Lee Juhyun in Seoul and Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb in Tokyo contributed to this report.North Korea launched a fresh round of ballistic missiles into the sea early Tuesday and warned it could take a “new road” in response to U.S.-South Korean military exercises that began this week.The North fired two short-range ballistic missiles from South Hwanghae province in the western part of the country, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. The missiles traveled about 450 kilometers and reached a height of about 37 kilometers, it added. North Korea has conducted four rounds of short-range ballistic missile launches in less than two weeks, raising doubts about working-level nuclear talks that U.S. officials had hoped would begin last month.People watch a TV showing a file image of a North Korea’s missile launch during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2019.’Flagrant violation’Minutes before the latest test, North Korea’s foreign ministry released a statement slamming the U.S.-South Korean military drills as a “flagrant violation” of its recent agreements with Washington and Seoul.“We have already warned several times that the joint military exercises would block progress in the DPRK-U.S. relations and the inter-Korean relations and bring us into reconsideration of our earlier major steps,” said a North Korean foreign ministry spokesperson quoted by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).The United States and South Korea on Monday moved ahead with the joint exercises, even while calling on North Korea to engage in working-level nuclear talks. “The U.S. and South Korean authorities remain outwardly talkative about dialogue. But when they sit back, they sharpen a sword to do us harm,” the KCNA statement said, adding Pyongyang may “be compelled to seek a new road as we have already indicated.”Washington and Seoul say the drills are defensive in nature, while Pyongyang sees them as preparation to invade.A U.S. Forces Korea spokesperson said the U.S. military will continue training with South Korean forces, but declined to discuss military exercises “in order to preserve space for diplomacy to work.”“We continue to train in a combined manner at echelon while harmonizing our training program with diplomatic efforts by adjusting four dials: size, scope, volume and timing,” the spokesperson said in an email to VOA. The United States and South Korea have scaled back or canceled several rounds of military exercises since last year, as part of an agreement reached between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore.A senior U.S. defense official, speaking to reporters aboard a military aircraft en route to Tokyo, said Washington would like to see Pyongyang reciprocate. But some analysts say North Korea appears to have no plans to do so. “So they’re going to continue their winter training exercises per normal, not downgrading them in any substantial way. And yet, they want us to completely end ours?” asks Bradley Bowman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.“It’s bordering on ridiculous. And you start to have to wonder about at some point, whether he’s (Kim) really sincere and wanting a deal.”All of S. Korea within reachSouth Korea’s presidential Blue House convened an emergency meeting to discuss the latest North Korean launch, a spokesperson said.Speaking in Tokyo Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said the United States takes the launchings seriously.”We monitor them. We try to understand what they’re doing and why. We also need to be careful not to overreact and not to get ourselves in a situation where diplomacy is closed off,” he said.U.S. and South Korean intelligence officials say the weapons North Korea launched Tuesday appear similar to the short-range ballistic missiles tested on July 25, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.Protesters stand with banners to oppose planned joint military exercises between South Korea and the United States near the U.S. embassy in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Aug. 5, 2019.North Korea on July 25 launched its version of a Russian-made Iskander short-range ballistic missile, which appears to be designed to evade U.S. and South Korean missile defenses. Since then, North Korea has also tested a new type of multiple rocket launcher.Regardless of whether the latest launch involved missiles or a multiple rocket launcher, a distance of 450 kilometers from South Hwanghae province “means that all of South Korean territory is within firing range,” says Kim Dong-yub, a North Korea specialist at Seoul’s Institute for Far Eastern Studies. Trump, who wants to continue talks with North Korea, has said he has “no problem” with North Korea’s recent missile launches, since they are short-range.In a series of tweets last week, the president said the missile tests “are not a violation of our signed Singapore agreement, nor was there discussion of short-range missiles when we shook hands.”“There may be a United Nations violation, but Chairman Kim (Jong Un) does not want to disappoint me with a violation of trust,” Trump said. “There is far too much for North Korea to gain.”Working-level talksTrump has met North Korean leader Kim three times since last June — in Singapore, Vietnam and at the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas.At the DMZ meeting in late June, both sides agreed to soon hold working-level talks. But North Korea has not agreed to set a date to begin those talks.In the KCNA statement Tuesday, the North held out the possibility of more dialogue.“We remain unchanged in our stand to resolve the issues through dialogue. But the dynamics of dialogue will be more invisible as long as the hostile military moves continue,” the KCNA statement said.“A constructive dialogue cannot be expected at a time when a simulated war practice targeted at the dialogue partner is being conducted, and there is no need to have a fruitless and exhausting dialogue with those who do not have a sense of communication,” it continued.U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had hoped to meet his North Korean counterparts at a regional summit last week in Bangkok, Thailand. But North Korea did not send any officials to the meeting.“I wish they’d have come here,” Pompeo told reporters before heading home from Thailand. “I think it would have given us an opportunity to have another set of conversations, and I hope it won’t be too long before I have a chance to do that.”Increasing actionsNorth Korea has slowly been increasing its threats and provocations — a strategy analysts say is designed to increase pressure on Washington and Seoul without completely derailing the talks.“As long as Trump has good rapport with Kim Jong Un, I’m not too concerned,” said David Kim, a North Korea specialist at the Stimson Center. But Kim said he doesn’t expect much traction while the drills continue. “It may be awhile until we see lower-level talks resume,” he says. North Korea has given the United States until the end of the year to change its approach to nuclear talks, warning it could resume longer range missile or nuclear tests. In a New Year’s speech, Kim warned North Korea could take a “new path” if the United States does not remove sanctions against his country. With talks stalled yet again, some U.S. officials are hinting that a fourth Trump-Kim summit may be in the works. Asked about that possibility last week in Thailand, Pompeo said: “Stay tuned.”
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Month: August 2019
Trump Urges End to Bigotry in Wake of Mass Shootings
President Donald Trump urged Americans to condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy Monday in the wake of the mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. But opposition Democrats continue to complain that some of the president’s past rhetoric on race and immigration has inflamed passions and divided the country. VOA National correspondent Jim Malone has more on the president’s reaction to the latest gun violence from Washington.
