Former Vice President Joe Biden made it official Thursday: He is a candidate for president in 2020. Biden is at the top of the 20-person Democratic presidential field, according to public opinion polls. But Biden has failed in two previous runs for the White House and now faces serious questions about his age, his policy positions, and whether he can draw support from a younger, more diverse Democratic Party. VOA National Correspondent Jim Malone has more from Washington.
…
Month: April 2019
Cyclone Kenneth Makes Landfall In Mozambique
Cyclone Kenneth slammed into northern Mozambique Thursday evening.
The African nation’s emergency officials said 30,000 people have been evacuated from the areas the storm would likely hit.
Forecasters say Kenneth could bring waves as high as five meters and some 600 millimeters of rainfall.
Kenneth descends on Mozambique just weeks after the the country was hit by Cyclone Idai which the U.N. labeled as “one of the deadliest storms on record in the southern hemisphere.”
Officials have warned that Cyclone Kenneth could be even stronger than Idai as it targets an area not used to such storms.
This is the first time on record that Mozambique has been hit by two cyclones in one season, a U.N. spokesman said.
Before Mozambique, Kenneth swept over the island nation of Comoros, killing three people.
…
US, Russia Wait to See Which Direction Ukrainian President Will Go
This story originated in VOA’s Russian Service. Pete Cobus contributed reporting.
KYIV, UKRAINE — Following Ukrainian President-elect Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s landslide victory this week, top U.S. and European Union officials were quick to offer kudos and vows of continued diplomatic support.
But some Eastern European-based experts say Kyiv’s ties with the West aren’t likely to improve under the new administration.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Council President Donald Tusk issued a joint statement congratulating Zelenskiy on Kyiv’s “significant progress” since the 2014 Maidan revolution that ousted pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich, but warned that substantial work remains before realizing “the peaceful, democratic and prosperous Ukraine that its citizens have called for.”
Little foreign policy change
Maksym Khylko, chairman of the East European Security Research Initiative Foundation, said he expects no dramatic changes to Kyiv’s foreign policy under the new presidency. Given the campaign season rhetoric of advisers surrounding Zelenskiy — a few of whom, it has been reported, are likely to fill out his cabinet — cooperation with the U.S. in particular is unlikely to improve.
“There will be attempts to find a new balance of relations between the West and Russia, because in the inner circle that stands behind the new president, we see people with preferences for improving relations with Russia,” Khylko told VOA’s Russian Service.
“And Russia will also try to play on these preferences, along with Zelenskiy’s personal closeness to Russian culture, (and) his inexperience in politics,” he added. “It’s possible that the Kremlin will want to play on his ignorance by imposing on him an illusory position about the possibility of achieving a quick peace in Donbas, (offering) him his quick victory’“ that Zelenskiy touted on the campaign trail.
Split on Russia, West
An ideological split dividing a portion of Zelenskiy’s support base may leave him politically hamstrung when attempting to drum up broad domestic support for explicitly Russian- or Western-leaning economic or trade policies.
“This is not to say that the majority of Ukrainians, given the results of the second round, wanted to be closer to Russia,” Khylko said. “Half of Zelenskiy’s electorate wants to improve relations with Russia — this being the electorate who supported the openly pro-Russian candidates Yuri Boyko and Oleksandr Vilkul in the first round. The other half of his electorate, according to research, sympathizes with the Western course, but they were simply disappointed with the policies of (outgoing President Petro) Poroshenko and largely riled up by rampant criticism and negative materials in the press.
“I think that most of Zelenskiy’s electorate voted for him in the hope of preserving a pro-Western course.”
Khylko also said the coterie of political advisers surrounding Zelenskiy — the majority of whom are experienced policy and political professionals — will be careful to limit Washington’s influence in Kyiv’s foreign policy agenda, a fact of which the Trump administration, he said, is aware.
“On the part of Washington, relations will remain at a high level. The United States’ position is that it understands that not Zelenskiy himself, but those who are close to him, will be less inclined to see official Washington play — in the minds of Ukrainian officials — a leading role in the development of foreign policy.”
Russian Federation, United States watching closely
Nikolai Beleskov of the Kyiv-based Institute of World Policy, however, says neither Moscow nor Washington has yet to develop a firm understanding of what foreign policy under Zelenskiy will look like.
“Russians are waiting for Zelenskiy’s official rhetoric in order to understand his attitude,” he told VOA.
“There will be commemorative (V-Day) events on May 8 and 9, and Russia would like to hear Zelenskiy — whether he will be categorical in assessments of the Soviet past, as was the case with Petro Poroshenko — or not,” he said.
Zelenskiy’s receptivity to economic engagement with Moscow may be tested at the outset with offers of cheap energy.
“The Kremlin can offer cheap natural gas, while Zelenskiy, under difficult economic conditions, will have to choose between raising prices in the housing and utilities sector, (thereby) fulfilling the conditions for cooperation with the IMF, or negotiating with Russia,” he said.
Signal to pro-Russian lawmakers
But Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision Wednesday to simplify the procedure for obtaining a Russian passport for residents of separatist-controlled eastern Ukraine — a move that immediately prompted calls from Kyiv for more international sanctions — was likely a signal to pro-Russian elements in Ukraine’s legislative body, the Verkhovna Rada, whose members are slated for nationwide regional elections this fall.
“Objectively, (Ukraine’s) presidential elections choose one person who does not affect the economy, while the parliamentary elections are the election of 415-420 people, not counting deputies from the occupied territories of Donbas and Crimea,” he said.
A network of individuals close to Vladislav Surkov, a personal aide to the Russian president, are waiting to see whether Viktor Medvedchuk, a Ukrainian politician and oligarch regarded as one of Putin’s closest associates, will be able to unite all of Ukraine’s pro-Russian factions, Beleskov said.
“The results that Yuri Boyko generated in this year’s election weren’t bad, and sociologists say that the Opposition Platform-For Life’“— a national Ukrainian political alliance of like-minded pro-Russian groups — “may be the second (most powerful) parliamentary force,” Beleskov said.
“Russia has the possibility of bringing to the fullest extent more pro-Russian politicians to the legislative body of Ukraine,” he told VOA.
Relations with Washington
The quality of relations with the United States, he said, will depend on whether Zelenskiy’s new administration can satisfy existing benchmarks set for improved ties with the West.
“It is obvious that the Americans will wait for the first steps of the new administration of the president of Ukraine — cooperation with the IMF, rebooting anti-corruption bodies. Everything depends on us,” he said.
The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv on Wednesday called the Kremlin’s decree to grant Russian citizenship to people in the occupied territories of eastern Ukraine “absurd.”
“Crimea is Ukraine. Donetsk is Ukraine. Luhansk is Ukraine. We condemn the recent absurd and destabilizing decree of Russia regarding Russian passports for residents of Donetsk and Luhansk, and reaffirm our strong support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine,” the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine said in a Twitter message.
Zelenskiy’s camp issued its own statement, calling the decree “another clear confirmation for the world community of the true role of Russia, as the aggressor state, which is waging war against Ukraine. Unfortunately, this decree does not bring us closer to the solution of the main goal: the cease-fire.”
…
UN: Humans Put 1 Million Species at Risk of Extinction
Up to 1 million species face extinction because of human influence, according to a draft U.N. report obtained by AFP that painstakingly catalogues how humanity has undermined the natural resources upon which its very survival depends.
The accelerating loss of clean air, drinkable water, CO2-absorbing forests, pollinating insects, protein-rich fish and storm-blocking mangroves — to name but a few of the dwindling services rendered by nature — poses no less of a threat than climate change, says the report, set to be unveiled May 6.
Indeed, biodiversity loss and global warming are closely linked, according to the 44-page Summary for Policy Makers, which distills a 1,800-page U.N. assessment of scientific literature on the state of nature.
