Month: June 2019

Asian Countries Fear Being Forced to Choose between China, US over Disputed Sea

Posted on by SeeUS

Asian countries that pride themselves on neutral foreign policies face growing pressure to support either China or the United States in a sticky maritime sovereignty dispute, but they are expected to bid for both and keep the aid coming in.

Southeast Asian claimants to the disputed South China Sea grappled with the prospect of choosing sides over the weekend at the annual Shangri-la Dialogue defense forum in Singapore. The question loomed so large that Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong warned of smaller countries being “forced” to take sides.

​“This is probably going to lead to a situation that the Singapore prime minister called being forced to choose between two sides,” said Jay Batoncbacal, international maritime affairs professor at University of the Philippines. “So, that’s really the problem here if it continues to escalate.”

As the two superpowers disagree over control of the sea and each seeks external support, Asian countries may find it increasingly hard to count both as friends. To take the U.S. side risks economic punishment by China, while the United States might forego military support to an overt China backer.

China’s appeal

China wants other countries to accept economic boosts and bilateral talks to settle maritime sovereignty issues. Beijing has already pushed for joint undersea fuel exploration with Vietnam and the Philippines, two frontline South China Sea states. It has funded infrastructure in a third, Malaysia.

At the Shangri-la Dialogue, attended by more than 600 delegates from 40 countries, Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe appealed for “mutual cooperation” and hoped that no one would “underestimate the wisdom and ability of regional countries to properly handle differences and maintain peace.”

Without naming the United States, Wei urged other countries to snub anyone who goes against those goals. The U.S. government does not claim the sea, but it has passed naval ships through it 11 times since 2017 and flown B-52 bombers over the waterway to check China. 

China had alarmed much of Asia, particularly in Southeast Asia, by landfilling tiny islets in the sea for military use.

“In terms of the big picture, Wei Fenghe, last year he represented (Chinese President) Xi Jinping with a statement saying he wants to repair relations with neighbors,” said Huang Chung-ting, Chinese politics and military affairs assistant research fellow with the Institute for National Defense and Security Research in Taipei. “He hoped there wouldn’t be too many issues of excessive conflict.”

​Countries that offend China at sea risk being expelled by Chinese coast guard ships or running up against its annual mid-year fishing bans, Huang said. China also has a record of boycotts and withdrawal economic support for countries – South Korea, for example — that go against its views. 

US to strengthen “network”

The United States extends joint military exercises and occasional arms sales in Southeast Asia to help the South China Sea remain open internationally despite 10 years of increasing control by China. China claims 90 percent of the sea, more than the Southeast Asian states, all of which are militarily weaker.

The United States is “strengthening” an “unrivaled network of alliances and partnerships” that includes joint naval exercises, U.S. acting defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan told the defense dialogue. He urged an “end” to Chinese “behavior.”

In May, the United States drilled alongside a French aircraft carrier, a Japanese helicopter carrier and two Australian vessels in the Indian Ocean. All participants have previously sent vessels to the South China Sea.

“No other nation can match the United States’ ability to work across distance, cultures, languages, and time – and we are increasing the rate at which we do this,” he said.

​Complex foreign policies

Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam and the Philippines all vie with China’s claims to the 3.5 million-square-kilometer South China Sea. They prize its fisheries and fossil fuel reserves. 

Those countries plus Indonesia, which occasionally chafes with China at the sea’s southern reach, normally pursue foreign policies that sustain Chinese economic aid, such as development loans, as well as military ties with Washington. Non-claimant states such as India and Japan side more geopolitically with the United States without closing economic doors with China.

The Philippines, for example, let its navy train with the United States in April as it accepts billions of dollars in Chinese development aid.

Countries are unlikely to take sides overtly but could face pressure from China during national elections, said Jonathan Spangler, director of the South China Sea Think Tank in Taipei. Some have lost faith in China to be “responsible” and, since 2017, pared back “trust” in the United States.

“I think that countries at least in public should be calling for peaceful resolutions,” Spangler said. Before elections, he added, “We don’t even know the extent to which that sort of covert influence in other countries’ domestic politics has gone on.”
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US, Mexican Officials to Meet on Immigration and Tariff Threat

Posted on by SeeUS

As U.S. and Mexican teams launch talks this week in Washington, U.S. President Donald Trump says he is “really okay” proceeding with his threat to impose tariffs on Mexican goods unless Mexico does more to cut the number of Central American migrants reaching the border.

“Everyone is coming through Mexico — including drugs, including human trafficking — and we’re going to stop it or we’re not going to do business and that’s going to be it. It’s very simple,” Trump told reporters late Sunday.”We’ll see what can be done. But if it’s not done, you know what we’re going to be doing.”

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Mexican Economy Secretary Graciela Marquez lead off with talks Monday, and there is a scheduled meeting Wednesday between U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Mexican Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard.

Ebrard said he will be “firm and defend the dignity of Mexico.”

The Mexican delegation is set to lay out more of its position for the talks Monday morning at a news conference.

But as Trump reiterated his willingness to go forward with the tariff plan, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said his government is a friend of the U.S. government, that he wants to remain a friend of Trump, and that the Mexican people are friends with the people of the United States.

“Let us swear that nothing and nobody separates our beautiful and sacred friendship,” Lopez Obrador wrote on Twitter.

He has called for dialogue in resolving tensions rather than “coercive measures.”

Trump issued his threat last week, saying the United States would impose a 5% tariff on Mexican goods beginning June 10, and would continue to raise it each month to as much as 25% by October 1.

The U.S. president said on Twitter the tariffs would remain “until such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico, and into our country, STOP.”
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At Least 9 people Dead as Sudanese Security Forces Move to Disperse Sit-in

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At least nine people have been killed and several injured as the government troops attempt to disperse a sit-in protest in central Khartoum, Sudanese medical sources and an opposition doctors’ committee said.

Explosions and heavy machine gun fire were heard on Monday as Sudanese security forces moved on the site of the protest outside the Defense Ministry.

