Ethiopian security is hunting for the leader of the failed coup in the northern Amhara region where security is tight, as well as in the capital, Addis Ababa.
An internet shutdown remains in force across the country, following the assassinations of Amhara’s governor and an adviser in the regional capital, Bahir Dar, Saturday. Later in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s military chief was shot dead by his own bodyguard who also killed a visiting retired general.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said that Brig. Gen. Asamnew Tsige masterminded the plot. Ethiopian officials said that Asamnew has not yet been arrested.
Ethiopian military have set up checkpoints in the capital and in the Amhara region.
Flags are flying at half-mast Monday which has been declared a day of national mourning following the four killings. …
A plate-hurling, screaming quarrel with his latest girlfriend has turned the spotlight fully on where Boris Johnson’s advisers didn’t want it — on his character and chaotic private life, which even his friends have described as “unruly.”The altercation, recorded by neighbors in south London who phoned the police, has thrown a wrench into Johnson’s smooth-running campaign to succeed Theresa May as Britain’s prime minister, which commentators say is his race to lose.His bid to win a leadership contest, which is now in its final stages after lawmakers whittled down in knockout ballots the succession choice to two candidates for the party’s 160,000 members to vote on by mail, has been built on avoiding television debates and dodging journalists.Johnson has refused to answer questions about the screaming match in the apartment of his girlfriend, 31-year-old Carrie Symonds, but calls are mounting on the 55-year-old to address questions about the altercation on Friday.Johnson ended a 25-year-long marriage, his second divorce, to move in last year with the younger Symonds, but his unruly private life has been marked by serial relationships, children fathered out of wedlock and terminated pregnancies.The quarrel has allowed his remaining opponent in the leadership race, the country’s current and normally mild-mannered foreign minister, Jeremy Hunt, to pile on the pressure and to launch Monday an uncharacteristically personal attack on his rival, accusing him of being a “coward” by trying to avoid public scrutiny and “slink through the back door” of Downing Street.Johnson, who was finally backed by more than half of Conservative lawmakers to be the new party leader has appeared on only one TV debate and granted a single short broadcast interview and one newspaper interview. Hunt says the public want a “fair and open contest, not one that one side is trying to rig to avoid scrutiny.”He added: “One of the strengths of our system is that we scrutinize our politicians with more intelligent ferocity than anywhere else in the World. But in this case it just isn’t happening. Nothing could be worse for a new prime minister in these challenging times than to come to power with a fake contest.”FILE – Britain’s Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt leaves 10 Downing Street, London, Britain, Nov. 13, 2018.Hunt’s aides say it is especially important for May’s successor to be scrutinized closely as they will be entering Downing Street not via a general election but through a party vote with their democratic legitimacy questioned because the country as a whole would not have had any say in their selection.Hunt says he doesn’t want to quiz Johnson, a former two-term London mayor and short-lived foreign minister, about his private life, but about his claim that he can “guarantee” Britain will leave the European Union by October 31, the latest deadline for the country’s exit from the bloc.But while Hunt is avoiding focusing directly on Johnson’s character, some of his aides are happily fanning the flames and briefing reporters behind the scenes that the frontrunner’s highly colorful private life represents a security risk. It could leave him vulnerable to leaks about past behavior and even open to blackmail by foreign powers, they charge.The accusation has infuriated Johnson supporters, who say the explosive argument between Symonds and Johnson was just a normal domestic “tiff” apparently provoked by Johnson spilling red wine on a sofa. They maintain the quarrel was blown out of proportion by neighbors who are politically motivated. The police left without charging anyone.Nonetheless, the dispute, which is depressing Johnson’s poll numbers, is contributing to a picture of a Conservative party in disarray and fearful that it is facing an existential crisis because of Brexit. It comes as pro-European Union Conservatives have started to plot a strategy to wreck a Johnson-led government, if he seeks to take Britain out of the European bloc without an exit deal approved by Brussels.Sharp divisions between Brexiters and pro-EU lawmakers wrecked Theresa May’s prime ministership and there are growing signs that it might quickly upend Johnson’s, too, if he wins the leadership race.Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May speaks to the media outside her official residence of 10 Downing Street in London, April 18, 2017.May’s fate was sealed when the British House of Commons declined three times to approve a Brexit Withdrawal Agreement she negotiated with Brussels — a deal vehemently opposed by a third of her own parliamentary party on the grounds it would keep Britain subservient to EU regulations and rules and prevent it from negotiating trade deals bilaterally with non-EU countries.
Europhiles are also opposed to the deal. Several top Conservatives who want to retain close ties with the EU have warned they could join opposition parties in a non-confidence vote in the House of Commons and bring down a Johnson government.A former Conservative attorney-general, Dominic Grieve, said: “If the new prime minister announces that he is taking the country on a magical mystery tour towards an October 31 crash-out, I don’t think that prime minister is going to survive very long.”Even Britain’s current top finance minister, Philip Hammond, has warned the next prime minister “will not survive,” if they seek to leave the EU without a deal. He has declined publicly to rule out that he would vote with opposition parties against Johnson, if he sought a no-deal Brexit.Britain’s fractious Conservatives are ruling as a minority government, and they rely on the support of a Northern Irish party to give them a working majority of just three in the House of Commons. A handful of Conservative standouts could trigger a chain of events leading to an early election the Conservatives are unlikely to win.Johnson’s supporters say he remains the favorite of party activists because he has the star quality the party needs to win elections and curb both the populist threat from Nigel Farage’s new Brexit party and combat Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn.They also claim he has the political inventiveness to break the Brexit deadlock that has turned traditional British politics upside down and might even have the ability to persuade hardline Brexiters to accept a compromise and something short of their objective to break completely with the EU. …
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights is urging Hong Kong authorities to “consult broadly before passing or amending” an extradition bill or “any other legislation,” as protests in the autonomous territory continue.Speaking at the opening of a three-week session of Human Right Council in Geneva, Switzerland, Michelle Bachelet also said that she continues to discuss with China issues related to Xinjiang, including allowing “unfettered access” to the western region, and other matters.U.N. observers and activists say that about one million ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims are held in detention centers in Xinjiang. The international community has condemned China for setting up such complexes which Beijing describes as “education training centers” helping to eradicate extremism and give people new skills.Hong Kong protesters blocked access to a Hong Kong government office building for about two hours Monday and plan another demonstration Wednesday to raise awareness among leaders attending the G-20 summit this week in Japan.Thousands of student protesters dressed in black have been marching in Hong Kong for weeks, demanding the full withdrawal of the controversial extradition bill and the resignation of the territory’s pro-Beijing leader Carrie Lam.Last week, Lam offered an apology for the political crisis and unrest sparked by the proposed law.The Hong Kong protests pose the greatest challenge to Chinese President Xi Jinping since he took office in 2012. The Chinese government had supported the extradition proposal, and accused protest organizers of colluding with Western governments.The U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said President Donald Trump plans to discuss the Hong Kong issue with Xi at the upcoming G-20 summit. …
