The Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement, or TPP, the United States signed with 11 other countries in 2016 would have given American farmers more places to market their crops and reduced tariffs on U.S. goods.The United States failed to ratify the pact in the waning months of the Obama administration, and Donald Trump campaigned for the presidency pledging to withdraw from the accord, arguing it would cost U.S. manufacturing jobs. Trump kept his promise soon after taking office.Kirkwood, Illinois, farmer Wendell Shauman, who has extensively traveled to China and other parts of the world where U.S. crops are marketed, supported Trump in 2016 — despite wanting the TPP agreement.“Any time you back out on a trade deal, that’s not a precedent I like to see set,” Shauman told VOA in an interview in January 2017.FILE – President Donald Trump, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, right, and Mexico’s then-President Enrique Pena Nieto, left, participate in the USMCA signing ceremony, Nov. 30, 2018, in Buenos Aires, Argentina.Trade policiesUnder President Trump, the United States not only withdrew from the TPP, it also dismantled the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, known as NAFTA.A replacement — the United States, Mexico Canada Trade Agreement, or USMCA — is under review in the U.S. Congress. Meanwhile, the Trump administration continues to wage a trade war with one of its biggest crop buyers, China, which imposed tariffs on U.S. corn and soybeans in retaliation for U.S. tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum.Today, as Shauman heads to his cornfields to harvest much later than usual thanks to extremely wet weather during the planting season, he contemplates how current trade policy might drain his profits. But he still supports President Trump.“From what I hear on the other side, I’d be happy to support what he’s doing versus what they are proposing,” Shauman told VOA during a break in harvesting his corn. Much of his ire is directed at the Democratic majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.“Harry Truman talked about the do-nothing Congress. Well, we’ve got another do-nothing Congress. Anything Trump wants to do, they are against,” Shauman said.Success on the international trade front is a top issue for U.S. farmers, and many want Congress to pass the USMCA soon.This segment of the American landscape largely supported President Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, but continues to face difficult economic conditions amid increased costs to operate farms and decreasing profits for their crops.FILE – Corn grows in front of a barn displaying a large Trump sign in rural Ashland, Nebraska, July 24, 2018.Fearing a Democratic presidentWhile an uncertain trade environment lingers ahead of casting ballots in 2020, Shauman also worries a Democratic president may impose restrictive environmental regulations to the detriment of his farm operations.He’s not alone.“I was excited to see a Republican take back the White House,” Elkhart, Illinois, pork farmer Thomas Titus told VOA. “I love the stance that we are taking.”So does Jim Raben, who farms corn and soybeans in Ridgeway, a town in southern Illinois. “I think he’s doing what is right,” he told VOA at the 2019 Farm Progress Show in Decatur, Illinois.“I think the majority of our people are by far supportive of the president,” says Illinois Farm Bureau’s Mark Gebhards, who points out that Trump has been able to blunt the impact of tariffs through payments to farmers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s “Market Facilitation Program.” This year it cost taxpayers about $16 billion, on top of roughly $15 billion in 2018.“We’ve said all along we want trade, not aid,” he told VOA. “We don’t want to have to live on hoping that we get another round of market facilitation payments. We really need to find a final way forward — not only the tariffs with China, the UMSCA, Japan, the EU, all these other issues that are out there.”FILE – President Donald Trump speaks at Southwest Iowa Renewable Energy, an ethanol producer in Council Bluffs, Iowa, June 11, 2019. Trump has repeatedly told U.S. farmers he supports them and in return they largely continue to support him.Little understanding of agricultureYet the lack of substantial trade progress during Trump’s first term causes concern among some of his supporters.“I really feel like he doesn’t understand what happens out here in these flyover states [in the middle of the country],” says Colona, Illinois, farmer Megan Dwyer. “He’s walking a very thin line in what is happening in the ag[riculture] sector.”Dwyer says the Trump administration’s waivers for oil refineries to use corn-based ethanol, the president’s tweeting, and his mixed results on trade could affect her vote.“Some of his comments recently around ag are frustrating to me,” she said.Amid an ongoing impeachment inquiry in the U.S. Congress, a straw poll conducted by Farm Journal Pulse in September showed 76% of 1,138 farmers polled support Trump in 2020, down from 79% in July.“I think there’s a lot of people who are disappointed,” Shauman said. “But it comes down to the choice they give us, and right now most farmers … I don’t think he’s going to lose many.”
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Month: October 2019
Russia Says US Presence in Syria Illegal, Protects Oil Smugglers
Russia’s defense ministry on Saturday attacked U.S. plans to maintain and boost the American military presence in eastern Syria as “international state banditry” motivated by a desire to protect oil smugglers and not by real security concerns.U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Friday Washington would send armored vehicles and troops to the Syrian oil fields in order to prevent them from falling into the hands of Islamic State militants.His comments came after President Donald Trump earlier this month pulled some 1,000 U.S. military personnel out of northeast Syria, a move that prompted Turkey to launch a cross-border incursion targeting the Kurdish YPG militia, a former U.S. ally against Islamic State.Trump’s decision drew an angry backlash from Congress, including key Republicans who saw the pullout as a betrayal of the Kurds and a move that could bolster Islamic State.In a statement, Russia’s defense ministry said Washington had no mandate under international or U.S. law to increase its military presence in Syria and said its plan was not motivated by genuine security concerns in the region.”Therefore Washington’s current actions – capturing and maintaining military control over oil fields in eastern Syria – is, simply put, international state banditry,” it said.U.S. troops and private security companies in eastern Syria are protecting oil smugglers who make more than $30 million a month, the statement said.Russia, which backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and has helped him turn the tide of a bloody civil war, has long insisted that the U.S. military presence in Syria is illegal.Moscow has further bolstered its position in Syria following the U.S. withdrawal from the northeast of the country, negotiating a deal this week with Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan to help remove the Kurdish YPG militia from within a 30 km (19 mile) strip along the Syrian-Turkish border.Ankara views the YPG as terrorists linked to Kurdish insurgents operating in southeast Turkey.
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‘Russian Agent’ Maria Butina Heads Home
For some she was the spy who wasn’t – just an eager Russian gun-rights enthusiast keen to improve relations between Russia and America, who was turned into a scapegoat by vengeful U.S. counterintelligence agencies.For others, Maria Butina is a clandestine Russian agent, a real-life Red Sparrow, with flame-colored hair to match, who infiltrated conservative circles in the U.S., including the National Rifle Association, to establish ‘back channel’ communications with political figures and aspiring politicians with the goal of influencing them.However, when she arrived home at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport to be greeted by her father and a melee of reporters, the 30-year-old shed no new light on the circumstances that led to her getting into trouble with U.S. authorities. She said she felt “well” and was happy “to return home.” She was greeted by people offering her flowers.She has continued to maintain her overall innocence, despite having pled guilty to acting as an unregistered foreign agent. On board an Aeroflot flight from Miami, reporters lined up to interview her even before landing. She told them: “Well guys, almost home. Only a little bit left, only several hours. Thank you for your support. I’m waiting for the plane to land. I’ll be in my homeland.”She added her imprisonment had been a “very painful and lengthy experience.” On her arrival she again thanked Russians for their support. “I didn’t give up simply because I knew that I could not do that,” she said.Journalists wait for Maria Butina’s arrival, at Sheremetyevo International Airport outside Moscow, Russia, Oct. 26, 2019.Released from Tallahassee’s Federal Correction Institution Friday after having served more than 15 months behind bars, Butina pled guilty in December to one count of conspiring to engage in unregistered lobbying on behalf of a foreign power. In the Russian capital awaiting her midday Saturday arrival was her father, Valeriy Butin, a retired 55-year-old manufacturing engineer, who had dubbed the charges against her in the past as “psychopathic and a witch-hunt.”She has said she plans to go home to Barnaul, a beaten-down city in Siberia, once a manufacturing center for tanks, ammunition and tractors, but now one with little future.There were no high-profile Kremlin dignitaries planning to be present at the airport. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said Russian President Vladimir Putin had no plans to meet with Butina as he did subsequently with Anna Chapman, the Russian agent who was part of a 2010 spy swap. Chapman was feted on her return and turned into a celebrity with her own television show.That may suit Butina. In an interview with CNN this year she appeared to distance herself from Chapman, sniffing she had no intention of following in Chapman’s footsteps, maintaining curtly, “I’m not a circus bear.”There was a time though that she liked the comparison with Chapman — “You have upstaged Anna Chapman,” Butina’s Kremlin contact wrote in an email he sent her from Russia while she was working in Washington, according to U.S. court papers.Maria Butina is accompanied by federal agents after her release from a Florida prison, during her transfer onto a plane bound for Moscow, at Miami International Airport, in Miami, Florida, Oct. 25, 2019.Despite their absence at the airport, Kremlin officials lauded Butina. Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the foreign ministry, described Butina as a “prisoner of conscience,” and said she had been subjected to “physical and psychological experiments” in prison.Last week, when it became known that Butina would be released early for good behavior, Zakharova told state-owned RIA Novosti that “not every adult man would be able to take what Butina has lived through in the American prison.”Butina was sentenced to 18 months in prison after having been arrested on July 15, 2018. FBI agents say she was a small cog in a much larger Russian influence campaign. Her infiltration though was apparently separate from the 2016 Russian election-meddling detailed in former special counsel Robert Mueller’s recent report.But her Washington activity coincided with the broader Moscow-directed effort to covertly shape the last U.S. presidential election. Her trial judge noted Butina was transmitting political reports back to Moscow.Putin criticized the prosecution of Butina labeling it “arbitrary.” He said in April, “It’s not clear what she was convicted of or what crime she committed. I think it is a prime example of ‘saving face.’ They arrested her and put the girl in jail.”FILE – Maria Butina poses for a photo at a shooting range in Moscow, Russia, April 22, 2012.She has her defenders in the U.S. as well, including Thomas Massie, a Republican congressman from Kentucky.He tweeted Friday: “She served a ridiculously long sentence essentially for not filing the right paperwork. But now she is free. Sadly, she was jailed to satiate the rampant Russophobia in the US these days. We are better than this.”James Bamford, author of best-selling books on U.S. intelligence agencies, profiled her for the New Republic magazine and argued Butina was “simply an idealistic young Russian” hoping to contribute to a better understanding between Russia and America. She told Bamford: “I thought it would be a good opportunity to do what I could, as an unpaid private citizen, not a government employee, to help bring our two countries together.”That wasn’t the view of the judge who presided over her case, though, who said her work was directed by a Kremlin-linked Russian official.Butina was not formally charged with espionage, which would have suggested the stealing of state and military secrets. Experts say her focus was on infiltrating U.S. political circles in ways that would be useful for Russia’s foreign policy.Some former U.S. counterintelligence officials dismiss her claims of innocence, while acknowledging she wasn’t a run-of-the-mill spy. Joseph Augustyn, a 28-year veteran of the CIA’s clandestine service, commented in the Atlantic Monthly: “One thing the public should know about Butina is that she was not a ‘spy’ in the traditional sense, but rather what the intelligence community would call an access agent.”FILE – Court papers, unsealed July 16, 2018, and photographed in Washington, show part of the criminal complaint against Maria Butina.As an access agent she would have been able to pinpoint possible recruits and use unwitting accomplices to help promote Russian interests, he and other former counter-intelligence officers argue.U.S. prosecutors alleged in court documents that Butina “maintained contact information for individuals identified as employees of the Russian FSB,” or Russian Federal Security Service. Additionally, prosecutors claimed FBI surveillance observed Butina having a meal with a Russian diplomat whom the U.S. government expelled in March 2018 on suspicion of being a Russian intelligence officer.Some security analysts, however, say it still remains unclear whether her operation was initiated by Russia’s FSB or whether it was conceived by her patron, Alexander Torshin, a former deputy governor of Russia’s central bank, as a way to boost himself within the Kremlin administration.According to Mark Galeotti, an analyst at Britain’s Royal United Services Institute, the shadowy siloviki – a Russian term for the “men of force” from the military, intelligence and security services — and their friends, clients and partners in business and politics compete with each other for Putin’s attention. Adventurism and covert missions can be highly rewarded when successful. “They compete to catch his eye and win his favor,” he notes in his book “We Need To Talk About Putin.”
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More Vietnamese Fear Relatives Among 39 Dead in Truck in England
More Vietnamese families came forward Saturday with information their relatives may be among the 39 people found dead in the back of a container truck in southeastern England.British police initially said they believed the victims were Chinese but acknowledged this was a “developing picture.”A representative for VietHome, a U.K.-based organization of the Vietnamese community, said it sent the pictures of nearly 20 people reported missing to the police.Police on Friday arrested three people on suspicion of manslaughter and conspiracy to traffic people. The 25-year-old driver of the truck remains in custody on suspicion of murder.Pham Van Thin, father of 26-year-old Pham Thi Tra My, who is feared to be among the 39 people found dead in a truck in Britain, sits inside his house in Vietnam’s Ha Tinh province, Oct. 26, 2019.Families fear the worstIn Vietnam, the father of 20-year-old Nguyen Dinh Luong feared his son was among the dead.He told The Associated Press he had not been able to reach him since last week, when he told his father he would join a group in Paris that was trying to reach England.“He often called home but I haven’t been able to reach him since the last time we talked last week,” Nguyen Dinh Gia said. “I told him that he could go to anywhere he wants as long as it’s safe. He shouldn’t be worry about money, I’ll take care of it.”He said his son left home in central Ha Tinh province to work in Russia in 2017, then on to Ukraine. In April 2018, he arrived in Germany then traveled to France. He told his family that he wanted to go to the U.K.The Vietnamese Embassy in London said Friday that it contacted police about a missing woman feared to be one of the dead. An embassy spokesman said it was contacted by a family in Vietnam who says their daughter had been missing since the truck was found.‘I can’t breathe’The BBC reported it had been in contact with six Vietnamese families who feared their relatives are among the victims. Relatives of 26-year-old Pham Tra My told the broadcaster they had been unable to contact her since receiving a text Tuesday night saying she was suffocating.“I’m so sorry mom and dad. … My journey abroad doesn’t succeed,” she wrote. “Mom, I love you and dad very much. I’m dying because I can’t breathe. … Mom, I’m so sorry.”An aerial view as police forensic officers attend the scene after a truck was found to contain a large number of dead bodies, in Thurrock, South England, Oct. 23, 2019.China said it could not yet confirm the victims’ nationalities or identities. There was speculation circulating online in Vietnam that the victims may have been traveling on false Chinese passports.“The police said that they were urgently carrying out the verification work and the identities of the victims cannot be confirmed at present,” said Tong Xuejun, a Chinese consular official in London.“We hope the British side can verify the victims’ identities as soon as possible,” he said. “What I want to stress is that no matter what their nationalities are, this incident is a huge tragedy which arouses attention of the international community to issues of illegal immigration.”Tracing the truck and containerChinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Chinese authorities were also seeking information from police in Belgium, since the shipping container in which the bodies were found was sent to England from the Belgian port of Zeebrugge.British police believe the truck and container took separate journeys before ending up at the industrial park. They say the container traveled by ferry from Zeebrugge to Purfleet, England, where it arrived early Wednesday and was picked up by the truck driver and driven the few miles to Grays.The truck cab, which is registered in Bulgaria to a company owned by an Irish woman, is believed to have traveled from Northern Ireland to Dublin, where it caught a ferry to Wales, then drove across Britain to pick up the container.Groups of migrants have repeatedly landed on English shores using small boats to make the risky Channel crossing, and migrants are sometimes found in the back of cars and trucks that disembark from the massive ferries that link France and England.Human traffickingBut Wednesday’s macabre find in an industrial park was a reminder that criminal gangs are still profiting from large-scale trafficking.The tragedy recalls the deaths of 58 Chinese migrants who suffocated in a truck in Dover, England, in 2000 after a perilous, months-long journey from China’s southern Fujian province. They were found stowed with a cargo of tomatoes after a ferry ride from Zeebrugge, the same Belgian port featured in the latest tragedy.In February 2004, 21 Chinese migrants, also from Fujian, who were working as cockle-pickers in Britain drowned when they were caught by treacherous tides in Morecambe Bay in northwest England.
