Residents of three Greek islands protested Wednesday against the overcrowding of refugee camps and demanded government action to ease migrant pressure. Most stores were closed and public services were halted on the islands of Lesbos, Chios, and Samos, where some refugee camps have more than 10 times the number of people they were built for. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports Greek protesters want a closure of the ports of entry as well as more equal distribution of migrants throughout the country.
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Month: January 2020
US Journalist Arrested in Indonesia Over Alleged Visa Violation
An American journalist working for an environmental website has been arrested over an alleged visa violation in Indonesia that could send him to jail for years, his employer said Wednesday.Philip Jacobson, 30, was initially detained last month after attending a hearing in Borneo involving the local parliament and the Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago, Indonesia’s largest indigenous rights advocacy group, the website Mongabay said.This week, Jacobson was formally arrested and told he faced up to five years in prison for visiting Indonesia with the wrong visa, it added.He had traveled to the country on a business visa, according to Mongabay.”We are supporting Philip in this ongoing case and making every effort to comply with Indonesia’s immigration authorities,” said Mongabay chief Rhett A. Butler.”I am surprised that immigration officials have taken such punitive action against Philip for what is an administrative matter.”Borneo officials disputed claims the arrest may have been linked to Jacobson’s involvement in sensitive stories about Indonesia’s myriad environmental and corruption woes.”This is purely an immigration law enforcement matter,” immigration spokesman Muhammad Syukran told AFP.”There’s no other issue — we don’t have a problem with his work.”Jacobson had repeatedly entered and left Indonesia on a non-journalist visa, he added.”While we of course urge all foreign journalists visiting Indonesia to ensure they follow immigration rules, if a journalist is simply attending meetings or happens to be present during a news event this should not be cause for punitive action or detention,” the Jakarta Foreign Correspondents Clubs said in a statement.The U.S. embassy in Jakarta did not immediately comment.
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Father, Daughter Discuss Visiting Chinese Students
Longfellow Middle School in Falls Church, Virginia, canceled a visit by a group of 20 students from Yichang, Hubei province, China, about 321 kilometers from Wuhan, where the coronavirus outbreak is occurring.Sorry, but your player cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline. Embed” />CopyPing Song, who went to Longfellow to retrieve his daughter, told VOA’s Mandarin Service (translated): “We have known that there would be a group of exchange students from Yichang, China, visiting. They would enter the building at 2:30 or later this afternoon. We are very worried about this, because the coronavirus outbreak in China is severe now, and people discuss this issue on WeChat every day. We can’t say that those people surely carry this virus, but we’d like to be cautious just in case, since the situation is not too optimistic at this point. This morning we had a meeting with the school, and they thought it hasn’t reached the level to make changes to the plan. So we think the exchange students will still enter the building this afternoon according to their plan. Therefore, I discussed this with my wife, and decided to pick up our daughter earlier today, and then see how it goes, if there are any changes for the next step.”His daugher, nicknamed Xixi, said in Mandarin (translated): “I’m pretty worried if they carry the virus, because it’s contagious. A lot of my classmates around are discussing about this issue, wondering if we might be infected. Everyone is talking about this in group chat, and we are considering not coming to school perhaps.”In Wuhan, China, the government issued Wednesday a lockdown on travel to avoid the spread of the deadly coronavirus.
