THE HAGUE, NETHERANDS — Kosovo’s former prime minister refused to answer questions put to him Wednesday by prosecutors at a court investigating alleged war crimes by separatist fighters from the Kosovo Liberation Army two decades ago.
Ramush Haradinaj said he had fulfilled his obligation to the court by attending the meeting and that he did not expect to be indicted.
I came today as a suspect, in order to commit my legal obligation based on an invitation from the Specialist Prosecutor's Office of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers,'' he said.I followed my legal counsel’s advice not to respond to the questions.”
He said prosecutors asked him in general terms about his role in the KLA and other issues, but nothing concrete.'' I have not wanted to bring the head of the government, the state here,” he said of his decision to step down. “Today it is Ramush Haradinaj here.”
The court, which is part of the Kosovo judicial system, is declining to comment on the questioning of Haradinaj because it is part of an ongoing investigation.
It was a brief return to The Hague for Haradinaj, who was twice acquitted of charges linked to Kosovo's fight for independence by a U.N. war crimes tribunal in the Dutch city.
Haradinaj resigned as prime minister a week ago ahead of his questioning at the court, which is looking into crimes against ethnic Serbs allegedly committed during and after Kosovo's 1998-99 war.
At the time of the war, Kosovo was a Serbian province and Haradinaj was a top commander of the separatist forces. Most KLA members were ethnic Albanians. A bloody Serb crackdown against Kosovo Albanian separatists and civilians led NATO to intervene by bombing Serbia in spring 1999.
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Month: July 2019
Namibia Plans to Add 220 MW to Electricity Grid by 2023
Namibia’s power utility NamPower plans to add 220 MW in new electricity capacity by 2023, as the uranium-producing southwest African nation seeks to wean itself off imports, its managing director said on Wednesday.Namibia, which has installed capacity of 606 MW, is a net importer of electricity mainly from neighboring countries like Zambia and South Africa.NamPower’s managing director Simson Haulofu said the utility would construct wind, solar and biomass generators in the central and coastal regions to deliver 150 MW.Another 70 MW would be procured from independent power producers, Haulofu said while launching NamPower’s business plan for the period 2019 to 2023 in the capital, Windhoek.Namibia is home to the Kudu Gas Fields, which have proven and probable recoverable reserves estimated at more than 3.3 trillion cubic feet.Demand for power in the diamond and uranium producing nation is expected to rise to 755 MW in the next five years, according to the government.
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Suicide Attack Kills 6 People, Injures Mogadishu Mayor
Seynab Abukar contributed this report from Mogadishu.A suspected al-Shabab suicide bomber killed at least six people Wednesday and injured six others, including the mayor of the Somali capital Mogadishu, witnesses and security officials said.The attack took place at local government headquarters in Mogadishu, where Mayor, Abdirahman Omar Osman — who is also the governor of Banadir — was meeting with his deputies and the city’s district chairpersons about security challenges, Deputy Mayor Mohamed Tulah told state-run Radio Mogadishu.FILE – Mogadishu Mayor Abdirahman Omar Osman attends an event in Mogadishu, Somalia, May 3, 2017.Al-Shabab is claiming responsibility for the attack, and the terrorist group says it was targeting the U.N. Special Envoy to Somalia James Swan, an American national who had met with the mayor prior to the attack.Swan strongly condemned the attack, saying, “I deplore this heinous attack which not only demonstrates a violent disregard for the sanctity of human life, but also targets Somalis working to improve the lives of their fellow Somalis in the Mogadishu-Banadir region. The United Nations stands with the people and government of Somalia in their rejection of such terrorist acts, and our thoughts are with the victims of this attack.”Tulah said, “We ask people in the city to show calm, and we reaffirm that such terrorist attacks would not deter us from performing our national duty.”Medical workers help a civilian on a stretcher who was wounded in a suicide bombing at Madina hospital, Mogadishu, July 24, 2019.At a press conference shortly after the bombing, Somali information minister Mohamed Abdi Hayir Mareere said two district commissioners and three regional directors were among the dead.He said the governor and five others, including government officials, sustained injuries.”We heard a huge blast, and then a black plume of smoke rose from the meeting hall of the headcounters’ compound,” a security guard at the compound told VOA.Another witness who was inside the compound told VOA on the condition of anonymity that he saw the mayor with blood stains on his shirt being taken into a vehicle.