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‘Time Will Tell’ on Russia’s Middle East Power Play
Across parts of northeastern Syria, with U.S. military outposts and bases emptied or destroyed after Washington withdrew from the region and left its Kurdish allies — the fallout began to roll in — in the form of Russian armored troop carriers.The reinforcements arrived Friday, according to Russian media, with an additional 300 Russian military police and 20 armored vehicles preparing to deploy along the Syrian-Turkish border — part of the deal Moscow negotiated with Ankara to end the fighting with Kurdish forces, who until now were backed by the United States.“The United States has been the Kurds’ closest ally in recent years. [But] in the end, it abandoned the Kurds and, in essence, betrayed them,” Russian media quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying.In Brussels, the U.S. defense secretary was skeptical, casting doubt on Moscow’s moves, which some analysts describe as a power play that has helped cement Russia’s role in deciding the future of the region.NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg gestures as he talks to U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper during a NATO defense ministers meeting in Brussels, Belgium, Oct. 25, 2019.“We’ll see in six months how Russia is doing on the Turkey-Syrian border, and we’ll see what the impact is on Russia, on its interests,” Mark Esper told an audience in Brussels on Thursday, ahead of a meeting with counterparts from NATO countries.“Time will tell with regard to whether or not Russia will benefit,” he added.Kremlin’s actionsBack in Washington, the White House warned that the Kremlin’s actions would not escape notice.“We always watch the Russians warily, wherever they are,” a senior administration official told reporters, adding, “we caution our friends in Turkey and all others to be careful.”In fact, U.S. military and intelligence officials have been heavily focused on Russia’s actions in Syria since 2015, when with the country engulfed in a civil war, Russian President Vladimir Putin began sending warplanes, helicopters, and eventually tanks and ground forces to help keep Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in power.Like Esper now, at that point, other U.S. officials were skeptical, as well.“The time will soon come when those supporting the regime will face a choice between continuing to stand by Assad and risk defeat or tossing Assad overboard in order to strike a deal with the moderate opposition,” a U.S. intelligence official told VOA in June 2015.Two months later, the intelligence assessment was much the same.“It is logical that they will begin to consider post-Assad options,” a U.S. intelligence official said. “It is not clear they will be able to save him.”FILE – Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomes Syrian President Bashar al-Assad at the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russia, May 17, 2018.By September 2015, the view had started to change. U.S. intelligence remained doubtful that Russia could prop-up Assad for the long-term. But some officials conceded, at least for Putin, the move was starting to pay off.“Even if Putin’s help can’t prevent Assad from sinking, he is now positioned to play a role in choosing Assad’s successor,” an official said. “There’s no doubt Putin views Syria as an opportunity to build a significant presence in the region and establish Russia as the lead player.”Russia’s move in SyriaThrough different twists and turns in Syria, and as the war gave rise to the Islamic State terror group’s self-declared caliphate, Russia stayed, backing Assad and, seemingly, succeeding.“The only reason Assad is still in power is because of the Russian’s regrettable vetoes in the U.N. and the Russian and Iranian militaries,” then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told U.S. lawmakers in April 2018.“We are committed to ending that war [in Syria],” Mattis added. “It has been unfulfilled, again, because Russia has continually blocked the efforts.”Then, two weeks ago, Russia’s efforts appeared to pay off again.The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, battling Turkish forces after U.S. troops left the border region, cut a deal with Assad and Russia, allowing Syrian forces to “enter and deploy along the length of the Syrian-Turkish border.”For Assad’s forces, it was a chance to establish control over areas they had not been able to access after years of fighting.According to a veteran U.S. intelligence official, Russia and other U.S. adversaries likely saw the development as something more.“A sign of weakness and disengagement on the part of the U.S., and they will, I assure you, exploit that,” James Clapper, who served as director of National Intelligence from 2010 until 2017, told VOA.“I see only downsides,” he added of the U.S. decision to withdraw from northeast Syria. “Everyone involved wins, except, of course, the U.S. and the Kurds.”Other veterans of U.S. efforts in the Middle East, though, are not ready to hand Russia a decisive victory, even as its forces take up a more prominent position.“This is over-extending Russia,” said Michael Pregent, a former U.S. military adviser who was embedded with Kurdish forces in Iraq.Now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a Washington research group, Pregent cautions the Russian military likely does not have the capacity to rein in Turkish forces, Syrian forces, Kurdish forces and the multitude of militias that have been brought into the recent fighting.“I don’t see how anyone can guarantee stability with all of these factions going at each other,” he said.‘Short-term win’Retired Colonel Ketti Davison, who helped lead U.S. intelligence efforts for the coalition to defeat the Islamic State, agreed.“It is a short-term win for Russia,” said Davison, now with the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War.“It [Russia] is going to have a hard time forming any military settlement or cease-fire,” she said. “This actually complicates its desire to get that larger Syrian political settlement given that Assad has vowed to expel the Turkish occupiers.”At least for the moment, the SDF seems to be having some second thoughts about the deal it cut with Russia.“We thank Russia and its president for trying to stop the war, but the points they have agreed on are not in the interest of our people,” SDF Commander General Mazloum Abdi told reporters Thursday, saying that discussions with Moscow would continue.A Russian military police armored personnel carrier drives near the northeastern Syrian town of Amuda in Hasakah province, Oct. 24, 2019. Russian forces have started patrols along the frontier, filling the vacuum left by a U.S. troop exit.Still, some residents in northeast Syria said they are willing to give Russia a chance.“We welcome the agreement with Russia,” one man from the town of Derik told VOA’s Kurdish service. “We support it if it will protect the border, if it will protect our people.”“Regarding Russia and Turkey joint patrols, God willing, it will lead to peace solution and end Turkish invasion,” a woman said.Whether or not they get the peace and stability they are hoping for, U.S. intelligence officials have reason to believe Russia will not leave easily.“We assess that Moscow has heightened confidence, based on its success in helping restore the Assad regime’s territorial control in Syria,” the intelligence community wrote in its most recent Worldwide Threat Assessment this past January.Putin, the report said “is likely to sustain an assertive, opportunistic foreign policy to advance Russia’s interests beyond its borders and contest U.S. influence.”VOA Kurdish service stringer Zana Omar contributed to this report. Some information for this report came from Reuters.
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Sorting Out the Multiple Russia Investigations
If you’re baffled by the U.S. Justice Department’s new investigation of its old investigation of Russia election meddling, you’re not alone.Many Americans can’t help but wonder exactly what it is that federal investigators are probing months after special counsel Robert Mueller concluded his inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.The new investigation grew out of an internal Justice Department review of the Russia probe ordered by Attorney General William Barr and came after President Donald Trump and his Republicans allies, assailing the investigation as a “witch hunt,” repeatedly asked that the department “investigate the investigators.”Barr set things in motion during his January Senate confirmation hearings when he said he had questions about the probe and wanted to examine events surrounding its origins.FILE – John Durham speaks to reporters at the U.S. District Court in New Haven, Conn., April 25, 2006.In May, he appointed veteran federal prosecutor John Durham to lead what grew into a criminal investigation. Justice Department officials have said little to shed light on the contours of the investigation, which was revealed this week.Here are some questions that the launch of the new investigation has raised:Didn’t the Mueller probe get to the bottom of Russian interference in the 2016 election?The Mueller probe, which started in July 2016 as an FBI counterintelligence investigation into suspicious contacts between Trump campaign advisers and Russia, concluded in March 2019.In his final report to the attorney general, Mueller concluded that while there wasn’t enough evidence of a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, he couldn’t determine whether Trump had criminally obstructed his 22-month-long investigation.Barr subsequently determined that there was no obstruction of justice.The decision was met with predictably partisan reaction. While Democrats slammed the attorney general for letting Trump off the hook, the president claimed total vindication even as he blasted the investigation by the Justice Department as politically motivated, rekindling calls for probing the probers.FILE – Carter Page, a foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump, speaks, Nov. 2, 2017, with reporters following a day of questions from the House Intelligence Committee, on Capitol Hill in Washington.What about the Inspector General’s investigation of FBI surveillance of former Trump adviser Carter Page?In March 2018, the Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, under mounting pressure from congressional Republicans, launched an investigation into allegations that the FBI had inappropriately obtained a warrant to conduct secret surveillance of Page in 2016 and 2017.The allegations stemmed from the FBI’s use of a widely discredited report, known as the Steele Dossier, in its warrant application. Justice Department officials have denied the charge, saying the dossier, prepared by a former British intelligence agent, formed only a small part of the application.Horowitz recently completed his investigation, informing congressional leaders this week that the process of declassifying the report is “nearing completion.” He has not disclosed his findings.Why is the Justice Department investigating itself?Justice Department officials have been mum about the target of Durham’s investigation, although Barr has said that among questions he wants examined is whether “spying” directed at the Trump campaign in 2016 was “adequately predicated,” meaning based on probable cause.While insisting that he was not opening an investigation of the FBI, Barr told lawmakers in April that senior intelligence officials might have been at fault during the Russia probe.“I think there was probably a failure among a group of leaders there, at the upper echelon,” Barr testified.FILE – Former FBI Director James Comey begins a book tour for ‘A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership,’ April 19, 2019.Trump and his Republicans have criticized former FBI Director James Comey, former Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe and former CIA Director John Brennan for their roles in investigating his campaign.Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said last month that the Durham investigation was examining the extent to which several countries, including Ukraine, played a role in the Trump campaign investigation.The original inquiry was launched after the Australian government informed the FBI in July 2016 that then-Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos had claimed that Russia had “dirt” on the Clinton campaign.Papadopoulos had received the tip from a London-based Maltese academic named Joseph Mifsud and relayed it to Australia’s ambassador to the U.K.Papadopoulos later claimed that Mifsud was an “Italian intelligence asset,” stoking a conspiracy theory that several intelligence agencies, including the CIA, were involved in an effort to undermine the Trump campaign by getting the FBI to investigate it.Durham is believed to have interviewed dozens of witnesses in connection with how FBI officials handled the Russia investigation from the outset. With the elevation of the review to an investigation, he can now subpoena witnesses and documents.FILE – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy speaks to media in Kyiv, Ukraine, Oct. 1, 2019.What connection does the new investigation have to the congressional impeachment inquiry?Although not directly tied to the investigation, the congressional impeachment inquiry stemmed in part from efforts by the Justice Department and the White House to seek foreign help for Durham’s investigation of the Mueller probe.During a July 25 call at the center of the impeachment inquiry, Trump repeatedly asked the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to help Barr with his investigation. At the time, Barr was ramping up his review and had asked Trump to call foreign leaders for help.
