tariff Man,” said William Reinsch, a former U.S. trade official and now a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, referring to a nickname that Trump gave himself.

Industry officials took part in a conference call Tuesday to discuss the possible steps Trump could take. They include tariffs of up to 25 percent on imported parts only; on assembled vehicles only; or on both vehicles and parts — including those from Mexico and Canada. The last option would be an especially unusual one given that the United States, Mexico and Canada reached a new North American trade deal late last year, and the legislatures of all three nations must still ratify it.

In public hearings last year, the idea of imposing import taxes on autos drew almost no support. Even U.S. automakers, which ostensibly would benefit from a tax on their foreign competitors, opposed the potential tariffs. Among other concerns, the automakers worry about retaliatory tariffs that the affected nations would impose on U.S. vehicles. Many U.S. automakers also depend on imported parts that would be subject to Trump’s tariffs and would become more expensive.

A similar Commerce investigation last year resulted in the Trump administration imposing taxes on imported steel and aluminum in the name of national security. The administration has adopted an extraordinarily broad view of national security to include just about anything that might affect the economy.

In addition to steel and aluminum, Trump has imposed tariffs on dishwashers, solar panels and hundreds of Chinese products. Targeting autos would further raise the stakes. The United States imported $340 billion in cars, trucks and auto parts in 2017.

‘Economic fallout’

If the administration imposed 25 percent tariffs on imported parts and vehicles including those from Canada and Mexico, the price of imported vehicles would jump more than 17 percent, or an average of around $5,000 each, according to estimates by IHS Markit. Even the prices of vehicles made in the U.S. would rise by about 5 percent, or $1,800, because all of them use some imported parts.

Luxury brands would absorb the sharpest increase: $5,800 on average, IHS concluded. Mass-market vehicle prices would rise an average of $3,300.

If the tariffs were fully assessed, IHS predicts that price increases would cause U.S. auto sales to fall by an average of 1.8 million vehicles a year through 2026. Auto industry officials say that if sales fall, there almost certainly will be U.S. layoffs. Dealers who sell German and some Japanese brands would be hurt the most by the tariffs.

“The economic fallout would be significant, with auto tariffs hurting the global economy by distorting prices and creating inefficiencies, and the impact would reverberate across global supply chains,” Moody’s Investors Service said in a report. “The already weakening pace of global expansion would magnify global growth pressures, causing a broader hit to business and consumer confidence amid tightening financial conditions.”

Congress could resist the auto tariffs. Sens. Pat Toomey, R-Penn., and Mark Warner, D-Va., have introduced legislation to reassert congressional control over trade. Their bill would give Congress 60 days to approve any tariffs imposed on national security grounds. It would also shift responsibility for such investigations away from Commerce to the Pentagon.

Some analysts say they suspect that Trump intends to use the tariffs as leverage to pressure Japan and Europe to limit their auto exports to the United States and to prod Japanese and European automakers to build more vehicles at their U.S. plants.

Reinsch notes that Trump’s top trade negotiator, Robert Lighthizer, worked in the Reagan administration, which coerced Japan into accepting “voluntary” limits on its auto exports.

“This is the way Lighthizer thinks,” Reinsch said.

Even if the tariff threat resulted in negotiations, Europe and Japan would have demands of their own. A likely one: Compelling the U.S. to drop its longstanding 25 percent tax on imported light trucks.

Trump is “pursuing something that, as near as I can tell, the domestic [auto] industry doesn’t want,” Reinsch said. “Once he pursues it, he is going to be under pressure to give up the one thing the auto industry really does want” — the U.S. tariff on imported light trucks.

‘Cloud of uncertainty’

For now, many in the industry are upset that the Commerce Department report remains secret, feeding uncertainty.

“The 137,000 people who work for Toyota across America deserve to know whether they are considered a national security threat,” Toyota said in a statement Tuesday. “And the American consumer needs to know whether the cost of every vehicle sold in the U.S. may increase.”

The American International Automobile Dealers Association this week called the Commerce Department’s investigation “bogus.”

“Now, dealerships must continue to operate under a cloud of uncertainty, not knowing if at any moment their products will be slapped with 25 percent tariffs, raising vehicle and repair costs by thousands of dollars and slashing sales,” the association’s CEO, Cody Lusk, said in a statement.
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Trump Says No ‘Magical Date’ for Imposing More Tariffs on China    

Posted on by SeeUS

President Donald Trump says there is no “magical date” for reaching a trade deal with China, suggesting again the March 1 deadline for new tariffs could be pushed up.

“I think the talks are going very well,” Trump told reporters at the White House Tuesday. “I can’t tell you exactly about the timing. The date is not a magical date because a lot of things are happening. We’ll see what happens.”

He called the trade negotiations “very complex.”

Trump had set March 1 as the deadline for hiking tariffs on $200 million in Chinese imports from 10 to 25 percent if no trade agreement is reached.

He has since said that date could be put off if negotiators are close to a deal.

Talks resumed Tuesday in Washington between lower-level deputies from each side before senior-level talks — including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer — take over Thursday.

Vice Premier Liu He, Beijing’s top economic and trade negotiator, will again lead the Chinese side.

The White House says the talks will focus on “achieving needed structural changes in China that affect trade” with the United States. 

Bloomberg News reports U.S. negotiators want China to commit to not depreciating the value of its currency.

A depreciated yuan makes Chinese goods cheaper on world markets compared to U.S. products.

The United States has long complained about what it calls unfair Chinese trade practices, including alleged theft of U.S. intellectual property, and demands U.S. firms turn over trade secrets to China if they want to keep doing business there.

China has said it is U.S. trade policies that are stifling its economic development.

Washington and Beijing imposed tit-for-tat tariffs on each other’s imports last year before Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping called for a 90 day truce starting on Jan. 1.
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Death Toll From Northwest Nigeria Attack Doubles to 130

Posted on by SeeAF

The death toll from an attack last week by gunmen in northwestern Nigeria has doubled to more than 130, the Kaduna state governor said on Tuesday, adding it appeared to have been a deliberate plan to “wipe out certain communities.”

Governor Nasir el-Rufai did not elaborate on what he meant. Those killed in last week’s attack were mainly from the Fulani ethnic group, who are usually Muslim and have been involved in clashes in recent years with people from the Adara ethnic group, who are predominantly Christian.

El-Rufai told reporters that police were still investigating the motive for the attack in the Kajuru local government area in the south of the state, and there had been arrests. He did not say how many people had been detained.

“The more the police dig into this matter, the more it is clear that there was a deliberate plan to wipe out certain communities,” he said, adding that the latest report on the incident showed more than 130 people had been killed.

Locals said the attack took place on Monday last week, although initial reports suggested it took place later in the week. It was first announced late on Friday — the day before Nigeria was supposed to hold a presidential election, but electoral authorities delayed the vote by a week, citing logistical challenges.

Local residents said last week that the attack was a reprisal for violence in October.

