Month: March 2024

Chinese Officials Acknowledge Economic Challenges

Posted on by SeeEA

BEIJING — China needs to do more to boost employment and stabilize its property market, top officials acknowledged Saturday, as policymakers struggle to revive the country’s battered economy. 

Beijing is grappling with a prolonged property sector crisis, record youth unemployment and a global slowdown hammering demand for Chinese goods. 

Youth unemployment hit an unprecedented 21.3% in mid-2023 before officials paused publishing monthly figures. 

Home prices have in turn fallen for months, with several major property developers struggling to stay afloat. 

And on the sidelines of a weeklong annual meeting of the country’s rubber-stamp parliament Saturday, officials acknowledged the difficulties in reversing both trends. 

“Overall employment pressure has not lessened, and there are still structural contradictions to be solved,” said Wang Xiaoping, minister of human resources and social security. 

“A portion of workers face some challenges and problems in employment, and more effort needs to be made to stabilize employment,” Wang said. 

But Beijing is “confident about maintaining the continued stability of the employment situation,” she said. 

Housing Minister Ni Hong, in turn, told reporters that fixing the property market — which long accounted for around a quarter of China’s economy — remained a challenge. 

“The task of stabilizing the market is still very difficult,” he said, pointing to state efforts to reduce interest rates and lower down payments. 

Real estate companies that “need to go bankrupt should go bankrupt, and those that need restructuring should be restructured,” Ni said, adding that market players who “harm the interests of the masses should be resolutely investigated and dealt with according to the law.” 

But despite the deep trouble with the housing market, he insisted that Beijing’s “bottom line” of avoiding “systemic risks” in the property sector had been maintained. 

Meetings in Beijing this week have been dominated by the economy and security. 

On Tuesday, top leaders set an ambitious growth target of around 5% for 2024 — a goal analysts said was ambitious given the headwinds facing the Chinese economy. 

Premier Li Qiang acknowledged the objective would “not be easy” given the “lingering risks and hidden dangers” still present in the economy. 

Investors have called for much greater action from the state to shore up the flagging economy. 
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Lawmakers: Is US Doing Enough to Deter Iran, Houthi Attacks in Red Sea?

Posted on by SeeUS

The commander overseeing U.S. military operations in the Middle East is warning that deterrence of Iranian proxies is temporary and that Iran is not paying the price for its role in violence across the Middle East. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb has details.
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Native American News Roundup, March 3-9, 2024

Posted on by SeeUS

WASHINGTON — Some U.S. states restrict Native American access to voting

Congress granted Indigenous Americans citizenship 100 years ago, but some states are passing laws making it hard for them to register to vote or access polling places. Human Rights Watch on Monday urged U.S. states to take active steps to ensure that Native Americans and other voters of color can cast their ballots this election year.

According to the Brennan Center for Justice, 23 states have enacted 53 voting laws making it easier to vote. That said, at least 14 states in 2023 passed restrictive voter laws, and at least six states enacted election interference laws.

Read more:

Chippewa attorney seeks to overturn ICWA

Imprint News this week profiles a Native American attorney who spent years supporting the Indian Child Welfare Act, or ICWA, and is now working to see the law overturned.

Congress passed the ICWA in 1978 to stop states from placing Native American children in the welfare system with non-Native American families — a long-term practice Native Americans decried as an extension of historic assimilation policies.

Attorney Mark Fiddler, a citizen of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians in Minnesota, was an avid supporter of the law — until, that is, a case he argued back in 1994: After arguing a case against an Indigenous girl’s adoption into a white home, he was troubled to see she was later cycled through dozens of Indigenous foster homes.

“In my heart of hearts, I knew that was probably not the right thing for the child. And it always nagged me,” he said. “My personal opinion is that ICWA has outlived its usefulness and causes more problems than it solves.”

Now, he is arguing a case in the Minnesota appeals court involving a pair of toddler twins who were removed from a white foster family and placed with their mother’s cousin.

Read more:

Seminole Nation attorney named to missing and murdered cases team

The U.S. Justice Department has appointed Bree R. Black Horse, an enrolled member of the Seminole Nation in Oklahoma, as an assistant United States attorney in the department’s new Missing and Murdered Indigenous People, or MMIP, regional program, assigned to prosecute such cases throughout the Northwest region — Washington, Oregon, Montana, Idaho and California.

Black Horse, a 2013 graduate of the Seattle University School of law, most recently served as an associate on the Native American Affairs team of the multinational law firm Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton. Prior to that, she was a public defender for the Yakama Nation in Washington state.

“For far too long Indigenous men, women and children have suffered violence at rates higher than many other demographics,” Black Horse said in a statement. “As I step into this role, I look forward to working with our local, state and tribal partners to identify concrete ways of reducing violence and improving public safety in Indian country and elsewhere.”

In June 2023, the Justice Department announced it would dedicate five MMIP assistant U.S. attorneys and five MMIP coordinators to provide specialized support to U.S. attorneys’ offices addressing and fighting MMIP by investigating unsolved cases and related crimes, boosting communication, coordination and collaboration among federal, tribal, state and local law enforcement and nongovernmental partners.

Black Horse will be attached to the Yakima, Washington, field office.

Read more:

Arizona hoop dancer wins top prize

Josiah Enriquez, a 21-year-old hoop dancer from the Pueblo of Pojoaque in New Mexico, has won the Heard Museum’s 2024 Hoop Dance World Championship, held in Phoenix, Arizona, beating out more than 100 other contestants.

Although its exact origin is unclear, Indigenous peoples have practiced the dance for centuries.

Dancers incorporate circular hoops into their movements and are judged for their grace and style.

Enriquez began dancing at the age of 3, and as the video below shows, he has mastered the art.
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Aid Ship Set to Sail from Cyprus to Gaza on New Corridor, Charity Says

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Nicosia, Cyprus — A U.S. charity said it was loading aid for Gaza onto a boat in Cyprus, the first shipment to the war-ravaged territory along a maritime corridor the EU Commission hopes will open this weekend.