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Heavy Rain Brings Deadly Flooding, Mudslides in Japan
Torrential rain that caused flooding and mudslides in towns east of Tokyo left at least 10 people dead and added fresh damage in areas still recovering from recent typhoons, officials said Saturday.Rescue workers found the body of a person who had gone missing in Chiba prefecture after getting caught up in floodwaters while driving. Another person was unaccounted for in Fukushima, farther north, which is still reeling from damage by Typhoon Hagibis earlier this month. The death toll included nine people in Chiba and one in Fukushima.Chiba inundatedWhile rains and floodwater subsided, parts of Chiba were still inundated. About 4,700 homes were out of running water and some train services delayed or suspended.In the Midori district in Chiba, mudslides crushed three houses, killing three people who were buried underneath them. Another mudslide hit a house in nearby Ichihara city, killing a woman. In Narata and Chonan towns, four people drowned when their vehicles were submerged.“There was enormous noise and impact, ‘boom’ like an earthquake, so I went outside. Then look what happened. I was terrified,” said a resident who lived near the crushed home in Midori. “Rain was even more intense than the typhoons.”A street is flooded by heavy rain, Oct. 25, 2019, in Narita, east of Tokyo.In Fukushima, a woman was found dead in a park in Soma city after a report that a car was washed away. A passenger is still missing.Rain also washed out Friday’s second round of the PGA Tour’s first tournament held in Japan, the Zozo Championship in Inzai city.Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held an emergency task force meeting Saturday morning and called for “the utmost effort in rescue and relief operations.” He also urged quick repairs of electricity, water and other essential services to help restore the lives of the disaster-hit residents.Month’s worth of rain in half a dayThe Prime Minister’s Office said the average rainfall for the entire month had fallen in just half a day Friday.The downpour came from a low-pressure system above Japan’s main island of Honshu that moved northward later Friday. Power was restored Saturday at most of the 6,000 Chiba households that had lost electricity.Two weeks ago, Typhoon Hagibis caused widespread flooding and left more than 80 people dead or presumed dead across Japan.Yoshiki Takeuchi, an office worker who lives in a riverside house in Chiba’s Sodegaura city, said he had just finished temporary repairs to his roof after tiles were blown off by the September typhoon when Friday’s rains hit hard.“I wasn’t ready for another disaster like this. I’ve had enough of this, and I need a break,” he told Kyodo News.
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GM Workers Ratify Contract, Ending Contentious 40-day Strike
A contentious 40-day strike that crippled General Motors’ U.S. production came to an end Friday as workers approved a new contract with the company.The four-year deal will now be used as a template in bargaining with crosstown rival Ford Motor Co., the union’s choice for the next round of bargaining, followed by Fiat Chrysler.GM workers voted 57.2% in favor of the pact, passing it with a vote of 23,389 to 17,501, the union said in a statement.Picket lines came down almost immediately after the vote was announced, and some of the 49,000 striking workers were expected to return to their jobs as early as Friday night. Some skilled trades employees such as electricians and machinists were to enter the plants to get machinery restarted in preparation for production workers to return as early as Saturday.”It was a good vacation, but I guess I’ve got to go back,” joked Paul Daru, a 42-year worker at GM’s engine and transmission plant in Romulus, Michigan, near Detroit. “I miss the socializing and stuff like that, seeing the guys, going out on the job and figuring out what the problem is.”Although workers at his factory approved the deal, Daru said he voted against it because it still has several different pay scales for workers doing the same jobs. “Somebody who is working next to you for 17 bucks per hour, you’re doing the same thing,” said Daru, an electrician who may go back to work Saturday.Temporary workers can get permanent jobs after two or three years depending on their start dates, but they start at the bottom of a pay scale, so people doing the same work can end up at different pay rates.The deal also includes a mix of wage increases and lump-sum payments and an $11,000 signing bonus. But it allows GM to close three U.S. factories, a point of contention for many of the 42.8% of workers who voted no.The five-week walkout was big enough to help push down September U.S. durable goods orders by 1.1%, the largest drop in four months.FILE – General Motors CEO Mary Barra”We delivered a contract that recognizes our employees for the important contributions they make to the overall success of the company, with a strong wage and benefit package and additional investment and job growth in our U.S. operations,” GM CEO Mary Barra said in a statement.Tricia Pruitt, another worker in Romulus, said the wage gains were worth staying off the job for more than five weeks, but she’s ready to return to work.Pruitt, a 15-year GM employee, was happy that the contract brings workers hired after 2007 up to the same wage as older workers in four years.Although GM dealers had stocked up on vehicles before the strike and many still have decent supplies, analysts say GM won’t be able to make up for the lost production. Had the strike been shorter, GM could have increased assembly line speeds and worked the plants on overtime to catch up and refill its stock. But many of the plants that make popular SUVs and pickup trucks already were working around the clock to keep up with demand before the strike began.Also, companies that supply parts to the factories and halted production during the strike will need time to restart, although GM has some parts in stock.Jeff Schuster, senior vice president of the consulting firm LMC Automotive, estimates that GM has lost production of 300,000 vehicles, and he said maybe only a quarter of it can be made up.FILE – An employee inspects a Cadillac Escalade as it nears the final process of assembly at the General Motors plant in Arlington, Texas, July 14, 2015.Some production losses will help thin inventory, especially of cars, Schuster said. But in late October and early November, GM will likely run short of colors and models of trucks and SUVs that are in high demand until stocks are replenished, he said. Although truck and SUV buyers generally are loyal to a brand, customers in a hurry for a new vehicle could go elsewhere, Schuster said.”There are definitely going to be some limitations on choice, and that is a risk,” Schuster said. “Consumers can opt to wait, or they can go down the street to their competitor.”With bargaining shifting to Ford, it’s not clear whether there will be another strike, but it’s unlikely Ford or Fiat Chrysler will like the terms of the GM contract.GM traded the ability to close the three factories in Lordstown, Ohio; Warren, Michigan; and near Baltimore for higher labor costs, David Kudla, chief investment strategist for Mainstay Capital Management of Grand Blanc, Michigan, wrote in a note to investors. The contract maintains worker health benefits with low premiums, something that both Ford and FCA wanted to change when negotiations began.”Ford and FCA didn’t have three factories that they wanted to close, but will have to work around this new framework for higher wages and unchanged health care that the UAW and GM have set,” wrote Kudla.Workers from the closed factories campaigned against the contract, with several plants voting against it. But in the end, economic gains and a $7.7 billion GM investment pledge for U.S. factories were too much to turn down.FILE – A General Motors employee holds an American flag as colleagues gather outside the plant, March 6, 2019, in Lordstown, Ohio. The plant was idled.Tim O’Hara, president of the UAW local in Lordstown, said workers there overwhelmingly voted down the deal, disappointed that they didn’t get a new vehicle to keep the plant open. Many Lordstown workers were transferred to other factories, and they campaigned against the contract at their new jobs, he said.Thousands of ex-Lordstown workers were hoping they could someday return to their homes, he said. “A lot of our people did have plans that they could come back in possibly a year or even three years,” O’Hara said. “Now that’s gone. They have to draw up a whole new game plan.”
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US Denies China’s Claim of ‘Weaponizing’ Visa Decisions
The United States on Friday rejected Chinese accusations that political motives were behind a delay in issuing a visa to a top Beijing space official bound for an international conference in Washington this week.
Wu Yanhua, vice chairman of the China National Space Administration, was the only official absent from the International Astronautical Congress panel on Monday at the outset of the conference. The panel included heads of space agencies from Germany, Russia, India, the United States, France and Japan.
The Chinese official was at the conference on Friday, its last day, after receiving a visa.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying on Wednesday said the United States was “weaponizing the visa issue, repeatedly disregarding its international responsibilities and obstructing normal international exchanges and cooperation.”
State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus pushed back, saying: “The United States rejects the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s unfounded and baseless characterization of U.S. visa policies toward China.” She added that discussing individual visa cases was prohibited by law.
“In all of our visa adjudications, we are committed to ensuring national security while also facilitating legitimate travel,” she said. Other battles
The friction over visas was the latest battle between Beijing and Washington, already locked in a bitter trade dispute. They have also long differed on issues of human rights, the disputed South China Sea and Chinese-claimed Taiwan.