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China Slams US for ‘Spreading Rumors’ About BRI Investments in Pakistan
China has defended its infrastructure development investments in Pakistan as “open and transparent,” refuting renewed U.S. criticism of the ongoing multibillion-dollar economic collaboration under Beijing’s global Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The Chinese embassy in Islamabad issued the rebuttal Wednesday in response to comments in Pakistani media attributed to a visiting senior U.S. diplomat questioning the transparency and fairness of projects being implemented in what is known as the bilateral China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship of the trillion-dollar BRI.”The entire process is open and transparent and is in line with the international norm. We keep in touch with the relative accountability agencies of Pakistan and it is agreed that the CPEC is clean,” the Chinese diplomatic mission stressed in its statement.’Debt trap’ allegationsPrincipal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Alice Wells, who visited Pakistan this week, was also quoted as saying the CPEC-related financing was burdening Pakistan with expensive Chinese loans. She had raised similar concerns and questions while delivering a public speech in Washington last November.FILE – Alice Wells, acting assistant secretary to South Asia, testifies during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Sept. 19, 2019.Critics in the U.S. and elsewhere see China’s BRI program as a “debt trap” for countries like Pakistan, which have struggling economies that would make it difficult for them to make Chinese loan repayments.”The U.S. keeps fabricating the so-called debt story, their mathematics is bad, and their intention is worse,” the Chinese Embassy asserted. “China has never forced other countries to pay debts, and will not make unreasonable demands on Pakistan.”China has invested around $30 billion, mostly in direct foreign investment, over the past five years in early harvest CPEC projects. The investment has significantly improved local transportation infrastructure and constructed power plants, effectively ending crippling nationwide electricity shortages.’Rock-solid’ tiesChinese and Pakistani officials say the economic collaboration has also created more than 75,000 jobs directly for locals and contributed 1%-2% of the GDP growing in Pakistan.The Chinese embassy cited the Pakistani central bank’s statistics, saying the total foreign debt of Pakistan stood at $110 billion, with Western financial institutions, including the Paris Club and International Monetary Fund (IMF), being the largest creditors of the country.”Loan for the CPEC is about $5.8 billion, accounting for 5.3% of Pakistan’s total foreign debt, with a repayment period of 20-25 years and an interest rate of approximately 2%,” the Chinese statement noted. The repayments will start in 2021, with annual repayments of about $300 million, it explained.The embassy alleged the “negative propaganda” against CPEC by the U.S. was aimed at undermining Beijing’s close relationship with Islamabad.FILE – Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan reviews the honor guard during a welcome ceremony with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, Oct. 8, 2019.”China-Pakistan ties are rock-solid and unbreakable. China will continue to work with the Pakistani government and people to steadily advance the BRI and CPEC to promote regional peace and development,” stressed the Chinese statement.CPEC has also built and opened Pakistan’s strategically located deep-water Arabian Sea port of Gwadar, which is being operated by a Chinese state company. U.S.-Pakistan talksU.S. diplomat Wells during her four-day visit to Islamabad this week, which officially ended Wednesday, held extensive talks with senior Pakistani officials, focusing on boosting bilateral trade and investment ties. Her trip took place amid Islamabad’s warming relations with Washington stemming from recent joint efforts aimed at ending the war in Afghanistan, America’s longest.U.S. President Donald Trump met with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan on Tuesday on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, the third interaction between the two leaders since their July 2019 White House meeting.”We’re getting along very well. I would say we’ve never been closer with Pakistan than we are right now. And that’s a big statement,” Trump acknowledged while speaking to reporters before his meeting with Khan.Pakistani officials say they want to enhance commercial ties with the U.S. but will not “compromise” on Islamabad’s relations and CPEC commitments with China.
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What We Know So Far About New China Virus
A new SARS-like virus has killed 17 people in China, infected hundreds and reached as far as the United States, with fears mounting about its spread as hundreds of millions travel for Lunar New Year celebrations, which start Friday.Many countries have stepped up screening of passengers from Wuhan, the Chinese city identified as the epicenter, and the World Health Organization has called an emergency meeting.Here’s what we know so far about the virus:It’s entirely newThe pathogen appears to be a never-before-seen strain of coronavirus — a large family of viruses that can cause diseases ranging from the common cold to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which killed 349 people in mainland China and another 299 in Hong Kong between 2002 and 2003.Arnaud Fontanet, head of the department of epidemiology at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, told AFP the current virus strain was 80% genetically identical to SARS.China has already shared the genome sequencing of this novel coronavirus with the international scientific community.It has been named “2019-nCoV”.It’s being passed between humans The WHO said Monday it believed an animal source was the “primary source” of the outbreak, and Wuhan authorities identified a seafood market as the center of the epidemic.But China has since confirmed that there was evidence the virus is now passing from person to person, without any contact with the now-closed market.The virus has infected more than 400 people across the country, with most cases in Wuhan, according to officials. Li Bin of China’s National Health Commission on Wednesday said 1,394 people were still under medical observation.Doctor Nathalie MacDermott of King’s College London said it seems likely that the virus is spread through droplets in the air from sneezing or coughing.Doctors at the University of Hong Kong published an initial paper on Tuesday modeling the spread of the virus which estimated that there have been some 1,343 cases in Wuhan — similar to a projection of 1,700 last week by scientists at Imperial College, London.Both