Scientists have created two embryos of the nearly extinct northern white rhino, part of an effort to pull the species back from the brink.
“Today we achieved an important milestone on a rocky road which allows us to plan the future steps in the rescue program of the northern white rhino,” said Thomas Hildebrandt of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Germany.
The institute is part of a team of international scientists and conservationists racing to save the rare giants.
The eggs were harvested from the last two living females. They were injected with the frozen sperm of dead males.
The embryos will be transferred into a surrogate mother, a southern white rhino.
The conservationists hope to create a herd of at least five animals that can be introduced back into the wild in Africa.
The last male northern white rhino, Sudan, died last year at age 45. He gained international fame in 2017 when he was named the “The Most Eligible Bachelor in the World” on the Tinder dating app as part of fundraising effort.
“Five years ago, it seemed like the production of a northern white rhino embryo was almost an unachievable goal, and today we have them,” said Jan Stejskal, director of communication at the Dvur Kralove Zoo in the Czech Republic, where the last two surviving females were born.
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Month: September 2019
Trump: Bolton a ‘Disaster’ on North Korea, ‘Out of Line’ on Venezuela
U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that John Bolton, dismissed a day earlier as national security adviser, had been a “disaster” on North Korea policy, “out of line” on Venezuela, and did not get along with important administration officials.Trump said Bolton had made mistakes, including offending North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un by demanding that he follow a “Libyan model” and hand over all his nuclear weapons.”We were set back very badly when John Bolton talked about the Libyan model … what a disaster,” Trump told reporters at the White House.FILE – President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, Sept. 11, 2019.”He’s using that to make a deal with North Korea? And I don’t blame Kim Jong Un for what he said after that, and he wanted nothing to do with John Bolton. And that’s not a question of being tough. That’s a question of being not smart to say something like that.”Trump also said he disagreed with Bolton on Venezuela but offered no specifics. “I thought he was way out of line and I think I’ve proven to be right,” the president said.Trump said Bolton, with his abrasive, hardline approach, “wasn’t getting along with people in the administration that I consider very important.””John wasn’t in line with what we were doing,” he added.Trump said he got along with Bolton and hoped they parted on good terms, but added: “Maybe we have and maybe we haven’t. I have to run the country the way we’re running the country.”Trump had been growing more impatient with the failure to oust socialist Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro through a U.S.-led campaign of sanctions and diplomacy in which Bolton was a driving force.Bolton was also a chief architect of the Trump administration’s hardline policy on Iran.Asked whether he would consider easing sanctions on Iran to secure a meeting with its leader President Hassan Rouhani at this month’s U.N. General Assembly, Trump replied: “We’ll see what happens.” Bolton had opposed such a step.North KoreaNorth Korea has denounced Bolton as a “war maniac” and “human scum.” Last year, it threatened to call off a first summit between Kim and Trump after Bolton suggested the Libya model of unilateral disarmament. In the past, Bolton had proposed using military force to overthrow the country’s ruling dynasty.FILE – President Donald Trump meets North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi., Feb. 28, 2019.Trump’s efforts to engage with North Korea nearly fell apart altogether in February after he followed Bolton’s advice at a second summit in Hanoi and handed Kim a piece of paper that called for the transfer of Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and bomb fuel to the United States.Trump announced he had fired Bolton a day after North Korea signaled a new willingness to resume stalled denuclearization talks, but it then proceeded with the latest in a spate of missile test launches.Analysts say Bolton’s removal could help U.S. efforts to revive the talks, but will not make it easier for Washington to persuade Pyongyang to give up nuclear weapons.Washington has given no indication that it will soften its demand for North Korea’s ultimate denuclearization, even though with Bolton gone, the risky all-or-nothing gambit is unlikely to be repeated so bluntly.”This change in personnel could carve out some space for new approaches or thinking about what defines success and how to achieve it,” said Jenny Town at 38 North, a Washington-based North Korea project. “Whether it actually does or whether Bolton’s view was more deeply entrenched in U.S. thinking on this matter is yet to be seen.”
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South Korea Wants Japan’s ‘Rising Sun’ Flag Banned at Tokyo Olympics
South Korea has formally asked the International Olympic Committee to ban the Japanese rising sun'' flag at next year's Tokyo Games, calling it a symbol of Japan's brutal wartime past and comparing it with the Nazi swastika. deep disappointment and concern” about Japanese plans to allow the flag in stadiums and other facilities during the 2020 Olympics.
South Korea's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism on Wednesday said it had sent a letter to IOC President Thomas Bach expressing
South Korean Olympic officials last month urged the local organizing committee to ban the flag, but Tokyo organizers responded by saying it was widely used in Japan, was not considered a political statement and it is not viewed as a prohibited item.'' historic scars and pain” for the people of South Korea, China and other Asian countries that experienced Japan’s wartime military aggression, similar to how the
The flag, portraying a red sun with 16 rays extending outward, is resented by many South Koreans, who still harbor animosity over Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
The ministry said that in its letter to Bach, it described the flag as an unmistakable political symbol that's embraced by Japanese right-wing protesters who vent anger toward Koreans and other foreigners. It said the flag recalls[swastika] reminds Europeans of the nightmare of World War II.'' Banned by FIFAFurthermore, we emphasized that the use of the rising sun flag during the Tokyo Olympics would be a direct violation of the Olympic spirit promoting world peace and love for humanity, and that the IOC should have the Tokyo organizing committee withdraw its [current] stance on the flag and prepare strict measures to prevent it from being brought to stadiums,” the ministry said.
The ministry said it also pointed out that FIFA, the governing body of world soccer, had banned the flag in international matches.
Tokyo’s Olympic organizing committee didn’t immediately react to South Korea’s request to the IOC to ban the flag at the games.
The IOC confirmed it had received the Korean request and said that “sports stadiums should be free of any political demonstration.” Concerns at the games are examined on a case-by-case basis, the Olympic body said in a statement.