The Reuters news agency is quoting a Sky News Arabia TV report that a Sudanese military council spokesman says the raid targeted criminal elements near the protest site, but the protesters are safe.

The U.S. Embassy in Khartoum tweeted that the attacks on protesters “must stop.” 

The sit-in begin several weeks ago as civilians and military officials argue over the makeup of a transitional government, following the military overthrow of Omar al-Bashir in April, after mass protests against his 30-year rule.

 

The protesters are demanding the military hand over power to civilians.
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Trump: Stop Bombing, Killing in Syria’s Idlib

Posted on by SeeEA

U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday told Syria and Russia to stop “bombing the hell” out of Syria’s last jihadist stronghold Idlib.

“Hearing word that Russia, Syria and, to a lesser extent, Iran, are bombing the hell out of Idlib Province in Syria, and indiscriminately killing many innocent civilians. The World is watching this butchery. What is the purpose, what will it get you? STOP!” he said on Twitter shortly before he was to depart for a state visit to Britain.

His comments came after Syrian NGOs on Friday decried international inaction in the face of mounting violence in the northwestern region.

As well as killing dozens of civilians, the recent bombardments by Syrian and Russian forces in northwest Syria have pushed 300,000 people towards Turkey’s border, the NGOs said at a press conference in Istanbul.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Friday that almost 950 people had been killed in the latest clashes in Idlib.

A September deal was supposed to avert a full-out regime offensive on the province and adjacent areas held by Syria’s former al-Qaida affiliate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

But the jihadists have refused to leave the area, and the deal is on the verge of collapse as Syrian and Russian forces allied to Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad ramp up airstrikes and rocket fire.

Iranian fighters and Hezbollah paramilitary forces are also stationed in Syria to back the Assad regime.

The worsening unrest in Idlib comes with tensions soaring between Iran and the United States.

The stand-off has been simmering since the US last year withdrew from the 2015 nuclear treaty Iran reached with major world powers.

 
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Syria: Israeli Strike on Airbase Kills 1, Wounds 2

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An Israeli airstrike on a Syrian airbase killed one soldier, wounded two others, and destroyed an arms depot, Syrian state media reported.

The attack on the T4 airbase in central Homs province came hours after Israeli airstrikes on the Golan Heights in southern Syria.

Israel did not comment on the attack on the airbase, but said its strikes in Golan were a response to Saturday night rocket fire into Israel from Syria.

“We will not tolerate firing into our territory and will respond fiercely against any aggression against us,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Israeli strikes on the Golan Heights killed 10, including Syrian forces and foreign fighters.

Israel has frequently fired at Iranian and Hezbollah targets inside Syria as warnings against Iran from entrenching its fighters inside Syria.

Israel has traditionally reserved comment on its airstrikes but has recently begun breaking its silence.

 
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Syrian War Monitor: Car Bomb Kills 14 in Azaz

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A car bomb blast in Syria’s pro-Turkish rebel-held city of Azaz killed at least 14 people Sunday and wounded more than 20, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says.

Witnesses tell the monitor the bomb went off as people were leaving a mosque after evening prayers and meal breaking the daily Ramadan fast.

No one has claimed responsibility for the blast, which also burned or blew out the windows of more than a dozen nearby stores.

The area has been the target of several other recent terrorist bombings.

Azaz is the main city in the part of Aleppo controlled by pro-Turkish rebels, who drove out Islamic State militants while keeping Kurdish forces out of the area as well.

Rebels still control Idlib province and part of Aleppo as they cling to slim hopes of toppling President Bashar al-Assad.

 
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Pope Asks Roma to Forgive Catholic Church’s ‘Discrimination’

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Pope Francis apologized to the Roma people on Sunday for the Roman Catholic Church’s “discrimination” against them as he wrapped up a visit to Romania.

Making up around 10 percent of Romania’s 20 million people, many Roma are marginalized and live in poverty and have suffered centuries of discrimination and insults.

“I ask forgiveness — in the name of the Church and of the Lord — and I ask forgiveness of you. For all those times in history when we have discriminated, mistreated or looked askance at you,” the pope said in a speech to the Roma community in the central town of Blaj.

“My heart, however, is heavy. It is weighed down by the many experiences of discrimination, segregation and mistreatment experienced by your communities. History tells us that Christians too, including Catholics, are not strangers to such evil,” he said.

“Indifference breeds prejudices and fosters anger and resentment. How many times do we judge rashly, with words that sting, with attitudes that sow hatred and division!”

Earlier, the pontiff beatified seven Greco-Catholic bishops jailed and tortured during the Communist era.

“The new blessed ones suffered and sacrificed their lives, opposing a system of totalitarian and coercive ideology,” he told some 60,000 worshippers attending mass on a “Field of Liberty” in Blaj.

“These shepherds, martyrs of faith, garnered for and left the Romanian people a precious heritage which we can sum up in two words: freedom and mercy,” added Francis, while praising the “diversity of religious expression” in mainly Orthodox Romania.

Regime officials detained the beatified bishops overnight on October 28, 1948, accusing them of “high treason” after they refused to convert to Orthodoxy.

The Greek-Catholic Church was outlawed under 1948-89 Communist rule.

Buried in secret

The bishops died of maltreatment, some still in jail, others in confinement in an Orthodox monastery. They were then buried in secret — to this day the whereabouts of four of their graves is unknown.

The bars of the cells where they were held were symbolically incorporated into the throne built specially for the papal visit.

The bishops followed the Eastern Rite Catholic Church which emerged from an Orthodox schism at the end of the 17th century when the central region of Transylvania was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

While retaining Orthodox practices they recognized Roman Catholic papal authority — unacceptable for the Communist regime which took power following World War II. Under a 1948 decree formally abolishing the Eastern Catholic churches, Greco-Catholics were forcibly obliged to return to the Orthodox fold.

Under such stark political repression, most Romanian Catholics — who numbered more than 1.5 million in 1948, abandoned their faith and their community has shrunk to around 200,000 today in a country of 20 million, almost nine in 10 of whom profess Orthodoxy.