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‘He Died Easier Than the People He Killed’
Vicheika Kann and Reaksmey Hul in Phnom Penh, and Chenda Hong in Washington contributed to this report.In his most recent photos, Nuon Chea looks like somebody’s grandfather, wearing big dark glasses that suggest a sensitivity to light possibly tied to other medical problems.Not that long ago, he’d gone from tottering as he walked to using a wheelchair. There were whispers of liver problems and kidney troubles and whatever else happens as a human body passes through its ninth decade.That longevity eluded some 1.7 million Cambodians who died between 1975 to 1979, as the Khmer Rouge tried, and failed, to turn Cambodia into a self-sufficient agrarian utopia. Nuon Chea, known as Brother No. 2, is widely believed to have been the mastermind behind the development of a Maoist society without money, religion or intellectuals envisioned by the regime’s founder, FILE: Khmer Rouge ‘Brother Number Two’ Nuon Chea attends a public hearing at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, October 19, 2011.Silent as to actionsIf Nuon Chea was the mastermind behind Cambodia’s genocide, the details died with him. He never spoke in court of how the Khmer Rouge executed their plan to achieve a new regime. He never admitted guilt. He maintained that the Khmer Rouge were nationalists, fighting Viet Nam, and the United States, which engaged “secret” bombings of Cambodia as it tracked the communist Viet Cong during the Vietnam War.Cambodian Prime Minister Cambodian former Khmer Rouge survivors, Soum Rithy, left, and Chum Mey, right, embrace each other after the verdicts were announced at the U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Thursday, Aug. 7, 2014.Knows historyYuth Kunthea, a 25-year-old resident of Siem Reap, does know about Noun Chea and the Khmer Rouge.“I’m not sorry that he died because he caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people, he hurt people, and separated them from their family members,” she said, adding she learned about the regime in school. “We lost a lot of good Khmer people.”The Khmer Rouge buried the bodies in mass graves, dubbed “killing fields,” like the one near Trung Bat, in northern Cambodia, where the Khmer Rouge maintained a prison and a crematorium.Many of the remains were ground down to make fertilizer in an effort to meet quotas for the rice crop. Others, like those found by soil excavators in 2012, were buried intact with arms bound behind them or weighed down by rocks, according to the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-CAM). “No one can forget him,” said Lat Lon, a 73-year-old monk from Teputhyvong Temple, the site of a mass grave, in Siem Reap province. “We have no peace of mind. They tortured people, so he deserved to die. People should have peace of mind.”According to Buddhist beliefs, even though Noun Chea and other Khmer Rouge leaders are dead, the souls of their victims and those who survived still do not have a peaceful mind. “How can they have peace of mind?” Lat Lon asked. “According to the Dharma, dead people still miss their family members.”’He died with sin’Youk Chhang, the DC-CAM executive director in Phnom Penh and a survivor of the Khmer Rouge regime, told VOA Khmer by phone that Nuon Chea cannot escape his deeds in death despite the law’s presumption of innocence.“He was born like all of us but he committed sins and he died with sin,” he said. Nuon Chea died without the dignity that comes with age, said Youk Chhang, and his death is drawing mixed reactions. “Some I asked immediately [after Nuon Chea died] said they are not happy because when he was alive, he was defiant about what he had done,” Youk Chhang said. “He did not … give a value of the history to the next generation.” Even after the verdict, “he was still defiant for what he did and he was responsible.”Documentary filmmaker Thet Sambath interviewed Nuon Chea extensively in the late 1990s, and then co-produced the 2009 award-winning documentary “Enemies of the People,” about the Khmer Rouge leadership. Just after Nuon Chea’s death, Thet Sambath, who lives in Massachusetts, told VOA Khmer by phone that he was grateful to Nuon Chea for “giving me historical documents and secret stories about the Khmer Rouge,” he said. “It’s very lucky for Cambodian people” to have this information, he added.
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Titanic Shipyard to File for Bankruptcy
The iconic Northern Ireland shipyard, known for building the Titanic, is about to go into bankruptcy. British authorities have named an administrator to oversee the restructuring at Harland and Wolff, the 158-year-old shipyard in Belfast. In its pre-World War II heyday, the shipyard employed more than 35,000 people. Today its remaining 130 workers are occupying the site, calling on the government to intervene.Union officials blame Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Conservative government for not having a coherent plan to safeguard manufacturing jobs.”The future of Harland and Wolff is more than a ‘commercial issue’ that the prime minister can stand by and do nothing about,” said Michael Mulholland, an organizer for the GMB union. “But we will not give up on this famous shipyard. The occupation will continue and our battle will continue.”Harland and Wolff is best known for building the Titanic, the luxury liner that sank after hitting an iceberg during its maiden voyage in 1912 from Southampton, England, to New York, killing 1,517 of the 2,223 passengers and crew on board.The shipyard has not built a ship since 2003. It has since diversified to cruise liner retrofits and wind energy projects.
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China Vows ‘Countermeasures’ If US Deploys Missiles in Asia-Pacific
China says it will take “countermeasures” if the United States deploys ground-based intermediate-range missiles in the Asia-Pacific region. Fu Cong, the director of the Foreign Ministry’s arms control division, told reporters Tuesday that Beijing “will not stand idly by” if Washington follows through on a pledge made last weekend by new Defense Secretary Mark Esper to deploy the missiles in the region “sooner rather than later,” preferably within months. He urged China’s neighbors, specifically Japan, South Korea and Australia, to “exercise prudence” by refusing to deploy the U.S. missiles, adding that it would serve those countries national security interests. Fu did not specify what countermeasures China would take, but said “everything is on the table.” Secretary Esper’s stated goal to deploy ground-based missiles in the region came after the Trump administration formally pulled the U.S. out of the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty last week. The pact, reached with the former Soviet Union, bans ground-based nuclear and conventional ballistic missiles with a range between 500-5,000 kilometers. Washington said it withdrew from the INF because of continued violations by Moscow. Fu said China had no interest in taking part in trilateral talks with the United States and Russia due to the “huge gap” in the size of China’s nuclear arsenal compared to the other two nations.
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After Mass Shootings, Tech Industry Shuns 8chan
First, it lost its internet security provider. Then, another company cut off its new internet host. In less than 24 hours, 8chan, the online forum that the suspect in the El Paso mass shooting allegedly used to post some of his extremist thoughts, was struggling to keep its lights on. 8chan’s situation highlights how the technology industry, long touting itself as proponents of free speech, has been reevaluating its approach to extremist content published by users.There are few laws in the U.S. curtailing digital hate speech or incitement to violence online. Social media firms like Facebook, Google’s YouTube and Twitter now routinely revamp their rules and boost new efforts at moderating the content on their sites. Just last month, Twitter said it would use human moderators to evaluate if a post “dehumanizes others on the basis of religion.” What happened to 8chan in the 24 hours after the El Paso shooting shows how smaller, lesser-known companies that control the pipes of the internet — what sites get seen, whether online traffic is routed correctly and how websites are protected from cyberattacks — are being pressured to set new limits, even though they do not interact directly with people posting content. A woman sits next to a sign with a message that reads: ¨No More Guns! Make Love¨, in Juarez, Mexico, Aug. 3, 2019, where people are gathering for a vigil for the 3 Mexican nationals who were killed in an El Paso shopping-complex shooting.Typically, these infrastructure firms stand apart from the fray. If asked to do something about one of their customers, they often say they will respond to law enforcement and court orders. Short of that, it’s not their job to monitor what their customers do, they say. But that is changing. Changing views of responsibility The 8chan example is about how tech companies are changing their views about their responsibility when it comes to extreme content, said Irina Raicu, director of the Internet Ethics Program at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. “For a long time, people said it’s the responsibility of the poster,” Raicu said. “We have become more sophisticated about the roles that other players have.” Still, the decision to shut down 8chan raises questions about what are the rules and the process for doing so. “It shows the enormous power technical intermediaries have over who has a platform to speak and where can people access information,” says Emma Llansó, director of the Free Expression Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology.This isn’t the first time that Cloudflare, which provides internet infrastructure security to many sites, has been under pressure about one of its customers. In 2017, it cut off the Daily Stormer, a popular white supremacist website that came to prominence after the protests in Charlottesville, Virginia. The Daily Stormer found another cybersecurity firm. Police officers use pepper spray towards counter-demonstrators during a white nationalist-led rally marking the one year anniversary of the 2017 Charlottesville ‘Unite the Right’ protests, in Washington, U.S., August 12, 2018.Two other mass shooter suspects allegedly posted their own manifestos on 8chan prior to attacks. After news broke that the suspect in the El Paso shooting allegedly posted an anti-immigrant manifesto on 8chan, Cloudflare first said it wouldn’t cut off the site.And then it did. “We reluctantly tolerate content that we find reprehensible, but we draw the line at platforms that have demonstrated they directly inspire tragic events and are lawless by design,” Matthew Prince, Cloudflare’s co-founder and chief executive, said. “8chan has crossed that line. It will therefore no longer be allowed to use our services.” Cloudflare’s decision led 8chan to find another service provider. But that company was then cut off by Voxility, which provides network hardware and services. Censorship concerns Even though some applauded Cloudflare’s decision, it’s unclear what standards the company used when it cut off 8chan, Llansó said. “It opens up a large can of worms,” she added. “Ad hoc systems are most vulnerable to abuse. These types of decisions are too easy to make in a crisis moment.” It’s a concern echoed by Cindy Cohn, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital civil liberties organization, about internet infrastructure companies. “Because these services may determine whether one can use the internet at all, those companies providing them must use their power on only very rare occasions, if at all,” Cohn said. “And if they do, they must do so only after careful consideration, applying predetermined and clear standards, that are free from governmental influence or coercion. Otherwise, we will be establishing a powerful tool for censorship that will inevitably be exploited by repressive governments and other powerful actors.”Cloudflare declined to comment for this story. In the weeks ahead, it remains to be seen if 8chan will find another internet security firm and be back online.