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Nigerian Court Upholds President’s February Election Win
A Nigerian court on Wednesday upheld President Muhammadu Buhari’s election victory earlier this year, dismissing a request by opposition parties to overturn the result over claims of voting irregularities.Buhari, 76, won a second term with 56 percent of the February poll, which was long delayed and marred by violence.Former vice president Atiku Abubakar of the main opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP), who came in second with 41 percent, immediately called the result a “sham.” Opposition parties lodged a legal challenge against the result in March.Men hold a banner depicting Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari, after an election tribunal rejected a bid to overturn the result of the February presidential election, at the Court of Appeal in Abuja, Nigeria, Sept. 11, 2019.Abubakar, 72, said he had been cheated of the chance to lead Africa’s most populous state after a conspiracy between the electoral commission INEC and Buhari’s ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).However, on Wednesday, the presidential election tribunal found there was no evidence of the opposition’s claims.”This petition is hereby dismissed in its entirety,” judge Mohammed Garba said Wednesday.The ruling was widely expected, with Buhari’s government taking office last month.Buhari has insisted that the election was free and fair, claiming the vote was “another milestone in Nigeria’s democratic development.”It was not immediately clear if the opposition parties would appeal the ruling to the supreme court, the country’s highest court.EU and local observers spoke of “serious problems” in the February polls, which was hit by violence including 53 deaths.Some reported vote-buying, intimidation and violence toward voters and officials, which have been a problem in previous elections in Nigeria.
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South Sudan’s Kiir, Rival Machar Meet for 3 Hours in Juba
After meeting for three hours Wednesday at South Sudan’s State House, President Salva Kiir and opposition leader Riek Machar pledged to resolve all outstanding issues holding up the formation of a unity government in November. The two leaders were all smiles as they shook hands and posed in front of flashing cameras outside the State House, but neither man announced any new agreements.Left unresolved from last year’s peace deal are the number of states and their boundaries along with details over security arrangements involving opposition and government forces.Still, President Kiir put a positive spin on things.“Talks between us are going on well. And we will reach a deal soon, so let’s rest assured that things are going on well,” Kiir told reporters in Juba.For his part, Machar noted that even though he is to become First Vice President once again under the terms of last year’s peace deal, he is still not a free man.“Juba is home and I have come back to Juba even if I go away for some time. The next coming, maybe [East African regional bloc] IGAD will determine my status to be free to come and discuss more with you here. But our discussion here, we have made important progress,” said Machar.The SPLM-in Opposition party says Machar is effectively under house arrest in his current home city, Khartoum, and IGAD said his movement was restricted when he lived in exile in South Africa.SPLM-IO Deputy Chairman Henry Odwar said Wednesday’s talks focused on amending certain laws to come into compliance with the revitalized peace deal.“We touched on issues of constitutional amendment, the draft that is going to be presented to the parliament and we also discussed the few security laws. We also talked about the issue of non-signatory parties,” said Odwar.The peace deal mandates that the transitional constitution and laws that govern the national security agencies, the army and the national police service be amended by parliament ahead of the formation of a unity government.But the country’s lawmakers are on a two-month recess that began two weeks ago. Last month, civil society activists warned that failure to amend the laws before November would affect the formation of a unity government.Odwar said the two leaders discussed the number of states but only agreed to form another committee.“The two principals have agreed that yes, we will have a committee and this committee will look into the IBC (Independent Boundaries Commission) report and if we reach a consensus, that will be great. If we don’t reach a consensus, then the principals will have to come together again and come up with a final statement on the number of states and boundaries,” Odwar told reporters.Despite reaching no agreement on the unresolved issues, Information Minister Michael Makuei says Kiir and Machar are both confident a unity government will come together on time.“When I say on time, it means on the 12th of November,” said Makuei.It is not clear if Kiir and Machar will hold more face-to-face talks this week in Juba before Machar departs for Khartoum.
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China Scolds Germany Over Meeting with Hong Kong Activist
China has summoned Germany’s ambassador in Beijing after a recent meeting between Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong and Germany’s foreign minister, declaring the meeting will damage bilateral relations.Chinese ambassador to Germany Ken Wu publicly rebuked the German envoy in protest of the meeting on Wednesday, two days after German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas met with Wong in Berlin.The Chinese ambassador told reporters in Berlin the meeting “will have negative consequences on bilateral relations and the Chinese side has to react.”Wong arrived in Berlin on Monday night and was welcomed by Maas. Wu said German legislators also met with Wong.”We don’t know that goal these politicians have,” Wu said. “Are they actually seriously concerned about Hong Kong’s freedom, democracy and rule of law, or (do) they want to add fuel to the fire and thereby make political capital out of it?”There was no immediate response from Germany, but the dispute comes days after German Chancellor Angela Merkel returned from a trip to China. Merkel said earlier she told Chinese leaders that upholding human rights was imperative.China has accused the United States and other Western countries of fomenting the unrest in Hong Kong.Protests that have sometimes turned violent over the last few months were triggered by anger over legislation to allow extraditions to China. But activists have since broadened their demands and are now calling for democracy and for Beijing’s communist leaders not interfere in Hong Kong’s affairs.Hong Kong is a former British colony that was returned to China in 1997. The transfer occurred under a system that guarantees freedoms in Hong Kong that don’t exist on the communist mainland, including an independent legal system.