The Spanish-flagged vessel Open Arms docked three weeks ago in the port of Larnaca in Cyprus, the closest European Union country to the Gaza Strip.

“World Central Kitchen teams are in Cyprus loading pallets of humanitarian aid onto a boat headed to northern Gaza,” the charity said Friday in a statement.

“We have been preparing for weeks alongside our trusted NGO partner Open Arms for the opening of a maritime aid corridor that would allow us to scale our efforts in the region,” it added.

The charity said it plans to tow a barge loaded with provisions for the people of Gaza, where dire humanitarian conditions more than five months into the Israel-Hamas war have led some countries to airdrop food and other assistance.

“The endeavor to establish a humanitarian maritime corridor in Gaza is making progress, and our tugboat stands prepared to embark at a moment’s notice, laden with tons of food, water, and vital supplies for Palestinian civilians,” Open Arms said on social media platform X.

In Larnaca, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen had earlier expressed hope that a maritime corridor could open this Sunday, although details remained unclear.

She said a “pilot operation” would be launched on Friday, aided by the United Arab Emirates which secured “the first of many shipments of goods to the people of Gaza.”

There are no functioning ports in Gaza and officials did not say where the initial shipments would go, whether they would be subject to inspection by Israel, or who would distribute aid.

The Pentagon said Friday that a U.S. plan to establish a “temporary offshore maritime pier” in Gaza would take up to 60 days and would likely involve more than 1,000 American personnel.

The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on southern Israel which resulted in about 1,160 deaths, mostly civilians, Israeli figures show.

Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel has responded with a relentless military offensive that the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said has killed at least 30,878 people, most of them women and children.

Israel, which withdrew from Gaza in 2005 but has maintained control over its airspace and territorial waters, said it “welcomes” the planned maritime corridor.
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Drought-Hit Morocco Closing Its Famous Public Baths 3 Days a Week

Posted on by SeeAF

RABAT, Morocco — For years, Fatima Mhattar has welcomed shopkeepers, students, bankers and retirees to Hammam El Majd, a public bath on the outskirts of Morocco’s capital, Rabat. For a handful of change, they relax in a haze of steam then are scrubbed down and rinsed off alongside their friends and neighbors.

The public baths — hammams in Arabic — for centuries have been fixtures of Moroccan life. Inside their domed chambers, men and women, regardless of social class, commune together and unwind. Bathers sit on stone slabs under mosaic tiles, lather with traditional black soap and wash with scalding water from plastic buckets.

But they’ve become the latest casualty as Morocco faces unprecedented threats from climate change and a six-year drought that officials have called disastrous. Cities throughout the North African nation have mandated that hammams close three days a week this year to save water.

Mhattar smiled as she greeted families lugging 10-liter buckets full of towels, sandals and other bath supplies to the hammam where she works as a receptionist on a recent Sunday. But she worried about how restrictions would limit customer volume and cut into her pay.

“Even when it’s open Thursday to Sunday, most of the clients avoid coming because they are afraid it’s full of people,” Mhattar said.

Little rainfall and hotter temperatures have shrunk Morocco’s largest reservoirs, frightening farmers and municipalities that rely on their water. The country is making painful choices while reckoning with climate change and drought.

The decision to place restrictions on businesses including hammams and car washes has angered some. A chorus of hammam-goers and politicians are suggesting the government is picking winners and losers by choosing not to ration water at more upmarket hotels, pools, spas or in the country’s agricultural sector, which consumes the majority of Morocco’s water.

“This measure does not seem to be of great benefit, especially since the (hammam) sector is not considered one of the sectors that consumes the most water,” Fatima Zahra Bata, a member of Morocco’s House of Representatives, asked Interior Minister Abdelouafi Laftit in written questions last month.

Bata asked why officials in many municipalities had carved out exceptions for spas, which are typically used by wealthier people and tourists. She warned that hammam closures would “increase the fragility and suffering of this class, whose monthly income does not exceed 2,000 or 3,000 dirhams at best.” Hammam workers make an amount equivalent to $200 to $300.

Laftit has not yet responded, and his office did not respond to questions from The Associated Press.

The closures affect the roughly 200,000 people directly or indirectly employed in the hammam sector, which accounts for roughly 2% of the country’s total water consumption, according to Morocco’s national statistics agency.

Hammams have been closed in cities including Casablanca, Tangier and Beni Mellal since the interior minister, asked local officials to enact water-saving measures earlier this year. With the price of heating gas high and temperatures dropping, the closures have raised particular concern in towns high in the Atlas Mountains where people go to hammams to warm up.

Mustapha Baradine, a carpenter in Rabat, likes to enjoy hammams with his family weekly and doesn’t understand how the modest amount of water he uses is consequential in a drought. For him, the closures have fostered resentment and raised questions about wealth, poverty and political power.

“I use only two buckets of water for me and my children,” he said. “I did not like this decision at all. It would be better if they would empty their pools,” he said of local officials.

Morocco has reduced the prevalence of poverty in recent years, but income inequality continues to plague both rural and urban areas. Despite rapid economic development in certain sectors, protests have historically arisen among working class people over disparities and rising costs of living.

Morocco’s neighbors have chosen to ration water in varying ways. In Tunisia, entire neighborhoods had their taps shut off for several hours each day last year. In part of Spain, communities were prohibited last summer from washing cars, filling swimming pools and watering gardens.

Fatima Fedouachi, the president of a hammam owners’ association in Casablanca, said the closures had changed the economics of operating a hammam. Though hammam associations have yet to publish statistics on layoffs or lost revenue, they have warned about the effect on owners, chimney technicians and receptionists.

“Owners are obligated to perform their duties for their workers,” Fedouachi said.