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Families Search for Recompense a Year After Deadly Laos Dam Collapse
One year after a catastrophic dam collapse in southern Laos killed dozens of people and displaced thousands, rights groups are demanding that multinational companies behind the $1 billion project do more for the hundreds of families still living in cramped shelters on meager rations.On the night of July 23, 2018, an auxiliary — or saddle — dam of the Xe Pian-Xe Namnoy hydropower project collapsed, sending a wall of water crashing through more than a dozen villages. More than 7,000 people in Laos and thousands more in neighboring Cambodia were forced from their homes.Homes and farms were wiped out. In the aftermath, one survivor told VOA that the water hit his village “like a tsunami.”The Lao government put the final death toll at 49, with another 22 missing, although rights groups say the official tally may be a “gross underestimation.”FILE – Villagers take refuge on a rooftop above floodwaters from a collapsed dam in the Attapeu district of southeastern Laos, July 24, 2018.Some 5,000 displaced villagers are still living in temporary camps in Laos in sweltering, tightly packed tin shacks, surviving on irregular allowances and thin rations from the government. Some have been given plows and seeds, but no new land on which to use them, while much of the old farmland remains buried under silt and debris.The joint venture behind the dam, the Xe Pian-Xe Namnoy Power Company, or PNPC, has reportedly started offering victims compensation, according to Maureen Harris, Southeast Asia program director for International Rivers, a non-profit organization. She spoke Tuesday in Bangkok at the release of a new report, “Reckless Endangerment: Assessing Responsibility for the Xe Pian-Xe Namnoy Dam Collapse.””But the communities report for the most part that these offers of compensation are too low; they don’t properly account for the real value of what’s been lost in terms of the property, but also the lost livelihoods as a result of losing that property,” Harris said.While some victims are refusing the offers, others have relented. The government says it will be four or five years before a permanent resettlement site is ready.AccountabilityRights groups say the many companies building and backing the dam, which is slated for completion later this year, are bound by international law to do more for the victims, and that their governments should compel them to follow through.To date, none of the companies has been held accountable for the collapse, despite mounting evidence that the lead developer and builder, South Korea’s SK Engineering & Construction, compromised safety for profit.An independent investigation commissioned by the Lao government ruled out force majeure — an unforeseen “act of God.” Authorities have yet to release the investigation report but said the expert panel decided that a poor foundation was “the major cause” of the collapse.FILE – An aerial view shows the flooded area after a dam collapsed in Attapeu province, Laos, July 25, 2018, in this image from social media.A Stanford University scientist, who parsed data from the dam, concluded that the reservoir the saddle dam was holding back had been built over a sinkhole, causing the dam to sink and crack and finally fail when the rising waters mounted the top. A company document leaked by a Korean lawmaker also showed that all five saddle dams were several meters lower than intended by the original design plan and made of different material, saving millions of dollars.”So there is growing evidence basically from different quarters that suggests that the lead developer … may have caused the collapse by their actions and inactions,” Harris said.Of the other PNPC partners, the rights groups also place much of the burden on Thailand’s Ratchaburi Electricity Generating Holding, the project’s construction supervisor responsible for overseeing SK Engineering’s work.SK Engineering has rejected the independent investigation’s findings and denied responsibility. The company has said it followed industry standards, but failed to offer an alternate explanation for the collapse.SK Engineering did not reply to a request for comment from VOA.A public relations officer for Ratchaburi declined to answer any questions and referred all inquiries to PNPC. A project manager for PNPC also declined to comment.Lao government officials could not be reached.Insurance policyCiting an industry source, rights groups say the project took out a massive insurance policy that includes roughly $50 million in liability coverage that the affected families could tap into, some of it from U.S. insurance company AIG.”There is a pot of insurance money here for exactly this kind of situation, and the affected people should have the capacity to claim against this insurance to remediate them for the losses,” said Craig Bradshaw, Southeast Asia legal coordinator for Inclusive Development International, which co-authored the report.FILE – Kongvilay Inthavong and his wife, Thongla, clean up their house as the floodwaters start to recede in Sanamxay district, Attapeu province, Laos, July 26, 2018.Harris and Bradshaw said their groups were in talks with lawyers on the potential for filing legal claims, most likely in South Korea, but possibly in Thailand as well.Rights groups are urging the companies to halt construction until those affected are made whole again. Without a full and public accounting of exactly what went wrong, they say, locals are also left to wonder if the other four saddle dams holding back the reservoir face the same risks as the one that collapsed.Premrudee Daorung, a coordinator with the Laos Dam Investment Monitor, a grass-roots group set up in the wake of the collapse, said the group hoped the fallout would also convince the government to reconsider its ambitious — critics would say overly so — hydropower plans. “One of our first proposals, or the hope, was that Laos might be able to make use of the Xe Pian-Xe Namnoy case in order to turn the direction of the plan to become ‘the battery of Asia,’ to review that plan,” she said.But with 27 more dams in the works and hundreds more still on the drawing board, she worried, those hopes appear dashed.
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S. Korea Trade Complaints ‘Not Acceptable,’ Japan Tells WTO
Japan on Wednesday rejected South Korea’s complaints concerning new export restrictions, telling the World Trade Organization that its policies targeting Seoul were necessary for “national security purposes.”At a closed-door meeting of WTO’s General Council, South Korea had earlier spoken out against Japan’s decision to restrict exports of chemicals vital to Seoul’s world-leading chip and smartphone industry.”The measure referred to by Korea is based on the export control system for national security, and is not an appropriate agenda for the WTO,” Tokyo’s delegation replied, according to copy of the remarks sent to AFP by Japan’s U.N. mission.Seoul has argued that the Japanese measures were a politically motivated response to a South Korean High Court decision ordering Japanese firms that used forced labour during World War II to compensate victims.Japan told the General Council, the WTO’s top negotiating forum, that it had no choice but to act.”Korea stated that the measure taken by Japan went against the free-trade system. Free trade, however, does not mean allowing trade in sensitive goods and technologies that can be diverted to military use, without any controls or conditions,” Japan said.Discussing the measures in terms of their economic impact “is not acceptable,” given the security implications, the statement added.Tokyo has previously said that its trade restrictions were made necessary by a “loss of trust” in relations with Seoul, while also accusing South Korea of improperly handling exports of sensitive materials from Japan.Japan has also announced plans to remove South Korea from a so-called white list of countries that face minimum trade restrictions, which would further impact bilateral trade.South Korea has said it is weighing legal action at the WTO, although no case has been filed.