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Macron’s Courtship of Putin Alarming Russia’s Near Neighbors
Two years ago, France’s Emmanuel Macron was widely seen as the most bellicose of Western leaders when it came to confronting Moscow over its annexation of Crimea and its fomenting of violent separatism in the Donbas region of Ukraine.Now, he is heading calls for Russia to be brought back into the Western fold, and his diplomatic outreach is making some of France’s allies nervous.On Monday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian dubbed a landmark prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine as a “window of opportunity” to ease tensions. Speaking just 48 hours after Moscow and Kyiv exchanged a total of 70 prisoners, he said “the time is right to work toward reducing the distrust between Russia and Europe, who ought to be partners on a strategic and economic level.”Le Drian welcomed “a new state of mind, which we have not seen for several years.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian arrive for a meeting of the Russian-French Security Cooperation Council in Moscow, Russia, Sept. 9, 2019.Accompanied by French Defense Minister Florence Parly, Le Drian held talks in Moscow this week — the first time such senior ministers have visited the Russian capital since the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea from Ukraine — as part of an effort to reset East-West relations.The search for detente was kicked off by Macron in August when he hosted Russia’s President Vladimir Putin at the French president’s summer residence on the Riviera.FILE – President Emmanuel Macron and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin walk, as they meet for talks before the opening of an exhibition marking 300 years of diplomatic ties between the two countries at Palace of Versailles, May 29, 2017.It is a far cry from 2017 when fresh from an election victory in which he beat two pro-Kremlin challengers, Macron took Putin to task for a host of actions at a joint press conference at the palace of Versailles.Standing beside an uneasy-looking Putin, Macron blasted Russia for seeking to meddle in Western elections by spreading fake news, disinformation and falsehoods. He condemned the brutal tactics, including the use of chemical weapons, allegedly employed by the Moscow-partnered Syrian government to regain control over the war-torn Middle East country.Macron talked about “very clear lines” of behavior. But since August, the lines appear a little less clear for Macron, say his critics.Allies dubiousThe French leader’s abrupt about-turn is prompting nervousness in London and some other Western European capitals. Since last month’s G-7 summit, during which U.S. President Donald Trump called for Russian readmission to the exclusive club — a membership it was excluded from because of the annexation of Crimea — Macron has pressed on with his courtship of Putin. “Pushing Russia from Europe is a profound strategic error,” Macron said in a sweeping diplomatic speech last month. “It’s not in our interest to be weak and guilty, to forget all our disagreements and to embrace each other again,” he said. However, “The European continent will never be stable, will never be in security, if we don’t pacify and clarify our relations with Russia.”Macron said Europe has to avoid being caught in the middle of a new Cold War, while also checking Russia’s global ambitions. He has not called for a lifting of Western sanctions on Russia, but says he doesn’t support the calls for the imposition of any fresh ones.FILE – U.S President Donald Trump, left, and French President Emmanuel Macron shake hands after their joint press conference at the G-7 summit, Aug. 26, 2019 in Biarritz, France.For some critics, Macron’s attempted reset is as much about his personal ambitions and his aim to boost his role in international affairs as anything else. Macron has sketched out a grandiose role for France as a “balancing power” between Russia and its rivals, between the U.S. and Iran, between wealthy nations and poor countries.His diplomatic forays have been met with mixed success. His bid last month to get the U.S. and Iran to sit down for talks during the G-7 summit failed after he invited the Iranian foreign minister as a surprise guest. Macron said he had hoped his risky diplomatic maneuver might help create “the possible conditions of a useful meeting.”How his bid to reset East-West relations will fare is unclear. But it isn’t impressing some of France’s European allies, including the Dutch and Russia’s near neighbors on the east of the continent.“Many countries, especially those that are not Russia’s closest neighbors, are keen to ignore the fact that Russia has not really changed its way,” Pawel Jablonski, an adviser to the Polish prime minister, told Britain’s Financial Times.Poland Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz recently warned that Macron is trying to return to the days of Gen. Charles de Gaulle, the iconic French leader who attempted to be a broker between the Soviet Union and the United States. He fears that Macron’s path eventually would lead to the Europeans placing themselves as an equidistant power between Moscow and Washington.British officials say Macron’s efforts to broker a rapprochement are premature, given the poisoning last year on British soil of Russian defector Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia. London has accused Russia’s military intelligence service, the GRU, of carrying out the poisoning, which prompted the imposition of further international sanctions on Russia.A major test of Macron’s reset gambit will come in the next few weeks. France has called an EU summit with Russia on the Ukraine conflict following Saturday’s prisoner exchange.“The two presidents confirmed that the current momentum will allow for the holding, in the next few weeks, of a summit under the Normandy format in Paris,” Macron’s office said Sunday after the French leader spoke with Putin by phone.“There is an opportunity, a door opened, to start making progress toward settling this conflict,” Le Drian told French radio earlier this week.Some Western security officials are less sanguine.FILE – U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker, third from left, meets with Ukrainian troops at an undisclosed location near Popasna, Donbas region, Ukraine, May 15, 2018. (M. Gongadze/VOA)Kurt Volker, U.S. special envoy for Ukraine negotiations, has called for more prisoner swaps, a renewed cease-fire that is actually observed in eastern Ukraine, and an adherence to agreements for de-escalation that were agreed in Minsk in 2014.While welcoming talks, U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper expressed skepticism Saturday.“It would be great if we could get Russia to behave like a more normal country. But you also can’t ignore the last many years of history where Russia has invaded Georgia. It has annexed Crimea. It is occupying parts of Ukraine. It is threatening the Baltic states,” he said.For Chatham House analysts James Nixey and Mathieu Boulègue, Macron is engaging in an “unwise aspiration of ‘winning Russia round,’” which they say overlooks principles and evidence.In a commentary for the London-based think tank, the two highlighted the recent Kremlin crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators.“A country that is ramping up repressive actions against its own citizens who dare to stand up for themselves is sadly — but logically — not fit to be ‘back’ with Europe [and it is not certain that they were ever together],” they said.
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On 9/11, Warnings That US, West Creating New Terrorist Incubator
Eighteen years after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks pushed the United States and its allies to launch the war on terrorism, veteran counterterrorism officials warn the coalition is helping history repeat itself.A group of 13 former officials, including two former directors of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, the former director of counterterror operations at Britain’s MI6 and the former U.S. envoy to the coalition targeting the Islamic State terror group, issued an open letter late Tuesday urging Western countries to stop ignoring detainees in Syria and Iraq.
“We have borne witness to the violent rise of al-Qaida, the Taliban, and ISIS,” they wrote, using an acronym for Islamic State. “We have studied the conditions that brought those groups into being and allowed them to grow in strength,” they said. “We see some of the same conditions arising once again.”FILE – Women gesture as they stand together at the al-Hol displacement camp in Hasaka governorate, Syria, April 2, 2019.In particular, the officials focus on the al-Hol camp in northeastern Syria, home to an estimated 70,000 people displaced during the U.S.-led fight to destroy IS’ self-declared caliphate.
According to data compiled by Human Rights Watch, about 11,000 are thought to be women and children related to suspected IS fighters.
Despite repeated requests by U.S. officials, many European countries have been reluctant to take many of them back.
The former counterterrorism and national security officials call that a mistake.
“This ‘hands-off’ stance will only create greater danger in the future,” the officials wrote. “The denial of citizenship by their home nations will bolster their sense of being, in effect, citizens of the Islamic State, potentially preparing them to form the core of a future resurgence.”