are much higher than official figures.Health Officials in hazmat suits wait at the gate to check body temperatures of passengers arriving from the city of Wuhan, Jan. 22, 2020, at the airport in Beijing, China.It is milder than SARSCompared with SARS, the symptoms appear to be less aggressive, and experts say the death toll is still relatively low. However, the milder nature of the virus can also cause alarm.The outbreak comes as China prepares for the Lunar New Year holiday, with hundreds of millions traveling across the country to see family.Professor Antoine Flahault, director of the Institute of Global Health at the University of Geneva, told AFP that the fact that the virus seems milder in the majority of people is “paradoxically more worrying” as it allows people to travel further before their symptoms are detected.International public health emergency? The WHO will hold a meeting on Wednesday to determine whether the outbreak constitutes a “public health emergency of international concern” and if so, what should be done to manage it.Cases have so far been confirmed in Thailand, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Macau and the United States.The WHO has only used the rare label a handful of times, including during the H1N1 — or swine flu — pandemic of 2009 and the Ebola epidemic that devastated parts of West Africa from 2014 to 2016.The Chinese government announced Tuesday it was classifying the outbreak in the same category as the SARS outbreak, meaning compulsory isolation for those diagnosed with the disease and the potential to implement quarantine measures on travel.Global precautions As the number of confirmed deaths and infections has risen, so has concern worldwide about the disease spreading to other countries.In Thailand, authorities have introduced mandatory thermal scans of passengers arriving at airports in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Phuket and Krabi from high-risk areas in China.In Hong Kong, where hundreds died during the SARS outbreak, authorities have said they are on high alert, carrying out scans at the city’s airport — one of the world’s busiest — and at other international land and sea crossing points.The United States also ordered the screening of passengers arriving on direct or connecting flights from Wuhan, including at airports in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.Taiwan has issued travel advisories, and went to its second-highest alert level for those traveling to or from Wuhan. Vietnam has also ordered more border checks on its border with China.In Europe, Britain and Italy have said they will introduce enhanced monitoring of flights from Wuhan, while Romania and Russia are also strengthening checks.
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US to Impose Visa Restrictions for Pregnant Women
The Trump administration is unveiling new visa restrictions aimed at restricting “birth tourism,” in which women travel to the U.S. to give birth so their children can have a coveted U.S. passport.The State Department plans to publicize the rules Thursday, according to two officials with knowledge of the plans who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity. The rules would make it more difficult for pregnant women to travel on a tourist visa. In one draft of the regulations, they would have to clear an additional hurdle before obtaining the visa — convincing a consular officer they have another legitimate reason to come to the U.S.The Trump administration has been restricting all forms of immigration, but the president has been particularly plagued by the issue of birthright citizenship — anyone born in the U.S. is considered a citizen, under the Constitution. He has railed against the practice and threatened to end it, but scholars and members of his administration have said it’s not so easy to do.Regulating tourist visas for pregnant women is one way to get at the issue, but it raises questions about how officers would determine whether a woman is pregnant to begin with, and whether a woman could get turned away by border officers who suspect she may be just by looking at her.Counselor officers right now aren’t told to ask during visa interviews whether a woman is pregnant or intends to become so. But they would have to determine whether a visa applicant would be coming to the U.S. primarily to give birth.Lucrative businessBirth tourism is a lucrative business in both the U.S. and abroad. American companies take out advertisements and charge up to $80,000 to facilitate the practice, offering hotel rooms and medical care. Many of the women travel from Russia and China to give birth in the U.S. The U.S. has been cracking down on the practice since before Trump took office.Although there are scattered cases of authorities arresting operators of birth tourism agencies for visa fraud or tax evasion, coming to the U.S. to give birth is fundamentally legal. And women are often honest about their intentions when applying for visas and even show signed contracts with doctors and hospitals.There are no figures on how many foreign women travel to the U.S. specifically to give birth. The Center for Immigration Studies, a group that advocates for stricter immigration laws, estimated that in 2012, about 36,000 foreign-born women gave birth in the U.S., then left the country.The draft rule is “intended to address the national security and law enforcement risks associated with birth tourism, including criminal activity associated with the birth tourism industry,” a State Department spokesperson said.
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American NGO Unearths Mines in Vietnam to Make Farming Possible
The United States bombed parts of Southeast Asia a generation ago. The fallout of one of the longest military entanglements in American history wreaked havoc on local populations and destroyed much of the land once suitable for farming. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi looks at how US non-profit Roots of Peace sows seeds of hope today while unearthing the horrors of yesterday.
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Sources: EU Nations Can Restrict High-Risk Vendors Under New 5G Guidelines
EU countries can restrict or exclude high-risk 5G providers from core parts of their telecoms network infrastructure under new guidelines to be issued by the European Commission next week, people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
The non-binding recommendations are part of a set of measures aimed at addressing cybersecurity risks at national and bloc-wide level, in particular concerns related to world No. 1 player Huawei Technologies.
The guidelines do not identify any particular country or company, the people said.
“Stricter security measures will apply for high-risk vendors for sensitive parts of the network or the core infrastructure,” one of the people said.