Even on days when they’re closed, Fedouachi said, most hammams continue burning wood to keep the baths warm rather than let them cool off and heat them again. Owners would prefer rationing for certain hours each day instead of being forced to close, she added.

Some hammam-goers say the closures appear to be raising awareness of drought, regardless of how much they save. Regulars like 37-year-old housekeeper Hanane El Moussaid support that nationwide push.

“If there’s less water, I prefer drinking over going to the hammam,” El Moussaid said.
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Russia’s Crackdown Casts Wide Net, Ensnaring LGBTQ Community, Lawyers, Many Others

Posted on by SeeEU

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Scam Victims Say Human Trafficking Still a Problem in Cambodia

Posted on by SeeEA

PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA — More than a year after Cambodia’s government crackdown on cyber-slavery scams, anti-human-trafficking groups say scams are still operating at scale, casting doubt on the official narrative that Cambodia has significantly addressed its human trafficking problem.

Cambodia has received widespread attention for its human trafficking epidemic, in which workers are forced to ensnare overseas victims in online fraud schemes. In September 2022, the government raided scam compounds, netting thousands of arrests and deportations.

Since then, Cambodian authorities say they have cut down on human trafficking, disputing a U.N. report that estimated there had been 100,000 victims in Cambodia and accusing news outlets of “baseless” reporting.

International attention, meanwhile, shifted to growing cyber-slavery in northern Myanmar and along the Myanmar-Thai border.

But victim advocate groups say that rather than shutting down, some operations temporarily relocated during the crackdown before reopening in Cambodia. NGOs say identifying and rescuing victims has become more challenging as the government publicly denies the size of the industry.

“From our observation, online scamming has not decreased,” Tola Moeun, executive director of the Phnom Penh-based Center for Alliance of Labor and Human Rights, told VOA. “We don’t know why there has been no clear action, and we continue to see this happening.”

Another international observer working on the issue, who asked for anonymity to maintain relations with the government, told VOA, “It is clear that the volume of trafficking into Cambodia for forced scamming is back to pre-September 2022 levels and maybe exceeding that.”

Companies relocated

As police descended upon the notorious trafficking hotspot of Sihanoukville in September 2022, buildings across the city emptied out.

“Michael,” 38, a Taiwanese trafficking victim who was inside Sihanoukville’s alleged Huang Le compound, using a pseudonym to talk with VOA by phone from Indonesia, recalled companies scrambling to transfer operations.

“Many companies just relocated at that time,” Michael said. “Our company also decided to move.”

While some operators went to Myanmar, others remained in Cambodia. Michael was taken to a compound in the town of O’Smach, near the Thai border.

Other Sihanoukville companies operated with skeleton crews, according to the Global Anti-Scam Organization (GASO), which helps release trafficking victims across Southeast Asia.

“Some buildings in Sihanoukville look like empty buildings … but there are indeed human trafficking victims inside,” said Alicia, a GASO worker who asked to use only her first name to be able to speak freely. “I can’t say that all of them relocated or stopped completely. … Some were still running online scams behind closed doors.”

For the next six months, Michael bounced among three more Cambodian compounds. By June 2023, he was sold to Jinshui, a well-known alleged scam center in Sihanoukville’s Chinatown area. He began training to impersonate an Amazon affiliate to try to persuade people to invest money.

Already, several Jinshui buildings were occupied with trafficked workers from China, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan, Michael said, while other Chinatown buildings were also filling up.

“One building could accommodate [up to] 800 people,” he said. “There were at least 400 to 500 people in our company.”

Return to Sihanoukville

Chinatown’s repopulation is part of a broader return of scamming to Sihanoukville, observers say.

Jacob Sims, senior technical adviser at anti-trafficking organization International Justice Mission, told VOA a Chinese crackdown on Myanmar compounds and  the Operation 1027 offensive against Myanmar’s junta have caused a resurgence of scams along the Myanmar-Thai border, in Laos’ Golden Triangle, and Cambodia.

“Reports from numerous sources on the ground in Sihanoukville confirm that the industry there is surging,” Sims said. “There are real regional drivers for why that trend makes sense. This is a multibillion-dollar industry that has now been effectively displaced from northern Myanmar.”

Sihanoukville residents told VOA they have seen a fresh wave of foreigners arriving at compounds straight from the airport. Some previously quiet buildings are now heavily guarded with people living inside.

A compound called “Jincai” appeared abandoned after authorities found evidence of trafficking there in 2022. Since last August, buses have dropped hundreds of foreigners at the property, residents said.

One business owner said her nephew had briefly worked there but quit because “you have to be good at online frauding.”

A local policeman told VOA the buildings were filled with Malaysian and Chinese workers, but he did not know what activities occurred inside. The compound is now known as New Golden Wealth Casino Co., which was reissued a casino license in December 2022.

“We don’t know if it’s new people or the old people who run it,” the policeman said.

Chou Bun Eng, Interior Ministry secretary of state and permanent vice chairwoman of the National Committee for Counter Trafficking, would not speak about specific compounds and told VOA that prior investigations did not prevent companies from restarting business activities.

“To allow reopening means that they’re among the investigating locations where they could not find anything,” Bun Eng said. “It’s normal for businesses to continue their work in the case that they do not commit crimes.”

NGOs cut out

Even as scamming continues, civil society groups are struggling to help victims.

In several cases, traffickers recorded videos showing “freed” victims outside the compound but brought them back inside after sending the videos to police, GASO’s Alicia said. Other victims have been released without help from authorities to travel to Phnom Penh and start the immigration process. 

“I don’t know if it’s because the Cambodian government is not placing as much importance on this issue anymore or what, but I think this way of operating is not appropriate,” Alicia told VOA. “It gives scam companies an opportunity to deceive … and can lead to a higher chance of the victim being beaten or hurt.”

