Cindy Saine at the State Department and Margaret Besheer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

The United States has revoked the visa of the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda, over a possible investigation of U.S. soldiers’ actions in Afghanistan.

Bensouda’s office said Friday that U.S. authorities revoked the prosecutor’s visa for entry into the United States, and a U.S. State Department spokesperson confirmed the action.

The spokesperson said Friday, “The United States will take the necessary steps to protect its sovereignty and to protect our people from unjust investigation and prosecution by the International Criminal Court [ICC].”

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last month that the United States would revoke or deny visas to ICC staff investigating possible war crimes by U.S. forces.

The United States in not a member of the ICC, along with Russia and China.

Bensouda’s office said that Bensouda, a Gambian national, would exercise her duties as ICC prosecutor “without fear or favor.”

It said the U.S. decision was not expected to impact Bensouda’s travels to the United Nations in New York where she gives regular briefings to the U.N. Security Council.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said: “We very much hope [the United States] will honor the agreement” for ICC staff members to travel to the United Nations. 

Bensouda is expected to brief the U.N. Security Council next month about her investigations in Libya. 

ICC judges have been reviewing materials on possible war crimes committed by U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, but have yet to make a decision on whether to open a formal investigation into the matter.

The ICC, located in The Hague, prosecutes crimes only when other nations are unwilling or unable to bring suspects to justice.
…

your ad here

Iacopo Luzi and Laura Sepulveda from VOA’s LATAM service and White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — This week U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs on Mexico or close its border with the United States entirely “if the drugs don’t stop or largely stop.”

The Trump administration has made strengthening border security a centerpiece of its domestic policy, even though public opinion polls show Americans are roughly split over substantially expanding a wall along the border. 

In El Paso, Texas, a border town across the U.S.-Mexico border from Ciudad Juárez, many residents also express mixed feelings about a border closure that would directly impact their lives more than those of most Americans. 

Last year, 7 million pedestrians crossed the U.S. border at the El Paso international bridges to either work or study, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. Vehicles with passengers reached the 22 million mark. 

Cars, classes and tourists

For graphic design student Paula Lopez, who goes to school in El Paso but lives in Ciudad Juarez, shutting down the pedestrian crossing could affect her education.

“If they close the border, I will have to miss my classes and I am allowed a maximum of five absences,” Lopez said. 

Oscar Lira, an intensive care nurse at a medical center in El Paso, says a potential closure would affect people’s health and job security.

“In fact, the treatments would be worse for everyone,” Lira said, adding that a lot of health workers in El Paso live in Ciudad Juarez, which means if they can’t come to work, the extra services would fall to those on the U.S. side. 

Even local Republican supporters of the president have expressed concerns. Adolpho Telles, El Paso County Republican Party chairman, was “very concerned” that even a partial closure of the border could hurt the Texas border town.

“People keep joking that we’re going to run out of avocados here in a couple weeks … but that’s not the important part. They [people living across the border] make wire harnesses, component parts for vehicles. They come over here. They ship them east, and then on the East Coast to use, to finish the manufacturing cycle,” Telles said. 

For years, American businesses have restructured their manufacturing  so that many products are made on both sides of the border. Border closures could have far-reaching impacts on a wide range of businesses. 

Roger Noriega of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington-based policy research group, said the president’s closure threat sows doubt among regional partners and businesses. And he says it remains unclear how it would work.  

“If it were absolutely dire emergencies, conceivably, you could say that people can enter … [but] “you need people moving across that border for commercial reasons for tourism, really, in both directions,” Noriega said.

Telles, however, still agrees “there’s going to have to be some closures in certain areas.”  

He notes U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents are “stretched thin,” and that closures in certain areas could mean reassigning some officers “so they can get better control of the areas and control [of] the people that are trying to come across the border.”
…

your ad here

U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) says new information reveals a woman and child were killed last year in a U.S. airstrike in Somalia, the first civilian casualties acknowledged in the U.S. military’s war against Islamist militants there.

The AFRICOM director of operations, Marine Major General Gregg Olson, said Friday that an ongoing review uncovered the civilian deaths, which went unreported for nearly a year.