The moderator of Monday’s panel said Yanhua’s absence resulted from a scheduling conflict. The Chinese spokeswoman said Wednesday that China is an important participant in the congress and sends delegations every year.
China applied for the visas in July, and on Oct. 12 the delegation from the China National Space Administration went for visa interviews at the U.S. Embassy. But the head of the delegation still did not have his visa as the congress began, Hua said.
Chinese diplomats in the United States must now give advance notice of any meetings with state, local and municipal officials, as well as at educational and research institutions, senior State Department officials said last week. ‘Reciprocity’
The officials told reporters the move was an effort to “add reciprocity” to the way U.S. diplomats are treated in China.
The congress, held in different countries annually, hosted roughly 60 Chinese delegates and over 70 Russian delegates among thousands of other attendees from around the world, organizers said. Last year it was held in Germany. The last time the United States hosted was in 2001 in Houston, Texas. China hosted the event in 2013.
Local co-organizer Sandy Magnus told Reuters it was never the intention of the congress to “politicize” the registration process and that planning committees had reached out to China and Russia, another U.S. rival, more than a year in advance to pre-empt visa issues.
“We had set up a process, and unfortunately the execution of that process was not ideal, for whatever reason. We got information from them kind of late,” Magnus, a former NASA astronaut, said of the Chinese delegation.
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Prominent Activist Won’t Rule Out Election Challenge to Ethiopia PM
Prominent activist Jawar Mohammed does not rule out challenging his erstwhile ally, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, in next year’s election, he told Reuters on Friday, after days of demonstrations by his supporters resulted in dozens of deaths.Jawar’s ability to organize street protests helped propel Abiy to power last year, ushering in sweeping political and economic reforms. Abiy won the Nobel peace prize this month for his regional peacemaking achievements.But this week, Jawar’s supporters demonstrated against Abiy after Jawar said police had surrounded his home and tried to withdraw his government security detail.Late on Friday, the police commissioner for Oromiya told Reuters that 67 were people killed in the region in the two days of protests this week, a dramatic jump in the number of deaths from earlier reports.Sixty-two of the dead were protesters while five were police officers, Oromiya regional police commissioner Kefyalew Tefera said by phone. Thirteen died from bullet wounds and the rest from injuries caused by stones, he said.Oromo youth chant slogans during a protest in-front of Jawar Mohammed’s house, an Oromo activist and leader of the Oromo protest in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Oct. 24, 2019.On Thursday, authorities and hospital officials had reported that protests in the capital and other cities resulted in 16 deaths and dozens of wounded. It was not immediately clear how many of the 16 were included in the tally of 67 reported in Oromiya.The violence underscored the dilemma facing Abiy, who must retain support in Ethiopia’s ethnically based, federal system but not be seen to favor one group.But kingmakers like media mogul Jawar are flexing their muscles. Like Abiy, Jawar comes from the Oromo ethnic group, Ethiopia’s largest. His supporters have stopped believing in Abiy’s promises of reform, he said, accusing Abiy of centralizing power, silencing dissent, and jailing political prisoners – like his predecessors.Amnesty International says that, since Abiy took office, there have been several waves of mass arrests of people in Oromiya perceived to be opposed to the government. Detainees were not charged or taken to court, Amnesty’s Ethiopia researcher Fisseha Tekle said.”The majority of people believe the transition is off track and we are backsliding towards an authoritarian system,” Jawar said, sitting in his heavily guarded home-office in the center of the capital, Addis Ababa. “The ruling party and its ideology will be challenged seriously not only in the election but also prior to the elections.”The prime minister’s spokeswoman did not return calls seeking comment. Abiy has not commented on this week’s violence.On Friday afternoon, the defense ministry said the army had been deployed to seven cities where there had been protests this week. The forces have been deployed “to calm the situation in collaboration with elders and regional security officers,” Major General Mohammed Tessema told a press conference in Addis Ababa.Strident PartiesThe four ethnically based parties in the coalition that has ruled Ethiopia since 1991 are facing increasing competition from new, more strident parties demanding greater power and resources for their own regions.”For a prime minister whose popular legitimacy relies on his openness, recent protests in Oromiya could be politically suicidal,” said Mehari Taddele Maru, an Addis Ababa-based political analyst. “It signals a significant loss of a populist power base that propelled him to power.”If next year’s elections are fair – as Abiy has promised they will be – they will test whether the young prime minister can hold together his fractious nation of 100 million people and continue to open up its state-owned economy, or whether decades of state repression have driven Ethiopians into the arms of the political competition.Oromo youth shout slogans outside Jawar Mohammed’s house, an Oromo activist and leader of the Oromo protest in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Oct. 23, 2019.Jawar said he hadn’t decided who else he would support in next year’s polls, or whether he would run himself. His Twitter feed has been teasing the possibility last weekend: “The story about me running for office is just speculation. I am running to lose weight.”He refused to be drawn on Friday, telling Reuters: “I don’t exclude anything.”His remarks were his strongest criticism yet of Abiy, with whom he was photographed frequently last year, but the split follows pointed remarks by Abiy to parliament on Tuesday.Abiy said, without naming anyone, “Media owners who don’t have Ethiopian passports are playing both ways … If this is going to undermine the peace and existence of Ethiopia … we will take measures.”The comments were widely seen as a dig at Jawar, who is Ethiopian-born but has a U.S. passport and returned from exile last year.Abiy didn’t create Ethiopia’s ethnic divisions, but he must address them, said Abel Wabella, a former political prisoner who is now editor of the Amharic-language newspaper Addis Zeybe.Jawar is “testing the waters,” he said. “Ethnic federalism creates monsters … if Abiy fails to dismantle the power groups based on ethnicity, and to address the structural problems we have as a nation, we will end up in civil war.”
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US Envoy to Balkans Welcomes Diplomatic Backup on Serbia-Kosovo Talks
The White House is expanding and expediting efforts to restart Serbia-Kosovo normalization talks as part of a broader campaign to integrate the Balkans into the Euro-Atlantic community, according to the top U.S. diplomat to the region.”With negotiations at a standstill, both [Serbia and Kosovo] risk squandering the best chance in a generation to normalize relations and move towards a more secure and prosperous future,” said Matthew Palmer, the U.S. special envoy to the western Balkans. He recently testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation.In his first public statements since the White House announced the appointment of a dedicated special envoy for Serbia-Kosovo negotiations — a new part-time position to be occupied by Richard Grenell, U.S. ambassador to Germany — Palmer, who for months had been calling for talks to be jump-started, welcomed the diplomatic backup.”Together, Ambassador Grenell and I will work towards helping the parties reach a comprehensive agreement on normalization,” said Palmer. “With enhanced political engagement as well as the pursuit of business and commercial incentives, we will endeavor to help the parties themselves find a locally-owned agreement that is durable, implementable, and increases regional stability.”Calling the new diplomatic strategy “more like a partnership, not a division of responsibilities,” Palmer said Grenell has been tasked with pushing both Serb and Kosovar parties to move quickly.”Right now they have the attention of the White House, they have the full focus not just of the administration, but of the president,” he said. “That’s a very useful tool, and that’s not forever. And to take advantage of that, the parties need to demonstrate that they are prepared to move on an expedited basis to actually reach some agreement.”Palmer also pointed to a recent European Council decision to reject EU membership negotiations for North Macedonia and Albania as a sobering warning, however, that even the most robust efforts to negotiate normalization settlements — a prerequisite for joining the 28-nation bloc — can prove futile.”These are EU-led negotiations; the U.S. doesn’t have a formal role in a dialogue process itself,” he said. “That’s why the decision by the European Council not to open accession negotiations with North Macedonia and Albania was so disheartening — because it sends exactly the wrong message to both Belgrade and Pristina. That message is, ‘You can do difficult things; you can make hard choices; you can compromise, and you can still be denied a path forward to Europe.'”France led the group of EU member nations that opposed starting membership talks for North Macedonia and Albania, with President Emmanuel Macron stating that although both countries made solid progress on various reforms, “some areas, such as immigration, needed more work.””The enlargement rules need reform,” Macron later said at a press conference. “We mustn’t open accession talks with North Macedonia before Albania — there must be a majority for talks with both, together. We should do more to help those countries develop, not just make pledges.”Unexpected appointmentPalmer said Grenell’s dedicated focus on Serbia-Kosovo talks alone will complement his own ongoing work across the western Balkans region and strengthen U.S. political commitments on the ground.”It is our hope this more robust approach that highlights the economic benefits of progress will help encourage Belgrade and Pristina to find a political settlement,” he said.A former Serbian province, Kosovo declared independence in 2008.The country is recognized by most of the Western world, but Serbia and allies China and Russia do not, effectively shutting it out of the United Nations.In addition to his role as special envoy to the western Balkans, Palmer, a career Foreign Service officer, continues to serve as deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs. It is a position he has held since 2018.Grenell, 53, will act in his new role in conjunction with his current post as ambassador to Berlin. He has held that job since April 2018.Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who chairs the European subcommittee, told VOA’s Serbian service that he had spoken with both diplomats, and that they have a shared plan for restarting talks.”I know that they have a plan, the first focus of which is on economic chances,” he said. “I think they can achieve something there and then try to get both parties back to work together, and we support them.”This story originated in VOA’s Serbian service.