Cambodia’s Interior Ministry set up a hotline for scam victims, which has made the rescue process more opaque, multiple insiders said.

Tola, of the Center for Alliance of Labor and Human Rights, said authorities “cut off the role of the NGOs for help.”

“It is very difficult for civil society, and all the work we do must be very cautious,” Tola said. “With some of the more controversial cases, we do not dare to say that we help them.”

Still, officials tout low official case numbers as evidence the problem has abated. Bun Eng said authorities confirmed fewer than 300 cases of “confinement” since September 2022.

“There is no such mysterious place. We have searched all over the place when there is a complaint, but in the end, there is no huge number,” Bun Eng said.

Cindy Dyer, U.S. ambassador-at-large to monitor and combat trafficking in persons, told a local publication that Cambodian officials “disputed the scale” in recent meetings and are “just not getting at the bigger problem.”

“There’s no way we could see the scale of operation in Cambodia without there being both low-level and high-level complicity,” Dyer said. “High-level government officials may be in the front. … The low-level enforcement officers know who owns these things.”

Michael, the scamming victim, escaped in July. As his bosses prepared to transfer operations to Myanmar, he contacted the Taiwanese Embassy and GASO, which helped him get away from a van traveling to the border.

Throughout his year in Cambodian compounds, Michael was beaten, isolated in the dark and shocked with an electric baton, he told VOA. He had been recruited on Facebook for a restaurant gig.

“My darkest experiences were in Cambodia,” Michael said. “Even if you beat me to death, I will never go to Cambodia again.” 
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Cambodia Ends Probe Into Abduction of Thai Activist 

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washington / phnom penh, Cambodia — Authorities in Cambodia say they have closed a probe into missing Thai pro-democracy activist Wanchalearm Satsaksit, who was allegedly abducted in  Phnom Penh four years ago.

Wanchalearm was pushed into a black Toyota Highlander SUV on June 4, 2020, near the Mekong Gardens condominium, where he lived, eyewitnesses told VOA Khmer reporters at the time.

Cambodian authorities said last week that they were unable to confirm he ever lived in the building, or find details about the vehicle he was allegedly taken away in.

“We have filed the report to court and the investigation is finished,” Khieu Sopheak, secretary of state and spokesman for the Interior Ministry, told VOA Khmer on February 27.

Despite the ministry’s remarks, it is unclear if the Phnom Penh Municipal Court has closed the case. Sam Chamroeun, the Cambodian lawyer for Wanchalearm’s family, told VOA Khmer last week that he had not been given notice of the case being closed.

VOA Khmer asked a court spokesman for comment but received no reply.

Wanchalearm’s family and advocacy groups criticized the lack of transparency in the investigation and called on Thailand’s government to press Cambodia on why it appears to have ended the inquiry.

“It has been four years. I want them to tell the family members what happened, how the investigation is. It should not be secret anymore,” Sitanun Satsaksit, Wanchalearm’s sister, told VOA Thai by phone on February 28.

On March 5, The U.N. Committee on Enforced Disappearances called on Cambodia to ensure that allegations of Wanchalearm’s forced disappearance “are investigated promptly, thoroughly, effectively and impartially.” It also called on Cambodia’s government to keep Wanchalearm’s family informed throughout the probe.

Pornpen Khongkachonkiet, director of the Cross Cultural Foundation, which has assigned lawyers to represent the activist’s family, said Cambodia should be more open about what it knows, and prove its claims that no state agents were involved.

“The investigation of a case of human rights violation cannot be treated with confidentiality,” she said to VOA Khmer on Monday.

Wanchalearm was a political science graduate who worked at a series of nonprofits before moving into politics and working with the Pheu Thai Party in various positions, according to friends and relatives.

After the 2014 military coup, Wanchalearm was among the Thai activists who fled to Cambodia, although it’s unclear when. Cambodia’s Interior Ministry confirmed he received a visa to stay in the country in 2017.

But the ministry said it has no record of where he lived in the ensuing years, or what happened on June 4, 2020, the date of his alleged abduction.

At the time of Wanchalearm’s disappearance, the Pheu Thai Party stood in opposition to Thailand’s military government.

In December 2020, Wanchalearm’s legal team and his sister, Sitanun, appeared at the Phnom Penh court and submitted evidence to support their allegation that he had been abducted, including a copy of his purported Cambodian passport.

A prosecutor took note of the complaint, and they were summoned by a Cambodian investigative judge, a move that suggests a criminal case was opened, according to Sam Chamroeun.

However, Pornpen Khongkachonkiet, Sitanun’s Thai lawyer, said the legal team had not heard from Cambodia’s court after that or subsequent visits.

“Cambodia police told us they could not find anything,” she told VOA Khmer via email on Tuesday.

National Police spokesperson Chhay Kimkhoeun has not responded to VOA Khmer’s inquiries for comments.

Sitanun again tried to bring attention to the case on February 22, when former Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen met with his onetime counterpart, Thaksin Shinawatra, in Bangkok. However, she was unable to pass a request for the former Cambodian leader.

Thaksin’s daughter, Paethongtharn Shinawatra, the Pheu Thai Party leader, has accepted an invitation to visit Cambodia March 18-19.

In a press conference on February 27, Danuporn Punnakan, a Pheu Thai Party spokesperson, was asked if Wanchalearm’s disappearance would be discussed during the visit.

The spokesman said officials would “rather discuss economy and society than bringing up anyone’s personal issue to the table. But if this issue receives public attention, the [party’s] executive committees would consider this in their meeting.”

Sitanun said she was disappointed by the response, telling the officials, “Do not forget that [Wanchalearm] is a Thai person.”
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US Republican Party Chooses Trump’s Handpicked Team to Lead It

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Houston, Texas — The Republican National Committee voted Friday to install Donald Trump’s handpicked leadership team, completing his takeover of the national party as the former president closes in on a third straight presidential nomination.