Speaking at a panel in Washington Tuesday, Brett McGurk, former U.S. envoy to the Defeat IS coalition, called the situation with the detainees unsustainable.FILE – An April 2, 2019, photo shows a general view of the al-Hol displacement camp in Hasaka governorate, Syria.
“We’ve got to have some focused priorities, and al-Hol is really critical,” McGurk told an audience at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, calling the camp and the prison facilities holding about 2,000 foreign fighters “Jihad-land.”
“We know what happens in these prisons,” he said, noting such centers had served as incubators for al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi, as well as IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
“I hope the U.S. steps up to this because it’s very serious,” McGurk said. “It’s central to our national security interests.”
“After 18 years of this so-called war on terrorism, we spend more than, I don’t know, it’s reported $5 to $6 trillion,” Ali Soufan, a former FBI supervisory special agent and a signatory of the letter, told U.S. lawmakers Tuesday. “And now we have more terrorists than when we started on 9/11. What we’re doing internationally, globally, is not working.”
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Taylor Swift Break-In Suspect Charged in Trump Golf Course Damage
The man charged with breaking into singer Taylor Swift’s Rhode Island mansion is accused of causing more than $20,000 damage to President Donald Trump’s New Jersey golf course.The Somerset County prosecutor says an employee at Trump National Golf Course in Bedminster observed a spinning vehicle “doing donuts” on the 11th hole on Sept. 3. A vehicle was spotted again on Sept. 8 making circular patterns on the 13th hole.A partial license plate number led police Tuesday to charge 26-year-old Richard McEwan of Milford with criminal mischief.McEwan was not wearing shoes when he was arrested in Swift’s beachfront mansion last month.Police said he told them he was taught to take his shoes off when entering someone’s home to be polite.A phone number listed for him has been disconnected.
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Mugabe Body Arrives in Zimbabwe, Burial Place Not Announced
The body of Zimbabwe’s longtime ruler Robert Mugabe has arrived in the capital, Harare, where it was met by President Emmerson Mnangagwa and a full military delegation.
Widow Grace Mugabe, dressed in black and with a black veil, was seated at a podium on the tarmac.
Mugabe’s body will be displayed at historic locations for several days before burial at a location still unannounced, indicating friction between the ex-leader’s family and the government.
Mugabe, who died at 95 in a Singapore hospital on Friday, was a guerrilla leader who led the fight to end white-minority rule in what was then Rhodesia, and ruled Zimbabwe from its independence in 1980 until he was deposed in 2017.
During his 37-year authoritarian leadership Zimbabwe descended from prosperity to economic crisis.
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Biya Orders Immediate Dialogue to Solve Cameroon’s Problems
In a rare address to his nation, Cameroon President Paul Biya said he has ordered the country’s prime minister to engage in an inclusive dialogue to discuss problems that are tearing the central African state apart, including violence that has killed more than 2,000 people in the troubled Anglophone regions.Biya also called on foreign nations to help him stop Cameroonians in the diaspora from sponsoring violence back at home.The president said that after all the efforts he has put in place to solve the separatist crisis in the restive English-speaking regions, fighters benefiting from the financial support of Cameroonians in the diaspora have continued to break up his county.He says that despite attempts masterminded by his country’s diaspora to destabilize Cameroon, he is happy that the country’s defense forces have fought hard, and peace is gradually returning to the restive regions. He says all countries of the world should help him by stopping Cameroonians in the diaspora from sponsoring rebellions back at home.Humanitarian assistanceBiya said he had given firm instructions that people suffering as a result of the crisis should be given humanitarian assistance both in and out of Cameroon and that talks about the marginalization of Anglophones were unfounded. He said since English-speaking lawyers and teachers started protesting in 2016 in what they called the domination of the French over the English language, he has recruited more English-speaking teachers and created an English department at the supreme court to attend to English speakers.Biya says all Cameroonians should know they are appointed to serve their fatherland, not their tribes or linguistic groups, so should be ready to serve wherever they are, irrespective of tribe and linguistic background.The president said it was difficult to know who to talk to, as people claiming to be separatist leaders hid behind social media platforms to preach violence. He said he had ordered a national dialogue to be presided over by the prime minister with all Cameroonian political leaders, traditional rulers, lawmakers, the clergy and all elected officials, not only on the Anglophone crisis but on all the crises facing Cameroon.He was referring to the political crises that occurred after the 2018 presidential election in which opposition leader Maurice Kamto proclaimed himself the winner; the Boko Haram insurgency on Cameroon’s northern border with Nigeria; the spillover of the crisis in the Central African Republic; and insecurity characterized by the proliferation of weapons.Surrender and be forgivenBiya called on all fighters in the English-speaking regions to surrender and be forgiven, or face his military.Cameroonians had expected Biya to grant amnesty to arrested separatist leader Julius Ayuk Tabe, who with nine of his collaborators were given life prison sentences two weeks ago, provoking attacks on public edifices in the English-speaking regions and a mass exodus of people.Separatist fighters had vowed to make the regions ungovernable and stop schools from reopening last September until their leaders were unconditionally released.Cameroonians also expected all political leaders, including Kamto and about 200 of his supporters, arrested for protesting what they called their stolen victory and charged with crimes, including terrorism, to be freed.Political analyst Emmanuel Mbafor says Biya, by refusing to address the challenges Cameroon faces as expected, had simply indicated to the world that he is not ready for a peaceful solution to the crises.“He has proven to us that he can be very, very unpredictable,” Mbafor said. “Everybody thought he would come and declare something soft. Rather, he came and said it does not mean anything.”Cameroonians had expected their president to grant amnesty to return peace to the troubled country.
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Japan’s Leader Taps New Cabinet Ministers to Freshen Image
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe shuffled his Cabinet on Wednesday, adding two women and the son of a former leader to freshen his image but maintaining continuity on U.S.-oriented trade and security policies.Abe, the longest-serving prime minister in Japan’s postwar history, kept key positions in the hands of close allies at a time when he is locked in a bitter trade dispute with South Korea and as he tries to fine-tune a trade deal with Washington.Taro Kono, who had been foreign minister, was appointed defense minister, while Toshimitsu Motegi, minister in charge of economic policy, is now foreign minister. Finance Minister Taro Aso kept his job.