“They invaded our settlement, killed men, women and children and set our houses ablaze,” said Usman Kafara, who survived last week’s attack. “The Adaras were on reprisal mission over the killings of 11 of their people.”

Some 55 people were killed in October during what residents said were clashes between Muslims and Christians in the Kasuwan Magani area of Kajuru — the same local government area in which last week’s attack took place.

Security has become a key campaign issue ahead of the presidential election in which President Muhammadu Buhari and Atiku Abubakar, a businessman and former vice president, are the leading contenders.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation with around 190 million inhabitants, is split roughly equally between Christians and Muslims, and comprises around 250 different ethnic groups that mostly co-exist peacefully.

However, hundreds of people were killed last year in outbreaks of violence over land use and resources in central states slightly to the south of Kaduna.

 
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Death Toll From Northwest Nigeria Attack Doubles to 130

Posted on by SeeAF

The death toll from an attack last week by gunmen in northwestern Nigeria has doubled to more than 130, the Kaduna state governor said on Tuesday, adding it appeared to have been a deliberate plan to “wipe out certain communities.”

Governor Nasir el-Rufai did not elaborate on what he meant. Those killed in last week’s attack were mainly from the Fulani ethnic group, who are usually Muslim and have been involved in clashes in recent years with people from the Adara ethnic group, who are predominantly Christian.

El-Rufai told reporters that police were still investigating the motive for the attack in the Kajuru local government area in the south of the state, and there had been arrests. He did not say how many people had been detained.

“The more the police dig into this matter, the more it is clear that there was a deliberate plan to wipe out certain communities,” he said, adding that the latest report on the incident showed more than 130 people had been killed.

Locals said the attack took place on Monday last week, although initial reports suggested it took place later in the week. It was first announced late on Friday — the day before Nigeria was supposed to hold a presidential election, but electoral authorities delayed the vote by a week, citing logistical challenges.

Local residents said last week that the attack was a reprisal for violence in October.

“They invaded our settlement, killed men, women and children and set our houses ablaze,” said Usman Kafara, who survived last week’s attack. “The Adaras were on reprisal mission over the killings of 11 of their people.”

Some 55 people were killed in October during what residents said were clashes between Muslims and Christians in the Kasuwan Magani area of Kajuru — the same local government area in which last week’s attack took place.

Security has become a key campaign issue ahead of the presidential election in which President Muhammadu Buhari and Atiku Abubakar, a businessman and former vice president, are the leading contenders.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation with around 190 million inhabitants, is split roughly equally between Christians and Muslims, and comprises around 250 different ethnic groups that mostly co-exist peacefully.

However, hundreds of people were killed last year in outbreaks of violence over land use and resources in central states slightly to the south of Kaduna.

 
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Oxfam: Forced Marriages Aren’t Going Away in South Sudan

Posted on by SeeAF

A new report by British charity Oxfam warns that another generation of girls in South Sudan will miss out on education, face high health risks during childbirth, and be more likely to face sexual and domestic violence unless the country takes more steps to eliminate forced marriages.

The report, Born to Be Married, states that South Sudan is one of the most difficult places in the world for girls to receive an education. Most girls drop out of school due in part to forced marriage at young ages.

Ranjan Poudyal, Oxfam’s country director for South Sudan, said the group found that more than 70 percent of girls in Nyal are married before the age of 18.

“Men, boys and girls spoke of how child marriage can have devastating consequences for young girls. We know that 76 percent of South Sudanese girls are out of school. And child marriage contributes a lot to the fact that they are not in school,” Poudyal told VOA’s “South Sudan in Focus.”

Oxfam says it carried out its research in the town of Nyal, in former Unity state, over a four-year period. 

Poudyal said hunger and poverty, caused in part by the country’s civil war, have driven families to desperation. Many parents will marry off their young daughters for a dowry.

Juba parent Esther Atim said the economic crisis caused by the war has put a terrible strain on families, especially children.

“The girl child doesn’t want to see her mum suffering. She finds a way she thinks is OK [to help her mother]. For example, she goes to town and gets money through commercial sex and then she gives the money to the mum to buy food. In the process, she gets pregnant and her future is ruined. Some parents also agree with somebody to marry their daughters so that they have money to survive,” Atim told VOA.

Atim urged government officials to strengthen existing laws aimed at ending child and forced marriages and to invest in girls’ education. The report noted that in 2012, the government finalized a “gender policy” that called for new laws to address sexual and gender-based violence, “and establishing ‘safe centers’ for psychosocial support.” The report, however, said such frameworks remain largely unimplemented.

Survivor’s story

Twenty-four-year-old Helen Poni, who is from the town of Rubkona, said she is a survivor of early forced marriage and became pregnant when she was 16 years old.

“I did not know that I was pregnant. The man actually forced me to have sex with him. From that day I hate him forever. And I don’t want even to see him. The time my parents realized that I am pregnant, my father actually said continue with your marriage. The time I gave birth, I tried to ask, ‘Dad, I want to go back to school.’ He said, ‘No, you are already spoiled,'” Poni said.

Poni said she defied her parents’ wishes because she wanted to continue her education. She struggled at first, but was able to complete her secondary education. Poni now works as a hairdresser in Juba, supporting herself and her 8-year-old.

In her spare time, Poni campaigns against child marriages in South Sudan.

“When I see a young girl pregnant, I feel that pain. I just remember the way I got pregnant. By then I used to advise girls in my area so that they will not do that same mistake that happened to me so that we shall end child marriages from our country and in Africa,” Poni told VOA.

Increased advocacy

The report says child marriage increases a girl’s risk of death or complications during pregnancy and childbirth. It also says child marriage puts girls at greater risk of sexual, physical and emotional violence.

Of the married women and girls interviewed by UNICEF in Nyal, 84 percent said they had experienced or witnessed sexual violence between a husband and wife.

Elysa Buchanan, the report’s author and Oxfam policy adviser in South Sudan, said researchers asked the Nyal community how they thought child marriage could be eliminated.

“Most importantly for them was a kind of increased advocacy, and that really meant engaging local authorities and leaders and people with the power to respond to it. And not only engaging women and girls on this issue, but also men and boys and stepping that up,” Buchanan told “South Sudan in Focus.”

The report calls on international donors and humanitarian agencies to direct more funding to community-led initiatives that prevent gender-based violence and end child marriage through education and awareness campaigns which challenge cultural norms.
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Oxfam: Forced Marriages Aren’t Going Away in South Sudan

Posted on by SeeAF

A new report by British charity Oxfam warns that another generation of girls in South Sudan will miss out on education, face high health risks during childbirth, and be more likely to face sexual and domestic violence unless the country takes more steps to eliminate forced marriages.

The report, Born to Be Married, states that South Sudan is one of the most difficult places in the world for girls to receive an education. Most girls drop out of school due in part to forced marriage at young ages.

Ranjan Poudyal, Oxfam’s country director for South Sudan, said the group found that more than 70 percent of girls in Nyal are married before the age of 18.