VOA’s national security correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.The United States is set to introduce new sanctions against Iran on Monday, seeking to put additional pressure on the country’s economy in order to extract changes in behavior from its government.Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the new measures “significant,” but declined to give specific details to reporters ahead of the official announcement.He spoke just before embarking on a trip to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to continue the Trump administration’s effort to build a coalition of allies to counter Iran. Pompeo met Monday with Saudi King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.”The world should know that we will continue to make sure it’s understood that this effort that we’ve engaged in to deny Iran the resources to foment terror, to build out their nuclear weapon system, to built out their missile program, we are going to deny them the resources they need to do that thereby keeping American interests and American people safe all around the world,” Pompeo said.Iran has denied working on nuclear weapons and signed an agreement in 2015 with the United States, Britain, China, France, Russia and Germany to allay those concerns by limited its nuclear activity in exchange for sanctions relief.But U.S.-Iran relations have deteriorated under President Donald Trump’s tenure, particularly since his decision last year to withdraw from the nuclear deal and put in place new economic sanctions.Trump objected to the deal as being too weak and not including limits on Iran’s ballistic missile program.US Iran sanctionsIran has defended its missile work as legal and necessary for its defense. And it has sought support from the remaining signatories to the 2015 agreement to provide the economic relief it desires, especially with its key oil program as the U.S. has tightened sanctions in an attempt to cut off Iranian oil exports.Pompeo said the new sanctions Monday “will be a further effort to ensure that their capacity not only to grow their economy but to evade sanctions becomes more and more difficult, and it will be an important addition to our capacity to enforce sanctions against Iran to ultimately achieve the objective that we’ve laid out.”Trump said in a series of tweets Saturday about the sanctions that he looks forward to the day when “sanctions come off Iran, and they become a productive and prosperous national again — The sooner the better!”He also said in an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press that he is “not looking for war” with Iran and is willing to negotiate with its leaders without preconditions.The comments came after a week of intense actions between the United States and Iran.Concern about a potential armed confrontation between the two countries has been growing since U.S. officials recently blamed Tehran for mine attacks on two oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, allegations Tehran denies, and Iran’s downing of of a U.S. drone.Trump said that late Thursday he had canceled a retaliatory strike against several Iranian targets. But on Thursday, according to U.S. news accounts, Trump also approved U.S. Cyber Command attacks on an Iranian intelligence group’s computer systems used to control missile and rocket launches. World powers have called for calm after the incidents. …
A group of Oregon state Republican senators have gone into hiding to stop the passage of a landmark climate change legislation. The western state’s House bill 2020 would set limits to carbon emissions with permits auctioned off to polluting industries. Republicans say the bill would hurt rural Oregonians. Democrats have a majority in both chambers of the state’s congress and the bill is likely to pass if it comes to the floor, which cannot happen unless there is a quorum of two-thirds of senators present. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports the state governor, a Democrat, has given authorization to state police to track them down. …
Taiwan’s second airline employee strike this year to date has impacted more than 25,000 passengers just before a peak travel season, showing the powers of labor unions that are uncommon elsewhere in Asia and even among other Taiwanese professions.An Eva Airways strike that entered its fifth day Monday had spiked about 60% of scheduled flights hit about 25,300 travelers, many of whom were bumped to other airlines. About 2,000 people, two-thirds of all flight attendants, walked away from their posts as many Taiwanese were planning summer holidays.In February, about 600 of the 900 unionized pilots of China Airlines went on strike for a week during the Lunar New Year travel season. Eva and China Airlines are Taiwan’s two biggest carriers, taking passengers daily as far as North America.Few other Asian airlines have weathered strikes, as many major carriers are state-owned or their home countries lack effective labor unions, analysts believe. “This is really related to the fact that the trade unions there hold relatively more power than the rest of what we see in Asia,” said Paul Yong, an aviation analyst with DBS Bank in Singapore. “The power or the amount of influence trade unions have in any country I think is built up over time, and it’s also a function of how powerful the government allows it to be, and to a certain extent also social norms.”Unions versus airlinesEva Airways flight attendants backed by the Taoyuan Flight Attendants Union have eight demands, including more pay and less overtime on international flights, union member Chou Pei-ru said Monday. Some flights sometimes force workers to wait in overseas airports for weather delays, Chou said. The union is demanding as well more access to the airline’s management to discuss whatever issues come up, she said.The China Airlines pilots wanted higher salaries and more staffing to ease fatigue on longer flights. The airline agreed to increase the number of pilots.The outcome of the February strike may have galvanized Eva’s flight attendants to go on strike, said John Brebeck, senior adviser at the Quantum International Corp. investment consultancy in Taiwan. In this Thursday, June 20, 2019, photo, EVA Air flight attendants protest at the entrance to the EVA Air headquarters in Taoyuan, Taiwan.Unusually strong unionsMost Taiwanese firms do not hire union labor, but airlines have made an exception to compete for qualified staff people in markets where talent may be limited, he said. Taiwanese office workers often work overtime, paid or not, until their supervisors leave for the day.“I would say that industry is better position for worker rights and unions than most in Taiwan,” Brebeck said.Striking airline employees also get relatively high exposure for any labor causes because of their high-visibility jobs, Chou said.“Every flight is a new duty for us, so we can just keep on not providing service for however long it takes and pressure the company, that’s an advantage for us,” said Chou, herself a flight attendant vexed by overtime. “I actually think labor in other sectors is pitiable, because they don’t have a way to go out and show their potential.”Obvious impactsThe exposure is obvious to passengers. Eva Airways had cancelled 158 flights as of Sunday and estimated a business loss of $18.7 million, the company said in a notice to the Taiwan Stock Exchange. A media office representative with the airline declined comment Monday and said other spokespeople were in all-day meetings.The February strike by the Pilots Union Taoyuan led to cancellation of 80 flights and $34 million in business losses for China Airlines, the company said then in its own statement to the stock exchange.Eva’s flight attendants had protested in 2017, as well. In July that year, 500 flight attendants took a day off due to a typhoon threat – uncommon for airline employees though allowed by Taiwan law. Their action caused the cancellation of 50 flights, adding to those already spiked or delayed because of the weather.Elsewhere in Asia, in 1980 Singapore Airlines pilots cut back their hours in protest over pay until the country’s then-prime minister Lee Kuan Yew stepped in.But airline strikes are rare as Asia’s organized labor is historically weaker than in the West, Yong said. Some actions are called off before they start. But the strikes in Taiwan might motivate airlines to double up on ensuring that their own staff people avoid strikes, Yong said. …
U.S. tech giant Apple has reportedly asked its major suppliers, mainly China-based manufacturers from Taiwan, to consider moving 15 to 30% of their production outside of China to avoid higher tariffs imposed on U.S.-bound exports.The production migration, which analysts say is already ongoing, will hurt the tech giant’s profit margin, but also lead to massive job losses in China.They add that such shifts have also occurred over the past year among other China-based tech suppliers and the trend will continue if the trade war between the world’s two biggest economies keeps escalating.“Over the past year, to my understanding, manufacturers in the information [technology] sector, for example, [China-based Taiwanese] suppliers of personal computers or consumer electronics have moved faster than handset makers and relocated [part of] their assembly lines outside China,” says Sean Kao, senior research manager at IDC Taiwan on worldwide hardware assembly research.Caught in the CrossfireTech companies such as Apple are caught in the crossfire of U.S.-China trade frictions and face the threat of heavy punitive taxes on their China-made, U.S.-bound products.Earlier this month, U.S. President Trump said he would decide whether to slap Beijing with further tariffs on another US $300 billion worth of Chinese goods after he meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping at G-20 later this week.Citing anonymous sources, the Nikkei Asian Review reported last week that Apple is planning on production shifts to avert the threat. According to the report, Apple has asked its major iPhone assemblers including Foxconn Technology, Pegatron and Wistron to evaluate the cost of moving their assembly lines, which manufacture U.S.