The politics which has seeped through Romania’s modern religious history has poisoned inter-faith relations — even if the papal visit has softened feelings to a degree.

“No matter where we go, to the town hall, to the police or to school, doors get closed,” a 72-year-old Roma, who gave his name as Ion, told AFP.

Roma, originating from northern India, suffered around five centuries of slavery before the practice was formally abolished in 1856.

But they remain a mainly poor and marginalized community — even if recent years have seen roads paved and homes getting running water and electricity.

Seeking inclusiveness

Francis’s arrival in Blaj to wind up his visit was part of his attempt at inclusiveness on his three-day visit to one of what remains Europe’s poorest states.

Although Romania has developed apace since obtaining EU membership in 2007 there remain some “urban or rural ghettos where nothing has changed,” according to sociologist Gelu Duminica, who heads the anti-discrimination Impreuna (Together) association.

Duminica and others in Blaj saw it as no coincidence that Francis, often seen as a defender of the rights of the most marginalised, chose the Barbu Lautaru district of Blaj, whose inhabitants are mainly Roma, to launch his appeal for tolerance and social inclusion.

“The pope’s visit is a message for those who are marginalised, disregarded or not accepted by others,” said Mihai Gherghel, an eastern Catholic priest, who supervised the construction of the Blaj church where Francis celebrated Sunday mass.

 

 
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Suspect in Virginia Mass Shooting Had Notified Superiors of Intention to Quit

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The gunman who killed 12 people inside a Virginia Beach government building on Friday had submitted his resignation hours before carrying out the deadly shooting spree, a local official said.

City Manager Dave Hansen said Sunday the suspect notified his superiors via email about his intention to quit his job Friday afternoon.

The suspect was identified as Dwayne Craddock, a longtime public utility employee.

Police Chief James Cervera said the gunman was a disgruntled worker who was killed by police in what he described as “long-term” shootout. A motive had not yet been determined.

City Manager Hansen said all but one of the murdered victims were Virginia Beach employees and one was a contractor.

Officials said at four others were wounded in the shooting.

Witnesses say the shooting took place at Building Two of the Virginia Beach municipal complex, which houses the city’s public works, public utilities and planning departments.

Cervera said one police officer was among those who was hit by gunfire but said the officer survived. The chief said the gunfight with the officers prevented the suspect from killing more victims.

 

He said the gunman used a .45-caliber pistol equipped with a “sound suppressor” device and “extended” ammunition magazines that he reloaded repeatedly during the attack.

The killings were the latest in a growing list of mass shootings in the U.S. It was the deadliest mass shooting since November when a gunman killed 12 people at a bar in Thousand Oaks, California before killing himself. A policeman also died of gunshot wounds after responding to calls for help in that instance.
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Trump: ‘America Has Had Enough With Mexico’

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President Donald Trump said Sunday that “America has had enough with Mexico,” contending that it is an “abuser” of the United States by not stopping the surge of Central American migrants headed north to seek asylum in the U.S.

Trump, who is threatening to impose a 5 percent tariff on Mexican exports sent to the U.S. unless it blocks the migrants short of the U.S. border, accused Mexico of “taking but never giving. It has been this way for decades.”

On Twitter, Trump said, “Either they stop the invasion of our Country by Drug Dealers, Cartels, Human Traffickers, Coyotes and Illegal Immigrants, which they can do very easily, or our many companies and jobs that have been foolishly allowed to move South of the Border, will be brought back into the United States through taxation (Tariffs).”

 

Trump’s attacks on Mexico came a day after Mexican President Andres Manual Lopez Obrador suggested his country could clamp down on migration. He said he thinks the United States is ready to discuss its threat to impose the tariff, effective June 10, as a means to combat illegal migration from Central America.

“There is willingness on the part of U.S. government officials to establish dialogue and reach agreement and compromises,” the Mexican leader said.

Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said he had spoken to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo by phone and said face-to-face talks between the two would take place on Wednesday in Washington.

“We will be firm and defend the dignity of Mexico,” Ebrard said.

Lopez Obrador called for “dialogue” rather than “coercive measures” and said he expects “good results” from the Washington talks.

Trump set off the dispute last week, posting a policy statement on Twitter.

“On June 10, the United States will impose a 5% Tariff on all goods coming into our Country from Mexico, until such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico, and into our Country, STOP,” Trump tweeted. Until “the illegal immigration problem is remedied” tariffs will continue to rise monthly, going as high as 25% by October 1.

U.S. border agents have apprehended an increasing number of people, largely from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, who crossed the southern U.S. border in recent months, many of them hoping to win asylum to stay in the U.S.

In contrast to previous spikes in arrivals, recent groups have included a large number of children, prompting U.S. officials to scramble to support families and children traveling without parents.

The tariff dispute is occurring as Trump is seeking congressional approval for a new U.S.-Canada-Mexico trade deal. Some Washington analysts have suggested that if Trump imposes the tariff on imports from Mexico, it would imperil passage of the trade pact, but acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney dismissed such concerns, saying the two issues are not connected.

“This is an immigration matter, not a trade issue,” Mulvaney told Fox News Sunday.

He said Trump threatened to impose the tariff “to put pressure on Mexico. Congress will not help us fix the border, so we turned to Mexico.”
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Iraqi Court Sentences 2 French IS Members to Death

Posted on by SeeEU

A court in Baghdad has sentenced two French citizens to death for being members of the extremist group Islamic State (IS), prosecutors said on June 2.

The new sentences raise the number of French citizens sentenced to death over the past two weeks to nine.

Those sentenced are among a group of 12 French citizens who were detained by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces in neighboring Syria and handed over to Iraq in January.

France has said it would do all it can to spare the group from execution in Iraq.

Human Rights Watch has accused Iraqi interrogators of “using a range of torture techniques” while saying that France and other countries should not be “outsourcing” trials of IS suspects to “abusive justice systems.”

 
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Cruise Ship Slams into Venice Wharf as Tourists Flee

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A massive cruise ship lost control as it docked in Venice on Sunday, crashing into the wharf and hitting a tourist boat after suffering an engine failure.