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US Treasury Secretary to Hold Trade Talks in China Next Week
U.S. Treasury Steven Mnuchin says he will visit China next week for two days of talks to end the the year-long trade war between the world’s two largest economies.Mnuchin said on CNBC Wednesday that he and Chinese officials will discuss “a lot of issues,” and he acknowledged later at the White House he doesn’t expect that all of them will be resolved.The White House said in a statement the talks are “aimed at improving the trade relationship” between the two countries and will cover “a range of issues,” including the trade deficit and “forced technology transfer.”The upcoming talks will be the first face-to-face meetings since they collapsed in May after President Donald Trump accused China of backpedaling on its commitments.Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed in Japan last month to cease further hostile actions while the two superpowers work to revive negotiations.The two countries have imposed tariffs on $360 billion in two-way trade, and despite the cessation of hostilities, Trump has threatened additional punishing tariffs on Chinese goods.Mnuchin said he will be accompanied by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer when the talks get underway next Tuesday in Shanghai.Mnuchin said follow-up talks, probably in Washington, likely will be needed before any agreements are reached.Senior U.S. and Chinese officials have spoken by phone twice in recent weeks in an effort to jumpstart the Shanghai talks.
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Russia Raises Pressure on Georgia as Anger Mounts
It has been more than a month since people in the Republic of Georgia started taking to the streets to protest what many say is their government’s compliance with Russia, whose troops occupied 20 percent of Georgian territory 11 years ago. Public anger exploded after conservatives in the Georgian government invited the Communist Deputy of the Russian Duma, Andrei Gavrilov, to speak before the Georgian parliament. Police staged a violent crackdown of the initial demonstrations, and Moscow has imposed sanctions on Georgia, saying the protests are meant to provoke Russia. Ricardo Marquina has this report from Tblisi, narrated by VOA’s Steve Redisch.
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Boeing Posts Biggest Loss in a Decade After 737 MAX Grounding
Boeing Co reported a nearly $3 billion quarterly loss on Wednesday, its largest in a decade, as the world’s largest planemaker struggles with the prolonged grounding of its best-selling 737 MAX jet, sending its shares down slightly in premarket trading.Chicago-based Boeing has been unable to deliver any 737 MAX aircraft since the single-aisle plane was grounded worldwide in March after two fatal crashes in Ethiopia and Indonesia killed 346 people in a span of five months.The total cost so far of the 737 MAX crisis now exceeds $8 billion after Boeing disclosed a $4.9 billion charge last week that includes compensation the planemaker will have to pay airlines for the delayed deliveries.The second-quarter loss was Boeing’s biggest quarterly loss in 10 years.
FILE – Investigators conducting recovery work at the scene where the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 Max 8 crashed shortly after takeoff on Sunday killing all 157 on board, near Bishoftu, south-east of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, March 15, 2019.Boeing has embarked on a campaign to restore faith in its most popular jet and has pledged to remove any risk by reprogramming the software pinpointed as a common factor in both crashes as it faces pressure to convince MAX operators and
global regulators that the aircraft is safe to fly again.”This is a defining moment for Boeing and we remain focused on our enduring values of safety, quality, and integrity in all that we do, as we work to safely return the 737 MAX to service,” Boeing Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg said on Wednesday.Investors on a conference call later on Wednesday morning will be eager for information on how Boeing plans to increase production, repair its image with the flying public and stem its loses, as well as more details on General Electric Co. engine delays on the 777X widebody program.Boeing said its first flight of the 777X is now delayed until early 2020 due to the engine problems announced last month, while its current plan for a first delivery to customers in late 2020 faced significant risk.Initially, the 777-9 was scheduled for a first flight in the fourth quarter of 2018 with delivery to the first customer in the second quarter of 2020, according to a Boeing certification plan seen by Reuters.FILE – Grounded Boeing 737 MAX aircraft are seen parked at Boeing Field in Seattle, Washington.The grounding of the 737 MAX has sent shockwaves through the industry and also pushed back the launch of a new Boeing aircraft, a twin-aisle jet for the middle of the market. That jetliner, known as NMA, is not just a crucial piece in Boeing’s fight with archrival Airbus in the lucrative longer-haul market but also for the eventual development of a 737 replacement, industry sources have said.Boeing said free cash flow fell to a negative $1.01 billion in the quarter, the first full quarter of operations since the MAX was banned commercially, though that was narrower than the negative $2.09 billion analysts had expected, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.”Although the headline numbers for 2Q look pretty grim, they are not as bad as we had been forecasting,” Vertical Research Partners analyst Robert Stallard said in a note. “So while the 777X news is a negative, Boeing’s shares may go OK today – after all, it could have been worse.”Boeing reduced the number of single-aisle aircraft it produces monthly in the Seattle area from 52 to 42 after the second crash in Ethiopia while suspending deliveries of the aircraft to airlines, cutting off a key source of cash and hitting margins.
The lower rate means Boeing has to pay more for parts, which are priced according to the volume Boeing buys. Boeing said it was working toward building 57 of the 737s a month in 2020, and that airplanes produced during the grounding and included within inventory will be delivered over several quarters following return to service.The company said it would issue a new 2019 outlook at a future date, as the current forecast, which was suspended in April following the two deadly crashes, does not reflect the recent charges.Boeing’s net loss for the first full quarter of operations since 737 MAX commercial flights were halted was $2.94 billion, compared with a profit of $2.20 billion, a year earlier.