Delegates from 130 nations meeting in Paris from April 29 will vet the executive summary line-by-line. Wording may change, but figures lifted from the underlying report cannot be altered.
“We need to recognize that climate change and loss of nature are equally important, not just for the environment, but as development and economic issues as well,” Robert Watson, chair of the U.N.-mandated body that compiled the report, told AFP, without divulging its findings.
“The way we produce our food and energy is undermining the regulating services that we get from nature,” he said, adding that only “transformative change” can stem the damage.
Deforestation and agriculture, including livestock production, account for about a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions, and have wreaked havoc on natural ecosystems as well.
‘Mass extinction event’
The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) report warns of “an imminent rapid acceleration in the global rate of species extinction.”
The pace of loss “is already tens to hundreds of times higher than it has been, on average, over the last 10 million years,” it notes.
“Half-a-million to a million species are projected to be threatened with extinction, many within decades,” it continues.
Many experts think a so-called “mass extinction event” — only the sixth in the last half-billion years — is already under way.
The most recent saw the end of the Cretaceous period some 66 million years ago, when a 10-kilometerwide asteroid strike wiped out most life forms.
Scientists estimate that Earth is today home to about 8 million distinct species, a majority of them insects.
A quarter of catalogued animal and plant species are being crowded, eaten or poisoned out of existence.
The drop in sheer numbers is even more dramatic, with wild mammal biomass — their collective weight — down by 82 percent.
Humans and livestock account for more than 95 percent of mammal biomass.
Population growth
“If we’re going to have a sustainable planet that provides services to communities around the world, we need to change this trajectory in the next 10 years, just as we need to do that with climate,” noted WWF chief scientist Rebecca Shaw, formerly a member of the U.N. scientific bodies for both climate and biodiversity.
The direct causes of species loss, in order of importance, are shrinking habitat and land-use change, hunting for food or illicit trade in body parts, climate change, pollution, and alien species such as rats, mosquitoes and snakes that hitch rides on ships or planes, the report finds.
“There are also two big indirect drivers of biodiversity loss and climate change: the number of people in the world and their growing ability to consume,” Watson said.
Once seen as primarily a future threat to animal and plant life, the disruptive impact of global warming has accelerated.
Shifts in the distribution of species, for example, will likely double if average temperature go up a notch from 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) to 2C.
So far, the global thermometer has risen 1C compared with mid-19th century levels.
The 2015 Paris Agreement enjoins nations to cap the rise to “well below” 2C. But a landmark U.N. climate report in October said that would still be enough to boost the intensity and frequency of deadly heat waves, droughts, floods and storms.
Global inequity
Other findings in the report include:
Three-quarters of land surfaces, 40 percent of the marine environment, and 50 percent of inland waterways across the globe have been “severely altered.”
Many of the areas where Nature’s contribution to human wellbeing will be most severely compromised are home to indigenous peoples and the world’s poorest communities that are also vulnerable to climate change.
More than 2 billion people rely on wood fuel for energy, 4 billion rely on natural medicines, and more than 75 percent of global food crops require animal pollination.
Nearly half of land and marine ecosystems have been profoundly compromised by human interference in the last 50 years.
Subsidies to fisheries, industrial agriculture, livestock raising, forestry, mining and the production of biofuel or fossil fuel energy encourage waste, inefficiency and overconsumption.
The report cautioned against climate change solutions that may inadvertently harm nature.
The use, for example, of biofuels combined with “carbon capture and storage” — the sequestration of CO2 released when biofuels are burned — is widely seen as key in the transition to green energy on a global scale.
But the land needed to grow all those biofuel crops may wind up cutting into food production, the expansion of protected areas or reforestation efforts.
…
Moroccan Police Use Water Cannons on Protesting Teachers
Moroccan police used water cannons Thursday to disperse thousands of young protesting teachers in Rabat, according to witnesses and a video posted online.
Teachers have been staging protests and striking to demand an end to renewable contracts in favor of permanent jobs that offer civil service benefits, including better pensions.
The Education Ministry said last month that teachers who had instigated a strike would be fired along with trainees who joined them, further enraging them.
Morocco, which has avoided the turmoil seen by other countries during and after the Arab Spring of 2011, regularly sees protests, though they rarely draw several thousand people or involve confrontations with police.
…
Red Cross: Fighting Turns Libyan Neighborhoods to ‘Battlegrounds’
Fighting for control of Libya between two rival governments is turning civilian neighborhoods into “battlegrounds,” the International Committee of the Red Cross said Thursday.
“The humanitarian situation in and around Tripoli has deteriorated sharply over the past three weeks,” the ICRC said. “Tripoli’s basic services and infrastructure, such as hospitals and water pumping stations — which have already suffered from violence over the past eight years — are being weakened further.”
The group said indiscriminate shelling was making it increasingly dangerous for medical workers to treat victims.
The United Nations estimates more than 35,000 people have fled their homes and are staying with relatives or hunkered down in public buildings.
U.N. officials evacuated 325 refugees from a government-run shelter after reports that some of the people living there had been attacked.
The Libyan government has asked the Security Council to send a team of experts to Tripoli to investigate alleged attacks on civilians.
Haftar blamed
Elmahdi Elmajerbi, Libya’s U.N. ambassador, circulated a letter blaming the attacks on forces loyal to Gen. Khalifa Haftar, the Libyan strongman who has set up a government in the east and sent his fighters to try to take Tripoli from the internationally backed government of Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj.
The White House said President Donald Trump telephoned Haftar last week and talked about “a shared vision for Libya’s transition to a stable, democratic political system.”
Bloomberg News reported that several White House officials said Trump endorsed the general’s assault on Tripoli and his efforts to try to take over the country.
Trump’s alleged backing of Haftar would directly contradict Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s declaration earlier this month. Pompeo said the United States has “made it clear that we oppose the military offensive by Khalifa Haftar’s forces and urge the immediate halt to these military operations against the Libyan capital.”
…
Libyan Government Asks UN to Appoint Team to Investigate Alleged Attacks on Civilians in Tripoli
The Libyan government has asked the U.N. Security Council to appoint a team of experts to investigate alleged attacks on civilians in the capital of Tripoli.
In an April 18 letter to the council that was circulated Thursday, Libyan Ambassador Elmahdi Elmajerbi said he requested the council dispatch a “a fact-finding mission” to investigate forces loyal to Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar. The government alleges Haftar’s forces killed and displaced civilians, destroyed private property, recruited children and involved them in “wars and hostilities.”
Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump called Haftar, a retired general and self-declared field marshal, and said he supported an attack on Tripoli, according to a Bloomberg news report.
Haftar’s forces launched an offensive on April 4 to seize the capital as part of a campaign to overthrow the U.N.-backed government. Haftar’s troops, the Libyan National Army, are fighting militias loosely allied with the government.
The government-allied forces launched an counter-offensive last weekend, prompting a warning from from the International Committee for the Red Cross that residential areas of Tripoli were becoming battlefields.
The U.N. World Health Organization estimates more than 270 people, including civilians, have been killed in the fighting. More than 1,300 were wounded and more than 35,000 people have been forced to flee their homes.
…
Algeria Takes Action Against Corruption, Questions Tycoons
Algerian authorities are embarking on a “Clean Hands” campaign aimed at rooting out corruption that has been linked to top tycoons and current and former government officials.
Corruption is a major complaint of the masses of protesters who helped drive longtime leader Abdelaziz Bouteflika from office earlier this month. New protests are scheduled for Friday.
Several influential Algerians have been questioned or arrested in recent days. Among them is Issad Rebrab, head of Algeria’s biggest private conglomerate Cevital, who is suspected of possible customs-related violations and other financial wrongdoing, according to prosecutors.