EU digital economy chief Margrethe Vestager is expected to announce the recommendations on Jan. 29.Other measures include urging EU countries to audit or even issue certificates for high-risk suppliers.EU governments will also be advised to diversify their suppliers and not depend on one company and to use technical and non-technical factors to assess them.
Europe is under pressure from the United States to ban Huawei equipment on concerns that its gear could be used by China for spying. Huawei, which competes with Finland’s Nokia and Sweden’s Ericsson has denied the allegations.
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High-Level UN Panel Seeks Solutions to Problems of Internal Displacement
More than 41 million people globally have been forcibly displaced within their own countries because of conflict, violence and violations of their human rights, according to U.N. estimates. Another 17 million people have been forced to flee their homes because of natural disasters and climate-related events.People displaced within their own countries are among the most vulnerable in the world because they lack the legal international protections accorded refugees when they cross an international border. In an effort to right this wrong, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has established the first-ever High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement to seek concrete long-term solutions for the beleaguered millions and to raise global awareness of the unending misery in which they are caught.”The issue of internal displacement tends to be forgotten, while it is one of the major, not only humanitarian, but also, I would say, political crises that our times are seeing,” said Federica Mogherini, the co-chair of the panel and former European Commission High Representative for Foreign Affairs. “So, our first task will be to keep, or rather put this as high as possible on the agenda and try to provide some good advice on how this can be addressed,” she added. The panel’s eight distinguished members come from all regions of the world, some from countries that have big problems of internal displacement. They are expected to draw upon their wealth of experience in government, international organizations, civil society and the private sector to map out a realistic plan for improving the lives of the displaced and for garnering greater support for the communities that host them.”We have been clearly tasked to focus on specific issues. So, we will try to be as concrete and focused on the results that we can realistically achieve,” said Mogherini.
“First of all, we have been tasked to focus on prevention of displacement and mitigation of its effects. On capacity building, to better deal with this issue and how to mobilize at best international support, first and foremost for the states that are affected by this issue,” she said.Crucially, she said, the panel has been asked to address what she called the three main drivers of displacement: climate change, disaster risk reduction and peace action.The panel held its first “brainstorming” session on Tuesday in preparation for the complex and challenging work that will get underway on February 26. Guterres has given the group only one year in which to deliver a realistic plan, one that will be “sustainable and durable over time.”The secretary-general announced the establishment of the panel on October 23, the 10th anniversary of the adoption of the African Union Convention on Internally Displaced Persons in Africa, known as the Kampala Convention.The U.N. refugee agency reports 17.8 million people are internally displaced in sub-Saharan Africa, the largest regional displacement in the world. Panel co-chair Donald Kaberuka noted that a Convention on Internal Displacement would “ensure that the work, which has been done in the field of refugees and migrants, was completed.”On December 17, 2018, the General Assembly adopted the Global Compact on Refugees followed by the adoption on December 18, 2018 of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration.Kaberuka, the former president of the African Development Bank Group and minister of finance and economic planning in Rwanda said he hoped to bring his experience from the development world to find practical solutions to the displacement crisis.He told VOA it was not possible to separate “development, environment and security,” all elements involved in displacement. He said all three matters must be addressed together.For instance, he said, “I do not see any solution in the Sahel at the moment… What is happening to the climate and how it has fallen into a social problem and now into a security problem. Those will have to be addressed together.” The panelists have agreed that they want a positive, productive outcome to their year-long deliberations. They said they do not intend to point fingers of shame or dwell on governmental shortcomings but would try to get countries to work together to meet the needs of the displaced. Mogherini said the panel would “try to avoid politicizing this issue and try to look at what can help people live better in a situation that is in itself very difficult… We believe that this could be a win-win approach.”