“Men, boys and girls spoke of how child marriage can have devastating consequences for young girls. We know that 76 percent of South Sudanese girls are out of school. And child marriage contributes a lot to the fact that they are not in school,” Poudyal told VOA’s “South Sudan in Focus.”

Oxfam says it carried out its research in the town of Nyal, in former Unity state, over a four-year period. 

Poudyal said hunger and poverty, caused in part by the country’s civil war, have driven families to desperation. Many parents will marry off their young daughters for a dowry.

Juba parent Esther Atim said the economic crisis caused by the war has put a terrible strain on families, especially children.

“The girl child doesn’t want to see her mum suffering. She finds a way she thinks is OK [to help her mother]. For example, she goes to town and gets money through commercial sex and then she gives the money to the mum to buy food. In the process, she gets pregnant and her future is ruined. Some parents also agree with somebody to marry their daughters so that they have money to survive,” Atim told VOA.

Atim urged government officials to strengthen existing laws aimed at ending child and forced marriages and to invest in girls’ education. The report noted that in 2012, the government finalized a “gender policy” that called for new laws to address sexual and gender-based violence, “and establishing ‘safe centers’ for psychosocial support.” The report, however, said such frameworks remain largely unimplemented.

Survivor’s story

Twenty-four-year-old Helen Poni, who is from the town of Rubkona, said she is a survivor of early forced marriage and became pregnant when she was 16 years old.

“I did not know that I was pregnant. The man actually forced me to have sex with him. From that day I hate him forever. And I don’t want even to see him. The time my parents realized that I am pregnant, my father actually said continue with your marriage. The time I gave birth, I tried to ask, ‘Dad, I want to go back to school.’ He said, ‘No, you are already spoiled,'” Poni said.

Poni said she defied her parents’ wishes because she wanted to continue her education. She struggled at first, but was able to complete her secondary education. Poni now works as a hairdresser in Juba, supporting herself and her 8-year-old.

In her spare time, Poni campaigns against child marriages in South Sudan.

“When I see a young girl pregnant, I feel that pain. I just remember the way I got pregnant. By then I used to advise girls in my area so that they will not do that same mistake that happened to me so that we shall end child marriages from our country and in Africa,” Poni told VOA.

Increased advocacy

The report says child marriage increases a girl’s risk of death or complications during pregnancy and childbirth. It also says child marriage puts girls at greater risk of sexual, physical and emotional violence.

Of the married women and girls interviewed by UNICEF in Nyal, 84 percent said they had experienced or witnessed sexual violence between a husband and wife.

Elysa Buchanan, the report’s author and Oxfam policy adviser in South Sudan, said researchers asked the Nyal community how they thought child marriage could be eliminated.

“Most importantly for them was a kind of increased advocacy, and that really meant engaging local authorities and leaders and people with the power to respond to it. And not only engaging women and girls on this issue, but also men and boys and stepping that up,” Buchanan told “South Sudan in Focus.”

The report calls on international donors and humanitarian agencies to direct more funding to community-led initiatives that prevent gender-based violence and end child marriage through education and awareness campaigns which challenge cultural norms.
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UN: Fighting, Instability Have Displaced 100,000 in Burkina Faso

Posted on by SeeAF

More than 100,000 people have been displaced by factional fighting and lawlessness in Burkina Faso, most within the past two months, according to a U.N. report published Tuesday.

“Burkina Faso is, for the first time in its history, facing massive internal displacement,” the report said.

“Repeated raids by armed groups and insecurity in the regions of Centre-Nord, Nord and Sahel have also triggered an unprecedented humanitarian emergency.”

The government and humanitarian groups had begun a $100 million aid plan to help 900,000 people, it said.

Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in West Africa that borders the Sahel region countries of Niger and Mali to the north where militant groups, some linked to al-Qaida and Islamic State, have carried out attacks for years.

As well as an Islamic insurrection in the north, in 2018 Burkina Faso began suffering attacks by unknown militants in the east and attacks in the capital and elsewhere perpetrated by the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM).

That militant group is active across the Sahel, according to a report by the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank.

“For the first time since independence, Burkinabe state authorities have lost control of parts of the country,” said the ICG report, published last month.

The army has stepped up operations in response to worsening security across northern Burkina since last year. But rights activists have accused it of carrying out extrajudicial killings and arbitrary arrests that could worsen instability.

On Saturday, Foreign Minister Alpha Barry said incidents of violence had now spread to the country’s southern border with the coastal West African countries of Togo, Benin, Ivory Coast and Ghana.

“This threat is gaining ground,” Barry told the annual Munich Security Conference. “It’s no longer just the Sahel, it’s coastal West Africa and the risk of spreading regionally.”
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UN: Fighting, Instability Have Displaced 100,000 in Burkina Faso

Posted on by SeeAF

More than 100,000 people have been displaced by factional fighting and lawlessness in Burkina Faso, most within the past two months, according to a U.N. report published Tuesday.

“Burkina Faso is, for the first time in its history, facing massive internal displacement,” the report said.

“Repeated raids by armed groups and insecurity in the regions of Centre-Nord, Nord and Sahel have also triggered an unprecedented humanitarian emergency.”

The government and humanitarian groups had begun a $100 million aid plan to help 900,000 people, it said.

Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in West Africa that borders the Sahel region countries of Niger and Mali to the north where militant groups, some linked to al-Qaida and Islamic State, have carried out attacks for years.

As well as an Islamic insurrection in the north, in 2018 Burkina Faso began suffering attacks by unknown militants in the east and attacks in the capital and elsewhere perpetrated by the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM).

That militant group is active across the Sahel, according to a report by the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank.

“For the first time since independence, Burkinabe state authorities have lost control of parts of the country,” said the ICG report, published last month.

The army has stepped up operations in response to worsening security across northern Burkina since last year. But rights activists have accused it of carrying out extrajudicial killings and arbitrary arrests that could worsen instability.

On Saturday, Foreign Minister Alpha Barry said incidents of violence had now spread to the country’s southern border with the coastal West African countries of Togo, Benin, Ivory Coast and Ghana.

“This threat is gaining ground,” Barry told the annual Munich Security Conference. “It’s no longer just the Sahel, it’s coastal West Africa and the risk of spreading regionally.”
…

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Thousands Decry Anti-Semitism in France After Spike in Attacks

Posted on by SeeEU

Thousands of people rallied across France after a surge of anti-Semitic attacks in recent weeks that culminated on Tuesday with vandals daubing swastikas and anti-Jewish slogans on dozens of graves in a Jewish cemetery.

Political leaders from all parties, including former Presidents Francois Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy, gathered in Paris filling the Place de la Republique, a symbol of the nation, to decry anti-Semitic acts with one common slogan: “Enough!” People also lined the streets of cities from Lille in the north to Toulouse and Marseille in the south.

President Emmanuel Macron paid respects at one of the 96 desecrated graves in the village of Quatzenheim, near the eastern city of Strasbourg.

“Whoever did this is not worthy of the French republic and will be punished… We’ll take action, we’ll apply the law and we’ll punish them,” he said, walking through a gate scarred with a swastika as he entered the graveyard.

