Month: April 2019

US, Russia Wait to See Which Direction Ukrainian President Will Go

Posted on by SeeUS

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.”
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UN: Humans Put 1 Million Species at Risk of Extinction

Posted on by SeeAF

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.
…

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UN: Humans Put 1 Million Species at Risk of Extinction

Posted on by SeeAF

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.
…

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Moroccan Police Use Water Cannons on Protesting Teachers

Posted on by SeeAF

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. 
…

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Red Cross: Fighting Turns Libyan Neighborhoods to ‘Battlegrounds’

Posted on by SeeEA

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.”
…

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Red Cross: Fighting Turns Libyan Neighborhoods to ‘Battlegrounds’

Posted on by SeeEA

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.”
…

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Libyan Government Asks UN to Appoint Team to Investigate Alleged Attacks on Civilians in Tripoli

Posted on by SeeEA

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.
…

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Algeria Takes Action Against Corruption, Questions Tycoons

Posted on by SeeEA

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.
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Amnesty: Anti-IS Coalition Strikes Killed 1,600 Civilians in Syria’s Raqqa

Posted on by SeeEA

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.

 

 

 
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UK Government Says it Hasn’t Decided yet on Huawei 5G Role

Posted on by SeeEU

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.
…

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UK Government Says it Hasn’t Decided yet on Huawei 5G Role

Posted on by SeeEU

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.
…

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Study Finds Germans Increasingly Hostile to Asylum-Seekers

Posted on by SeeEU

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.

 

 
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Study Finds Germans Increasingly Hostile to Asylum-Seekers

Posted on by SeeEU

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.

 

 
…

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‘You Call This Jazz?’ Jazz Fest Celebrates 50 Eclectic Years

Posted on by SeeUS

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.
…

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Pioneers of Women’s Voting Rights Highlighted in New Exhibit

Posted on by SeeUS

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.
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Pioneers of Women’s Voting Rights Highlighted in New Exhibit

Posted on by SeeUS

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.
…

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Can Biden’s Washington Experience Propel Him to the White House?

Posted on by SeeUS

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.”
…

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Can Biden’s Washington Experience Propel Him to the White House?

Posted on by SeeUS

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.”
…

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In Rare Move, French Warship Sails Through Taiwan Strait

Posted on by SeeEU

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.
…

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In Rare Move, French Warship Sails Through Taiwan Strait

Posted on by SeeEU

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.
…

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Malawi Rolls Out Africa’s First Malaria Vaccine for Children

Posted on by SeeAF

As the World Health Organization marks World Malaria Day, April 25, Malawi has launched the pilot phase of Africa’s first ever 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, while the vaccine is expected to save thousands of lives, its effectiveness is limited.

Health officials at Malawi’s Likuni Community Hospital are giving children injections of Africa’s first malaria vaccine.

The mosquito-spread disease kills more than 430,000 people per year, most of them African children.

 

WATCH: Malawi Rolls Out Africa’s First Malaria Vaccine for Children

It took more than 30 years and nearly $1 billion to develop a vaccine against malaria.

Known as RTS-S, the vaccine is only helpful for children younger than 2 who receive four doses, at the ages of 5 months, 6 months, 7 months and 22 months.

Michael Kayange is Malawi’s deputy director of health.

“After we did clinical trials, we had several age groups that we looked at. This vaccine was seen to be very, very effective in children aged between 5 months and 22 months. In other age groups it didn’t show any usefulness,” he said.

A long line of mothers brought their children to Tuesday’s launch of the pilot phase of the World Health Organization-approved vaccine.

Malawi’s mothers like Fanny Kaphamtengo are excited about the vaccine’s potential.

She says malaria is a deadly and killer disease for not only children but adults as well. Although she has other children who are not vaccinated, Kaphamtengo says she feels lucky to have her new baby protected from malaria.

Fewer cases, less anemia

Testing between 2009 and 2014 showed the vaccine reduces clinical malaria cases by 40 percent and severe malaria cases by 30 percent. But it also caused a 60 percent reduction in severe malaria anemia, the most common reason children die from malaria.

Kayange says Malawians will still need to take precautions to avoid their children getting ill from malaria.

“This new vaccine is just an additional tool to the control and elimination of malaria in the country,” he said. “So, whoever will get this vaccine, all the children who get the vaccine, we encourage them to use other malaria prevention methods like sleeping under mosquito nets, going to hospital quickly when they have fevers and body aches.”

Millions could be saved

Despite its only partial protection from malaria, the vaccine could save millions of lives in Malawi, Kayange said.

The pilot project will be launched in Ghana and Kenya next week.

The WHO will use the results to inform policy advice before the vaccine is rolled-out in other malaria-hit countries.
…

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Malawi Rolls Out Africa’s First Malaria Vaccine for Children

Posted on by SeeAF

As the World Health Organization marks World Malaria Day, April 25, Malawi has launched the pilot phase of Africa’s first ever 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, while the vaccine is expected to save thousands of lives, its effectiveness is limited.

Health officials at Malawi’s Likuni Community Hospital are giving children injections of Africa’s first malaria vaccine.

The mosquito-spread disease kills more than 430,000 people per year, most of them African children.

 

WATCH: Malawi Rolls Out Africa’s First Malaria Vaccine for Children

It took more than 30 years and nearly $1 billion to develop a vaccine against malaria.

Known as RTS-S, the vaccine is only helpful for children younger than 2 who receive four doses, at the ages of 5 months, 6 months, 7 months and 22 months.

Michael Kayange is Malawi’s deputy director of health.

“After we did clinical trials, we had several age groups that we looked at. This vaccine was seen to be very, very effective in children aged between 5 months and 22 months. In other age groups it didn’t show any usefulness,” he said.

A long line of mothers brought their children to Tuesday’s launch of the pilot phase of the World Health Organization-approved vaccine.

Malawi’s mothers like Fanny Kaphamtengo are excited about the vaccine’s potential.

She says malaria is a deadly and killer disease for not only children but adults as well. Although she has other children who are not vaccinated, Kaphamtengo says she feels lucky to have her new baby protected from malaria.

Fewer cases, less anemia

Testing between 2009 and 2014 showed the vaccine reduces clinical malaria cases by 40 percent and severe malaria cases by 30 percent. But it also caused a 60 percent reduction in severe malaria anemia, the most common reason children die from malaria.

Kayange says Malawians will still need to take precautions to avoid their children getting ill from malaria.

“This new vaccine is just an additional tool to the control and elimination of malaria in the country,” he said. “So, whoever will get this vaccine, all the children who get the vaccine, we encourage them to use other malaria prevention methods like sleeping under mosquito nets, going to hospital quickly when they have fevers and body aches.”

Millions could be saved

Despite its only partial protection from malaria, the vaccine could save millions of lives in Malawi, Kayange said.

The pilot project will be launched in Ghana and Kenya next week.

The WHO will use the results to inform policy advice before the vaccine is rolled-out in other malaria-hit countries.
…

your ad here

Malawi Rolls Out Africa’s First Malaria Vaccine for Children

Posted on by SeeAF

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.
…

your ad here

Malawi Rolls Out Africa’s First Malaria Vaccine for Children

Posted on by SeeAF

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.
…

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