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In Britain, Trying to Help Children Vulnerable to Drugs, Gangs
In parts of Britain, thousands of children have fallen victim to so-called “county lines,” drug networks run by gangs, with many forced to sell drugs in small towns and rural areas. Helping affected children in the $600 million illegal narcotics industry is a long and difficult process.Officials estimate that some 46,000 children are involved with gangs across Britain, and many of them are exploited through drug networks and routes termed “county lines.”The children are groomed and forced to travel across the country to sell heroin and crack cocaine, using dedicated mobile phone lines.The children exploited through the “county lines” witness a lot of violence and intimidation.Tamsin Gregory works with the St. Giles Trust, an organization that offers support to youngsters who have been affected by “county lines.”Gregory says it is common to see post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD among the young people they work with.”It takes a lot of care and kindness, and non-judgmental support to help young people overcome those kinds of experiences,” Gregory said. “And it’s not a quick process. What we often find is that young people, they don’t stop their ‘county lines’ activity overnight. So they will reduce it over a period of time. And then eventually over maybe a period of a year or so we can help them fully accept that lifestyle and put them back in touch with things such as helping them get back into education.””County lines” have been around for a long time, but the number of people involved in selling drugs in rural areas has grown in recent years. There are currently about 2,000 operational “county lines.”Anton Noble was a gang member as a teenager. Although not personally involved in “county lines,” he witnessed it. After almost ending up in jail, he says he turned his life around.Noble founded the organization Guiding Young Minds in 2018 to warn young people in Britain about the dangers of gangs and “county lines.””This generation they’re ain’t no level, they’ll go to any level,” Noble said. “They’ll go to four-year-olds, they’ll go to six-year-olds, they’ll do anything just to move their product. It’s not a gang anymore, it’s a business. Money is the motive but obviously I educated the kids to say to them money don’t make you happy.”While its mostly vulnerable youngsters who end up being exploited, children from a variety of backgrounds are targeted. The children are victims but often end up in the criminal system for selling drugs or committing violent acts.Noble says he has seen through his work as a youth mentor that it takes time to connect with young people and change their mindset. He says the root causes of the drug epidemic must first be address.If you take a drug runner off the road, it replaces itself, it’s a business,” Noble said. “But if you take the root out, it’s gone. It won’t grow again.”The British government announced it would spend nearly $33 million to tackle drug networks, mostly through strengthening law enforcement.Critics of that approach note that austerity policies in the last decade have led to thousands of British police and social workers losing their jobs, and the closing of hundreds of youth centers across the country.British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said this month he wanted “county lines” to be stopped because “they are killing our children.”
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UN Calls for Probe Into Possible Hacking of Bezos’ Phone
The phone of Amazon billionaire and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos was hacked after receiving a file sent from an account used by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, United Nations experts alleged Wednesday.The experts called for an “immediate investigation” by the United States and others into information they received that suggests that Bezos’ phone was hacked after receiving an MP4 video file sent from the Saudi prince’s WhatsApp account.Bezos went public about the incident after allegedly being shaken down by the National Enquirer tabloid, which he said threatened to expose a “below-the-belt” selfie he’d taken and other private messages he’d exchanged with a woman he was dating while still married at the time.A forensic report that was commissioned by Bezos and shared with the U.N. experts assessed with “medium to high confidence” that his phone was infiltrated on May 1, 2018, via the MP4 video file.Saudi critic and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was killed by Saudi agents inside the Saudi consulate in Turkey in October that same year. The Post was highly critical of the Saudi government after his killing.“The information we have received suggests the possible involvement of the Crown Prince in surveillance of Mr. Bezos, in an effort to influence, if not silence, The Washington Post’s reporting on Saudi Arabia,” the independent U.N. experts said.“At a time when Saudi Arabia was supposedly investigating the killing of Mr. Khashoggi, and prosecuting those it deemed responsible, it was clandestinely waging a massive online campaign against Mr. Bezos and Amazon targeting him principally as the owner of The Washington Post,” the U.N. experts said.The U.N. experts reviewed the 2019 digital forensic analysis of Bezos’ iPhone, which they said was made available to them as U.N. special rapporteurs, which are independent experts appointed by the world body.The experts said that records showed that within hours of receipt of the video from the crown prince’s account, there was “an anomalous and extreme change in phone behavior” with enormous amounts of data from the phone being transmitted over the following months.The Financial Times has seen the forensic report that was done by FTI Consulting, the private firm hired by Bezos. The newspaper said the forensic report “does not claim to have conclusive evidence,” and “could not ascertain what alleged spyware was used.”
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Meet the Afri-Vegans: South Africa Slowly Embracing Veganism
Veganism is spreading among South Africa’s young, socially aware residents, who note that their quest to eliminate animal products from their diets has provoked interesting arguments about the role of meat in African culture and spirituality. VOA’s Anita Powell looks at the new wave of Afri-vegans, and brings us this report from Johannesburg.