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After Shootings, Congress Again Weighs Gun Violence Response
Newtown. Charleston. Orlando. Parkland.And now after mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio, Congress again is confronted with the question of what, if anything, lawmakers should do to combat the scourge of gun violence afflicting the country.While both parties are calling for action, the retreat to familiar political corners was swift. Democrats demanded quick approval of gun-control legislation — some of it already passed by the House — while Republicans looked elsewhere for answers, focusing on mental health and violent video games.With Congress away from Washington for a five-week recess, and the parties intractably divided, the odds appear stacked in favor of gridlock. But Democrats and some Republicans said this time can and should be different.”While no law will end mass shootings entirely, it’s time for Congress to act to help keep our communities safer,” said Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., as he vowed to again push bipartisan legislation to expand background checks to all commercial firearm sales.Toomey and his co-sponsor, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., each spoke with President Donald Trump about the background checks bill and a separate proposal making it easier to take guns away from people believed to be a danger to themselves or others.Trump “showed a willingness to work with us” on background checks and other measures, Toomey told reporters in a conference call. “He was very constructive.”FILE – Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., right, accompanied by Sen. Patrick Toomey, R-Pa., announce that they have reached a bipartisan deal on expanding background checks to more gun buyers, April 10, 2013, on Capitol Hill in Washington.Toomey and Manchin have tried to pass a background check bill since 2013, in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook school shooting, and could not even muster a Senate vote last year.Manchin called mass shootings and other gun violence “tragic American problems,” and said it was “past time for Congress to take action.”Other Democrats put the burden on Trump, saying he should demand Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell put a House-passed bill strengthening background checks up for a vote.Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said the Senate GOP leader is blocking gun safety reforms that more than 90% of Americans support. He and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said McConnell, R-Ky., should call the Senate into emergency session to take immediate action on the House-passed bill, which would require federal background checks for all firearms sales and transfers, including those sold online or at gun shows. Another bill allows an expanded 10-day review for gun purchases.The House approved the bills in February but they have not come up for consideration in the Republican-controlled Senate.President Donald Trump speaks about the shootings in El Paso and Dayton as Vice President Mike Pence looks on in the Diplomatic Room of the White House in Washington, Aug. 5, 2019.Trump offered a slightly different message earlier in the day, tweeting that “Republicans and Democrats must come together and get strong background checks, perhaps marrying this legislation with desperately needed immigration reform. We must have something good, if not GREAT, come out of these two tragic events!”It was not clear how or why he was connecting the issues.Trump’s omission of background checks in his White House remarks showed he was already backing away from his morning tweet, Democrats said.”It took less than three hours for the president to back off his call for stronger background check legislation,” Pelosi and Schumer said in a joint statement. “When he can’t talk about guns when he talks about gun violence, it shows the president remains prisoner to the gun lobby,” especially the National Rifle Association.Congress has proven unable to pass substantial gun violence legislation, despite the frequency of mass shootings, in large part because of resistance from Republicans, particularly in the GOP-controlled Senate.But in a show of bipartisanship, Graham, R-S.C., and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., announced an agreement to create a federal grant program to help states that adopt “red flag” protection order laws to take guns away from people believed to be a danger to themselves or others. A similar bill did not come up for a vote in the Senate last year.The grants would enlist mental health professionals to help determine which cases need to be acted on, Graham said, adding that while the program allows for quick action, it requires judicial review.Trump signaled openness to red-flag laws in his White House speech, saying, “We must make sure that those judged to pose a grave risk to public safety do not have access to firearms and that if they do those firearms can be taken through rapid due process.”In a statement, the NRA offered “deepest sympathies” to the families and victims and said it is “committed to the safe and lawful use of firearms” by gun owners.”We will not participate in the politicizing of these tragedies but, as always, we will work in good faith to pursue real solutions that protect us all from people who commit these horrific acts,” the NRA said.A spokesman for Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said the panel is planning to hold hearings on domestic terrorism when lawmakers return next month.
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Amnesty: Freed Mauritanian Blogger Arrives in Europe
VOA’s Esha Sarai contributed to this report from Mauritania. A Mauritanian blogger, jailed for nearly six years in Mauritania, has said he only “saw the sun six times” during his incarceration. Citizen journalist Mohamed Ould Cheikh Mkhaitir has arrived in Europe after being freed last week, Amnesty International said in a release Monday. “Mkhaitir’s long-awaited release is a welcome development. He spent more than five years behind bars, mostly in solitary confinement. Mkhaitir should never have been arrested in the first place. He will now be able to resume his education and enjoy his human rights,” Amnesty’s Kine Fatim Diop said. Mkhaitir was arrested in 2013 and sentenced to death for what the state called blasphemy after he wrote a blog post condemning the use of religion to justify racial discrimination. In 2017, a Mauritanian court commuted Mkhaitir’s sentence to two years, which he had already served, legally liberating him. However, he remained detained in an undisclosed location.Numerous human rights organizations had called on Mauritania President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, who stepped down last week, to release Mkhaitir. Arnaud Froger, head of the Africa desk at Reporters Without Borders, called the case indicative of declining press freedom in the Sahara desert country.FILE – Mauritania’s then-President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz speaks at the United Nations headquarters, Sept. 26, 2015.Mkhaitir’s first trial sparked protests by Islamists in the capital calling for his death. The post for which he was arrested criticized the use of religion to defend a rigid caste system in Mauritania.Mkhaitir is of the Haratin ethnicity, sometimes referred to as black Maurs. The Haratin face systematic discrimination as severe as modern slavery, a problem the Mauritanian government asserts no longer exists.Amnesty on Monday called on Mauritania’s new president, Mohamed Ould Ghazouani, to ensure what happened to Mkhaitir “will never happen to anyone else in the country.””His government should immediately initiate a process to get laws criminalizing apostasy repealed. No one should be arbitrarily detained and charged, let alone sentenced to death simply for peacefully exercising their right to freedom of expression,” Amnesty’s Diop said.