Michael Whatley, a North Carolina Republican who has echoed Trump’s false theories of voter fraud, was elected the party’s new national chairman in a vote  in Houston, Texas. Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law, was voted in as co-chair.

Trump’s team is promising not to use the RNC to pay his mounting personal legal bills. But Trump and his lieutenants will have firm control of the party’s political and fundraising machinery with limited, if any, internal pushback.

“The RNC is going to be the vanguard of a movement that will work tirelessly every single day to elect our nominee, Donald J. Trump, as the 47th president of the United States,” Whatley told RNC members in a speech after being elected.

Whatley will carry the top title, replacing longtime chair Ronna McDaniel after she fell out of favor with key figures in the former president’s “Make America Great Again” movement. But he will be surrounded by people closer to Trump.

Lara Trump is expected to focus largely on fundraising and media appearances.

The functional head of the RNC will be Chris LaCivita, who will assume the committee’s chief of staff role while maintaining his job as one of the Trump campaign’s top two advisers.

With Trump’s blessing, LaCivita is promising to enact sweeping changes and staffing moves at every level of the RNC to ensure it runs seamlessly as an extension of the Trump campaign.

In an interview Thursday, LaCivita sought to tamp down concerns from some RNC members that the cash-strapped committee would help pay Trump’s legal bills. Trump faces four criminal indictments and a total of 91 counts as well as a $455 million civil fraud judgment, which he is appealing. His affiliated Save America political action committee has spent $76 million over the last two years on lawyers.

People speculating about the RNC paying for legal bills, LaCivita said, do so “purely on the basis of trying to hurt donors.” Trump’s legal bills are instead being covered largely by Save America, a separate political entity.

“The fact of the matter is not a penny of the RNC’s money, or for that matter, the campaign’s money, has gone or will go to pay legal fees,” he said.

The RNC was paying some of Trump’s legal bills for New York cases that started while he was president, The Washington Post reported, but McDaniel said in November 2022 that the RNC would stop paying once Trump became a candidate again and joined the 2024 presidential race.

When Trump announced his plans to replace the party’s leadership, it raised fresh questions about whether the committee would pay his bills. Those questions intensified after Lara Trump said last month that she wasn’t familiar with the party’s rules about paying her father-in-law’s legal fees, but she thought the idea would get broad support among Republican voters.

Facing such mixed messages, some RNC members remain skeptical.

Republican committeeman Henry Barbour of Mississippi proposed a nonbinding resolution explicitly stating that RNC funds could not be used for Trump’s legal bills. Yet the resolution died when Barbour failed to earn the support of RNC members from at least 10 states.

“People I’ve talked to on the committee privately all agree that donor money needs to be devoted to winning elections, not legal fees,” said Republican committeeman John Hammond of Indiana.

The new leadership team is also expected to more fully embrace Trump’s focus on voter fraud and his debunked claims about the election he lost to President Joe Biden. Multiple court cases and Trump’s own Justice Department failed to reveal any evidence of significant voting irregularities.

Whatley, an attorney, has largely avoided using Trump’s characterization of Biden’s victory and said in one 2021 interview that Biden “absolutely” was legitimately elected and won the majority of the Electoral College votes. But he said in another interview in the weeks after the 2020 election that there was “massive fraud.” He has also made focusing on “election integrity” a top priority for his state party in the years since.

In a letter announcing her candidacy for co-chair, Lara Trump wrote to members of the committee telling them she intends to focus on battleground states, getting out the vote in close races and to comb through the RNC’s finances, including all of its contracts and agreements, and cut spending “that doesn’t directly go to winning elections.”

A key priority, she wrote, is working to ensure that the election is secure, something her father-in-law has made a chief focus.

“The goal on November 5 is to win, as my father-in-law says, ‘bigly,’ ” she said Friday.
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India Begins Deporting First Group of Myanmar Refugees Who Fled 2021 Coup

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GUWAHATI, India — India on Friday began deporting the first group of Myanmar refugees who sought shelter there after a military coup in 2021 and plans to send back more in the coming days, weeks after saying it would end a visa-free border policy with Myanmar.

Thousands of civilians and hundreds of troops from Myanmar have fled to Indian states, where communities between the two countries share ethnic and familial ties, which has worried New Delhi because of the risk of communal tensions spreading to India.

“First batch of Myanmar nationals who entered India illegally deported today,” N. Biren Singh, the chief minister of northeastern Manipur state, which borders Myanmar, said in a post on the X social media platform.

Manipur planned to send back at least 77 refugees starting from Friday, according to a state government document seen by Reuters. The state has been roiled by sporadic violence that has killed nearly 200 people so far since ethnic clashes broke out in May last year.

The first group of refugees arrived in the Indian border town of Moreh and would likely be handed over on Saturday, an Indian security official said on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.

Singh shared a video clip on X showing women being brought out of security vans and taken into an airport.

New Delhi has not signed the 1951 U.N. Refugee Convention, which spells out refugees’ rights and states’ responsibilities to protect them, nor does it have its own laws protecting refugees.

Singh wrote in his post that the country gave “shelter & aid to those fleeing the crisis in Myanmar on humanitarian grounds with a systematic approach.”

India last month said it would end a decades-old visa-free movement policy with Myanmar for their border citizens for reasons including national security, days after the interior minister announced fencing of the 1,643-kilometer border with Myanmar.  
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Judge Upholds Biden Program Allowing 30,000 Migrants Into US Monthly

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houston — A federal judge in Texas on Friday upheld a key piece of President Joe Biden’s immigration policy that allows a limited number of migrants from four countries to enter the U.S. on humanitarian grounds, dismissing a challenge from Republican-led states that said the program created an economic burden on them.

U.S. District Judge Drew B. Tipton ruled in favor of the humanitarian parole program that allows a total of 30,000 asylum-seekers into the U.S. each month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela combined.