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World Health Experts Assess Global Risk of Deadly China Virus
Experts meeting in emergency session at the World Health Organization will look at the spreading Coronavirus to see whether it constitutes a Public Health Emergency of International Concern and decide on recommendations needed to manage it. The WHO has confirmed 440 cases of the disease, including 17 deaths. Since the new coronavirus was detected in a fish market in Wuhan city, China three weeks ago, the previously unknown virus has moved with frightening speed internally and abroad. Deaths have been reported in China, Thailand, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.The first case of the disease has been reported in the United States in a man who returned to the West Coast city of Seattle last week from Wuhan. He is hospitalized in good condition, but the appearance of the case has put officials in the U.S. and other countries on heightened alert. FILE – Medical staff carry a box as they walk at the Jinyintan hospital, where the patients with pneumonia caused by the new strain of coronavirus are being treated, in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, Jan. 10, 2020.Many airports are screening travelers from China. U.S. President Donald Trump, who was attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, has told media that he trusts the information coming out of China on coronavirus and that the situation was under control.Nevertheless, the World Health Organization is urging countries to continue preparedness measures to protect themselves from the possibilities of a large-scale outbreak. WHO spokesman Tarek Jasarevic says WHO experts and health officials in China are conducting investigations into the outbreak.”Much remains to be understood about this novel coronavirus. Not enough is known to draw definitive conclusions about how it is transmitted, clinical features of the disease, its severity, the extent to which it has spread or its source,” he said.Based on previous experience with respiratory illness, Jasarevic says limited human to human transmission is likely occurring. But he adds, this is not an airborne disease and people have to be in close contact to get infected. He says WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has convened the emergency meeting because little is known about the coronavirus and expert advice is needed to calm nerves and to know what protective actions are required. He notes a Public Health Emergency of International Public Concern has been declared only five times by the WHO.
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Trump Calls Boeing A ‘Big, Big Disappointment’
President Donald Trump on Wednesday criticized Boeing as a “very disappointing company” because of the aerospace giant’s recent problems after the grounding of the 737 MAX plane, which he said had a knock-on effect for the US economy.”This is one of the great companies of the world, let’s say as of a year ago, and then all of a sudden things happen,” Trump said in an interview on CNBC from the Davos economic forum in Switzerland.This “had a tremendous impact. You know, when you talk about growth, it’s so big that some people say it’s more than a half a point of GDP. So Boeing — big, big disappointment to me,” he said.Boeing had Tuesday officially pushed back the time frame for the 737 MAX to return to the skies, sending shares plunging and overshadowing an earlier announcement of a first flight of the delayed 777X plane.The 737 MAX was grounded worldwide March 13, 2019 after two crashes claimed the lives of 346 people.US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Tuesday he believed that issues including the grounding of of Boeing 737 MAX plane had shaved some 0.5 to 0.7 of a percent point off the US growth rate.
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‘Fight Inequality’ Protests Erupt As Global Elite Gather in Davos
As world leaders rub shoulders with billionaire executives at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this week, tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets in cities around the world demanding action to tackle growing inequality. A new report from Oxfam highlights the scale of the problem – with most of the world’s wealth concentrated in the hands of a few thousand of the world’s super-rich. As Henry Ridgwell reports, Davos organizers insist the forum is the ideal place to come up with solutions to global problems – from inequality to climate change
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Trump to Add New Countries to Travel Ban
U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday his administration is preparing to announce the addition of several countries to a travel ban that bars people from certain countries from entering the United States.”You see what’s going on in the world, our country has to be safe,” he told reporters in Davos, Switzerland.He did not specify the number or identity of the countries, saying only that the details would be announced “very shortly.”The current list includes Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, Venezuela and North Korea.Giving a news conference to close his visit to the World Economic Forum, Trump also called the impeachment trial against him at home a “witch hunt” and the phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that is at the center of allegations he abused his power a “very innocent conversation with a very fine gentleman.”Trump also said he expects to reach a trade agreement with the European Union and will start those negotiations.US President Donald Trump, right, attends a meeting with his Iraqi counterpart Barham Salih at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 22, 2020.Iraq
Earlier Wednesday, Trump did not rule out future sanctions against Iraq, but cited what he called “a very good relationship” when asked about potential plans for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.”We’ll see what happens, because we do have to do things on our terms,” Trump told reporters as he met with Iraqi President Barham Salih.Iraq’s parliament passed a resolution urging the government to expel U.S. troops from the country, prompting Trump to respond with a threat not to leave unless Iraq reimburses the United States for a U.S. airbase there.He said Wednesday 5,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq, and that his administration will “make a determination” about their future.Salih highlighted the United States and Iraq as being partners in the war against Islamic State militants, and said he and Trump share the goal of a “stable, sovereign Iraq that is at peace with itself and at peace with its neighbors.”The Iraqi parliament’s demand for U.S. forces to get out was a protest against the U.S. drone attack at the Baghdad airport that killed Iran’s top general, Qassem Soleimani.Trump also held talks Wednesday with the president of Iraq’s Kurdistan region, Nechirvan Barzani, on the final day of his trip to Davos to attend the World Economic Forum.WATCH: White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara’s video report Sorry, but your player cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline. Embed” />CopyTrade deals
In a speech at the event Tuesday, Trump touted the conclusion of two major trade deals and declared Americans are “winning again like never before.”Trump went through a list of what he celebrated as victories for middle class workers and companies, including the first phase of a trade deal with China and the Senate’s approval of a new trade agreement with Canada and Mexico.He also kept track of the historic proceedings in the U.S. Senate where he is on trial on a charge of abuse of power and another of obstruction of Congress.Trump expressed confidence in his legal team hours before the start of opening statements, saying, “We have a great case.”Chris Hannas contributed to this report in Washington
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Taiwan Urges China to Release All Information on New Virus
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen urged China on Wednesday to release all information about the outbreak of a new virus and work with Taiwan on curbing its spread.At China’s insistence, Taiwan is not a member of the World Health Organization and is not allowed to participate in any of its meetings. However, large numbers of Taiwanese travel to and live in China, where hundreds of people have been sickened and nine have died in an outbreak that apparently originated in the city of Wuhan.