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One Dead, 8 Injured in Explosions at Russian Arms Depot
Thousands of people have been evacuated from a Siberian town after an ammunition storage site on a military base caught fire, setting off a series of explosions and injuring at least eight people. Tass news agency reported one soldier was also killed and eight people were wounded in Monday’s incident.Videos posted on social media showed thick smoke rising from the military base and fireworks-like eruptions.? Еще одно видео взрыва на военных складах в Красноярском крае pic.twitter.com/tdiv27CGja— НТВ (@ntvru) August 5, 2019Regional authorities declared a state of emergency for the area surrounding the city of Achinsk in eastern Siberia’s Krasnoyarsk region.The Guardian newspaper reported an estimated 40,000 tank and artillery shells are kept on the base. The Russian Defense Ministry said the facility also housed gunpowder charges for artillery shells.Rusal, Russia’s largest aluminum producer, stopped all production at its Achinsk alumina plant and evacuated all but essential staff to ensure their safety.Authorities also suspended all flights within 30 kilometers of the munitions site.
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Tanzania Charges Journalist With Economic Crimes
VOA English to Africa Service’s Paul Alexander and Peter Clottey contributed to this report.Tanzania’s government on Monday charged investigative journalist Erick Kabendera with money laundering, tax evasion and assisting a criminal racket. Kabendera has been in custody since July 29. Suspects charged with money laundering are not eligible for bail, so news reports say he could remain in jail until his case is resolved, which could take three years. Kabendera’s alleged violations occurred between early 2015 and last month. His next court date is Aug. 19.The freelance journalist has been critical of President John Magufuli’s administration and the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi Party in stories for The Guardian, The East African, and The Times of London.FILE – Tanzania’s President John Magufuli addresses a news conference during his official visit to Nairobi, Kenya, Oct. 31, 2016.Opposition and civil rights groups say Kabendera’s case is a government effort to silence dissent — a notion disputed by the administration of Magufuli, who was elected in 2015. “Prosecutors should immediately drop the charges against Kabendera, and Tanzania should end its practice of retaliating against critical voices,” Muthoki Mumo, sub-Saharan African representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists, said in a release from the New York-based group. Onesmo Olengurumwa, national coordinator for the Tanzania Human Rights Defenders Coalition, told VOA in a phone interview that the group would continue to defend journalists in Tanzania.”Our role is to always campaign for justice and then also use courts of law to seek that,” he said. The watchdog group Reporters Without Borders ranks Tanzania 118th among 180 countries in its current World Press Freedom Index. It notes the country has fallen “47 places since 2016, more than any other country in the world during the same period.”
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North Korea Launches Ballistic Missiles, Slams US-South Korea Military Drills
Updated 9:05pm EDTNorth Korea launched a fresh round of ballistic missiles into the sea early Tuesday and warned it could take a “new road” in response to U.S.-South Korean military exercises that began this week.The North fired two short-range ballistic missiles from South Hwanghae Province in the western part of the country, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. The missiles traveled about 450 kilometers and reached a height of about 37 kilometers, it added.U.S. and South Korean intelligence officials say the missiles appear to be similar to the short-range ballistic missiles launched by North Korea on July 25, the statement said.
North Korea has conducted four rounds of short-range ballistic missile launches in about the past two weeks, as it expresses its anger at U.S.-South Korean military exercises.
‘Flagrant violation’Minutes before the latest test, North Korea’s foreign ministry released a statement slamming the joint drills as a “flagrant violation” of its recent agreements with Washington and Seoul.“We have already warned several times that the joint military exercises would block progress in the DPRK-U.S. relations and the inter-Korean relations and bring us into reconsideration of our earlier major steps,” said a North Korean foreign ministry spokesperson quoted by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).The U.S. and South Korea moved ahead with the joint exercises, which started Monday, even while calling on North Korea to engage in working-level nuclear talks. The U.S. and South Korea say the drills are defensive in nature, while North Korea sees them as preparation to invade.“The U.S. and South Korean authorities remain outwardly talkative about dialogue. But when they sit back, they sharpen a sword to do us harm,” the KCNA statement said, adding Pyongyang may “be compelled to seek a new road as we have already indicated.”South Korea’s presidential Blue House convened an emergency meeting to discuss the launch, a spokesperson said.U.S. President Donald Trump, who wants to continue talks with North Korea, has said he has “no problem” with North Korea’s recent missile launches, since they are short-range.In a series of tweets last week, Trump said the missile tests “are not a violation of our signed Singapore agreement, nor was there discussion of short-range missiles when we shook hands.”“There may be a United Nations violation, but Chairman Kim (Jong Un) does not want to disappoint me with a violation of trust,” Trump said. “There is far too much for North Korea to gain.”Working-level talks
Trump has met North Korean leader Kim three times since last June — in Singapore, Vietnam and at the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas.At the DMZ meeting in late June, both sides agreed to soon hold working-level talks. But North Korea has not agreed to set a date to begin those talks.In the KCNA statement Tuesday, the North held out the possibility of more dialogue.“We remain unchanged in our stand to resolve the issues through dialogue. But the dynamics of dialogue will be more invisible as long as the hostile military moves continue,” the KCNA statement said.“A constructive dialogue cannot be expected at a time when a simulated war practice targeted at the dialogue partner is being conducted, and there is no need to have a fruitless and exhausting dialogue with those who do not have a sense of communication,” it continued.U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had hoped to meet his North Korean counterparts at a regional summit last week in Bangkok, Thailand. But North Korea did not send any officials to the meeting.“I wish they’d have come here,” Pompeo told reporters before heading home from Thailand. “I think it would have given us an opportunity to have another set of conversations, and I hope it won’t be too long before I have a chance to do that.”Increasing actionsNorth Korea has slowly been increasing its threats and provocations — a strategy analysts say is designed to increase pressure on Washington and Seoul without completely derailing the talks.“As long as Trump has good rapport with Kim Jong Un, I’m not too concerned,” said David Kim, a North Korea specialist at the Stimson Center.But he said the North’s latest provocations will likely further delay working-level talks, which U.S. officials had expected to start in mid-July.“I don’t expect much traction as long as the drills are continuing,” he said. “So it may be awhile until we see lower-level talks resume.”With talks stalled yet again, some U.S. officials are hinting that a fourth Trump-Kim summit may be in the works. Asked about that possibility last week in Thailand, Pompeo said: “Stay tuned.”
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US Designates China as Currency Manipulator
The U.S. government has determined that China is manipulating its currency, and will engage with the International Monetary Fund to eliminate unfair competition from Beijing, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement on Monday.China let the yuan weaken past the key 7-per-dollar level on Monday for the first time in more than a decade and later said it would stop buying U.S. agricultural products, inflaming a worsening trade war with the United States.The sharp 1.4% drop in the yuan comes days after U.S. President Donald Trump stunned financial markets by vowing to impose 10% tariffs on the remaining $300 billion of Chinese imports from Sept. 1, abruptly breaking a brief ceasefire in a bruising trade war that has disrupted global supply chains and slowed growth.FILE – U.S. Dollar and China Yuan notes are seen in this picture illustration, June 2, 2017.The last time the United States named China a currency manipulator was in 1994. The U.S. Treasury had designated Taiwan and South Korea as currency manipulators in 1988, the year that Congress enacted the currency review law. China was the last country to get the designation, in 1994.The dollar fell to a two-week low against the euro after the Treasury statement.