Tourists on land could be seen running away as the 13-deck MSC Opera scraped along the dockside, its engine blaring, before knocking into a tourist boat, amateur video footage posted on Twitter showed.

Four people were slightly injured in the accident at San Basilio-Zattere in Venice’s Giudecca Canal, port authorities said.

The four, who were taken to hospital for check-ups, were on board the River Countess tourist boat.

The Opera, which suffered mechanical trouble before in 2011 during a Baltic cruise, can carry more than 2,500 passengers and boasts a theater, ballroom and water park for children.

Ship unable to stop

“The MSC ship had an engine failure, which was immediately reported by the captain,” Davide Calderan, head of a tugboat company involved in accompanying the ship into its berth, told Italian media.

“The engine was blocked, but with its thrust on, because the speed was increasing,” he said.

The two tug boats that had been guiding the ship into the Giudecca tried to slow it, but one of the chains linking them to the giant snapped under the pressure, he added.

The accident reignited a heated row in the Serenissima over the damage caused to the city and its fragile ecosystem by cruise ships that sail exceptionally close to the shore.

While gondoliers in striped T-shirts and woven straw hats row tourists around the narrow canals, the smoking chimneys of mammoth ships loom into sight behind the city’s picturesque bell towers and bridges.

Critics say the waves the ships create are eroding the foundations of the lagoon city, which regularly floods, leaving iconic sites such as Saint Mark’s Square underwater.

“What happened in the port of Venice is confirmation of what we have been saying for some time,” Italy’s environment minister Sergio Costa wrote on Twitter.

“Cruise ships must not sail down the Giudecca. We have been working on moving them for months now… and are nearing a solution,” he said.

‘Risk of carnage’

Venice’s port authority said it was was working to resolve the accident and free up the blocked canal in the north Italian city.

“In addition to protecting the Unesco heritage city, we have to safeguard the environment, and the safety of citizens and tourists,” Culture Minister Alberto Bonisoli said.

Nicola Fratoianni, an MP with the Italian Left party, noted Italy’s open-armed attitude to cruise ships contrasted sharply with its hostile approach to charity rescue vessels that help migrants who run into difficulty in the Mediterranean.

“It is truly curious that a country that tries to stop ships that have saved people at sea from entering its ports allows giant steel monsters to risk carnage in Venice,” he said.

MSC Cruises, founded in Italy in 1960, is a global line registered in Switzerland and based in Geneva.

The Opera, built 15 years ago, suffered a power failure in 2011 in the Baltic, forcing some 2,000 people to be disembarked in Stockholm rather than continuing their Southampton to Saint Petersburg voyage.
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Pompeo: US Willing to Talk to Iran With ‘No Preconditions’

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The United States is willing to hold unconditional talks with Iran to ease tensions between the two countries, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday, but Tehran held out little hope for new negotiations.

 “We are prepared to engage in a conversation with no preconditions. We are ready to sit down with them,” Pompeo said at a news conference in Switzerland. But the top U.S. diplomat added that “the American effort to fundamentally reverse the malign activity of this Islamic Republic, this revolutionary force, is going to continue.”

He said the U.S. is “certainly prepared to have that conversation when the Iranians can prove that they want to behave like a normal nation.”

But Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in an interview on the ABC News network in the U.S., that new talks with Washington are “not very likely.”

Zarif added, “Talking is the continuation of the process of pressure… this may work in a real estate market. It does not work in dealing with Iran.”

He called past talks with the United States, in which the U.S. agreed to the 2015 international pact to curb Tehran’s ambitions only to have President Donald Trump abrogate it, were “not very optimistic and does not provide an optimistic perspective for a future deal.”

He contended, “People think twice before they talk to the United States because they know what they agree to today may not hold tomorrow.”

Any possibility of talks between the two countries comes after a series of provocations. After pulling out of the international nuclear deal, Trump subsequently reimposed U.S. economic sanctions in an effort to end Iranian oil exports to the global market, a financial lifeline for the Islamic republic.

The U.S. has often objected to Iranian missile tests and its military aggressions in the Middle East, while Iran has protested the crippling U.S. sanctions.

Pompeo last year listed 12 actions he said Iran must adopt before the U.S. would end the sanctions, including “stopping its support for proxy groups and halting its missile program.”

Pompeo also called on Iran to end uranium enrichment, never to pursue plutonium reprocessing and to close its heavy water reactor. He said Tehran also had to disclose all previous military dimensions of its nuclear program and to permanently and verifiably abandon such work.

Despite the U.S. protests against Tehran’s nuclear program, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear monitoring agency, says that Iran is continuing to comply with the 2015 nuclear deal. Even as Trump pulled the U.S. out of the pact, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China have remained in the agreement.

In its latest quarterly report on Friday, the IAEA said Iran has stayed within key limitations spelled out in the agreement although its stockpiles of low-enriched uranium and heavy water are growing. Iran last month said it would boost its enrichment of uranium beyond levels imposed by the international agreement if it could not within 60 days find a way to protect itself from the U.S. sanctions.

Pompeo on Saturday participated in the four-day gathering of European and North American elites, known as the Bilderburg Group. Some of the political, business, defense and intelligence officials at the gathering
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Thousands Defy Police in Cameroon, Demanding Kamto’s Release

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At least 73 people have been arrested in demonstrations in Cameroon as thousands of supporters of Maurice Kamto, the man who says he won the October 7 presidential election, have defied a heavy police presence and are staging protests in several towns of the central African state. They are seeking the immediate release of their party leader, among other things, and scores of his supporters have been jailed since January.

During a protest on Saturday in Yaounde, businessman Moustapha Ali, 27, said he will continue protesting until they find justice, which he said is being denied to them by Cameroon President Paul Biya, his government and the institutions he has created.

He said no one will stop them from pressing for freedom for Kamto and those supporters arrested at the beginning of the year. He said even though Kamto has not been inaugurated, he nonetheless is legitimately the president of Cameroon.