Despite Beijing’s restrictions, the Taiwan Center for Disease Control said earlier this month it had been notified on Jan. 15 by its Chinese counterpart about the outbreak. It said it had also sent two experts to Wuhan to visit health care facilities in order to “better understand the treatment process of the cases.”
Tsai made no mention of those interactions at her news conference Wednesday. Calls to her spokesman rang unanswered.
“I especially want to urge China, being a member of international society, that it should fulfill its responsibilities to make the situation of the outbreak transparent, and to share accurate information on the outbreak with Taiwan,” Tsai told reporters.
One case of the previously unknown coronavirus has been confirmed in Taiwan and others in Macao, South Korea, Japan, Thailand and the United States. The Taiwanese patient, a businesswoman who recently returned from Wuhan, is recovering, Tsai said.
Sharing information is also important for the health of the Chinese population and Beijing “should not put political concerns above the protection of its own people,” Tsai said.
China regards Taiwan as its own territory and says it is not entitled to representation in most international bodies.
“I want to reiterate that Taiwan is a member of international society. The 23 million people here, like all other people in every corner of the world, are facing threats to their own health,” Tsai said.
Taiwan, which was heavily affected by the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak that also originated in China, has enacted strict monitoring, detection and quarantine measures.
In Beijing, foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said the Taiwanese experts had visited Wuhan at Taiwan’s request on Jan. 13-14 and held exchanges with Chinese colleagues.
“No one cares more about the health welfare of Taiwan compatriots than the Chinese central government,” Geng said at a daily briefing on Wednesday.
Chiu Chui-cheng, deputy minister of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, told The Associated Press that the visit was facilitated by an existing bilateral agreement covering medicine and public health.
“They dealt with issues related to the health and well-being of both countries’ people,” Chiu said.
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China to Hold Coronavirus Emergency Meeting With WHO
The first case to be diagnosed with the Wuhan coronavirus in the United States (in Seattle) was confirmed Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The outbreak, which originated in China, has so far spread to other countries including Japan, South Korea, Thailand and the Philippines. China says it will attend an emergency World Health Organization summit this week on the coronavirus outbreak, which has infected several hundred and killed at least six. VOA correspondent Mariama Diallo reports.
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75th Anniversary of Auschwitz Camp Liberation Comes as Anti-Semitic Attacks Rise
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led a bipartisan delegation Tuesday on a visit to the former Nazi camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland. More than 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, died in the death camp before it was liberated by the allied forces 75 years ago. The main event commemorating the event will be held in Jerusalem Thursday. Pelosi will join representatives from about 50 other countries and Holocaust survivors at a conference, which will also address the need to fight the resurgence of anti-semitism in the world. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has more.
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Russia’s Political Shakeup Means Putin Here to Stay
Russian President Vladimir Putin is quickly moving to consolidate proposed constitutional reforms unveiled last week – the first in Russia in over a quarter century. The moves are part of a political shakeup that analysts say may be aimed at allowing Putin to retain influence when his current and final term at the Kremlin ends in 2024. From Moscow, Charles Maynes reports.
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Using Grandma’s Recipe to Feed the World
Many organizations help provide food aid to refugees around the world. Next is the story of a man in Washington D.C. who is using his grandmother’s secret falafel recipe to do the same. VOA’s Imron Jadoon reports.
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Battle Over Witnesses Launches First Full Week of Trump Trial
The impeachment trial of U.S. President Donald Trump got fully underway in the Senate Tuesday with a battle over the rules governing how the case moves forward. For just the third time in U.S. history, senators will vote to decide if a president should be removed from office. Congressional Democrats argue witnesses should be allowed to testify to help make their case Trump abused the power of the presidency. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson has more from Capitol Hill.