Macron later visited the national Holocaust memorial in Paris with the heads of the Senate and National Assembly.

France is home to the biggest Jewish community in Europe – around 550,000 – a population that has grown by about half since World War II, but anti-Semitic attacks remain common.

Government statistics released last week showed there were more than 500 anti-Semitic attacks in the country last year, a 74 percent increase from 2017.

“Some people are provoking the authority of the state. It needs to be dealt with now and extremely firmly,” Sarkozy told reporters. “It’s a real question of authority. Violence is spreading and it needs to stop now.”

Among incidents in recent days, “yellow vest” protesters were filmed hurling abuse on Saturday at Alain Finkielkraut, a well-known Jewish writer and son of a Holocaust survivor.

Artwork on two Paris post boxes showing the image of Simone Veil, a Holocaust survivor and former magistrate, was defaced with swastikas, while a bagel shop was sprayed with the word “Juden”, German for Jews, in yellow letters. A tree in a Paris suburb in memory of Ilan Halimi, a young Jewish man kidnapped, tortured and murdered in 2006, was cut in two.

The series of attacks has alarmed politicians and prompted calls for action against what some commentators describe as a new form of anti-Semitism among the far-left and Islamist preachers.

“I call on all French and European leaders to take a strong stand against anti-Semitism,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video message recorded in Hebrew. “It is an epidemic that endangers everyone, not just us.”

A rabbi and three children were killed at a Jewish school in Toulouse in 2012 by an Islamist gunman, and in 2015 four Jews at a kosher supermarket in Paris were among 17 people killed by Islamist militants.

 
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Thousands Decry Anti-Semitism in France After Spike in Attacks

Posted on by SeeEU

Thousands of people rallied across France after a surge of anti-Semitic attacks in recent weeks that culminated on Tuesday with vandals daubing swastikas and anti-Jewish slogans on dozens of graves in a Jewish cemetery.

Political leaders from all parties, including former Presidents Francois Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy, gathered in Paris filling the Place de la Republique, a symbol of the nation, to decry anti-Semitic acts with one common slogan: “Enough!” People also lined the streets of cities from Lille in the north to Toulouse and Marseille in the south.

President Emmanuel Macron paid respects at one of the 96 desecrated graves in the village of Quatzenheim, near the eastern city of Strasbourg.

“Whoever did this is not worthy of the French republic and will be punished… We’ll take action, we’ll apply the law and we’ll punish them,” he said, walking through a gate scarred with a swastika as he entered the graveyard.

Macron later visited the national Holocaust memorial in Paris with the heads of the Senate and National Assembly.

France is home to the biggest Jewish community in Europe – around 550,000 – a population that has grown by about half since World War II, but anti-Semitic attacks remain common.

Government statistics released last week showed there were more than 500 anti-Semitic attacks in the country last year, a 74 percent increase from 2017.

“Some people are provoking the authority of the state. It needs to be dealt with now and extremely firmly,” Sarkozy told reporters. “It’s a real question of authority. Violence is spreading and it needs to stop now.”

Among incidents in recent days, “yellow vest” protesters were filmed hurling abuse on Saturday at Alain Finkielkraut, a well-known Jewish writer and son of a Holocaust survivor.

Artwork on two Paris post boxes showing the image of Simone Veil, a Holocaust survivor and former magistrate, was defaced with swastikas, while a bagel shop was sprayed with the word “Juden”, German for Jews, in yellow letters. A tree in a Paris suburb in memory of Ilan Halimi, a young Jewish man kidnapped, tortured and murdered in 2006, was cut in two.

The series of attacks has alarmed politicians and prompted calls for action against what some commentators describe as a new form of anti-Semitism among the far-left and Islamist preachers.

“I call on all French and European leaders to take a strong stand against anti-Semitism,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video message recorded in Hebrew. “It is an epidemic that endangers everyone, not just us.”

A rabbi and three children were killed at a Jewish school in Toulouse in 2012 by an Islamist gunman, and in 2015 four Jews at a kosher supermarket in Paris were among 17 people killed by Islamist militants.

 
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Suicide Bombing Kills 3 Policemen Near Cairo’s Famed Bazaar

Posted on by SeeEA

The death toll from a late-night suicide blast near Cairo’s famed tourist market rose to three on Tuesday after a police officer died of his wounds, Egypt’s Interior Ministry said.

The fatalities in the attack near the Khan el-Khalili bazaar in the heart of Cairo were all policemen. The explosion late Monday also wounded two other policemen and a woman, officials said. 

The attack was a rarity for the central area of Egypt’s capital amid a years-long security crackdown under President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. 

The Interior Ministry said the attacker, 37-year-old al-Hassan Abdullah, blew himself up after police officers approached to arrest him. He was wanted in a bombing last Friday near a mosque in Cairo’s district of Giza and the police had been monitoring his movements, the statement said.

No claim of responsibility

The attacker’s affiliation was not known and no militant group claimed responsibility for the bombings. 

The ministry had blamed members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood for last week’s attack, which it said targeted a security checkpoint and wounded three people.

Following Monday’s explosion, which shattered windows and blew curtains off nearby balconies, police and soldiers cordoned off the narrow streets around the bazaar. A body, presumably of the attacker, covered with a white sheet stained with blood, was seen lying on the ground in the blocked-off area, close to Egypt’s renowned Al-Azhar mosque.

In a house nearby, police found a bomb and bomb-making material, which prompted the evacuation of the whole building, said the security officials.

Militants killed in Sinai Peninsula raids

In the restive north of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, security forces killed 16 militants and seized explosives and weapons in two raids, security officials said Tuesday. The raids involved clashes with Islamic militants in the desert outside the city of el-Arish, they said. It was unclear when the battle took place

Officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Egypt has been battling Islamic militants for years, but the insurgency gained strength after the 2013 overthrow of an elected but divisive Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi. The militants have mainly targeted security forces and Christians.

Egypt last year launched a wide-scale security operation focused on northern Sinai, where an Islamic State affiliate has carried out many attacks in recent years.

 
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Britain Debates Whether Islamic State Recruits Should Be Given Second Chance

Posted on by SeeEA

British-born Sumaiyyah Wakil was sixteen-years-old when she sneaked away to war-torn Syria, flying first to Bulgaria, then Turkey, to join the Islamic State terror group. Once in IS’s de facto capital Raqqa, she bragged, according to British court documents, about watching the public stoning of a woman, describing the killing as “so cool.”

But now her family say the British authorities should repatriate her when she re-emerges, likely soon, from IS territory as well as other British teenagers who joined the militants. Wakil’s parents and the families of IS recruits argue their offspring were manipulated by jihadist recruiters and were too young to know what they were doing when they went off to Syria.

The predicament of surviving young foreign IS recruits — especially of the women, most of whom left like Wakil as schoolgirls without family approval or prior parental knowledge — has sparked a ferocious moral, political and legal debate in Britain, as well as other European states, about whether they should be re-admitted to their birth countries, even helped to return and given a second chance. 