Yet with just two years left on his party leadership, Abe also sought to add some new faces and keep potential challengers close.Getting the greatest attention was the new environment minister, Shinjiro Koizumi, the 38-year-old son of popular former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. He was the only appointment in his 30s in a lineup dominated by men in their 50s and older.Expectations in the Japanese public have been high for years that the younger Koizumi is destined to be Japan’s leader. Koizumi has tended to keep a distance from Abe, although both hold the conservative pro-U.S. policies of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
Abe told reporters that he was proud of his choices as people, mostly veterans, who will tackle reforms to keep Japan competitive in the “new era” of globalization.On Koizumi, he said: “I have big hopes he will take up challenges with innovative ideas fitting of someone from the younger generation.”
Yu Uchiyama, professor of political science at the University of Tokyo, said the appointments, besides Koizumi, showed Abe chose those who were very close to him.“Abe wanted the popular Koizumi under his control,” Uchiyama said. “This is a big step for Koizumi toward becoming future prime minister, but he will also be tested for the first time in a major way.”Also in the limelight are two new female ministers, Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Sanae Takaichi and Seiko Hashimoto, a former Olympian speedskater who was appointed minister in charge of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Women in the Cabinet tend to get attention in Japan, which is criticized as lagging in promoting females in both the private sector and politics.The nationally circulated Asahi newspaper said the Cabinet appointments showed Abe was building his successors but, at the same time, having candidates competing with each other in an effort to maintain his influence.“A strategy to create a post-Abe fight,” a front-page headline said.
By rewarding various politicians with posts, Abe has avoided a “lame duck” syndrome, in which he would be powerless during what’s remaining of his party leadership, said political analyst Masatoshi Honda.Until he came to power in 2012, Japan tended to have a “revolving door” of one leader toppled after another, partly because of recurring corruption scandals. Abe also served as prime minister from 2006 to 2007.
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Chinese-born Australian Lawmaker Under Fire Over Past Links
The first Chinese-born lawmaker to be elected to Australia’s Parliament has come under attack over her links to the Chinese foreign influence network.
Gladys Liu, who was born in Hong Kong in 1964, was elected to the conservative government in May elections to represent a Melbourne electoral division with a large population of ethnic Chinese voters.
She has come under media scrutiny recently over her membership of organizations overseen by the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee, which exert influence on important individuals, organizations and governments outside China. Concern is growing about China’s influence in Australia, which last year banned covert foreign interference in domestic politics.
Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported Tuesday that Chinese government records indicate that Liu, who migrated to Australia in 1985, was a member of two provincial councils of the China Overseas Exchange Association between 2003 and 2015.
That association reported to the State Council, China’s chief administrative authority, when Liu was a member, but has since merged with the United Front Work Department.
She told Sky News television later Tuesday that she “cannot recall” being a member of those provincial councils.
“If I can’t recall, I cannot be an active member of that council, can I?” she told Sky News. “I can tell you that I have never been a member of this council.”
But in a statement Wednesday, Liu said she held an “honorary role” in the council she had referred to — Guangdong Overseas Exchange Association — in 2011. But she said she no longer had any association with that organization.
“Unfortunately some Chinese associations appoint people to honorary positions without their knowledge or permission. I do not wish my name to be used in any of these associations and I ask them to stop using my name,” she said.
“I have resigned from many organizations and I am in the process of auditing any organizations who may have added me as a member without my knowledge or consent,” she added.
Opposition lawmakers on Wednesday accused Liu of making misleading statements about her past links to “Chinese Communist Party propaganda arms.”
She has also come under fire for failing to condemn China’s military grab for contested territory in the South China Sea.
Asked in the Sky News interview if she agreed that China’s efforts to take over most of the South China Sea were unlawful, she replied, “I definitely put Australia’s interests first.”
She said Wednesday that during the interview “I was not clear and should have chosen my words better.”
“We do not take sides on competing territorial claims but we call on all claimants to resolve disputes peacefully and in accordance with international law,” she said of Australia’s policy on the South China Sea.
The opposition has likened Liu’s situation to that of Sam Dastyari, who resigned as an opposition senator in 2017 over his links to wealthy Chinese political donor Huang Xiangmo.
Huang made headlines when it was revealed that his company had paid Dastyari’s personal legal bills then appeared alongside the then-senator at a news conference for Chinese media where Dastyari supported Beijing’s stance on the South China Sea, contradicting Australia’s bipartisan policy.
Australia has since canceled Huang’s permanent residency and banned foreign political donations.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Wednesday stood by Liu and rejected comparisons with the disgraced former senator, whom Morrison accused in 2017 of “betraying his country.”
“Money changed hands and his position was bought by that,” Morrison told Parliament of Dastyari. “He was caught in his own web of corruption. He should have resigned and he did.”
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France Making Progress in Epstein Probe, Launches Appeal
French police are appealing for victims and witnesses to come forward to aid their probe into Jeffrey Epstein and anyone else involved in the disgraced financier’s alleged sexual exploitation of women and girls, and say they have already interviewed three people who identified themselves as victims.FILE – This March 28, 2017, file photo, provided by the New York State Sex Offender Registry shows Jeffrey Epstein.The police appeal published Wednesday on Twitter provided both a phone number and an Interior Ministry email address for victims and witnesses to use. It said police specialists have been mobilized for the investigation.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said three victims who have already come forward were interviewed by investigators in August and earlier this month, the last as recently as Monday.
The French probe opened Aug. 23 is investigating the alleged rape of minors and other possible charges linked to the Epstein case. Epstein killed himself in jail last month.