Sales slipped 35% to $15.75 billion and also came in below the average expectation of $18.55 billion, according to Refinitiv data.Global airlines have had to cancel thousands of flights and use spare aircraft to cover routes that were previously flown with the fuel-efficient MAX, eating into their profitability.
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Russia Says it Will Scrutinize Mueller’s Congressional Testimony
Russian government officials are watching former U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony before Congress Wednesday while continuing to deny Moscow interfered in the 2016 presidential election.Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Wednesday “We will follow” Mueller’s testimony and reiterated “There are no grounds for asserting that Russia tried or is going to meddle [in U.S. elections], as the FBI head said recently,” according to Russia’s TASS News Agency.Former special counsel Robert Mueller testifies before the House Judiciary Committee hearing on his report on Russian election interference, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, July 24, 2019.Mueller submitted a confidential 448-page report to the Justice Department in March on his two year investigation of President Trump and Russian interference in the 2016 election. A redacted version of the report was publicly released in April.The report said the probe did not uncover sufficient evidence to warrant charges of a criminal conspiracy between Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia. But the report also said investigators did not exonerate Trump of trying to obstruct the probe.Mueller is testifying before the House Judiciary Committee and the House intelligence committee.
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Uganda’s Bobi Wine Formally Declares Presidential Bid
Ugandan pop star and opposition figure Bobi Wine formally launched his presidential bid for the 2021 election on Wednesday, calling the country’s longtime leader a dictator and urging him to hold credible polls.“On behalf of the people of Uganda I am challenging you to free and fair elections,” Wine said to cheers of supporters, referring to President Yoweri Museveni, who has held power in the East African nation since 1986.The singer, whose real name is Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, first revealed his plans to run during an interview with The Associated Press last week in which he said he was concerned for his safety. He has accused Ugandan security forces of torturing him in the past. Authorities deny it and in turn have charged him with treason and other offenses, which he rejects.The 37-year-old lawmaker leads a popular movement known as “People Power” and has emerged as a political threat to one of Africa’s longest-serving leaders, appealing to many among the country’s booming young population who are frustrated with unemployment and the slow pace of change.“President Museveni and his praise singers dismissed us as inconsequential. The people of Uganda … continue to prove them wrong,” Wine said.Police have repeatedly foiled the singer’s efforts to hold rallies or stage concerts, saying their goal is to protect public order and accusing him of participating in what they call unlawful assemblies. The president accuses Wine and other opposition figures of trying to lure young people into deadly rioting.The treason charge against Wine relates to his alleged role in an incident last August in which the presidential convoy was attacked with stones during a campaign event. The singer faces additional charges of annoying the president and disobeying statutory authority. He calls the allegations false.Wine would be disqualified as a presidential candidate if he were to be convicted of a crime.Museveni, who is 74 and remains popular among some Ugandans, is widely expected to run again in 2021 after the national assembly passed legislation removing a clause in the constitution that prevented anyone over 75 from holding the presidency.Museveni’s party, which dominates the national assembly, has endorsed him as its sole candidate for the next election.
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FBI Director: China Poses Biggest Counterintelligence Threat to US
FBI Director Christopher Wray says China right now poses a more serious counter-intelligence threat to the United States than any other country, including Russia. In his testimony Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Wray described the threat as “more challenging, more comprehensive and more concerning than any counter-intelligence threat” he can think of. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
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Landslides in Southwest China Kill 14; 42 Missing
At least 14 people have died in two landslides in southwestern China and rescuers are looking for 42 others who are missing, Chinese state media reported Wednesday.A landslide on Tuesday night buried 21 houses and caused at least 13 deaths in Guizhou province’s Shuicheng county, said state broadcaster CCTV.Eleven people were rescued and sent to the hospital while another 42 remained missing. Heavy rainfall is believed to be the main cause, CCTV said.More than 800 rescuers have been scouring the area, where continuous rainfall and the mountain’s steep slopes have hampered search efforts.One person died and six others are unaccounted for after an earlier landslide hit a village in Hezhang county in Guizhou on Tuesday afternoon. The landslide happened at a highway construction site, the Xinhua state news agency reported.
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Russia and China Deny Violating South Korean Airspace
Both Russia and China are denying their military aircraft violated South Korea’s territorial airspace during a joint air patrol Tuesday.The alleged violation happened near a disputed group of islands claimed by both South Korea, which calls it Dokdo, and Japan, which calls it Takeshima. South Korea’s Defense Ministry says it scrambled multiple fighter jets after a Russian warplane ventured into its airspace over the East Sea. The ministry says after the South Korean jets fired warning shots, the Russian plane left South Korean territory. However, it returned a short time later, prompting the South Korean jets to fire more warning shots.Russia’s Defense Ministry denied Seoul’s depiction of the incident, and accused the South Korean fighter jets of “unprofessional maneuvers.” A spokesman for China’s Defense Ministry told reporters in Beijing that the patrol did not “target any third party” and flew along established air routes. South Korea’s Defense Ministry summoned officials from the Chinese and Russian embassies to lodge an official protest. Seoul says this is the first time that a Russian plane has violated its territorial skies. The flight by two Russian and two Chinese bombers, plus early warning planes from both nations, marks a notable ramping-up of military cooperation between Beijing and Moscow. Japan also lodged its own formal protest with Seoul and Moscow over the incident. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters in Tokyo that South Korea’s actions were “totally unacceptable and extremely regrettable” in light of Japan’s claim over the islands.