Opinion polls suggest most Britons don’t think they deserve the right to return. 

In Britain, the debate was triggered in earnest last week with the discovery by reporter Anthony Loyd of a pregnant nineteen-year-old British woman in a Kurdish-managed refugee camp in northeast Syria. Shamima Begum, who gave birth to her third child Sunday, joined the militant group in 2015 at the age of 15, slipping off with two school-friends, all from east London. 

One of the girls died in an airstrike in 2016; the other, Amira Abase, is still in IS territory. At least 900 Britons, an estimated 145 of them women and 50 minors, joined IS. In total an estimated 5000 Europeans joined the militant group, although some analysts say the figure is likely higher. 

Britain, like other European countries, has been reluctant to repatriate IS recruits, whether male fighters or so-called ‘jihadi brides’ as well as their children. A small number have been assisted to return to their countries of origin, but hundreds are awaiting political or legal resolution of their cases as their appeals for repatriation have largely been ignored by alarmed European governments, seeing them as security risks who betrayed their countries.

U.S. officials have been urging European governments, for more than a year,to take back surviving recruits — and prosecute them. Otherwise they will slip away, they say, from refugee and detention facilities in northeast Syria and pose a greater threat once unsupervised. On Saturday, a frustrated President Donald Trump urged the Europeans to take charge of their rogue citizens, saying the alternative is the Kurds will have to free them.

European officials say most can’t be put on trial because of the difficulty in collecting hard evidence against them for individual wrongdoing, and they worry their presence will over-tax already strained security services. More than 900 foreign jihadists and 3200 wives and children are being held by the Kurds.

Begum, whose two previous children died from malnutrition and sickness, says she wants to return to Britain, mainly because she’s worried about her baby’s health. “I think a lot of people should have, like, sympathy towards me for everything I’ve been through,” she said in a recent interview. 

But she has expressed no remorse over joining IS nor disavowed the group’s ideology.In an interview with Sky News she claimed she was “just a housewife” during her time in IS’s self-styled caliphate, where she married a young Dutch jihadist shortly after arriving. 

And asked whether she was aware of the IS beheadings and executions, she answered matter-of-factly that she’d been “okay with it.” She said: “Yeah, I knew about those things and I was okay with it. Because, you know, I started becoming religious just before I left. From what I heard, Islamically that is all allowed.” In an interview with the BBC she said the 2017 terror attack on the Ariana Grande concert, in which 22 died, was justified retaliation.

Her lack of contrition has prompted public outrage with detractors saying she displays a breathtaking sense of entitlement. Her family, though, says she is brainwashed. 

Muhammad Rahman, her brother-in-law, whose married to an older sister, told reporters: “I can understand why many people in Britain do not want Shamima to be allowed back into the country after what she has done…but she went as a fifteen-year-old and I don’t know a 15-year-old can make such a decision with any responsibility. She was a minor when she left and she surely has been brainwashed.” 

Some radicalization experts have long argued that young Westerners were cleverly groomed by recruiters, in much the same way pedophiles target prey with tailored, manipulative narratives to up a false sense of kinship. In conversations with this correspondent, Mia Bloom, a security studies professor at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell and recognized radicalization expert, highlighted, as the caliphate unfolded, how IS groomers were skillful at exploiting the vulnerabilities and confusion of disoriented Western teenagers already struggling with identity issues.

Bloom said IS matched recruiters with potential recruits in terms of age, nationality and gender. The marketing narratives would shift depending on the target’s vulnerabilities — from arguments about equality and inclusion to offers of friendship and the promise of belonging. For some, there’d be the lure of utopian adventure. Others would be manipulated by recruiters emphasizing their obligations to Islam. 

Manipulated or not, commentator Janice Turner, a columnist with The Times, says while the youth of some of the IS recruits should be taken into account, she questions, “at what point does a young person stop being a gullible victim, malleable clay moulded by older minds and dangerous ideology, and become responsible for his or her deeds?”

In Begum’s east London neighborhood of Bethnal Green there are mixed feelings, with some locals saying she might have been manipulated into going, but her lack of remorse now is alarming and suggests she remains a radicalized menace. The plight of the children of IS recruits is what pulls at most heart strings and even those adamant that the recruits should stay away, say the children can’t be left to their fates.

On the legal front, there have been calls for treason laws to be applied against IS recruits, including jihadi brides, but those laws may not be appropriate, say legal scholars. The country’s interior minister, Sajid Javid, reflected British anger last week by saying Begum and other recruits shouldn’t be readmitted, but he has had to concede he can’t block them permanently from re-entry. He could issue temporary orders excluding them from re-admission for up to two years, say some legal scholars, but would face court challenges.

Other ministers have also acknowledged their alarm, but say they can’t make people stateless, although they’re unlikely to arrange physically the return of the recruits. Returnees would be monitored, would have to enter de-radicalization programs and their children most likely would be placed in care of or with foster families, at least temporarily, say British officials. 
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Pakistan Launches Diplomatic Push to Counter India After Attack

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Pakistan launched an intense diplomatic push to repel India’s efforts to isolate it after India blamed a Pakistan based group for an attack Friday in Kashmir killing more than 40 security personnel.

 

At least 70 to 80 ambassadors in Islamabad were briefed since Friday by Pakistan’s foreign office, according to diplomatic and other sources.

In the briefings, Pakistan questioned India’s motives for blaming it without a proper investigation, indicating that the attack may have been carried out by a group within India.

 

“There are people in India who want to make Pakistan and Kashmiris look bad,” some of the diplomats were told by Pakistani officials.

 

The officials briefing the ambassadors questioned the timing of the attack, insisting it was more damaging for Pakistan than India.

Friday’s attack came a day before Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman was expected to arrive in Islamabad with billions of dollars in investment to help the fledgling economy. It also came right before the meeting of an international Financial Action Task Force in Paris that is already scrutinizing Pakistan for its lax laws on terrorism funding.

 

Pakistan also told the ambassadors that the current Indian administration was trying to use anti-Pakistan rhetoric to gain votes in the upcoming elections and warned of the possibility of more attacks before polling starts in April.

 

India, for its part, has briefed at least 25 diplomats, including those representing the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council (China, France, Russia, Britain and the United States), on Pakistan’s alleged support of Jaish-e-Mohammed, the group that claimed responsibility for the deadly attack, according to Indian media.

 

Masood Azhar, the leader of the group who was released from Indian custody in 1999 in return for the passengers of a hijacked Indian plane, has since been living in Pakistan.

 

Pakistan banned JeM in 2002 but security experts say it is allowed to operate under different names. The group is also on the Security Council sanctions list. However, efforts by India to have Azhar added to that list have been blocked by China, Pakistan’s longtime ally.

 

After the attack, U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton tweeted that “Pakistan must crack down on JeM and all terrorists operating from its territory,” whereas Secretary of State Michael Pompeo tweeted, “Pakistan must not provide safe haven for terrorists to threaten international security.”