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Filing Details Services for Ukrainian President in Runup to Election
This story originated in VOA’s Ukrainian Service. WASHINGTON — Washington-based lobbying firm Signal Group Consulting has filed documentation of services it provided to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington between April 3, 2019, and May 21, 2019, contradicting his claim that his campaign never employed foreign lobbyists. According to documents presented to the Justice Department as part of mandatory annual Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) filings, Signal received a fee of $60,000 for its services and $9,371 in compensation for expenses, including a $1,900 steak dinner, a guided White House tour and staff meetings with members of the National Security Council, State Department officials, members of Congress, and visits to think tanks and major national news outlets such as The Washington Post.As initially reported by Radio Free Europe and other news outlets, a portion of the FARA documents made public in April appeared to show that Signal was hired on behalf of the candidate by Marcus Cohen, whose business address is listed as a room on the second floor of a Kyiv shopping center, “to elevate the profile of Volodymyr Zelensky Servant of the People.” At the time, Voice of America’s Ukrainian Service followed up with a series of questions about the Signal contract as Zelensky’s campaign had criticized his opponent, then-incumbent Petro Poroshenko, for engaging in exactly this type of international public relations work — a fairly normal and legal part of modern European politics. “Due to another tide of disinformation, shared in the media on the eve of the runoff, we must officially state that our team did not engage the services of any lobbyists or agencies in the United States,” Zelensky’s campaign said in a prepared statement posted to its official Facebook page on April 17, some four days before the final election. “We don’t have a contract with any company called ‘Signal Group,'” the post continued. “This position is what separates us from representatives of the ‘old’ political elite.”The contract was officially terminated on May 21, 2019, one day after Zelensky’s inauguration.According the FARA documents, the Ukrainian delegation arrived in Washington on or before April 16, though it does not state how many people were in the the delegation.The documents verify reports on the meetings at the Cato Institute, State Department, CSIS, Carnegie Center, the office of Congressman Brandon Boyle, former Sen. Norm Coleman, and the National Security Council.A guided White House excursion is reported on April 17, the same day Zelensky’s campaign issued an official statement denying they’d engaged in foreign lobbying efforts.Signal Group also contacted the Post and CNN, but there were no reports of interviews.This weekend, Zelensky again denied having any personal contact with the Signal Group”I’ve never used nobody. I don’t need a lobby,” he told a reporter who pressed him with questions in Kyiv. “You know this perfectly well how many people support me. I’ve never had a meeting with any lobbyist, any intermediary, and have never asked nobody about it.”Asked whether campaign operatives could have been acting on his behalf, he denied any knowledge of it.”I don’t know. I didn’t do this,” he said. “I do not need it. I never paid a penny for it, and this can’t be.”An email sent to VOA on Aug. 3 from John Proctor, executive vice president of Signal Group, however, confirmed the business contract with Zelensky and his party.”Signal Group’s work for Mr. Zelensky and the Servant of the People party through Marcus Cohen concluded on May 21 and is detailed in our FARA filings with the US Department of Justice,” Proctor wrote. “I would direct you to the details of those documents for your reporting. The firm does not have anything additional to add.”Upon entering the race for president as a political novice, Zelensky had been best known for his role in a TV series about a schoolteacher who vaults to his country’s presidency on the wave of anti-corruption disgust.”I’m not a politician,” Zelensky, 41, told former president Poroshenko in their only debate before Sunday’s runoff election. “I’m just an ordinary person who has come to break the system. I’m the result of your mistakes and promises.””I promise I will never let any of you down,” he said in his final statement to the audience.
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Florida Man Sentenced to 20 Years for Mailing Pipe Bombs to Democrats
A Florida amateur body builder who admitted sending pipe bombs to prominent Democrats and CNN was sentenced to 20 years in prison Monday by a judge who concluded the bombs purposely were not designed to explode.Cesar Sayoc, 57, wept and crossed himself, appearing relieved, when U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff announced the sentence.Prosecutors had urged a life prison term for Sayoc, who pleaded guilty earlier this year after mailing 16 pipe bombs days before the midterm elections last fall.”He hated his victims, he wished them no good, but he was not so lost as to wish them dead, at least not by his own hand,” the judge said.The one-time stripper and pizza delivery man from Aventura, Florida, apologized to his victims, saying he was “so very sorry for what I did.”His targets included Hillary Clinton, former Vice President Joe Biden, several members of Congress, former President Barack Obama and actor Robert De Niro. Devices were also mailed to CNN offices in New York and Atlanta.Assistant Federal Defender Marcus Amelkin said Sayoc was obsessed with President Donald Trump and grew to believe Democrats were to blame for damage to his van, which was plastered with Trump stickers and images of crosshairs superimposed over the faces of Trump opponents. Sayoc “looked up to the president as a father figure,” the lawyer said.Assistant U.S. Attorney Jane Kim said Sayoc “set out to terrorize people” and had not sufficiently shown remorse.”Politics cannot justify a terrorist attack,” she said, while the judge dismissed talk of Trump as a “side show.”In this undated photo released by the Broward County Sheriff’s office, Cesar Sayoc is seen in a booking photo, in Miami.Sayoc read from a hand-written statement shortly before he was sentenced, saying he blamed a life of mental illness, a childhood sexual assault he suffered from a boarding school teacher, excessive use of steroids and his failure to listen to his mother, “the love of my life.””I was in deep denial. I understand now that I have committed a very serious crime,” Sayoc said.”I wish more than anything I could turn back time and take back what I did,” he added. “With all my heart and soul, I feel the pain and suffering of these victims and I will be apologizing to them for the rest of my life.”Prior to hearing from lawyers, Rakoff questioned two bomb experts and two doctors who examined Sayoc.The bomb experts, one an FBI agent, and one hired by the defense, agreed Sayoc’s packages were not configured to explode. As the judge noted, the clocks were not set and wires were not attached.The psychiatric experts who examined Sayoc at the request of the defense agreed that steroids influenced his behavior, particularly his delusions and obsessions.In all, 16 rudimentary pipe bombs were mailed to addresses in New York, New Jersey, Delaware, California, Washington, D.C., and Atlanta, Georgia. None exploded.In letters to the judge, Sayoc has said he abused steroids for more than four decades and was using 274 different supplements and vitamins along with “heavy amounts of steroids” before his arrest.He wrote that before he mailed explosives, his idea “first was how to tone down the liberal left violence platform.” He wrote that he believed prominent Democrats were encouraging violence, saying he had been attacked personally — including as he returned to his hotel after attending Trump’s inauguration.He was living in his van when arrested in late October.Explaining his crimes, he said he was never political until he was looking at Facebook on his phone one day when “Donald J. Trump popped up …” He likened attending a Trump rally to taking drugs.In one letter he wrote: “I was getting so wrapped up in this new-found fun drug.”