Rebrab, 75, is estimated by Forbes to be Algeria’s richest man and employs 18,000 workers in his agribusiness empire.
He tweeted that he went in voluntarily for police questioning. He was questioned for six hours before being taken to the El Harrach prison.
Others targeted include a legislator accused of accepting bribes from a Chinese company.
Also detained for questioning this week were three wealthy brothers believed close to Bouteflika’s brother Said, and seven Industry Ministry officials suspected of “non respect of contractual commitments with state enterprises” and influence trading.
The Kouninef brothers’ lawyers said they are respecting the legal procedures but need time to consult the case files before commenting. The brothers made their fortune in the oil, food and advertising businesses.
The highest court in Algeria announced in a statement Wednesday that it is considering a case against ex-energy minister Chakib Khelil for acts related to “violations of foreign exchange laws and transfers of capital to foreigners.” Khelil is a close friend of Bouteflika and a high school classmate.
Other former ministers are also targeted.
…
Amnesty: Anti-IS Coalition Strikes Killed 1,600 Civilians in Syria’s Raqqa
VOA’s Wayne Lee and Carla Babb contributed to this report.
LONDON — The U.S.-led coalition’s offensive to oust Islamic State from the Syrian city of Raqqa killed more than 1,600 civilians, according to the results of an investigation, released jointly Thursday by Amnesty International and the group Airwars.
The report said the deaths were a direct result of “thousands of U.S., U.K., and French air strikes and tens of thousands of U.S. artillery strikes in Raqqa between June and October of 2017.
“Coalition forces razed Raqqa, but they cannot erase the truth,” said Amnesty International’s Donatella Rovera. “Amnesty International and Airwars call upon the Coalition forces to end their denial about the shocking scale of civilian deaths and destruction caused by their offensive in Raqqa.”
Airwars director Chris Woods called on the coalition to “fully investigate what went wrong at Raqqa and learn from those lessons.”
A Pentagon spokesman, in an email to VOA, said, “The Coalition complies with the Law of Armed Conflict and has taken extraordinary measures to minimize civilian casualties and collateral damage. We look at any and all sources for allegations of civilian casualties to include self-reports, social media, NGOs, news organizations and personal allegations.”
A U.S.-led coalition spokesman provided a much lower death toll from Raqqa.
“According to our records, there have been 69 credible allegations out of Raqqa, resulting in 318 killed. Of note, there are still open allegations under investigation. Amnesty International provided us with 86 new allegations, 43 of which had already been assessed as credible and previously reported or were deemed not credible because the allegation did not corroborate with our strike records,” said Col. Scott Rawlinson.” We requested that Amnesty International provide us with additional information on the remaining 43 allegations if they have it so that we would be able to determine whether we could conduct an investigation.”
Researchers for Amnesty and Airwars combined firsthand accounts on the ground with open source and satellite data to identify individual air strikes and victims.
Following a two-year investigation, Amnesty says it has gathered names for more than one thousand of the victims and claims to have verified 641 deaths on the ground in Raqqa
“This is not a situation of a few individual cases, isolated cases. It is much more systemic than that,” said Rovera.
The IS militant group seized Raqqa in early 2014 and was defeated by U.S.-backed fighters earlier this year. During its control of Raqqa, IS conducted mass killings and enslaved minorities, actions the United Nations said amounted to genocide.
The battle for Raqqa was “marked by violations committed by all sides and came at an extremely high cost to civilians,” U.N. human rights experts said in a report last year.
Amnesty’s Rovera said that the weaponry used in Raqqa meant some of the coalition strikes were effectively indiscriminate.
“U.S. forces boasted that they had used more artillery in Raqqa than in any place at any time since the Vietnam war. And that is nothing to be proud of because the risk for civilians is unacceptable. And on the air-delivered munitions, the munitions were precise but any precision munition is obviously only as precise as your intelligence,” she said.
Amnesty says it has previously documented how Islamic State used civilians as human shields in Raqqa, mined exit routes from the city and shot at those trying to flee.
your ad here
UK Government Says it Hasn’t Decided yet on Huawei 5G Role
The British government has not yet decided whether to allow China’s Huawei to supply parts for the U.K.’s new 5G wireless network, Digital Secretary Jeremy Wright said Thursday, as he condemned leaks from private government discussions on the issue.
Wright said government officials and U.K. intelligence agencies are still carrying out a review on how best to strike the “difficult balance between security and prosperity.”
He told lawmakers in the House of Commons that “there has not been a final decision made on this subject.”
The United States has been lobbying allies to exclude Huawei from all 5G networks, noting that the Chinese government can force the company to give it backdoor access to data on its networks.
Huawei officials have denied that the company is a security risk, saying that they have no links to the Chinese government and operate like any other international company.
Wright said it was unrealistic to try to eliminate all Chinese equipment from U.K. telecoms systems.
“Huawei is a significant player in this market; there are very few others,” he said.
Wright also warned lawmakers against leaking details of meetings of the National Security Council, after the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported Wednesday that the council had approved Huawei’s involvement in “non-core” parts of the 5G network.
“Officials, including the security and intelligence agencies, need to feel that they can give advice to ministers which ministers will treat seriously and keep private,” Wright said. “If they do not feel that, they will not give us that advice and government will be worse as a result.”
Labour Party lawmaker Jo Platt said the government should hold a thorough inquiry into the leak, which comes amid a Brexit-fueled breakdown in government discipline. With Prime Minister Theresa May weakened by her failure to take Britain out of the European Union, multiple ministers are positioning themselves to try to replace her.
Platt said suggestions that a minister leaked the information as part of Conservative leadership jockeying were “truly shocking. ”
“Critical issues of national security should be handled with utmost care, not used as political ammunition in a Tory Party civil war,” she said.
…
Study Finds Germans Increasingly Hostile to Asylum-Seekers
A study has found that Germans are increasingly hostile toward asylum-seekers, whereas prejudices toward other minorities such as homeless or gay people have declined.
The Friedrich Ebert Foundation, which commissioned the survey, said Thursday that 54.1 percent of respondents expressed negative opinions about asylum-seekers, up from 49.5 percent in 2016 and 44 percent in 2014.
Germany saw a significant increase in migrant arrivals in 2016, with almost 746,000 people seeking asylum that year. Numbers have since declined again, with about 186,000 asylum requests last year.
The representative telephone survey, which is conducted every two years, involved 1,890 respondents and took place between September and February.
The study also examined for the first time how receptive Germans are to conspiracy theories. It found about that 46 percent of respondents believed secret organizations influence political decision-making.
your ad here
‘You Call This Jazz?’ Jazz Fest Celebrates 50 Eclectic Years
If your tastes are eclectic, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival poses a problem: Which of a dozen acts do you want to hear? Earth, Wind & Fire, Alanis Morissette, or Taj Mahal & the Phantom Blues Band? Van Morrison, Al Green, Johnny Rivers, or all five Marsalis jazzmen playing together?
The festival’s first producer recently contemplated the 50th anniversary lineup for the eight-day festival, which begins Thursday. “I think what I want to see is the Marsalis family together, because I haven’t seen them together for a long time,” George Wein, 93, said in a telephone interview.
Pianist Ellis Marsalis and his sons — trumpeter Wynton, saxophone player Branford, trombonist Delfeayo and percussionist Jason Marsalis — close out the festival’s first weekend at the Jazz Tent. It’s among 10 music stages and tents, along with the Kids’ Tent, an interview stage and a cultural exchange pavilion.
Other first-weekend acts include Katy Perry, Bonnie Raitt, Boz Scaggs and Santana.
There’s also a juried arts and crafts show, an African marketplace, a Louisiana heritage marketplace and enough food to leave you in a two-week-long stupor.