-bound iPhones in China, to other southeastern Asian countries.A woman uses her smartphone as she walks past a display for the Apple iPhone XR at a supermarket in Beijing, Tuesday, May 14, 2019. Sending Wall Street into a slide, China announced higher tariffs Monday on $60 billion worth of American goods.Apple has not commented publicly on the report.Wistron and Foxconn have already made some headway, setting up factories respectively in Bangalore and Chennai, India. But Kao says those moves are more about tapping the Indian market.Foxconn chairman Terry Guo has also said that should the need arise to adjust production lines, his company already has enough capacity outside of China to meet Apple’s demand in the U.S. market.Pegatron is also readying itself to set up assembly lines in Indonesia, Kao added.Production DiversificationSuch diversification of production sites will give manufacturers the flexibility to assemble U.S.-bound iPhones outside China when necessary, says Liu Meng-chun, director of the Chung-Hua Institution of Economic Research’s (CIER) mainland China division in Taipei.Neighboring countries such as India, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Taiwan are reaping benefits, he said.In the first five months of this year, for example, Taiwan’s U.S.-bound exports posted a 15% year-on-year growth. U.S. Census Bureau statistics showed that imports from Vietnam jumped 40.2% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2019.China, on the other hand, is being hurt by the shift, he added.“The biggest and most significant impact is on China’s employment. There have been massive job losses and China is facing a problem of growing unemployment, even though authorities are not spelling it out clearly,” Liu said.China last week said its employment rate remains stable with the service sector contributing a larger share of the job market last year.According to government data, the urban jobless rate stayed steady at 5% in May, still below the annual target of around 5.5% set for 2019.Job losses?But fewer jobs and lower pay are already being felt by China’s export industries as factories are reportedly downsizing, cutting overtime hours and relocating overseas.That is expected to hurt China’s long-term goal to count on domestic consumption to boost the economy as the spending power of the nation’s 280 million migrant workers will feel the pinch. In addition, the loss of American clients, who demand better-quality products, could mean that China’s export industries may be less motivated to move up the value chain as their local consumers are more price sensitive, Liu said.Kao says it’s still too early to tell.So far, only low-end assembly lines are being relocated overseas, he notes, adding that only when higher value-added production lines move will China see a bigger impact.Both analysts say that even if the cost of manufacturing has risen significantly, suppliers will only relocate overseas to places where problems of labor training, logistics issues and the clustering of supportive industries in that location have been addressed. Even if the worst happens, China may still find opportunities. Top talent that may be laid off by U.S. companies that relocate, may jump ship to work for local companies and help boost local rivals’ innovation capability, Kao says. …
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has received a personal letter from U.S. President Donald Trump and is contemplating its contents, North Korean state media reported Sunday.The official Korean Central News Agency posted a picture of a pensive Kim holding a letter, apparently with White House letterhead. The report quoted Kim as praising its “excellent content.”“Appreciating the political judging faculty and extraordinary courage of President Trump, Kim Jong Un said that he would seriously contemplate the interesting content,” KCNA reported.The report did not say anything else about the content of the letter.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, as he left Washington for a trip to the Mideast on Sunday, confirmed the letter was sent to Kim. The top U.S. diplomat said he is “hopeful that this will provide a good foundation for us to begin, and to continue these important discussions with the Koreans to denuclearize the peninsula.”Exchanging letters, photosTrump said earlier this month he received a “beautiful,” “very personal” and “very warm” letter from the North Korean leader.Though nuclear talks between U.S. and North Korean officials are stalled, Kim and Trump have been exchanging letters and pictures for the past year, and both men say their relationship remains warm.U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un meet during the second U.S.-North Korea summit at the Sofitel Legend Metropole hotel in Hanoi, Feb. 28, 2019.Working-level talks broke down after a February summit between Trump and Kim in Hanoi, Vietnam, ended in no deal. Kim was unhappy with the pace of U.S. sanctions relief, while Trump was upset Kim would not commit to completely giving up his nuclear program.Since then, North Korea has tested several short-range ballistic missiles and other weapons. Kim has said he will give Washington until the end of the year to become more flexible in the talks.U.S. officials have shrugged off North Korea’s weapons tests and end-of-the-year ultimatum. Trump has said he is willing to hold a third summit with Kim if the conditions are right.G-20 and beyondNext week, Trump will visit South Korea following his meetings in Japan at the Group of 20 summit.There has been speculation, though no evidence, that Trump could try to hold another high-profile summit at that time.South Korean officials have also said they are working to hold a summit between the leaders of North and South Korea before Trump’s visit.The letter comes a day after Chinese President Xi Jinping wrapped up a state visit to North Korea, where he promised to play an active role in the nuclear talks. “After months of an impasse in the negotiations and little contact between the U. S. and North Korea, it appears there is some diplomatic maneuvering underway,” said Bonnie Glaser, an Asia specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.“[It is] unclear yet whether Xi’s visit to Pyongyang played a role, or whether other factors are at play,” she added. …
Mauritania’s ruling party candidate Mohammed Ould Ghazouani has won an absolute majority of votes in the country’s presidential election, the electoral commission said Sunday.UPR candidate and former defense minister Ghazouani, 62, won 51.1 percent of the vote, according to data published on the National Electoral Commission (CENI)’s website.Ghazouani has promised to transform national industries to create more jobs around the country’s natural resources. He has also promised that he would regularly meet with members of opposition parties represented in parliament if elected president.President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz is stepping down, as is mandated by the constitution, after his two five-year terms. Saturday’s elections were seen as the country’s first democratic transition of power.
The country’s last elections in 2014 were heavily criticized for being unfair and were boycotted by many opposition parties. Then-incumbent President Aziz won by 84%.The U.N.’s Secretary-General for West Africa and the Sahel, Mohamed Ibn Chambas, “congratulates the Mauritanian people for holding a peaceful presidential election” in a statement released Sunday.But on Saturday, opposition candidates held a press conference to call on citizens to take to the streets in protest if they believe the elections were not held fairly. Many Mauritanians were wary of the honesty of elections after the CENI refused calls to employ foreign observers. …
Sudan’s protest movement accepted an Ethiopian roadmap for a civilian-led transitional government, a spokesman said on Sunday, after a months-long standoff with the country’s military rulers — who did not immediately commit to the plan.Ethiopia has led diplomatic efforts to bring the protest and military leaders back to the negotiating table, after a crackdown against the pro-democracy movement led to a collapse in talks. According to protest organizers, security forces killed at least 128 people across the country, after they violently dispersed the sit-in demonstration outside the military’s headquarters in the capital, Khartoum, earlier this month. Authorities have offered a lower death toll of 61, including three from the security forces.Yet it appeared that protest leaders, represented by the Forces for the Declaration of Freedom and Change, were open to the Ethiopian initiative as a way out of the political impasse.Ahmed Rabie, a spokesman for the Sudanese Professionals’ Association which is part of the FDFC, told The Associated Press that the proposal included a leadership council with eight civilian and seven military members, with a rotating chairmanship. All the civilians would come from the FDFC, except for one independent and “neutral” appointee, he said.According to a copy of the proposal obtained by the AP, the military would chair the council in the first 18 months, and the FDFC the second half of the transition.Rabie said that the roadmap would build on previous agreements