 

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised an appropriate response to the attack.

“The terrorists and their supporters can try to hide all they want, but they will be punished,” he said at a rally. His administration has also indicated it had given the security forces “full freedom” to respond.

 

In 2016, after another attack on Indian security forces in Kashmir blamed on JeM, India carried out “surgical strikes” across the Line of Control, the de-facto border in the disputed region. While the strikes were considered cosmetic in their impact by most analysts on both sides, many fear a stronger response this time.

 

“The current situation has all the making of an India-Pakistan crisis. It’s election year and Prime Minister Modi is going to use this attack to the hilt for domestic political gains,” according to Moeed Yusuf, the Associate Vice President for Asia in the Washington based U.S. Institute of Peace.

 

In a letter Monday to the U.N. secretary-general, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi called on the United Nations to intervene.

 

“It is with a sense of urgency that I draw your attention to the deteriorating security situation in our region resulting from the threat of use of force against Pakistan by India.”

 

The two countries have fought four wars, three of them over Kashmir, and fears of another conflict between the two nuclear armed neighbors are high.

“There is a lot of outrage and anger in India,” said Prabhu Dayal, a former Indian diplomat who has served in Pakistan, adding that Indians were aware of the “well established linkage” between JeM and Pakistan’s intelligence agencies.

 

“Things have been so tense between India and Pakistan for the past few months that the room for error is literally zero,” said Yusuf.

 

Both India and Pakistan have recalled their high commissioners “for consultations.”

 

Meanwhile, Indian media reported attacks on Kashmiri students or businesses in various parts of North India. The Indian newspaper The Hindu reported that at least 100 Kashmiri students were forced to flee to Kashmir from other parts of India.
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DOJ Official: US Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein to Step Down in March

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Rod Rosenstein, the U.S. deputy attorney general who appointed a special counsel to investigate possible ties between Russia and President Donald Trump’s campaign, is expected to step down by mid March, a Justice Department official said on Monday.

Rosenstein had been expected to depart shortly after new Attorney General William Barr assumed office. Barr was confirmed for the role by the U.S. Senate last week.

The Justice official said Rosenstein’s departure was not related to renewed allegations that he considered wearing a wire in meetings with Trump and using the 25th amendment of the U.S. Constitution to remove the president from office.

Rosenstein, the No. 2 official at the Justice Department, in May 2017 named Special Counsel Robert Mueller to investigate ties between Trump’s 2016 presidential election campaign and Moscow. The investigation continues.

A registered Republican, Rosenstein made the decision because his then-boss, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a Trump supporter during the 2016 campaign, had recused himself from the issue.

Last September, the New York Times reported Rosenstein in 2017 had suggested secretly recording Trump and recruiting Cabinet members to oust the president using the provisions of the Constitution’s 25th Amendment.

In an interview broadcast on Sunday with CBS News “60 Minutes,” former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe confirmed the Times account that Rosenstein considered wearing a wire in meetings with Trump.

Rosenstein said both the Times story and McCabe’s account were “inaccurate and factually incorrect,” which a Justice Department spokeswoman reiterated after the “60 Minutes” interview.

Earlier on Monday Trump accused both McCabe and Rosenstein of planning a “very illegal act,” which he described in a tweet as “illegal and treasonous.”

Rosenstein ceased overseeing Mueller’s probe on Nov. 7 when Trump named Matt Whittaker acting attorney general.

Barr now has oversight of the investigation.

Rosenstein had attracted far more attention than is typical for the No. 2 Justice Department official because of his decision to appoint Mueller to lead the investigation eight days after Trump fired James Comey as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Trump has frequently and publicly seethed about the Mueller probe, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Justice Department, which oversees them both.

The president has denied any collusion and Russia says there was no election meddling, despite findings to the contrary by U.S. intelligence agencies.

Mueller’s investigation, which the president has repeatedly called a “witch hunt,” has so far netted 34 individuals and three companies who have pleaded guilty, been indicted or been otherwise swept up in the inquiry.
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Kissing Sailor in Iconic WWII Photo Dies at 95

Posted on by SeeUS

You may not know his name, but you’ve seen him in one of the most famous and recognizable photographs ever taken.

His name was George Mendonsa. He was the sailor who grabbed a nurse and kissed her in Times Square to celebrate the end of World War II.

Mendonsa died of a seizure in Middletown, Rhode Island Sunday, two days before his 96th birthday.

Mendonsa was a U.S. sailor on leave who would likely have been sent to the Pacific to continue the war against Japan.

But when word of the Japanese surrender was announced on August 14, 1945, Mendonsa and thousands of others poured into the streets of New York to celebrate.

He spontaneously grabbed a nurse, bent her back, and kissed her. Life magazine photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt captured the scene, making it an iconic image of World War II and a picture instantly recognized around the world.

Many men claimed to be the sailor throughout the years. But image technology and Mendonsa’s date and future wife — who is seen in the background of the picture — proved it was him.

The nurse, an Austrian refugee who fled the Nazis, was Greta Zimmer. She died in 2016.
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Pressure Grows on Europe to Back Venezuelan Opposition Leader

Posted on by SeeEU

Pressure is growing on the European Union to formally back Venezuela’s opposition, after three EU lawmakers were refused entry into the country Sunday.

The Venezuelan government accused them of having “conspiratorial aims,” and forced them back on a plane to Madrid. The three had been invited by Venezuelan members of parliament to visit the country.

“[It was] very unpleasant and a pure demonstration that Venezuela is a country held hostage by a power that is almost like North Korea,” Esteban Gonzalez Pons, a senior member of the European Parliament, told reporters on his arrival in Madrid Monday.

The diplomatic snub has triggered calls for Brussels to take a stronger stand against the government of disputed President Nicholas Maduro. The United States and many allies have recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as interim president, after accusations of vote rigging in last year’s election.

The EU lawmakers have demanded that the bloc now abandon the International Contact Group or ICG, an EU initiative among European states and four Latin American countries, that is seeking a political way forward in Venezuela. The group met in the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo, earlier this month.

Europe’s foreign policy chief rejected pulling out of the ICG Monday.

“On the contrary, all member states have reaffirmed how crucial it is to have this instrument, which is currently probably the only one that we can use, to be at the same time in contact with relevant stakeholders and clear on the objective, which is a democratic, peaceful, and early election outcome for the crisis,” Federica Mogherini said in a press conference.

At the Munich Security Conference Saturday, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said the European Union must recognize the American-backed interim president.

The Netherlands was among the EU member states that followed Washington’s lead. Foreign Minister Stef Blok spoke to VOA following Pence’s speech.

“Twenty-two European countries did recognize Guaido as the interim president. And of course I would have preferred to see the European Union united,” Blok said.

The EU, however, is divided. Spain, which retains the closest links to its former colony, rejected Washington’s demands.

“Mr. Pence can’t ask us to not accept the constitutional law of Venezuela,” Spain’s foreign minister, Josep Borrell, said at the Munich conference.