About 450,000 fans came last year, across seven days. Wein said he always knew the festival would grow, but not to the current extent.
The first Heritage Fair had more performers than audience members, as lesser-known locals performed at the daytime fair. Duke Ellington, Mahalia Jackson, Al Hirt, Pete Fountain and other top acts played at nighttime indoor Jazz Festival concerts.
The next year brought four night concerts and three afternoons in Congo Square, with four stages: blues, Cajun, gospel and street music. That first day was “a ragged little carnival of sound” with 25 acts sometimes clashing, The Associated Press wrote. The enclosure also held “two beer counters, a souvenir store, a cotton candy machine and a food tent where tourists tried red beans and rice but seldom braved the crimson boiled crawfish.”
One fan who had paid $2 demanded, “We drove all the way over here from Galveston to hear some jazz. Where is it?” Patty Mouton told Wein his Newport Jazz Festival was great, but “You call this jazz? That old woman singing hymns over there?”
“Sure that’s jazz,” he replied. “Those hymns are jazz and so is the guy beating on those oil drums. This is the grassroots jazz.”
The Heritage Fair moved in 1972 to the New Orleans Fair Grounds racetrack infield, where the New Orleans Jazz Festival and Heritage Fair is still held, adding a second weekend in 1976 .
New Orleans “Queen of Soul” Irma Thomas, who began playing Jazz Fest in 1974, said it gave local artists like herself a chance to be seen by national and international audiences.
“A lot of us worked for years without having agents, and Jazz Fest has been sort of the agent for the locals who have been around since mud and have not been recognized,” she said.
Gospel and Zydeco performers also began getting invitations to perform at other festivals and events worldwide after being heard at Jazz Fest, producer Quint Davis said.
By 1976, when about 175,000 people attended over six days, some people said the outdoor fair had grown too big, calling it Son of Mardi Gras.
The record crowd was an estimated 650,000 over seven days in 2001. That festival’s lineup included B.B. King, Dr. John, Widespread Panic, Van Morrison, Paul Simon, Allen Toussaint and the Neville Brothers.
Widespread Panic is back this year because health problems knocked the Rolling Stones and replacement Fleetwood Mac out of the lineup. Jerry Lee Lewis, 83, also had to send regrets after a stroke in March.
Wein’s favorite memory over the festival’s first 49 years is hearing Ella Fitzgerald and Stevie Wonder together.
It was in 1977. Wonder, at the height of his career, joined Fitzgerald on stage at the city’s Municipal Auditorium. They sang his 1973 hit, “You Are the Sunshine of My Life.”
“Stevie’s still a star,” Wein said.
…
Pioneers of Women’s Voting Rights Highlighted in New Exhibit
In 1920, American women gained the right to vote. The historic milestone was the culmination of decades of struggle by women working on both state and national levels for political empowerment. Now a major new exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington examines that complex history ahead of the 100th anniversary of that momentous event. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more.
…
Can Biden’s Washington Experience Propel Him to the White House?
Former Vice President Joe Biden announced Thursday he will seek the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, instantly catapulting him to the top of an increasingly crowded Democratic field vying to challenge U.S. President Donald Trump.
” The core values of this nation… our standing in the world… our very democracy…everything that has made America — America –is at stake. That’s why today I’m announcing my candidacy for President of the United States,” Biden said in a message posted on Twitter.
The veteran Delaware senator and two-term vice president in the Obama administration has rivaled Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and other Democratic presidential aspirants in recent polls, although there is some question of whether he will be able to match their fundraising prowess. Biden’s experience in the areas of foreign affairs, criminal justice and domestic policy is unmatched by other presidential candidates.
But the 76-year-old politician’s old-school style of glad-handing and pressing the flesh recently came back to haunt him, when at least seven women, including a one-time candidate for lieutenant governor in Nevada, accused him of inappropriate touching, hugs and kissing at public events. While Biden has defended his past behavior as consistent with his lifelong effort to make a “human connection” with women and men alike, he pledged in a recent video to be “mindful” of people’s boundaries going forward.
“I get it, I get it, I hear what they’re saying, and I understand,” Biden said in the online video, although he subsequently twice made jokes about the recent criticism during a speech to a labor group.
Blue-collar roots
Biden, who was born in Scranton, Pa., and later moved to Delaware, has a quality that many of his challengers lack — more than a half of century of experience in government and a long record of political decision-making — some of it at the highest echelons of government. He served for nearly four decades in the Senate, rising to chair the Judiciary Committee and Foreign Relations Committee. And then he served as President Barack Obama’s trusted vice president for eight years.
He gave his support to several U.S. foreign interventions, including the war in Afghanistan in 2001 and the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and was instrumental in passing gun control legislation as well as a major overhaul of the criminal justice system.
However, through the prism of time and changing partisan values, some of Biden’s decisions and actions are highly suspect among more liberal-leaning Democrats and independents. He has had to answer for what many say was the Senate Judiciary Committee’s shabby treatment of Anita Hill during the 1991 hearings of Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, as well as the fact that the criminal justice reform he championed in 1994 condemned many black men to long prison sentences.
While some in the Democratic Party think Biden’s career in Washington will help him convince voters he can beat Trump next year, others argue the party needs a fresh face, someone who, like Trump, has experience outside Washington. Whether Biden’s record will be seen as an asset or a liability is the “$64,000 question,” said Jim Kessler of the Third Way, a center-left public advocacy group.
Early years and heartbreak
Biden has been in national politics almost his entire career. When he was 29 years old, he launched a long-shot Senate race against Delaware Republican Caleb Boggs, a war hero who had never lost an election. Biden edged out Boggs by a percentage point. His victory in 1972 made him, at that time, the second-youngest senator in U.S. history.
That victory was followed a few weeks later by unimaginable heartbreak: His wife, Neilia, and baby daughter, Naomi, were killed in a car crash a week before Christmas while shopping for a Christmas tree. His two sons, Beau and Hunter, suffered serious injuries but survived the accident, and Biden took the Senate oath of office at Beau’s hospital bedside in 1973.
Biden wrote in his memoir, “Promise Me, Dad,” that his sons “saved my life” after the accident with their emotional support.
More than 40 years later, Biden, who was by then remarried, was again touched by an unexpected tragedy — the death of his son, Beau, from brain cancer at the age of 46. Biden has cited his family’s grief following Beau’s death in May 2015 as a reason he did not enter the Democratic presidential primary that year against Hillary Clinton.
In his memoir, Biden said he wrote in his diary the night after Beau’s death: “May 30. 7:51 p.m. It happened. My God, my boy. My beautiful boy.”
Joel Goldstein, of Saint Louis University School of Law, the author of two books on the vice presidency, told VOA the way Biden handled the tragedies “says something about his resilience, character and strength.”
“You get the sense that he, as someone who having suffered those tragedies, is very empathetic with other people. He is a comforter,” Goldstein said.
Senate years
After Biden won his Senate race in 1972, he spent the next 36 years in the chamber, commuting by train most days more than 100 kilometers from Wilmington to Washington.
Biden has always advocated for bipartisanship, something his supporters view as a strength, but his challengers see as a potential liability to exploit in a hyper-polarized political environment.
In March, Biden described Vice President Mike Pence as a “decent guy,” but then had to backtrack from the remark after drawing criticism on the left because of Pence’s position against gay rights. Biden later tweeted, “There is nothing decent about being anti-LGBTQ rights and that includes the vice president.”
“The fact that he needed to reverse himself on that is telling” as to what Democrats are looking for in their candidates, said Kyle Kondik, a political analyst at the University of Virginia.
Earlier this year, Biden told a conference of mayors in Washington, “I read in The New York Times today that one of my problems is, if I ever run for president, I like Republicans. OK, well, bless me Father, for I have sinned.”