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US Reports First Case of New Coronavirus
The United States is reporting its first case of the new coronavirus that originated in Wuhan, China, and has killed at least six people.Health officials in the northwest U.S. state of Washington said a man who returned to Seattle from Wuhan last week is hospitalized in good condition with pneumonia. They say he poses no threat to doctors or hospital staff members.U.S. authorities are screening travelers from Wuhan at airports in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said they are adding Atlanta and Chicago to the list of airport screenings this week.The United States is the fifth country to report cases of the new coronavirus, joining China, Japan, South Korea and Thailand.A health official watches travelers on a thermographic monitor at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang, Malaysia, Jan. 21, 2020.The number of confirmed cases is approaching 300, and six deaths have been reported in Wuhan. Most of the fatalities are in patients 60 years and older.China’s National Health Commission says it now knows the virus can be transmitted person-to-person and not just from animals to people.Chinese and U.S. health officials are particularly concerned because as many as 1.4 billion Chinese plan to travel across the country and overseas for the Lunar New Year holiday that starts Saturday. Chinese health experts say they know little about the new strain, dubbed 2019-nCoV. They suspect the outbreak started in a Wuhan seafood market, which also sold other animals such as poultry, bats, marmots, and wild game meat.Pharmacist Liu Zhuzhen stands near a sign reading “face masks are sold out” at her pharmacy in Shanghai, Jan. 21, 2020.The World Health Organization says an animal source seemed to be “the most likely primary source” with “some limited human-to-human transmission occurring between close contacts.” The WHO is to hold an emergency committee Wednesday to discuss the situation.Health officials are urging caution but say there is no reason to panic. The WHO is not recommending against travel to China, and China’s National Health Commission says the current outbreak is “preventable and controllable.”A coronavirus is one of a large family of viruses that can cause illnesses ranging from the common cold to the deadly Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. SARS, which also started in China, killed nearly 800 people globally during an outbreak nearly 20 years ago.
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GOP Congressman Who Backed Nixon Impeachment Dead At 87
Thomas Railsback, an Illinois Republican congressman who helped draw up articles of impeachment against President Richard Nixon in 1974, has died at age 87.Railback died Monday in Mesa, Arizona, where he lived in a nursing home in recent years, former Republican congressman and U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Tuesday.”He would have been 88 today,” LaHood said, adding that because of Railsback’s age his body was beginning to break down. “It’s sad that Tom is gone. But it’s a blessing that he passed. He was suffering during the last few years.’’Railsback represented the 19th Congressional District for 16 years and was the second ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee when it was conducting the impeachment inquiry into Nixon. The inquiry was prompted by Nixon’s actions in the wake of the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at Watergate office building.Railsback credited Nixon with getting him elected to Congress in 1966 by campaigning for him in western Illinois.”I feel badly about what happened to Nixon,” Railsback told the Idaho Statesman in 2012. ”On the other hand, after listening to the (White House) tapes and seeing all the evidence, it was something we had to do because the evidence was there.’’Railsback, a graduate of Grinnell College in Iowa who earned his law degree at Northwestern University, served in the Illinois House of Representatives before defeating freshman Democrat Gale Schisler for 19th District congressional seat.Railsback said he believes he lost his seat in the 1982 Republican primary to state Sen. Kenneth G. McMillan, described by LaHood as “very conservative,” in part due to his impeachment vote. McMillan lost to Lane Evans, who held the seat for 20 years.LaHood worked for Railsback from 1977 to 1982, and said brought him into politics.”He taught me the good things about politics and public service,” LaHood said Tuesday. ”The way to be a good public servant is to work for the people.’’LaHood said Railsback talked to him about his decision to support the impeachment of Nixon, one of only a few Republicans to do so.”He said he looked at all the evidence,” LaHood said. ”He felt an obligation to the Constitution and to do what is right.’’According to LaHood, Railsback was saddened by the current state of affairs in Washington and the unwillingness of people to compromise. He called Railsback’s death “the end of an era in politics.”Railsback was one of four Republicans and three conservative Democrats who drafted two of the three impeachment articles against Nixon, which were adopted by the House. Nixon resigned before a trial in the Senate.In a 2012 New York Times op-ed, Railsback noted the Democrats won a landslide in the 1974 Congressional elections, bringing in “a group of brash” legislators he said helped create an atmosphere of “division and unease.” He said that by the time of the Clinton impeachment inquiry, the Judiciary Committee was much more partisan and the climate in Congress in 2014 “appeared even more fractured.’’Railsback moved to Mesa from Idaho and retired after holding several jobs, including an executive with the Motion Picture Association of America. He is survived by his second wife, Joye, and four daughters.
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