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How Major Traumas Like 9/11 Impact Nation’s Psyche
Eighteen years ago, more than TV viewers said the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack was the all-time most memorable moment shared by television viewers during the past 50 years, according to a 2012 study.Cohen Silver, who studies the impact of collective trauma, says some individuals with no direct connection to the 9/11 attacks exhibited symptoms that experts had previously assumed were the result of direct exposure to trauma.“Individuals who watched a great deal of television in the first week after 9/11 were more likely to exhibit post-traumatic stress symptomatology and physical health ailments years later,” she says.Those symptoms often included anxiety and fear, as well as the onset of physical health ailments such as cardiovascular issues. “We learned from 9/11 that large-scale events could impact people beyond the directly affected communities, that the events that occurred in New York could impact people in Kansas,” Cohen Silver says. “The second message we’ve learned from 9/11 was the important role of the media in transmitting that awareness and that potential anxiety.”Students and others watch live television coverage of the 9/11 attacks on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles, Sept. 11, 2001.In the 18 years since 9/11, the rise of social media and smartphones has resulted in increased access to images of mass violence. In addition, there are no news editors or other middlemen to weed out potentially disturbing content. The speed with which these images reach people has also escalated. Young Americans born after 9/11 have grown up in a world where acts of mass violence are increasingly commonplace.More than 230 school shootings have occurred since 1999, when 13 people were killed at Columbine High School near Denver. A man cries on Sept. 11, 2001 after witnessing the collapse of the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City.Mass attacks continue to occur in places that Americans commonly view as safe spaces, from the 2016 Orlando nightclub attack that killed 49; the 2017 Las Vegas concert shooting where 58 people were killed and hundreds more wounded; to last month’s shooting at a Texas Walmart that left 22 people dead. “We’re so consumed with new events, you know, current events, hurricanes, mass violence events. And there are many of these that occur, and they’re all tragic,” says Cohen Silver. “But the psychological effects of September 11, 2019, cannot be directly linked to the 9/11 attacks without considering all of the rest of the things that have occurred.”While the average American cannot control the violence around them, they can protect their mental health by not inundating themselves with images of the tragedies, which can be psychologically unhealthy.”I believe that people can be informed without becoming immersed in the media. There’s no obvious benefit to repeated exposure to images and sounds of tragedy,” says Cohen Silver. “And so, once people are informed, I would say to practice caution in the amount of media attention that they engage and the amount of media exposure that they engage in.”
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China Stockpiles Options for Taiwan Charm Offensive
China, despite its pressure against Taiwan’s military and foreign relations, is stocking up ways to charm the self-ruled island that it hopes someday to bring under its flag, experts believe.The Communist government will fulfill a list of incentives announced last year to interest Taiwanese people in investment, work and study in China and may come up with more, scholars in Taipei say. Because incomes are too low to afford housing in some cities, some of Taiwan’s youth may go for China’s slightly higher pay and exposure to its more internationalized economy, they add.On Sunday, five cities in Fujian province, the part of China geographically closest to Taiwan, announced they would increase the opportunities for Taiwanese youth to come over and start businesses, a channel they described as a “talent exchange,” the official Xinhua News Agency reported.“Because of the very large size of mainland China’s economy, and because its economy is actually still growing, plus its internationalization is better than Taiwan’s, these major aspects will attract more Taiwanese to go over to try it out,” said Huang Kwei-bo, vice dean of the international affairs college at National Chengchi University in Taipei.FILE – Chinese Premier Li Keqiang speaks during a meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, July 4, 2019.Extension of 2018 offersAfter the Fujian province case, other government agencies in China may offer incentives to the Taiwanese, said Chao Chien-min, dean of social sciences at Chinese Cultural University in Taipei.China’s central government announced early last year 31 incentives aimed at drawing people over to work, study and invest. Proposals included tax breaks and special land-use rights. Taiwanese citizens on long stays on the mainland can move in without work visas. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said in March this year more incentives were on the way.Younger Taiwanese will go for it, Chao expects, if economic problems persist at home.“The impact of course we need to review in the context of Taiwan’s environment because in the recent past the econ situation isn’t quite so good,” Chao said. “Finding work, especially for Ph.D. students, it’s gotten extremely difficult.”China has claimed sovereignty over self-ruled Taiwan since the Chinese civil war of the 1940s and threatened to take it by force if needed. More than 8 in 10 Taiwanese oppose unification, the Taiwan government’s Mainland Affairs Council found in a survey in January. The council sees China’s incentives as a soft approach to bring the two sides together without the use of force.Economic benefitsWages in China average 1.2 to 1.3 times higher than in Taiwan for skilled, non-entry level jobs, a ManpowerGroup Experis official estimated last year. China’s gross domestic product (GDP), the total value of goods and services provided in the country during a given year, grew 6.6% last year compared to the Taiwan’s economy’s 2.8%.Investments by some of the world’s top multinationals have helped fuel that growth in the much larger China, and Taiwanese employees can get more “exposure” to them in China than at home, Huang said.Risks for outsiders in China include impacts of Sino-U.S. trade friction on manufacturing along with gaps in China’s legal system, especially protection of copyrights and trademarks.Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen delivers a speech during the Armed Forces Day ceremony in Taipei, Taiwan, Aug. 30, 2019. Tsai Ing-wen says the island has been “aggressively promoting indigenous national defense” with help from U.S. arms sales.Unintended soft powerChina’s formal incentives will ultimately run out, and there’s no sign Beijing will offer a new batch then, said Joanna Lei, chief executive officer of the Chunghua 21st Century Think Tank in Taiwan.To pressure Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen’s government, which opposes unification with China, since 2016 officials in Beijing have passed military jets and ships near the island and scaled back Taiwan-bound tourism, tactics that analysts call “hard power” compared to the economic incentives.China still has more “soft power” in reserve, Chao said, though it may never use it intentionally.A growing number of blockbuster films come from China, he said, and Taiwanese cinemagoers will inevitably watch them. Operation Red Sea, a Chinese military film about an evacuation in Yemen, for example found an audience outside China last year.Universities in China, including some in the international rankings, keep adding students, Chao said. In that way, he said, China has “already raised its soft power by a lot.”“Taiwan needs to speed up a bit,” said Liang Kuo-yuan, president of the Taipei research organization Polaris Research Institute. Chinese universities have lapped top schools in Taiwan, he said.“National Taiwan University used to be well ahead of Peking University and National Tsing Hua University in Hsinchu (Taiwan) was also well ahead of the Tsinghua University in Beijing,” Liang said, naming flagship campuses on both sides.Peking University ranks No. 68 and Tsinghua University, in Beijing, at No. 50 on the U.S. News & World Report rankings.China boasts better R&D “capacity” and a boom in medical research, both with possible appeal to Taiwanese, Liang added.