Biden went on to say that the state of political polarization is hurting the country.
“It’s like we’ve divided the country into pieces. How can we be one America if we continue down this road? I don’t care what your party affiliation is,” he said.
Challenging legislation
Biden has expressed regret for parts of his Senate record, including support of the sweeping 1994 crime bill with its tougher sentencing requirements and his vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
He has also apologized for his treatment of Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination hearing, saying in March, “To this day, I regret I couldn’t come up with a way to get her the kind of hearing she deserved.”
For all of the political retribution Biden faces for his past actions, he also boasts major successes, such as sponsoring the Violence Against Women Act, which made it easier to prosecute domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence and stalking. Biden was also instrumental in helping to pass the Brady Bill, which required background checks for the purchase of most fire arms.
“It is fair to be criticized for the things that don’t hold up to history, but [Biden] should be credited on the things that do,” Kessler said.
Presidential runs
Biden has twice before run for president, seeking the nomination in 1988 and 2008, but failed to gain much support from voters either time. He was forced to drop out of his first presidential race over a plagiarism scandal when he quoted the British politician Neil Kinnock verbatim during a debate at the Iowa State Fair, but did not cite him. He dropped out of the 2008 race after coming in fifth place in the Iowa caucuses, capturing less than 1% of the vote.
During his second campaign, Biden was known for his propensity to make verbal gaffes, including when he described his then-Democratic rival, Barack Obama, as “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”
Biden has more recently said he believes his verbosity would not necessarily hurt him if he ran for president again, writing in his memoir, “Promise Me, Dad,” that by 2016, “The voting public was tired of careful and carefully packaged candidates.”
He added, “My reputation as a ‘gaffe machine’ was no longer looking like a weakness. The public could see that I spoke from the heart and I meant what I said.”
Obama, who went on to win the Democratic nomination and later the presidency, chose Biden as his vice presidential running mate in large part because of Biden’s long experience on the international stage, which Obama hoped would balance his own lack of resume in that area.
Vice presidency
When Biden assumed the vice presidency, he was put in charge of many large projects, including the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and the distribution of hundreds of billions of federal dollars to state and local governments to help the economy recover from the Great Recession. He also became the point person to work with Republicans in Congress to avoid government shutdowns and debt defaults.
“He was instrumental in every deal between Congress and the White House,” including Obama’s signature health care bill, Kessler said.
Obama surprised Biden in 2017 with the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Obama described him as “the best vice president America’s ever had.”
The two men were famously affectionate, chronicled in countless internet memes, and their families were also close, including a friendship between first lady Michelle Obama and second lady Jill Biden as well as friendships between Obama’s daughters and Biden’s granddaughters.
The future
After serving in Washington for nearly a half-century, Biden has been in public life longer than some of his Democratic challengers have been alive. He once defied his age in 1972 to become one of the youngest senators elected, and is again in an election where his age is front and center — this time, he would make history if elected by becoming the oldest person ever to enter the presidency.
While Biden is likely to be seen as the Democratic Party’s elder statesman and standard-bearer, he still has his work cut out to prove he is the best representative of the party, which has shifted considerably left even in the two years since Biden has been out of the vice presidency.
Despite the challenges, most national polls showed Biden at or near the top of the pack just before he entered the race for the Democratic nomination.
The fact that he is “doing well in the polls does show something — a genuine affection among Democrats for Biden, not just name recognition,” Kessler said.
However, Kondik, the University of Virginia analyst, noted it is also “possible that his polling numbers are now a high watermark. Everything is great until you become a candidate.”
…
In Rare Move, French Warship Sails Through Taiwan Strait
A French warship passed through the strategic Taiwan Strait this month, U.S. officials told Reuters, a rare voyage by a vessel of a European country that is likely to be welcomed by Washington but increase tension with Beijing.
The passage, which was confirmed by China, is a sign that U.S. allies are increasingly asserting freedom of navigation in international waterways near China. It could open the door for other allies, such as Japan and Australia, to consider similar operations.
The French operation comes amid increasing tensions between the United States and China. Taiwan is one of a growing number of flashpoints in the U.S.-China relationship, which also include a trade war, U.S. sanctions and China’s increasingly muscular military posture in the South China Sea, where the United States also conducts freedom of navigation patrols.
Two officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a French military vessel carried out the transit in the narrow waterway between China and Taiwan April 6.
Naval parade invitation revoked
One of the officials identified the warship as the French frigate Vendemiaire and said it was shadowed by the Chinese military. The official was not aware of any previous French military passage through the Taiwan Strait.
The officials said that as a result of the passage, China notified France it was no longer invited to a naval parade to mark the 70 years since the founding of China’s Navy. Warships from India, Australia and several other nations participated.
China said on Thursday it had lodged “stern representations” with France for what it called an “illegal” passage.
“China’s military sent navy ships in accordance with the law and the rules to identify the French ship and warn it to leave,” defense ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang told a regularly scheduled media briefing, while declining to say if the sailing had led to the withdrawal of France’s invitation to the parade of ships this week.
“China’s military will stay alert to firmly safeguard China’s sovereignty and security,” he said.
Routine US passage
Colonel Patrik Steiger, the spokesman for France’s military chief of staff, declined to comment on an operational mission.
The U.S. officials did not speculate on the purpose of the passage or whether it was designed to assert freedom of navigation.
The French strait passage comes against the backdrop of increasingly regular passages by U.S. warships through the strategic waterway. Last month, the United States sent Navy and Coast Guard ships through the Taiwan Strait.
The passages upset China, which claims self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory. Beijing has been ramping up pressure to assert its sovereignty over the island.
Chen Chung-chi, spokesman for Taiwan’s defense ministry, told Reuters by phone the strait is part of busy international waters and it is “a necessity” for vessels from all countries to transit through it. He said Taiwan’s defense ministry will continue to monitor movement of foreign vessels in the region.
“This is an important development both because of the transit itself but also because it reflects a more geopolitical approach by France towards China and the broader Asia-Pacific,” said Abraham Denmark, a former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia.
The transit is a sign that countries like France are not only looking at China through the lens of trade but from a military standpoint as well, Denmark said.
Last month, France and China signed deals worth billions of euros during a visit to Paris by Chinese President Xi Jinping.
French President Emmanuel Macron wants to forge a united European front to confront Chinese advances in trade and technology.
“It is important to have other countries operating in Asia to demonstrate that this is just not a matter of competition between Washington and Beijing, that what China has been doing represents a broader challenge to a liberal international order,” Denmark, who is with the Woodrow Wilson Center Washington has no formal ties with Taiwan but is bound by law to help provide the island with the means to defend itself and is its main source of arms.
…
Malawi Rolls Out Africa’s First Malaria Vaccine for Children
As the World Health Organization marks World Malaria Day, April 25, Malawi has launched the pilot phase of Africa’s first malaria vaccine. The WHO chose Malawi, alongside Ghana and Kenya, because of the high numbers of malaria cases and treatment facilities. The pilot phase aims to vaccinate 360,000 children per year, 120,000 of them in Malawi. But, as Lameck Masina reports from Lilongwe, while the vaccine is expected to save thousands of lives, its effectiveness is limited.
…
Cyclone Kenneth Heads for Mozambique
Cyclone Kenneth has hit the French Indian Ocean island of Mayotte and is barreling toward Mozambique. Downpours and strong winds pulled down trees and sent the most vulnerable resident fleeing to shelters in local schools. The tropical storm is expected to pass the north of the island Thursday and make landfall in Mozambique. Authorities in Mozambique are warning that close to 700,000 people could be affected. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has more.
…
Saudi Accepted at Michigan School Was Among 37 Beheaded
Some material for this report came from The Associated Press.