Borrell’s French counterpart, Jean-Yves Le Drain, is insisting on new elections.

“The only way out of the political crisis in Venezuela is a presidential election with democratic guarantees,” Le Drian said.

The Dutch government has agreed that its overseas territory of Curacao, an island off Venezuela, can be used as an aid hub.

“In order to get the aid toward Venezuela, we will need the consent of the Venezuelan authorities,” Blok told VOA.

As the diplomatic debate intensifies over how to end Venezuela’s political crisis, hundreds of tons of foreign aid remain stranded on the country’s borders — and the Venezuelan people continue to suffer.
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US States Sue Trump Administration in Showdown Over Border Wall Funds

Posted on by SeeUS

A coalition of 16 U.S. states led by California sued President Donald Trump’s administration on Monday over his decision to declare a national emergency to obtain funds for building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California came just days after Trump invoked emergency powers on Friday after Congress declined to fulfill his request for $5.7 billion to help build the wall that was his signature 2016 campaign promise. His move aims to let him spend money appropriated by Congress for other purposes.

“Today, on Presidents Day, we take President Trump to court to block his misuse of presidential power,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a statement.

“We’re suing President Trump to stop him from unilaterally robbing taxpayer funds lawfully set aside by Congress for the people of our states. For most of us, the Office of the Presidency is not a place for theater,” added Becerra, a Democrat.

Three Texas landowners and an environmental group filed the first lawsuit against Trump’s move on Friday, saying it violates the Constitution and would infringe on their property rights.

The legal challenges could slow down Trump’s efforts to build the wall, which he says is needed to check illegal immigration and drug trafficking, but will likely end up at the conservative-leaning U.S. Supreme Court.

In a budget deal passed by Congress to avert a second government shutdown, nearly $1.4 billion was allocated toward border fencing. Trump’s emergency order would give him an additional $6.7 billion beyond what lawmakers authorized.

In television interviews on Sunday and Monday, Becerra said the lawsuit would use Trump’s own words against him as evidence there is no national emergency to declare.

Earlier, Trump had said he knew that he did not need to declare an emergency to build the wall, a comment that could now undercut the government’s legal argument.

“Presidents don’t go in and claim declarations of emergency for the purposes of raiding accounts because they weren’t able to get Congress to fund items,” Becerra said on MSNBC.
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IS Fighters Refusing to Leave Last Syrian Stronghold   

Posted on by SeeEA

Islamic State fighters are refusing to surrender to U.S.-backed Syrian forces and are asking for a safe exit from their last stronghold in eastern Syria, local military officials told VOA Monday. 

Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a U.S.-backed Kurdish alliance, said that IS fighters have been surrounded in a small area in the eastern Syrian province of Deir el-Zour.

“In the past several days, more than once we have offered them to surrender. But they don’t want to leave like that,” an SDF commander, who requested anonymity, said. 

He said IS fighters would choose to fight until the end if they don’t receive “an offer from us, which includes a safe exit for them.”

IS fighters have reportedly asked to be evacuated to the nearby Iraqi desert. Their request has been rejected, SDF sources told VOA.

More than 300 IS fighters are believed to have remained in Baghuz, the last stronghold held by IS extremists in Syria. With the help of the U.S.-led coalition, SDF fighters have pushed out IS from all the territories it once held since its emergence in 2014. 

The terror group now controls a few hundred square meters in Baghuz, where militants are hiding among hundreds of civilians, preventing them from leaving, Kurdish military sources said. 

“We have opened safe corridors to transfer some civilians to liberated areas,” Lilwa Abdullah, an SDF spokeswoman, told VOA. 

She said the goal is to evacuate the remaining civilians from Baghuz before the fighting intensifies further. 

​Negotiations

Other SDF officials said Monday they have been negotiating with IS to secure the release of hundreds of hostages and detainees kept in Baghuz.

Kino Gabriel, an SDF official, told local radio station Arta FM that his group has been trying to strike a deal with IS to make sure the remaining hostages, including SDF detainees and civilians, were freed. He  did not say how many people are still held by IS.  

Since the beginning of the campaign to recapture Baghuz a week ago, more than 5,000 civilians have been rescued from IS, SDF officials said. 

Ekrem Salih, a Kurdish reporter embedded with the SDF in Baghuz, said that if it weren’t for civilians, Baghuz would have already been freed from IS.

“The problem is that (IS) militants have mixed with civilians,” he said.

Salih added that a large number of the remaining civilians are families of IS fighters. 

U.S.-led coalition airstrikes against IS targets in Baghuz have paused in the past several days, most likely to avoid civilian casualties.  
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Seven British MPs Quit Labor Party Over Brexit, Anti-Semitism

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Seven British lawmakers have quit the main opposition Labor Party over the leadership’s approach to Brexit and anti-Semitism allegations in the ranks.  

The seven moderate members of parliament say they will form an independent group. Their defection is the biggest split in the Labor Party since four senior members quit in 1981 to form the Social Democratic Party.  

The group told reporters in London’s County Hall Monday that the Labor Party has changed since leader Jeremy Corbyn came to power in 2015 and said the party no longer tolerates center-left views.

 “The bottom line is this — politics is broken. It doesn’t have to be this way. Let’s change it,” said Chuka Umunna, one of the lawmakers.  

Chris Leslie, another defector, said: “Marxism is now masquerading as the Labor Party. It has the Labor brand, but it is a machine that has taken over.”  

In a direct challenge to Corbyn, the seven centrist parliament members say they are courting other lawmakers to join their group.  

One of the group’s chief complaints is that the Labor Party has been complicit in facilitating Brexit. Corbyn has come under fire by some party members for not doing enough to oppose Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May’s plans for leaving the EU and for not pushing hard enough for a second referendum.  

The Labor Party has been divided by the Brexit vote, with many traditional voters, particularly in northern England, having chosen to leave the European Union in the 2016 referendum, while a majority of Labor MPs had supported staying in.

 Brexit has also divided the country’s Conservative Party into pro-Brexit and pro-EU wings. Britain’s departure from the EU — the terms of which are still up in the air — is set for March 29.

The seven lawmakers also accused Corbyn Monday of failing to tackle anti-Semitism in the party, a charge that has previously been leveled at the Labor leader.

A longtime supporter of Palestinian rights and a critic of the Israeli government, Corbyn denies the allegations, saying he is stamping out anti-Semitism in the party.

Luciana Berger, one of the seven MPs who defected, said Labor has become “institutionally anti-Semitic.” Berger, who is Jewish, said in leaving the Labor Party, “I am leaving behind a culture of bullying, bigotry and intimidation.”

Corbyn said he was “disappointed that these MPs have felt unable to continue to work together for the Labor policies that inspired millions at the last election and saw us increase our vote by the largest share since 1945.”
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Four Zimbabwe Generals Retired in Mnangagwa’s First Purge of Military

Posted on by SeeAF

Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa retired four generals on Monday, in the first major shake-up of the armed forces since he took office and including the man who led a deadly crackdown against post-election protests in August.