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Trumps Weigh Selling Rights to Their Washington Hotel
The Trump Organization on Friday said it was exploring a sale of the rights to its Washington hotel, a property at the center of litigation over allegations that President Donald Trump violated anti-corruption provisions of the U.S. Constitution.
The possible license sale, being marketed by real estate company JLL, stems in part from criticisms from ethics watchdogs and lawmakers regarding the family’s profits from the hotel, which is in a historic building on Pennsylvania Avenue in the heart of the capital.
“People are objecting to us making so much money on the hotel, and therefore we may be willing to sell,” Eric Trump, Trump’s son and an executive vice president at the company, said in a statement.
Three lawsuits, one brought by lawmakers, one by a watchdog group and the other by state attorneys general, said Trump’s ownership violated the anti-corruption emoluments provisions of the U.S. Constitution that ban the president from accepting gifts or payments from foreign governments without congressional consent. Trump is contesting the lawsuits.
Trump’s failure to disentangle himself from his family business exposes him to inducements by officials and others seeking to curry favor, the lawsuits said.
The site, a few blocks away from the White House, has attracted protesters and disputes over its restaurants. The hotel has become a known gathering spot for Trump associates, Republicans and others in the president’s orbit since he took office in January 2017.
The Trumps are seeking more than $500 million for the rights, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, said that if a sale were completed, Trump’s legal team could seek dismissal of the emoluments litigation on mootness grounds. But a judge might reject such an argument, he said.
The Washington hotel has been a moneymaker for Trump. In a financial disclosure form from May, he reported $40.8 million in revenue from the property in 2018.
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Judge: Justice Must Give House Mueller Grand Jury Evidence
A judge on Friday ordered the Justice Department to give the House secret grand jury testimony from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, handing a victory to Democrats who want it for the impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump.The ruling from Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell says that while the department had argued that existing law barred it from sharing the materials with Congress, “DOJ is wrong.””In carrying out the weighty constitutional duty of determining whether impeachment of the President is warranted, Congress need not redo the nearly two years of effort spent on the Special Counsel’s investigation, nor risk being misled by witnesses, who may have provided information to the grand jury and the Special Counsel that varies from what they tell” the House Judiciary Committee, Howell wrote.Justice Department lawyers argued at a hearing earlier this month that House Democrats already had sufficient evidence from Mueller’s investigation, including copies of summaries of FBI witness interviews.The department had also argued that the House panel didn’t have a sufficient explanation for how the material would help in the committee’s investigations of Trump, and that impeachment isn’t a “judicial proceeding” under the law, for which the information could be disclosed.
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Rights Groups Demand Release of 4 Burundi Journalists
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on Thursday called for the release of four journalists and their driver who were arrested while covering a deadly clash between Burundi security forces and rebels from neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Burundi police said 14 members of the group RED-Tabara were killed Tuesday.
The organization, based in eastern DRC, is headed by one of Burundi’s most outspoken opponents, Alexis Sinduhij, the government and diplomats believe.
RSF said the journalists with the Iwacu newspaper “were arrested [Tuesday] at midday while trying to get witness statements from residents fleeing the fighting.”
The group said the reporters were being held alongside their driver in Bubanza in northwestern Burundi.
“These journalists were just doing their job by going to the scene to verify information about armed clashes … we urge authorities to free them without delay,” said the RSF’s Africa chief, Arnaud Froger.
Police spokesman Moise Nkurunziza did not want to reveal the reason behind their arrests during a press conference, citing “confidentiality of investigations.” HRW demands release
Human Rights Watch on Wednesday also demanded the journalists’ “immediate release.”
A Burundian journalist, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, “The objective was to prevent the presence of the media in this area, and it was successful. No other information aside from that given by officials is getting out.”
A local official in Bubanza indicated the situation was still tense and told AFP a police officer had been killed by a “residual group of rebels” Wednesday evening.
Iwacu, one of the last independent publications in the country, has previously reported on cases of extrajudicial killings and arbitrary arrests during attacks in this area of Burundi.
RSF recently warned that because of the intensity of the crackdown on the media in Burundi, “there is a risk of all forms of independent journalism disappearing less than a year before the presidential election of May 20, 2020.”
Burundi is ranked 159th out of 180 countries by RSF’s world press freedom index.
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Turkey Targets Foreign Journalists in Press Freedom Crackdown
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan filed a criminal complaint Friday against a French magazine over a cover accusing him of “ethnic cleansing,” according to the state-owned Anadolu Agency. The filing was the latest example of efforts by the Erdogan government to restrict press freedoms in Turkey. The complaint filed against the French magazine Le Point’s director, Etienne Gernelle, as well as the editor in chief of the publication’s international section, Romain Gubert, was based on the cover of the October 24 issue, which depicts Erdogan saluting under the headline “The Eradicator,” with the subtitle “Ethnic cleansing: the Erdogan method.” Prosecutors alleged the cover constituted an insult to the president, a crime under Turkish law commonly used to target journalists in Turkey, according to Emma Sinclair-Webb, Turkey director for Human Rights Watch, an international NGO that conducts research and advocacy for human rights. FILE – Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks to the media in his office in Ankara, April 23, 2014.”The charge in general is one that’s been in the penal code for years. But it was not until Erdogan became president that there’s been a huge escalation in the use of that charge to prosecute people who are critical of the president,” Sinclair-Webb said. Turkish reporters are frequent targets of Erdogan, but increasingly foreign journalists based in Turkey are also facing legal action, said Nate Schenkkan, director for special research at Freedom House, an independent think tank that covers issues related to democracy and human rights. “I think the main point is that from an international perspective, [the charge] has no merit … from a Turkish perspective, there have been lots of these cases. I would say many have been brought as a warning or threat rather than to put someone in prison,” Schenkkan said. Bloomberg journalists In September, U.S.-based Bloomberg News reported that two of its journalists were facing up to five years in prison for a report on how Turkey’s financial regulators and banks were responding to the country’s economic difficulties. And in October 2017, a reporter working for The Wall Street Journal was sentenced to prison in absentia for charges related to a 2015 story covering the conflict against Turkey’s Kurdish minority in the country’s southeast. Le Point’s criticism of Turkey’s military operation against Kurdish groups in Syria is a particular area of concern for Erdogan’s government, according to Schenkkan. FILE – Turkish soldiers patrol the northern Syrian Kurdish town of Tal Abyad, on the border between Syria and Turkey, Oct. 23, 2019.The Turkish president has been accused by some of pursuing a policy of ethnic cleansing against the Kurdish population of northern Syria with its military incursion into the region, dubbed Operation Peace Spring. Critics allege that the operation is designed to drive out the region’s Kurds so that Turkey can resettle Arab Syrians in their place. Ankara says the incursion is necessary to eliminate armed groups that the Turkish government considers terrorists, including the Kurdish YPG and PKK. “I think that from the government perspective, they feel that they face unfair criticism for the operations in Syria. They’re accused of ethnic cleansing, they’re accused of attacking the Kurds … the problem is when you bring a court case and claim that this is somehow illegal,” Schenkkan said. ‘They are panicked’Erdogan spokesman Ibrahim Kalin previously attacked Le Point’s October 24 cover on Twitter. “The reason they attack our president is clear: they are panicked when their intrigues are foiled with the blow to their agents in Syria. The Kurds are not your agents and never will be. Your days of colonization are over,” Kalin tweeted in a thread containing an image of the cover on Thursday. And while foreign journalists based in Turkey previously have been charged by authorities for reports critical of the government, the fact that a foreign publications like Le Point was targeted directly is unusual, according to Sinclair-Webb. FILE – Members of Reporters Without Borders hold stencils representing portraits of imprisoned Turkish journalists, during a demonstration in front of the Turkish Embassy, in Paris, Jan. 5, 2018.”It creates a chilling environment for all media, including foreign media,” Sinclair-Webb said. But Schenkkan said the case against Le Point most likely would not discourage foreign journalists working in Turkey, who are used to this sort of pressure for criticizing the government’s policies. “I don’t think this will change anything for them since this is par for the course. I think foreign journalists in Turkey have become highly aware of minding their p’s and q’s,” said Schenkkan. “They continue to report on things, [but] the government has laid down markers to say that we will come down hard on you if we don’t like your reporting. So it takes a lot of courage to continue doing it.”