with the military. These include a three-year transition period, a protester-appointed Cabinet and a FDFC-majority legislative body.Rabie added that protest leaders would also discuss with the Ethiopian envoy, Mahmoud Dirir, the possibility of establishing an “independent” Sudanese investigation. Previously, the FDFC had said it would only resume talks with the military if it agreed to the formation of an international commission to investigate the killings of protesters.The ruling military council has so far rejected the idea of an international probe, and says it has started its own investigation, in parallel with that of the state prosecutor.The FDCF said Saturday said their approval of the Ethiopian plan “pushes all the parties to bear their responsibilities” to find a peaceful solution.It urged the military council to accept the plan “in order to move the situation in Sudan” forward.At a press conference at the Ethiopian embassy, the FDFC said it was demanding trust-building measures from the military. These included concerns about the investigation into violence, restoring severed internet connectivity, and ordering the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces — widely blamed for attacks against protesters — back to their barracks.The spokesman for the military council, Gen. Shams Eddin Kabashi, confirmed at a news conference that the council had received a proposal from the Ethiopian envoy, and another one from the African Union envoy to Sudan, Mohamed El Hacen Lebatt.“The council asked for a combined initiative to study and discuss the details,” Kabashi said. This joint proposal should be received by Monday, he said.Kabashi also defended Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, saying that both countries, along with Egypt, “have provided unconditional support” to the Sudanese people.Egypt has voiced its support for the military council, pressing the African Union not to suspend Sudan’s activities in the regional block. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have pledged $3 billion in aid to shore up its economy.Sudanese activists fear that the three countries are pushing the military to cling to power rather than help with democratic change, given that the three Arab states are ruled by autocrats who have clamped down political freedoms in their own countries.A member of the military council, Yasser al-Atta, suggested that it had doubts about the protest leaders ability to govern.He addressed protest leaders saying that “you should include other political forces” or it would be difficult to rule.“We want them to rule and lead the transitional period, but can this be done?” He added.Meanwhile, the head of the military council, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, said on Sunday he canceled a decree demanding that the joint U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur hand over its premises as part of its withdrawal.Burhan also issued a new decree that says the U.N. facilities when handed over are to be used for civilian purposes in Darfur.The target for ending the U.N. mission is June 30, 2020. …
Another Democrat has entered the 2020 race for the White House.Retired Navy admiral and former Pennsylvania congressman Joe Sestak announced his candidacy Sunday on his website.He introduced himself to voters by telling them “I wore the cloth of the nation for over 31 years in peace and war, from the Vietnam and Cold War eras to Afghanistan and Iran and the emergence of China.”He said he postponed announcing his candidacy to care for a daughter ill with brain cancer.Sestak was also part of former U.S. President Bill Clinton’s national security team, holds a doctorate in government from Harvard, and unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate twice.He embraces many positions popular with liberals, including abortion rights, gun control, and backs the nuclear deal with Iran.Sestak is the 24th Democrat to officially announce a challenge to President Donald Trump in 2020, with Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren leading the polls so far. …
Chinese President Xi Jinping may have encouraged North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to renew talks with the U.S. during his recent visit to Pyongyang, but without a concrete road map for denuclearization, diplomacy is meaningless, experts say.“The international community hopes that North Korea and the United States can talk and for the talks to get results,” Xi told Kim on Thursday, according to Chinese media.Xi left Pyongyang early Friday afternoon. It was the first visit by a Chinese president in 14 years.Pyongyang’s denuclearization talks with Washington have been stalled ever since the Hanoi summit in February, which was cut short without producing any deals.’Didn’t get a positive response’According to Chinese media, Kim told Xi that North Korea took many positive steps to reduce tensions but “didn’t get a positive response from the relevant side,” referring to the U.S.Kim added, “North Korea is willing to exercise patience and, at the same time, hopes the relevant side can meet North Korea halfway, seek a solution that accords with both side’s reasonable concerns, and promote results for the talks process of the peninsula issue.”Evans Revere, acting assistant secretary for East Asia and the Pacific at the State Department during the George W. Bush administration, said Xi’s meeting with Kim could have helped Pyongyang reconsider resuming its talks with Washington.“There have been signs that North Korea may be preparing to reengage diplomatically,” Revere said. “And the Xi-Kim summit is the latest indication that Pyongyang is exploring what benefits renewed diplomacy might bring.”Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump said he received a “beautiful letter” from Kim and took an optimistic stance on the possibility of future talks.Scott Snyder, director of the U.S.-Korea policy program at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the letter signifies that “Kim still values the relationship with Trump.” He added, “Trump is keeping the door open to denuclearization talks, and Kim is keeping the door open to the prospect of American affirmation of North Korea as a nuclear state.”North Korea’s internal policy document used in training its top military officials in November, which VOA obtained over the weekend, indicated Kim’s aspiration for the country is to be accepted as a nuclear state.Xi’s visit to Pyongyang came ahead of next week’s Group of 20 summit in Osaka, where Xi is expected to meet with Trump on the sideline of the summit, which is being hosted by Japan.’Trying to … restart things’Ken Gause, director of the Adversary Analytics Program at CNA, said, “China is trying to kind of restart things.”He continued, “[Xi] could potentially carry a message from Kim to Trump when he meets Trump later next week and guidance about how to get the negotiations restarted.”Experts, however, caution Washington against holding talks with Pyongyang without narrowing their gaps over denuclearization.Revere said, “Diplomacy toward what end?” He continued, “There are no signs that Pyongyang has modified the position that it took at Hanoi summit, where it rejected a common definition of denuclearization with the United States and refused to agree to a timetable and road map to achieve denuclearization.”At the Hanoi summit, Kim demanded Trump lift sanctions while offering a partial denuclearization of dismantling its Yongbyon nuclear facility. Trump, instead, asked Kim to denuclearize completely in exchange for lifting the sanctions.North Korea’s concept of denuclearization envisions the U.S. removing its nuclear umbrella and troops from the Korean Peninsula while the U.S. understanding is for North Korea to undertake a fully verified dismantlement of all of its nuclear facilities and weapons.No interest in dismantlingRobert Manning, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said, “I see no evidence that Kim is interested in dismantling all of his nuclear program.”Gause said Xi could have told Kim to put more on the table other than dismantling the Yongbyon, while Kim most likely asked Xi to push for sanctions relief in return.Manning said, “Xi will push Trump to ease sanctions and offer a way to break the stalemate.”Revere said, however, while Kim could have pressed Xi “for help in removing international sanctions,” Xi would not have agreed “in the absence of concrete North Korean steps toward denuclearization.”Further, he added, “Beijing will be mindful of the need not to undermine international solidarity and pressure on North Korea by providing open-ended assistance on North Korea.”Bruce Klingner, the former CIA deputy division chief for Korea and current senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said, “The ball is in North Korea’s court to take tangible, significant steps toward denuclearization before it gets yet more benefits.”Snyder said, “The essential condition for a third summit is that both leaders work out an understanding in advance that does not repeat the failure of the second summit.” He continued, “The stakes will be higher because there will be no walking away.”Other than showing support toward denuclearization talks, Xi’s visit to Pyongyang was, according to Revere, “a mixture of symbolism, largely rhetorical assurance of support by China to North Korea, and a reminder that China intends to remain a key player in diplomacy with North Korea.” …
VOA’s Turkish Service contributed to this report.