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UN Report: North Korea Took $2B in Cyberattacks to Fund Weapons Program
North Korea has generated an estimated $2 billion for its weapons of mass destruction programs using “widespread and increasingly sophisticated” cyberattacks to steal from banks and cryptocurrency exchanges, according to a confidential U.N. report seen by Reuters on Monday.Pyongyang also “continued to enhance its nuclear and missile programs although it did not conduct a nuclear test or ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile) launch,” said the report to the U.N. Security Council North Korea sanctions committee by independent experts monitoring compliance over the past six months.The North Korean mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment on the report, which was submitted to the Security Council committee last week.The experts said North Korea “used cyberspace to launch increasingly sophisticated attacks to steal funds from financial institutions and cryptocurrency exchanges to generate income.”They also used cyberspace to launder the stolen money, the report said.”Democratic People’s Republic of Korea cyber actors, many operating under the direction of the Reconnaissance General Bureau, raise money for its WMD (weapons of mass destruction) programs, with total proceeds to date estimated at up to two billion US dollars,” the report said.North Korea is formally known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). The Reconnaissance General Bureau is a top North Korean military intelligence agency.The experts said they are investigating “at least 35 reported instances of DPRK actors attacking financial institutions, cryptocurrency exchanges and mining activity designed to earn foreign currency” in some 17 countries.The U.N. experts said North Korea’s attacks against cryptocurrency exchanges allowed it “to generate income in ways that are harder to trace and subject to less government oversight and regulation than the traditional banking sector.”The Security Council has unanimously imposed sanctions on North Korea since 2006 in a bid to choke funding for Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. The Council has banned exports including coal, iron, lead, textiles and seafood, and capped imports of crude oil and refined petroleum products.U.S. President Donald Trump has met with North Korea leader Kim Jong Un three times, most recently in June when he became the first sitting U.S. president to set foot in North Korea at the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas.President Donald Trump, left, meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the North Korean side of the border at the village of Panmunjom in Demilitarized Zone, June 30, 2019.They agreed to resume stalled talks aimed at getting Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons program. The talks have yet to resume and in July and early August, North Korea carried out three short-range missiles tests in eight days.When asked about the U.N. report a U.S. State Department spokeswoman said: “We call upon all responsible states to take action to counter North Korea’s ability to conduct malicious cyber activity, which generates revenue that supports its unlawful WMD and ballistic missile programs.”The U.N. report was completed before last week’s missile launches by North Korea, but noted that “missile launches in May and July enhanced its overall ballistic missile capabilities.”The U.N. experts said that despite the diplomatic efforts, they found “continued violations” of U.N. sanctions.”For example, the DPRK continued to violate sanctions through ongoing illicit ship-to-ship transfers and procurement of WMD-related items and luxury goods,” the U.N. report said.
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Sudanese Cautiously Cheer Power-Sharing Deal
Sudan’s Transitional Military Council and opposition coalition finalized a power-sharing agreement Sunday that aims to stabilize the country for the first time since the military ousted Omar al-Bashir in April after months of mass demonstrations. The final agreement came after weeks of tense talks and repeated attacks on pro-democracy protesters by TMC security forces. Thousands of protesters flooded the streets of Khartoum on Sunday to celebrate the signing of the deal.Israa Mohamed applauded the agreement, saying it will be a base for a civilian country. However, he added, the only thing that guarantees the agreement’s success is to keep an eye on the revolution demands. Sudanese celebrate following a signing ceremony in the capital Khartoum, Sudan, Aug. 4, 2019.Protester Abdallah Ali has been demanding political change since December. He said the agreement is a step forward, but not the end of the journey. “Signing the constitutional draft was an important step to resolve the political turmoil, but it was not our ultimate goal,” he said.The military and opposition agreed the transitional decision-making body, known as the sovereign council, will contain an equal number of military figures and civilians. The head will be a civilian with a military background. The sovereign council will be established Aug. 20, with the TMC being dissolved on the same day. Analyst Mohamed Abdurrahman believes the agreement is a crucial step to resolve Sudan’s political crisis, but is concerned about the division between forces in the transitional period.In addition, he’s worried the peace process might be hurt by armed movements resisting the agreements, including rebel groups in Sudan’s Darfur, Blue Nile and Nuba Mountain regions, which battled for years against the Bashir regime. There is also uncertainty regarding the pro-Bashir group called the Revolutionary Front and its reaction to a new, unelected government in Khartoum.
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Are False Assumptions Driving Americans Apart?
The United States might seem more divided than ever, but that could be because Americans have a distorted impression of people with opposing political views.“Democrats and Republicans overestimate the proportion of people on the other side of the political aisle who hold extreme views by a factor of about two,” says Daniel Yudkin, associate director of research at More in Common.“So, another way of saying that is that there are about half as many people with extreme views on the other side than Democrats and Republicans think.” For example, 87% of Republicans say “properly controlled immigration can be good for America.” But Democrats believe only about half of Republicans would agree with that statement.And while Republicans think almost half of Democrats believe “most police are bad people,” the reality is that far fewer Democrats, 15%, agree with that supposition.A recent More in Common report finds that this perception gap is created by extremists in both parties who tend to have the loudest voices, in part because they are extremely active on social and traditional media.”So, when people are learning and hearing the voices of the people they think are on the other side, they’re actually hearing the voices of the most extreme contingent of those groups,” says Yudkin, a co-author of the report.”And so, they come to believe that those voices are representative of the people on both sides, when in fact, there’s quite a lot of complexity and nuance that gets missed.”These false assumptions are detrimental to Americans because the greater the misperceptions, the more people begin to view people on the other side as hateful, brainwashed or ignorant. That negativity makes it difficult for Americans with opposing political views to cooperate on the issues where they do see eye to eye.“There are a lot of issues that Americans actually agree about,” Yudkin says.“We agree that we should have a properly controlled immigration system that’s compassionate but also efficient. We agree that racism remains an issue in America right now. Most of Americans believe there’s rampant inequality and that there should be higher taxes on the wealthy, for example. But these shared issues are undermined in the political process when sides come to see the other as the enemy.”People tend to consume news that reinforces and confirms their biases about people in opposing constituencies, according to the report, which also finds that when conservatives and liberals consume news that runs counter to their own views, they make fewer false or exaggerated assumptions about the other side.The bottom line is that Americans are less divided than they believe, according to Yudkin, and reducing the perception gap starts with understanding the reality of just how big — or small — that gap actually is.
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3 Reasons China Cut Permits for Tourists Going to Taiwan
China’s decision last week to stop issuing permits for independent tourists to Taiwan applies new economic pressure to their already strained relations, and analysts see three underlying reasons behind Beijing’s move. Beijing’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism cited the “current mainland China-Taiwan relations” as cause to stop permitting indie travelers after about a decade. China regards self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory rather than a state, but Taiwan prefers at least today’s level autonomy over the Chinese goal of unification. That schism has caused the two sides to chafe for 70 years.Here are three reasons China cut off travel permits:Taiwan’s president opposes China despite earlier pressure to get alongSuspending the travel permits lets China remind Taiwan of its economic clout, some analysts say.The permit shutdown ends a process that generated on average more than 82,000 arrivals per month last year, which boosted the island’s service economy.Since 2016, China has flown military aircraft near Taiwan and persuaded five Taiwanese diplomatic allies to switch their allegiance from Taipei to Beijing. The Communist leadership hopes to pressure Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen’s government to bargain with China as her predecessor did — on the condition that acknowledges both sides are considered part of the same country.Despite the military and diplomatic pressure, the government in Taipei openly opposes rule by China. Tsai in January condemned the “one country, two systems” idea that Chinese President Xi Jinping had proposed then as a way to rule Taiwan.China is “more than furious” that Tsai openly backs anti-Beijing protesters who have taken to the streets in Hong Kong since June, said Sean King, vice president of the Park Strategies political consultancy in New York.China upped its warnings by calling off Taiwan-bound independent travel, said Liang Kuo-yuan, president of the Taipei research organization Polaris Research Institute.“The headline news will create some psychological effects,” Liang said. “I believe their motivation should be that mainland China wants to say ‘as well as using military threats we can also hold you back economically.’”Taiwan’s president faces a tough reelection bid in 2020China hopes the tourism suspension will remind Taiwanese that “there are riches to be had” if they reject Tsai’s reelection bid in January, King said.Tsai is running against Han Kuo-yu, a mayor who supports opening talks with China to bolster economic and investment ties. His party, when in power from 2008 to 2016, accepted Beijing’s condition that each side see itself as part of China for negotiation purposes. The two governments inked 23 deals.Tsai rejects the one-China condition, and China cut off talks after she took office.China hopes the cut in travel permits will addle the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, said Yun Sun, East Asia Program senior associate at the Stimson Center think tank in Washington.Hotels near tourist hotspots will take the biggest hit from the loss of self-guided tourists, though many had expected business to taper due to the decline in political relations, said Peter Lin, chief executive officer of the Topology Travel Agency in Taipei. Losses from the travel suspension are estimated at about $1 billion per year.“The Chinese do want to show that DPP [Democratic Progressive Party] is not doing good things and want to punish the DPP,” Sun said. “They want to squeeze the election, and tourism is a very convenient channel. The tourism industry in Taiwan will be hit pretty hard.”Chinese tourists would get close to Taiwan’s political heatChina’s official television network said on its Weibo social media website Wednesday that independent travel permits had been suspended because of increasing “risks” for travelers before the election.Beijing frets about its tourists being drawn to Taiwan’s democratic institutions including its unfettered mass media, King said. Relations with China are shaping up as a core presidential campaign issue with daily media coverage.“There’s the incidental bonus for Beijing of having fewer of its citizens exposed to the island’s vigorously open political culture,” King said. “This fact cannot be overlooked, especially given the protests in Hong Kong, uncensored coverage of which mainland visitors get to see on their Taiwan hotel television screens.”