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Big Tech Faces Broad US Justice Department Antitrust Probe
The U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday it was opening a broad investigation of major digital technology firms into whether they engage in anticompetitive practices, the strongest sign the Trump administration is stepping up its scrutiny of Big Tech.The review will look into “whether and how market-leading online platforms have achieved market power and are engaging in practices that have reduced competition, stifled innovation, or otherwise harmed consumers,” the Justice Department said in a statement.The Justice Department did not identify specific companies but said the review would consider concerns raised about “search, social media, and some retail services online” — an apparent reference to Alphabet, Amazon.com and Facebook, and potentially Apple.A Justice Department spokesman declined to provide a list of companies that would be scrutinized.Google and Apple declined to comment, referring to prior statements by executives, while Facebook and Amazon did not immediately comment.Facebook fell 1.7% in after-hours trading, while Alphabet fell 1%, Amazon was down 1.2% and Apple was 0.4% lower.The announcement comes a day before the Federal Trade Commission is set to announce a $5 billion penalty to Facebook for failing to properly protect user privacy.Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, said the Justice Department “must now be bold and fearless in stopping Big Tech’s misuse of its monopolistic power. Too long absent and apathetic, enforcers now must prevent privacy abuse, anticompetitive tactics, innovation roadblocks, and other hallmarks of excessive market power.”In June, Reuters reported the Trump administration was gearing up to investigate whether Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Alphabet’s Google misuse their massive market power, setting up what could be an unprecedented, wide-ranging probe of some of the world’s largest companies.A person briefed on the matter said the Justice review may also include some state attorneys general.The Justice Department said the review “is to assess the competitive conditions in the online marketplace in an objective and fair-minded manner and to ensure Americans have access to free markets in which companies compete on the merits to provide services that users want.”Reuters reported on May 31 that the Justice Department was preparing an investigation of Google to determine whether the tech giant broke antitrust law.Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill alike are expressing growing concerns about the size of the largest tech firms and their market power. Democratic Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has called for breaking up companies like Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook and unwinding prior acquisitions.Last week, the House Judiciary Committee’s antitrust panel pressed executives from the four firms about their competitive practices and noted that Google, Facebook, Amazon had a rising share of key markets.Congress held a series of hearings last year looking at the dominance of major tech companies and their role in displacing or swallowing up existing businesses.It is rare for the government to seek to undo a consummated deal. The most famous case in recent memory is the government’s effort to break up Microsoft Corp. The Justice Department won a preliminary victory in 2000 but was reversed on appeal. The case settled with Microsoft intact.”There is growing consensus among venture capitalists and startups that there is a kill zone around Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple that prevents new startups from entering the market with innovative products and services to challenge these incumbents,” said Representative David Cicilline, a Democrat who heads the subcommittee.Apple CEO Tim Cook told CBS News last month that scrutiny was fair but “if you look at any kind of measure about is Apple a monopoly or not, I don’t think anybody reasonable is going to come to the conclusion that Apple’s a monopoly. Our share is much more modest. We don’t have a dominant position in any market.”Google’s Adam Cohen told the House Judiciary subcommittee last week that the company had “created new competition in many sectors, and new competitive pressures often lead to concerns from rivals.”Technology companies face a backlash in the United States and across the world, fueled by concerns among competitors, lawmakers and consumer groups that they have too much power and are harming users and business rivals.U.S. President Donald Trump has called for closer scrutiny of social media companies and Google, accusing them of suppressing conservative voices online, without presenting any evidence.Senator Marsha Blackburn, a Republican, praised the investigation and said a Senate tech task force she chairs would be looking at how to “foster free markets and competition.”
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Congresswoman Omar Rebukes Attacks on Her Loyalty to America
U.S. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who has been the target of some of President Donald Trump’s fiercest attacks, has called on supporters to confront racism and false accusations while at the same time remain focused on defeating Trump in the 2020 presidential election. Omar spoke to Muslim American democratic activists Tuesday as the president continued his attacks against Omar and three other Democratic congresswomen of color for what Trump has called their unpatriotic criticism of the U.S. More from VOA’s Brian Padden.
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Navalny Says He Was Detained By Russian Police As He Was Jogging
Russian opposition figure Aleksei Navalny says he was detained by police in Moscow shortly after he left his apartment for a run.In a short video filmed at a Moscow police station and posted on the social-media site Instagram on July 24, Navalny said he spotted a special police task-force van nearby as he began to exercise and was quickly apprehended.He did not say if he was informed as to why police had detained him as he went for a jog and to buy flowers for his wife.”They are right when say that sports is sometimes not good for you. I just left home today for jogging a bit and to buy flowers for my wife as it is her birthday today,” Navalny said.“Now, like a fool, I am standing here in the police station in my jogging shorts. Yulia, sorry, it turned out this way,” he added.The Kremlin foe was released from jail on July 11 after serving a 10-day sentence for attending an unsanctioned protest in Moscow.He has been sentenced to jail about a dozen times in recent years and has served more than 200 days in incarceration.