“We follow the law of armed conflict and regret that this incident resulted in the loss of two innocent lives,” Olson told reporters in a teleconference. “AFRICOM is committed to transparency, and we have a solemn obligation to … the Somali people we’re trying to protect.”

Olson said AFRICOM is working with the U.S. embassy in Somalia on a way forward to potentially provide restitution for the family of the woman and child.

Targeting al-Shabab

On April 1, 2018, a U.S. drone strike near the town of El Burr in central Somalia killed what U.S. officials initially said were five al-Shabab militants in a vehicle.

The command received an allegation of civilian casualties at the time, but determined that it was not credible.

About a week later, an “AFRICOM subordinate unit conducting counterterrorism operation in Somalia” received new information, Olson said, which prompted the team to open up its investigation.

That investigation concluded that the strike 12 months ago had actually killed the woman and child along with four al-Shabab militants.

AFRICOM said it was only informed of the new information, investigation, and discovery of civilian casualties last week, after the commander of AFRICOM, Marine General Thomas Waldhauser, launched an audit of all U.S. airstrikes in Somalia since 2017.

Officials say the audit was prompted by a report by Amnesty International, which alleged that five U.S. strikes in Somalia killed at least 14 civilians, along with questions from Congress.

The command strongly rejected the rights group’s conclusions in the report.

U.S. Africa Command at the time said it looked at the five Amnesty allegations and concluded there were no civilian casualties in four of them. AFRICOM said it did not even conduct a strike at the time and place of one of the locations referenced in the report.

The strike that killed the woman and child was not one of those detailed by Amnesty International.

The United States has conducted airstrikes against al-Shabab since 2011 in support of Somalia’s government.

Daphne Eviatar, the director of the Security with Human Rights program at Amnesty International USA, Friday said, “AFRICOM’s acknowledgement of civilian casualties is an important step forward from their previous denials of any civilian deaths or injuries from U.S. airstrikes in Somalia.”
…

your ad here

The United States has revoked the entry visa of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda, her office said on Thursday, a response to her inquiry into possible war crimes by U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last month the U.S. would withdraw or deny visas to ICC staff investigating such allegations against U.S. forces or their allies.

United Nations human rights experts called the reaction “improper interference” in the work of the world’s permanent war crimes court. It also drew criticism from within the European Union.

“We can confirm that the U.S. authorities have revoked the prosecutor’s visa for entry into the U.S.,” Bensouda’s office told Reuters in an e-mail.

It said it understood the move should not impact Bensouda’s travel to the U.S. to meet her United Nations obligations. The ICC is not a U.N. court, but Bensouda travels regularly to brief the U.N. Security Council on cases referred to The Hague by the UN body.

A State Department spokesman said members of international organizations planning official travel to the U.N. could apply for diplomatic visas. “We recommend that applicants apply as early as possible to maximize the chances of being found eligible,” the spokesman said.

The U.S. in not a member of the ICC, along with other major powers Russia and China.

The office of the prosecutor said on Thursday that Bensouda would exercise her duties “without fear or favor.” She has been investigating alleged war crimes by all parties in the conflict in Afghanistan since November 2017, including the possible role of U.S. personnel in relation to the detention of suspects.

ICC judges are still reviewing materials and have not yet handed down a decision on opening a formal investigation in Afghanistan.

The ICC is a court of last resort with 122 member states. It acts only when countries within its jurisdiction are found to be unable or unwilling to seriously investigate war crimes, genocide or other serious atrocities.
…

your ad here

Add another name to the crowded field of Democratic presidential candidates.

Moderate Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan announced Thursday he is joining the race.

“I’m a progressive who knows how to talk to working-class people and I know how to get elected in working-class districts,” Ryan said on ABC television’s The View. “Because at the end of the day, the progressive agenda is what’s best for working families.”

Ryan, 45, has represented northeastern Ohio — an area that voted for President Donald Trump — since 2002. Ryan was barely known nationally until 2016, when he challenged Nancy Pelosi for the key position of House Democratic leader, saying it was time to bring new blood to the party.