At least a dozen people, including Kamto’s first vice president, Mamadou Mota of the MRC party, have been arrested and detained in Yaounde and Douala.

The strong police presence and their anti-riot equipment did not deter demonstrators in several towns, including Douala, Banjoun, Bafoussam and Bouda. Cameroon had banned protests in most of its cities, saying it was a threat to peace.

Lejeune Mbella Mbella, Cameroon’s minister of External Relations, warned last week during a meeting with diplomats, United Nations staff and international NGO’s that the planned protests would not be tolerated.

Mbella Mbella said any political action or initiative that questions the legitimacy and legality of Paul Biya as president of Cameroon is tantamount to undermining Cameroon state sovereignty and is intended to disrupt public peace. He says the country’s constitutional council examined and threw out as baseless all petitions filed by those who contested the election and Cameroon’s institutions.

Fidel Djoumessi, an official of Kamto’s MRC party, said the protests will continue until Kamto and his supporters are freed, the government opens up dialogue to resolve the crisis that has claimed close to 2,000 lives, and investigations are opened into why the Confederation of African Football seized hosting rights of the 2019 Africa Football Cup of Nations from Cameroon.

He said it is a scandal the government of Cameroon would decide to prohibit peaceful protests, which are a constitutional right. He said he does not understand why simple demonstrations to ask for electoral reforms and talks to return to the restive English-speaking regions should be described by the government as a threat to national security.

Police arrested Kamto, nine of his party officials and close to 200 of their supporters last January after days of peaceful protests in cities, including the political capital Yaounde and the economic capital Douala.

Similar protests took place in various Cameroon embassies around the world, including Paris and Berlin, where the pictures of president Biya were shattered.

Kamto and his colleagues were accused of inciting the protesters and now are facing eight charges, including treason, inciting violence, and disruption of public peace.

Rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have been calling on Cameroon to release all peaceful protesters, including Kamto.
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Zimbabwe Businesses Drop Local Currency for US Dollars

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As Zimbabwe’s economy struggles and the country faces scarce fuel supplies, some businesses are refusing to accept the ever-weakening local currency, insisting on doing business in U.S. dollars.

One reason is that the local currency, known as bond notes, are not accepted outside the southern African country, making them useless for any companies that need to import goods.

This spare vehicle parts seller, Tongai Madamombe, says he wants President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government to switch to the U.S. dollar as pricing in bond-notes has become difficult.

“For those that do not import, charging in bond-notes is not as difficult, as it is for us who import,” Madamombe said. “If you do not calculate well, you will fail to restock. We are really in difficult times. So we are now pricing in U.S. dollars, those who do not have it we use parallel market rates, as we will go there to get foreign currency to import our stock.”

Zimbabwe abandoned its dollar more than a decade ago, when hyperinflation made it worthless. Now the bond notes, introduced two years ago, are also depreciating in value.

The South African rand and British pounds are acceptable in many places, but very hard to find.

Even some Zimbabwe government departments and companies such as the National Railways have started asking for payment in U.S. dollars, partly to protect themselves against the depreciating bond notes.

Fuel is another scarce product in Zimbabwe, and the government continues to control its price. Some companies have resorted to selling it in U.S. dollars only.

Eddington Mazambani, the head of the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority, says it is only allowing fuel companies that have directly imported fuel on their own to trade in U.S. dollars, as the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe pays foreign currency for most fuel imports in the country.

“We require documentation, if you have procured through Reserve Bank [and] you then fail to produce documentation to us, we will then take the necessary measures. You would be breaking the law, so we will take measures according to the laws in the petroleum sector,” Mazambani said.

The government says gas stations trading in U.S. dollars when they are supposed to take local currency are being stripped of their licenses. But so far that policy has not made fuel more available or stopped the practice.
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Zimbabwean Businesses Abandon Local Currency for US Dollars

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With Zimbabwe’s economy struggling, more businesses are refusing to accept local currency, taking only U.S. dollars. As Columbus Mavhunga reports from Harare, even some government agencies have started charging in American currency.
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Israel Bombs Syria After Rockets Fired at Golan

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The Israeli military said its aircraft struck Syrian army targets Sunday after rockets were fired at the Golan Heights, and Syria’s state media said three soldiers were killed in the second such flare-up in a week.

Syrian television reported big explosions near Damascus before dawn and said air defenses had “confronted the enemy.”

The Israeli military said it struck Syrian artillery and aerial defense batteries in retaliation for Saturday’s firing of two rockets at the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said it was still unclear who had fired the rockets, but the Syrian army was held responsible for any attack launched from Syrian territory.

“We will not tolerate any firing into our territory and we will respond with great force to any aggression against us,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement.

On Monday, Israel’s military said it attacked a Syrian anti-aircraft position that had fired on one of its warplanes, and Syrian state media said a soldier had been killed in the incident.

In recent years, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria against its regional arch foe Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah group, which it calls the biggest threat to its borders.

Iran and Hezbollah are fighting on the side of President Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian war, and Israel says they are trying to turn Syria into a new front against Israelis.

Syria lost the Golan Heights to Israel in the 1967 Middle East war. Israel later annexed the captured territory in a move unrecognized by most of the international community, except for the United States. President Donald Trump announced U.S.-recognition for Israeli sovereignty over the Golan in March.

The White House said Wednesday that national security adviser John Bolton and his Israeli and Russian counterparts will meet in Jerusalem this month to discuss regional security issues. Russia intervened militarily in the Syrian war on Assad’s behalf in 2015, turning the tide of the war.
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Rights Groups: Abuses on the Rise in Syria’s Afrin

Posted on by SeeEA

Rights groups are expressing concerns over the increasing abuses against civilians by rebel forces in the northwestern Syrian city of Afrin.

Last week, a 10-year-old boy with Down syndrome, who was kidnapped by a rebel group, was killed along with his father and grandfather after their family failed to pay the kidnappers a ransom of $10,000, local media reported.