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Zimbabwean Government Workers Feeling High Inflation Heat
Zimbabwe’s government workers, including public prosecutors, say they are being squeezed by inflation, which is now running at an annual rate of 175 percent. Some have asked to live in their places of work to cut down on the cost of rent and transportation.Thirty-one-year-old Munyaradzi Masiiwa is a high school teacher in Harare. Masiiwa says he went into the profession because he admired his teachers growing up, and saw them living in nice houses and driving nice cars.But now, he says, he has lost all motivation, because his salary of less than $30 per month isn’t enough to support his five dependents, including his 75-year-old mother and two children.This month, he says, the money lasted only three days.“I am going to work right now and l just got porridge. I cannot afford to buy a loaf of bread… It is very difficult, it is very difficult to get used to the situation. The family is looking up to me; l have nothing to offer. The kids are going to school with nothing to eat,” Masiiwa said.Munyaradzi Masiiwa, having porridge for breakfast at his home in Harare on July 23, 2019, as he cannot afford a loaf of bread due to high cost of living in Zimbabwe.The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions has warned of possible strikes unless the government of President Emmerson Mnangagwa does something to arrest inflation. Masiiwa, however, says he believes a strike will just bring a heavy-handed government response.“If we try to demonstrate or to organize strikes we are being torched, we are being abducted. So it is becoming difficult to organize ourselves. So in that situation we no longer have hope when we cannot organize ourselves even to negotiate with the government. They already know the situation we are in,” Masiiwa said.Energy Mutodi, Zimbabwe’s junior information minister, says the government is aware of the workers’ concerns and is taking steps to address them. “…We need the people to be patient. We are coming from many years of economic stabilization and that must be known and that needs to be then corrected through a long process of correcting our economic fundamentals and that is happening,” Mutodi said.Energy Mutodi, Zimbabwe Junior Information Minister on July 23, 2019, in Harare says the government wants citizens to be patient as the country recover from many years of economic destabilization under former president Robert Mugabe’s 37 year rule.The government’s “austerity for prosperity” program has resulted in reduced expenditures and a rare budget surplus in recent months. But it also cut down subsidies for essentials such as electricity and fuel. For Masiiwa and other workers like him, that means more days of no electricity, not enough food and no clean tap water. Workers in various government departments have sought permission to live at their workplace, even in courtrooms, to cut on transport and rent costs. The government has dismissed the requests as the work of the opposition.
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Trump Sues House Panel, NY to Protect State Tax Returns
Opening up another legal front against the Democrats investigating him, President Donald Trump on Tuesday sued the House Ways and Means Committee and New York state officials to prevent his state tax returns from being turned over to the congressional committee.
The lawsuit seeks an injunction to block the application of a new New York state law that could allow the Democratic-controlled House and Ways Means Committee to obtain the returns. The lawsuit, filed in Washington, comes amid a furious White House attempt to prevent the president’s tax returns to wind up in Democratic hands.
“We have filed a lawsuit today in our ongoing efforts to end presidential harassment,” said Jay Sekulow, one of the president’s lawyers. “The targeting of the president by the House Ways and Means Committee, the New York Attorney General, and a New York tax official violates article 1 of the U.S. Constitution. The harassment tactics lack a legitimate legislative purpose. The actions taken by the House and New York officials are nothing more than political retribution.”
The state’s attorney general, Letitia James, said the act “will shine a light on the president’s finances and finally offer transparency to millions of Americans yearning to know the truth.”
“President Trump has spent his career hiding behind lawsuits,” James said in a statement, “but, as New York’s chief law enforcement officer, I can assure him that no one is above the law — not even the president of the United States.”
Trump’s tax returns have been a source of mystery — and contention — ever since the celebrity businessman broke with tradition and did not release his returns during his 2016 presidential campaign.
The House Ways and Means Committee sued the Treasury Department and IRS officials this month in an attempt to enforce a law that allows its chairman to obtain any taxpayer’s returns. Its chairman, Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., hasn’t indicated whether he would use the New York law, focusing instead on the federal lawsuit.
The lawsuit echoes what has become the White House consistent argument: that the committee’s pursuit of the president’s tax returns, as well as most of the Democrats’ investigative efforts, lack a legitimate legislative purpose and thus is outside Congress’s authority.
The suit also argues that the committee can’t have a legislative purpose in getting state records because its jurisdiction is limited to federal taxes. However, New York officials have argued that the state returns would contain much of the same information found on the president’s federal returns.
Trump has cited repeated IRS audits as a reason not to disclose his returns, but he isn’t legally prevented from releasing returns while under audit.
“Ultimately, this issue was litigated in the 2016 election,” the lawsuit said. “Voters heard the criticisms from Secretary (Hillary) Clinton, and they elected President Trump anyway. Democrats in Congress and across the country, however, have only become more eager to disclose the president’s tax returns for political gain.”
Democrats have argued that they need to review the returns in their search for potential conflicts of interest or corruption.
The administration and the Trump’s business have repeatedly tried to stall Democrats’ investigations by filing lawsuits and not cooperating. The White House has blocked several current and former officials from testifying, has refused to comply with document requests and the president has considered invoking executive privilege to stifle a series of probes.