He says his representation of a blue-collar district gives him an understanding of the effect that lost manufacturing jobs has on people. Ryan accuses Trump of failing to keep his promises to bring back such jobs and says he will make new technology, such as wind and solar power, and electric cars, a priority.

There are 16 announced Democratic candidates running for the 2020 nomination. Polls show former Vice President Joe Biden — who is expected to run — would have the best chance of beating Trump next year.
…

your ad here

The day after Tarek Saoud contemplated ending his life, the college student reached out for help on the campus of the university in Ohio he attended.

“I called the student mental health services and they told me I could see one of their therapists in, like, two months, which wasn’t going to work for me, unless it was urgent,” he recalls. “So I called back a week later when I was like, ‘I’m not going to survive this any longer, and they asked if it was urgent and I said, ‘Yes.’ They said, ‘Does that mean suicidal?’ I said ‘Yes’ and then at that point they got me an appointment the next week.”

The delay frustrated Saoud, now 22, who by that point had been thinking about suicide for months.

“For me it was a do-or-die situation,” he says. “When I called health services and told them I was suicidal, that was very true. I don’t want to say I made an attempt the night before but it looks like it was very close. A friend found me and told me straight up what I needed to hear, which was, ‘You can’t be here anymore. You need help now.’”

The delay Saoud experienced in getting the mental health care he was desperate for highlights a growing unmet need on college campuses throughout the country.

In the spring of 2018, more than 63 percent of college students experienced overwhelming anxiety, according to the American College Health Association. But those who seek help increasingly are likely to find they have to get in line.

For example, students at the University of California wait up to six weeks to see an on-campus counselor or therapist if it’s not an emergency. At California State University, it can take two to four weeks to get an appointment.

A 2017 special report by STAT, which is affiliated with the Boston Globe newspaper, found it could take up to three weeks to get a counseling appointment at Northwestern University in Illinois. The average wait time at Washington University in St. Louis, was nearly 13 days, while delays were so routine at Seattle’s University of Washington that the wait times, between two and three weeks, were posted online.

The lack of access to mental health care is not solely limited to college campuses.

Nearly six in 10 — 56 percent — of Americans report seeking or wanting to find mental health services for themselves or a loved one. But it’s not always easy to get the care they’re looking for.

“We have a real unmet need in this country,” says Dr. Vaile Wright of the American Psychological Association (APA). “And what I mean by that is when we look at those who need or want to seek out mental health services and then we look at how many providers, there’s a gap where we just don’t have enough providers now and/or projection going forward to meet the need of those with mental and behavioral health issues.”

While demand psychiatric services increases, there’s a growing shortage of outpatient and inpatient programs, according to the National Council for Behavioral Health, which also found that more than 60 percent of practicing psychiatrists are over the age of 55 and will soon near retirement.

By 2030, there will be 22,000 fewer psychiatrists than required to meet growing demand, according to APA projections.

Right now, almost three-fourths of Americans — 74 percent — don’t feel mental health care is accessible for everyone, while almost half — 47 percent — believe their options are limited.

Sometimes it comes down to not knowing how to seek the help they need.

“I think people still don’t necessarily know who to see for their problem, or how to find them, or how to pay for it,” Wright says. “If you are experiencing a mental or behavioral health issue, your emotional distress can often interfere with your ability to figure some of this stuff out, and the stigma which continues to surround mental health, then makes it hard to ask those around us to maybe assist us.”

Wright says expanding access to national programs like Medicaid — the number one provider of mental health services in the United States — and the Affordable Care Act, could help provide more low-cost options for individuals in need of mental health care.

“We know that individuals with untreated mental and behavioral health issues, if they are working, have lower productivity, more absenteeism, so there are economic and workforce costs associated with mental health disorders,” Wright says.

Saoud, the college student, eventually got an appointment at the campus mental health center, but his frustrations continued.

“And then after that, I couldn’t get a follow-up appointment,” he recalls. “They scheduled me for a month later for a follow-up and that ended up getting canceled. Then it was summer at that point.”

Saoud ultimately left the Ohio college for good three weeks before the end of his sophomore year. Once he returned home, he started seeing both a psychiatrist and a psychologist, and he is now on medication.