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Hopes Fade as South Africa’s Unemployment Hits Record High
Lucky Nonyane is a qualified plumber and building inspector with two decades of experience. At one time, he said, he earned a good enough living to buy a car and to help out his now-grown children.But times have changed, and so has his luck. South Africa’s unemployment rate recently hit 29%, according to the nation’s statistics bureau.Nonyane is one of the unlucky ones. His car now sits at home because he can’t afford to buy gas, and he takes public transportation each day to reach a Johannesburg hardware store where he stands outside with a sign, hoping to attract work.“I’ve (gone), like, one month without a job,” he said. “And then I have to come here, look for a job, go home, and then expecting I’m going to find something at the end of the day. But then at the end of the day, you can’t get a job or something. And then tomorrow again you have to spend money again to come here.”South Africa has long struggled with unemployment, part of a legacy of entrenched inequality and a severe skills shortage. But the problem has grown more severe, with the jobless rate now climbing to a 16-year high.Ramaphosa’s promiseDuring his campaign for re-election this year, President Cyril Ramaphosa said jobs were his top priority. But economists say Ramaphosa was up against some tough demographics.“There was an entry into the job market of almost 600,000 on a year-on-year basis,” said Azar Jammine, chief economist for the Johannesburg-based think tank Econometrix. “And that means that the number of people who are leaving school or qualifying from college and entering the job market far exceeds the ability of the economy to actually accommodate them.”South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, delivers his party’s election manifesto at the Moses Mabhida stadium in Durban, South Africa, Jan 12, 2019.Those are people like 24-year-old Funda Buthelezi, who has been looking for a job for a month, without luck. He has a certification in computer skills, but says he struggles in the lingua franca of the South African workplace — English.“You look for a job, and you want for a job, yes,” he said.Buthelezi’s struggles point to one of the causes of unemployment — corruption in the educational sector, which leaves many graduates woefully unprepared for the workforce.Jammine said Ramaphosa’s plan to ease unemployment is further slowed by splits within the ruling African National Congress Party.“In the short term, the only thing that Ramaphosa can really do is try and improve perceptions of his ability to fight corruption and state capture and to show an ability to actually come out on top within the factional fights within the ruling ANC alliance,” he said.Buthelezi, who says he’s more comfortable in his native language, Zulu, gave the same assessment, but says he’s optimistic.“I think that these are problems that were there already, like the corruption,” he said. “He’s still fixing problems like those so that once he starts fixing the current problems, everything will be in order.”But that is little consolation for job seekers like Nonyane, who say they can’t afford patience.”It’s difficult,” he said, as he prepared to wrap up another day without work. “It’s not like all these people are crazy here, holding boards. They’re trying to survive.”
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Russia’s Putin Slams US Nuclear Treaty Withdrawal
Russian President Vladimir Putin says his country will not deploy short- or medium-range nuclear weapons unless in response to U.S. deployments.His comments Monday come after a meeting with his security council concerning Washington’s withdrawal Friday from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.Putin says “our actions will be exclusively reciprocal and mirrored” relating to “the development, production and deployment” of missiles once banned by INF.Earlier Monday, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told reporters Washington’s withdrawal from the treaty raised the risk of a new nuclear arms race.The U.S. announced its intention of withdrawing from the treaty last year, after accusing Russia for years of violating the treaty with a new ground-launched missile.
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Syrian Troops Resume Offensive on Rebel Stronghold in Idlib
The Syrian army said Monday it will resume its offensive against the northwestern Idlib province, the last opposition-held stronghold, accusing insurgents there of violating a recent truce. Opposition activists reported airstrikes had resumed in the southern parts of the enclave, which is located on the Turkish border.
Meanwhile, Turkish and American military officials began a two-day set of talks in the Turkish capital, Ankara, about establishing a safe zone in northeastern Syria to address Ankara’s concerns about U.S.-allied Syrian Kurdish-led forces in that region.
The Syrian military said in a statement carried by state media that insurgents in Idlib had continued to break the cease fire since it went into effect late Aug. 1.
State media and opposition activists had reported repeated violations of the truce by both sides since then.
The military statement said the rebels also failed to abide by an agreement reached last year to withdraw from a demilitarized zone surrounding the enclave.
The cease-fire marked a brief pause in the stalled government offensive against al-Qaida-linked militants and other jihadi groups, which dominate Idlib and surrounding areas.
The assault on the rebel stronghold began April 30, displacing more than 400,000 people and killing hundreds. Around 3 million people are living inside the rebel-held area.
After the army announced it was restarting military operations, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said Syrian and Russian warplanes began airstrikes on the southern parts of Idlib, mainly the town of Khan Sheikhoun.
The Syrian military later reported that insurgents had fired rockets at the Russian air base of Hmeimeem in Latakia province on the Mediterranean coast, “inflicting large human and material” losses outside the base. The Russian defense ministry later said three unguided rockets were fired at the base but hit a nearby village instead, injuring four civilians.
Turkey’s defense minister tweeted that a new round of talks had begun with the U.S. military about creating a Turkish-controlled safe zone inside Syria east of the Euphrates River, which would have no Syrian Kurdish forces within 19-25 miles of the border. Turkey sees the Syrian Kurdish fighters as terrorists aligned with a Kurdish insurgency within Turkey.
FILE – U.S. troops patrol near the Turkish border in Hasakah, Syria, Nov. 4, 2018.American troops are stationed in northeastern Syria along with the Kurdish forces, and have fought the Islamic State group together.
Turkish-U.S. negotiations on the safe zone stalled in recent weeks, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly threatened a new military operation into the area. On Sunday, Erdogan renewed that threat.
For their part, the Syrian Kurds say Ankara’s statements mask a territorial grab inside Syria, which the Kurdish forces had liberated from IS militants.
The Syrian Democratic Council issued a statement Monday saying that its military wing — the U.S.-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces — is a “force to defend” Syria’s ethnic and cultural pluralism.
The council added that Ankara “is trying to deceive the public” and to get the U.S. and other parties to “participate in the crimes that Turkey is committing against humanity.”