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Britain on Election Footing as Crisis Pits Parliament vs. Prime Minister
Britain’s parliament has been officially suspended, just weeks before the country is to crash out of the European Union. Opposition lawmakers have branded the move a coup by Prime Minister Boris Johnson and have vowed to take him to court if he refuses to request a Brexit extension from the European Union. Britain is to leave the bloc Oct. 31, but as Henry Ridgwell reports from London, the crisis has pitted parliament against the government and it is impossible to predict who will win.
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Britain on Election Footing as Crisis Pits Parliament vs. Prime Minister
Britain is getting set for a general election likely to be held in November, as the political crisis over the country’s exit from the European Union deepens.The British parliament was officially suspended or “prorogued” in the early hours of Tuesday, just weeks before the country is due to crash out of the European Union. Opposition lawmakers have branded the move a coup by Prime Minister Boris Johnson and have vowed to take him to court if he refuses to request a Brexit extension from the European Union.Britain is scheduled to leave the bloc Oct. 31, although legislation passed last week by opposition MPs seeks to force the prime minister to ask Brussels for an extension to the Brexit process if no exit deal can be reached.
Britain on Election Footing as Crisis Pits Parliament v Prime Minister video player.
A piece of paper with the word “silenced” sits on the British Parliament speaker’s chair at the House of Commons, in protest of the House’s suspension, in London, Sept. 10, 2019.Parliament suspendedFor now Parliament has been silenced, much to the indignation of opposition lawmakers.At 2 a.m. Tuesday several MPs interrupted the suspension ceremony by trying to physically restrain the speaker from leaving his chair. Others held up protest banners and shouted “Shame on you!” at ruling Conservative MPs.The government will likely frame any election campaign as the people versus an intransigent parliament trying to overturn the Brexit referendum, says Catherine Barnard, professor of European Union Law at the University of Cambridge.“There’s a real irony about this of course because in the referendum a lot of people said they voted leave because they wanted to take back control to the Westminster parliament. And now what we’re seeing, the narrative that’s being developed, is direct democracy through referendum versus representative democracy through MPs,” Barnard says.In Brussels, the European Union Tuesday began appointing a new team of commissioners. Even if Britain asks for an extension, some EU members could veto it, Booth says.“We’ve heard certain noises from particularly the French government, and I think that is indicative of a growing frustration in the European Union of sort of, ‘We are open to an extension but what is the plan?’”In Ireland, there are fears that any border checks resulting from Brexit could spark a return to sectarian violence. Such concerns were underlined Monday as dissident Republicans attacked police with petrol bombs in Londonderry, a reminder that the implications of Brexit go far beyond the theatrics of Westminster.
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Report: Trump Orders Crackdown on Homelessness in California
The Washington Post reports that U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered a crackdown on homelessness in California. In a report Tuesday, the newspaper quotes four unnamed administration officials who said the president wants the administration to get involved in getting homeless people off the streets of cities with growing homeless populations. Officials say the focus has been on Los Angeles’ Skid Row. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has insight into the so-called “homeless capital of the United States.”
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US Court Rules Terror Watchlist Unconstitutional
After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the United States created a terrorism screening database (TSDB) that collected the names of suspected and known terrorists, so they could be kept from entering the country. Recently a U.S. federal judge ruled the list is unconstitutional. Saba Shah Khan reports.
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Mugabe’s Body Believed to Be Returning to Zimbabwe
A vehicle believed to be carrying the body of former Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe left a Singapore funeral parlor Wednesday morning to be returned to his homeland for burial in the African nation he ruled for decades.Police escorting the vehicle Wednesday morning said the convoy was heading to the airport.Mugabe died Friday in a Singapore hospital at age 95. Zimbabwe’s Vice President Kembo Mohadi was seen arriving at the funeral parlor Tuesday afternoon, and a Zimbabwe state newspaper said his body would return to the country Wednesday.Mugabe was an ex-guerrilla chief who took power in 1980 when Zimbabwe shook off white minority rule. He enjoyed strong backing from Zimbabwe’s people in the initial years, but that support waned following repression, economic mismanagement and allegations of election-rigging.He is still regarded by many as a national hero, though, with some even beginning to say they missed him after his successor, Emmerson Mnangagwa, failed to revive the economy and used the army to crush dissent.The Sunday Mail quoted presidential spokesman George Charamba in reporting Mnangagwa and family members will receive the body at the airport named after the former president in the capital, Harare. The body will be taken to his rural home before being placed in a giant stadium for public viewing.Mnangagwa declared Mugabe a national hero and said official mourning will end after the burial at the National Heroes Acre, a hilltop shrine reserved exclusively for Zimbabweans who made huge sacrifices during the war against white-minority rule.Zimbabwe’s information minister said Mugabe’s body will lie in state at two stadiums in the capital for three days. His burial is scheduled for Sunday.
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Cameroon Leader Says Govt. Will Organize Talks to Solve Separatist Crisis
Cameroon’s President Paul Biya announced in a rare public address on Tuesday the organization of a national dialogue to solve a separatist crisis in the country’s English-speaking regions.Biya said the talks, lead by the prime minister and starting from the end of this month, would bring together a wide range of people to seek ways to end violence that has plagued the region in recent months.An insurgency erupted in late 2017 after the government cracked down on peaceful protests in Cameroon’s Northwest and Southwest English-speaking regions. Protesters were complaining of being marginalized by the French-speaking majority.Since then, fighting has killed about 1,800 people and displaced over 500,000, according to United Nations estimates.”The dialogue will rally all the sons and daughters of our beloved and beautiful country, Cameroon, to reflect on values that are dear to us, namely: peace, security, national unity and progress,” said Biya in a speech on state television.He did not specify if representatives for the separatist movements would be invited to participate to the talks.In June, NGO Human Rights Watch said the prospects for talks between the government and separatist leaders were very thin.