ISTANBUL — Turkey’s opposition won decisively in the controversial re-vote in the Istanbul mayoral election. The victory is a significant defeat for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who lost his Istanbul power base of 25 years.Erdogan’s candidate Binali Yildirim was quick to congratulate his opponent Ekrem Imamoglu for his victory.”My rival is ahead, and I am congratulating him and wishing him success,” Yildirim said. “Elections mean democracy and these elections revealed one more time that it works perfectly in Turkey.”Erdogan also congratulated Imamoglu in a tweet, “the national will has been manifested again,” wrote Erdogan.Provisional results indicate Imamoglu increased his winning margin to over 700,000 votes with 54% of the total votes, up from the razor-thin majority of 13,000 in the March poll. Erdogan successfully got election authorities to annul that victory on the technicality of ineligible election monitors. Imamoglu speaking to reporters in his election headquarters said his win was a boost for democracy.”This is a new beginning. A period of love, tolerance, respect has started,” he said, “and waste, ostentation, arrogance, and discrimination is over.”With news of Imamoglu’s victory spreading across the city, celebration broke out. Parades of cars started honking their horns as they drove around the city while hundreds of people danced in Istanbul’s main thoroughfare. Festivities are expected to continue into the night.Erdogan put his political prestige on the line campaigning for Yildirm. However, the electorate, many of whom cut their vacations short to vote, backed Imamoglu’s message of democracy and political inclusivity.Imamoglu thanked his coalition partner, the Good Party, but also praised the pro-Kurdish HDP for their support.The HDP was not part of Imamoglu’s election alliance, but the party did not have a candidate in the race and called on their supporters to back Imamoglu.”The winner is HDP and Kurds, full stop,” tweeted HDP leader Pervin Buldan. The party’s vote is seen by observers as key to his success, with Kurds accounting an estimated 20% of the electorate.For Erdogan, once thought as invincible in the polls, the defeat is both personal and political. The drop in support for his party was evident in Uskudar, a district on the Asian side of Istanbul where Erdogan has his personal residence, and historical AKP stronghold. Erdogan’s rise power was built on winning the city’s mayorship in 1994.Observers say that resentment has been growing over Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian style of leadership after a failed coup attempt in 2016, marked by mass purges and sweeping crackdowns against businessmen, journalists and human-rights activists.However, observers say possibly more worrying for Erdogan are the growing critics within his party who are unhappy over his authoritarian stance and a sputtering economy. In the past months, reports are growing of a looming split within his AKP party.The opposition’s significant victory in Istanbul is expected to put pressure on Erdogan and his AKP to call for early elections.”It’s the biggest evil to talk about elections,” said Devlet Bahceli MHP leader the coalition partner of the AKP.Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told VOA Turkish that in canceling Imamoglu’s March 31 win in Istanbul, Erdogan obstensibly handed Imamoglu victory by branding him the politician who represents the people.”This is how Erdogan was able to come to power as a pious conservative working class roots politician who represented Turkey’s mostly pious working class masses. But of course in 20 years since Erdogan Has become the power and by canceling Imamoglu’s victory he has turned him into the new Erdogan. Imamoglu now stands for the dispossessed and marginalized,” Cagaptay said.
A potential legal challenge still hangs over Imamoglu, however. During his latest campaign, he allegedly insulted a state governor, a criminal offense in Turkey. Imamoglu vehemently denies the accusation. Last week Erdogan raised the possibility of Imamoglu’s prosecution and disbarring as mayor.But given the scale of Imamoglu victory, some observers suggest that any legal move against him would threaten to plunge the country into chaos. …
VOA’s national security correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump says he is “not looking for war” with Iran and willing to negotiate with its leaders without preconditions, but that under no circumstances can the Islamic Republic be allowed to mass a nuclear weapons arsenal.Trump told NBC’s Meet the Press show that if the U.S. went to war with Iran, “It’ll be obliteration like you’ve never seen before.””But,” he added, “I’m not looking to do that.”The U.S. leader said, “Here it is. Look, you can’t have nuclear weapons. And if you want to talk about it, good. Otherwise, you can live in a shattered economy for a long time.”Trump’s comments, taped Friday, were aired after he announced Saturday, without providing any details, that he plans to impose “major” new sanctions on Iran on Monday. He said the sanctions would be dropped as soon as the country becomes “a productive and prosperous nation again.”Iran cannot have Nuclear Weapons! Under the terrible Obama plan, they would have been on their way to Nuclear in a short number of years, and existing verification is not acceptable. We are putting major additional Sanctions on Iran on Monday. I look forward to the day that…..— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 22, 2019Two other key U.S. officials, national security adviser John Bolton and Vice President Mike Pence, issued new warnings to Iran that Trump’s last-minute decision to not militarily retaliate for Tehran’s Thursday shoot-down of an unmanned U.S. drone near the Strait of Hormuz should not be viewed as a sign of “weakness.”
Trump Administration Signals Resolve on Iran video player.
Watch related video by VOA’s Michael BowmanTrump spoke with reporters Saturday at the White House before leaving for the presidential retreat at Camp David outside Washington for a meeting with top administration officials, at one point saying as soon as Tehran agreed to renounce nuclear weapons, “I’m going to be their best friend.”Trump’s tone was much softer on Saturday after a week of intense actions between the U.S. and Iran.Concern about a potential armed confrontation between the U.S. and Iran has been growing since U.S. officials recently blamed Tehran for mine attacks on two oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, allegations Tehran denies, and Iran’s downing of the drone.On Friday, Trump said that late Thursday he had canceled a retaliatory strike against several Iranian targets. But on Thursday, according to U.S. news accounts, Trump also approved U.S. Cyber Command attacks on an Iranian intelligence group’s computer systems used to control missile and rocket launches. After calling off the retaliatory military action, Trump tweeted that the United States was “cocked & loaded to retaliate last night on 3 different sights (sic) when I asked, how many will die. 150 people, sir, was the answer from a General. 10 minutes before the strike I stopped it,” Trump tweeted, saying the action would have been disproportionate.Pence said the U.S. was “not convinced” the downing of the drone “was authorized at the highest level” of the Iranian government. As Trump weighed how to respond last week, he said the shoot-down might have been launched on orders of a “loose and stupid” Iranian officer.World powers have called for calm after the incidents.German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday urged for a political resolution of the crisis. “That is what we are working on,” she told Reuters.On Sunday, Britain’s Middle East minister, Andrew Murrison, will travel to Tehran for talks with Iranian officials.Britain’s Foreign Office said Murrison would call for “urgent de-escalation in the region.” He will also discuss Iran’s threat to cease complying with the nuclear deal that the United States pulled out of last year. James Phillips, a senior researcher at the conservative Washington-based Heritage Foundation, said he believes the immediate risk of a U.S.-Iran conflict has passed.”It’s probably over as far as the incident goes with the shoot down of the drone. But, I think if there are further provocations, the president will respond in a strong and effective manner,” he said.Phillips also said he does not expect Tehran to accept U.S. calls for negotiations while Trump continues a “maximum pressure campaign” of sanctions on Iran. “I doubt that Tehran will be serious until it sees who wins the next presidential election,” he said.The U.S. announced this week it was authorizing another 1,000 troops — including a Patriot missile battery and additional manned and unmanned reconnaissance aircraft to bolster defenses at U.S. positions in Iraq and Syria. …
Washington remains focused on Iran, as the Trump administration signals firm resolve towards Tehran days after President Donald Trump halted a military strike ordered in response to Iran’s downing of a U.S. military drone over international waters in the Strait of Hormuz. VOA’s Michael Bowman has this report. …
Thousands of supporters of LGBT rights are marching in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv under a heavy police presence.
Organizers of the “March of Equality” have said that they expect 10,000 people to participate in the event on June 23.
Several Western diplomats are also attending the event.
Police said that nine people were arrested on suspicion of preparing provocations against participants in the Kyiv Pride event.
Organizers have said that their goal is to promote “full respect” for the rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) minority.
The Pride parade has been held in Kyiv since 2016 amid protests by opponents, including right-wing activists and representatives of religious organizations
Arab politicians and commentators greeted U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East $50 billion economic vision with a mixture of derision and exasperation, although some in the Gulf called for it to be given a chance.
In Israel, Tzachi Hanegbi, a Cabinet member close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, described Palestinians’ rejection of the “peace to prosperity” plan as tragic.
Set to be presented by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner at a conference in Bahrain on June 25-26, the blueprint envisions a global investment fund to lift the Palestinian and neighboring Arab economies and is part of broader efforts to revive the Israeli-Palestininan peace process.
“We don’t need the Bahrain meeting to build our country, we need peace, and the sequence of [the plan] — economic revival followed by peace is unrealistic and an illusion,” Palestinian Finance Minister Shukri Bishara said on Sunday.
The lack of a political solution, which Washington has said would be unveiled later, prompted rejection not only from Palestinians but also in Arab countries with which Israel would seek normal relations.
From Sudan to Kuwait, commentators and ordinary citizens denounced Kushner’s proposals in strikingly similar terms: “colossal waste of time,” “non-starter,” “dead on arrival.”