The quartet’s removal also coincided with the absence abroad of Vice President Constantino Chiwenga — the retired general responsible for ousting former president Robert Mugabe in November 2017 and now widely viewed inside the country as the power behind Mnangagwa’s administration.

All four generals will be appointed to diplomatic posts overseas in line with Zimbabwe’s “critical global engagement and re-engagement strategy,” a government spokesman said.

Mnangagwa has been under increasing pressure to take action over allegations of brutality by the security forces since a second crackdown in January, triggered by a sharp hike in fuel costs that he had decreed.

That violence led to accusations from opposition parties that the country is reverting to the authoritarian rule that characterized much of Mugabe’s 37-year rule.

The most high-profile of the sidelined commanders was Major General Anselem Sanyatwe, who led the presidential guard and drew widespread criticism for telling an inquiry into the post-election violence that one of his soldiers caught on video shooting into a crowd was firing into the air at a 45 degree angle.

The inquiry found that the military used “disproportionate and unjustified” force, including live bullets, to quell the Aug. 1 unrest.

Mnangagwa also retired Major General Douglas Nyikayaramba, the defence forces inspector general who had been largely absent from day-to day operations since November 2017.

Air Vice Marshal Shebba Shumbayawonda and army chief of staff Major General Martin Chedondo were the other two retired officials.

“Government will release accreditation details for each … once various bilateral consultations are concluded,” Mnangagwa’s chief secretary, Misheck Sibanda, said in a statement.

By posting the officers outside the country, Mnangagwa is continuing a tradition that flourished under Mugabe, who used to sideline those who fell out of favor with him.

But Mugabe’s plan in 2017 to retire several generals seen as against moves to appoint his wife Grace as vice president was one reason behind his removal, army sources say.

 

 
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Four Zimbabwe Generals Retired in Mnangagwa’s First Purge of Military

Posted on by SeeAF

Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa retired four generals on Monday, in the first major shake-up of the armed forces since he took office and including the man who led a deadly crackdown against post-election protests in August.

The quartet’s removal also coincided with the absence abroad of Vice President Constantino Chiwenga — the retired general responsible for ousting former president Robert Mugabe in November 2017 and now widely viewed inside the country as the power behind Mnangagwa’s administration.

All four generals will be appointed to diplomatic posts overseas in line with Zimbabwe’s “critical global engagement and re-engagement strategy,” a government spokesman said.

Mnangagwa has been under increasing pressure to take action over allegations of brutality by the security forces since a second crackdown in January, triggered by a sharp hike in fuel costs that he had decreed.

That violence led to accusations from opposition parties that the country is reverting to the authoritarian rule that characterized much of Mugabe’s 37-year rule.

The most high-profile of the sidelined commanders was Major General Anselem Sanyatwe, who led the presidential guard and drew widespread criticism for telling an inquiry into the post-election violence that one of his soldiers caught on video shooting into a crowd was firing into the air at a 45 degree angle.

The inquiry found that the military used “disproportionate and unjustified” force, including live bullets, to quell the Aug. 1 unrest.

Mnangagwa also retired Major General Douglas Nyikayaramba, the defence forces inspector general who had been largely absent from day-to day operations since November 2017.

Air Vice Marshal Shebba Shumbayawonda and army chief of staff Major General Martin Chedondo were the other two retired officials.

“Government will release accreditation details for each … once various bilateral consultations are concluded,” Mnangagwa’s chief secretary, Misheck Sibanda, said in a statement.

By posting the officers outside the country, Mnangagwa is continuing a tradition that flourished under Mugabe, who used to sideline those who fell out of favor with him.

But Mugabe’s plan in 2017 to retire several generals seen as against moves to appoint his wife Grace as vice president was one reason behind his removal, army sources say.

 

 
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The Five Candidates Running in Senegal’s Presidential Election

Posted on by SeeAF

Senegal, the most stable democracy in West Africa, is preparing for an election on Sunday with President Macky Sall facing off against four other candidates. Sall is widely expected to win a second term, after the country’s two best-known opposition figures were barred from running because of corruption allegations, in moves critics said represented a worrying crackdown on dissent.

Below is a look at the five candidates competing in the Feb. 24 ballot:

The incumbent: Macky Sall

Favorite to win the upcoming vote, the Senegalese president first came to power in 2012, after beating former president and mentor Abdoulaye Wade in the second round.

Sall, 57, started in politics as a member of Wade’s Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS) and served as his prime minister between 2004 and 2007. Internal disputes led Sall to split with Wade in 2008 and form his own party, Alliance for the Republic (APR).

As president, Sall launched an ambitious development and reform programme aimed at transforming Senegal into an emerging economy by 2035. The plan includes an array of big ticket infrastructure projects, including a rail project, power generation and a futuristic new city on the outskirts of Dakar.

But the barring of his main rivals, Khalifa Sall, who is in jail for corruption, and Karim Wade, son of the former president, also previously jailed for graft, has raised eyebrows among voters.

Heavy-handed crackdowns by security forces on some protests have also prompted accusations that President Sall has an authoritarian streak.

The twice-defeated: Idrissa Seck

Like Sall, Idrissa Seck, 60, served as Wade’s prime minister in the 2000s, but his subsequent bids for the presidency have been unsuccessful.

Seck was sacked as prime minister in 2004 over embezzlement allegations and spent some months in jail before his case was dismissed. In 2006, he founded the party Rewmi (“The Country,” in the Wolof language) and ran against Wade in 2007, finishing second.

He ran again in 2012 but did not make it to the second round. He is one of Sall’s main challengers, but a widely-cited survey in November showed him trailing the incumbent with little over eight percent support.

The newcomer: Ousmane Sonko

At 45 years old, Sonko is the youngest contestant in the race and a newcomer to the political scene. His relative youth plays to his advantage in Senegal, where more than 60 percent of the population is under 25 and anxious for change.

The tax inspector made a name for himself in 2016 when he became a whistleblower, denouncing corrupt practices in the Senegalese elite.

He was sacked over the activism, but his new-found prominence led to his election as a lawmaker in 2017, representing his own party: the Patriots of Senegal for Work, Ethics and Fraternity (PASTEF).

He is Sall’s other main challenger with 15 percent support, according to the November survey, which was conducted before the candidates list was finalized. Official opinion polls are banned ahead of elections.

The academic: Issa Sall

The 63-year-old IT professor represents the Party of Unity and Assembly (PUR). His party is affiliated with the Moustarchidine religious movement, part of a leading Sufi brotherhood in Senegal.

Founder of a private university in Dakar, Issa Sall launched his political career in the late 1990s. He is one of only three representatives of his party in the national assembly.

The outsider: Madicke Niang

Madicke Niang, 66, is seen as having the least chance of winning the upcoming vote.

A long-time member of the PDS, Niang was a loyal supporter of former president Wade and served as a minister in his government for many years. His decision last year to run for president led to his banishment from the party, as Wade wanted his son Karim to represent PDS in the race.
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