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China Arrests Feminist Activist Huang Xueqin After Hong Kong Visit
Police in southern China detained feminist activist and journalist Huang Xueqin after she returned to the mainland from Hong Kong and Taiwan, her friends said Friday.Authorities in Guangdong province’s Guangzhou city arrested Huang last Thursday on suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” her friends said. The vague charge is commonly used against activists viewed as threatening by the ruling Communist Party.The friends spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared government retribution for being publicly associated with Huang. Calls on Friday to Huang’s lawyer and Guangzhou’s Baiyun District Detention Center, where friends say she is detained, rang unanswered.The friends said police harassed Huang’s family after she published an essay describing her experience at a protest in Hong Kong, a semi-autonomous Chinese city that has been roiled by months of anti-government demonstrations.”Perhaps, under the powerful machine of the party state, ignorance and fear can be cultivated,” Huang wrote in her essay. “But if you have personally experienced it, witnessed it, you cannot pretend to be ignorant.”In August, Guangzhou police confiscated Huang’s passport and other travel documents, preventing her from pursuing a postgraduate law program at the University of Hong Kong.
Huang has been an outspoken voice in China’s #MeToo movement, helping sexual assault victims highlight cases against university professors. She has worked as an independent reporter covering issues surrounding gender, equality and disadvantaged groups.Detained, harassed “It is unclear exactly the reasons for Huang’s detention, but in recent weeks, more and more activists, writers and regular citizens in the mainland have been detained or harassed by authorities for their peacefully voicing support for the Hong Kong protests,” said Yaqiu Wang, China researcher at Human Rights Watch.”Huang’s detention shows that the Chinese government has intensified the crackdown on mainland Chinese who peacefully showed solidarity with Hong Kong protesters, and that authorities are fearful that the protests in Hong Kong could inspire challenges to the government in the mainland, and any expression of ideas of freedom and democracy is a threat to their grip on power,” Wang said.The protests in Hong Kong began over the summer in response to a now-withdrawn extradition bill that would have allowed Hong Kong residents to stand trial in mainland China, where critics say their legal rights would be threatened. The sometimes-violent demonstrations have since ballooned to encompass broader calls for democratic reform and an inquiry into alleged police abuse.
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Pence Hits China on Rights, Signals Flexibility on Trade
U.S. trade representatives reported progress Friday in the latest discussions with China on a comprehensive trade agreement.”The two sides are close to finalizing some sections of the agreement,” the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said in a statement.The talks came a day after Vice President Mike Pence criticized China for its human rights record and flouting of international trade rules, but also suggested the Trump administration is willing to make some compromises of its own as it negotiates a possible end to the ongoing trade war between the world’s two largest economies.With the trade war now in its second year, tensions between the two countries remain high. In remarks Thursday, the vice president ticked off a laundry list of U.S. concerns about Chinese behavior, from its suppression of the Uighur minority in its western Xinjiang Province, to attacks on pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, to violation of international trade rules and more. He insisted that the two countries must work together toward a common future.“People sometimes ask whether the Trump administration seeks to ‘de-couple’ from China,” Pence said. “The answer is a resounding ‘no.’ The United States seeks engagement with China and China’s engagement with the wider world, but engagement in a manner consistent with fairness, mutual respect, and the international rules of commerce.”The speech, delivered at the Wilson Center in Washington, DC, was a much-anticipated sequel to remarks the vice president delivered just over one year ago, which were widely interpreted as placing Washington on a new “Cold War” footing with Beijing. China’s foreign ministry issued a blistering response on Friday, saying the U.S. should look to its own domestic problems, like gun violence, rather that critiquing China, Reuters reported.But with both countries’ economies showing the strains of a trade fight that is slowing growth worldwide, some saw signs of change in Pence’s remarks.FILE – Chinese staffers adjust U.S. and Chinese flags before a session of negotiations between U.S. and Chinese trade representatives, at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, in Beijing, China, Feb. 14, 2019.Lester Ross, partner-in-charge of the Beijing office of the U.S. law firm WilmerHale, said that Chinese authorities would likely look past much of the vice president’s rhetoric about human rights issues, which they view as standard U.S. boilerplate, to focus on more subtle elements of the remarks.“They couldn’t have reasonably expected” the vice president to shy away from issues like China’s rampant human rights violations and its aggressive behavior in oceans off Southeast Asia, Ross said. However, he added, a close reading of the vice president’s remarks suggests that, far from provoking anger in Beijing, they are likely to be received as a positive sign.The disavowal of a strategy of “decoupling” is particularly significant, Ross said, and will likely be interpreted in Beijing as a rare olive branch in a relationship marked by hostile rhetoric. President Trump, in the past, has repeatedly called for U.S. companies to move production facilities out of China entirely — practically the definition of “de-coupling.”Ross said that Beijing will also view positively Pence’s nod to the United States’ willingness to respect the “sovereignty” of other nations.Indeed, the Chinese Communist Party-controlled Global Times newspaper on Friday wrote about the speech in a tone of wary hopefulness.“The speech repeated criticisms made last year that included accusations of intellectual property theft, militarizing the South China Sea, religious persecution, and silencing freedom of speech. Pence also slandered China over Hong Kong, Taiwan and Xinjiang,” the paper noted.However, it also found that the vice president “offered a positive attitude in reaching a trade deal with China and improving relations.”The vice president’s speech comes amid hopeful signs of progress toward a resolution of at least some of trade disputes that have roiled relationships between the two countries.China has recently issued draft rules for implementing a new law that would provide much greater protection to the intellectual property of companies doing business there. U.S. and Chinese negotiators are discussing a limited deal that would forestall additional U.S. sanctions on Chinese goods.That would come in exchange for a large Chinese purchases of U.S. agricultural products, possible changes to Chinese policy with regard to the value of its currency, and an increased openness to U.S. financial firms doing business in China.Trump has characterized the limited agreement as “Phase One” of a larger trade deal.Whatever progress may be made in the coming days, though, the ruling Communist Party is warning that trade talks don’t signal a willingness to remake Chinese society in the image of a western democracy.“China and the U.S. have different political systems,” the Global Times editorialized. “It means that it is impossible to change political foundation of China. However, China and the U.S. have many reasons to stick with peaceful co-existence and win-win cooperation.”
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Zimbabweans Protest Sanctions on Leadership
Thousands of Zimbabweans marched Friday in Harare to protest sanctions imposed on the country’s leadership for most of the past two decades.Protester Gilbert Shumba says the sanctions are to blame for food shortages.”Let’s go and destroy and kick these sanctions,” he said. “These sanctions destroy us, they are affecting me, my family, my kids, my dog, my rat, even that wizard which resides in my house, even that cockroach is relying on myself. When I am in hunger, all those things are in hunger.”Deputy Information Minister Energy Mutodi says Zimbabweans are united in demanding the sanctions end, in Harare, Oct. 25, 2019. (Columbus Mavhunga/VOA)Deputy Information Minister Energy Mutodi said Zimbabweans are united in demanding that the sanctions end.”As Zimbabwe, we are saying enough of these sanctions. These sanctions are making our people to suffer in big numbers, there is widespread poverty,” Mutodi said.The United States and European Union first imposed sanctions on former President Robert Mugabe and dozens of his allies in 2002. The sanctions were a response to what then-U.S. President George W. Bush called a systematic campaign to repress dissent and undermine Zimbabwe’s democratic institutions.The travel and financial sanctions targeted only Mugabe and his supporters, not the entire country. But Zimbabwean leaders, including current President Emmerson Mnangagwa, blame them for blocking development of Zimbabwe’s economy.A public holiday was declared in Zimbabwe for Oct. 25, 2019, to allow schoolchildren and workers to join a protest against sanctions imposed on on the country’s leadership. (Columbus Mavhunga/VOA)Ahead of the Friday march, Brian Nichols, the U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe, told media that Harare needed to make changes for the sanctions to be lifted.”If the government of Zimbabwe were truly interested in the issue of sanctions and considered this a major problem, rather than having a rally, what the government of Zimbabwe would do was make a chart of what the things that the international community is asking it to do, and then come with an argument, saying we have addressed the concerns that you have here with you,” he said.Nichols added that the U.S. has asked Zimbabwe to repeal laws that critics say are used to stifle dissent and media freedom, but the laws remain on the books.In addition, the ambassador said Mnangagwa’s government should address corruption, which he said is causing Zimbabwe’s economy to remain depressed.