Eliminating the program would undercut a broader policy that seeks to encourage migrants to use the Biden administration’s preferred pathways into the U.S. or face stiff consequences.

Texas and 20 other states that sued argued the program is forcing them to spend millions on health care, education and public safety for the migrants. An attorney working with the Texas attorney general’s office in the legal challenge said that the program “created a shadow immigration system.”

Advocates for the federal government countered that migrants admitted through the policy helped with a U.S. farm labor shortage.

An appeal appeared likely.

Esther Sung, an attorney for Justice Action Center, which represented seven people who were sponsoring migrants as part of the program, said she was looking forward to calling her clients to let them know of the court’s decision.

“It’s a popular program. People want to welcome other people to this country,” she said.

A message was left seeking comment from the Texas attorney general’s office.

During an August trial in Victoria, Texas, Tipton declined to issue any temporary order that would have halted the parole program nationwide. Tipton is an appointee of former President Donald Trump who ruled against the Biden administration in 2022 on an order that determined whom to prioritize for deportation.

Some states said the initiative has benefited them.

Tipton questioned how Texas could be claiming financial losses if data showed that the parole program actually reduced the number of migrants coming into the U.S.

Proponents of the policy also faced scrutiny from Tipton, who questioned whether living in poverty was enough for migrants to qualify. Elissa Fudim, a lawyer with the U.S. Department of Justice, responded: “I think probably not.”

Federal government attorneys and immigrant rights groups said that in many cases, Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans are also fleeing oppressive regimes, escalating violence and worsening political conditions that have endangered their lives.

The lawsuit did not challenge the use of humanitarian parole for tens of thousands of Ukrainians who came after Russia’s invasion.

The program’s supporters said each case is individually reviewed and some people who had made it to the final approval step after arriving in the U.S. have been rejected, though they did not provide the number of rejections that have occurred.

The lawsuit is among several legal challenges the Biden administration has faced over immigration policies.
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China Vows To ‘Safeguard’ National Security With New Laws at Conclave

Posted on by SeeEA

Beijing — China will adopt wide-ranging security laws in 2024 to “resolutely safeguard” its sovereignty, a top lawmaker vowed at a key legislative meeting Friday, as President Xi Jinping’s government seeks to eliminate perceived threats to its rule.

The “Two Sessions” — parallel meetings of China’s rubber-stamp parliament and political consultative body — offer a rare glimpse into the strategy of the Communist Party-led government for the year ahead.

Top legislator Zhao Leji promised Friday that lawmakers would “resolutely safeguard China’s sovereignty, security, and development interests” as he laid out the agenda for the National People’s Congress (NPC) for the coming year.

“To modernize China’s system and capacity for national security,” he said, Beijing will enact “an emergency management law, an energy law, an atomic energy law, and a hazardous chemicals safety law.”

It will also revise “the National Defense Education Law and the Cybersecurity Law,” Zhao said in his report.

He did not offer more details about what the new laws would involve, nor when precisely they would be adopted.

The NPC is also set to introduce and amend laws in areas ranging from financial stability to preschool education and disease control.

“Military education and cybersecurity are clear priorities” for China’s legislators, Jean-Pierre Cabestan, professor and Chinese politics expert at Hong Kong University, told AFP.

“They want to strengthen the legal framework in these areas, which is part of Xi’s own priorities,” he said, adding it was “no surprise” that national security was highlighted in Zhao’s report.

Broad security push

China last year approved a revised anti-espionage law that dramatically expanded its definition of spying, giving Beijing more power than ever to punish what it deems threats to national security.

A state secrets law adopted last month added more categories of sensitive information, including “work secrets” — information not classified as state secrets, but which could “impede the normal duties of (state) organs or work units” if leaked.

Such leaks must be met with “necessary protective measures,” the amended law says.

“Putting a heavy focus on national security legislation has been a key feature of the NPC’s legislative work during the Xi era,” Changhao Wei, founder of the NPC Observer website, told AFP.

He pointed to over a dozen pieces of national security legislation rolled out by Beijing since 2014, including counterterrorism, national intelligence, and data security laws.

“There has been a general effort to build the necessary legal infrastructure for safeguarding China’s ‘national security,’” Wei said.

Under Xi, he said, “national security is a priority area for legislation and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future.” 
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NATO Conducts Largest Military Exercise Since Cold War

Posted on by SeeUS

Sweden became the 32nd member of NATO Thursday, as alliance troops participated in the bloc’s Steadfast Defender exercise this week. This operation aims to foster compatibility and cooperation on the battlefield among member nations, enhancing the alliance’s capacity to counter provocative behavior from the Russian Federation. Eastern Europe chief Myroslava Gongadze reports from the training ground in Poland.
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UN Security Council Calls for Peace in Sudan During Ramadan

Posted on by SeeAF

united nations — The United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution Friday calling for a Ramadan cease-fire in Sudan, where the U.N. secretary-general warned this week that the humanitarian crisis has reached “colossal proportions.”  

“With the adoption of this resolution, the council has sent a strong and clear message to Sudanese Armed Forces and Rapid Support Forces to agree an immediate cessation of hostilities during the month of Ramadan,” said British Deputy Ambassador James Kariuki, whose delegation drafted the text.  

The Muslim holy month starts early next week and lasts about 30 days. 

“This follows the call of the secretary-general and the African Union,” Kariuki said. “We urge the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces to act on this united international call for peace and to silence the guns.” 

The U.S. envoy Robert Wood condemned atrocities committed by both sides in the nearly year-old war. 

“This tragedy has gone on too long,” he said. “We must unite to prevent and stop the flow of weapons that is fueling this conflict.”   

The resolution, adopted by a vote of 14 council members in favor, none against and Russia abstaining, calls for “an immediate cessation of hostilities during the month of Ramadan, and for all parties to the conflict to seek a sustainable resolution to the conflict through dialogue.” It also calls on them to remove any obstructions to the distribution of humanitarian aid. 