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Data Shows Global Military Spending Rising
Eighteen years after the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil, the world’s military spending is at an all-time high.According to data from the FILE – A U.S. fighter jet takes off from the U.S. aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan to patrol the international waters off the South China Sea, Aug. 6, 2019.Military spending hit a post-Cold War low in 1998, but took a sharp rise after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, which killed nearly 3,000 people.The Obama administration began making military budget cuts during efforts to end U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, but now military spending is on the rise again — thanks to Russia and China.Speaking exclusively with VOA, the Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs R. Clarke Cooper called Russia and China “revisionist powers that would like to be in a place where they’re not.””I wouldn’t call this an arms race,” Cooper said, “but what is different is that we are in places that are more competitive than they were in the past.”The United States accounts for more than a third of global military spending.It boasts 11 aircraft carriers, a powerful nuclear arsenal, new elite fighter jets and about 2.1 million troops. Experts agree its military remains the dominant force.”I think sometimes there’s a tendency to make Russia and China 30 feet tall, and they’re not,” Bradley Bowman, a former military officer and a current senior director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told VOA. “There are real vulnerabilities there that we could exploit in a conflict, but there are also areas where they’re more advanced than we are.”‘Coerce and defeat’China is now the world’s second-largest military spender — going from just 2% of the world’s military budget in 1990 to 14% now.FILE – Troops are seen by a row of over a dozen army jeeps at the Shek Kong military base of People’s Liberation Army in New Territories, Hong Kong, China, Aug. 29, 2019.Bowman warned allies and partners that China has undertaken this comprehensive effort to modernize its military in order to “coerce and defeat” the U.S. and its allies in a future conflict.China built two aircraft carriers in the past decade, and a third is under construction. China has developed its own elite fighter jets, troop numbers have swelled to more than 2.5 million, and it is investing in new technologies, including hypersonics weapons that would fly five times the speed of sound.Wezeman says the swift modernization has been “perceived as a threat by its neighbors.”Other top spendersIn reaction, India has upped its military spending by more than $11 billion in just three years, now ranking fourth overall behind Saudi Arabia.Although Russia slipped from the top five spending countries in 2018, it still has NATO’s attention after invading Georgia in 2008 and annexing part of Ukraine in 2014.The 29 NATO countries spent $963 billion, 53% of world military spending, in 2018.That number is likely to increase as the U.S. continues to pressure NATO allies to spend 2% of their Gross Domestic Product on defense.”We can’t let countries off the hook,” U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Saturday at the Royal United Services Institute in London. “You can’t simply substitute and say, ‘Well, my 2% is going to go to technology, or I’m going to build infrastructure. I can’t deter a Russian brigade with a road.’ We need real capability.”
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UN: African Refugees Trapped in Libya to Go to Rwanda
Hundreds of refugees trapped in Libyan detention centers will be evacuated to Rwanda as conflict rages in the north African nation, the United Nations said Tuesday.Vincent Cochetel, special envoy for the central Mediterranean for the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR), said 500 refugees would be evacuated to Rwanda in a deal signed with the small east African nation and the African Union.“The agreement with Rwanda says the number can be increased from 500 if they are satisfied with how it works,” Cochetel told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview ahead of the official U.N. announcement.“It really depends on the response of the international community to make it work. But it means we have one more solution to the situation in Libya. It’s not a big fix, but it’s helpful.”Jumping off point to EuropeLibya has become the main conduit for Africans fleeing war and poverty trying to reach Europe, since former leader Moammar Gadhafi was toppled in a NATO-backed uprising in 2011.People smugglers have exploited the turmoil to send hundreds of thousands of migrants on dangerous journeys across the central Mediterranean although the number of crossings dropped sharply from 2017 amid an EU-backed push to block arrivals.Many are picked up at sea by the EU-funded Libyan Coast Guard, which sends them back, often to be detained in squalid, overcrowded centers where they face beatings, rape and forced labor, according to aid workers and human rights groups.The UNHCR has said there are about 4,700 people from countries including Eritrea, Somalia, Ethiopia and Sudan in Libya’s detention centers.A July airstrike by opposition forces that killed dozens of detainees in a center in Tripoli has increased pressure on the world to find a safe haven for the refugees and migrants.FILE – The morning after airstrikes hit a detention center holding migrants killed more than 50 people and injured at least 130, blood still stains the rubble as officials search for human remains, in Tripoli, Libya, July 3, 2019. (H. Murdock/VOA)Airlifting evacueesUnder the deal, refugees who want to go will be airlifted to Rwanda and stay in a transit facility on the outskirts of Kigali.Priority will be given to the most vulnerable, such as unaccompanied children, disabled and elderly people. Most of the refugees will be from countries in the Horn of Africa.Cochetel said some evacuees may be resettled in third countries, while others will be helped to return to countries where they previous had asylum, or to their home countries if it is safe. Some may be permitted to stay in Rwanda, he added.“Rwanda has said, ‘we’ll give them the space, we’ll give them the status, we’ll give them the residence permit. They will be legally residing in Rwanda as refugees,’” Cochetel said.Rwanda to the rescueLandlocked Rwanda is one of Africa’s most densely populated countries and already supports about 150,000 refugees from neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi.Cochetel said funding would mainly come from the European Union, but also from the African Union, which has received $20 million from Qatar to support the reintegration of African migrants and refugees.Rwanda is the second African nation to provide temporary sanctuary to refugees and migrants stranded in Libya after Niger, which has taken about 2,900 since 2017.Cochetel said such moves by African countries were positive because they demonstrated to Europe that there were “things happening” there.Yet critics have accused the European Union of seeking to curb the number of migrants reaching its shores by outsourcing the crisis to poor African nations.European resettlementSome analysts have expressed fears that evacuees could end up staying in Rwanda for long periods awaiting resettlement in a European country.“On one hand you could say that anything is better than being stuck in a Libyan detention center, so the fact that this gives refugees the opportunity to get out is positive,” said Jeffery Crisp, an expert on migration and refugee issues.“But many of the refugees will be expecting resettlement in Europe, which can often take time — and you have to wonder if the EU is going to make these resettlement places available,” added Crisp, a research associate at Oxford University’s Refugee Studies Centre.Rwandan and UNHCR officials said the aim was to remove people from danger and provide them with temporary safe shelter where they would be given options for the future.“We didn’t sign an agreement with the EU. We signed an agreement with AU and UNHCR,” said Rwanda’s Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe.“The refugees are in serious danger in Libya. It has been two years since the Rwandan president said that we are ready to contribute to find a solution by taking some of them. The UNHCR is also calling for other countries to take them.”
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