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France Stresses Need for Iran to Respect Nuclear Accord
French authorities in a meeting Tuesday with an Iranian envoy stressed the need for Tehran to quickly respect the 2015 nuclear accord it has breached and “make the needed gestures” to deescalate mounting tensions in the Persian Gulf region.A statement by the French Foreign Ministry said Seyed Abbas Araghchi gave a message to President Emmanuel Macron from Iranian leader Hassen Rouhani. Macron and Rouhani spoke last Thursday.Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, who met with Araghchi, is working with European partners on an observation mission to ensure maritime security in the Gulf, where tensions have mounted after Iran’s seizure last Friday of a U.K.-flagged oil tanker.Le Drian made no mention of a Europe-led “maritime protection mission” announced a day earlier by his British counterpart, Jeremy Hunt, offering instead what seems to be a softer version. France is working “at this moment on a European initiative” with Britain and Germany, he told lawmakers, without elaborating. “This vision is the opposite of the American initiative, which is … maximum pressure” against Iran.Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Agnes Von der Muhll said at a briefing that the initiative involves “appropriate means of surveillance” aimed at “increased understanding of the situation at sea” to facilitate traffic in a waterway that is critical to the global economy. Iran’s seizure Friday of British oil tanker Steno Impero and its 23-member crew in the Strait of Hormuz aggravated tensions that were already mounting with Iran’s breaching of a 2015 Iran nuclear accord among world powers.A boat of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard sails next to Stena Impero, a British-flagged vessel owned by Stena Bulk, at Bandar Abbas port, July 21, 2019.President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the accord last year, reinstating sanctions on Iran and raising tensions.Nations still party to the shaky Iran nuclear deal plan to meet in Vienna on Sunday to see to what extent the agreement can be saved. The European Union said the meeting of China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany, chaired by the EU, “will examine issues linked to the implementation of the (nuclear deal) in all its aspects.”Iran began openly exceeding the uranium enrichment levels set in the accord to try to pressure Europe into offsetting the economic pain of U.S. sanctions.Le Drian stressed the need for diplomacy to de-escalate volatile tensions, which he has said previously could lead to “an accident.”
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Kyoda: Japan’s Tepco to Decommission Second, Undamaged Fukushima Nuclear Plant
Tokyo Electric Power plans to scrap its Fukushima Daini nuclear station, located a few miles south of the bigger Fukushima Daiichi plant where three reactors melted down in 2011 after an earthquake and tsunami, Kyodo News reported on Wednesday.Tomoaki Kobayakawa, president of Tepco, as the company is called, will visit the governor of Fukushima prefecture on Wednesday to convey the plan and its board will formally approve the decision later this month, Kyodo said, without citing sources.Three reactors at Fukushima Daiichi, which had six reactors and is located about 12 kilometers (7 miles) north of Fukushima Daini, suffered meltdowns after the giant March 2011 earthquake and tsunami shut down the plant’s cooling systems.The Daini station also came close to a disaster, but retained enough backup power to keep cooling going. Successive Fukushima governors have called for it to be scrapped.A Tepco spokesman told Reuters by phone that nothing has been decided on the issue.Scrapping the Daini station will leave Tepco with just one potentially operational nuclear station, Kawazaki Kariwa, where it is trying to get two reactors returned to service under new safety regulations against strong local opposition.It will also leave Japan with 33 reactors, compared with 54 before the disaster: Many operators decided to scrap older units that would cost too much to meet new safety standards imposed after the world’s worst nuclear catastrophe since Chernobyl in 1986.A Reuters analysis last year showed it was unlikely that Daini would ever restart. Japan has eight reactors operating and many are still going through a relicensing process under the new standards.
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US Imposes Visa Restrictions on Nigerians Involved in ‘Undermining Democracy’
The U.S. State Department said on Tuesday it had imposed visa restrictions on Nigerians it said were involved in trying to undermine democracy in presidential and parliamentary elections this year.The department did not name the individuals or say how many were affected by the visa restrictions.President Muhammadu Buhari won a second term in February in an election marred by delays, logistical glitches and violence.”These individuals have operated with impunity at the expense of the Nigerian people and undermined democratic principles and human rights,” spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement.”The Department of State emphasizes that the actions announced today are specific to certain individuals and not directed at the Nigerian people or the newly elected government,” Ortagus added.
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Spain’s Sanchez Loses First Bid to Be Confirmed as PM, Eyes Thursday Vote
Spain’s Socialist leader Pedro Sanchez failed on Tuesday in a first attempt to get parliament’s backing to form a government, leaving him two days to try and strike a deal with the far-left Unidas Podemos ahead of a second vote.Sanchez, who won the most seats in an election in April but fell short of a majority, has faced three months of difficult coalition talks with Podemos, whose votes he needs to be confirmed as prime minister.He has led the government as a caretaker in the interim, but could be forced to hold new elections if he cannot win confirmation.After a few tense days where the two parties seemed at turns within reach of a deal or on the point of breaking off talks entirely, Podemos ended up abstaining on Tuesday, rather than voting against Sanchez. Officials in both parties described that as a gesture of good will to allow negotiations to continue.”We will keep working so that there is a coalition government. Time is running out,” Podemos lawmaker Ione Belarra said after the vote. “Our last gesture was to abstain in order to make the negotiations easier.”Sanchez was not expected to win Tuesday’s vote, but he lost it by a wide margin, with 124 votes to 170, and 52 abstentions.Only one lawmaker outside his Socialist party voted for him.To win Tuesday’s vote, Sanchez would have required an absolute majority of 176 votes in the 350-seat parliament. A second round on Thursday will operate under different rules, requiring only a simple majority excluding abstentions.Still, he faces an uphill struggle to convert abstentions and some ‘no’ votes into votes in his favor.All will depend on whether the Socialists and Podemos set aside their differences to strike a deal for a coalition government and also get support from smaller, regional parties.Socialist spokesperson Adriana Lastra said: “It is the moment to form a government of the left. We have the basis for an understanding.”Considering how difficult talks have been over the past three months, and tense exchanges between Sanchez and Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias in a parliament debate late on Monday, it remains to be seen how stable and united such a government would be.If Sanchez is not confirmed as prime minister on Thursday, further votes could be held in September. If that failed too, a repeat election would be held on November 10.Still, the mood appeared to be calmer on Tuesday.Sources in Podemos and the Socialist party said that the main question was what role Podemos ministers would have.Rejecting Podemos’ accusations that its ministers would only have a “decorative” role with no power, chief Socialist negotiator Carmen Calvo said Irene Montero, a senior Podemos lawmaker, had been offered the deputy premiership.Unlike the other Podemos lawmakers, Montero voted ‘no’ on Tuesday. But Podemos officials said this was because Montero, who is pregnant, voted early in the morning from home, before the party changed its mind and decided to abstain.