Such incidents have been rampant since Turkish military and allied Syrian rebels took control of Afrin after a two-month-long military campaign that ousted the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) from the region in March 2018, rights groups said.

“There has definitely been an uptick in terms of persecution of anybody that shows any kind of dissent to Turkish or rebel presence in Afrin,” said Philippe Nassif, the Middle East and North Africa advocacy director at Amnesty International.

He added that “behaviors such as [kidnapping for] ransom and indefinite detentions and the fear of just being out and about living your life in Afrin is very real for all residents.”

​Turkish military, rebel groups

In addition to the Turkish military, there are at least a dozen rebel groups in control of Afrin, including the National Liberation Front and several other Islamist groups who have been accused by rights groups of committing crimes against the local population in the Kurdish-majority city.

In February, the United Nations’ Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria released a report assessing the situation in Afrin.

“The commission finds there are reasonable grounds to believe that armed group members in Afrin committed the war crimes of hostage-taking, cruel treatment, torture, and pillage,” the report said.

“Numerous cases involving arbitrary arrests and detentions by armed group members also included credible allegations of torture and ill-treatment, often targeting individuals of Kurdish origin, including activists openly critical of armed groups and those perceived to be so,” the U.N. report added.

​Turkey’s responsibility

Rights experts say that Turkey has a responsibility to stop such violations and to protect civilians in the Syrian city.

“Turkey is an occupying power, so it absolutely has an obligation to be responsible for the actions of its proxy forces that are operating within Afrin,” said Nassif of Amnesty International.

He told VOA that Turkey instead has “empowered them to go after anybody who is opposed to the presence of these groups. They have empowered these groups to particularly carry out some of Turkey’s own domestic agenda when it comes to crushing Kurdish resistance.”

Ankara views the Kurdish YPG as part of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been engaged in a three-decade war with Turkish armed forces for greater Kurdish rights in Turkey. The PKK is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

Since pushing back Kurdish YPG fighters from Afrin in March 2018, the Turkish military has rarely commented on the situation there, but during a press conference in January of this year, Turkish presidential spokesperson, Ibrahim Kalin, said that Turkey “is committed to the safety of life and property of Syrians in Afrin.”

Aykan Erdemir, a Turkey expert at Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based think tank, says that Turkey’s influence on its proxy forces in Syria has not prevented Turkey-backed rebels from abusing Afrin residents.

“The composition of Turkey-backed rebels and their ethos make them prone to undertaking criminal acts and violating the rights and freedoms of the locals,” he told VOA.

Erdemir added that, “Building an inclusive polity with rule and law and greater governance capacity is the only remedy against such abuses, but Ankara’s Syria strategy implemented through proxy rebels is at odds with such a course of action.”

​Limited coverage

With the military developments in the nearby Syrian province of Idlib escalating, the ongoing abuses against civilians in Afrin has received scant attention from the outside world, some experts charge.

“Beyond coverage by local media and some rights groups, the situation in Afrin doesn’t get enough coverage in the Western media,” said Ilhan Tanir, an editor with Ahval News, a Turkish website.

“For observers, what’s happening in Afrin is a ‘small issue’ compared to what’s happening right now in other Syrian regions like Idlib,” Tanir told VOA.

Inside Turkey, pro-government media outlets are misleading Turks by painting the situation in Afrin and Syria in general as a success for the Turkish military, Tanir said.

“When opposition parties in Turkey try to criticize what the Turkish military and its allied Syrian rebels are doing in places like Afrin, they are dubbed as supporters of terrorism,” he said.

​Demographic change

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group that monitors human rights in Syria, says Turkish-backed rebels have been carrying out demographic changes in the Afrin region since taking control of the city in March 2018.

“We have been documenting hundreds of cases of demographic change and forced displacement in Afrin,” Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory, told VOA.

Turkish analyst Tanir believes the Turkish military is complicit with allegations of settling Arab families across Afrin, including many Syrian refugees who had been living in Turkey since the beginning of Syria’s civil war in 2011.

“It seems that [rebel forces] have already got the green light from Turkey to carry out demographic change and Arabize this Kurdish region,” he said.

Some of the groups that operate under Turkey’s command in Afrin have a goal of turning Afrin into a Sunni Muslim region and resettling people who have been displaced from other parts of the country during the conflict, experts charge.

“This is a pattern that has taken hold in Syria, which has made it even harder to come to a resolution of the conflict,” Nassif said.
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Mount Etna Shoots Lava High Into Italian Sky

Posted on by SeeEU

Mount Etna in southern Italy has burst into life, spitting molten lava high into the sky, though cloud cover Saturday ruined the view for those brave enough to venture up the flanks of Europe’s highest volcano. 

The National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology (INGV) said there was “lively spattering” as fire and hot ash spewed high into the sky in an eruption which began Thursday and had slowed slightly by Saturday but still posed a risk to climbers. 

The lava came from two eruptive fissures on the northeastern and south-southeastern sides of the New Southeast Crater. 

The volcano on the island of Sicily previously erupted in December. 

The latest lava show was not expected to pose any problems for nearby residential areas or for flights at the closest airport at Catania. 
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In US Midwest, Rivers Breach Levees, Flood Towns

Posted on by SeeUS

Crews were making a “last ditch effort” Saturday to save low-lying parts of a small Arkansas city from floodwaters pouring through a breached levee, and authorities downstream were warning people to leave a neighborhood that sits across the swollen river from the state capital.

Further north in Iowa, a flood barrier along the swollen Mississippi River failed Saturday, flooding four to six blocks of downtown Burlington, a city of about 25,000 people that is 170 miles (274 kilometers) southeast of Des Moines.

On Friday, the Arkansas River, which has been flooding communities for more than a week, tore a 40-foot (12-meter) hole in a levee in Dardanelle, a city of about 4,700 people roughly 100 miles (160 kilometers) upstream from Little Rock.

​Last ditch effort

Mayor Jimmy Witt said Saturday that officials don’t believe a temporary levee being constructed will stop the water from flooding the south side of Dardanelle, but he hopes it will buy time for residents of up to 800 threatened homes to prepare.