After taking a semester off, Saoud is living at home while attending a nearby community college. He hopes to transfer to a different four-year university when he feels ready.

 
…

your ad here

Foreign and interior ministers from the Group of Seven countries are gathering in France this week to try to find ambitious solutions to world security challenges. Putting a dampener on that are two glaring American absences:  U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.

 

The fact that ranking U.S. officials are skipping the Thursday-Saturday meetings in Paris and the resort of Dinard raises questions about the G-7’s relevance and effectiveness at solving the very international issues it has laid out as crucial, including fighting terrorism and human trafficking.

 

The interior ministers’ meetings started Thursday in Paris with a lunch focusing on migration issues, human trafficking and the fight against smugglers.  

 

U.S. President Donald Trump has made no secret of his disdain for the G-7, especially since Russia was pushed out of the gathering of major world economies after its annexation of Crimea in 2014. The U.S. absences signal that the Trump Administration has downgraded the group — which also includes France, Canada, Japan, Germany, Italy and the U.K. — in its list of priorities.

 

Pompeo is in Washington this week, far from French shores, hosting NATO’s foreign ministers to mark the alliance’s 70th anniversary. Nielsen is staying behind to deal with border issues in the U.S.

 

Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, meanwhile, announced she is attending both the NATO meeting and the G-7 summit in Dinard.

 

In fact, alliances are fraying everywhere, even at NATO as Pompeo shines a spotlight on America’s involvement in the military alliance. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg acknowledged internal NATO disagreements this week on trade, climate change and the Iran nuclear deal, but insisted the 29 allies are united in their commitment to defend each other.

 

France, which took over the G-7’s presidency in January, is hosting a summit of interior ministers in Paris on Thursday and Friday, which overlaps with a summit of G-7 foreign ministers on Friday and Saturday in Dinard.

 

U.S. Homeland Security official Claire Grady is standing in for Nielsen at the interior ministers’ meetings. Deputy Secretary of State John J. Sullivan will stand in for Pompeo, discussing “a broad range of issues, including the deteriorating situation in Venezuela, destabilizing Iranian behavior in the Middle East, the responsible conduct of states in cyber space, and the final denuclearization of North Korea,” the State Department said.

 

It said these conversations will “set the stage” for the August G-7 summit France will host in the southwestern city of Biarritz.

 

Last June, Trump roiled the G-7 meeting in Canada by first agreeing to a group statement on trade only to withdraw from it while complaining that he had been blindsided by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s criticism of Trump’s tariff threats at a news conference. In an extraordinary set of tweets aboard Air Force One, Trump threw the G-7 summit into disarray and threatened to escalate his trade war just as Canada released the G-7’s official communique.

 

France’s Foreign Ministry listed the main issues under discussion this week as cybersecurity, the trafficking of drugs, arms and migrants in Africa’s troubled Sahel region, and fighting gender inequality. That includes ways to prevent rape and violence against women, especially in Africa.

 

The French presidency says the interior ministers’ meeting aims to set joint commitments on security and counter-terrorism, including how to deal with citizens who have joined Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq, or their wives and children.

 

Many IS fighters have been captured and imprisoned in those countries.

 

A top official at the French Interior Ministry stressed that the instability of the region, after U.S.-backed forces declared military victory over the Islamic State group in Syria last month, still poses a challenge. The problem has grown more urgent since Trump announced his intention to reduce the U.S. military presence in Syria.

 

“We need to coordinate our policies to prevent that risk. We must avoid a dispersion of foreign fighters, avoid that they gather together elsewhere,” the official said, speaking anonymously ahead of the meeting in accordance with French government practice.

 

The U.S. has called for countries to take back their citizens and put them on trial, if necessary, but Western countries have largely refused to take back their detained citizens. France says French fighters must be tried wherever they committed their crimes.

 

U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters, who are holding some of the IS fighters, have called for an international tribunal for IS detainees.

 

The G-7 interior ministers will also discuss ways to fight terrorism and extremism on the internet, possibly by imposing regulations on internet giants like Facebook, Twitter and Google.