Saudi Arabia’s beheading of 37 Saudi citizens Tuesday included a young man who had been accepted for admission to Western Michigan University seven years ago.
Mujtaba al-Sweikat was 17 when he was detained at King Fahd International Airport in 2012, according to the Detroit Free Press. Al-Sweikat reportedly attended a pro-democracy rally at the same time as the Arab Spring, which led to his arrest, the Free Press reported. He was reportedly imprisoned, beaten, tortured, kept in solitary confinement and not allowed to see his family.
“The violent killing of Mutjaba al-Sweikat is disturbing,” U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., said in an online statement. “Mutjaba had a bright future ahead of him and Michigan was prepared to welcome him as a student. Instead, he faced inhumane torture and pain ultimately leading to his execution.
“Every human, regardless of where they may be in the world, should have the right to speak openly without fear of persecution or death. Right now, I stand in unity with Mutjaba’s family and friends. I will never stop speaking up for all who promote free speech and due process around the world,” Dingell’s statement said.
Saudi dissident Ali Al-Ahmed, who runs the Gulf Institute in Washington, said 34 of those executed were Shiites, a religious minority in Sunni-led Saudi Arabia.
‘This is political’
Al-Ahmed described Tuesday’s executions as a politically motivated message to Iran. Saudi Arabia and Iran do not have diplomatic relations and compete for dominance in the Middle East because of religion, geopolitics and oil production.
“This is political,” he said. “They didn’t have to execute these people, but it’s important for them to ride the American anti-Iranian wave.”
Critics say the Saudi kingdom and its Sunni-led Arab allies have been bolstered by their relationship with the United States, which has been pressuring Iran’s Shiite clerical leadership to behave according to its expectations.
The Saudi Interior Ministry said those executed had been convicted of charges that included adopting extremist ideologies, forming terrorist cells to spread chaos and provoke sectarian strife, attacking security installations with explosives, killing a number of security officers, and cooperating with enemy organizations against the interests of the country.
It said the individuals had been found guilty under Saudi law and ordered executed by the Specialized Criminal Court in Riyadh, which handles terrorism trials.
The statement was carried on state-run media, including the Saudi news channel al-Ekhbariya. It opened with a verse from the Quran that condemns attacks that aim to create strife and disharmony and warns of great punishment for those who carry out such attacks.
The human rights group Amnesty International said the individuals were convicted in “sham trials” that relied on confessions extracted through torture.
Saudi students offer views
In a dissertation written by Molly Heyn in 2013 at Western Michigan University, some male Saudi students discussed their views about geopolitics after studying in the U.S. as international students.
“Freedom is a big thing because if [Americans] see something wrong in the government or anything, [they] can talk,” a student identified in the dissertation as Fahed said. Americans “can go on television and speak … [they] can change something … it doesn’t matter what it is, they can change it.”
A student identified as Mansoor in the dissertation said he learned about his own country while studying in the U.S.
“I met international students and I learned about Saudis. I spoke with Saudis from different parts of Saudi and from different families. It made me realize different cultures and like styles of life,” Mansoor said. “I think more about things and think from others’ perspectives. It makes me more aware of the differences and there are people from different cultures and that some people did not get a chance to see a different culture, to see a different people.”
In 2017, when faculty at Western Michigan were made aware of al-Sweikat’s imprisonment, they issued a statement, according to the Free Press.
“As academics and teachers, we take pride in defending the rights of all people, wherever they may be in the world, to speak freely and debate openly without hindrance or fear. We publicly declare our support for Mujtaba and the 13 others facing imminent execution. No one should face beheading for expressing beliefs in public protests,” their statement read.
The statement continued: “Mujtaba showed great promise as an applicant for English language and pre-finance studies. He was arrested at the airport gates as he readied to board a plane to visit our campus. We were unaware that at the moment we were ready to welcome him, he was locked away, beaten and tortured and made to ‘confess’ to acts for which he was condemned to death.”
…
UN Evacuates Refugees From Tripoli Detention Center
The United Nations has evacuated about 325 refugees from a government-run detention center in Tripoli after some were allegedly attacked for protesting bad conditions.
Fighting between rival governments in Libya has made living in and near the capital extremely hazardous for civilians.
“The dangers for refugees and migrants in Tripoli have never been greater than they are at present,” Matthew Brook, deputy head of the U.N. mission, said Wednesday. “It is vital that refugees in danger can be released and evacuated to safety.”
The U.N. refugee agency said its decision to urgently move the refugees out of the Qaser Ben Gasheer detention center was triggered by reports that some had been beaten and threatened with gunshots for complaining about crowded conditions and the lack of food.
Twelve people were sent to a hospital.
U.N. officials say they are deeply concerned for the safety of about 3,000 migrants inside various detention centers in Tripoli. They say the fighting is making it hard to provide lifesaving help to the migrants, and that it is vital the civilians are freed from the centers and given a chance to get away from the fighting.
Thousands of migrants from Libya and elsewhere try to make the dangerous journey to Europe across the Mediterranean Sea from Libyan shores every year.
‘Dangerous and unsuitable’
U.N. refugee officials said Wednesday that Libya is a “dangerous and unsuitable place” for refugees and migrants, and that “no effort should be spared to prevent those rescued at sea from being returned to Libya.”
Along with a call for an immediate cease-fire, U.N. humanitarian officials said they urgently need more than $10 million to continue helping beleaguered civilians in Libya.
The officials said they have received just 6% of pledges so far.
Forces loyal to Gen. Khalifa Haftar and his rival government in the east have launched a military offensive against Tripoli and the internationally recognized administration of Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj. The fighting has been primarily centered in the suburbs south of the capital.
Libya has been in chaos since longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi was toppled and killed in 2011. Numerous armed factions and militias have been jockeying for power and control of Libya’s oil wealth. The U.N. fears not only that the fighting will create a new refugee crisis in North Africa, but that terrorist groups such as Islamic State will take advantage of the chaos to dig in deeper inside Libya.
…
IS Down But Still a Threat in Many Countries
Driven from its self-styled caliphate in Iraq and Syria, Islamic State is down but not out.
Where once they confronted armies, the extremist Islamist group’s adherents have now staged hit-and-run raids and suicide attacks. In some cases, the group has claimed responsibility for atrocities, including the bombings of churches and hotels in Sri Lanka that killed more than 350 people.
Its involvement is not always proven, but even if the link is ideological rather than operational, Islamic State still poses a security threat in many countries.
Iraq
After its defeat by U.S.-backed forces, IS has reverted to the guerrilla tactics it was once known for. Sleeper cells have regrouped in Diyala, Salaheddin, Anbar, Kirkuk and Nineveh provinces, where they carry out frequent attacks, including kidnappings and bombings aimed at undermining the Baghdad government.
In February, two people were killed and 24 wounded when a car bomb went off in Mosul, once the group’s Iraqi capital.
The Pentagon said in January that IS was regenerating faster in Iraq than in Syria. Analysts estimate that 2,000 active combatants now operate in Iraq.
Syria
After serious military setbacks, IS slipped into the shadows, staging suicide bombings and ambushes.
IS has carried out bomb attacks in towns and cities of northeast Syria in recent months, including some targeting U.S. forces.
Syrian Kurdish forces, which control the region and crushed the jihadists with U.S. help, have sounded the alarm about the group’s new tactics.
They believe sleeper cells have mushroomed across eastern Syria and expect guerrilla attacks to escalate. They also warn of the risk posed by holding thousands of militants in prison camps.
IS fighters still hold some ground in Syria’s remote central desert, where they have staged attacks in recent days.
Nigeria
Nigerian group Boko Haram has carried out attacks in the northeast since 2009 in pursuit of a caliphate. It has killed 30,000 people and forced 2 million to flee their homes.