“We have started a last ditch effort to try and protect the southern borders of the city,” he said at a news conference.

The river has been widening the levee breach and floodwaters have been slowly approaching homes, officials said. Water from some creeks and tributaries has flooded some houses, they said. Yell County Judge Mark Thone said flooding has surrounded about 25 people in a rural community a few miles south of Dardanelle, and several roads have closed because of high water.

Arkansas neighborhood evacuated

Meanwhile in North Little Rock, which is just across the Arkansas River from Little Rock, officials were going door-to-door Saturday to tell people in the Dixie Addition neighborhood to consider leaving. 

The river isn’t expected to crest in the Little Rock area until Tuesday, but North Little Rock officials said on Facebook that they believe the river will back up storm drainage areas and cause roads to become inaccessible in and around Dixie Addition, possibly for more than a week. 

City spokesman Nathan Hamilton said there are about 150 homes covered by the evacuation recommendation. He said other homes also could be affected by flooding, but officials were focusing on only the most pressing neighborhood.

The evacuation recommendation followed a false alarm overnight that a nearby levee had breached and that flash flooding was possible. Officials quickly reversed themselves, though, and said that it hadn’t failed and wasn’t in danger of doing so.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Friday that officials were working to identify higher-risk spots in the Arkansas River’s levee system. 

“Obviously the breach in Dardanelle is a sign that there could be more of these breaches that will happen as the pressure continues to mount in the coming days,” Hutchinson said.

​Flooding sets records

Record-breaking flood levels in Fort Smith, Arkansas’ second-largest city, remained steady through the morning, with the National Weather Service predicting the water would begin to recede Saturday night into Sunday morning.

The Arkansas River isn’t the only one causing problems in the region. 

In Burlington, Iowa, officials confirmed that a large, sand-filled barrier failed Saturday afternoon, forcing some businesses in the downtown area to evacuate. The National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning for the area until 10 p.m. Saturday. 

Parts of the tiny northwestern Missouri town of Levasy were under water Saturday after a levee breach along the Missouri River. Officials there were conducting water rescues by boat, but no injuries were reported.

Illinois begs people to flee

Officials in Illinois issued an “urgent plea” to residents of river communities to prepare for potential evacuations. The state’s Emergency Management Agency director, Alicia Tate-Nadeau, called flooding a “life-safety issue,” and the agency said levees along the Illinois River were in critical condition.

Flooding along the Missouri River in central Missouri prompted officials to issue a mandatory evacuation order Friday for some residents of Howard County, where the river had topped a levee. A topped levee along the Mississippi River, in northeastern Missouri, flooded several thousand acres of farmland Thursday. 

In Oklahoma, water levels continued to drop as residents who were forced from their homes made plans to return. The weather service reported that the Arkansas River in Tulsa dipped below flood stage for the first time since flooding began.
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1 Killed, 10 Wounded in Clash at Khartoum Sit-In Site

Posted on by SeeAF

One person was killed and 10 wounded in Khartoum on Saturday when shots were fired near the site of a protest sit-in, a doctors committee close to demonstrators said. 

“After regular forces opened fire, there were casualties on Nile Street near the sit-in site,” the Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors said in a statement. 

The committee did not specify which forces opened fire or identify those killed or wounded. 

A man died “who was hit with live rounds in the head,” the committee said.

Soldiers and security forces blocked off the city’s Nile Street on Saturday afternoon, while gunfire could be heard in the distance, an AFP reporter said. It was unclear who was firing. 

The doctors committee said three people were wounded by gunfire and most of the other casualties were hit with rifle butts and steel bars, without elaborating. 

The military ousted President Omar al-Bashir in April after months of protests against his authoritarian rule. Protesters have remained camped out in front of Khartoum’s army headquarters to pressure the generals to yield power. 

Two earlier killings

The latest violence came after a man was shot dead Thursday on Nile Street, a day after a woman was killed in the same area. 

The latter death happened during a “clash with live fire that took place between the armed forces and uncontrolled elements from it,” according to the Sudanese Professionals Association, which spearheaded anti-Bashir protests. 

Negotiations between protest leaders and the ruling military council have broken down, as the two sides have failed to agree on whether a planned transitional body would be headed by a civilian or a military figure.  

The SPA said Saturday that it had reason to believe the military council was “planning and working to end the peaceful sit-in at the headquarters with excessive force and violence.” 

It said it held the military council responsible for “guaranteeing the safety of those at the sit-in.” 

The military rulers did not immediately comment on the latest violence, but on Thursday warned that incidents on Nile Street threatened “public security and safety.” 

Authorities would “work in accordance with the law to guarantee citizens’ safety and to resolve manifestations of insecurity and lawlessness,” the council said. 
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Cruise Ship Captain Charged in Accident on Danube

Posted on by SeeEU

The captain of a river cruise ship that collided with a smaller sightseeing vessel was charged Saturday over the accident in Budapest that killed seven South Korean tourists and left 21 missing. 

The Mermaid, carrying mainly South Korean tourists, overturned and sank late Wednesday, seconds after colliding with the Viking Sigyn cruise ship on a busy stretch of the Danube in the heart of Budapest.

Strong currents have hampered the search for those missing — 19 South Koreans and two Hungarians — preventing divers from reaching the submerged boat.

The Sigyn’s Ukrainian captain was charged Saturday, a Budapest court official told AFP, but gave no further details.

The 64-year-old was detained Thursday for questioning for “endangering waterborne traffic resulting in multiple deaths,” police have said. 

The captain’s attorney, Balazs Toth, said the court had granted bail but prosecutors were appealing, so his client remained detained.

“He is devastated by the number of victims and is asking constantly that condolences are conveyed to their families,” Toth said.

“My client has not changed his statement made as a witness. He insists that he has not made any error,” his other attorney, Gabor Elo, told reporters after the hearing. 

Help sought in search

Near the accident site, a floating crane was erected, as well as a small pier for use by divers. 