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Lawmakers Back Plan to Nationalize Kenya Airways
Kenya’s parliament voted on Tuesday to nationalize the country’s main airline Kenya Airways to save it from mounting debts.The loss-making airline, which is 48.9% government-owned and 7.8% held by Air France-KLM, has been struggling to return to profitability and growth.A failed expansion drive and a slump in air travel forced it to restructure $2 billion of debt in 2017. The airline later proposed taking over the running of Nairobi’s main airport to boost its revenue.Parliament’s transport committee, however, rejected that plan, recommending instead the nationalization of the airline in a report debated by the national assembly on June 18.In a voice vote taken on Tuesday afternoon, the majority of lawmakers in the chamber voted to accept the report.Kenya Airways Chairman Michael Joseph told Reuters the vote was “great news.””Nationalization is what is necessary to compete on a level playing field. It is not what we want, but what we need,” he said, referring to competitors such as Ethiopian Airlines which are state-run and profitable.Air France-KLM could not immediately be reached for comment.The government will now draw up an implementation plan, with clear time lines, said Esther Koimett, the principal secretary at the ministry of transport.”Parliament is our boss … we will obviously take the recommendations of parliament,” she told Reuters.Kenya is seeking to emulate countries like Ethiopia which run air transport assets from airports to fueling operations under a single company, using funds from the more profitable parts to support others, such as national airlines.”The government is keen to take a consolidated view of aviation assets of the country in order to make sure they work in a coherent and efficient way to support the (Nairobi aviation) hub,” Koimett said.The committee’s report proposes that Kenya set up an aviation holding company with four subsidiaries, one of which would run Kenya Airways. Another arm of the holding company would operate Nairobi’s main international airport.The committee’s report also recommended the holding company be given tax concessions for a period to be determined and that it be exempted from paying excise duty on all goods, including jet fuel.Koimett dismissed concerns that nationalization could lead to further mismanagement. Kenya’s state-owned enterprises sector is riddled with corporate corpses and near failures caused by theft and poor management over the decades.”Implementation is really the key thing … Ultimately all these things have to do really with ensuring that we get the right people in the right places,” she said.($1 = 103.7000 Kenyan shillings)
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US Jury Convicts Business Partner of ex-Trump Adviser of Secretly Lobbying for Turkey
A jury on Tuesday convicted Bijan Rafiekian, who was the business partner of U.S. President Donald Trump’s disgraced former national security adviser Michael Flynn, on charges of secretly lobbying for Turkey.Rafiekian, co-founder of the consultancy firm Flynn Intel Group, was accused of conspiring to lobby on Turkey’s behalf to try to persuade the U.S. government to extradite Fetullah Gulen, whom Turkey has blamed for orchestrating a failed coup in 2016.Rafiekian was indicted in December, along with Ekim Alptekin, a Turkish-Dutch businessman, and was charged on two counts – conspiring to act as an agent of a foreign government and making false statements to the Justice Department, and acting as a foreign agent.A Justice Department spokesman, Joshua Stueve, said Rafiekian was found guilty on both counts, after a week-long trial in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Sentencing was set for Oct. 18.Flynn, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general whose brief tenure in 2017 as part of Trump’s inner circle is still causing legal aftershocks, was not charged with Rafiekian.But the case could influence how U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan sentences Flynn later this year, following Flynn’s guilty plea in December 2017 of having lied to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators about his contacts with Russian officials.FILE – Former U.S. national security adviser Michael Flynn departs after his sentencing was delayed at U.S. District Court in Washington,Dec.18, 2018.Flynn previously agreed to cooperate with U.S. prosecutors and testify against Rafiekian, known as “Kian,” in hopes of getting a lighter sentence. But in a reversal earlier this month, U.S. prosecutors canceled plans to call him as a witness.While Flynn has not renounced his guilty plea, his new lawyers say he did not knowingly submit anything false when retroactively registering under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) in early 2017.Stueve said Flynn did not testify in court in the Rafiekian case.Tensions With TurkeyThe trial, which began on July 15, the third anniversary of Turkey’s failed coup that killed 251 people and wounded more than 1,500, could have implications for already strained ties between Ankara and Washington.Throughout the proceedings, U.S. prosecutors built a case to show Rafiekian and Alptekin acted with direction from the Turkish government and did not disclose their lobbying campaign to return Gulen, who lives in a fortified compound in Pennsylvania, to Turkey.The Turkish government has denied engaging in a conspiracy to evade U.S. regulations requiring foreign government lobbyists to register with the Justice Department.Alptekin, who remained abroad throughout the trial, had denied the allegations through a representative. He was charged with six counts, including making false statements and acting as an agent of a foreign government.He criticized the jury’s decision on Twitter on Tuesday, saying that “an innocent man was convicted.””I feel terrible for Bijan Kian and for Gen. Flynn. They did nothing wrong,” he added.
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