The group split in 2016 and one faction pledged allegiance to IS. Islamic State’s West Africa Province (ISWAP) has focused on attacking military bases in raids over the last year. It has become the dominant militant group in the region as a result of these raids.
ISWAP’s activities are concentrated around Lake Chad, which borders Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger.
IS claims attacks in the Lake Chad region through its Amaq news agency. However, the extent of support provided by Islamic State to ISWAP is unclear and many security experts say the relationship is mainly in name rather than direct funding and logistical support.
Numbers are hard to pin down, but analysts put ISWAP’s strength at between 5,000 and 18,000.
ISWAP raises money through taxes on traders, smugglers and fishermen in the Lake Chad region. Inducements such as seeds and fertilizer have also been offered to locals.
Egypt
Egypt has seen no large attacks over the past year, but smaller incidents persist and the military is mounting a campaign against Islamist insurgents, mainly on the Sinai Peninsula.
The military says several hundred militants have been killed since it launched a major campaign in February 2018 to defeat fighters linked to Islamic State in Sinai.
Three civilians and four police personnel were killed this month by a suicide bomber in the North Sinai town of Sheikh Zuweid, the Interior Ministry said. Claiming the attack, IS said 15 people were killed or wounded.
In November, gunmen killed seven Christians on a bus in Minya province, south of Cairo. IS claimed responsibility.
H.A. Hellyer, senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and the Atlantic Council in London, said IS remains a threat in Egypt via two avenues: in the Sinai Peninsula, where part of the Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis group pledged allegiance to IS years ago; and in sporadic cells elsewhere, made up of more recent recruits and possibly returning fighters from Syria and Iraq.
Saudi Arabia
IS militants have carried out deadly bombings and shootings in Saudi Arabia against security forces and minority Shiite Muslims, after the authorities crushed an al-Qaida insurgency over a decade ago.
Saudi security forces said they foiled an attack by four IS militants north of Riyadh on Sunday, and arrested 13 others on Monday in connection with planning other attacks.
The security forces also raided a house they said the militants were using as a bomb factory, and seized suicide vests, homemade bombs, rifles and IS publications.
On Tuesday, the Interior Ministry said it had executed 37 people “for adopting extremist terrorist ideologies and forming terrorist cells to corrupt and disrupt security as well as spread chaos and provoke sectarian strife.”
Kamran Bokhari, a director at the Center for Global Policy, a Washington research group, said IS does exist in the kingdom but the Saudi security forces and intelligence service are “pretty much on top of things.”
Bokhari said that from IS’s point of view, Saudi Arabia is “the grand prize” because of because of the kingdom’s oil wealth and its prominent position in the Islamic world.
Michael Stephens, research fellow for Middle East Studies at London’s RUSI think tank, said the Saudi security forces are tracking a few hundred people, including some who have been to Syria, but there is no evidence that they have become operational.
Afghanistan
Islamic State in Khorasan (ISIS-K), which took its name from an historical region that covered much of modern-day Afghanistan and parts of Central Asia, appeared in late 2014 in the eastern province of Nangarhar, where it retains a stronghold. It announced its formation in January 2015.
The group’s leadership has pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of IS, but it is not clear that ISIS-K has direct operational links with the main movement.
It has claimed attacks on civilian targets in cities including Kabul and fought the Afghan Taliban for control of a number of rural districts. U.S. commanders say its forces number fewer than 2,000.
The movement is little understood and many Afghan officials in Kabul doubt the veracity of some of its claims of responsibility.
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Islamic State claimed its first attack in Congo on Thursday, and declared it the “Central Africa Province” of the “Caliphate.”
Congo’s President Felix Tshisekedi said the defeat of IS in Syria and Iraq meant the group might come to Africa and take advantage of poverty and chaos in an attempt to set up a caliphate.
A spokesman for the U.S. Africa Command said the Allied Democratic Forces, a local militant group, had meaningful ties to Islamic State, to which it claimed allegiance in 2017.
Yet analysts see scant evidence for this. Marcel Heritier Kapiteni, a Belgian-based Congolese researcher, said there were no clear links between ADF activity and “international terrorism.”
He said it was likely that Islamic State was taking false credit for the Congo attack. IS “is losing battles in the usual bastions, which is pushing it to embark on a media war,” he said. “But the DRC’s terrain is not socially favorable to radical Islam.”
Sri Lanka
Islamic State claimed the Easter Sunday bomb attacks on churches and hotels and released a video showing eight men declaring loyalty to Baghdadi.
IS claims the men in the video, released on Tuesday by its Amaq news agency, carried out the suicide bombings.
One man in the video is Mohamed Zahran. Sri Lankan intelligence officials believe that Zahran, a Tamil-speaking preacher well-known for his militant views, may have masterminded the attacks.
Sri Lankan officials have blamed two domestic Islamist groups with suspected ties to Islamic State. The scale and sophistication of the attacks suggested the involvement of an external group such as Islamic State, said Alaina Teplitz, the U.S. ambassador to Sri Lanka.
Indonesia
Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country and most people practice a moderate form of Islam. But there has been a resurgence in militancy, and authorities have said they believe thousands of Indonesians draw inspiration from Islamic State, while about 500 Indonesians are thought to have gone to Syria to join the group.
A court sentenced a cleric, Aman Abdurrahman, to death last year for masterminding deadly attacks. Abdurrahman is considered the ideological leader of Jemaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), a loose grouping of Islamic State sympathizers in Indonesia.
Suicide bombings in May last year in Surabaya that killed more than 30 were linked to JAD cells.
The Philippines
The Philippines fears that extremists fleeing Iraq and Syria could find a safe haven in the jungles and remote villages of Muslim areas of Mindanao, where there is a long history of lawlessness, clan rivalry, and separatist and Islamist rebellion.
Several splinters of the myriad armed groups in the southern Philippines have pledged allegiance to Islamic State, although none are known to have been endorsed as its Southeast Asian affiliate.
Islamic State often claims responsibility for bombings and rebel clashes with government troops in Mindanao, but their veracity is often disputed.
Security experts are concerned Islamic State could, through offers of money or through radical teachings, find fertile recruitment ground among disenfranchised youth in Muslim Mindanao.
…
Trump’s Fed Pick Moore Draws Fire From Democrats; Republicans Silent
Stephen Moore, the economic commentator that U.S. President Donald Trump has said he will nominate to the Federal Reserve Board, is drawing new fire from top Democrats for his comments denigrating, among other targets, women and the Midwest.
But Republicans, whose 53 to 47 majority in the U.S. Senate gives them the final say on whether Moore’s pending nomination is confirmed, have not weighed in since news surfaced this week documenting Moore’s long history of sexist remarks, some of which he says were made jokingly.
As a Fed governor, Moore would have a say on setting interest rates for the world’s biggest economy. Some economists and Democratic lawmakers have questioned his competence, citing his support for tying policy decisions to commodity prices and his fluctuating views on rates. This week though, it is his comments about gender and geography that are drawing criticism.
“What are the implications of a society in which women earn more than men? We don’t really know, but it could be disruptive to family stability,” Moore wrote in one column in 2014.
In 2000, he opined that “women tennis pros don’t really want equal pay for equal work. They want equal pay for inferior work.” The New York Times among others has documented many other instances where he expressed similar viewpoints.
It’s just added evidence that Moore is unfit for the Fed job, vice chair of the joint economic committee Carolyn Maloney told Reuters.
“Those include his reckless tendency to politicize the Fed as well as his bizarre and sexist comments about women in sports that came to light this week,” she said.
Republicans, she said, “should also take note that Moore has said capitalism is more important than democracy. That’s a dangerous comment that further confirms my belief that Moore shouldn’t be allowed on the Fed Board.”