Egyptian liberal and leftist parties slammed the workshop as an attempt to “consecrate and legitimize” occupation of Arab land and said in a joint statement that any Arab participation would be “beyond the limits of normalization” with Israel.
While the precise outline of the political plan has been shrouded in secrecy, officials briefed on it say Kushner has jettisoned the two-state solution — the long-standing worldwide formula that envisages an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.
‘Another tragedy’
The PLO has dismissed Kushner’s plans as “all abstract promises,” insisting that only a political solution will solve the problem. It said they were an attempt to bribe the Palestinians into accepting Israeli occupation.
On Israel Radio, Hanegbi said Washington had tried to create “a little more trust and positivity” by presenting an economic vision but had touched a raw nerve for Palestinians.
“They are still convinced that the whole matter of an economic peace is a conspiracy, aimed only at piling them with funds for projects and other goodies only so that they will forget their nationalist inspirations. This of course, is simply paranoia, but it’s another tragedy for the Palestinians,” he said.
Jawad al-Anani, a former senior Jordanian politician, described widespread suspicion after Trump’s decisions to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and recognize Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights.
“This is an unbalanced approach: it assumes the Palestinians are the more vulnerable side and they are the ones who can succumb to pressure more easily,” he said. “This is a major setback for the whole region.”
Azzam Huneidi, deputy head of Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s main opposition said: “The economic plan is the sale of Palestine under the banner of prosperity in return for peace and with no land being returned… A deal with Arab money.”
“Historic crime’
Kushner’s economic proposals will be discussed at the U.S.-led gathering in Bahrain this week. The Palestinian Authority is boycotting and the White House did not invite the Israeli government.
U.S.-allied Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, will take part along with officials from Egypt, Jordan and Morocco. Lebanon and Iraq will not attend.
“Those who think that waving billions of dollars can lure Lebanon, which is under the weight of a suffocating economic crisis, into succumbing or bartering over its principles are mistaken,” parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, said.
Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Shi’ite group Hezbollah, which wields significant influence over the government, has previously called the plan “an historic crime” that must be stopped.
Arab analysts believe the economic plan is an attempt to buy off opposition to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land with a multi-billion dollar bribe to pay off the neighboring hosts of millions of Palestinian refugees to integrate them.
“It is disingenuous to say that this plan is purely economic because it has a political dimension that has implications that are incongruous with the political aspirations,” said Safwan Masri, a Columbia University professor.
After Israel’s creation in 1948, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon absorbed the most Palestinian refugees, with some estimates that they now account for around five million.
‘No harm in listening’
In recent years, Iran’s bitter rivalry with a bloc led by Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia has increasingly pushed the Arab-Israeli struggle into the background.
While Riyadh and its allies have welcomed Trump’s harder line against Tehran, which has cast itself as the guardian of Palestinian rights, critics accuse Saudi Arabia, the custodian of Islam’s holiest places, of abandoning the Palestinians.
Muslim scholars in the region, who would have in the past rallied popular opinion in support of the Palestinians, were largely silent hours after the plan was released, in a sign of a crackdown on dissent in several Arab countries.
Saudi Arabia has detained several prominent clerics in an apparent move to silence potential opponents of the kingdom’s absolute rulers. Egypt’s top Sunni Muslim authority, al-Azhar, has yet to issue a statement.
Amid fears that it would push them to accept a U.S. plan that favors Israel, Riyadh has assured Arab allies it would not endorse anything that fails to meet key Palestinian demands.
Ali Shihabi, who heads the Arabia Foundation which supports Saudi policies, said the Palestinian Authority was wrong to reject the plan out of hand.
“It should accept it and work on delivering the benefits to its people and then move forward aggressively with non-violent work… to seek political rights,” he tweeted.
Emirati businessman Khalaf Ahmad al-Habtoor also criticized the Palestinians’ refusal to go to Bahrain.
“There is no harm in listening to what will be placed on the table,” he wrote last month.
Yet even in the Gulf, backing for Kushner’s plan is limited.
“The deal of the century is a… one-sided concession, the Arab side, while the occupier wins everything: land, peace and Gulf money,” said Kuwaiti parliamentarian Osama al-Shaheen.
During the 1969 series of riots that followed a police raid of the Stonewall Inn, the New York Daily News headlined a story that quickly became infamous: “Homo Nest Raided, Queen Bees are Stinging Mad.”
Some of the coverage of rioting outside the gay bar — unimaginable today in mainstream publications for its mocking tone — was itself a source of the fury that led Stonewall to become a synonym for the fight for gay rights.
Fifty years later, media treatment of the LGBTQ community has changed and is still changing.
“The progress has been extraordinary, with the caveat that we still have a lot to do,” said Cathy Renna, a former executive for the media watchdog GLAAD who runs her own media consulting firm.
FILE – A New York Police officer grabs a youth by the hair as another officer clubs a young man during a confrontation in Greenwich Village after a Gay Power march in New York, Aug. 31, 1970.
Coverage nonexistent or negative
Before Stonewall, mainstream media coverage of gays was generally nonexistent or consisted of negative, police blotter items.
When a small group demonstrated against government treatment outside the White House in 1965, a newspaper headline said, “Protesters Call Government Unfair to Deviants,” noted Josh Howard, whose film “The Lavender Scare,” about an Eisenhower-era campaign against gays and lesbians in government, aired on PBS this week.
A 1966 Time magazine article called homosexuality “a pathetic little second-rate substitute for reality, a pitiable flight from life. As such it deserves fairness, compassion, understanding and, when possible, treatment. But it deserves no encouragement, no glamorization, no rationalization, no fake status as minority martyrdom, no sophistry about simple differences in taste and above all, no pretense that it is anything but a pernicious sickness.”
This is the sort of thing that Howard, who was 14 at the time of Stonewall, read about people like himself when he was young.
“It’s a hard way to grow up,” said the longtime CBS News producer. “I sort of realized that it was safe for me to be in the closet.”
Stonewall got some straightforward coverage at the time, although stories in The New York Times and the New York Post ran well inside the newspapers. An Associated Press story from June 30, 1969, said “police cleared the streets in the Sheridan Square area of Greenwich Village early Sunday as crowds of young men complained of police harassment of homosexuals.”
New York television stations ignored it, so the visual record amounts to a handful of still pictures.
A framed newspaper clipping hangs near the entrance of the Stonewall Inn in New York, June 14, 2019, headlining the 1969 riots. Some of the coverage of rioting was a source of fury that led Stonewall to become a synonym for the fight for gay rights.
Wake-up call for the media
The Daily News story was filled with slurs, and it began: “She sat there with her legs crossed, the lashes of her mascara-coated eyes beating like the wings of a hummingbird. She was angry. She was so upset she hadn’t bothered to shave.”
At the time, many demonstrators were more upset with riot coverage by the now-defunct alternative newsweekly The Village Voice, said Edward Alwood, author of “Straight News: Gays, Lesbians and the News Media.”
One Voice writer holed up with police inside Stonewall and said he wished he was armed.
“The sound filtering in doesn’t suggest dancing faggots anymore,” Howard Smith wrote. “It sounds like a powerful rage bent on vendetta.”
Another Voice writer, Lucian Truscott IV, repeatedly referred to “faggot” and “faggotry” and said of the rioters at one point, “limp wrists were forgotten.”
“That event has generally been seen through political lenses,” Alwood said. “It was also a wake-up call for the media.”
FILE – Guests attend the opening of the ‘Stonewall 50’ exhibit, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising and the dawn of the gay liberation movement, at the New Historical Society, in New York City, May 22, 2019.
Discomfort, stereotyping persisted
The immediate impact was growth and a heightened profile for news outlets specifically oriented to gays and lesbians, said Eric Marcus, author of the book “Making Gay History” and host of a podcast of the same name.