It was not immediately clear whether the parties to the conflict would heed the cease-fire call. 

A day earlier, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed for a Ramadan cease-fire, saying it is time for rival generals there to lay down their weapons. 

“This cessation of hostilities must lead to a definitive silencing of the guns across the country and set out a firm path towards lasting peace for the Sudanese people,” Guterres said.  

Fighting erupted in April of last year between the forces of Sudan’s army chief, General Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. The two generals were once allies in Sudan’s transitional government after a 2021 coup but became rivals for power.  

The ensuing power struggle has led to thousands of deaths, a massive displacement crisis and large-scale atrocities, particularly against non-Arab communities in the country’s Darfur region. Hunger is also reaching catastrophic levels, and the U.N. has received reports of children dying from malnutrition.   

Humanitarian catastrophe   

Humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths told reporters Friday that a pause in fighting would be welcome. 

“If that goes through and if it is observed by both sides, I can assure you we will be piling in the aid — pre-positioning [aid], repairing institutions, getting children out to safety, and so forth.”   

The humanitarian operation is woefully underfunded. The U.N. has appealed for $2.7 billion for Sudan this year, and Griffiths said it is only 4% funded. 

The U.N. says about 25 million people — half of Sudan’s population — need some form of humanitarian assistance. Of them, 18 million face acute food insecurity — 10 million more than a year ago.    

“Ten million Sudanese have become food insecure because of this conflict that should never have started,” Griffiths said. 

Sudan is now home to the world’s largest internal displacement crisis, with 6.3 million people forced from their homes in search of safety. Another 1.7 million have fled to neighboring countries. More than 70% of health facilities in areas where there is fighting have stopped functioning.   
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Nigeria’s Constitution Review Makes Women’s Inclusion a Priority

Posted on by SeeAF

Abuja, Nigeria — Nigeria’s constitution is getting a revamp, and this time a committee tasked with the responsibility says women’s inclusion in political offices is a priority.

Women hold a tiny fraction of the seats in Nigeria’s National Assembly. Three of the 109 senators and 15 of the 360 members in the House of Representatives are female.

The chair of the House constitution review committee, Benjamin Kalu, spoke this week during a dialogue with women-centered and pro-democracy groups ahead of International Women’s Day on Friday.

Kalu said the ongoing review of the constitution will address gender imbalance in Nigeria’s politics. He also said the 10th National Assembly will revisit gender bills that failed to progress during the previous administration.

In 2022, Nigerian women advocated for five bills to promote inclusion and women’s representation in parliament — including one bill that would reserve 35% of political seats for women.

None of bills received enough support to win passage in the male-dominated parliament, leading to protests.

Cynthia Mbamalu, a program director at YIAGA Africa, one of the groups advocating for gender bills, said structural challenges, patriarchal norms and biased systems put limits on women who want to run for office.

“The numbers are still poor,” she said. “We still have 11 or so state assemblies where there are no women, and some of those states have not had a female legislator since 1999, when we [transitioned] to democracy. As long as we don’t have [a] constitutional mandate that opens up the space to increase women representation, we’ll constantly struggle with a male dominated National Assembly.”

Despite Africa recording an increase in female political participation in recent years, women’s representation in Nigerian politics is among the lowest in the world, at about 4%.

In last year’s general elections, fewer women won seats in office despite an increased number of candidates from various political parties.

Mbamalu said lawmakers need to take the new constitutional review seriously for equity and democracy to succeed.

“One of the indicators to assess our development and the presence of democracy is about how inclusive your government is,” she said. “I want to believe that the 10th Assembly will act differently — will put its name in history.”

The recommendations of the constitution review committee will be subject to votes in parliament.
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US Holds First Day to Commemorate American Hostages

Posted on by SeeEU

WASHINGTON — The United States on Saturday marks its first U.S. Hostage and Wrongful Detainee Day to commemorate Americans being held abroad.

First designated last year by bipartisan House and Senate legislation, the day marks the anniversary of the kidnapping of Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who was considered to be the longest-held American hostage in history.

The legislation also created an official flag as a symbol to recognize those Americans.

Currently 56 Americans are held hostage or wrongfully detained, according to the Foley Foundation. The nonprofit was set up in memory of American journalist James Foley, who was kidnapped and later killed by extremists in Syria.

The Bring Our Families Home campaign, James W. Foley Legacy Foundation, Richardson Center for Global Engagement and members of the Levinson family advocated for Congress to pass the legislation to broaden attention toward the issue.

“The establishment of this annual day of observance is an important symbolic milestone that not only recognizes the importance of the issue but will also encourage greater public awareness and understanding of this enduring national crisis,” Benjamin Gray of the Foley Foundation told VOA.

Senator Christopher Coons, a Delaware Democrat, and Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, introduced the legislation days after the release of American basketball player Britany Griner from Russian custody in March 2023.

Among the Americans held overseas are two American journalists.

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich has been imprisoned in Russia for nearly a year. Moscow accuses him of espionage, which the reporter and his newspaper deny.

The American-Russian journalist Alsu Kurmasheva has been in custody since October. Kurmasheva, an editor for VOA’s sister network Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, denies the charges against her, including failing to register as a foreign agent.

The Foley Foundation said in a statement to VOA: “We continue to advocate for the release of both journalists from captivity in Russia. We believe that both have been unjustly targeted by the Russian government for leverage against the United States. In the case of Alsu, we urge the U.S. government to declare her as wrongfully detained.”

President Joe Biden mentioned Gershkovich’s case during his State of the Union speech Thursday, saying that the U.S. “will work around the clock” to bring him home.

The reporter’s parents attended the annual address as guests of House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson.

The Bring Our Families Home campaign has expressed frustration with the administration and organized a sit-in Friday at the White House aiming to highlight what they called a “lack of substantive support and action” from Biden.