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Rwanda Joins African Countries Signing Nuclear Deals with Russia
Rwanda is the latest African country to sign a nuclear deal with Russian state atomic company Rosatom. But the deals between Russia and several African countries are raising concerns from environmentalists who say nuclear energy is not always clean and does not come free. A Russia-Africa summit in Sochi, Russia, this week brought together the heads of state and government representatives from 55 countries. Speaking at the forum, Russian President Vladimir Putin said his government was offering African countries an opportunity to use nuclear technology. “Rosatom is prepared to help our African partners in creating a nuclear industry,” with “the construction of research centers based on multifunctional reactors,” he said. Planned facilitiesRosatom is building a $29 billion nuclear plant for Egypt. The same company is helping Uganda, the Republic of Congo and Rwanda establish nuclear facilities. Right now, South Africa is the only country in the continent with a nuclear power plant. FILE – The Koeberg Nuclear Power Station, about 30 kilometers north of Cape Town, is owned and operated by South Africa’s power utility Eksom, Jan. 18, 2007.In Rwanda, Rosatom will construct the Center of Nuclear Science and Technologies. In Nigeria, a planned Rosatom nuclear reactor may provide the West African nation with electricity. Environmental activists are wary of these deals. Jakpor Philip of Nigeria’s Environment Rights Action said, “We continue to hear, for instance, that nuclear energy is clean, but in truth, it is not clean because you need a lot of water to keep the nuclear plant cool. You need an independent power to keep powering 24/7. If you need that much power to keep that plant running, then it shows it’s not clean.” Most African countries have needs that could be met by nuclear energy. According to the International Energy Agency, 57 percent of Africa’s population does not have easy access to electricity, and those who have it must deal with frequent power outages. ‘In-country’ managersMichael Gatari, the head of nuclear science and technology at the University of Nairobi, said African countries can pursue nuclear technology but must get their own people to manage the nuclear reactors. “We should have in-country, competent, well-trained manpower not depending on expatriates’ support, because that would be very expensive in long run,” he said. “Manpower development for nuclear energy is very critical.” Gatari also said Russia was seeking business in Africa, not giving away gifts. “Africa is not going to get a free reactor,” he said. “They are selling their technology. So the issue of helping does not come in. Of course, there is a component of ‘we will train your people, we’ll do this,’ but still if you calculate the cost, it’s we who cough. So the African countries should move into it with a business vision.” And in Sochi where Putin rolled out the red carpet for African leaders, he reminded them Russia was open for business.
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Franco Exhumation Inflames Spain’s Political Tensions
The body of former Spanish dictator General Francisco Franco was exhumed from its grandiose mausoleum outside Madrid Thursday and moved to a cemetery near the capital. Critics have long campaigned for the move, arguing that the site in the “Valley of the Fallen” – which was built by prison laborers under Franco – glorified his dictatorship. The exhumation comes as Spain faces an imminent election and risks inflaming already intense political passions, as Henry Ridgwell reports.
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Concern in South Korea Over Trump Cost-Sharing Demands
The United States and South Korea this week held a fresh round of negotiations over how to split the cost of the 28,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea. The current deal expires at the end of the year, and U.S. President Donald Trump has reportedly demanded a fivefold increase in how much Seoul pays. Some fear Trump’s demand could prompt an anti-U.S. backlash, as VOA’s Bill Gallo reports from Seoul.
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Russian Woman Who Admitted Being Secret Agent Out of Jail
A Russian gun rights activist who admitted being a secret agent for the Kremlin and trying to infiltrate conservative U.S. political groups while Donald Trump rose to power has been released from federal prison.That’s according to a statement Friday from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which says it has taken custody of Maria Butina. She’s expected to return to Russia now that she’s finished her 18-month sentence.Butina pleaded guilty last December to conspiring to act as an unregistered agent.Butina admitted that she sought to use contacts in the National Rifle Association to pursue back channels to American conservatives during the 2016 presidential campaign, when Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton.The case was separate from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign.
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North Korea Asks South to Discuss Removal of ‘Capitalist’ Mount Kumgang Facilities
North Korea has proposed that Seoul discuss the removal of its facilities from the North’s resort of Mount Kumgang, a key symbol of cooperation that Pyongyang recently criticized as “shabby” and “capitalist,” the South’s officials said on Friday.In the latest sign of the neighbors’ cooling ties, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has urged that the South’s “backward” and “hotchpotch” facilities at the infrequently used resort be taken down and rebuilt, the North’s KCNA news agency has said.On Friday, North Korea sent notices to the South’s Unification Ministry, which handles issues between the two sides, and Hyundai Group, whose affiliate Hyundai Asan Corp built resort facilities, asking for the demolition and seeking discussion through the exchange of documents, the ministry said.”The government will prepare a creative solution to the Mt. Kumgang tourism project” by protecting the property rights of South Korean people while considering the international situation, inter-Korean agreements and domestic consensus, Unification Ministry spokesman Lee Sang-min said in a briefing.Any withdrawal of South Korean relics from the scenic resort would be another setback for President Moon Jae-in’s campaign to end confrontation between the old foes, including efforts to resume stalled business initiatives.”The North asking the South to discuss the issue ‘in writing’ means they don’t even want to talk about other things,” said Cheong Seong-chang, a senior fellow at South Korea’s Sejong Institute.Mt. Kumgang is on North Korea’s eastern coast, just beyond the demilitarized zone separating the two countries. It was one of two major inter-Korean economic projects, along with the Kaesong industrial zone, and an important token of rapprochement during decades of hostilities following the 1950-53 Korean War.Kim, on a visit to a nearby province, hailed a new tourist resort being built there as a striking contrast to Mt. Kumgang’s “architecture of capitalist businesses targeting profit-making from roughly built buildings,” KCNA said.However, the South’s Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul said he did not see the North’s proposal as a bid to exclude the South, because Kim Jong Un had said he would welcome South Koreans if it was properly rebuilt, the Yonhap news agency said.Tourism has become increasingly key to Kim’s policy of “self-reliant” economic growth, as it is not directly subject to U.N. sanctions aimed at curbing the North’s nuclear programs, though they ban the transfer of bulk cash to Pyongyang.There have been no South Korean tours to Mt. Kumgang since 2008, although there have been infrequent events such as the reunions of families from both sides separated by the war.Kim has called for Mt. Kumgang to be refurbished in “our own style” alongside other tourist zones, such as the Wonsan-Kalma coastal area and the Masikryong ski resort.The Wonsan beach resort, one of Kim’s pet projects, is seen nearing completion by early 2020 after “remarkable construction progress” since April, 38 North, a U.S.-based project that studies North Korea, said in a report, citing satellite imagery.
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Trump’s Foreign Policy Process Stirs Controversy in Washington
From making so-called side deals with Ukraine to pulling U.S. forces from northeastern Syria, U.S. President Donald Trump has gone his own way when it comes to conducting U.S. foreign policy. But the Syria decision has sparked widespread opposition in Washington and in the case of Ukraine, critics say Trump sidestepped career U.S. diplomats to further his own interests against a potential election rival.
Despite criticism, U.S. President Donald Trump is standing by his decision to move U.S. troops from the Syrian-Turkish border, where they fought alongside longtime Kurdish allies.
“They stayed for almost 10 years. Let someone else fight over this long, bloodstained sand,” Trump said.
This, as the top U.S. official to Syria appeared to distance himself from Trump’s decision.
“Were you consulted about the withdrawal of troops as was recently done?” Senator Bob Menendez, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee asked James Jeffrey, the U.S. Special Representative for Syria.
“I personally was not consulted,” Jeffrey said.Elsewhere on Capitol Hill, other diplomats testified about the Trump administration’s delay providing approved U.S military assistance to Ukraine. A written statement by one described how the White House bypassed normal diplomatic channels to press Ukraine to investigate Democrats and the Bidens in return for military aid. Democratic lawmakers have denounced this.
“The idea that vital military assistance would be withheld for such a patently political reason, for the reason of serving the president’s re-election campaign is a phenomenal breach of the president’s duty to defend our national security,” said Democrat Adam Schiff, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
Trump’s actions on Ukraine could threaten his presidency as the impeachment inquiry continues.
“We have agencies, we have tasked areas along government, whose job it is to investigate those. And if President Trump wanted the Bidens investigated for their activities there, it should have been done through the diplomatic channels,” said Shannon Bow O’Brien of the University of Texas at Austin.
Those normal diplomatic channels have set the United States apart from countries whose policies are set by autocratic leaders, says terrorism expert Mike Newton.
“The checks and balances, where agencies push back against each other, and really experienced, smart policy makers wrestle with choices and consequences and diplomatic fallout and maybe military best practices,” Newton said.
When this process is bypassed, experts say, U.S. credibility around the world is damaged.
“If there are doubts about the President’s decisions which there are in the State Department and the Pentagon, and the intelligence community as well as in the Congress, there’s real questions about cohesiveness of U.S. foreign policy and whether we have a real strategy,” said Mark Simakovsky of the Atlantic Council, an international affairs think tank.
Donald Trump was elected on promises to break with traditional U.S. foreign policy, and his supporters show no sign of abandoning him.But the impeachment inquiry and outcry over his Syria policy show there are limits to his approach.
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