Maloney earlier this month sent a letter urging Republican Senator Mike Crapo and Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown to oppose Moore’s nomination. Crapo and Brown are the chair and vice chair, respectively, of the Senate banking committee, which would be Moore’s first stop in any confirmation hearings.
Senators Elizabeth Warren and Charles Schumer, both Democrats, have also publicly criticized Moore as well as businessman Herman Cain, who withdrew his name from consideration for the Fed this week amid mounting objections.
Cain said he stopped the process because he realized the job would mean a pay cut and would prevent him from pursuing his current business and speaking gigs.
The Senate banking panel’s 13 Republican members, contacted by Reuters about their views on Moore’s suitability for the Fed role after his derisive commentary about women came to light, all either did not respond or declined to comment.
But Brown on Wednesday blasted Moore for comments he made in 2014 calling cities in the Midwest, including Cincinnati, the “armpits of America.” Brown demanded an apology.
“It would be your job to carefully consider monetary and regulatory policies that support communities throughout the country” even those you apparently consider beneath you,” Brown wrote in a letter to Moore. “Based on your bias against communities across the heartland of our country, it’s clear that you lack the judgment to make important decisions in their best interest.”
your ad hereDiplomats Walk Out as Venezuela Hits US in UN Speech
Several dozen diplomats walked out from the U.N. General Assembly Wednesday to protest a speech by Venezuela’s foreign minister, who denounced U.S. calls on the world body to recognize opposition leader Juan Guaido as interim president.
Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza took the General Assembly rostrum in the name of the Non-Aligned Movement as part of a special U.N. session devoted to the value of multilateralism.
Walking out were between 30 and 40 diplomats from the Lima Group, the coalition of Latin American nations and Canada that have nearly all recognized Guaido and declared the leftist Nicolas Maduro to be illegitimate after widely criticized elections.
In his speech, Arreaza accused the United States of wanting to “impose a dictatorship” at the United Nations through its “blatant attempt to expel or withdraw recognition of the credentials of member-states with full rights such as Venezuela.”
“This is discriminatory and unacceptable,” he told the session, in which the United States was not participating.
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence traveled earlier this month to the United Nations where he denounced Maduro as a “dictator,” part of a U.S. push for the world body to recognize Guaido instead.
Venezuela is facing the worst crisis in its modern history with inflation expecting to soar a mind-boggling 10 million percent this year, contributing to a shortage of basic goods that has caused more than 2.7 million people to flee since 2015, according to the United Nations.
Iran, another nation under heavy U.S. pressure, also appealed at the U.N. session for more multilateralism.
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif denounced the “unlawful, unilateralist policies” of President Donald Trump, ranging from withdrawing from a European-backed denuclearization deal with Iran to threatening the International Criminal Court for taking up accusations of war crimes against U.S. troops.
“To defend multilateralism, it is imperative to deny the U.S. any perceived benefit from its unlawful actions and to forcefully reject any pressure it brings to bear on others to violate international law and Security Council resolutions,” Zarif said.
…
Trump Plan Doesn’t Include Jordan-Palestinian Union, US Envoy Says
An architect of a still-secret U.S. plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict took to Twitter again on Wednesday to disclose another element that it would not contain a confederation with neighboring Jordan.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Jason Greenblatt, had already tweeted “False!” on Friday to what he said were reports that the proposal would give part of Egypt’s Sinai desert to the adjacent Palestinian enclave of Gaza, which is ruled by the Islamist Hamas group.
On Wednesday, Greenblatt denied that the plan envisages a confederation involving Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Authority, which administers limited self-rule in the occupied West Bank.
“@KingAbdullahII & #Jordan are strong US allies. Rumors that our peace vision includes a confederation between Jordan, Israel & the PA, or that the vision contemplates making Jordan the homeland for Palestinians, are incorrect. Please don’t spread rumors,” Greenblatt wrote.
White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, another main architect of the peace proposal, said on Tuesday it would be made public after the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan ends in June.
Kushner, who is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka and spoke at a Time magazine forum in Washington, did not say whether the plan called for a two-state solution, a goal of past U.S. peace efforts.
Palestinian leaders have called for the establishment of an independent state alongside Israel in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who won a fifth term in an election two weeks ago, laid down a series of conditions for Palestinian statehood in a major policy speech in 2009.
But U.S.-brokered peace talks collapsed in 2014, partly over the expansion of Israeli settlements in occupied territory Palestinians seek for their state.
In a last-minute election campaign promise that angered Palestinians, Netanyahu said he planned to annex Jewish settlements in the West Bank if he was again chosen as Israel’s leader.
The U.S. proposal, which has been delayed for a variety of reasons over the last 18 months, has two major components. It has a political piece that addresses core issues such as the status of Jerusalem, and an economic part that aims to help the Palestinians strengthen their economy.
Palestinian leaders have said Trump cannot be an honest broker after he broke with long-standing U.S. policy and recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in 2017 and moved the American embassy to the city last May.
your ad hereNYT: Potential Russian Meddling in 2020 US Election Sensitive Issue for Trump
Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluded that Russia engaged in “sweeping and systematic” interference in the 2016 U.S. election to help Donald Trump become president, but a new account says the issue is still too sensitive to discuss in front of Trump as it relates to what Moscow might do when he runs for re-election in 2020.
Former Homeland Security chief Kirstjen Nielsen tried to focus the attention of top U.S. officials on combating Russian influence in next year’s election in the months before Trump forced her to resign in early April after protracted conflict over immigration policies, The New York Times reported Wednesday.
But the newspaper quoted an unnamed senior Trump administration official as saying that acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney warned Nielsen against raising the issue in front of Trump, who has equated discussion of Russian meddling in the 2016 election with questions of whether his election victory was legitimate.
The Times quoted a senior administration official as saying Mulvaney told Nielsen that Russian meddling in the upcoming presidential election “wasn’t a great subject and should be kept below his level.”
Mulvaney disputed the account, saying, “I don’t recall anything along those lines happening in any meeting.”
He blamed Trump’s predecessor, former president Barack Obama, for not forcefully confronting Russia about its ongoing election interference, although Obama and others raised the issue with Moscow in the lead-up to the 2016 election.
“Unlike the Obama administration, who knew about Russian actions in 2014 and did nothing, the Trump administration will not tolerate foreign interference in our elections, and we’ve already taken many steps to prevent it in the future,” Mulvaney said.
“In fact, for the first time in history, state, local and federal governments have coordinated in all 50 states to share intelligence. We’ve broadened our efforts to combat meddling by engaging the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the FBI, among others, and we have even conducted security breach training drills to ensure preparedness,” Mulvaney said.
Mueller concluded that Russian meddling in the 2016 election was widespread, including fake postings on U.S. social media accounts aimed at helping Trump defeat his Democratic challenger, Hillary Clinton, and hacking and disclosing emails written by Democratic officials that reflected poorly on Clinton.
But the prosecutor also concluded that while there were numerous contacts between Trump campaign aides and Russians, neither Trump nor his campaign conspired with Russia. In Trump’s frequent refrain, there was “no collusion.”
Jared Kushner, a White House adviser and Trump’s son-in-law, said Tuesday that Mueller’s 22-month investigation was “more harmful” to the U.S. than Russia’s 2016 election interference.
“You look at what Russia did, buying some Facebook ads and trying to sow dissent. It’s a terrible thing,” Kushner said. “But I think the investigations and all of the speculation that’s happened for the last two years has a much harsher impact on our democracy than a couple Facebook ads.”
“I think they said they spent $160,000,” Kushner said. “I spent $160,000 on Facebook every three hours during the campaign. If you look at the magnitude of what they did, the ensuing investigations have been way more harmful.”
your ad here