Marcus wrote in an essay this week about how Time magazine’s 1966 story “just about burned the skin off my face as I read it.”
Time didn’t cover Stonewall, but in October 1969 published a cover story about the emerging civil rights movement. While more straightforward in its reporting than the essay three years earlier, the story “was still dripping with sarcasm and contempt,” he said.
Time published Marcus’ piece as part of its Stonewall anniversary coverage, although it didn’t apologize for its past work.
While outright hate within the mainstream media subsided through the years, discomfort and stereotyping persisted. The go-to gay image for most publications was a silhouette of two men holding hands.
Coverage of gays in the military, for example, focused on “showers and submarines,” Renna said, or the unease of straight males in the presence of gays. Lesbians were barely mentioned, a sign of little awareness of diversity.
Through her work at GLAAD, Renna saw how Ellen DeGeneres’ revelation that she was a lesbian, both the ABC sitcom character she played at the time and the comedian in real life, was pivotal to promoting understanding.
The memorial outside The Stonewall Inn, considered by many the center of New York’s gay rights movement, after the massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., June 12, 2016.
Attention to language
Renna has urged journalists to pay attention to their language. Being gay is not a lifestyle, she notes; “Having a dog is a lifestyle.” She also urges the use of “sexual orientation” as opposed to “sexual preference,” a recognition that being gay isn’t a choice.
“The vast majority of journalists are not homophobic,” she said. “They’re homo-ignorant.”
Renna, who wears her hair short and favors tailored suits, is used to being mistaken for a man. Until about a decade ago, people she would correct generally shrugged. As a sign of changing attitudes, “now people fall over themselves to apologize once they realize I’m a girl,” she said.
A handbook of terminology for news organizations that is put out by LGBTQ journalists has helped increase awareness.
There are still missteps. The AP decreed in 2013 that its journalists would not use the word “husband” or “wife” in reference to a legally married gay or lesbian couple. After a protest, the AP reversed its call a week later.
Two 2017 entries in the AP Stylebook, considered the authoritative reference for journalists on the use of language, illustrate how far things have come since the “queen bees” days 50 years ago. The AP endorses the use of “they, them or theirs” as singular pronouns (replacing he or she) if the story subject requests it, although the AP urges care in writing to avoid confusion.
The stylebook also reminds readers that not all people fit under one of two categories for gender, “so avoid references to both, either or opposite sexes.”
Gender identification remains an object of confusion for many journalists. Activists also urge news organizations to be aware of people who are emboldened to lash out at the LGBTQ community by the divided politics of the past few years.
A newspaper apologizes
With the Stonewall anniversary, Marcus, of “Making Gay History,” has been busy working with news organizations doing stories about the event.
One publication he finds particularly interested and responsible in marking the occasion is the New York Daily News. The News on June 7 wrote an editorial recognizing its unseemly moment in history.
“We here at the Daily News played an unhelpful role in helping create a climate that treated the victims as the punchline of jokes, not as dignified individuals with legitimate complaints about mistreatment,” the newspaper wrote. “For that, we apologize.”
It was the newspaper’s second apology for its 1969 story in four years.
Museums across the United States are striving to be more accessible to everyone. That includes touchable versions of photographs and paintings for people who may not be able to see them. At a recent expo by the American Alliance of Museums in New Orleans, new technology was used to help the visually impaired “see” art and pictures. VOA’s Deborah Block tells us more.
In a surprise move, President Donald Trump said he would push back by a couple of weeks the raids planned for Sunday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“At the request of Democrats, I have delayed the Illegal Immigration Removal Process (Deportation) for two weeks to see if the Democrats and Republicans can get together and work out a solution to the Asylum and Loophole problems at the Southern Border,” Trump wrote in a tweet Saturday afternoon from the presidential retreat in Camp David in Maryland.
At the request of Democrats, I have delayed the Illegal Immigration Removal Process (Deportation) for two weeks to see if the Democrats and Republicans can get together and work out a solution to the Asylum and Loophole problems at the Southern Border. If not, Deportations start!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 22, 2019
The reports that ICE planned to conduct large-scale enforcement actions sparked an outcry from Democratic leaders in many major cities, who condemned the plan and initiated efforts to help affected residents.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had spoken with Trump Friday night, urging the delay, the Associated Press reported, citing a person familiar with the situation and not authorized to discuss it.
Pelosi asked him to call off the raids during the call. She also released a statement Saturday, before Trump’s tweet announcing the delay, and asked the president to show the same compassion he had on Friday, when he called off a strike on Iran.
“The president spoke about the importance of avoiding the collateral damage of 150 lives in Iran. I would hope he would apply that same value to avoiding the collateral damage to tens of thousands of children who are frightened by his actions,” she said in the statement, in which she called the raids “heartless.”
Pelosi responded later Saturday to Trump’s announcement to delay the raids, tweeting, “Mr. President, delay is welcome. Time is needed for comprehensive immigration reform. Families belong together.”
Mr. President, delay is welcome. Time is needed for comprehensive immigration reform. Families belong together. https://t.co/R9PDrfaKWj
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) June 22, 2019
Just hours before his tweet that announced the postponement of the raids, as he departed the White House Saturday for Camp David, Trump said migrants who were to be targeted in a nationwide roundup should return to their native countries.
ICE Acting Director Mark Morgan told reporters days earlier the agency would round up and deport families who have received a removal order from a U.S. immigration court.
The operation, first reported by The Washington Post, had been expected to begin on Sunday, targeting up to 2,000 families in large cities that are major immigration destinations, including Houston, Chicago, Miami and Los Angeles.
Trump tweeted Saturday morning that ICE agents will pursue those who “have run from the law and run from the courts.”
He added, “These are people that are supposed to go back to their home country. They broke the law by coming into the country, & now by staying.”
The Miami Herald reports the other cities to be targeted are Atlanta, Baltimore, Denver, New Orleans, New York and San Francisco.
Announced earlier this week
On Monday, Trump had tweeted the U.S. would start deporting “millions of illegal aliens” from the country next week, but the announcement appeared to catch the country’s immigration officials by surprise.
Administration officials said the deportation plans have been under consideration for months, but immigration officials said earlier this week that raids on migrant families were not imminent.
The Post said discussions about the scope of the operation continued Friday at the White House, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ICE.
Acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan has warned that an operation to arrest migrants in their homes and at work sites risks separating children from their parents.
Acting ICE Director Morgan told reporters this week the operation is necessary for the integrity of the immigration system.
He said families cannot be exempted from immigration law and said the law “must be applied fairly and equally.” He urged families with deportation orders to turn themselves in to immigration officials.
The Post said ICE is planning to “use hotel rooms as temporary staging areas to detain parents and children until all the members of a family are together and ready for deportation.”
Some officials refuse to help
The mayors of Los Angeles and Chicago said city police would not participate in the raids.
In a statement Friday, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said she had directed the Chicago Police Department to prevent ICE access to its databases related to federal immigration enforcement.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said in a statement that L.A. law enforcement officers “will never participate” in such raids.
Trump administration officials said the 1 million migrants who had been issued final deportation orders but were still living in the U.S. would be targeted first in the operation. However, the most the U.S. has ever deported in a single year was in 2013, when about 435,000 were sent home.
It is unusual for public officials to disclose law enforcement raids in advance, for fear of alerting the targets of the raids, and possibly endangering police and other law enforcement personnel.
Immigration activists say the president is using the operation for political purposes and warn it is causing fear in the immigrant community, leading migrants to miss work and school.
Sarah Pierce, an immigration policy analyst at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, said in an interview with USA Today the threat to deport “millions” of undocumented immigrants was “wildly unrealistic” and logistically not possible.