In a statement Friday, campaign spokesperson Jonathan Franks said: “While the hostage and wrongful detainee flag championed by the campaign is flown over the White House on a day that is supposed to spur action on their loved ones’ plights, families express their frustration and exhaustion in front of the closed doors of the White House.”
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Nigerian Forces Comb Forests for Nearly 300 Kidnapped Students

Posted on by SeeAF

ABUJA, Nigeria — Security forces swept through large forests in Nigeria’s northwest region on Friday in search of nearly 300 children abducted from their school by motorcycle-riding gunmen in the latest mass kidnapping, which analysts and activists blamed on the failure of intelligence and a slow security response. 

The abduction of the 287 children in Kaduna state, near the West African nation’s capital, is one of the largest school kidnappings in the decade since the kidnapping of schoolgirls in Borno state’s Chibok village in 2014 stunned the world. Analysts and activists say the security lapses that allowed that mass abduction remain. 

The victims of the latest attack — among them at least 100 children aged 12 or under — were surrounded and marched into a forest just as they were starting the school day, said locals in Kuriga town, 89 kilometers from the city of Kaduna. One man was shot and killed as he tried to save the students, school authorities said. 

As Kaduna Gov. Uba Sani and security officials met with aggrieved villagers on Thursday, they pleaded with the governor to ensure the release of the students and secure their town — like many in the area, once a bustling agrarian community but now sparsely populated and where roads are often avoided because of rampant kidnappings. 

“Please stay and help us, please don’t leave us,” one woman cried as the governor’s convoy sped off. 

Kaduna police spokesman Mansur Hassan told The Associated Press that a search operation is taking place in the nearby forests, which often serve as enclaves for armed gangs. 

“All the security agencies are trying their best to ensure the rescue of the children,” Hassan said. 

The school, which had no fencing, was “surrounded from all angles” by the gunmen who arrived on motorcycles just after 8 a.m., said Joshua Madami, a youth leader in the area. 

Security forces did not arrive until several hours later, locals said, prompting concerns from families and analysts that the gunmen might have gone deep into the forest with the children. 

Confidence MacHarry, a security analyst with the Lagos-based SBM Intelligence firm, said such delayed response is common and worsens the situation in hotspots, in addition to the failure to act on intelligence. 

“I am confident that the victims will be rescued,” said Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, who was elected last year after promising to end the country’s kidnapping crisis. “Nothing else is acceptable to me and the waiting family members.” 

No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but locals blamed it on what they call bandits who carry out frequent mass killings and abductions for huge ransoms in remote villages across Nigeria’s northwest and central regions. 

The bandits are mostly herders who had been in conflict with host communities. They are different from the Islamic extremist rebels who had abducted more than 200 people, mostly women and children, in recent days. 

 

School abductions across northern Nigeria have reduced since early last year but the structural conditions enabling them remain, said James Barnett, a researcher specializing in West Africa at the U.S.-based Hudson Institute. The bandits, he said, have focused on consolidating their influence over rural communities, often in the form of taxes. 

“Since the start of the year, we’ve seen the bandits being more aggressive,” Barnett said. “This attack may be an attempt by some of the gangs to signal to the government that they can turn back the clock to 2021, when mass kidnappings led to a wave of school closures across the northwest.
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Trump Attorneys Post Bond to Support $83.3 Million Award to Writer in Defamation Case

Posted on by SeeUS

New York — Former President Donald Trump has secured a bond sufficient to support an $83.3 million jury award granted to writer E. Jean Carroll during a January defamation trial stemming from rape claims she made against Trump, his lawyer said Friday as she notified the federal judge who oversaw the trial that an appeal was underway.

Attorney Alina Habba filed papers with the New York judge to show that Trump had secured a $91.6 million bond from the Federal Insurance Co. She simultaneously filed a notice of appeal to show Trump, the 2024 Republican presidential front-runner, is appealing the verdict to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The filings came a day after Judge Lewis A. Kaplan refused to delay a Monday deadline for posting a bond to ensure that Carroll can collect the $83.3 million if it remains intact following appeals.

The posting of the bond was a necessary step to delay payment of the award until the 2nd Circuit can rule.

Trump is facing financial pressure to set aside money to cover both the judgment in the Carroll case and an even bigger one in a lawsuit in which he was found liable for lying about his wealth in financial statements given to banks.

A New York judge recently refused to halt collection of a $454 million civil fraud penalty while Trump appeals. He now has until March 25 to either pay up or buy a bond covering the full amount. In the meantime, interest on the judgment continues to mount, adding roughly $112,000 each day.

Trump’s lawyers have asked for that judgment to be stayed on appeal, warning he might need to sell some properties to cover the penalty.

On Thursday, Kaplan wrote that any financial harm to Trump results from his slow response to the late-January verdict in the defamation case over statements he made about Carroll while he was president in 2019 after she claimed in a memoir that he raped her in spring 1996 in a midtown Manhattan luxury department store dressing room.

Trump vehemently denied the claims, saying that he didn’t know her and that the encounter at a Bergdorf Goodman store across the street from Trump Tower never took place.

A jury last May awarded Carroll $5 million after concluding that Trump sexually abused Carroll in the 1996 encounter, though it rejected Carroll’s rape claims, as rape was defined by New York state law. A portion of the award also stemmed from the jury’s finding that Trump defamed Carroll with statements he made in October 2022.

The January trial pertained solely to statements Trump made in 2019 while he was president. Kaplan instructed the jury that it must accept the findings of the jury last May and was only deciding how much, if anything, Trump owed Carroll for his 2019 statements.

Trump did not attend the May trial, but he testified briefly and regularly sat with defense lawyers at the January trial, though his behavior, including disparaging comments that a lawyer for Carroll said were loud enough for jurors to hear, prompted Kaplan to threaten to banish him from the courtroom.
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