 

Interior ministers from Niger and Burkina Faso are joining Thursday’s lunch on migration to put a focus on Africa’s Sahel region, a source of migration to Europe as well as a transit region and destination for smuggling.

 

 
…

your ad here

Pope Francis on Thursday named Atlanta Archbishop Wilton Gregory as the new archbishop of Washington D.C., choosing a moderate, and the first African-American, to lead the archdiocese that has become the epicenter of the clergy sex abuse crisis in the U.S.

Gregory, 71, replaces Cardinal Donald Wuerl, who resigned last year after being implicated in covering up abuse by a Pennsylvania grand jury report.

 

Gregory headed the U.S. bishops conference when it adopted a “zero-tolerance” abuse policy in 2002 to respond to the first wave of the scandal. He has run the Atlanta archdiocese since 2005 and is seen as a pastor very much in line with Francis’ progressive vision of the church.

 

The appointment was first reported by Catholic News Agency.

 

It is the third major move by Francis to reshape the U.S. hierarchy, which over the previous two papacies took on a culture war-influenced conservative tilt. Francis began elevating more moderate pastors in 2014, when he named Cardinal Blase Cupich as Chicago archbishop and followed up two years later by moving Joseph Tobin to Newark, New Jersey, and making him a cardinal.

 

While relatively small, the Washington archdiocese has always punched above its weight in influence given its location in the nation’s capital. Its archbishops traditionally are made cardinals, meaning Gregory could become the first African-American cardinal.

 

The archdiocese, though, has become embroiled in the abuse crisis since its previous two leaders — Wuerl and his predecessor Theodore McCarrick — have been implicated in the scandal.

 

Francis in February defrocked McCarrick after a Vatican-backed investigation concluded he sexually abused minors and adults over his long career. It was the first time a cardinal had been dismissed from the priesthood for abuse.

 

Francis reluctantly accepted Wuerl’s resignation in October after he lost the trust of his priests and parishioners in the months following the release of the Pennsylvania grand jury report. The report accused Wuerl of helping to protect some child-molesting priests while he was bishop of Pittsburgh from 1988 to 2006. Simultaneously, Wuerl faced widespread skepticism over his insistence that he knew nothing about McCarrick’s misconduct, which was an open secret in U.S. and Vatican circles.

 

Gregory, by contrast, is still credited for his leadership of the U.S. church during a moment of crisis, when as president of the U.S. bishops conference he persuaded church leaders to adopt toughened penalties for abusers in 2002.

 

“Gregory has impeccable credentials for dealing with the sex abuse crisis, which is essential for healing the church,” the Rev. Thomas Reese, an expert on the American church, said in a column Thursday at Religion News Service.

 

Gregory also won praise from another American Jesuit, the Rev. James Martin, who was invited last year by Gregory to give a talk in Atlanta on how the church should better minister to the LGBT community. The initiative drew criticism from some conservatives who accused Gregory of not upholding church teaching on homosexuality.

 

In a statement, Martin said Gregory was a “superb choice” for Washington given his leadership on the abuse crisis and because he is “someone who knows how to reach out to marginalized populations.”

 

Gregory has responded to the latest outbreak of the scandal by expressing his own anger, shame and disillusionment at the failures of the hierarchy. In an August statement to the faithful after McCarrick resigned as a cardinal, he acknowledged his own esteem and respect for McCarrick had been “clearly misplaced.”

 

He conceded that, going forward, oversight of bishops by laity “may well provide the only credible assurance that real and decisive actions are being taken.”

 

In Atlanta, Gregory was embroiled briefly in a scandal of his own in 2014 after the archdiocese used $2.2 million in donations to buy and renovate a swank new home for the archbishop. The archdiocese later sold the mansion and Gregory apologized following an outcry from parishioners who cited Francis’ frugality as a model other church leaders should follow.

 

A native of Chicago, Gregory is a protege of the late Chicago Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, who consecrated him as a bishop in 1983. Gregory was bishop of Belleville, Illinois, from 1994 until his installation in Atlanta in 2005.

 

 
…

your ad here