A small plane used for skydiving crashed and burst into flames near the perimeter of a small seaside airport on the island of Oahu, killing all nine people aboard, officials said Saturday.
Preliminary information gathered by the Federal Aviation Administration indicated that the crash of the twin-engine Beechcraft King Air plane Friday evening happened as the plane took off from Dillingham Airfield on the north shore of the island, FAA spokesman Greg Martin said in a statement.
Some witnesses reported that the plane crashed as it was inbound to the airport, said Honolulu Fire Chief Manuel Neves, cautioning that those reports had not been confirmed.
He described the site of the crash as being “quite a ways away from the runway” and said that some family members of those aboard were at the airport when the plane went down about 6:30 p.m.
“In my 40 years as a firefighter here in Hawaii, this is the most tragic aircraft incident that we’ve had,” Neves said.
The plane was engulfed in flames when firefighters made it to the crash site about an hour’s drive from Honolulu, Neves said. Officials initially said six people were aboard, but raised the number later to nine. The victims were not identified.
Two FAA inspectors went to the crash site Friday and investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board who will investigate the crash were expected to arrive Saturday evening, said safety board spokesman Eric Weiss.
The plane with two turboprop engines was manufactured in 1967, FAA records said.
U.S. women will soon have another drug option designed to boost low sex drive: a shot they can give themselves in the thigh or abdomen that raises sexual interest for several hours.
The medication OK’d Friday by the Food and Drug Administration is only the second approved to increase sexual desire in a women, a market drugmakers have been trying to cultivate since the blockbuster success of Viagra for men in the late 1990s. The other drug is a daily pill.
The upside of the new drug “is that you only use it when you need it,” said Dr. Julia Johnson, a reproductive specialist at UMass Memorial Medical Center who was not involved in its development. “The downside is that it’s a shot — and some people are very squeamish.”
The drug’s developer, Amag Pharmaceuticals, could also face some of the same hurdles that have plagued the lone pill previously approved for the condition, including unpleasant side effects and limited insurance coverage. The company declined to release price information.
The FDA approved the new drug, Vyleesi (pronounced vie-LEE’-see), for premenopausal women with a disorder defined by a persistent lack of interest in sex, causing stress. The most common side effect in company studies was nausea. The approval was based on women’s responses to questionnaires that showed increases in sexual desire and decreases in stress related to sex. The women didn’t report having more sex, the original goal for the drug.
“Women are not desiring more sex. They want better sex,” said Dr. Julie Krop, Amag’s chief medical officer.
Flushing, injection site reactions and headache are other common side effects.
Women with high blood pressure or heart disease should not take the drug because increases in blood pressure were observed after injections, the FDA said. It also could interfere with oral naltrexone, a drug for people with alcohol and opioid dependence, the FDA said.
Because so many factors affect sexual desire, doctors must rule out other causes before diagnosing the condition, including relationship issues, medical problems and mood disorders. The condition, known as hypoactive sexual desire disorder, is not universally accepted, and some psychologists argue that low sex drive should not be considered a medical problem.
Still, the pharmaceutical industry has long pointed to surveys — some funded by drugmakers — suggesting that it is the most common female sexual disorder in the nation, affecting roughly 1 in 10 women. Amag estimates nearly 6 million U.S. women meet the criteria for the drug.
Cynthia Pearson, executive director of the National Women’s Health Network, urged women to avoid using the drug “until more is known about its safety and effectiveness.” She noted in a statement that Amag had not yet published full clinical trial results.
The search for a pill to treat women’s sexual difficulties was once a top priority for many of the world’s biggest drugmakers, including Pfizer, Bayer and Procter & Gamble. Those companies and others studied and later abandoned drugs acting on blood flow, testosterone and other targets.
Vyleesi acts on receptors for a brain-stimulating hormone called melanocortin, which is associated with sexual arousal and appetite in both men and women.
Waltham, Massachusetts-based Amag plans to pitch the drug to consumers through social media, including a website called unblush.com that tells women that low sex drive “is nothing to blush about.”
Amag’s campaign has some of the hallmarks that helped launch the first female libido drug, Addyi, a once-a-day pill approved in 2015. The FDA decision followed a contentious four-year review that included a lobbying effort funded by Addyi’s maker, Sprout Pharmaceuticals, which framed the lack of female sex drugs as a women’s rights issue.
Women taking Addyi showed a slight uptick in “sexually satisfying events” per month and improved scores on psychiatric questionnaires. Those results were only slightly better than what women taking a placebo reported, but they were significant enough to meet FDA effectiveness standards.
The pink pill — originally developed as an antidepressant — was ultimately approved with a bold warning that it should not be combined with alcohol, due to risks of fainting and dangerously low blood pressure.
Most insurers refused to cover the drug, citing lackluster effectiveness, and many women balked at the $800-per-month price. Last year, Sprout slashed the price to $400. It was prescribed just 6,000 times last year, according to investment analyst data.
UMass’s Johnson said drugs should not be the first choice for treating women’s sexual problems. Instead, she recommends counseling to help women “separate all the stresses of life” from their sex life.
“But if that doesn’t work, having a medication that may help is worth trying,” she said.
A top U.S. Defense Department official told ambassadors and other leaders from Southeastern Asian countries that the Indo-Pacific region is “our priority theater” even as China makes inroads in an area it considers its backyard.
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Randall Schriver, spoke at the US-ASEAN Business Council Wednesday.
He emphasized the need for nations in the region to consider the options offered by the United State and China, which are jockeying for geopolitical and economic influence in the area, before devising their individual Indo-Pacific strategies.
“You don’t choose between countries or capitals but can you choose respect for sovereignty and independence of all nations large and small,” Schriver said. “Can you choose peaceful resolution of disputes? Can you choose free, fair, reciprocal trade and investment, which includes protections for intellectual property? Can you choose to support adherence to international rules and norms including freedom of navigation and overflight?”
Schriver said these were not “U.S. positions or principles or values but more universal.” He made his remarks as skepticism is growing over China’s Belt and Road Initiative, an infrastructure investment program that comes with “debt risks, governance risks (corruption and procurement), stranded infrastructure, environmental risks and social risks,” according to the World Bank.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is a 10-member regional bloc with a combined GDP of $2.4 trillion, a population of 630 million, and a landmass covering more than 4.4 million square kilometers (1.7 million square miles), according to the council’s website. Founded in 1967 by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand, ASEAN has since expanded to include Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), and Vietnam.
“There are practical ways that we look forward to working with the member states of ASEAN to uphold the international ideals,” Schriver said. “We look for partners to invest sufficiently in their own defense to strengthen deterrence, to take actions that uphold the rules-based international order which keeps the playing field level.”
“We look for countries to … think carefully about defense sales as you’re not only buying equipment and capability, you’re investing in long-term relationships,” he added.
In May, the U.S. Navy angered China by sailing one of its warships near the disputed Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea. China claims almost all of the strategic waters, where there are competing claims by Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.
This report originated with VOA’s Mandarin Service.
Nine passengers and crew were killed Friday evening when their plane crashed near an airfield in Hawaii, authorities said, during what broadcaster CNN said was a skydiving trip.
The twin-engine King Air plane went down near the Dillingham Airfield, the Hawaii Department of Transportation (HDOT) said.
The fire service said the aircraft was engulfed in flames when fire crews arrived and there appeared to be no survivors.
“We are still gathering information as to the intent of the flight and what they were doing,” Honolulu Fire Department Chief Manuel Neves told a news conference.
CNN said the plane was on a skydiving excursion and that Federal Aviation Administration would investigate the crash.
Dillingham is a joint-use airfield operated by the HDOT under a 25-year lease from the U.S. army, according to its website.