But with the Danube swollen after weeks of rain, the strong current has complicated plans to lift the wreck, and the prospects of finding any of the passengers alive were seen as very slim.

Serbia, Romania and Croatia — countries along the Danube, south of Hungary — have been asked to help in the search after South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha insisted in Budapest on Friday that her country would not give up hope of finding survivors.

One of the bodies was found about 11 kilometers (seven miles) downstream of the accident site. 

South Korean relatives of the Mermaid passengers arrived in Budapest Friday, and officials took them to the banks of the Danube.

The Hungarian Magyar Nemzet daily, meanwhile, on Saturday quoted police reports as saying the Sigyn might not have warned the pilot of the smaller ship that he was going to overtake.

According to the newspaper, he also did not alert police about the collision.
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Car Bomb Blast Kills 10, Hurts 20 in Syria’s Raqqa

Posted on by SeeEA

Ten people were killed and 20 wounded Saturday in a suicide car bomb attack in Ragqa, a former stronghold of the Islamic State group in north Syria, a rights watchdog said.

The explosion killed five civilians and five soldiers of the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-Arab alliance backed by Washington that wrested the city from IS in October 2017, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The attack, for which no one immediately claimed responsibility, was preceded by a bomb explosion that left several people wounded in another part of the city frequently targeted by IS, the observatory said.

“The car bomb attack was targeting an SDF position,” observatory director Rami Abdel Rahmane told AFP. The explosion took place at the al-Naim square where IS had carried out beheadings when it was in control of the city.

On April 9, a double bombing claimed by IS killed 13 people, mostly civilians, in the jihadist group’s former bastion.

IS jihadists seized large swaths of Iraq and Syria in 2014, declaring a “caliphate” in areas it controlled. 

Several offensives with U.S.-led coalition backing chipped away at the “caliphate” until it was declared eliminated on March 23.

Ambushes and hit-and-run attacks have continued in both countries, with IS jihadists still scattered in the Syrian desert. 
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British Unit Intercepts 74 Migrants Crossing Channel  

Posted on by SeeEU

Britain’s Border Force intercepted 74 people Saturday, including minors, on eight vessels trying to cross the English Channel into Britain. French authorities stopped two other boats. 

 

The interceptions on an exceptionally sunny, warm day will heighten concerns that improving weather will encourage smugglers to try their luck at bringing more migrants to the U.K. from France.  

  

Authorities said a criminal investigation was underway. The nationalities of the migrants were still being determined. Coast guard officials said the incidents stretched along Britain’s southeast coast, from the port of Dover to Winchelsea Beach near Hastings, 50 miles (80 kilometers) away. 

 

Home Secretary Sajid Javid vowed that he would work with French border authorities to halt this rise in people trafficking across the Channel. 

 

“Those who choose to make this dangerous journey across one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world are putting their lives in grave danger — and I will continue to do all I can to stop them,” he said in a statement Saturday night. 

 

Local lawmaker Charlie Elphicke suggested the numbers were unprecedented and demanded action. 

‘Get a grip on this crisis’

 

This crisis was meant to have been dealt with at Christmas, yet numbers continue to rise,'' he wrote on Twitter.The Home Office needs to get a grip on this crisis.” 

 

The reports about migrants using small boats to cross the English Channel to Britain are politically explosive, even though Britain has not seen nearly as many migrant sea crossings as have fellow European Union nations Spain, Italy and Greece. So far this year, over 21,300 migrants have crossed the Mediterranean Sea into Europe, and at least 519 others have died trying, according to the International Organization for Migration. 

 

In December last year, Javid declared a rise in migrant crossings to be a “major incident.”  He said Saturday that since then, two cutters have returned to U.K. waters from overseas and he has agreed upon a joint action plan to halt human smuggling with his French counterparts. 

 

Officials have blamed the influx on smuggling gangs. 

 

It is an established principle that those in need of protection should claim asylum in the first safe country they reach, and since January, more than 30 people who arrived illegally in the U.K. in small boats have been returned to Europe,'' Javid said.We will continue to seek to return anyone who has entered the U.K. illegally.” 

 

Overall, migration into Europe is down substantially since over 1 million asylum-seekers and migrants came to the continent in 2015, but the issue still resonates politically, including in the elections last week to the European Parliament. 
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Iran’s Rouhani: Talks Possible Only if US Shows Respect

Posted on by SeeUS

President Hassan Rouhani on Saturday suggested Iran may be willing to hold talks if the United States showed it respect, but said Tehran would not be pressured into negotiations, the semiofficial Fars news agency reported. 

 

Iran and the United States have been drawn into starker confrontation in the past month, a year after Washington pulled out of a deal between Iran and global powers to curb Tehran’s nuclear program in return for the lifting of international sanctions. 

 

Washington reimposed sanctions last year and ratcheted them up in May, ordering all countries to halt imports of Iranian oil. In recent weeks it has also hinted at military confrontation, saying it was sending extra forces to the Middle East to respond to an Iranian threat. 

 

U.S. President Donald Trump says the 2015 nuclear deal was not strong enough and he wants to force Iran to negotiate a new agreement. Some U.S. officials have spoken of the possibility of new talks. 

Not ‘looking for regime change’

 

Trump said on Monday: “It [Iran] has a chance to be a great country with the same leadership. … We aren’t looking for regime change — I just want to make that clear.” 

 

Fars quoted Rouhani as saying: “We are for logic and talks if [the other side] sits respectfully at the negotiating table and follows international regulations, not if it issues an order to negotiate.” 

 

Iran’s top authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Wednesday that Iran would not negotiate with Washington. Rouhani had previously signaled talks might be possible if sanctions were lifted. 

 

In Saturday’s speech to a group of Iranian athletes, Rouhani noted Trump’s recent remarks and suggested the U.S. leader was backing away from statements last year that encouraged regime change in Iran. 

 

“The same enemy which declared its aim last year to destroy the Islamic Republic of Iran today explicitly states that it does not want to do anything to [our] system,” Rouhani said. “If we remain hopeful in the war with America, we will win.”
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