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UN Study Finds Businesses Fund Myanmar Army Abuses
A United Nations fact-finding mission called Monday for an embargo on arms sales to Myanmar and for targeted sanctions on businesses with connections to the military after finding they are funding human rights abuses.The mission released a report detailing how businesses run by Myanmar’s army, also known as the Tatmadaw, are engaged in such violations and provide financial support for military operations such as efforts to force Muslim Rohingya out of Rakhine state.
The report focused mainly on the activities of two military-dominated conglomerates Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd. and Myanmar Economic Corp. It said nearly 60 foreign companies have dealings with at least 120 businesses controlled by the two companies in industries ranging from jade and ruby mining to tourism and pharmaceuticals.“The revenue that these military businesses generate strengthens the Tatmadaw’s autonomy from elected civilian oversight and provides financial support for the Tatmadaw’s operations with their wide array of international human rights and humanitarian law abuses,” Marzuki Darusman, the Indonesian human rights lawyer who chairs the fact-finding mission, said in a statement.
The mission was established in March 2017 by the U.N.’s Human Rights Council in reaction to increasing repression of the Rohingya. The violence increased markedly in August 2017, when Myanmar security forces launched a brutal counterinsurgency campaign that drove more than 700,000 members of the Rohingya minority into neighboring Bangladesh.A wide array of international groups has documented killings, rapes and the torching of villages carried out on a large scale by Myanmar security forces. Myanmar’s government has denied abuses and said its actions were justified in response to attacks by Rohingya insurgents.
The mission, which also investigated human rights violations against ethnic groups in other parts of the country, documented the abuses in an initial report issued last year.
Military leaders in charge of Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd. and Myanmar Economic Corp. are among officials the fact-finding mission earlier said should be investigated for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Monday’s report urged the U.N. and member governments to immediately impose targeted sanctions against companies run by the military and suggested carrying out business with firms unaffiliated with the military instead.
“Get out of bed with the military. Cut their access to independent resources. Stop the process of enriching the generals individually and the military,” said Christopher Sidoti, one of the mission’s three experts, at a briefing on the report in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. Sidoti is an international human rights lawyer and former Australian human rights commissioner.The U.S. lifted long-standing economic sanctions against Myanmar in 2016. But it has reimposed some sanctions against members of the military, citing the army’s treatment of the Rohingya.
Myanmar Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing is already being sanctioned by the U.S. for the Rohingya campaign. In July, Washington barred him, his deputy Soe Win, and two subordinates believed responsible for extrajudicial killings from traveling to the U.S.Myanmar’s military objected to the sanctions, saying they were a blow against the entire military and the U.S. should respect investigations into the Rakhine situation being conducted by the army.
The U.S. sanctions against the top commander are useful and have a cumulative effect, Sidoti told The Associated Press.
At the same time, he said they are small and symbolic _ “only a start” and more actions such as freezing their bank accounts are needed.
In the past decade, as Myanmar transitioned from a military regime to a civilian government dominated by the military, businesses have poured investment into one of the region’s fastest growing economies. The country of more than 60 million people long was isolated and has huge potential, but the crisis over the treatment of Rohingya and other ethnic minorities has raised the risks for investors.
The report issued Monday alleged that at least 15 foreign companies have joint ventures with military-affiliated businesses.
The report did not suggest the foreign companies have directly violated any laws. But it said such ties pose “a high risk of contributing to or being linked to, violations of human rights law and international humanitarian law. At a minimum, these foreign companies are contributing to supporting the Tatmadaw’s financial capacity.”
It pointed to South Korea’s Inno Group, which is building a “skyscraper city” in Yangon in a joint venture with MEHL. Posco Steel Co. also has joint ventures with military-related companies, as does Pan-Pacific, an apparel maker that according to its website began operating in Myanmar in 1991 and is a supplier of shirts and other garments to many fashion brand names.
Some foreign investors in Myanmar have conducted human rights assessments in response to criticism of their activities in the country, including Japan’s Kirin Holdings Co. Ltd., which has taken stakes in Myanmar Brewery Ltd. and Mandalay Brewery Ltd.
But dozens of companies conduct business with Myanmar partners that have ties to the two big military-linked conglomerates, the report said. Others rent office space from them or operate in industrial zones that are owned by MEHL.
The report also raised concerns over suppliers of arms to the Myanmar military. They include China, Russia and North Korea, but also India, Israel and Ukraine, it said.
The report outlined links between the military and its businesses and jade and ruby mining in northern Myanmar, where the army has been fighting ethnic insurgencies for decades.
The fact-finding mission did not propose sweeping sanctions against Myanmar.
“There is need for economic development. There is need for investment but not where this involves the military,” Sidoti said at the briefing. “We recommend a positive approach to build up the non-military component of the Myanmar economy. Not no investment, but more investment, more activity, more support for the people but in ways that exclude the further enrichment of the military and the funding of their human rights- violating activities.”
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Japan’s NEC Shows ‘Flying Car’ Hovering Steadily for a Minute
Japanese electronics maker NEC Corp. on Monday showed a “flying car,” a large drone-like machine with four propellers that hovered steadily for about a minute.The test flight reaching 3 meters (10 feet) high was held in a gigantic cage, as a safety precaution, at an NEC facility in a Tokyo suburb. The preparations such as the repeated checks on the machine and warnings to reporters to wear helmets took up more time than the two brief demonstrations. The Japanese government is behind flying cars, with the goal of having people zipping around in them by the 2030s.Among the government-backed endeavors is a huge test course for flying cars that’s built in an area devastated by the 2011 tsunami, quake and nuclear disasters in Fukushima in northeastern Japan. Mie, a prefecture in central Japan that’s frequently used as a resort area by Hollywood celebrities, also hopes to use flying cars to connect its various islands. Similar projects are popping up around world, such as Uber Air of the U.S.A flying car by Japanese startup Cartivator crashed quickly in a 2017 demonstration. Cartivator Chief Executive Tomohiro Fukuzawa, who was at Monday’s demonstration, said their machines were also flying longer lately.NEC is among the more than 80 sponsor companies for Cartivator’s flying car, which also include Toyota Motor Corp. group companies and video game company Bandai Namco Holdings. The goal is to deliver a seamless transition from driving to flight like the world of “Back to the Future,” although huge hurdles remain such as battery life, the need for regulations and safety concerns. NEC officials said their flying car was designed for unmanned flights for deliveries but utilized the company’s technology in its other operations such as space travel and cybersecurity. Often called EVtol, for “electric vertical takeoff and landing” aircraft, a flying car is defined as an aircraft that’s electric, or hybrid electric, with driverless capabilities, that can land and takeoff vertically.All of the flying car concepts, which are like drones big enough to hold humans, promise to be better than helicopters. Helicopters are expensive to maintain, noisy to fly and require trained pilots. Flying cars also are being touted as useful for disaster relief.U.S. ride-sharing and transportation network Uber is planning demonstrator flights in 2020 and commercial operations in 2023, and has chosen Dallas, Los Angeles and Melbourne as the first cities to offer what it calls Uber Air flights.Dubai has also been aggressive about pursuing flying cars. Japanese officials say Japan has a good chance of emerging as a world leader because the government and the private sector will work closely together.
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Climate Change to Cause Chaos in Africa, Warn Scientists
Climate change will hit many African countries more severely than previously thought, according to a new report. Researchers warn that rapid population growth means more and more people will be hit by extreme weather events across the continent in the coming years. Henry Ridgwell reports.
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